GoT: ‘House of the Dragon’ Promises a Lot, But Gives Reason to Worry – Trailer Breakdown

SDCC has ended, but not without one last roar for the upcoming House of the Dragon.

House of the Dragon is the upcoming HBO prequel show to the hit Game of Thrones. Set almost 200 years before the events of GoT it tells the story of a Targaryen Civil War. The show is based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood (an abridged version was contained in the novella The Princess and the Queen). Now a new trailer is showing off some of the important parts of the upcoming show.

House of the Dragon Promises the Blacks and the Greens

While the trailer shows off a lot of characters, this show is packed, and it does a good job focusing on a few key ones that will drive the conflict. In particular, we have Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (above on the right) the eldest daughter of King Viserys I and his second wife, Alicent Hightower (left). The rivalry between them and their children over who will get the Iron Throne is the main conflict of the series. Famously, at the feast shown above, Rahenyra wore Targaryen black and Alicent wore green. Based on these colors their factions were known afterward as the Greens and the Blacks. The image above is directly based on artwork from Fire & Blood, and looks pretty spot on. Someone has at least read the books.

The other pair that are featured a lot in the trailer at Sir Criston Cole (above) and Prince Deamon Targaryen. They end up as the lead supporters of the warring queens. Cole is a Green and Deamon is a black. Setting up the queens and their champions is a good move for the trailer.

House of the Dragon Gives Reason to Worry About a Condense Timeline

Courtesy of HBO

One thing we’ve seen a lot with recent adaptations is a condensing of the timeline. Based on this trailer, House of the Dragon is going to have to deal with this as well. The lead-up to and the events of the Dance of the Dragons take place over roughly a 25-year period. The trailer shows a number of events. Some we can directly place into Martin’s timeline. This gives us some indication of what is taking place in at least the first season. For instance, the announcement that Rhaenyra was to be heir and the swearing to her takes place in the year 105. Alicent Hightower marries the King in 106 and the tournament and feast, shown in the trailer, take place in 111. The tournament where Deamon and Cole fought took place in 104 (in a different event from the 111 tournament).

All of this suggests that season one is going to cover events that took place between 104-111. Seven years is a lot to cover in one season, but with some characters like Rhaenyra being played by more than one actor, it looks like they have a plan.  Rhaenyra was born in 97, which means that she should be 14 or younger in the show, but it looks like they’ve aged her up. The issue is that the actual Dance of the Dragons doesn’t start till 129.  That means this season is mostly set up for events that take place 20 years later, or we are going to get a condensed timeline at some point.

Unreliable Narrators Mean the Show Can Play With Things

An interesting thing about House of the Dragon is how its source material is written. Game of Thrones was based on novels, that are more or less authoritative tellings of the events. Fire & Blood however is presented as an in-universe history book. The part of it that covers the Dance of the Dragons is based on at least 4 separate and admittedly inaccurate accounts of the conflict. One of them was written by the Dwarf jester Mushroom and is full of slander. Thus even in-universe we don’t know the actual events that House of the Dragon is going to cover.

In some ways, this gives the show a lot of leeways. Anything that is different from the book isn’t an error or change. It’s merely how things actually happened without any embellishment. Overall, the trailer delivered some compelling looks at the show. While we can worry about the timeline, it does at least show that the runners have paid attention to the source material. Whatever else, it does seem like House of the Dragon promises us plenty of plotting, incest, and yes, Dragons.

Let us know what you thought of the trailer, down in the comments! 

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.