Photo courtesy of Daniel Lewis via Flickr. "House of the Dragon," which explores the Targaryen family history almost 200 years before the events of "Game of Thrones," premiered on Aug. 21.
By Jesse Hausknecht-Brown ’25
Managing Editor of Layout & Features Editor
Content warning: This article discusses incest and mentions sexual violence.
Sky-high dragon fights, familial power struggles and political schemes mark Westeros’ return to the screen. The first episode of “House of the Dragon,” a prequel series to “Game of Thrones” set roughly 200 years before the events of the original series, premiered on Sunday, Aug. 21. The following nine episodes were released every Sunday on HBO Max.
The prequel series takes a different storytelling approach to the original, as it narrows in on the dynamics of the House Targaryen. One of the most enjoyable aspects of “Game of Thrones” was its sprawling, complex nature, as the show’s format almost directly mimics that of the George R. R. Martin books it was based on. The books’ chapters alternate by character point of view, with roughly 8-16 characters perspectives depending on the book. “Game of Thrones” follows a similar pattern; episodes jump back and forth between different landscapes, characters and stories. The viewer travels across the harsh icelands beyond the wall with Jon Snow (Kit Harington), follows Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) through the Red Waste desert and sits in the small council room with Tyrion and Cersei Lannister (Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey), Petyr Baelish (Aidan Gillen) and Varys (Conleth Hill). These characters’ stories are loosely interconnected but largely separate for most of the series — the show builds to the point where they all meet.
“House of the Dragon” is entirely structurally different — all of the characters know each other and interact often — which is not the case in the original series. The prequel largely takes place in only two locations: King’s Landing and Dragonstone. Thematically, it is a classic royal family melodrama. When watching the first few episodes, I saw it as a medieval, Westerosi version of “The Crown.” Matt Smith’s presence as a sleazy husband in both “House of the Dragon” and “The Crown,” playing Daemon Targaryen and Prince Philip, respectively, probably had a lot to do with this. Beyond Smith’s performance, “House of the Dragon” fits the genre as it deals with succession politics and multiple generations of gender-based competition between heirs.
Before watching “House of the Dragon,” my biggest question was about how the show would frame sex and sexuality. “Game of Thrones” is known for it’s gratuitous sex and violence, often with the two going hand-in-hand. Female and occasionally male sex workers were present in many, if not most, episodes, especially in earlier seasons, and were usually positioned as objects to be fetishized.
“Game of Thrones” premiered in 2011, before the #MeToo movement gained significant public attention in 2017. The way we talk and think about sexual violence today is vastly different than it was a decade ago. TV shows, especially ones with reboots, have had to adapt to the times in order to maintain their good standing in current social consciousness. With this in mind, I predicted that “House of the Dragon” was going to have to do something different in the way sex was portrayed, but I wasn’t sure how they would go about it.
This is where the weird feminism of “House of the Dragon” comes in. The show’s promotional material seemed to imply that it would open up a conversation about sexism within the Westerosi political world. And it did, to an extent. Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock and Emma D’Arcy) is chosen as heir to the Iron Throne over her uncle, as she is her father’s only child at the beginning of the series. Later, after the birth of her half-brothers, Rhaenyra remains heir, much to the chagrin of the House Hightower and others at court. Set before the events of the prequel but shown at the beginning of the first episode, Rhaenyra’s aunt Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) gets passed over for heir in favor of her cousin, Rhaenyra’s father Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine). Themes of power and sexism are present in these plotlines but lacked depth and were heavy-handed in some places.
What was most compelling to me was how young Rhaenyra’s personal aversion to the prospect of marriage and childbirth contrasted with the knowledge that that is how she must serve the realm. The conversations between female characters about how they were only valued for their wombs presented a more nuanced side of the issue than seen in “Game of Thrones.”
The presentation of sexuality is where things get more complicated. It felt as though the writers decided to create a feminist, sex-positive fourth episode and then forgot what they were doing halfway through, slipping back into framing predatory power dynamics in a positive light.
The fourth episode of “House of the Dragon” follows teenaged Rhaenyra through a sexual awakening of sorts, incited by her uncle Daemon taking her to a brothel and initiating sexual advances, which she reciprocates. After a moment of impotence on his part, he leaves and Rhaenyra returns to her room, where she seduces and sleeps with her bodyguard, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel).
Co-showrunner, producer and director Miguel Sapochnik, who has since left the show, stated in an “Inside the Episode” segment on episode four that “there was a lot of conversation about Rhaenyra not being innocent, and at the same time she is not the perpetrator of this. The idea that this is actually abuse felt really important to explore, but we put aside that Daemon is her uncle because that is the Targaryen custom.” In the show itself, however, “the idea that this is actually abuse” is not explored whatsoever. In fact, the show seems almost entirely unaware of how Daemon’s behavior is predatory and abusive. Viewers would never know that the creators were even thinking about Daemon and Rhaenyra’s relationship as abusive without having watched this interview.
Sapochnik states in the same interview that “[Daemon] awakens something in her which is her perception of sex as a pleasure. She comes home and [Ser] Criston Cole seems to be the nearest person available.” What’s interesting here is that “House of the Dragon” seems to be trying really hard to justify incest in a way that “Game of Thrones” never did. Siblings Cersei and Jamie Lannister were not the couple that you were rooting for, and they were not the ones whose romance or sexual chemistry you were intended to be invested in. Yes, “Game of Thrones” has become known as “that show with the incest,” but the characters in the incestuous relationship were not the good guys. However, “House of the Dragon,” as Sapochnik explicitly states, ignores the fact that Daemon and Rhaenyra are related and tries to convince the viewers that Rhaenyra discovers her sexuality by way of an almost sexual experience with her uncle.
In the same interview, Sapochnik said the reasoning for Daemon’s impotence is that he knows what he is doing is wrong. Interesting, given that it doesn’t seem to be a problem for him later on in the show when he marries Rhaenyra and she births their children.
One thing that episode four does well if we, as Sapochnik says “put aside,” the incest of it all, is the reframing of sex in a more positive and less misogynistic light. Women’s bodies are not treated as objects and Rhaenyra has some agency over her sexuality. In the same “Inside the Episode” interview segment, Clare Kilner, who directed episode four, said that “directing scenes like that can be really difficult. … Being a female director, I’ve grown up watching how male directors have directed sex scenes and, as a woman, I have to really think about how to shoot it because my go-to images are ones I grew up with which aren’t necessarily from a woman’s point of view. … It was really important for it to be a scene where people are equally enjoying themselves and freeing themselves from the constraints of the world that they’ve been living in.”
What’s interesting is that critique of the fourth episode is mostly missing from other reviews of the show. The New York Times’ recap of the fourth episode touches briefly on these issues of representation but doesn’t dig deep into the hypocrisy of the plot.
The morning after Rhaenyra’s night out with Daemon, she receives a cup of tea, essentially a Westerosi “Plan B,” from the maester, the castle’s healer and scholar. This shows how, ultimately, her body and womb are completely controlled by the realm and the men in her family. However, I enjoyed this touch of reality that could easily have been overlooked. While it was alluded to in the original series, this was the first time contraception really got screen time in the “Game of Thrones” world.
Ultimately, “House of the Dragon” was a very enjoyable watch. It still lends itself to fun escapism into a fantasy world. The show’s narrower focus on the Targaryen family isn’t as compelling as the scope of the original show and the family melodrama plotlines feel unoriginal at times. The show delivers moments that harken back to “Game of Thrones,” such as a wedding with a bloody twist and Targaryen women disrupting the peace on dragonback. Gratuitous sex is replaced by gratuitous childbirth and the violence remains ever present.
The show had to change with the times and seemingly attempted to take on a feminist perspective. By “Game of Thrones” standards, it worked, but it didn’t present any new or subversive feminist ideas that haven’t been shown before on television.