Was House of the Dragon Too Slow or Disorientingly Fast After All?
The HBO TV show has left us split yet again.
House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal told The Times in London that "producers deliberately slowed down the narrative for the first season, to ensure viewers were invested in the new characters." Fair enough. So, those House of the Dragon fans who accused the showrunners of deliberately making the pace slow had the point. They have a point, though: HotD's problematic family literally spent 3 episodes in a row without going outside of their castle. Could we please have some action!
"This is slow, they took 8 episodes to cover 1 chapter of a book, the first 8 episodes were basically a prologue I was expecting to be summed up in one episode or mainly through exposition when it was first announced…" – u/BoxOfNothing
In a nutshell, the 10-episode prologue, which spans over the period of some two decades, tells the story of a fight between Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra. They both want to get hold of the Iron Throne after King Viserys is dead. One would hope the action will start right after the king's death and the showrunners say we need to be patient. Ryan Condal has explained that "we will get to the spectacle, but you have to understand these people's complexities before they're thrown into war."
"Game of Thrones was way way way way better at getting you to care about things quickly. A character would show up and you'd love them in 5 minutes and they'd be dead an episode later and you thought the world ended. I haven't cared about a single thing that's happened. Feels like a season of setting up a chess board, when they should have just showed a chess match." – u/Pulsewavemodulator
According to the showrunners, Season 2 will deliver more humor, blood, slaughter, sex and violence, which are so dear to every Game of Thrones fan! So hopefully S2 will be what we have all been waiting for.
Still, not all fans on Reddit agree the show is boring, on the contrary some find the pace is too fast.
"Personally, I thought this season would have worked better with a couple more episodes to set up the Dance. Having new actors for characters every 3 episodes made everything feel really rushed." – u/reddiperson1
And the key question is when we should expect the release of Season 2. Well, the production has already started but filming isn't expected to end until summer 2023. So, hopefully it will premiere some time in 2024.