in the tortured intimacy of a doomed dynasty

OCS – MONDAY, AUGUST 22 AT 3:00 AM – SERIES

We had left the Targaryen family with a bad impression. After raising high hopes, its ultimate offspring, Queen Daenerys, had indulged in the homicidal megalomania typical of tyrants. This development, crudely written and staged, was not for nothing in the debacle of the last two seasons of Game Of Thrones – which did not prevent it from collecting audience records until its conclusion.

In the contemporary economy of fiction, this success called for a sequel. Novelist George RR Martinauthor of the saga from which is drawn Game Of Thrones, being struck by one of the most famous breakdowns of inspiration in the history of literature, which has prevented him from concluding his story since 2012, the HBO channel, which in the meantime has become a streaming platform under the name of HBO Max, deemed it more prudent to look to the past. The subsidiary of Warner Bros Discovery therefore offers a prelude which retains one of the essential ingredients of Game Of Thrones, the Dragons.

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In George RR Martin’s imagined timeline, the first episode of House of the Dragon is therefore located one hundred and seventy-two years before the events related in Game Of Thrones. The Targaryen dynasty reigns supreme over Westeros, in the person of King Viserys (Paddy Considine). When we meet the sovereign, he is awaiting the birth of an heir, whom he hopes to be male, since he is, for the moment, afflicted with an ambitious and perverse brother, Daemon ( Matt Smith), and a rebellious and unpredictable girl, Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock, the time of the first five episodes, then Emma D’Arcy), who both aspire to succeed her.

More than the dragons, it is obstetrics that will drive the story that unfolds throughout this first half of the season (six episodes have been released). At this stage of the development of Westeros, discipline is approximate and women, be they queens, consider each pregnancy as a battle with an uncertain outcome whose stake is, here, the perpetuation of a dynasty. Certainly there will be fights, orgies, dragon flights, but the essence of House of the Dragon is found elsewhere, in the intimacy of the powerful of this imaginary world, at the intersection of impulses and politics.

Excess of humanity

By turning its back on the spectacular and financial one-upmanship that characterized the last seasons of Game Of Thrones (according to the Hollywood press, each episode of House of the Dragon would have cost “only” 20 million dollars), the creators took a risk. This pays off with the grace of performers capable of lending a moving intensity to solid and predictable material (unlike Tolstoy’s families, unhappy dynasties are all torn apart in the same way).

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