With the prequel series fixing many of the original show’s sins, HotD actors are thankful for not following the notorious Game of Thrones formula.

There’s one thing that both makes House of the Dragon great — and also limits its success. That thing is that HotD is not Game of Thrones, and it doesn’t try to be. After the overwhelming popularity of the original show, it was easy to just follow the established template and capitalize on it, but House of the Dragon chose a different path — and it both ascends and hurts the prequel series.

HotD Tones Down GoT’s Darkest Aspects

Part of Game of Thrones’ popularity could be attributed to its shock factor. Very few TV shows allowed themselves the things GoT did several times per episode. Ridiculously prevalent brutal violence, constant nudity and profanity on the screen, killing off important characters all the time, and all that good stuff — the audience just wasn’t used to such an approach, and thus, Game of Thrones hit really differently.

House of the Dragon had to rise from its great predecessor’s shadow, and it had the easy option of cranking vulgarity to eleven to bring back the same audience. It didn’t. In fact, HotD largely toned down the most shocking aspects of Game of Thrones, specifically getting rid of plainly gruesome scenes and overwhelming nudity.

It’s not a bad thing, either: it allowed the prequel to avoid some of the original’s greatest flaws. Even the actors recognize what an important step that was.

HotD Avoided (and Exposed) GoT’s Biggest Flaw

When you first watch Game of Thrones, it’s a shocker, and many things don’t register for long. But upon a rewatch, you realize just how many unnecessary scenes there were, especially ones oversexualizing women. Every episode, naked ladies were shoved into the audience’s faces while often being degraded on the screen.

“I presumed that they would <…> take a different approach, because it did feel like maybe Game of Thrones was too close to oversexualizing women, and that wouldn’t be cool if they did that this time. I thought they were suitably delicate and took a better, more sustainable angle,” HotD’s Tom Glynn-Carney (Aegon II Targaryen) told Independent in his recent interview.

Indeed, House of the Dragon highlighted that Westeros is still interesting and brutal without overly unhinged scenes and dozens of naked women per shot. The prequel’s approach is more clean — and while it lost the new series quite a fraction of Game of Thrones’ audience, it was the right decision in our book, nonetheless.