House of the Dragon Season 1 Episode1 Recap and Review

The first episode of House of the Dragon kicks off with blood, sex, and Iron Throne claims.

Spoiler alert: this post contains major spoilers for the House of the Dragon Episode 1

What could be a better way to do a follow-up to a series as popular as Game of Thrones than to take a deeper look into the most dysfunctional house from the series? House of the Dragon tells the tale of the House Targaryen 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones.

The season premier features some major characters from 200 years ago with Targaryens up on the front. It starts with the rule of King Viserys, with some major characters on the king’s side including father and daughter, Otto and Alicent Hightower. We also see Ser Criston Cole in the first episode, who stands against the brutal Price Daemon Targaryen in a tournament.

 

Mysaria, who is Prince Daemon’s lover seems to share his ambitions and concerns for the throne. This sets up the stage for some obvious battles to come later in the show as the story gears up to become more complex. Now that is not something easy to achieve, but with George R.R. Martin on the team, fans are absolutely stoked.

 

House of the Dragon shows the sexism that existed 200 years before Game of Thrones very vividly. Princess Rhaenys, the sister of King Viserys was among those considered heirs back in their day. However, thanks to blatant sexism, Princess Rhaenys ended up getting named the “Queen Who Never Was” since she was denied the Iron Throne plainly on grounds of her being a woman.

 

Following the traditions, King Viserys seems to be absolutely obsessed with having a son as heir, which pushes him to perform a horrifying cesarean on his pregnant wife to save his child. However, this leads to his wife dying due to significant blood loss and the child does not survive a day anyway.

At the same time, King Viserys certainly his brother, does not take lightly the reports of his brother celebrating the death of the “heir for a day” aka the newly born dead son of Viserys.

 

Eventually, the entire story revolves around that spiky iron chair, like always. The first episode of House of the Dragon immediately fixes the attention on the issue of heirs and succession, as King Viserys struggles to choose an heir after his newly born son’s death.

King Viserys shuns Prince Daemon away and names his daughter Rhaenyra Targaryen as his heir, making her the first female heir to the throne. Then, he passes on the secret that has been going down from heir to heir from the time of Aegon the Conqueror. The secret revolves around the dark winters that are yet to come and that only a Targaryen must sit on the throne for mankind to survive. This clearly points to the arrival of the White Walkers and the fact that Aegon knew about the great threat.

 

While the first episode does not take us into dragon-fueled battles just yet, it does give a closer look at the schemes and rivalries in the council back in the early days. However, we do get to see some stunning glimpses of dragons. And since House of the Dragon is about Targaryens, we can expect to see a lot more dragons ahead.

 

The first episode of House of the Dragon is filled with lots of blood and gore and sets itself up for some amazing action and thrill. In that sense, one can say that it is certainly worth it. Usually, prequels and sequels to existing television shows don’t always go well.

But despite all that, the first episode fails to reach the same heights as the first episode of Game of Thrones. Perhaps that is because it is a rather slow burn as we see the rivalries in the council and get introduced to the issue of heirs and successors. However, that is expected to change as the series moves forward.

 

Nevertheless, House of the Dragons is setting itself up to be a worthy successor to Game of Thrones, as it further expands the universe and gives us a deeper look into the realm. Who knows what is yet to come? It looks like not a lot can go wrong with Martin on the team.

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