House of the Dragon is Still Worse Than GoT: Here's What It's Lacking
Game of Thrones had everything modern viewers want in a hit TV show; drama, intrigue, action, suspense – and sex and violence, obviously. And it's fair to say that House of the Dragon is yet to truly deliver on any of these.
And yet, none of the above is the fundamental facet missing in House of the Dragon. Because, more than anything, what Game of Thrones had was characters we couldn't help but get invested in.
Because the truth is, you can get viewers interested in a story about pretty much anything provided you can make them care about the characters.
Now, there is a sense of inevitability about the lack of characterization so far in House of the Dragon. Spanning such a lengthy period of time makes it difficult for the writers to match the quality of dialogue we became used to in Game of Thrones. Many conversations in GoT were multi-layered and nuanced. Characters were allowed to develop. Indeed, it's difficult to think of a main character in Game of Thrones who didn't have a clear character arc that grabbed us and took us along with them on their journey.
Compare this with HotD, and we find that everything is perfunctory. Yes, much of it helps to reveal the plot and move the story along. But too often, that's all it does. Game of Thrones was littered with scenes that dragged the story forward while also revealing more about characters, relationships, and dynamics. But it seems the need to cram in so much information about the backstory to later battles for the iron throne has overtaken the real, relatable aspects of GoT that made it the global success that it was and made HotD the inferior of the two.
There are times when years have gone by, and some characters seem to be unchanged from when we last saw them! This is simply not the case with any human – let alone those that are caught up in the types of going on we see in Westeros.
And is it fair to say some of the scenes in HotD could be gotten rid of without detracting from the show or the story? Yes. Daemon, for example, does a lot of…well nothing. Surely he'd have been a more rounded character if he had done 'something' on a few occasions that had resulted in some sort of consequences.
Game of Thrones was packed with conflicts in and out of court. House of the Dragon sees the highborn talk of nothing but succession and threats to the throne – and heirs to it. There is a definite switch from the depiction of sexual violence that was prevalent in GoT, to the (at times) overbearing focus on women as little more than 'heir factories' for kings.
That in itself is no bad thing. It provides an opportunity to explore and dissect this aspect of human history. But it should have been something that was part of these characters and influenced their words and actions. It could have (and should have) given the writers a license to tell the story of how this pressure affected the lives of women.
By allowing the passage of time to mask these emotions, House of the Dragon, it could be argued, actually blocks one of its own central messages from getting through.
So, with season 2 of House of the Dragon now confirmed, let's hope the writers stick to the political wrangling and skulduggery we've seen so far, but that they slow down a bit, get rid of some (correction: all) of the fluff, and give us characters we can believe in and care about. After all, we know they can do it.