The effect of this is immediately recognizable during the first scene of House of the Dragon, which takes place many years before the rest of the series. In a prologue set during the reign of the previous Targaryen king, Old Jaehaerys I, all the highborn lords and ladies of Westeros gather in the ruins of Harrenhaal to settle a fateful question of succession: will they select Jaehaerys’ oldest living heir Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best), who was the daughter of his first son, or Viserys, a grandson born by a younger prince who also passed away before the Old King.
Given the synopsis of the show, and the real-life way many men still react to the prospect of women becoming leaders, it’s not hard to guess how the lords of Westeros vote. Yet the sight of them in their reds and blacks, greens and blues, and even shades of violet, suggest a splendor never seen among the grays and browns often utilized by Game of Thrones.
“I think we kept talking about opulence and decadence when we were worldbuilding,” Spachonik explains. “If you imagine the Targaryens, for a long time they became a nomadic race [after the Doom of Old Valyria]. They had to move around, and nomadic races tend to not have a lot of stuff. And then they find their spot with King’s Landing, and they plot and they start making things. So it’s like idle hands.”
The co-showrunner and director even muses that sights already glimpsed, such as the above of Matt Smith’s Prince Daemon Targaryen in a dragon helm during a tournament, are intended to suggest the frivolousness of a dynasty that is going on 70 years without a challenge when House of the Dragon begins.
Says Sapochnik, “We often talked about this idea that at the jousting tournament, they’d be wearing such crazy armor that literally didn’t work because it didn’t protect them, because it really wasn’t about that anymore.”
Yet it is more than just the look of House of the Dragon, and its now monstrously bigger Iron Throne, that is different. As we note to the showrunners, the first episode of the new series feels far more intimate and insular with the focus of three main families all living in the same castle: the Targaryens; the Hightowers, from whom hails one of the richest men in Westeros, Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), the Hand of the King; and the Velaryons, whose patriarch Ser Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) happens to be the other richest man in the realm. It’s also worth pointing out Corlys is married to Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen Who Never Was. It all feels a little incestuous, no?
