From the beginning, HBO’s House of the Dragon I had to contend with an audience that sometimes looked like a crazy lover. game of thronesits predecessor ended in such a divisive fashion that the follow-up immediately had to contend with disgust. many It was an aborted and still ongoing attempt House of the Dragon: a show based on a story that happened end.
Completeness of House of the Dragon‘s source material was the biggest selling point for the skeptics. game of thrones Basically the permission of the first part game of thrones But smaller, more conservative, wearing its perfume and shamelessly turning up its theme song.From a distance, this made the show seem regressive. It seemed like a creative retreat concerned with putting budget cash cows at risk.In many ways, that reading is correct. House of the Dragon Not bold TV.It’s weirdly self-referential at times, writing more in conversation with the status of the show itself game of thrones More as its own separate story than a spin-off.
Still, thanks to the strange nature of that source material — George RR Martin’s Supplementary Text Fire & Bloodwhich is more a fictional history book than a proper novel— House of the DragonThe first season of S.H.I.E.L.D. Effectively freed from the burden of dramatization, the show became a work of interpretation. Given the large historic goalposts in Martin’s book, showrunners Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal are free to decide how some events happened or how they happened otherwise. It was the conversations the writers put into the mouths of the Targaryens and the people around them, the choices of actors in portraying the inner lives of these characters and their relationships, and the value of putting them on and off the screen. In choosing a moment, it flowed gradually. As that story leaped forward over the years.
Photo: Olly Upton/HBO
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Photo: Olly Upton/HBO
This is not necessarily different from what you made game of thrones —or really, TV shows, at their best, serve as a meaningful reframing of the relationship between the show and its audience. I cannot emphasize enough. House of the DragonThe next plot of is right there. For example, looking up a dragon’s name might reveal something about House Targaryen that needs to be addressed in a future season or episode of the show. game of thrones — or an adaptation of a simpler narrative piece — leaves far less room for fans to debate the conflicting intentions between the text’s various adaptations and the source material (which is already questionable by design).
In an era of popular culture where spoiler phobia drives much of the entertainment conversation, there’s little real room to talk about it. discuss art, House of the Dragon Inadvertently made the show arguably spoiler-proof — or at least, it removes the problem Where are you going The best epic fantasy can be. The big signposts are all there for those who want to see. At the end of the “Black Queen” there was always an impending war, the friendship between Rhaenyra and Alicent always dissolved, and Rhaenyra’s claimed throne always being challenged. House of the Dragon Clearly not a show What happenedIt’s a program about why.
This is the secret of the show’s highs and lows. In the climax of the Season 1 finale, when Aymond accidentally kills Luke? George RR Martin set up a collision course with a few lines of text. House of the Dragoncarefully selected and dramatized moments of family history, making the ever-present war an emotionally anchoring moment of heartbreak with great performances by the cast.
Similarly, the determination of House of the DragonA writer who largely describes Martin’s Chronicle of Targaryen destiny. through the pain of childbirth Comes across as Ghosh. It’s a narrow, reductive way to analyze the gender and power dynamics that a show that follows the fates of two rival women is really interested in. , weakly offering it as compensation for the frequent sexual assaults suffered by women. game of thrones.
This is the level of critical appraisal that all shows should be given, including: game of thronesThere’s truth in the age-old saying that the journey is more important than the destination, and it’s one of the best ways to engage and appreciate art of all kinds.Notable House of the Dragon‘s first season is ultimately its suppression. It’s a show bold enough to be free to include every bombardment of dragons, and to make the biggest moments at bedside and dinner parties where any misunderstanding or miscommunication is more devastating than any amount of dragonfire. It’s a show that knows it’s the episodes before them that hurt them, despite the stumble, while the ending is memorable.
