***Warning: Spoilers for Game of Thrones***
Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon is still weeks away from its premiere, but the show’s creator has already shut down one fan theory… sort of. It’s complicated. Let’s investigate.
House of the Dragon takes place over a century before the events of Game of Thrones and follows the events of The Dance of Dragons – a devastating civil war between Targaryen claimants to the Iron Throne.
A teaser trailer for the show dropped back in October last year. During the teaser, new character Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) was spotted wielding a dagger presumed to be the Valyrian steel one Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) used to slay the Night King.
But in a recently published interview with Entertainment Weekly, House of the Dragon creator Ryan Condal has both cooled and fuelled that particular theory with a complicated explanation.
‘[It’s] 200 years before the original show. So there’s gonna be a ton of shared imagery’, he said. ‘It’s a line to walk in terms of things that you bring back from the original show and pass in a different way’.
He continued: ‘[Valyrian steel] is a technology that doesn’t exist anymore. Their blades are not made anew. Valyrian steel [has] a fixed number of assets in the world.’
‘Even [though the] Targaryens are in power, they are not able to make Valyrian steel. So they’re going to take care of it’.
Condal’s quotes suggest that Alicent’s dagger is the same as the one gifted by Brandon Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) to his sister Arya. However, reporters from Entertainment Weekly have suggested that it only bears visual a likeness.
Speaking on social media, a reporter from the magazine who visited the set of the show has told fans that members of the show’s creative team confirmed that the dagger is in fact not the one featured in the parent series.
It is difficult to imagine how many hands a Valyrian steel dagger once owned by the Targaryens must have passed through to reach the assassin, but the debate will surely roll on regardless.
Condal’s quotes have emerged on the same day that series creator and A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin confirmed that he will be attending this year’s San Diego Comic Con – where fans believe a full trailer will be released.
‘Yes, it’s true’, the author said in a statement. ‘I will be heading to [Comic Con] at the end of the month, for the first time in… ah… a bunch of years.’
House of The Dragon airs on HBO Max and Sky Atlantic from August 21.
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