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If you’re one of those people who read George R.R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood” before watching House of the Dragon, you’ve probably noticed that the show makes some pretty significant changes to the source material. And if you haven’t read the book, here’s what you need to know: the showrunners basically took the skeleton of the Targaryen civil war and used it to build something new. Some changes work brilliantly; others are more debatable. Let’s walk through the key differences and explore what the show has done with them.

The Format Problem That Led to Creation Opportunities

First, let’s talk about why changes were necessary in the first place. “Fire & Blood” isn’t a traditional narrative novel—it’s a history book disguised as fantasy. It’s written from the perspective of a maester looking back on events from hundreds of years prior, which means we get historical accounts but not the emotional, moment-to-moment drama that makes for compelling television. We get the broad strokes; we don’t get to see what these people felt as things fell apart around them.

This format forced the show’s creators to make a choice: do we stick rigidly to the historical account, or do we use it as a framework to create more intimate, dramatic storytelling? They chose the latter, and honestly, it was the right call. What this means is that entire scenes, conversations, and character moments had to be invented whole cloth, because “Fire & Blood” simply doesn’t have them. The book tells us what happened; the show has to show us how it happened and why people made the choices they did.

Rhaenyra: From Tragic to Complex

In “Fire & Blood,” Rhaenyra is largely a footnote—a tragic figure whose claim was disputed, who lost the civil war, and whose story ended badly. The book treats her with historical remove; we don’t get deep inside her head or understand her motivations beyond the surface level. House of the Dragon takes that bare-bones history and transforms Rhaenyra into a fully realized character with agency, ambition, intelligence, and legitimate grievances.

The show also changes the nature of her children with Laenor Velaryon. In the book, the question of their legitimacy is similarly distant and historical. In the show, it’s a source of ongoing tension and drama, because we actually see Rhaenyra navigating the difficulty of having children who don’t look Targaryen while being in a patriarchal society that’s obsessed with bloodlines. It’s a more intimate, relatable take on a woman dealing with her husband’s sexuality and her own position of power.

Additionally, the show’s depiction of Rhaenyra’s relationship with her children differs from the historical account. We actually watch her love and care for them in ways that make her later losses hit harder. This is good storytelling; it’s not just different from the book, it’s better for a visual medium.

Alicent: From Schemer to Sympathetic Operator

Here’s one where the show makes a genuinely significant change that actually makes the story work better. In “Fire & Blood,” Alicent is largely a footnote too—a woman who married the king, had his children, and then supported her son’s claim over her stepdaughter’s. It’s presented as a simple power grab. The show, though, makes Alicent far more sympathetic and complex.

The show gives us Alicent’s perspective on her marriage, her vulnerability, her genuine belief that she’s protecting her children and the realm. It also does something brilliant: it reveals that Viserys might have been talking about prophetic knowledge of the future (which could support either heir) when he told Alicent about a prophecy, and Alicent misinterpreted his deathbed words entirely. This is entirely invented for the show, and it fundamentally changes Alicent from a scheming power-grabber into a woman who made catastrophic decisions based on a misunderstanding.

This change is significant because it makes the war less black-and-white. In the book, it’s easier to see Rhaenyra as the rightful queen and the Greens as usurpers. In the show, both sides have legitimate grievances and understandable motivations. That ambiguity makes the story more interesting and more tragic.

Daemon: Expanding the Antihero

Daemon Targaryen gets significantly more screen time and character development in the show than he does in the book. In “Fire & Blood,” he’s a capable military commander and a loyal supporter of his daughter Rhaenyra’s claim, but he’s not as deeply explored or as complex. The show takes Daemon and makes him one of the most fascinating characters in the entire series—a man of tremendous capability and tremendous flaws, whose trauma and paranoia become increasingly evident as the series progresses.

The show invents entire relationships and character beats for Daemon that weren’t in the source material. His marriage to Laena Velaryon is more developed; his romance with Rhaenyra is more fraught and complicated; his mental state becomes increasingly concerning. These changes don’t contradict “Fire & Blood” so much as they add layers and complexity that the historical account couldn’t provide.

Character Deaths and Their Timing

One area where the show makes significant changes is in the timing and circumstances of character deaths. Some characters live longer in the show than they do in the book; others die earlier or in different ways. These changes are necessary because the show is building dramatic arcs, and sometimes history needs to be adjusted to make those arcs work.

For example, certain deaths that happen off-page or are barely mentioned in the book become significant on-screen moments in the show. The deaths also sometimes happen in different orders, creating different narrative cascades. The show uses the skeleton of the historical events but rearranges them to maximize drama. Some fans appreciate this; others feel it’s a betrayal of the source material.

The Pace and Structure of the War

“Fire & Blood” covers the entire Dance of the Dragons civil war, but the show is pacing it out over multiple seasons. This means that the show has time to explore the human impact of the war in ways the book cannot. We see how the conflict unfolds gradually, how people struggle with increasingly impossible choices, how the war grinds on and wears everyone down.

The book gives us the big events and the final outcome; the show gives us the journey. Some might argue the book’s approach is more efficient; the show’s approach is more emotionally devastating because we actually live through the conflict with the characters.

Locations and Politics Beyond King’s Landing

The show tends to focus more heavily on King’s Landing and the immediate political situation there, while “Fire & Blood” has a broader scope that includes more of the realm. This is partly a practical choice—television requires focusing on a smaller cast of characters—but it does change the feel of the story. The show feels more intimate, more focused on the personal relationships and conflicts, rather than the larger political machinations.

Invented Scenes That Work

The show has invented some scenes that aren’t in the source material at all, but they’re so good that they feel like they should be. The dinner scene between Rhaenyra and Alicent early in season one, where they’re briefly friends before everything falls apart, is entirely made up. The scene where Alicent discovers she’s been misled about the succession is invented. These moments add depth and emotional resonance that the source material, by its historical nature, couldn’t provide.

The Question of Prophecy

The show leans more heavily into prophecy and its importance to Targaryen decision-making than “Fire & Blood” does. The vision Viserys talks about, the way prophecy drives decisions, the cryptic nature of what different characters understand about the future—these are expanded and emphasized in the show. It’s a choice that makes the characters’ decisions feel more motivated, even if it does diverge from the source material.

When the Changes Don’t Work

It’s not all perfect, though. Some changes create plot holes or make character motivations harder to understand. Some fans argue that the show changes fundamental aspects of characters in ways that undercut the source material. The debate about whether these changes are worth it is valid—some viewers prefer the show’s approach, while others wish it had stuck more closely to the historical record.

The Bigger Picture

What’s important to understand is that House of the Dragon isn’t a direct adaptation of “Fire & Blood” so much as it’s an inspired-by. The show takes the historical framework and uses it to tell a more intimate, character-focused story. This approach has benefits—it makes the characters more relatable and the drama more immediate—and drawbacks—it changes the source material in ways that some fans find frustrating.

The good news is that both versions are worth experiencing. If you love the show, reading “Fire & Blood” gives you more detail and context. If you read the book first, watching the show gives you a different interpretation of the events. They complement each other, even when they disagree on the specifics. And honestly, the fact that people are passionate enough about both to debate the differences is a sign that both are succeeding at what they’re trying to do.

There’s something uniquely satisfying about the opening of a Game of Thrones episode. Before we get into the credits, before we remember where we are in the story and what all the various plot threads are, we usually get a cold open—a scene or sequence that immediately pulls us into the world and often delivers something memorable before the title sequence even rolls. These cold opens were one of the show’s most consistent strengths, and they deserve to be appreciated for what they accomplished: grabbing your attention immediately, setting the tone for the entire episode, and often delivering some of the most compelling dramatic moments the show had to offer.

The cold open as a storytelling device is deceptively simple, but it’s incredibly difficult to execute well. You have maybe five to ten minutes to make an impression before the credits roll. You have to establish location, introduce stakes, and usually tell a complete micro-story, all while introducing the episode’s thematic concerns and emotional baseline. When Game of Thrones got this right, it was magical. When it got it wrong, the entire episode could feel off-balance. Over eight seasons, the show became increasingly sophisticated at using the cold open to shape the viewer’s experience, and understanding why these openings work is key to understanding what made Game of Thrones compelling.

The Original Formula: Setting the Scene

In the earliest seasons, the cold open often served primarily as a world-building tool. The show would open on a location we hadn’t seen before, or on a scene that didn’t involve the main characters, just to establish the physical geography of Westeros and show us the daily texture of life in this world. We’d see what King’s Landing looked like in the morning before the main plot began. We’d see people in the North going about their business. We’d see the small, human moments that gave the world weight and reality.

These early openings were effective because they trusted the audience to stay engaged with pure storytelling and world-building, without the comfort of familiar characters or obvious stakes. The very first scene of the entire series—the prologue with the White Walkers—works this way. We don’t know these characters. We don’t understand what we’re looking at. But the scene’s atmosphere, the design, the performance, and the music make us lean forward in our seats, paying attention. Something bad is coming. We don’t know what, but we know it matters.

This formula wasn’t unique to Game of Thrones, of course. But the show demonstrated a real mastery of pacing in these early openings. The scenes gave us time to settle in, to appreciate details, to let tension build gradually rather than being thrown immediately into the loudest, most obvious dramatic moment. That restraint was actually remarkably effective.

Escalation: The Big Spectacle Opens

As the show progressed, the cold opens started to escalate. By the middle seasons, cold opens weren’t just about setting the scene anymore—they were about delivering shocking moments or major plot developments right at the top of the episode. The opening of Season Three had Robb Stark getting married, which seemed like a normal scene until suddenly it wasn’t, and we realized we were watching the setup for the Red Wedding. The cold open didn’t show us the wedding itself; it showed us the moment before, building tension and dread without explaining why we should feel that way.

This escalation worked because the show had earned our investment in these moments. By the time we got to Season Three, we understood that a seemingly normal scene could become devastating. The show had demonstrated that trust the audience wouldn’t betray us arbitrarily—if we were seeing something that felt ominous, it was probably for a reason.

Some of the most spectacular cold opens came later in the series. The opening of the season premiere after Daenerys had arrived in Westeros—showing her massive army and her approach to Dragonstone—was a cold open that said, “Everything is about to change.” The opening with the Loot Train battle, showing Daenerys and her dragons actually engaging in warfare, was a cold open that demonstrated the stakes of the show had escalated. These weren’t stories; they were moments of spectacle designed to make you sit up and pay attention.

The Master Class: Character-Driven Opens

Some of the most effective cold opens, though, weren’t spectacle. They were character moments that revealed something essential about who people were and what they wanted. The episode that opens with Arya Stark preparing for what she thinks will be her death, steeling herself with a Stark motto and then learning she’s free—that’s a cold open that’s entirely character work, and it’s devastating precisely because it’s so intimate.

The opening with Theon getting his head cut off—not Theon himself, but his betrayal becoming real in a way that seems to take his own story away from him—is a cold open that uses a shocking moment not for its own sake but to tell us something about how this world works and what cruelty looks like. The shock isn’t the point; the character revelation is.

Cersei’s trial and her walk of atonement opening an episode is a cold open that’s entirely focused on one character’s internal experience. We watch her pride break, we watch her humiliation, and we understand that something fundamental has shifted in her. That’s not spectacle; that’s acting, cinematography, and emotional storytelling combining to create something that stays with you.

The Problem Openings: When It Didn’t Work

Of course, not every cold open landed. Some of the later season openings felt more like they were just hurrying to get through setup material so the show could get to the scenes the writers actually cared about. When cold opens stopped being organic moments in the story and started feeling like obligation, they lost their power.

The show also occasionally made the mistake of thinking that shock value alone was enough to make a cold open work. There are a few openings that rely on a sudden revelation or a gruesome image without that revelation or image having earned its emotional weight. Those moments tend to feel exploitative rather than narratively necessary.

There’s also the danger of cold opens that try too hard to be clever or mysterious, that spend the first ten minutes showing us something we don’t understand and then never quite connect it to the rest of the episode in a way that satisfies. The best cold opens are usually the ones where you understand immediately why you’re watching what you’re watching and what it means for the episode to come.

The Architecture of Tension

What unites the best Game of Thrones cold opens is that they understand how to architect tension over the course of a few minutes. They don’t just start at maximum intensity and stay there—they build. They give you moments of calm that make the tense moments work harder. They use music and cinematography to shift your emotional state. They trust silence and stillness to be just as powerful as action.

The opening that cuts between Theon’s torture and the Stark children’s daily life, showing the contrast between his suffering and their ordinary existence, is a master class in this kind of montage work. It’s not spectacular in the traditional sense, but it’s remarkably effective because it’s rhythmic. It builds understanding through repetition and contrast.

The opening that shows various characters reacting to a major event—a death, a betrayal, a revelation—is a cold open structure that the show used effectively several times. By showing multiple perspectives, by giving each character a moment to respond, the show escalated the emotional impact. You see the news hitting one person, and your emotional response amplifies when you see how it hits someone else.

The Final Seasons: Losing the Thread

In the final season, the cold opens felt like they lost some of their purpose. They became more functional—we need to establish where everyone is and what they’re doing—rather than artful. There were still moments, certainly, but the opening of the final season premiere, with its focus on establishing the lineup of characters and showing the military preparations, felt more like exposition than story. It did its job, but it didn’t do more than its job.

This is emblematic of what happened to the show’s pacing in general. As the writers hurried toward the ending, they lost some of the patience that had made the show distinctive in the first place. The cold opens, which had been such an effective tool for making viewers lean in and trust the show, started to feel like boxes being checked.

Why Cold Opens Matter

The cold open might seem like a small thing, a minor element of how an episode is structured. But when you think about what it actually does—immediately establishing the show’s tone, introducing stakes, demonstrating craft and control—you realize it’s actually a barometer for how well the show is functioning overall. The shows with the best cold opens are usually the shows with the best overall control of pacing and audience engagement.

Game of Thrones in its best form understood that television is pacing and tone and rhythm just as much as it is plot and character. The cold open was where the show could demonstrate that it understood those things. A perfectly constructed cold open says, “We know what we’re doing. We know how to tell a story. Sit back and trust us.”

The cold opens that work best are often the ones that seem simple in retrospect. They’re not trying to be clever for the sake of cleverness. They’re not piling on effects or twists. They’re just doing the work of storytelling—establishing a place, introducing a conflict, making you care about what happens next. When Game of Thrones did that work well, everything that followed felt earned and necessary. When it stopped doing that work, the whole episode felt like it was playing catch-up.

The Legacy of the Cold Open

Looking back on Game of Thrones now, the cold opens are some of the most rewatchable moments from the series. They’re the sequences you’d show someone to explain why the show was effective, why people stayed invested, why the craft mattered. They’re moments where the show demonstrated that it understood television as a medium and knew how to use that medium to tell stories effectively.

The best cold opens from Game of Thrones will probably become textbook examples in writing and directing classes—not because they’re the most spectacular moments, but because they’re expertly constructed pieces of storytelling. They open a door, bring you through, and leave you ready for what comes next. They make you feel like you’ve just settled in for a story told by people who know what they’re doing.

That might sound like a small thing to celebrate, but it’s not. In a show as sprawling and complex as Game of Thrones, the ability to grab attention quickly and focus it sharply was one of the show’s greatest assets. The cold opens delivered on that promise, and when the show was working, these five or ten minutes of perfect storytelling set up everything that came after. They’re one of the reasons the first few seasons feel so tight, so controlled, and so utterly rewatchable.

When you think about the masterminds of Game of Thrones, two figures immediately come to mind: Petyr Baelish, the scheming Lord of the Vale with his dagger and his ambitions, and Varys, the eunuch spymaster with his little birds and his mysterious agenda. Both men operated in the shadows, manipulating kings and queens, toppling houses, and reshaping the political landscape of Westeros. But here’s the thing that makes their comparison so fascinating—they weren’t just playing the game differently, they were playing entirely different games altogether. One was motivated by personal ambition and the thirst for power, while the other claimed to serve the realm itself. So who was actually better at the Game of Thrones? The answer is way more complicated than you might think, and honestly, it depends on what metrics you’re measuring.

Let’s start with Littlefinger, because his rise from nothing is genuinely one of the most impressive political climbs in the entire series. Petyr Baelish came from the Vale, from a minor house with barely a castle to its name, and through nothing but cunning and manipulation, he worked his way into positions of immense power. The guy became Master of Coin, one of the most important offices in the Seven Kingdoms, and managed to keep that position through multiple regime changes. Think about that for a second. He survived Robert Baratheon’s reign, he survived Joffrey’s, and he was working on surviving everyone else when his plans fell apart. His financial manipulations—secretly going into debt to finance wars, buying loyalty through clever fiscal policy—these were the moves of someone who understood that power flows through money just as much as it flows through swords.

What made Littlefinger truly dangerous was his willingness to get personally involved in his schemes. He orchestrated the death of Jon Arryn, manipulated Catelyn Stark through a lie about a dagger, set the entire Stark family against the Lannisters, and then positioned himself to take advantage of the chaos. He didn’t just predict that things would fall apart—he actively made them fall apart, then strategically positioned himself to benefit. The man married Lysa Arryn, took control of the Vale, and by the time of the later seasons, he was playing both sides of a war while sitting safely away from the action. His endgame was crystal clear: he wanted the Iron Throne, and he was willing to manipulate anyone to get there, including the people he claimed to care about.

But here’s where Littlefinger’s strategy had a fundamental weakness. His ambitions were always about him. Every move was calculated to increase his power, his wealth, his status. That kind of singular focus can be incredibly effective in the short term, but it also makes you vulnerable. You accumulate enemies. You rely on people staying predictable and staying loyal, but loyalty in the Game of Thrones is as sturdy as a castle made of sand. Littlefinger’s fall came partly because he underestimated the Stark children he’d been manipulating, because he assumed they would remain as naive and desperate as he’d made them. That assumption cost him everything.

Now let’s talk about Varys, because this is where things get really interesting. Varys operated on an entirely different scale. Where Littlefinger was always looking at the next piece of the board he could control, Varys appeared to be thinking about the whole game. His official job was as Master of Whisperers, meaning he had spies everywhere—his “little birds,” a network of children and informants scattered throughout the kingdom. Unlike Littlefinger, who relied on specific people and specific schemes, Varys had information. He knew secrets. He saw patterns. And crucially, his spymaster position meant he could justify having information about absolutely everything without it seeming suspicious. It was just his job.

What’s remarkable about Varys’s approach is how it operated on faith and institutional power rather than personal ambition in the traditional sense. He claimed—repeatedly—that he served the realm. He said he wanted stability, good governance, peace. Whether you believe that or not probably depends on how cynical you are feeling that particular day, but the point is that his publicly stated motivations were different from Littlefinger’s. While Littlefinger wanted the throne, Varys seemed willing to serve almost anyone if it meant achieving his vision of stability. He served Robert Baratheon, then Joffrey, then Daenerys. That’s flexibility, sure, but it’s also something else: it’s an ability to work within any system because his ambitions were about structures and outcomes, not personal glory.

Varys’s major plays in the game were subtler than Littlefinger’s. He didn’t orchestrate wars directly; instead, he operated through counsel, through information control, through making sure the right people knew the right things at the right times. He was involved in the planning of the Mad King’s assassination through Jaime Lannister, he supported various candidates for the throne, and he was constantly working—though the show and books sometimes differ on exactly what he was working toward. His big weakness, if we’re being honest, is that the show never quite let us understand what his endgame actually was. In the books, there are hints that Varys has been working toward bringing Daenerys to the throne from the beginning, that he’s been a piece on her side of the board all along. The show muddied this considerably.

So who was better? If we’re talking about pure effectiveness and results, Littlefinger has a stronger case in the early seasons. He achieves concrete, observable goals. He gets rich, he gains territory, he eliminates rivals. He’s tactical, aggressive, and direct—in his own covert way. You can see his moves, even if you don’t see them coming. That makes him satisfying to watch and relatively easy to evaluate. He tried to turn Sansa Stark into a puppet, and while it didn’t work long-term, it sure seemed like it was working for a while.

But if we’re talking about the bigger picture, about who understood the game at a higher level, the answer might be Varys. A truly brilliant strategist doesn’t just win individual battles; they win by understanding trends, predicting human behavior on a mass scale, and positioning themselves so that multiple outcomes work in their favor. Varys seemed to understand that the real game wasn’t just about who sat on the throne—it was about what kind of realm would survive, about which dynasty had the best chance of actually bringing stability rather than just trading one tyrant for another. Whether he achieved that goal is another question entirely, but the scale of his thinking was different.

The thing that ultimately separates them is that Littlefinger’s game was transparent in its selfishness. He wanted power, and he was honest about it with himself, even if he lied to everyone else. Varys’s game was allegedly about something bigger than himself, which made him either more noble or more dangerous depending on your perspective. And here’s the wild part: we still don’t entirely know if Varys was telling the truth about his motivations. Was he genuinely interested in the realm’s welfare, or was he just a really good liar? The show left that question hanging, which is kind of perfect for a character whose whole identity is wrapped up in secrets.

In the early seasons, Littlefinger was the better player—more directly effective, more clearly ambitious, more willing to take risks. But by the later seasons, as the game became increasingly chaotic and unpredictable, Varys’s information network and his apparent ability to work with almost anyone gave him an edge. Of course, Littlefinger got killed by Sansa Stark’s declaration, and Varys got burned alive by Daenerys for speaking inconvenient truths. Neither of them actually won the Game of Thrones, which probably tells you everything you need to know about playing the game while everyone around you is playing a different game altogether.

The real answer to who was better is that they were both brilliant in different ways, and both ultimately undone by circumstances they couldn’t fully control. Littlefinger was the better strategist for power acquisition; Varys was the better strategist for long-term influence. But in the actual game, where the rules kept changing and the players kept dying in unexpected ways, being brilliant wasn’t always enough.

If you’ve ever tried to explain the Game of Thrones universe to a friend, you know how quickly things get confusing. Is House of the Dragon a prequel? How far back does the timeline actually go? When did all this stuff with the Targaryens happen compared to what we saw with Jon Snow? It’s enough to make you want to crack open George R.R. Martin’s world bible and start drawing your own timeline on a whiteboard.

The beauty of the Game of Thrones universe is that it spans centuries of meticulously crafted history, and HBO is currently in the process of bringing different eras of that history to the screen. Between House of the Dragon’s look at the Targaryen civil war, the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms focusing on the life of a legendary knight, and the original Game of Thrones series showing us the kingdom’s modern era, we’re getting a genuinely epic tapestry of storytelling. But understanding how all these pieces fit together requires some context. Let’s walk through the complete timeline of Westeros and see how everything connects into one cohesive narrative.

The Age of Heroes: The Foundation of Everything

Before we get into specific dates that matter for the shows currently airing, we need to understand the mythological foundation of Westeros. The Age of Heroes is when Westeros was supposedly populated by the first men, the children of the forest, and giants. This is where the legendary founding figures come from — Brandon the Builder, who supposedly built Winterfell with the help of magic; the Lannisters and their connection to house Casterly Rock; and all the ancient houses that would eventually rule the Seven Kingdoms.

The thing about the Age of Heroes is that it’s part history, part legend, and part mythology. Nobody actually knows how true any of it is. Some events might have happened ten thousand years ago, or eight thousand, or maybe some of it’s just really good storytelling that survived through the ages. George R.R. Martin intentionally keeps this vague because in a medieval-style world without reliable historical records, how would anyone actually know? The Andal Invasion, which brought the Andals into Westeros and pushed out the first men, happened somewhere in this misty past, but the exact timing is lost to history. What matters is that these founding moments created the kingdoms that would eventually be united by the Targaryen dragons.

The Targaryen Era: From Conquest to Collapse

Now we’re getting into the territory that House of the Dragon is currently exploring, and this is where the timeline becomes concrete enough to matter. About three hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones, Aegon the Conqueror united the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros by using his three dragons and his family’s military might to topple the rulers of seven separate kingdoms. This wasn’t a quick conquest — it took years of battle, but the dragons made a difference that conventional armies simply couldn’t overcome. Aegon became the first king of the unified Seven Kingdoms, and the Targaryen dynasty began what would become the longest-lasting rule in Westeros history.

For the next two hundred years or so, the Targaryens ruled relatively well, though not without drama. There were civil wars between different Targaryen claimants, like the rebellion of Harrenhal and various succession disputes. Kings came and went, some were great, some were terrible, and the house maintained its power largely through dragon fire and the loyalty of noble houses. The Targaryen dynasty made sure to keep their bloodline relatively pure through intermarriage, which is a major plot point in understanding why they were so different from everyone else in Westeros.

Then came the Red Keep, King’s Landing, the great castles and monuments that defined the power of the throne. The Targaryens built a civilization that seemed permanent, unshakeable, powered by dragons and magic. But nothing lasts forever in this world, and the cracks were already forming.

The Targaryen Civil War: House of the Dragon’s Story

This is where House of the Dragon picks up the narrative, roughly two centuries before Game of Thrones takes place. The civil war that tears the Targaryen dynasty apart — the Dance of the Dragons — is a catastrophic conflict that pits Targaryen against Targaryen, dragon against dragon, and ultimately ensures that the family will never recover its full power.

The war starts with a succession dispute after King Viserys I dies. His designated heir is his daughter Rhaenyra, but his son Aegon II also has a claim, and various factions rally behind each candidate. What follows is absolutely brutal: dragons are used in combat for the first time in centuries, entire armies are destroyed in single battles, and the great houses of Westeros bleed out supporting one side or the other. Families like House Stark, House Baratheon, and House Lannister have to choose sides, and those choices create enmities that last for generations.

The Dance of the Dragons is important because it’s not just a story about a monarchy tearing itself apart. It’s the beginning of the end for Targaryen dominance. They still rule after the war ends, but they’re weakened. Dragons die in the fighting and there aren’t enough resources to breed new ones successfully. The great houses have tasted the power that comes from playing kingmaker, and they won’t forget it. The seeds of the eventual Targaryen collapse are planted right here.

The Rebellion and Robert’s Rise: The Bridge to Game of Thrones

Fast forward about one hundred seventy years. We’re now in the era roughly fifteen to twenty years before Game of Thrones begins, and this is where the real immediate history of the kingdom is established. The last Targaryen king, Aerys II, has become increasingly unhinged. He’s paranoid, he makes terrible decisions, and he’s sitting on a throne with several powerful, restless noble houses below him.

The breaking point comes when Rhaegar Targaryen, the king’s eldest son, apparently runs away with Lyanna Stark, the betrothed of Robert Baratheon. Whether it was an elopement, a kidnapping, or something more complicated is a mystery that echoes throughout the entire series. What matters is that Robert Baratheon takes offense and rebels. He’s supported by house Stark, the Lannisters, and others who are either loyal to him or have their own grievances against the crown. The rebellion becomes a full-scale civil war.

It ends with the Targaryen dynasty completely destroyed. The Mad King dies, Rhaegar dies, the great houses of the kingdom are left weakened and wary of each other, and Robert Baratheon becomes king. But Robert’s rebellion doesn’t really unite the kingdom — it just tilts the power balance. The Stark family, the Lannister family, and the Baratheon dynasty are now the major forces in Westeros. They’re allies at the moment, but they’re not necessarily friends, and power in Westeros is a zero-sum game.

The Lull Before the Storm: Robert’s Reign

Robert rules for about fifteen years before the events of Game of Thrones begin. These are relatively peaceful years compared to what comes before and after, but “peaceful” in the Game of Thrones universe is a relative term. The realm is stable enough, the crops are growing, there’s no open civil war, but underneath the surface, things are brewing.

Robert himself is a brilliant warrior but a poor king. He’s not interested in the day-to-day work of ruling, preferring to hunt and drink and spend money he doesn’t have. His kingdom is going into debt. His wife, Cersei Lannister, is secretly having incestuous children with her own brother, Jaime. The Lannisters are basically running the kingdom’s finances and using their position to accumulate more power. In the north, the Stark family is honorable but increasingly out of step with how the game of thrones is actually played. In the south, various minor houses are forming alliances and watching for opportunity.

And beyond the Wall, in the far north, something is stirring. The wildlings are getting more aggressive, and there are rumors of something worse — something in the true north, something cold and ancient that people have mostly stopped believing in. These rumors will become increasingly important as the story progresses.

The Beginning of Game of Thrones: Where It All Falls Apart

When Game of Thrones begins, roughly 298 years after Aegon’s Conquest, the kingdom is on the edge of a cliff. Robert Baratheon calls Ned Stark to King’s Landing to serve as his Hand, and the two of them are going to spend time together trying to unravel the mysteries of Robert’s past and the current political situation. But the audience knows something they don’t: the Lannisters have been playing a long game, the north has secrets, and chaos is about to erupt.

The series spans roughly seven years of in-world time, during which the kingdom goes from political tension to open civil war, then to existential threat from beyond the Wall. The War of the Five Kings, named for the various claimants to the throne who emerge after Robert’s death, tears the realm apart. Thousands die. Great houses are nearly eliminated. The delicate balance of power that Robert maintained is shattered.

What makes this particularly interesting when you look at it in the context of the complete timeline is that you can see how all the pieces set up by House of the Dragon and the centuries of Targaryen rule lead directly to this moment. The old families have old grievances. Dragons gave way to gold, magic gave way to political scheming, and honor gave way to pragmatism. The Targaryen dynasty is truly gone, but its legacy of warfare and succession disputes haunts everyone.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and the Broader Picture

The upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series, based on George R.R. Martin’s novellas, will take us back to an earlier era — roughly one hundred years before Robert’s Rebellion. This is the story of Ser Duncan the Tall and Prince Aegon, living in a time when the Targaryen dynasty was still firmly in control, still had multiple dragons, and seemed unassailable. It’s an interesting departure from the epic scope of the other series, focusing more on the personal story of a hedge knight and his connections to the throne.

What makes A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms valuable to the overall timeline is that it shows us what the Targaryen dynasty looked like at the height of its relative stability. Before the Dance of the Dragons, before the civil wars, before the internal collapse. It’s a look at a more magical Westeros, a more dragon-filled kingdom, and a reminder that the world is changing in subtle ways that nobody quite notices until it’s too late.

Conclusion: A Universe Defined by Cycles

Looking at the complete timeline of Westeros from the Age of Heroes all the way through Game of Thrones, what becomes clear is that this is a world defined by cycles. Mighty houses rise, commit the sins that ensure their fall, and are replaced by the next generation of ambitious people. Dragons come and go. Magic fades and returns. The wheel of power keeps turning, and even though the people sitting on the throne change, the patterns remain the same.

What HBO is doing by staggering these series across different eras of the timeline is giving us the chance to see that pattern play out. We can watch the Targaryens at their peak in House of the Dragon, see them collapse through civil war and madness, watch someone else take the throne, and then follow that new regime’s descent into chaos. It’s not a simple story of good and evil — it’s a complex, multi-generational exploration of power, ambition, and the price of sitting on the Iron Throne.

The timeline of Westeros isn’t just a bunch of dates and battles. It’s the story of a world constantly trying to find balance, constantly failing to find it, and constantly starting over. And we’re lucky enough to be watching it all unfold across multiple series, each one adding another layer to our understanding of how we got here and where we might be going next. Whether you’re a casual viewer or a devoted fan with spreadsheets tracking every house and every claim, there’s something deeply satisfying about seeing how all the pieces fit together into one massive, interconnected story.

Let’s be real: Game of Thrones had an absolutely wild ride, and not all of it was good. For eight seasons, HBO’s fantasy behemoth captivated millions of viewers around the world, but the quality wasn’t consistent. Some seasons were absolutely masterful television that redefined what fantasy could be on screen. Other seasons… well, let’s just say that the show didn’t always stick the landing. Whether you’re a die-hard fan trying to defend the later seasons or someone who tapped out after Season 5, I think we can all acknowledge that the show had some phenomenal highs and some genuinely frustrating lows. So let’s go through this season by season, grade each one, and talk about what actually worked and what absolutely didn’t.

Season 1: The Beginning (A+)

Season 1 is untouchable. This is where everything started, and honestly, you could make an argument that this single season might be the best first season of any television series ever made. The show introduced us to a sprawling cast of characters across an enormous world, and remarkably, we actually cared about all of them. The writing was tight, the acting was phenomenal, and the adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s source material was respectful without being slavish. We met the Stark family and actually felt invested in their journey. We watched Daenerys transform from a frightened girl into someone with actual agency. We saw Tyrion become our favorite character. The political intrigue was dense but not incomprehensible, the world-building was clear, and every episode built toward something.

The decision to kill Ned Stark in the final episode was absolutely revolutionary. Nobody did that. Main characters didn’t die in the middle of the season and stay dead. The show established itself as genuinely unpredictable, which made everyone pay attention. The acting was excellent across the board, from Sean Bean’s noble Ned to Peter Dinklage’s charming Tyrion, from Lena Headey’s calculating Cersei to Emilia Clarke’s awakening Daenerys. The dialogue felt natural even when characters were discussing complex political situations. This season was a masterclass in adaptation and television writing.

Season 2: Deeper into the Game (A)

Season 2 took everything that worked in Season 1 and expanded it. The War of the Five Kings was a complex, multi-faceted conflict, and the show handled it beautifully, jumping between different perspectives and showing how the war looked from different regions of Westeros. We were introduced to Stannis and Davos, who became incredibly compelling characters. The political maneuvering in King’s Landing became even more intricate. We watched Tyrion actually govern as Hand of the King, and his scenes were some of the best the show ever produced.

The direction, cinematography, and production values continued to be excellent. Cersei and Tyrion’s dynamic was absolutely electric. The Stark storyline was heartbreaking and compelling. The show was still making smart decisions about character and narrative, trusting its audience to follow complex webs of politics and motivation. We were two seasons in and the show felt like it could sustain itself at this quality level indefinitely. That was obviously not the case, but at the time, Season 2 seemed to promise everything.

Season 3: The Rains of Castamere (A)

Season 3 gave us the Red Wedding, one of the most shocking moments in television history. The show had earned enough goodwill and trust that when it did something that dark—killing off the protagonist’s entire army in a shocking betrayal—audiences felt it in their bones. The political landscape shifted dramatically. Every alliance mattered. Every betrayal had consequences that you could actually see play out on screen.

The problem with Season 3 is that it was still doing one thing primarily: setting up dominoes so it could knock them down in later seasons. It’s a good season, genuinely excellent in many ways, but it’s also the first season where you could start to see the show beginning to prioritize shock value over narrative coherence. The Red Wedding didn’t just happen because it made perfect narrative sense; it happened because Martin wrote it that way in the books, and the show wanted to replicate that moment. This is when the show started to show the first cracks in its narrative foundation, though the cracks were small enough that most viewers didn’t notice yet.

Season 4: The Mountain and the Viper (A)

Season 4 is legitimately one of the best seasons of television ever made. It had the trial of Tyrion, which featured exceptional acting and writing. It had the Mountain versus the Viper, one of the most emotionally devastating episodes of television. It had Littlefinger explaining his motivations in one of the show’s most monologues-heavy moments, and it was riveting. The show was still making confident choices about character and narrative. Joffrey’s death in the second episode meant that the show was willing to remove major obstacles early and force characters to adapt to new circumstances. The writing was intricate, the character work was exceptional, and the show felt like it was hurtling toward something significant.

This is probably where the show was at its creative peak in terms of balancing complex narrative with character development. Every storyline felt like it mattered. Every character death felt tragic or earned. The show was expanding its cast in meaningful ways while keeping established characters engaging and surprising.

Season 5: The Problem Begins (B+)

Season 5 is where things start to slip, though it’s not immediately obvious. The show is still very good here, but this is where you can start to see some fundamental problems with the narrative structure beginning to emerge. The problem is that the show had largely caught up to where the books were, and the source material wasn’t there to guide the showrunners anymore. Some characters, particularly Tyrion and Sansa, start to feel like they’re moving through plots rather than living through consequences.

Sansa’s storyline in Season 5 was particularly rough—her arc at the Vale with Littlefinger didn’t feel earned or natural, and it felt like the show was putting her through trauma for its own sake rather than because it made narrative sense. The show was also starting to get a bit too clever for its own good, with Varys’s exit and some of the Daenerys storylines in Essos feeling like they were just spinning wheels before the real plot happened elsewhere.

The season had great moments—Harrenhal had some exceptional scenes, and the show was still producing excellent acting performances. But for the first time, you could feel the show starting to strain under the weight of its own narrative complexity. The bones of great television were still there, but you could start to see the seams showing.

Season 6: Things Fall Apart (B)

Season 6 is wildly uneven. It has some of the best television the show ever produced—the Battle of the Bastards is a technical marvel, the Winds of Winter episode is phenomenal, and Jon Snow’s resurrection was handled brilliantly. But it also has some of the worst dialogue the show ever produced, some character decisions that feel unmotivated, and a general sense that the show was losing sight of what made it great in the first place.

The problem with Season 6 is that it often felt like the show was hitting plot points because those were plot points that needed to be hit, rather than because they grew organically from character and circumstance. Daenerys’s liberation of the Unsullied, her acquisition of the Dothraki, her getting a dragon—these happened because they needed to happen for her to be powerful enough to eventually come to Westeros. But they sometimes felt less like character choices and more like items on a checklist.

The show was also starting to simplify its character dynamics. Cersei became more villainous and less complex. Daenerys became more obviously destined for power. The moral ambiguity that had defined the show’s early seasons was being stripped away in favor of a clearer good-versus-evil narrative. This wasn’t inherently bad, but it was a significant shift in the show’s identity.

Season 7: The Endgame Approaches (C+)

Season 7 is where things really started to fall apart for many viewers, though it still had passionate defenders. The show had been shortened to just seven episodes for this season, and the pacing became absolutely breakneck. Characters teleported across the map. Strategies that would have taken seasons to unfold were compressed into single episodes. The show stopped caring about the logic of its own world and started caring almost exclusively about spectacle and shock.

That said, Season 7 had some genuinely incredible moments. The Battle of Blackwater was phenomenal. The introduction of the dragon glass as a weapon against White Walkers was clever. And there was a sense that the show was finally, actually heading toward a conclusion after dancing around the endgame for so long. But the shortcuts the show took to get there were increasingly visible. Dragons could suddenly move at supersonic speed. Armies could traverse thousands of miles between episodes. Character arcs that had been building for years were resolved in a single scene or two.

Season 7 is fun in a roller coaster kind of way, but it’s not emotionally resonant the way the best seasons of the show were. You’re watching a machine powering toward its conclusion rather than watching characters live through a story. For some viewers, that was enough. For others, it was when they realized the show had lost something essential.

Season 8: The Final Disappointment (C-)

Season 8 is the season everyone wants to talk about, and unfortunately, it’s also the season that broke a significant portion of the fandom’s trust in the show. Six episodes to wrap up eight seasons of narrative, and those six episodes frequently felt rushed, illogical, and frustrating. Characters made decisions that seemed unmotivated by anything except the need to get them to the next plot point. The show had spent years suggesting one ending and then seemingly abandoned it in favor of something completely different.

The destruction of King’s Landing happened in a way that felt shocking rather than inevitable. Daenerys’s descent into madness happened in an episode rather than over a season. Bran becoming king was presented as a surprise when it could have been foreshadowed and built toward if the show had the time. The Cleganebowl happened because fans wanted it, not because it made sense narratively. The show had become focused on satisfying fan theories and providing spectacle rather than telling a coherent story.

This is not to say Season 8 was without merit. There were genuinely good moments. Jaime’s arc should have landed better than it did, but the intention was there. The dialogue in the final episode between characters had some really nice character beats. But the season as a whole felt like the show had lost the thread of what it was doing and was just hitting story beats because they needed to be hit.

The Bigger Picture

When you look at Game of Thrones as a whole, what you’re seeing is a show that was at its absolute peak around Season 3 or 4, started showing problems around Season 5, and then increasingly compromised its own narrative integrity in service of getting to an ending. The show remained technically excellent throughout—the cinematography, the acting, the production design never faltered. But the writing, the pacing, and the character motivations increasingly felt like they were working against each other rather than in concert.

The core problem was structural: the show was adapting books that weren’t finished, and at a certain point, it ran out of book material to adapt. From that point on, the showrunners were working from George R.R. Martin’s general outline of where the story was going, but without the intermediate steps that would make that ending feel inevitable. They compressed seasons of character development into episodes. They made choices that prioritized spectacle over sense. They lost the moral ambiguity that had defined the show’s identity.

Would a different showrunning team have done better? Probably. Would finishing the books have helped? Definitely. But Game of Thrones is what it is: a genuinely brilliant first four to five seasons that slowly lost its way before crashing and burning in its final stretch. It’s still worth watching, but know that you’re signing up for a journey that doesn’t quite stick the landing.

One of the best problems to have as a Game of Thrones fan is that there’s now more content to watch than ever before. For years, if you wanted to experience the universe, you had exactly eight seasons of Game of Thrones and that was it. You could rewatch it endlessly, debate plot points in forums, and argue with people on the internet about who should have won the Iron Throne. But now that House of the Dragon is here and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is on the way, alongside the possibility of more spinoffs down the line, a new question has emerged: in what order should you actually watch all this stuff?

The answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Unlike Star Wars, where there’s a clear chronological order but fans widely recommend release order, the Game of Thrones universe offers two genuinely compelling viewing approaches, and which one you choose depends entirely on what kind of experience you want. Let’s break down both options and explore what each approach brings to the table.

The Case for Release Order: How the Story Was Actually Told

Release order is simple: Game of Thrones first, House of the Dragon second, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms when it becomes available. This is the order in which the creators intended for audiences to experience the stories, and there’s something valuable about honoring that intent.

When you watch Game of Thrones first, you’re experiencing the universe the way millions of viewers did starting in 2011. You don’t know about the Targaryen civil war. You don’t fully understand why dragons are such a big deal or why the people of Westeros are so obsessed with events that happened before the current story. As information about the past reveals itself through dialogue, flashbacks, and character memories, it feels mysterious and epic. You gradually piece together that there was once a dynasty so powerful it united an entire continent, and dragons were weapons so devastating that kingdoms fell. That slow discovery is genuinely compelling.

Moreover, watching Game of Thrones first gives the original series the primacy it deserves. Game of Thrones was a phenomenon that changed television. It made fantasy mainstream, it proved that complex, expensive serialized storytelling could find massive audiences, and it created a cultural moment unlike anything before it. The characters — Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister — are iconic because you meet them first. You invest in them, you root for them, and you’re devastated when they face setbacks. They’re the heart of the universe in a way that the characters of House of the Dragon simply aren’t, at least not yet.

There’s also a narrative advantage to release order that shouldn’t be dismissed. The original series is fundamentally a story about inheritance and legacy. It’s about what happens when powerful people die and nobody can agree on who should replace them. When you’ve watched Game of Thrones and you go back to House of the Dragon, every scene takes on a new weight because you know how it’s going to end. You know that the Targaryen dynasty will collapse. You know that dragons will disappear from the world. You watch the civil war and the infighting and you think, “This is why they fall. This is the beginning of the end.” That dramatic irony is incredibly satisfying.

Release order also means you don’t get bogged down in backstory before you understand why anything matters. If you watched House of the Dragon first, you’d be learning about a massive cast of characters, complex house dynamics, and civil war politics before you really understood what the stakes were or why any of it mattered to the larger world. Game of Thrones establishes what the world is like after all the chaos, and from there, you can look backward and understand how things got that way.

The Case for Chronological Order: Building the House Before Watching It Burn

But there’s also a compelling argument for chronological order, which would mean starting with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (once it’s available), moving through House of the Dragon, and finishing with Game of Thrones. This approach has some real advantages that shouldn’t be dismissed.

Chronological order lets you build your understanding of Westeros from the ground up. You start with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a smaller, more personal story about a hedge knight and his journey through a world still rich with magic and dragons. The Targaryen dynasty is at its height. The world feels alive and full of wonder. Then you move into House of the Dragon, where you see how that stable dynasty tears itself apart through succession disputes and civil war. By the time you get to Game of Thrones, you understand not just what the current conflicts are, but why everyone still cares so much about the past.

There’s also an argument that chronological order helps you appreciate the scope of the universe in a way release order doesn’t. Instead of jumping into the middle of a massive, complex political situation, you’re starting at the beginning of the Targaryen dynasty and watching it evolve, change, and ultimately collapse over centuries. You see how power works in this universe. You watch houses rise and fall. You understand the weight of history not as an abstract concept but as something real and tangible. Every betrayal in Game of Thrones resonates differently when you know the full history of houses and ancient grudges.

Chronological order also removes one significant advantage that release order has: the shock factor. When you watch Game of Thrones first without knowing the history, certain plot points hit harder because you don’t see them coming. But if you’re the kind of fan who prefers deep, complex understanding of a universe to shocking twists, chronological order might serve you better. You’re building a comprehensive picture of how the world works, understanding the long game that various houses are playing, and appreciating the writers’ careful long-term planning.

Furthermore, chronological order allows you to appreciate the craftsmanship of the different shows. House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, freed from being origin stories for Game of Thrones characters, can stand on their own. You can appreciate them as complete narratives rather than as prequels. The events of House of the Dragon matter because of what they accomplish within that story, not just because of what they lead to. That’s a different kind of satisfaction, and for some viewers, it might be more rewarding.

A Hybrid Approach: The Best of Both Worlds

Here’s where it gets interesting: you don’t have to choose one or the other. A hybrid approach could be particularly effective. Some viewers might want to experience Game of Thrones in its full entirety first, appreciate it as a standalone phenomenon, and then go back to House of the Dragon knowing where the story leads. This honors the show’s cultural importance while still allowing you to experience the prequels as meaningful narratives in their own right.

Others might prefer to start with House of the Dragon for a few episodes, then jump to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and use those stories to build a foundation of understanding before diving into Game of Thrones. The order matters less than finding the approach that works for your brain and your viewing preferences.

You could even argue for an interleaved approach where you jump between shows as they align chronologically within the story. Watch the first season of House of the Dragon, then jump back to Game of Thrones for some context about how the world has changed since the civil war, then jump forward to see where the Targaryen story goes. For completists and universe-builders, this kind of jumping around can actually create a richer understanding of how everything connects.

What Gets Lost and Gained in Each Approach

The honest truth is that both approaches require trade-offs. Release order means you don’t get the full historical context for Game of Thrones, but you get the intended viewing experience and the shock value of discovering the world organically. Chronological order means some of the mystery of Game of Thrones gets lost — you already know things that the characters are struggling to figure out — but you gain a comprehensive understanding of how the pieces fit together.

Release order prioritizes character and emotional impact. Game of Thrones is fundamentally the story of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and the Lannisters. That’s what the show cares about. Everything else is context. Chronological order prioritizes world-building and mythology. House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are less concerned with specific characters as the vessels of story and more interested in how power moves through a world over centuries.

The Practical Reality

Here’s what’s probably going to happen for most viewers: you’ve already watched Game of Thrones. The original series aired from 2011 to 2019, and it was a massive cultural phenomenon. If you’re reading this article, you almost certainly watched it when it aired or shortly thereafter. So the question isn’t really “What should I watch first?” It’s “How should I rewatch or supplement my Game of Thrones experience with the new content?”

For that version of the question, release order wins by default. You watch House of the Dragon knowing full well what happens to the Targaryen dynasty. You experience the tragic irony of watching a family tear itself apart in a civil war, knowing that even if they’d unified, they’d still fall within a few centuries anyway. That’s genuinely powerful storytelling. Then you can go back and rewatch Game of Thrones with new appreciation for how the historical echoes shape every decision the characters make.

If you’re a completely new viewer to the universe in 2026 or beyond, you have the luxury of choosing. And honestly, either choice is defensible. Release order if you want the shock value and the original cultural experience. Chronological order if you want deep worldbuilding and comprehensive understanding. There’s no wrong answer here, just different paths through an incredibly rich universe.

Conclusion: The Luxury of Choice

What’s remarkable about the state of Game of Thrones as a multimedia franchise is that we get to have this conversation at all. For most of television history, you watched shows in the order they aired, and that was it. You didn’t get to strategize about how to experience a connected universe. You just watched what was in front of you.

Now we have the luxury of choice. We can pick the approach that aligns with our preferences as viewers, our schedules, and our appetite for different kinds of storytelling. Some of us will go chronological and build our understanding from the ground up. Some of us will stick with release order and appreciate the stories as they were meant to be revealed. And some of us will mix and match, jumping around and finding our own path through the world.

What matters is that there’s more Game of Thrones content than ever before, and whether you choose to experience it chronologically, in release order, or in some chaotic hybrid of your own design, you’re diving deeper into a universe that rewards that investment. The wheel keeps turning, and now we get to watch it spin from multiple angles at once. That’s genuinely exciting, and the order in which you spin it is entirely up to you.

Here’s one of the most frustrating things about Game of Thrones: the show introduced these absolutely magnificent creatures—direwolves, massive wolf-like beasts that were supposed to be spiritually connected to the Stark children and represent the family’s power and connection to the old ways of the North. They were in the opening scene of the entire series, they had a massive symbolic weight, and then… the show basically forgot about them for six seasons. The direwolves were one of Game of Thrones’ most significant running failures, a perfect example of how the show made grand promises about its mythology that it eventually couldn’t be bothered to keep.

The Promise That Started It All

The opening of Game of Thrones Season 1 introduces the direwolves when Bran and his brothers find the dead direwolf and her five pups beyond the Wall. This is not a random occurrence in the show’s own logic—these creatures are spiritually connected to House Stark. In the books, George R.R. Martin invests tremendous time in the bond between the Stark children and their direwolves. Each wolf has its own personality, its own arc, and serves as both a literal companion and a metaphorical extension of each Stark child’s journey.

The show’s opening visual of dead direwolf and her pups was supposed to establish this connection immediately. Winter was coming, the Starks were in for a hard time, and their wolves would be part of their journey through it. The direwolves became the symbol of the Stark house in a way that went beyond just heraldry—they were meant to be part of the family’s narrative identity. Yet almost immediately, the show started treating them as problems rather than story elements.

The first casualty was Sansa’s direwolf, Lady. The death happened in Season 1 and was supposed to be emotionally significant, showing how even getting your own mythical creature wasn’t enough to protect you in this world. Ned executing Lady was meant to be a moment of hard justice and broken faith, a sign that the world of Game of Thrones wasn’t kind to those who played by the rules. The show got that moment right, and it was devastating. But then everything after it was a downhill slide.

The Problem of Budget and Practical Effects

Let’s be honest about why the direwolves got sidelined: they were expensive to portray convincingly, and the show had limited resources. CGI direwolves were costly and time-consuming to create. As the show went on and budgets tightened (or rather, as the show’s priorities shifted), the direwolves became victims of production reality. They couldn’t be in every scene. They couldn’t be featured prominently in every episode. So instead of integrating them meaningfully into the narrative, the show just… pushed them to the background.

By Season 2, the direwolves had largely disappeared from the show. Jon Snow’s wolf, Ghost, would occasionally appear in the background or in brief scenes, but the connection that had been established in Season 1 was gone. Grey Wind, Robb Stark’s direwolf, was also sidelined despite being one of the most important elements of Robb’s storyline in the books. The show moved the Starks away from their wolves rather than figuring out how to make the wolves work within its narrative constraints.

This wasn’t an insurmountable problem. The show demonstrated that it could feature the direwolves effectively when it wanted to—Ghost had some genuinely good moments in later seasons, and Summer’s appearance in Season 6 was impactful. But what the show did instead was treat the direwolves as optional background elements rather than integral parts of the Stark children’s stories.

The Squandered Symbolic Potential

Here’s what makes the direwolves’ neglect so frustrating: they had enormous symbolic potential that the show never tapped into. In the books, each direwolf represents something about its corresponding Stark child. Lady’s death was supposed to represent Sansa’s connection to the harsh realities of the North being severed. Robb’s death in battle was supposed to be paralleled with Grey Wind’s death at the same moment (the Red Wedding, which brutally paralleled the direwolf’s murder). Bran’s connection to Summer was supposed to be tied to his greensight and his role as the heir to the North.

The show had all of this mythology built into the story, but it seemed increasingly unwilling to spend the time developing it. Ghost could have been a constant visual reminder of Jon Snow’s connection to the Starks and the North, a physical manifestation of his identity conflict. Instead, Ghost showed up occasionally and then disappeared. Arya’s direwolf, Nymeria, was killed early on, which was meant to be tragic, but because the show hadn’t invested enough in their relationship, it didn’t have the emotional resonance it was supposed to.

By moving the Stark children away from their direwolves, the show removed a visual and symbolic anchor that could have been used throughout the series to remind viewers of the Starks’ connection to each other, to their homeland, and to the magic and old power of the North. Without the direwolves, the Starks became just another family. With them, they were something more.

The Ghost of What Could Have Been

Ghost’s treatment in the show is particularly galling because it had potential until the very end. For most of the series, Ghost was Jon Snow’s faithful companion, a visual link to Jon’s Stark heritage and his place in the world. But as the show went on, Ghost appeared less and less frequently. In the final season, after Jon’s entire arc culminates in him joining the Free Folk and the Night’s Watch, Ghost gets a moment where he walks away from Jon without a goodbye. This scene is either heartbreaking or completely nonsensical depending on whether you think Ghost should have been more present throughout Jon’s journey.

The fact that this moment with Ghost in the final season generated so much fan discussion is actually a perfect example of the problem: fans had to debate whether the moment was meaningful because the direwolves had been so sidelined that we couldn’t be sure what the show’s actual intention was. If Ghost had been a constant presence throughout Jon’s arc, that final goodbye would have been earth-shattering. Instead, it felt like a moment the show was throwing in because it remembered Ghost existed.

What the Books Do Right

George R.R. Martin’s novels demonstrate repeatedly what the show left on the table. In the books, the direwolves are more present, more distinctive, and more integrated into their respective characters’ storylines. Each wolf has a name, a personality, and a connection to their human that’s constantly reinforced. Arya’s connection to Nymeria is particularly strong in the books and includes some genuinely mystical elements that the show never explored.

The books use the direwolves to explore themes of identity, legacy, and the connection between the people of the North and the magic of the land itself. The direwolves are not just cool creatures—they’re a fundamental part of what makes the Starks the Starks. By benching them, the show lost that entire thematic thread.

A Wasted Opportunity for Spectacle

Here’s another frustrating aspect: the show loved spectacle. It spent money on dragons, on elaborate battle scenes, on massive crowds and incredible cinematography. A direwolf doesn’t have to be present in every scene or even every episode, but it could have been featured more prominently in key moments. The show could have invested in showing the direwolves’ growth and character development. It could have used them as visual reminders of each Stark’s journey and development.

Instead, the direwolves became an afterthought, something the show acknowledged occasionally when fans complained about their absence. The show had proven it could do practical effects and CGI well—the dragons were excellent, the White Walkers were terrifying, the creatures beyond the Wall were convincing. A better prioritization of the show’s resources could have kept the direwolves as central to the Stark narrative as they were supposed to be.

The Legacy of Neglect

When you finish Game of Thrones and look back on it, the direwolves stand out as one of the show’s biggest missed opportunities. They represented a connection to the books’ mythology that the show seemed increasingly willing to abandon. They were supposed to be symbols of Stark power and heritage, but instead they became symbols of the show’s declining interest in exploring the deeper, more mythical elements of its world.

The direwolves deserved better. They deserved to be woven into their respective characters’ storylines. They deserved to grow and change as the Stark children grew and changed. They deserved to be present at crucial moments, not just background elements. And most importantly, they deserved to be treated as what they were supposed to be from the very beginning: an essential, integral part of what it means to be a Stark.

The fact that fans still talk about the direwolves, still wish the show had done more with them, still feel that absence keenly—that’s the real measure of this failure. The show introduced us to something magical and meaningful, and then gradually convinced us to care less about it. That’s not a small narrative misstep. That’s one of the show’s biggest running disappointments, a constant visual reminder of what Game of Thrones could have been if it had cared enough to follow through on its own mythology.

If you’ve been watching House of the Dragon and felt a little lost about the history behind all this conflict, you’re not alone. The show jumps into the middle of a civil war that has deep roots, multiple competing claims to the throne, and decades of bad decisions leading up to the breaking point. To understand why Rhaenyra and Alicent are at each other’s throats, why Aemond is so unhinged, and what the Dance of the Dragons actually is, we need to go back in time and understand the events that made this war inevitable.

What Exactly Is The Dance of the Dragons?

The Dance of the Dragons is the name historians give to the Targaryen civil war that tears apart the realm roughly a couple of centuries before the events of Game of Thrones. It’s essentially the story of what happens when a royal family with access to giant fire-breathing lizards decides to wage war against itself.

The name comes from a romanticized idea that the conflict is somehow elegant or beautiful—a “dance” between great dragons and noble houses. In reality, it’s absolutely brutal. Thousands of regular people die. The economy collapses. Villages get burned to nothing. Dragons incinerate armies. It’s medieval warfare amplified to apocalyptic levels because you’ve got literal weapons of mass destruction involved.

The civil war starts because of a fundamental problem: King Viserys I had a daughter first (Rhaenyra), then later had a son (Aegon II). By the laws of succession that most of the realm’s nobles prefer, the son should inherit the throne. But Viserys named his daughter as heir. When he dies, both sides claim the throne is rightfully theirs, and neither side is willing to back down. That’s the spark. Everything else is just fuel on the fire.

The Road to War: Decades of Bad Decisions

You can’t understand why the Dance of the Dragons happens without understanding the stupidity and stubbornness that came before it. This is where House of the Dragon’s Season 1 becomes important. King Viserys spent years trying to hold the realm together while these two factions basically grew more and more resentful of each other.

Rhaenyra was named heir because Viserys decided that she was the right choice. She’s his daughter, she’s intelligent, she’s capable, and he loved her. But a lot of the realm’s lords didn’t support this decision because, frankly, they didn’t think a woman should sit on the Iron Throne. In Westeros, there’s this weird thing where women can technically inherit and rule, but most people would prefer a male heir if one’s available. It’s not legally impossible for Rhaenyra to be queen. It’s just that a lot of people don’t want her to be.

So when Viserys remarried and had a son with his new queen (Alicent), those nobles who were uncomfortable with Rhaenyra as queen started circling. Alicent was actively encouraged by her father Otto Hightower to push Aegon’s claim. Alicent believed (or was convinced to believe) that Viserys actually wanted Aegon to be king. Whether that’s true is literally one of the key questions the show has been wrestling with.

The tension kept building over years. Rhaenyra and Alicent went from being friends to bitter enemies. Aemond grew up resentful and ambitious. Aegon grew up with a sense of entitlement but without real preparation for kingship. And Viserys, instead of making hard decisions, just kept trying to make everyone happy, which meant nobody was actually happy except possibly him, and even he had constant headaches (literally—he gets sick and dies).

By the time King Viserys died, both sides had been preparing for this conflict for years. They’d been building alliances, moving armies into position, and getting more and more convinced that the other side was going to betray them. It was like watching two people standoff, both increasingly sure the other is about to pull a knife, until somebody finally does.

The Succession Crisis

When Viserys dies, the realm faces a choice. Rhaenyra was clearly named as his heir. Many lords swore oaths to support her succession. But Alicent claims that on his deathbed, Viserys told her he wanted Aegon to be king. Was he talking about the succession, or was he just delirious and talking about their son in some abstract way? Nobody knows. The source is literally Alicent, who has a vested interest in claiming he said that.

This is the crucial moment. In any reasonable scenario, there would be negotiation. Rhaenyra has a claim and oaths sworn to her. Aegon has a claim through male preference and the support of the capital and the crown. You’d think they could work something out. Maybe Rhaenyra becomes queen and Aegon becomes heir? Maybe they make some kind of political marriage between their children? Maybe somebody negotiates a compromise?

But instead, the Greens (Team Aegon) decide to immediately crown Aegon as king without giving Rhaenyra or her family a chance to negotiate or contest the succession. They just do it. Coronation happens, and suddenly Rhaenyra is out in Dragonstone with her family, hearing that her throne has been stolen and the new king is her brother, a guy she already doesn’t trust.

The Blacks (Team Rhaenyra) decide this is a declaration of war. They’re not going to accept this. They’re going to fight for what they see as rightfully theirs. And once both sides commit to that, there’s no turning back. You can’t un-declare war against your sister.

The Players and Their Dragons

The Dance of the Dragons is, at its core, a story about dragons and the people who ride them. Let’s break down the major players and their dragons because understanding the military balance is crucial to understanding how the war plays out.

Team Black (Rhaenyra’s side) has numbers on their side. They have multiple dragons: Caraxes (ridden by Daemon), Syrax (ridden by Rhaenyra), Meleys (ridden by Rhaenys), and several younger dragons being ridden by Rhaenyra’s children and the assorted dragonseeds. They also have the Vale, the North, and several other major houses that support Rhaenyra’s claim.

Team Green (Aegon’s side) has the capital, the Reach, the Stormlands, and other important regions. More importantly, they have Vhagar, ridden by Aemond. Vhagar is the largest and oldest dragon alive. She’s massive, incredibly strong, and has centuries of experience. Vhagar is basically the dragon equivalent of an Apache helicopter facing off against a lot of smaller planes. She’s not faster or more nimble than the other dragons, but she’s big, strong, and experienced.

The game theory of the war is interesting. The Blacks have more dragons, which means more firepower overall. But the Greens have Vhagar and control of the capital, which means defensibility and political legitimacy. If the Blacks can win quickly by overwhelming the Greens with dragon superiority, they win. If they can’t, and the war turns into a grinding conflict, the Greens have the advantage of position and resources.

How The War Escalates

The Dance of the Dragons doesn’t start with one huge battle. It escalates gradually, with both sides trying different strategies and the situation getting increasingly desperate and brutal.

Early on, there are skirmishes and raids. Dragons are used for reconnaissance and small-scale strikes. Towns burn. Supply lines get disrupted. The economic damage starts accumulating immediately because, with multiple factions controlling different regions, trade becomes impossible.

Then there are the major battles. Both sides try to use dragons in coordinated assaults on key positions. Some of these battles involve multiple dragons fighting at once, which is visually spectacular but also incredibly destructive. When you have five dragons fighting in the same location, there’s basically nothing left.

The war also gets personal and vicious. Aemond, in particular, starts making reckless decisions based more on personal grudge than military strategy. He’s out for revenge and willing to do literally anything to achieve it. The conflict becomes less about military victory and more about mutual destruction.

One of the brutal aspects of the war is that it devastates the common people far more than it hurts the nobles. The Riverlands, sitting roughly in the middle of the conflict, get absolutely destroyed. Villages burn. Crops get destroyed. People starve. The great lords get to wage war with their dragons while the smallfolk deal with the consequences.

The Prophecy of the Ice and Fire

One element that’s really important to understanding the Dance of the Dragons is the idea of prophecy and destiny. In the wider Targaryen history, there’s this prophecy about a hero who will be born amidst salt and smoke, with a fiery sword and the blood of the dragon. The Targaryens have been obsessed with this prophecy for generations, and some scholars think the Dance of the Dragons is, at least partly, the result of this obsession.

Both Rhaenyra and the Greens think they’re the ones who the prophecy is talking about. They think they’re destined to rule. They think they’re the ones who will save the realm from some coming darkness. This gets mixed up with their very real, very legitimate claims to the throne, and it makes both sides even more intractable and impossible to negotiate with.

People will do absolutely insane things if they’re convinced they’re destined to do them. They’ll commit atrocities. They’ll kill innocents. They’ll destroy the realm itself. That’s part of what makes the Dance of the Dragons so tragic—it’s not just a war fought for power and succession. It’s also a war fought because both sides are convinced they’re playing out some kind of historical destiny, and that makes them even more dangerous and unstable.

The Legacy and The Consequences

The Dance of the Dragons basically destroys the Targaryen dynasty’s ability to rule effectively. By the time the war is over, there are far fewer dragons left alive. The family’s prestige is damaged. The realm is exhausted. And most importantly, the idea that the Targaryen monarchy is invincible is shattered.

From the perspective of the wider Game of Thrones timeline, the Dance of the Dragons sets up everything that comes later. It weakens the Targaryens so much that, when they face challenges in later centuries, they don’t have the strength to meet them. It creates trauma and divisions within the family that never fully heal. And it proves that dragons, as powerful as they are, aren’t enough to guarantee absolute power.

The civil war also proves that the common people will only tolerate so much chaos and destruction before they start looking for other options. By the end of the Dance, a lot of people are desperate for stability, which is part of why various noble families start consolidating power and pushing back against Targaryen rule. Nobody wanted another Dance of the Dragons, so everybody started thinking about how to make sure one never happened again.

The Human Cost

At the end of the day, the Dance of the Dragons is about the human cost of civil war and the destructiveness of political ambition. Thousands of soldiers die. The economy collapses. Families are destroyed. A bunch of noble titles and claims to power result in massive suffering for people who never asked to be part of this conflict.

That’s the tragedy at the heart of House of the Dragon as a series. It’s not just about dragons and thrones. It’s about watching smart, capable, interesting people destroy themselves and everyone around them because they can’t let go of pride, ambition, and resentment. Rhaenyra deserves better. Alicent deserves better. Aemond deserves better. And the millions of ordinary people in Westeros definitely deserve better.

The Dance of the Dragons is the story of how and why none of them got better. It’s history as tragedy, and it’s the foundation for everything that happens in both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.

In 2011, HBO made a gamble. The network, known for prestige dramas like The Sopranos and The Wire, was about to launch a fantasy television series based on George R.R. Martin’s unfinished book series. The books had a devoted fanbase, but fantasy television wasn’t exactly a sure bet for mainstream success. There were dragons, magic systems, dozens of characters, complex political intrigue, and a story that spanned a massive fictional continent. By every traditional metric, it should have been a niche product at best.

Instead, Game of Thrones became a phenomenon. It ran for eight seasons, accumulated massive audiences, spawned countless thinkpieces and think-pieces about its cultural impact, and proved that serialized fantasy storytelling could be just as compelling to general audiences as crime dramas or historical epics. It made HBO’s reputation in the modern era and generated unprecedented amounts of revenue and cultural capital.

So naturally, the next step was obvious: build more Game of Thrones content. That’s not just good business — it’s the way the entertainment industry has functioned for the last decade. When something is successful, you expand it, exploit the IP, and try to create a universe that keeps audiences engaged and spending money for years. But what’s interesting about how HBO has approached the Game of Thrones universe is that they’ve actually thought carefully about it. They’re not just spinning out random stories in the universe and hoping something sticks. There’s a deliberate strategy, and understanding that strategy helps you appreciate what the company is trying to accomplish.

The Empire Builds Itself

Let’s be clear about what Game of Thrones accomplished. It didn’t just become a popular show. It became the cultural event that defined a generation’s television consumption. Sunday nights during season eight had the cultural weight of a major sporting event. The finale had ninety million viewers worldwide. Merchandise flew off shelves. Cosplay communities exploded. The show dominated social media, think pieces, and water cooler conversations for years.

But success creates problems, especially in the entertainment industry. Game of Thrones ended in 2019, and while the final season was controversial, the franchise still had enormous goodwill and a massive, engaged fanbase. From HBO’s perspective, that’s incredibly valuable. You have millions of people who have invested years in this universe, who care deeply about the characters and the world, and who are hungry for more content. That’s the kind of opportunity that executives dream about.

The traditional strategy in this situation would be to start making spinoffs immediately. Attack from every angle. Make a show about this character, a show about that character, a limited series about this historical event. Flood the zone and hope that some of it lands. But HBO took a more measured approach, and that’s actually where the strategic thinking becomes interesting.

The House of the Dragon Calculation

The first move was House of the Dragon, which premiered in 2022, three years after Game of Thrones ended. This wasn’t a random choice. The Targaryen civil war — the Dance of the Dragons — had been mentioned constantly throughout Game of Thrones. Characters referenced it. People discussed it. There were prophecies and historical parallels. The audience wanted to know more about it, and it’s a story that George R.R. Martin had already outlined in detailed published novellas called Fire & Blood.

This was smart for several reasons. First, House of the Dragon wasn’t a spinoff of a specific Game of Thrones character or storyline. It was a story that existed in the same universe but was completely separate from the main narrative. That meant it could stand on its own. You didn’t need to be obsessed with Jon Snow or Daenerys Targaryen to care about what was happening in House of the Dragon. You just needed to care about dragons, power, and political intrigue, which were already proven hooks from the original series.

Second, it was a story with built-in dramatic structure. The Dance of the Dragons is a civil war, which means it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s a tragedy that audiences kind of already know is coming — they know the Targaryen dynasty falls and dragons eventually disappear from the world. That dramatic irony is powerful. You can watch characters make decisions knowing they’re leading to their own doom, and that creates a different kind of tension than the original series offered.

Third, House of the Dragon didn’t require the same level of character investment from audiences. Game of Thrones was successful because people became deeply attached to specific characters. They wanted to know what happened to Jon Snow, to Daenerys, to Tyrion. That kind of character loyalty is hard to manufacture. But House of the Dragon could be successful on the strength of the world, the dragons, the spectacle, and the historical narrative. The characters serve the story more than the story serves the characters.

From a business perspective, House of the Dragon also solved a key problem: it proved that the Game of Thrones universe could sustain more than one show. If House of the Dragon had failed, the entire franchise expansion strategy would have been in trouble. But it succeeded. It didn’t match Game of Thrones’ peak ratings, but it accumulated impressive numbers, critical acclaim, and a loyal fanbase. That success justified the entire expansion strategy.

The Spinoff Strategy: Filling the Universe

With House of the Dragon as proof of concept, HBO commissioned multiple other projects. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is in development, focusing on an earlier era and the story of Ser Duncan the Tall. There are other shows in development, including projects that haven’t been formally announced yet but are confirmed to be in the works. The strategy seems to be: there’s an entire world here with centuries of history. Let’s tell stories across that timeline and build a universe where audiences can keep coming back to Westeros over and over again.

This is actually a pretty bold strategy compared to how other franchises have handled similar situations. Star Wars just kept making movies about the Skywalker family and their associated characters. Marvel built its universe through interconnected character stories that all fed into larger team-up events. But HBO’s Game of Thrones strategy is more like how prestige television works — each show is its own story, with its own narrative arc, told in its own time period, but all of them exist in the same world.

The advantage of this approach is that it prevents audience fatigue. If every Game of Thrones show was about competing claims to the Iron Throne, if every story was “who will rule the kingdom,” people would get bored. But House of the Dragon is about dragons and civil war, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is about a hedge knight’s personal journey, and future shows might explore other aspects of the world entirely. They’re tonally different, stylistically different, but they’re all clearly part of the same universe.

The disadvantage is that it requires each show to be genuinely good on its own merits. You can’t coast on brand loyalty alone. Each spinoff or prequel has to earn its audience. House of the Dragon has done that, but it’s not guaranteed that every future show will. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has the advantage of being more character-focused and intimate than the epic scope of House of the Dragon, but it also might be a harder sell to audiences expecting dragons and political intrigue at that scale.

The Long Game: Quality vs. Quantity

What’s interesting about HBO’s approach is that they seem committed to quality control in a way that’s not always obvious in franchise expansion. They’re not churning out content at Marvel velocity. They’re not trying to release a new Game of Thrones show every few months. House of the Dragon had a two-year gap between its first and second seasons, which is standard for prestige television but feels slow compared to how the streaming industry typically operates.

This suggests that HBO understands something crucial: Game of Thrones succeeded because it was genuinely well-made television, not just because it was popular. The first four seasons were some of the best drama television has ever produced. Audiences came back because the storytelling was excellent, because the world felt lived-in and real, and because the characters mattered. If HBO just pumps out mediocre Game of Thrones content, the franchise loses what made it valuable in the first place.

The flipside of this quality-focused approach is that it’s riskier from a business perspective. You’re not guaranteed success. You’re investing significant resources in productions that might not find audiences. But the theory seems to be that one excellent Game of Thrones prequel will do more to maintain and build the franchise than five mediocre ones. It’s a bet on quality, and given what happened with the later seasons of Game of Thrones and the subsequent fandom backlash, that seems like a wise calculation.

The Future: Expansion Without Oversaturation

Looking forward, the question becomes how many Game of Thrones shows can the market sustain? You’ve got Game of Thrones available for rewatching, House of the Dragon with multiple seasons planned, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in development, and other projects in the works. At some point, you risk oversaturating the franchise and burning out audiences.

But HBO seems to be thinking about this carefully. They’re spreading these shows out across years, developing them separately, and trying to ensure that each one has its own identity. They’re also working with the source material that George R.R. Martin has provided. Fire & Blood has enough historical content to support multiple seasons of House of the Dragon and potentially other shows. The novellas that form the basis for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are fairly short and intimate, which suggests a show that operates on a smaller scale than the epics we’ve seen.

There’s also the possibility of new story content entirely, stories not based on Martin’s published work but set in the same universe and building on the world he created. This gets riskier, because without Martin’s source material to anchor them, these shows have to prove themselves on the strength of the writing and worldbuilding alone. But it also offers more creative freedom for showrunners and writers to tell new stories.

The Competitive Landscape

It’s worth noting that HBO’s expansion strategy isn’t happening in a vacuum. Other networks and streaming services are watching closely. If the Game of Thrones universe continues to succeed, if House of the Dragon keeps finding audiences, if A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms lands well, then other entertainment companies will look at their own IP and think about how to build similar universes.

We’re already seeing this with Rings of Power (based on Tolkien), various Marvel projects, and the overall shift toward cinematic universes and interconnected storytelling. But Game of Thrones is different because it’s all one world with one coherent history. The challenge for other franchises is that they don’t have that same foundation. Tolkien’s world spans ages and has immense history, but it’s less unified. Marvel has to work hard to create coherence between disparate characters and storylines.

Game of Thrones has the advantage of being explicitly designed as one continuous world with one continuous history. That’s either a huge advantage or a huge constraint depending on how you look at it. It means there’s less room for completely new stories that don’t fit the established timeline, but it also means that every story added to the universe reinforces and enriches the whole.

Conclusion: The Strategy in Context

What HBO has done with the Game of Thrones universe is actually more thoughtful than the typical franchise expansion. They didn’t just make a bunch of spinoffs and hope something stuck. They made careful choices about where to start, what stories to tell, and how to build a universe that’s interesting to revisit without becoming exhausting.

House of the Dragon has proven that audiences care about the wider world of Westeros, not just the main storyline. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is in development with a different tone and scale, suggesting that the company understands you can’t just retell the same story over and over. And future projects are being developed thoughtfully rather than being rushed to market.

The business strategy is sound: build on proven success, create multiple entry points for audiences, maintain quality standards, and expand the universe in ways that feel organic to the world George R.R. Martin created. It’s not a strategy without risks — any of these shows could fail, and oversaturation is always a danger — but it’s more strategic and measured than it might initially appear. HBO is trying to build something that lasts, not just capitalize on a moment of success. And if they pull it off, the Game of Thrones universe could remain a major cultural touchstone for years to come.

One of the brilliant aspects of House of the Dragon is that it refuses to let you have an easy answer to the central conflict. Both sides have legitimate gripes. Both sides have legitimate claims to the throne. Both sides are convinced they’re right and the other side is evil. And here’s the thing: they’re both kind of correct, which is exactly what makes the civil war so devastating.

Let’s break down the arguments for each side, not as propaganda or cheerleading, but as actual legal, moral, and political arguments. Because if we’re going to understand why the Dance of the Dragons happens, we need to understand why both sides believe their claim is just.

Team Black’s Argument: Rhaenyra’s Claim

Rhaenyra’s supporters argue that she has the strongest possible claim to the throne, and they have some genuinely solid points.

First, there’s the matter of direct designation by the king. When King Viserys I was still alive and had the opportunity to reshape the succession, he actively chose to name Rhaenyra as his heir. He did this after becoming king. He did this with full knowledge of the realm’s laws and customs. He even made the major lords swear oaths to support her succession. This is a big deal. A king has the power to designate his successor, and Viserys used that power explicitly in Rhaenyra’s favor.

The argument goes like this: if a king, with his full authority, decides that his daughter should rule after him, then his decision should be binding. He’s not violating some sacred law by choosing his daughter over his son. He’s exercising the power that he has as king. Nobody can tell a king who his heir should be. That’s literally part of what it means to be king. So when Viserys named Rhaenyra, the matter was settled.

Second, there’s the matter of oaths. Rhaenyra didn’t just get named heir. The major lords of the realm literally swore oaths to support her succession. They made vows before gods and men to back her claim when the time came. These weren’t casual promises. These were formal, binding oaths. When those lords later switched their support to Aegon, they violated their vows. From Team Black’s perspective, this is a massive betrayal of sacred duty.

Third, there’s the question of legitimacy and precedent. Westeros does have a history of queens regnant. It’s rare, but it’s happened. There’s no law saying a woman can’t be queen. It’s not forbidden by the gods or by the customs of the realm. It’s just that most lords prefer male rulers, which is more about sexism than about law. From Team Black’s view, preferring a male heir just because he’s male is not a valid legal argument. It’s prejudice.

And let’s be honest: Rhaenyra is capable. She’s intelligent, she’s thoughtful (for most of the conflict anyway), and she has genuine support among the lords. She’s not some incompetent person who was forced on the realm. She actually seems like she might be a decent queen if the realm wasn’t tearing itself apart around her.

Team Green’s Argument: Aegon’s Claim

Now let’s look at Team Green’s argument, because they’ve also got points, and a lot of the realm actually found their argument pretty persuasive at the time.

The first argument is what you might call the “natural succession” argument. Westeros has a strong tradition of male succession. When you look at how the realm has historically worked, it’s almost always the oldest son who inherits. It’s not a written law, exactly, but it’s the consistent practice. Team Green argues that Viserys’s choice to name his daughter as heir was unusual and goes against the realm’s traditions. When Viserys later had a son, that son represented the natural heir according to how Westeros actually operates.

Related to this is the argument about what Viserys “really” wanted. Team Green claims (through Alicent) that on his deathbed, Viserys said he wanted Aegon to be king. Now, we don’t actually know if he said that or if Alicent is lying, but from their perspective, they believe they’re honoring the true wish of the king, even if it contradicts his earlier named choice. The argument is basically that a dying man’s last words should matter more than a formal declaration made years earlier.

There’s also an argument about what’s best for the realm. Team Green’s supporters argue that having a male king is better for stability, better for the realm’s military posture, and better for governance. It’s a sexist argument, but it’s the argument they make. They believe that a woman ruling will create instability and that the lords of the realm won’t respect female authority. This is partly about prejudice, but it’s also partly about genuine concerns about how the realm’s military and political structures function.

Aegon himself, despite being sort of useless at actually being king, is a Targaryen of royal blood with a claim through his father. Even if his claim is inferior to Rhaenyra’s under the system Viserys set up, it’s not completely illegitimate. He’s not some random person claiming the throne. He’s the king’s son.

And here’s the thing that a lot of people miss: the lords of the realm actually chose Team Green. When faced with the succession crisis, the lords in King’s Landing voted for Aegon. Were they influenced by Otto Hightower? Absolutely. Were they biased against female rulers? Absolutely. But they made a choice, and there is something to be said for saying that the realm’s lords have a voice in who their king is. They didn’t just accept Aegon passively. They actively voted for him.

The Legal Murkiness: Why There’s No Clear Answer

Here’s the thing that makes this conflict so good as drama but so terrible for the realm: there is no clear, unambiguous legal answer to the succession question. Westeros doesn’t have a constitution. It doesn’t have a clear written law of succession. What it has is tradition, precedent, and the power of kings.

King Viserys exercised his power to name Rhaenyra. That’s within his authority as king. But king’s decisions can be… flexible. They’re not binding on their successors (technically, though they usually are respected). And the tradition of the realm is male succession. So you’ve got a situation where Rhaenyra has a strong legal argument based on formal designation, while Aegon has a strong traditional argument based on customs and practices.

In a realm with clear laws and constitutional governance, this would probably be resolved in Rhaenyra’s favor. She was formally designated by the king, and oaths were sworn. But Westeros doesn’t have that level of legal clarity. Its governance is basically “the king decides, and if everyone accepts it, then it’s legitimate.”

The Moral Dimension

Beyond the legal arguments, there’s also a moral dimension to each side’s claim.

For Team Black, the moral argument is about honoring commitments and respecting the decisions made by people in positions of authority. If King Viserys gets to designate his heir, then his word should mean something. When the lords swear oaths, those oaths should mean something. A moral society doesn’t allow people to just break oaths whenever it becomes inconvenient for them.

For Team Green, the moral argument is about what’s actually best for the realm. They genuinely believe that a male king is better for Westeros, that it will bring stability, that it’s what the people actually want. Now, they’re wrong about some of that, but they believe it. And there’s also something to be said for the idea that the realm’s nobles get some say in who they’re going to follow. If the collective will of the lords is against Rhaenyra, does forcing her on them anyway actually create legitimacy?

The Political Reality

Here’s where things get really messy: politics trump legal arguments almost every time. From a purely political standpoint, Team Green had several advantages that made their claim practically stronger than Rhaenyra’s legal argument.

They controlled King’s Landing. They controlled the capital, the center of power in the realm. That’s huge. Whoever can hold the capital can project power and authority. If you can make it seem like you’re the legitimate authority, you’re halfway to actually being the legitimate authority.

They had the support of the major lords in and around King’s Landing. The Lannisters supported them. The Baratheons supported them. The Reach supported them. When the civil war started, Team Green had more actual military support than you might expect for someone with a “weaker” legal claim. That’s because the lords of the realm actually did agree with their interpretation of what should happen.

They had religious support. The Faith of the Seven, which has enormous power and influence in Westeros, sanctioned Aegon’s coronation. That lent legitimacy to his rule.

In contrast, Rhaenyra had the law on her side, but she was physically far away in Dragonstone. By the time she found out about Aegon’s coronation, it was already happened and the capital had already declared against her. She had to actually fight to make good on her legal claim, which is not a recipe for success.

Who’s Actually Right?

So, which side actually has the better claim? The honest answer is “it depends on which legal system and moral framework you’re applying.”

If you believe in the absolute power of kings to designate their successors, and you believe that formal designations and sworn oaths should be binding, then Rhaenyra has the better claim. She was formally named, the lords swore oaths, and those commitments should be honored.

If you believe in traditional succession laws, in the practical governance preferences of the realm’s nobility, and in the idea that the realm’s lords have a voice in their succession, then Aegon arguably has the better claim. The realm’s traditions favor male succession, and the major lords did choose Aegon.

If you think the “better” claim is the one that’s more practically achievable, then at the moment of succession, Team Green’s claim is better because they control the capital and have military support. Might doesn’t make right, but it does make the difference between a claim being theoretical versus actually functional.

The Tragedy of It All

The real tragedy of the Dance of the Dragons is that both sides have legitimate claims, which means neither side can be written off as just wrong, and neither side can back down without feeling like they’re surrendering something real and important.

Rhaenyra can’t just accept Aegon’s coronation because that would mean accepting that the king’s word doesn’t matter, that sworn oaths don’t matter, that the formal laws of succession don’t matter. From her perspective, she’s fighting for the principle that the realm should be governed by law rather than by might.

Aegon and Team Green can’t just accept Rhaenyra’s legal priority because that would mean accepting that the realm’s traditions and the preferences of the major lords don’t matter. They’re fighting for the principle that the realm’s governance should reflect the values and choices of the nobility.

Both sides are fighting for legitimate principles. Both sides believe they’re fighting for the good of the realm. Both sides think the other side is doing terrible, unjust things. And that’s precisely what makes the Dance of the Dragons so catastrophic—it’s a conflict between two legitimate claims, where there’s no obvious solution and no way for both sides to declare victory.

That’s the genius of House of the Dragon as a show. It refuses to let you pick a side based on who’s obviously “right” and who’s obviously “wrong.” Both sides are right. Both sides are wrong. And both sides are willing to burn the realm to the ground rather than compromise, which is why the Dance of the Dragons becomes one of the most destructive civil wars in Westerosi history.