Forget winter, it’s war that’s coming to Westeros, as HBO’s big-budget Game of Thrones prequel enters its second season. House of the Dragon’s first season included its fair share of the elements that made GoT a global phenomenon – namely: boobs, butts, bureaucratic betrayals and brutally blood-soaked battles – but it moved at a more measured pace than that list of highlights would suggest. It was a slow-burn rather than the expected eruption of dragon fire.
But there was a lot to set up. The show is based on George R R Martin’s Fire & Blood novel, which left behind the grand scale of his Fire & Ice series (the basis for GoT) to zoom in on the complicated, violently dysfunctional family history of the dragon-riding House Targaryen and the familial infighting that led to the civil war that was their downfall.
With all the dominos now intricately arranged across multiple timelines, the show is set to topple them over as the slow burn ignites into a blaze of civil war between Rhaenyra, the dead king’s daughter and named heir, and Alicent, his young widow and Rhaenyra’s former bestie, who has claimed the Iron Throne for their son.
After a dragon scuffle between their two sons at the culmination of season one, in which Rhaenyra’s son was killed, any hope of peace within the House was snuffed out.
So, it’s exciting times in Westeros. House of the Dragon may not yet have set the world ablaze, but those who have watched it have been suitably impressed with its winning mix of intrigue, viciousness and complex storytelling. The show sits comfortably on 93% critics score on review-aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes. The Guardian in its 4-star review called it “gorgeous, opulent television”, and the BBC labelled it “a darker, more solemn, more sophisticated piece” than its predecessor.
The show has taken some liberties and deviates from the book, but unlike its predecessor, there’s little chance they’ll fudge the ending. Showrunner Ryan Condal told Variety, “We have the advantage that the book is here, it’s finished and we know where the curtain closes on this particular chapter in the Targaryen history.”
Once again, Martin himself has been heavily involved – although fans may wish he had been as dedicated to completing The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited sixth book of his Fire & Ice series.
He wrote on his blog that he was “locked in a room with [showrunner] Ryan Condal and his writing staff” for two days to hash out ideas for this season and the following two seasons.
Judging by the trailer, their ideas mainly focused on vengeance, destruction and grim, bloody death as the so-called “Dance of the Dragons” begins.
You see troops marching, people in castles looking very concerned, knights charging, towns burning, sombre proclamations (“War is coming and neither of us may win”) and dragons spewing flames everywhere and on everyone. You know, all that good, nasty, Westeros stuff.
House of the Dragon: Season 2 is screening on SoHo, Monday, June 17, 8.30pm and streaming on Neon, Monday, June 17, 1pm
