‘House of the Dragon’ Needs to Solve These Four Major Problems For Season 2
House of the Dragon was a good show, but it’s not perfect, and that could be a problem going forward.
House of the Dragon Season 1 is done. The season was pretty dang good overall and has helped to make up for the horrible end of GoT. Nor is the show done at all. We are getting more seasons, with season 2 already announced. It might be a while before we get the second season, however.
This isn’t a bad thing overall, spending more time on it could result in a more quality product. With that in mind, there are some issues the show will need to address in season 2. This is going to delve very deeply into book spoilers. If you want to avoid deep book spoilers, stop now. With that warning, let’s take a look at what these issues are.
***BEWARE, HERE BE SPOILERS***
The Danny Problem 
This is a problem that I’ve felt House of the Dragon has had since the get-go. The show has always been a bit tied to Daenerys. The story was first conceived as a parallel for Danny’s, and episode one of House of the Dragon makes this clear with a mention of her.
Here’s the issue. The central conflict in House of the Dragon is essential if a female Targaryen can be as good a ruler as a male one. It’s a question of monogyny. The problem I have is that while we all know that really the answer is yes, GoT already answered the question. We’ve already seen a Targaryen Queen, Danny, and the results were horrible. Even worse, looking at the book, Rhaenyra does some pretty bad things and then loses in the end. It’s pretty odd if the point of the stories is that women end up failing at being queens.
Who Do You Root For?
Another issue I think Season 2 will have is the question of who to root for. Who are the good guys here? Fire and Blood, the book, is a much more grey story than say A Game of Thrones. The show is keeping with this. Pretty much everyone has done some really bad things. Even Rhaenyra was part of a plot to kill an innocent guard to help fake her husband’s death. As the story goes on the evil shit everyone does just gets worse and worse. It’s going to be seriously hard to say that any of the people here are good, and that makes it a bit hard to root for people.
Who are the Main Characters in House of the Dragon?
Another issue is with who are the main characters in this show. In Season 1 it’s pretty clear, but that’s not going to be as clear in season 2. The issue here is that Fire and Blood are written as a history book, not a narrative one. This means that very few people have really satisfying narrative story arcs. There are already a lot of characters in the show, and there are about to be a whole ton more.
A lot of these people show up briefly and become important only to die off fast. In fact, most characters end up dying. It’s kind of hard to follow people as your heroes if they keep on dying. That’s why George RR Martin had to stop killing off his main characters in GoT. On top of that a lot of the main characters, in particular Rhaenyra, do really do a whole ton after this point in the book. It’s a bit odd.
Season Two Will Have to Deal With a Lack Of Scenes Together
via HBOMax
Another problem House of the Dragon Season 2 is going to have to fix is a lack of characters having time together. Due to the deadliness of dragons whenever they fight it pretty much always ends with the death of one or both sides. This means you really don’t get a lot of good rivalries built up. Those that exist tend to not be well-developed or satisfying. Take Criston Cole.
He’s a major player and antagonist too Rhaenyra. Yet he dies in a random fight without ever seeing Rhaenyra again. Or take Aemond One-Eye and Daemon. Their final fight is in many ways the climax of the story. Yet they don’t really have an established rivalry and also aren’t going to meet again. I think it’s something they really need to deal with.
Let us know what you think of these issues down in the comments.
