The new HBO production launches winks and presents credentials from the first minute to hook all the followers of the mother series
‘The House of the Dragon’ has started on HBO. Next we review, with some spoilers, what the first chapter gives of itself.
It doesn’t take three minutes for the dragons to appear in the new HBO Max blockbuster and whose first chapter (of the ten of the first season) has already been released, after months of intense promotion. In the mother series we had to wait several episodes to see the creatures, but in this one everything goes much faster. There is no time to lose. Because this fiction is built for those who were followers of ‘Game of Thrones’, those who know its universe (even if some clueless person crosses the path who did not see the previous one and would like to join this one, who knows why ). And those followers must be convinced immediately of the possibilities of this franchise. That’s why HBO shows muscle from the beginning, with that dragon flying over King’s Landing, with those spectacular views that take us back to the heart of the Seven Kingdoms. Oh what memories.
Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, in the series. /
It is strange to meet again with the Red Fort looking slender and lush, after the last time we were there we witnessed its total destruction. But the story of the ‘House of the Dragon’ takes place two centuries before that happened, specifically 173 years before Daenerys Targaryen was born, who would be the one who would destroy everything. But that is another story. Or not. Because at the end of the day, this prequel is going to try to explain where that character comes from, what backpack she was carrying on her back, and the reasons that motivated her behavior.
His spirit is present since we are introduced to the main character of this plot, Rhaenyra Targaryen, daughter of King Viserys. She is she, like her that one, she is the natural heir to the Iron Throne, but she too will be taken from her and she must fight to get it back. We hear young Rhaenyra in the first chapter yelling “dracarys” and hearing it, it’s hard not to remember all the times Daenerys exclaimed it and the impetus with which she did it. We will also see her deal with a world of men, as happened to the previous one, but many years before, when it was still unimaginable that a woman could occupy a position of authority.
Women, central axis of the series
The role of women in Westeros and the discrimination to which they were subjected is going to be one of the most relevant issues in ‘The House of the Dragon’. But above all what had already been announced to us, and can be seen from the first episode, is that the look varies. There is in this a more vindictive point of view of the feminine universe, of its sacrifices, of its frustrated ambitions, of its lost battles.
If a sequence that is difficult to forget in the opening chapter stands out, it is that of childbirth, in which Aemma Arryn -mother of Rhaenyra and wife of King Viserys- is cruelly sacrificed so that the long-awaited man who will inherit the iron throne is born. We had previously heard him warn her daughter that, despite her aspirations, her value in the time she had had to live would have to do with her ability to reproduce. Nothing more. And we had attended a previous scene with her husband in which she lamented not having fulfilled her vital function correctly, not having been able to give birth to a man who could aspire to the succession of the kingdom. The woman and her obligations around her reproductive faculties, such a current topic, already dealt with in the time of dragons.
Some of the most exciting moments in the episode revolve around these patriarchal chats, as they introduce us to the main characters and the challenges they face.
Beyond Rhaenyra there are other important women in ‘The House of the Dragon’, whom their gender, of course, has conditioned. There’s Rhaenys Targaryen, known as the queen who never was for being passed over in the line of succession. And there is the young Alicent Hightower, the most beautiful woman in Westeros, for whom her father – the Hand of the King – has in mind a destiny that she does not seek to satisfy her own interests.
action scenes
The intrigues are so well laid out and the protagonists so well presented that as the chapter progresses we forget that what we had come here for was to see dragons and attend bloody confrontations like those of yesteryear in ‘Game of Thrones’. Aware of all this, this first chapter distributes the footage to satisfy all palates, those who are looking for palatial entanglements and negotiations in corridors and those who come motivated by the sex and action sequences. The brutal tournament (with a good portion of blood, entrails and crushed skulls) organized by the King is designed for the latter and serves above all to present the villain of this story, Daemon Targaryen, brother of Visirys, who also aspires to the succession .
Daemon Targaryen, brother of King Visirys. /
And this is perhaps the character that is most difficult for us to swallow as spectators. Perhaps because he is presented in fits and starts and we don’t fully understand his motivations. Perhaps because of the gratuitous violence (in his first appearance we see him tearing heads and penises from the criminals of the city) that he brings with him and that makes it impossible to ingratiate himself with him. Or it may be that the very characterization of the actor, Matt Smith, does not help us to finish believing everything and it is impossible not to see the Duke of Edinburgh from ‘The Crown’ under that wig. We will have to wait for the chapters to progress to familiarize ourselves with it.
There is no trace of Lannister in this story, a glancing Stark is named, we do not go through more scenarios beyond King’s Landing. And despite all this, we don’t miss everything we experienced in the eight seasons of ‘Game of Thrones’ because the new series has its own entity and shows it from the beginning. That yes, already from here it was warned of the long winter that was approaching. Laugh at the current weather forecasts, which were already anticipating centuries in advance when a heavy snowfall was going to fall.
This promises, why should we fool ourselves.
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