Dragon services – Newspaper Kommersant No. 153 (7354) of 08/23/2022

On the HBO channel, and in Russia on the Amediateka streaming platform, the series House of the Dragon, the long-awaited prequel to the cult Game of Thrones, has started. I plunged into his well-known and habitable world, not without pleasure. Yulia Shagelman.

“Game of Thrones” ended its eight-year reign on TV screens around the world in May 2019, becoming the most watched series on the planet: 19.3 million people watched the final episode, and this is only official data. However, by that time, the show, which enjoyed both the respect of critics and the fanatic love of the audience, had turned into a subject of great disappointment. The last two seasons, filmed already without relying on George R. R. Martin’s still unfinished book A Song of Ice and Fire and with obvious fatigue from the material, did not seem to please anyone. And the finale outraged the fans so much that they even created a petition demanding that everything be redone urgently. Therefore, the continuation, it is also the preface, the filming of which was discussed back in 2018, was expected by everyone with mixed feelings. Martin’s book Fire and Blood, on which the new series is based, is also a work in progress, and although the first volume will last a long time, sooner or later the creators of the House of the Dragon run the risk of reaching the same point as their predecessors.

The showrunners of House of the Dragon are Ryan Condal, creator of The Colony, and Miguel Sapochnik, director of some of Game of Thrones’ most memorable and epic battle scenes, such as The Battle of the Bastards in Season 6 and The Long Night in Season 8. They clearly have a good command of the texture and at the same time are guided by the wise principle “it works – do not touch it”, without trying to outdo the original series or do something fundamentally different from it.

The entire first series is devoted to a rather detailed exposition and presentation of the characters of the new saga. A brief prologue quickly brings things up to date: in the one hundred and first year of the reign of House Targaryen, King Jaehaerys I (Michael Carter), left without sons, chose his heir. Bypassing the king’s eldest daughter Rhaenys (Yves Best) – after all, a woman cannot take the Iron Throne – her cousin Viserys (Paddy Considine) became them. Thus, the first grain of future bloody strife and the struggle for the throne was laid, which will become the main content of the series.

The action then shifts forward to the ninth year of the reign of Viserys – the caption on the screen explains that this is 172 years before the collapse of the Targaryen dynasty and the birth of Daenerys, linking the new series with the previous one. The daughter of Viserys Rainier (Millie Alcock), his right hand Otto Hightower (Rhys Ivans) with his daughter Alicente (Emily Carey), as well as members of the royal council: Grand Maester Mellos (David Horovitch), Master of Coin Lord Bisbury (Bill Paterson) enter the stage , the master of whisperers Lord Strong (Gavin Spox) and the navigator Corlis Velarion (Steve Toussaint), husband of the failed Queen Rhaenys. For the role of the main villain and charismatic, with whom, as usual with Martin, everything will probably not be so simple, while Viserys’ brother Damon (Matt Smith) is appointed, immediately demonstrating a quarrelsome character, a thirst for power and quite standard by the standards of the Game of Thrones, but cruelty not approved by the rest of the characters.

If the characters in the series are all new (here the authors also continue the traditions of the Game of Thrones by inviting actors with not the most familiar, or even completely unknown faces), then in the world of Westeros, for almost two hundred years of screen time and three years that have passed in reality, practically nothing has changed. There are majestic views, and rich palaces, and costumes, creating which the artists did not stint on details. But most importantly, dragons! There are seventeen announced in the series. In the first episode, two appear, each with its own characteristics of appearance and character, and their appearance is not even frankly computer-generated, which, however, cannot be said about the flames they emit.

The rhythm of the story in the “House of the Dragon” is still measured, but sex and violence will not have to wait long: already at the eighteenth minute, the city guards of King’s Landing under the leadership of Damon will arrange a massacre in the city, soon the turn will come to orgies with the participation of the same bad prince. And at the jousting tournament, mounted in parallel with the scene of a difficult birth, the camera, rest assured, will not turn away either from broken skulls or from the streams of blood from the womb of an unfortunate woman in labor. True, in 2022 all this does not look as impressive as in 2011, and compared to real life, it gives almost soothing sensations. What the “House of the Dragon” will bring next, only its creators know so far, but judging by the first episode, they are quite capable of giving the audience high-quality entertainment with a touch of light nostalgia.