It’s House Targaryens vs House Hightower in the second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon.
HBO dropped the first teaser for the much-anticipated second season of its Game of Thrones prequel spinoff series House of the Dragon during CCXP23 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The eight episodes will cover the onset of civil war within House Targaryen, known as the Dance of Dragons.
(Spoilers for the first season below.)
As I’ve written previously, HBO’s House of the Dragon debuted last year with a solid, promising pilot episode, and the remainder of the season lived up to that initial promise. The series is set about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen’s reign. The primary source material is Fire and Blood, a fictional history of the Targaryen kings written by George R.R. Martin.
As book readers know, those events culminated in a civil war and the extinction of the dragons—at least until Daenerys Targaryen came along. It’s King Viserys I Targaryen’s (Paddy Considine) fateful decision to name his fierce dragon-rider daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) as his heir—passing over his brother and heir presumptive Daemon (Matt Smith)—that sets events in motion. As Rhaenys Velaryon (Eve Best)—aka the “Queen Who Never Was,” because she was passed over when Viserys was crowned—knows all too well, “Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne.”
The first season spanned many years and made some pretty significant time jumps, which in turn required replacing the younger actors as their characters aged. Most notably, Emma D’Arcy now plays the older version of Rhaenyra. The S1 finale brought Westeros to the brink of civil war. Viserys died, and his second wife, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), conspired with her father Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) to crown her eldest son Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) as king instead of Viserys’ declared heir apparent, Rhaenyra. (Let’s just say their approach was very typical: support Aegon or be executed.)
This kicked off a lot of political maneuvering as both sides tried to shore up support for their chosen heir in preparation for the inevitable fight. Even though she was technically the rightful heir, Rhaenyra actually seemed to be considering House Hightower’s conditions for concession—until the arrogant Prince Aemon (Ewan Mitchell), Alicent’s younger son, went after Rhaenyra’s young son, Lucerys (Elliot Grihault). Both dragonriders failed to control their dragons, and Aemon’s dragon Vhagar ate Lucerys and his dragon Arrax in mid-air. The season closed with Daemon and Rhaenyra receiving the devastating news, effectively dashing any hope of a peaceful resolution.
