If there was any justice in this world, HBO’s House of the Dragon would be a complete and total flop. This is the franchise, after all, which broke the hearts of its most devoted fans with a final season of the parent series – Game of Thrones – with one of the worst written, and executed, final set of episodes in television history. It is authored and produced by a man, George RR Martin, who started one of the most popular sets of fantasy books of the age, and then just… never finished them. That he is making money from this failure is a crime against basic justice, in my book, at least.
Martin is the executive producer of House of the Dragon, which is set about 180 years before the events of his main, and unfinished, series. It is a prequel to an unfinished work.
And it is good.
There is, of course, a certain kind of person, many of you amongst my readers, who will never enjoy the universe Martin has created. It is a world of brutality and injustice, gratuitously garnished with bared breasts and bloody punishments. If that is not your thing, or it offends your sense of good taste, then this world is not for you.
But reducing it to just that is, to my mind, an error. For both Thrones and Dragon are ultimately about something more interesting and enduring: The corrupting influence of absolute power.
Without wishing to divulge spoilers, Dragon takes us back to a point in the universe where the ruling house of Targaryen is at the very height of its power, with more living members, and more living dragons, than at any point in the history of Westeros. Targaryens, because of their mastery of the (visually magnificent) dragons are, says one character, “closer to Gods than men”.
King Viserys I is depicted as a kindly, and decent man, but one who rules over a Kingdom kept in line by terror more than love. Fear of the dragons, fear of the King’s guard, and fear of civil war. Even the essential goodness of the man at the top of the system cannot hide the nature of the system itself, or the jealousies and enmities it produces, even within the ruling family. There are lessons in both Thrones and Dragon, hidden amongst the sex and the violence, that are worth taking, and learning well.
But Dragon is much more than just entertainment with a message. It is also a feast of good acting, good writing, and astonishing feats of visual artistry. The world it depicts is brought to life with a simmering and immersive atmosphere, and standout performances from Rhys Ivans as outwardly decent Hand of the King Lord Otto Hightower, and Matt Smith as the outwardly villainous Prince Daemon Targaryen. The characters have depth, and layers, and individual ambitions that make them uncommonly human for an ensemble work on this scale. Nobody is there just as a prop.
Nor, as some have suggested, is the series “woke”. At the heart of it, certainly, is a question about the role of women – but that is a question drawn from the medieval histories of Europe on which the series (with added dragons) is based. There’s nothing here which feels forced, or unnatural.
Anyway, I wanted to hate it, and have an easy reason to dismiss it, and I did not. Perhaps in time, I will be punished for that, if George Martin’s record is anything to go by. But for now, if you’re open to it, my advice is to give it a chance.