The second season of House of the Dragon was packed with spectacular scenes that brought the conflict between Blacks and Greens to a deadly climax. The program is set more than a century before the events of Game of Thrones, during a power struggle within House Targaryen known as the “Dance of the Dragons.” House of the Dragon, as a spinoff prequel, has the chance to redeem some of the criticism directed at Game of Thrones, which was forced to create its own finale when the TV program rushed past George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels.
House of the Dragon, unlike Game of Thrones, is based on Fire & Blood, which depicts the full fight between Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower’s offspring. Although the book lacks the emotional depth of A Song of Ice and Fire and is told like a fictitious history book, it does provide a variety of options for House of the Dragon to reach a satisfactory finish. With that said, how does House of the Dragon end?
Will House of the Dragon be faithful to Fire & Blood?
- Fire & Blood traces the history of House Targaryen from 114 years before Aegon’s conquest to 136 years after, documenting the rise and collapse of the dynasty that governed the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
- Fire and Blood was released in 2018. A second book is now under development.
The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, has yet to be released.
Fire & Blood is a massive book, spanning 700 pages and detailing the chronicle of House Targaryen over the years. It begins with Aegon’s conquest of the Seven Kingdoms and concludes with King Aegon III, Rhaenyra’s son, ascending to the Iron Throne as a mature ruler.
The events are gathered through assumptions and plain gossip from Westeros scholars and the Court’s Fool, but the focus is clearly on the Dance of the Dragons, which details King Viserys’ ascension to the throne and the civil war that ensued after his death. The first season of House of the Dragon provides a prelude to the conflict, depicting power struggles between opposing groups and the personalities that pull the strings.
Fire & Blood is a fictitious historical novel with minimal dialogue and limited character development. Things simply kind of happen in the novel, and the characters are reduced to short, supposed biographies. House of the Dragons excels in addressing the events of the source material through politically charged debates and complex discourse.
Most significantly, it allows readers of the novels to follow the journeys of multifaceted characters in more depth: Daemon’s tumultuous temperament is put to the test, Alicent’s actual goals are revealed, and Rhaenyra progressively matures from a rebellious young girl to a strong ruler. These are actual people onscreen, not names from Westeros’ past.
House of the Dragon has no justification for repeating Game of Thrones’ blunder, especially given the variety of possible endings Fire & Blood presents to the showrunners.
Despite taking some liberties with the source material to develop the characters (Rhaenyra and Alicent are not childhood friends in the books, and Aegon’s dream is never mentioned), House of the Dragon is a faithful adaptation of Fire & Blood, paying homage to the events that shake up the Black-Green war. However, there is still a lot of territory to cover, and it’s hard to envision important events from Fire & Blood making it to House of the Dragon unscathed. One of them is the Storming of the Dragonpit, in which thousands of smallfolk effectively destroy five Targaryen dragons.
Another key Fire & Blood event that is likely to alter are the circumstances surrounding Rhaenyra’s death. Sunfyre, Aegon II’s dragon, ruthlessly eats her alive in front of her son Aegon III. Rhaenyra’s terrible end was previously leaked by Joffrey in Game of Thrones, thus her real death will most likely be the same, but considering how House of the Dragon is telling Rhaenyra’s narrative, the program may take a different approach to Rhaenyra’s impending fate.
A Targaryen Queen died at the end of Game of Thrones, which displeased many viewers. House of the Dragon has no justification for repeating Game of Thrones’ blunder, especially given the variety of possible endings Fire & Blood presents to the showrunners.
- Rhaenyra’s Death Doesn’t Mark the End of the House of the Dragon Story Aegon II is slain soon after Rhaenyra’s death. Her son, Aegon III, inherits the Iron Throne.
- In the novels, Aegon III marries Jaehaera Targaryen and becomes Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Aegon, unlike his Targaryen forebears, is scared of dragons because to his horrific childhood.
House of the Dragon transformed the one-dimensional characters of Fire & Blood into individuals worth caring about, no matter how evil they were. It pays homage to two of Game of Thrones’ most distinguishing characteristics: no one is fully secure in Westeros, and no one is completely good or wicked. House of the Dragon now depicts Rhaenyra as the legitimate Queen, a tough lady seeking to reclaim what is hers. That makes the Greens the “villains” of the plot, however the concept of good and evil is likely to become increasingly unclear as the play goes.
In that regard, Rhaenyra might be considered the hero of House of the Dragon, but the narrative does not conclude with her death. At least in the literature, it does not. When the Dance of the Dragons comes to an end, the key takeaway is that there is no actual winner. As the most powerful House in Westeros, only the Targaryens could have destroyed each other, and they did. Rhaenyra seized King’s Landing and ruled on the Iron Throne, but the cost of power in times of crisis was too great to bear, and after losing practically everyone she cared about, she met her sad end.
Alice, on the other hand, saw each of her offspring self-destruct and die in order to rule over a mound of ashes and graves. Aegon kills Rhaenyra but dies soon after. At the end of the dance, the number of live dragons was dramatically decreased, effectively ending the huge monsters’ dominance.
If this is a triumph, I hope I don’t win again. Corlys Velaryon.
Then, a traumatized Aegon, Rhaenyra’s son, marries Jaehaera, Aegon II’s daughter. The dragon’s blood rushes strong in them, and the Blacks and Greens merge into pure crimson, uniting once more. Game of Thrones’ worst blunder was reducing several narratives and character arcs into a single pivotal moment: Daenerys’ death at the hands of Jon Snow.
That ultimate action brought the Iron Throne down and heralded a new era in Westeros. Just like that, seasons’ worth of character arcs collide into a single death. House of the Dragon has no justification to reject the potential arcs at its disposal, and while Rhaenyra’s death makes for a painful finale, the events that follow provide the prospect of a spectacular ending to House of the Dragon as a whole.
House of the Dragon Has More Than One Chance of Finishing on a High Note.
- The Hour of the Wolf is a chapter in Fire & Blood that follows Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell, as he brings justice to Westeros and prepares the way for Aegon III’s rule.
- One of the traitors killed by Cregan Stark in The Hour of the Wolf is Larys Clubfoot, Aegon II Targaryen’s Master of Whisperers during the Dance of the Dragons.
House of the Dragon is unlikely to go more than a few episodes without Rhaenyra, let alone a whole season. The main reason is that, according to the literature, practically every key character has died by the time Aegon II slays Rhaenyra. Daemon, Aemond, Criston Cole, and Jacaerys have all left. Just like in Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon will most certainly keep Alicent alive until the end so she may consider the failure of her ambitions, but she may not be enough to keep the show running for long. What happens when Rhaenyra dies?
Just as in Game of Thrones, the question of who sits on the throne at the end is critical. Because it surpassed A Song of Ice and Fire’s novels, the original series suffered from incoherence and a lack of reference in later seasons. With no source material to fall back on, showrunners were compelled to hurry their own ideas into their own finale, deciding the fate of a narrative that was not theirs. Even if Martin’s books ended identically, the trip would be different, and many fans believe Game of Thrones last season was uneven. House of the Dragon does not have that difficulty; if it botch the conclusion when a beautiful ending already exists in the literature, the authors are to blame.
The Hour of the Wolf brilliantly concludes the events of the Dance of the Dragons, setting up affluent but melancholy years after the deadliest era in Targaryen history.
The finest finale for House of the Dragon is “The Hour of the Wolf,” the politically fraught epilogue to Fire & Blood’s Dance of the Dragons. Following Rhaenyra’s death, Aegon II prepares to vent his rage on Westeros, only to be killed by a powerful poison. Aegon’s death may or may not be more spectacular in House of the Dragon: perhaps the Sea Snake or Baela Targaryen avenge Rhaenyra’s murder in another explosive scene, bringing the battle between Blacks and Greens to a bittersweet halt. What important is that Rhaenyra and Aegon II will have died, leaving Westeros devastated and in need of someone to restore justice to the Seven Kingdoms.
Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell, has sworn to battle for Rhaenyra. With an army preparing to assault, he condemns those who have committed treachery and welcomes the tranquil years of Aegon III’s rule, ensuring Rhaenyra’s dynasty continues. Given Cregan’s introduction in Season 2, Episode 1, “A Son for a Son,” it’s only fitting that the Lord of Winterfell comes to the House of the Dragon to exact justice with his sword and dignity. While there are many betrayals and plots throughout Aegon III’s Regency era, The Hour of the Wolf brilliantly closes up the events of the Dance of the Dragons, laying the groundwork for affluent but melancholy years following Targaryen history’s deadliest moment. – Supernews.pk
Iqra Khan