In the final season of Game of Thrones, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen are obsessed with ending Westeros’ dictatorship by “breaking the wheel.” On Sunday’s HBO’s “House of the Dragon” , we get to see the story of the family that created that wheel in the first place.
We know a lot about the upcoming blockbuster franchise. It’s expensive, costing around $20 million per episode, according to Variety. It’s fitting, considering that Game of Thrones is known for bringing Hollywood production values into your living room. We also know this is a prequel. Fans hoping to see Ned Stark or Tyrion Lannister again will ultimately be disappointed, as House of the Dragon is set 200 years before Jon Arryn’s murder, which sparks eight Season of chaos.
Here’s what you need to know before watching HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel.
How many episodes are there in “House of Dragons”?
The first season of Dragon House will have 10 episodes. That makes it the same as a typical Game of Thrones season. While Season 7 has 7 episodes and Season 8 has 6, Game of Thrones has 10 episodes every other season.
However, we don’t yet know when the Dragon House episodes will run. Some episodes can be longer than an hour, like key Game of Thrones episodes like The Battle of Winterfell .
What is the plot of Dragon House?
The Dragon House is about House Targaryen, who ruled Westeros for 300 years. The Dragon House began about 100 years after House Targaryen ruled.
Game of Thrones viewers know that the Targaryen dynasty was actually ended by Robert’s Rebellion, a civil war that saw Robert Baratheon inherit the “Mad King, “Aerys Targaryen, ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. By the time Game of Thrones begins, 17 years after the Rebellion, there are only two known Targaryens: Daenerys and Viserys. In Game of Thrones, House Targaryen was once a great family. In Dragon House, we can think of them as great homes of .
At least for a while.
The Dragon House depicts the beginning of the end of House Targaryen. It follows the legendary Dragon Dance of A Song of Ice and Fire – a civil war that erupted after the voices of two Targaryens against the Iron Throne. King Viserys raised his daughter Rhaenyra Targaryen to succeed him, but after Viserys’ death, the eldest son of Viserys’ second wife, Aegon, was crowned the new ruler.
That war kicked off, many dragons were killed, many Targaryens were killed.
Paddy Considine plays King Viserys.
HBO
Is House of the Dragon based on the book by George RR Martin?
Yes. George RR Martin, in seemingly endless quest to procrastinate writing The Winds of Winter, has published a book called Fire and Blood. This is a fictional history book that chronicles House Targaryen.
“House of the Dragon” showrunners Ryan Kondal and Miguel Saponic recently told IGN that the show is different from the original in some ways.
“The fun of this show is that it can be part of a history book,” Condal said. “It communicates with the history books. In a sense, some things will line up. Other things will be told in very different ways. But the idea is, in the end, the events are the same. It’s just the ‘why’ and the ‘when’ How they happened when you see the actual history.”
In an interview with SFX, Condal said the show was “like Inheritance, [but] ] There are dragons.”
Emma Darcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Prince Damon Targaryen.
HBO
Who is running the Dragon House?
As mentioned earlier, Condal and Sapochnik are the producers of House of the Dragon. That puts them roughly on par with David Benioff and DB Weiss, who gained massive fame (and later criticism) for playing Game of Thrones presenters.
Condal is believed to be the creator of the House dragon. Before the HBO epic, Kondal wrote the scripts for Hercules and Rampage, both starring Dwayne Johnson.
Sapochnik is a name well known to die-hard Game of Thrones fans as he directed some of the show’s most famous episodes, including Season 5’s Hardhome and Season 6’s Bastards battle.
By the way, Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi is back to write the score for House of the Dragon. This has nothing to do with the idea of the show, but it’s worth mentioning — because Game of Thrones scores rule .
Is House of the Dragon a prequel?
Yes! Two Game of Thrones prequels were originally planned. The other, starring Naomi Watts, takes place 1,000 years before the events of Game of Thrones. It was cancelled in 2019 for reasons we don’t know yet .
If you have an insatiable solution to all things fire and ice, your best bet, other than House of the Dragon, is the perennially delayed Winds of Winter”. This is the sixth book in the series, which Martin has been writing since 2011. According to a blog post in July, Martin will also write a second volume of Fire and Blood, but not until after he finishes Winds of Winter.
Finally, Martin recently confirmed that HBO is working on a sequel to Game of Thrones and that Kit Harington will return as Jon Snow . Cross your fingers for that.
Dragon House premieres on HBO and HBO Max on August 21.
