The One Thing Matt Smith Hopes to See Changed in HotD – and It's Not Deaths
While Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are perhaps best known for featuring of a lot of brutal deaths, there is another thing that the both shows are infamous for having in abundance.
Care to guess what staple of the series Matt Smith hopes to see less of? Of course it is sex scenes. Stewart Lee once famously dubbed Game of Thrones "Peter Stringfellow's Lord of the Rings".
"You do find yourself asking, 'Do we need another sex scene?'" Smith said in an interview with Rolling Stone. "And they're like, 'Yeah, we do.' I guess you have to ask yourself: 'What are you doing? Are you representing the books, or are you diluting the books to represent the time?' And I actually think it's your job to represent the books truthfully and honestly, as they were written."
Of course, Smith himself featured in the very good portion of House of the Dragon Season 1's sex scenes.
"Yeah – slightly too much, if you ask me," he answered with a laugh, after getting asked about that.
But judging by what he said above, the number of sex scenes in the following seasons is not likely to be diminished, and it seems the showrunners are not inclined to follow his opinion.
Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon (as well as George Martin 's books on which both shows are based) are often criticized for overabundance of sex content, including quite a bit of rape and incest.
In case of Game of Thrones, the showrunners actually reduced the number of sex scenes, compared to the books, House of the Dragon is another matter, because its book source is written as a chronicle, so technically there is no sex scenes as such – but it relays quite a bit of sleazy rumors about sexual activities of some of its characters.
Previously Emilia Clarke has spoken about her discomfort at some of the nude scenes featuring her character in Game of Thrones.
But again, at this point removing gratuitous sex from House of the Dragon would mean changing much of the show's identity.
You might as well ask to tone down violence and gore. However important Emilia Clarke or Matt Smith might be that is very unlikely to happen.