If you asked me who my favorite character in Game Of Thrones was, I’d have a really hard time answering simply because there are far too many to choose from. I could rattle off a bunch of names: Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Bronn, The Hound, Ayra Stark, Sam Tarly, Brienne of Tarth, Jaime the Kingslayer and the list goes on and on.

If you asked me the same thing about HBO’s prequel series, House Of The Dragon, I’d have just as hard a time, but for a very different reason: I just don’t like most of these characters very much at all, and the ones I do I tend to like at more of a superficial level. Sure, I like Rhaenyra. She’s noble and kind for the most part. But she’s also a participant in a bloody war that will leave her country in ashes simply because she thinks she ought to be queen.

Compare that to the reason Robb Stark fought a war. He marched south to save his father, Ned, from the Lannisters. When the boy king, Joffrey, had Eddard’s head lopped off in a fit of pique, Robb continued that war both to avenge his father’s death and to rescue his sisters. He also fought for independence for the North which, after the way the Starks were treated by the lords of King’s Landing for the last two generations, strikes me as beyond justified.

Why are Rhaenyra and Alicent fighting? Because they disagree about which Targaryen should rule the Seven Kingdoms. Wars of succession are common enough throughout history, but it strikes me as largely vanity, more akin to the Baratheon brothers than to the Stark’s efforts in Game Of Thrones.

Jacerys reminds me most of the young Starks. He is good-natured, kind, brave and noble. There is little about Jace or his cousins, Baela and Rhaena, not to like. They are probably the most likeable characters in all of House of the Dragon, but they’re also secondary figures at this point, with little screentime or importance compared to their elders.

But the thing that’s really missing—the thing that you can’t quite put your finger on when you wonder why you’re having a harder time relating to House of the Dragon compared to Game of Thrones—is a sense of humor. This show has next to zero comic relief. Game Of Thrones was bursting with it. I’m not suggesting that a dark and gritty fantasy epic about civil war between dragonriders should be a comedy, but the darker a story the more crucial comic relief becomes.

Breaking Bad is an incredibly dark crime drama, but Vince Gilligan and his team cast mostly comic actors for the roles, and the show was extremely funny throughout. This made all the bleak stuff much more palatable. Braveheart is one of my favorite movies, and as dramatic and tragic as it is, there are many scraps of humor throughout. One of its most memorable scenes is the introduction of the Irishman, Stephen, precisely because he’s so weird and hilarious.

Game Of Thrones gets us to care about its characters because they are often very funny. Their humor makes them feel more relatable, more human, more like us. Even the ever-dour Jon Snow is given funny characters to interact with, from Ygritte to Tormund Giantsbane. Others, like Sam Tarly, aren’t so much funny as they are adorable. But the very best characters—Tyrion perhaps most of all—are full of wit. Tyrion, at least for the first few seasons before his character arc was thrown into the void that was the Daenerys storyline, met every obstacle with a wisecrack and grin. His closest allies, like Bronn, were just as droll.

There is simply nothing like this in House of the Dragon. Whatever meager bits of comic relief we’ve been given are soon cast aside for some other dramatic or tragic or ugly or terrible calamity. There’s always a smirk on Aemond’s lips and a dangerous smile behind Daemon’s eyes, but you’ll find no merriment there. Bronn was a violent man, but his smile was still genuine. The Hound was about as stoic as they come, but his odd couple adventures with Arya were often hilarious.

This is what’s missing. I love House of the Dragon, but I haven’t fallen in love with any of its characters and that makes me care a lot less about what happens to them. Even the tragic death of Rhaenys earlier this season, as sad as it was, didn’t impact me the way major Game of Thrones deaths did, and I suspect that for all the death and horror still to come, none of it will resonate as much.