From Shakespeare to Druons – Weekend – Kommersant
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Amediateka has begun showing House of the Dragon, the spin-off of Game of Thrones, which has been long-awaited, but so far does not live up to these expectations.
172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, her ancestor Viserys (Paddy Considine) rules Westeros safely. The fighting power of tamed dragons is the key to this: with the help of fire-breathing flying lizards, the Targaryen house won battles and gathered seven kingdoms under its rule. But Viserys is not a warlike ruler – when his brother-in-law Lord Korlys Velarion (Steve Toussaint) incites him to fight the Free Cities, Viserys winces in pain and refuses, not even realizing that civil strife will come to his own house. His heirs will fiercely fight each other for a single throne, and in history this turmoil will remain the Dance of Dragons. The mild-mannered and sluggish Viserys himself sowed the seeds of future confrontation, appointing his daughter Reynira (Millie Alcock) as his successor. In adolescence, the young princess, completely devoid of ambition, only repeated: “I’m a girl, I want a cake and fly on the back of a dragon.” But when you are always present at the council of lords, where gloomy men talk only about power, you willy-nilly imbued with this stinking spirit.
At first, Rainier’s rival in the games of power seems to be her uncle Damon (Matt Smith), the main villain of the series, nicknamed the Vicious Prince. Voluptuous, prone to violence, outrageous at the head of the city guard, where he gathered a gang of bloodthirsty guardsmen, Damon loves to sit on the Iron Throne without asking and steals a dragon egg for his future offspring – every blond Targaryen is mated with his dragon from birth. But the main rivalry later unfolds between the grown-up Reynira and her childhood playmate Alicenta Hightower (Emily Carey). That daughter of the royal right hand, despising the difference in age, will first become the beloved confidante of the widowed king, and then the stepmother of her former best friend. Marrying children is a trifling matter for the Targaryens: if you have a dragon, you can at least marry your sister. So, in addition, they endlessly practice incest – where is the “Game of Thrones” – that’s why they look completely blond beasts (faded whitish wigs in the frame dazzle in the eyes!). After the death of Viserys, the male offspring born by Alicente will challenge the power of Rainier with her hands – that’s the whole plot.
The spin-off significantly narrowed the theme and geography in comparison with the original: now only one noble family is in focus – no Starks for you, and the Baratheons and Lannisters work on the sidelines. As if in mockery, the Lannisters even double in size – Jason Lannister (Jefferson Hall) timidly drags behind Rhaenyra, and his twin brother blinks beside him. But if you look closely, in the narrative overturned a century and a half ago, an amusing concept will be revealed: “The House of the Dragon” tells about the epic ancestors of noble families, and upon closer inspection, these heroic ancestors turn out to be completely unworthy of imitation, and the legendary past looks not at all valiant, but simply brutal. Here, even the children are evil: in the fairy tale episode, where the noble dons take turns asking for the hand of Reinier, among the applicants there are old and young, and it is the child who turns out to be the most dangerous.
Among the heroes of the “Game of Thrones” one could easily find valor and nobility, they were torn apart by Shakespearean passions. But here Shakespeare turns into Maurice Druon, also a very revered author by George Martin. The text is simplified, the damned kings become smaller, from epic knights they become miserable participants in a bloody brawl. As one critic quipped, it comes down to “Downton Abbey with dragons” – a story about how relatives in their inner circle are busy with the endless division of inheritance, just in this case it turns out to be the Iron Throne.
The current series is not the same as the previous one. It is not wide, but narrow, not heroic, but quarrelsome. And he talks about the fact that evil is not somewhere outside the walls of the outpost approaches us as white walkers – no, it is in our thickened blood. There are no positive characters here, and the villains are no longer adorable. What does the world look like without goodies, where the carriers of inescapable evil are people, in comparison with whom the same dragons are just trained little animals fulfilling someone’s evil will? He looks impressive. Although by today’s times it’s not so fancy.
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