This article contains spoilers for ‘The House of the Dragon’ up to episode 1×08.
Contrary to what Madonna sang in ‘Hung up’, time flies by. At least as far as ‘The house of the dragon’ it means. The series has not lost a single minute in its first season, advancing at forced marches between ellipses and ellipses at such a rate that if the viewer blinks they may have missed a character’s appearance, their motivation, the flight of a dragon, or a leap of ten years. Children grow up, actors mutate, and even deleted scenes steal from us. Is this breakneck pace necessary to tell the story of the Targaryens?
Only five episodes lasted the (very charismatic) actresses Milly Alcock and Emily Carey giving life to Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, since the protagonists were presented to us as teenagers and shortly after they are adults and a couple of decades have passed. Right from that first episode that starts with a prologue about King Jaehaerys and the council in Harrenhal to determine if Viserys or Rhaenys should succeed him, we realize that there is a certain rush, although perhaps the first big jump is experienced in episodes 2 and 3, between which spend about three years. In this impasse, the wedding between Viserys and Alicent is celebrated, she becomes pregnant with Aegon and we reach his second birthday. We missed two deleted scenes: Rhaenyra’s anger at her friend upon learning that she is going to become her stepmother and when she helps her dress for the wedding, two tense moments in her relationship that they would have helped us better understand their emotional development and the estrangement they experience (and how relevant it is afterwards).
All the series and movies have scenes that fall in the editing room, nothing happens, but in ‘Lacasa del dragon’ sometimes there is a lack of nuances that makes us wonder what an extended version would be like. In the sixth episode, for example, there was a scene that implied that Daemon Targaryen is bisexual, which would add a new layer to the character. Other times it’s not about which scene gets cut but how long each script chooses to tell and what stories are taken for granted. For example, hehe love relationship between Rhaenyra and Harwin Strong is told in just a handful of scenes and is kept to a minimum.: Enough to understand that they loved each other and that he is the father of their children. In fact, we see Harwin briefly at the end of episode 5 and already in 6 he dies. Seen and unseen, zero possibility of developing a character that is reduced to a mere instrument in history.
Like that example, there are many others, like the Benefactor of the Crabs, who promised to be a great villain and lasted a breath, or Lady Rhea Royce, who lasted a single scene. Though The most striking is the case of Laena Velaryon, who appears in four episodes played by three different actresses.: as a child in the first two, in the fifth she dances with Daemon at Rhaenyra’s wedding and in the sixth she says goodbye churruscada. And it’s a shame because in his last episode we see that he was a character with a lot of potential and that we could have enjoyed seeing a little more of his marriage and his adventures, especially how he tamed Vhagar, the largest dragon of all that lived free (she tells this herself to Viserys when they were almost married off as a child), which would have enhanced her as a character but also added dimension to her daughters’ conflict over Aemond’s theft of Vhagar.
Betrayal of the essence of ‘Game of thrones’?
The low investment in the progressive growth of the characters in ‘The House of the Dragon’ collides with a key element of the essence of ‘Game of Thrones’. In the previous series there were many deaths, yes, but those that were so shocking were of characters that had accompanied us for a long time and with whom we had established an emotional bond. That’s why something like the Red Wedding blew our minds so much. Here, on the other hand, that lack of connection is tried to be spectacularly replaced, but no matter how gore the deaths of Joffrey Lonmouth or Vaemond Velaryon are, the effect is not the same. The chickens that enter by the ones that go out. The ellipses subtract richness from the more or less tangential stories, but also from other issues that should be decisive. For example, we have seen almost nothing that tells us what feelings Viserys has for her children with Alicent, especially compared to Rhaenyra, which has been the center of the conflict. Or it is also crucial who on each side has a dragon, but we have seen people like Rhaenys fly in a plane of brief seconds.
So much time jump is a handicap for the viewer who must sometimes spend half an episode playing ‘Who’s Who’, fuforce absurd lines of dialogue where someone has to verbalize how long it’s been in order to locate the viewer (in 1×08 it squeaked especially, when Rhaenys said it in the first sentence of all) and borders on the ridiculous that some actors change and others don’t. Because while we have had three Laena, two Rhaenyra and a lot of changing churumbeles, others like Criston Cole or Daemon Targaryen are wonderfully preserved. Above all, now Alicent’s right-hand man, who is for the announcement of the best anti-wrinkle cream in all of Poniente. It must be because of the rancor he has in his body.
However, this haste in the narration is also bearing positive fruit: in just a few episodes it has been possible to tell how two women have gone from love to hate, from a very close friendship (almost platonic) to a visceral rivalry that sets the pieces for a conflict of succession to the brutal throne that will be the core of the history. We miss a lot of details along the way, but they take us by the hand, telling us the essentials, and take us to the moment when everything explodes. And there is little left for that. Hold on to your dragon, curves are coming.