Game of Thrones may be over, but this won't be the last fans see of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms. Even though HBO has shelved its untitled prequel series set during the mythical Age of Heroes, it's moving forward with a different prequel. House of the Dragon, a series based on George R.R. Martin's novel Fire & Blood, has been given a straight-to-series order with a 10-episode first season, and the series is set to debut in 2022.
But what is House of the Dragon, and how does it tie into the events of Game of Thrones? Read on for everything you need to know about the time period and what characters and events we're likely to see form the backbone of the new series. Here are the topics we cover here:
- House of the Dragon on HBO: The Time Period
- What Is Fire & Blood?
- House of the Dragon: The Cast and Characters
- The Doom of Valyria Explained
House of the Dragon on HBO: The Time Period
House of the Dragon is expected to be set roughly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. That's a pretty significant jump back in time, though not nearly as huge as what we would have gotten from the now-canceled Age of Heroes prequel. That series was set some 5,000 years in the past and likely would have explored the first war between humanity and the White Walkers.
Instead, House of the Dragon is set in the era of another formative event in Westerosi history – Aegon's Conquest. That was the destructive war where Aegon Targaryen (later dubbed "Aegon the Conquerer") waged war on the Seven Kingdoms and ushered in the reign of House Targaryen. That conflict is so significant that recorded history in Westeros is divided into BC (Before the Conquest) and AC (After the Conquest).
However, we may not actually see Aegon's Conquest in the series. The Targaryens ruled the Seven Kingdoms for nearly three centuries before finally being overthrown during Robert's Rebellion in 282 AC. House of the Dragon is specifically set in between the birth and death of House Targaryen.
The series will focus on the beginning of the end of the Targaryens' reign and the bloody civil war known as "The Dance of the Dragons." There, Aegon II battled his sister Rhaenyra for the right to rule and both would-be monarchs wound up dying in the ensuing civil war. That conflict is especially poignant because it marks the beginning of the disappearance of dragons from the known world, a sign of the larger doom to come for House Targaryen.
Basically, expect a firsthand view of what it's like living in the Seven Kingdoms while a Targaryen sits on the Iron Throne. As Ser Barristan Selmy put it in A Game of Thrones, "King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land."
What Is Fire & Blood?
A Song of Ice & Fire creator George R.R. Martin has spent years fleshing out the historical background of Westeros in various side-stories and guide books. The most significant of these is an illustrated companion book called The World of Ice & Fire. Originally, Martin had planned to include a detailed summary of House Targaryen's tumultuous history. But after that summary grew in the telling and evolved into a lengthy manuscript, Martin opted to publish it as a separate pair of novels.
The first of those, Fire & Blood, was published in November 2018. The book gets its name from the slogan of House Targaryen. It chronicles the Targaryen family history over the course of seven generations of rulers, from Aegon I through his descendant Aegon III. Presumably, the second, untitled book will continue chronicling the fall of House Targaryen culminating in the doomed reign of the Mad King Aerys II. However, Martin has said that book is still several years away from publication (a phrase that should be all too familiar to Game of Thrones fans by this point).
We're not anticipating House of the Dragon to be a straightforward adaptation of Fire & Blood, hence the name change. The book is often criticized for taking a more dry, historical approach to chronicling key events in Westerosi history, inviting comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien's posthumous Lord of the Rings prequel The Silmarillion. House of the Dragon will likely use Fire & Blood as a backbone to tell a more narrative-driven story in the era before Game of Thrones.
House of the Dragon: The Cast and Characters
While the series remains shrouded in mystery leading up to its 2022 debut, we know House of the Dragon draws from Fire & Blood and is produced by Martin, Vince Gerardis, Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik. Martin and Condal are also serving as co-showrunners, while Sapochnik (who directed acclaimed Game of Thrones episodes like "Battle of the Bastards") is directing the pilot.
Unsurprisingly, the show's cast is heavy on members of the Targaryen family. The series stars Paddy Considine as the benevolent King Viserys I Targaryen, Emma D'Arcy as his firstborn daughter (and doomed would-be monarch), Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Viserys' brother Prince Daemon Targaryen. But much like Game of Thrones, expect the series to showcase a massive ensemble cast of characters from all walks of life. House of the Dragon also stars Olivia Cooke as Rhaenyra's political rival Alicent Hightower, Rhys Ifans as Viserys' Hand of the King and Alicent's father, Otto Hightower, Steve Toussaint as wealthy adventurer Lord Corlys Velaryon, Fabien Frankel as the penniless but extremely gifted swordsman Ser Criston Cole and Graham McTavish as Kingsguard member Ser Harrold Westerling.
Notably, that cast lineup doesn't yet include Aegon II. However, we expect he'll be added to the series at some point as the show delves deeper into the fall of House Targaryen.
You can check out IGN's full breakdown of the House of the Dragon cast for more on these characters and their relationships with one another.
The Doom of Valyria Explained
One intriguing possibility is that House of the Dragon might give viewers more insight into the mysterious city of Valyria. This ancestral home of House Targaryen was once among the greatest powers in Essos (the continent to the west of Westeros). The Targaryens were among numerous wealthy, dragon-riding families living in this technologically advanced wonderland. However, the Targaryens fled the city a century before Aegon's Conquest, avoiding the mysterious cataclysm that left Valyria an empty ruin.
In Game of Thrones, the only other surviving relics of Valyria besides Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons are the handful of Valyrian steel weapons owned by powerful lords. We learn the technology to forge those weapons was lost with the city itself. While House of the Dragon will take place well after the destruction of Valyria, it's always possible we'll see flashbacks to the city's golden age and learn more about the events that led to its demise. It would certainly be one way to set House of the Dragon apart from Game of Thrones.
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