Making a prequel is extremely difficult. An audience that knows and typically loves the inevitable ending of a new story can be very difficult to please. Any deviation will anger them, but there are countless creative choices that might not have a built-in justification. That’s part of the reason HBO’s House of the Dragon is a massively impressive undertaking. It’s an excellent show built from the distant past of another beloved series. Unfortunately, despite its many successes, it may never reach the peaks Game of Thrones found a decade ago.
Game of Thrones has several planned spinoff projects waiting in the wings. This was not a foregone conclusion. The tragic downfall of Game of Thrones‘ final few seasons could have poisoned the well for this massive franchise. HBO couldn’t have their biggest show dead with only eight seasons to its name. It needed to produce as many spinoffs as possible. House of the Dragon was a calculated attempt to resurrect goodwill and restore the brand.
House of the Dragon is a great prequel
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Creators |
Ryan Condal and George R. R. Martin |
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Showrunners |
Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik |
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Stars |
Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Paddy Considine, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, and more |
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Release Date |
August 21, 2022 |
House of the Dragon is an excellent TV show. It’s an adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, a prequel novel set hundreds of years before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire. Martin has gradually introduced historical details to flesh out Westeros and the world around it. This provided the source material for House of the Dragon and almost every other potential spinoff. This return to the novel is at the core of the show’s promise to the fanbase. This is, among other things, a series-length guarantee that Game of Thrones shows can still work. House of the Dragon follows the royal drama at the top of House Targaryen, the ruling dynasty of Westeros. It’s a look back at a detail that characters spend a ton of time reminiscing about in the original series. This brilliant premise enables a show that can reintroduce the sharp writing, gripping action, and endlessly compelling characters of George R. R. Martin’s world. It is, however, fundamentally different from Game of Thrones.
House of the Dragon makes two fundamental choices to distance itself from the show that originated it. It isn’t a retread, even as it works to prove the original show’s point. The entire first season takes place during an era of peace. The primary political conflict in the series is internal. House Targaryen has external enemies, but they pose almost no legitimate threat. Game of Thrones spends its first season on a murder mystery, attempting to solve the sudden demise of Jon Arryn. This puts Ned Stark in the wrong place at the wrong time, eventually leaving the illegitimate son of the scheming queen in charge and leading to a noble man’s execution. Ned’s death leads to the war that consumes the rest of the series, in one form or another. House of the Dragon will enter its civil war next season, but it remains a wildly different experience. The other substantial difference is that House of the Dragon is focused on one family. Game of Thrones spread across dozens of groups in different worlds. House of the Dragon is a more focused, restrained, and thoughtful series. It is, however, still not Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones was a phenomenon
Whether House of the Dragon is as good as Game of Thrones doesn’t really matter. If season two proves better than every early moment from Game of Thrones put together, it still won’t be the same kind of cultural event. Game of Thrones wasn’t just a great TV series. It wasn’t just the biggest show of its era. It wasn’t just the go-to fantasy series for a generation. It was a formative experience for hundreds of millions of new fans of a genre they’d never previously given the time of day. It’s a gateway fantasy. The broad concept of dragons, swordplay, sorcery, and the rest of the trappings exists in the minds of millions through Westeros. That’s what the world can never have again. The feeling of seeing something that will forever change the things people love and the subsequent experience of watching it die a painful death cannot be captured in a spinoff.
Game of Thrones was always going to be lightning in a bottle. The franchise only had one chance at this kind of thing. Imagine the media landscape humanity would live in if season eight had been as good as seasons three or four. Imagine the ways HBO would have ruined the show’s legacy. Imagine having one perfect thing immortalized by a perfect ending. That can never happen. House of the Dragon can be a perfect show, but it can never recapture the cultural impact of Game of Thrones. It’ll take something new to spark anything similar. The spinoffs can only hope to give the audience something beautiful inside a familiar world.
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