Disgruntled Game of Thrones fans have plenty of reasons to be pleased with House of the Dragon, which takes place in Westeros 200 years before the events of the GOT saga. (Is it a prequel when the characters are all new? Or more of a spin-off?) It has a lot of the things they considered missing from the much-despised final season of Game of Thrones. Based entirely on a George R.R. Martin book? Check. Shockingly violent scenes and scenes the squeamish (of which I am one) would have preferred to take place off-stage, such as a Medieval-style Caesarean? Check. Plots and characters that take their time, with slow build-ups rather than dragon-riders whizzing up from the South to the Wall in merely hours? Check. Zero plot armour? Check. (Granted, there haven't been that many surprising deaths this far, but there have been some – two protagonist love interests were dispatched pretty fast.) Brothel scenes? Check – though not as many as in Game of Thrones in its heyday.
For my part, I found the characterisation a great improvement on what we got from the first season of Game of Thrones, which so many remember fondly but I struggled with. It's less a collection of the good, the depraved and the completely psycho than GOT at its height: the characters are considerably more complex. Also, what I enjoyed most in the original Game of Thrones were the royal intrigues in King's Landing rather than shenanigans beyond the Wall or in Dorne or Braavos. And what does House of the Dragon concentrate on? Royal intrigues in King's Landing.
So, what's it like to watch the end result of all these wishes coming true? Kinda boring.
That's just my opinion, though. To do Game of Thrones fans justice, when being served exactly what they ordered, they have pronounced themselves more than satisfied, which is admirably consistent of them. And it's not a question of people making up their mind to love or hate a series before it has even aired, either. There was widespread wariness towards the idea of a Game of Thrones prequel (sort of) when the trailers came out. GOT viewers reserved their judgement until they saw the series, and then they lapped it up – the knotty language, the long-winded dialogue, all of it. As with the first season of The Crown, I'm wondering whether it's my attention span that's at fault. At the same time, I quite like Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which many viewers – often the same viewers who love House of the Dragon – claim is too slow. This, I admit, leaves me nonplussed. What, you can't get into the finding Sauron game, but you get into this sedately paced family drama?
But I suppose you could just as well turn the question around and wonder: how can I get into The Rings of Power, but find myself yawning in front of House of the Dragon? Yes, the pacing is slow, but you could say the same of Rings of Power. Yes, the dialogue is often cumbersome and faux-archaic, especially in the first episodes (surely saying "mine" instead of "my" is just bad grammar?) but so it is in Rings of Power. True, Rings of Power has a more epic sweep, but seeing as I didn't care for half of the settings of the original Game of Thrones, it feels hypocritical to criticise House of the Dragon for concentrating on King's Landing. Why is it that I can't get more engaged in "the Dance of the Dragons"? Especially as the villains are much more my kind of thing than the nut-cases in the original show? Take, for instance, Otto Hightower – the King's right-hand man (on and off), concerned with the welfare of the realm, but highly ambitious and not at all above feathering his own nest. He's played by Rhys Ifans, too. I really appreciate what must surely be a nod to the "Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck, but not even Otto is enough to make me enthusiastic about the show so far.
Perhaps the main fault, for me, lies in the personality of the protagonist, Rhaenyra Targaryen, Princess and heir to the Iron Throne. What is it with me and Targaryen females? Once again, I fail to warm to one. The trouble is, I don't see why we should root for Rhaenyra and not for Otto and his daughter Alicent. It's not that I'm not usually on the villains' side, but at least I can normally understand why their antagonists are supposed to be the good guys. Here, neither side really has the moral highground. Rhaenyra lies and cheats with the best of them, but she doesn't have enough charm to make her a likeable anti-heroine: instead, she keeps complaining about her lot. She spends years sulking after her father marries Alicent and gets a son (in fact several), as Rhaenyra fully expects to be displaced as heir because she's a girl. But her father Viserys, who may be the only halfway honourable character in the show, does not displace her, so what was all that sulking for? We are meant to think the decent Viserys is a "weak" king and Rhaenyra will make a better, "stronger" ruler because she's more gung-ho, but so far I've seen precious little real talent for state craft from her. She would probably be a hit in, say, 15th-century England with her "let's get on a dragon and blast'em" attitude, but I'm not at all sure this is always the best ruling policy. Give me peaceful Viserys any day.
Anyway, I can't say this TV series isn't ambitious or well acted, so if you loved the original Game of Thrones, by all means give it a watch. I think you will find Westeros very much as you left it.
