“I am glad I am not a woman,” says one male character, later in the series.
In this world, royal women are breeding machines and bargaining chips. Rhaenyra is a strong, ambitious and courageous teenage girl, and would be an ideal heir, were it not for the fact that the Lords have already made it clear, in very recent history, that tradition demands a king, and not a queen, on the Iron Throne. It opens with the Lear-esque prospect of a failing king choosing his heir, and though the people shift slightly over the course of the series, succession is the thread that keeps it all together.Įpisodes one to five centre on young Princess Rhaenyra (played by Milly Alcock), the only child of King Viserys I (Paddy Considine). A prequel to Game of Thrones, it begins 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, and it chronicles the fall of the Targaryen dynasty, though after watching the first six episodes of squabbling and scheming, the real question is how it can possibly take two centuries to collapse. George RR Martin’s world struts its way back on to our screens with utter confidence and brio. There is a drunken orgy, an axe to the face, a caesarean without anaesthetic, seeping wounds, severed limbs and severed organs, too. Family members make promises they cannot keep as they connive and betray each other, in secret and in plain sight. It is a greatest hits playlist of Westeros at its meatiest. For an hour, it rattles through everything that made its predecessor, Game of Thrones, such a titan of the small screen, especially when it was in its prime. T he opening episode of House of the Dragon (Sky Atlantic) is simply spectacular.
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