![]() ![]() House of the Dragon has no such protections in place. This is Westerosi history, as told in the last third of Martin’s Fire & Blood, one of those tales of knights and maidens fair that Shireen Baratheon huddled over in her sad little princess cell, an entirely finished story. Google searches on characters or plot points will return spoilers. This series premiere wants to provide glimpses of the Westeros universe we remember and spin the perspective just enough to make House of the Dragon distinct. The angles on King’s Landing are all different - until we soar over the balconied cloister where Cersei painted her map of the Westeros she thought she would rule. When Princess Rhaenyra lands her golden-scaled dragon Syrax and slides off his back, for a brief moment she’s an uncanny doppelgänger of Daenerys - until she spins around. The spot of dusty ground she lands on is a site from season eight put to a new (old) use - this is the dragon pit where the remaining lords met to hash out their plan for Bran the Broken to take the throne. Over 172 years earlier, when House of the Dragon is set, it’s being used for its original purpose. House of the Dragon is unabashedly for Game of Thrones fans. This first episode is well-acted, violent, revolting, CGI’d to the hilt, and more than a little horny - a typical Game of Thrones stew. ![]() There’s a pile of sliced-off testicles, a severed head, and one moment where a couple in the act of copulation have to freeze, underneath a spotlight, and hold the position while a main character gives a speech about a dead baby. The two biggest distinctions for this series are its hyper-focus on one family, titular dragon-folk the Targaryens and its setting in a Westerosi golden age, a time with its own Colosseum-like stadium for tourneys and Renaissance-esque fashions. So far the series feels expansive enough not to get bogged down in a Succession-like teeter-totter, where the balance of power swings back and forth to the point of nausea.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |