House of dragons

The “Game of Thrones” spinoff tries to recapture the magic through nostalgic detail, family fights, and grisly scenes of childbirth.

Rhaenyra’s voice-over tells us that the old king knew that “the only thing that could tear down the House of the Dragon was itself.” Ain’t that the truth, king. Like the infamous final season of “Thrones,” “Dragon” doesn’t always make the most of its story’s assets. There’s funny dialogue, but mostly of the unintentional variety: “Laughing with your whores and your lickspittles!” the king yells to a relative, in a rage. Will “House of the Dragon” have us obsessing about the Crabfeeder? “Game of Thrones,” for all its flaws, was a Sunday-night treasure for a reason: its wild inventiveness and beauty, its overstuffed intrigue and action, its humor, its characters. (Did they always sound so Wookiee-like?) And it’s hard not to love a show in which hundreds of flickering votive candles surround not rose petals and a proposal but a dragon skull the size of a Humvee. The Daemon-Rhaenyra dynamic, and Daemon’s flaxen wig and eyes narrowed in constant scheming, recalls the Targaryens we know best: Daenerys and her brother, also named Viserys, whose death in “Thrones” involved our rejoicing while he encountered a faceful of molten gold. “Dragon” swiftly provides some of the old “Thrones” pleasures. Inside the palace, Rhaenyra and her friend Alicent Hightower visit the hugely pregnant queen (“This discomfort is how we serve the realm,” she says, proud and grim), and then Rhaenyra zips off to a meeting of the king and his advisers, where, as she pours water for them, undercover-Arya style, she listens to the proceedings: reports that begin “We’ve all been poring over the moon charts”; a discussion of a pirate-punishing madman called the Crabfeeder. Martin’s “ [Fire and Blood](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593598008),” tells the story of House Targaryen in an era well before our old friends showed up—a hundred and seventy-two years before the death of the Mad King, the opening titles inform us, and the birth of his daughter Daenerys Targaryen. Like Rhaenyra, he’s a dragon rider—not just anybody can pilot those things—and, also like her, he’s a possible contender for the Iron Throne. The show opens not with a grim ice-monster sequence, as “Thrones” did—hat tip to that—but with the announcement, in a grand hall, of Prince Viserys (Paddy Considine) as the next king.

The Game of Thrones ending left plenty cold, but HBO is hoping House of the Dragon will warm everyone up to Westeros again. Here's what you need to know.

Given what we've seen in trailers, House of the Dragon's first season looks like it'll focus on arranging all these new pieces on the grand playing field that is the game of thrones. While the story doesn't have a happy ending, it does have an ending already written (and a pretty dramatic one at that). There were more than 20 dragons still alive in Westeros (you would have spotted plenty during the trailer for House of the Dragon) during this time. Without a son from that marriage to succeed him, Viserys's younger brother Prince Daemon (played by Matt Smith) assumes he will be the one to ascend the Iron Throne upon the eventual death of his older brother, as was Westerosi custom. Before he died though, Viserys married Alicent Hightower and had four more children, making the question of succession complicated, and bloody. Basically, it's going to help answer the "why was Dany the last Targaryen?" Just a few generations removed from the conquest of Aegon, the ranks of the dynasty of silver-haired dragon riders had swelled to have more than enough members to fill a Westerosi football team … Like most things in Westeros, the conflict at the heart of this story is over power. and more than enough bastards and side branches to fill the stands. And unlike the final seasons of Game of Thrones, smug book readers once again have a heads-up on what's about to play out before it happens on your screen. It's set more than 150 years before everything that made up the Game of Thrones you know. Basically, it's one for the uber fans, and

Viserys succeeded King Jaehaerys Targaryen, his grandfather, when he was chosen by the Lords of Westeros for the Iron Throne. When he ascended the throne, he ...

Daemon is not only a threat to Rhaenyra, he's also a threat to his own brother and Otto will do anything to protect Viserys. The incredibly loyal Otto Hightower is the Hand of the King. Alicent is the daughter of Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King, and the second wife to Viserys. Rhaenyra is the first-born child of Viserys and his first wife Aemma Arryn. Later called “The Dance of the Dragons,” the war concerns who will be ascending the Iron Throne and, once again, gender is at the heart of the issue. Martin’s two volumes that cover the history of the Targaryens and their wild dragonriding ways.