i watched the first season of the dragon show (spoilers abound)

House of the Dragon feels distinct from the disgraced legacy of the original series. I didn’t expect this show to succeed, and truly, when the first stills of episode 7 were put forth, I didn’t expect anyone else to think it would succeed either. I sneered, rolled my eyes, made my peace with how HBO and every other streaming service were grabbing bags of money and burning them in a pyre to recreate the high fantasy entertainment delusion.

Then the first episode came out in late August to above-average positive sentiment, and I largely ignored it. The episodes premiered every Sunday, and out of a stubborn, perverse curiosity, I’d roam the Sunday night commentary on Twitter. Just to see how poorly a follow-up adaptation could fare. I was vaguely familiar with characters who didn’t make sense to me, and had some recognition of the actors garnering acclaim for their performances. The moments the internet was reacting to and fixated on didn’t make sense in a vacuum. I’d see clips of it appear on my timeline, interests of my interests completing the closed loop. Here I am, having lived alongside the last stretch of the first season in another cultural moment of ours. I forgot how enthralling it is to follow watercooler television every weekend.

I think I’m mad about how much I enjoyed this. As if it had no right to be as compelling as it was. They did time jumps and recast two leading actors and shrunk the political subterfuge down to a single family, yet they still pulled it off. The joke is on me, I get it; they really did it.

parallel structures: hotd is obsessed with parallels, will write in juxtaposition wherever it can

  • battlefields [ep 01]: when aemma says “the childbed is our battlefield” in the pilot and we juxtapose men inflicting violence upon women’s bodies to further patriarchal entitlements against men inflicting violence upon other men for performative sport
  • battlefields, redux [ep 06] that one-take shot of postpartum rhaenyra in the castle, and the parallel to our introduction to an older rhaenyra giving birth to a healthy third son, both as a duty spurned by a younger rhaenyra and parallel to her mother’s long labors. the remaining battlefield is political, right in the red keep.
  • pleasure [ep 04]: the daemon and rhaenyra in the brothel mashed up with alicent and king viserys is something else. consent, female gaze, desire. it’s impossible to not have thoughts about episode four, but the provocation is in part, due to the blessing of its female directorship. that’s indubitably my favorite part about it.
  • valyrian steel necklace [ep 01 - 04]: its repetition in the first half of the series. give / take.
  • twin childbirth pilots [ep 01 / 06]: in the sixth episode (named the second pilot), leana’s death by dragon and going out as a dragonrider. it’s the second childbirth death in the twin pilots but this one is granted the courage of agency
  • dead harts [ep 03]: viserys struggling to maim a bound brown hart, his weakness exposed as his compatriots hold down his claim. rhaenyra graced by a white hart, yet choosing to let its divinity roam free.
  • narcissus, mirrors [ep 07]: daemon and rhaenyra reunite at the episode seven funeral, like falling in love with your own reflection. it’s awfully good.
  • loneliness [ep 06]: they’re all so lonely when we visit them again after the decade-long time jump. that isolation and otherness comes in many forms across two generations.
  • second son syndrome [ep 08]: this daemon / aemond generational parallel is out of hand, and the book spoilers know it.
  • dragonstone bridge [ep 02 / 10]: the stunning visual callback of rhaenyra and syrax descending upon the bridge at dragonstone. first, as the newly decreed heir asserting her power in daemon v. otto + rhaenyra. last, as the one true queen reclaiming her power in daemon + rhaenyra v. otto.

trailing moments: certain scenes are more memorable than others

  • [ep 01] my actual favorite scene of this show is the necklace scene in the throne room in the pilot. it so immediately establishes the dynamic between to key characters, and continues to cascade throughout the season
  • [ep 03] my other favorite scene of the season is rhaenyra stabbing the jugular out of this hog
  • [ep 03] at no point did we miss single-shot battle sequences, but the daemon suicide mission feels like a character becoming, cloaked in plot armor
  • [ep 04] short hair daemon targaryen
  • [ep 05] are you asking for leave? when i say i laughed out loud
  • [ep 07] this sad shot of daemon on the beach, listening to the far cries of vhagar; a dragon he knows almost as intimately as his own. a dragon that belonged to his late wife of ten years, and before that, his father. this dragon is as much a part of him and his family, as it is claimed by his mirror image on the greens
  • [ep 07] valyrian wedding ceremonies don’t shy away from the blood part of fire and blood
  • [ep 08] chiaroscuro: the shot of rhaenyra at visery’s bedside was caravaggio in westeros
  • [ep 08] the dinner scene is an incredible scene. someone remarked on viserys’ full face on the side of the blacks, his rotten gold mask on the side of the greens
  • [ep 09] ramin djawadi scored this as if this were the “the long night” episode of season 08. the simmering anxiety and urgency in a time bound.

closing thoughts: the storm broke and the dragons danced

  • the rhaenyra and daemon thing is emma and mr. knightley and i will not comment on it any further
  • desperately need this show to continue to be written by women, where the women are allowed to be morally grey and the men are allowed to be awful, but the awfulness of men should not come at the expense of the women
    • [ep 10] turns out this wasn’t true after all. turns out women can suffer at any time if they surround themselves with violent men
    • please allow these women to hunger for blood. war is not a game between daemon v. otto. kingdoms are not a boys-only playground.
  • the physical acting is so good, especially the nervous tics that carry through the years. the wigs, though. the silvered blonde, perhaps light gold, wigs are something else.
  • i don’t love, but also don’t hate, how they’ve tied in the song of ice and fire as a plot point in this series as a callback to the main thing. it’s a little clunky, especially since it’s used to drive character conflict and spur the plot forward in the season finale
    • the “accident” is also annoying because they were going for the profound dramatic irony that dragons were the very thing that did them in, in spite of their claim to superiority on the backs of their dragons, but that didn’t fully land.
  • awards season: milly alcock was magnetic and radiant as a young rhaenyra, but emma d’arcy fully realized an older rhaenyra. they were a revelation. olivia cooke will likely win the emmy that lena heady deserved, time and time again, for cersei. everybody’s heard and talked about matt smith at this point; he definitely gets it.
  • this first season, designed as two halves to set up a story, works really well as a standalone season of television. as if operating under the assumption they would not be the acclaimed cash cow it is now poised to be.
  • the two year haitus for a second season will be a different waiting game; what ever, will happen to the hype?