dragon

House of the Dragon

HBO


Speaking as a non-book reader, a non-spoiler consumer, I’m here to give my opinion on House of the Dragon in the dark. And right now, this seems a whole lot like an issue Game of Thrones had for a long while.

Game of Thrones always felt like a forgone conclusion in some ways, given that Daenerys was the only one with dragons in the entire land and as such, needed no help steamrolling over everyone on her way to reclaim the throne once they were grown. The show kept throwing up distractions in order to prevent this, but often it did not feel terribly authentic.

dragons

Game of Thrones

HBO
Now, House of the Dragon too feels like a forgone conclusion. Given the events of this season, the dragons are still the main part of it. And given their status, it feels like it’s almost impossible for the Hightower/Aemond crew to defeat Rhaenyra, when just weeks ago she was lamenting about how it was an impossible war to win.

You just have to look at the dragon tally here. Team Green has:

Aemond riding Vhagar, yes, very scary
Helaena theoretically riding Dreamfyre, which would be uh, less scary, not because of the dragon but because Helaena does not seem prone to actually want to attack anyone.
Daeron, who we’ve never met, riding the just-learned-to-fly Tessarion
And of course thanks to Vhagar, Aegon is half dead and his dragon Sunfyre is either dead or badly injured, we don’t know for sure.

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Paul Tassi
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News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet.

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Updated Aug 5, 2024, 10:14am EDT

dragon

House of the Dragon

HBO
Speaking as a non-book reader, a non-spoiler consumer, I’m here to give my opinion on House of the Dragon in the dark. And right now, this seems a whole lot like an issue Game of Thrones had for a long while.

Game of Thrones always felt like a forgone conclusion in some ways, given that Daenerys was the only one with dragons in the entire land and as such, needed no help steamrolling over everyone on her way to reclaim the throne once they were grown. The show kept throwing up distractions in order to prevent this, but often it did not feel terribly authentic.

dragons

Game of Thrones

HBO
Now, House of the Dragon too feels like a forgone conclusion. Given the events of this season, the dragons are still the main part of it. And given their status, it feels like it’s almost impossible for the Hightower/Aemond crew to defeat Rhaenyra, when just weeks ago she was lamenting about how it was an impossible war to win.

You just have to look at the dragon tally here. Team Green has:

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Aemond riding Vhagar, yes, very scary
Helaena theoretically riding Dreamfyre, which would be uh, less scary, not because of the dragon but because Helaena does not seem prone to actually want to attack anyone.
Daeron, who we’ve never met, riding the just-learned-to-fly Tessarion
And of course thanks to Vhagar, Aegon is half dead and his dragon Sunfyre is either dead or badly injured, we don’t know for sure.

 


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Compare this to Team Black:

 

They have Rhaenyra’s Syrax
Daemon’s Caraxes
Jacaerys’ Vermax
Baela’s Moondancer
Addam of Hull’s Seasmoke (just claimed)
Hugh the Hammer’s Vermithor (just claimed, the second biggest to Vhagar)
Ulf the White’s Silverwing (just claimed)
Rhaena’s wild dragon that she is almost certainly about to claim

And the narrative before was that Team Green had a ground army, but we have seen what dragons do to a ground army and Criston Cole has told Aemond how depleted they are. Plus there’s the ongoing uprising with the city.

dragon

House of the Dragon

MAX
It’s just hard to see how this pans out for Team Black. Vhagar has ambushed a number of dragons and killed them in 1v1 fights, but how many times can she get away with that? Plus Aemond can barely even control her.

Losing this fight would take some of the worst dragon military organization of all time, or some sort of deep betrayal. Daemon? One of the newbies? But right now it’s hard to imagine this conflict being much of a conflict. But this is why I’m not George RR Martin, and why I’m fascinated to see how tonight unfolds.