I Never Thought House of the Dragon Could Do Anything Better Than Game of Thrones, But Here It Is

Coming as Game of Thrones prequel that dwells on the Targaryens’ story 200 years before the original show picks it up, House of the Dragon still keeps itself aloof, as if those two aren’t related at all, yet every so often a minor reference passes by and just makes fans of the entire franchise a bit happier than they were before.

I might be Game of Thrones’ devoted fan, yet I’ll possibly never reach that level of familiarity with every single plot twist and story ever told in the original show, and one of them was just caught in action by the prequel’s most sophisticated lovers.

Ironically, House of the Dragon still sticks to its tradition of altering everything that can be altered, and this time it actually worked out for the better.

The second season’s episode 2 catches twin brothers Arryk and Erik Cargyll’s sorrowful ending when they fight against each other and eventually both die, two other useless deaths caused by King Aegon II’s new Hand of the King, Criston Cole.

The scene came as yet another gruesome moment in House of the Dragon’s brand new installment, though not everyone in George R.R. Martin’s universe was so sure about it.

Years before House of the Dragon, the story about the Cargyll twins had once resurfaced in Sansa Stark’s words, but back then everything in the legend looked pretty much different from the way the prequel chose to show it.

In George R.R Martin’s book series A Song of Ice and Fire, upon which Game of Thrones is based, Sansa recounts the story of the twin brothers’ fight, though her own imagination goes beyond the real events, and she eventually delivers a romanticized version of the Cargylls’ gruesome death.

Though House of the Dragon is once again bending the rules by staying away from its original source, this time the showrunners’ creative decision actually makes sense.

Following the second episode’s premiere last Sunday, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal explained such a different take on the famous story by saying that this scene was also supposed to come as yet another confirmation of Sansa’s naive and innocent nature.

According to Condal, “Sansa has this very Sansa-like romantic vision of what that fight was like and how they dueled for hours as though it was the duel from The Princess Bride . But the real thing would be much more brutal and gritty. We wanted to try to find the central line through it.”

The showrunner also added that the doubly tragic finale for the brothers’ fight was introduced in such a way to prove that political feuds can have poisonous repercussions for entire families, leaving no other choice for the twin brothers who were “trying to hold to their oath but find themselves in literal mortal combat against each other in order to uphold it.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter