House of the Dragon Falls Victim to Game of Thrones' Spoilers
House of the Dragon is a prequel to Game of Thrones, set more than a century before.
Its entire cast is long dead by the time anyone from Game of Thrones is born. Thus theoretically its events should not be spoiled for those who watched the latter. But in practice this has been proven untrue.
Why?
Well, because the world of Westeros is well-developed for a fantasy world, so many of the events of House of the Dragon are settled, widely known history by the time of Game of Thrones. So, there's a chance the characters might end up talking about that history… and they do, on several occasions.
For example, Stannis Baratheon's daughter Shireen was unusually well-read, particularly for her age. In one key scene from Season 5, she tells Stannis about a history book she's reading, one all about the Dance of the Dragons.
"It's the story of the fight between Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half-brother Aegon for control of the Seven Kingdoms," she says.
Shireen goes on to tell about how the war divided and devastated the kingdoms, how brother fought brother and dragon fought dragon, and thousands died. She says the Targaryen dynasty never truly recovers. But while she confirmed that House of the Dragon's story was about a civil war, an attentive viewer could guess that things would go that way from the prologue narration of Episode 1. And at least Shireen did not drop any specific spoilers.
But Joffrey, a bastard in every sense of the word that he was, did not give us such grace – he absolutely spoiled much of the civil war's outcome, thanks to being surprisingly knowledgeable about history, or at least about its gory and morbid parts.
In Season 3, as Joffrey takes his fiancée Margeary Tyrell for a tour of the Great Sept of Baelor, he tells her that Rhaenyra's brother fed her to his dragon while her son watched. In case you're not afraid of more spoilers and wonder which son is going to watch his mother die, it's young Aegon, Rhaenyra's first son with Daemon Targaryen.
And so, thanks to Joffrey, House of the Dragon's showrunners and writers will have to work extra on making Rhaenyra's fate even a little bit unexpected, while maintaining overall integrity of the story.