Sunday’s eagerly anticipated opener attempted to pique interest in a fresh royal power struggle while reassuring viewers that this was still “Game of Thrones.”
“The Heirs of the Dragon,” the first episode of Season 1.
Where were we then?
Oh, yes, attempting to make sense of the word “King Bran” while lounging on our couches. It still doesn’t, but that was long ago. Or, to be more accurate, the term “old future” in a literary sense.
That’s because in Sunday’s eagerly anticipated debut of “House of the Dragon,” a much earlier battle for the Iron Throne was set up; an Iron Throne that, based on its expansive, jagged footprint, will apparently lose quite a few swords before King Robert Baratheon settles on it in a few generations.
But it is fundamentally still the same ugly chair inspiring the same ugly feelings — anxiety, envy, power-lust, a willingness to betray friends and relatives. That last part is important because unlike in the original contest, it seems that most of the betraying will be happening not between the various houses of Westeros, but within the same messed-up family.
That would be the Targaryens, the ancestors of Daenerys, who embody the key pillars of the “Thrones” universe: vengeful resentment, dragons and incest. (The lore says King Viserys’s late wife was his cousin, and on Sunday the dynamic between Daemon and Rhaenyra was, uh, complex.)
Their observable tendencies were a part of a series opener that had to balance establishing interest in a fresh narrative while reassuring viewers that it was still “Game of Thrones.” The episode, which was written by Ryan Condal and directed by Miguel Sapochnik, the two showrunners, played all the hits, and this last section was diligently sought. Hacking and horrifying gore?
