Is House of the Dragon a Successful Adaptation

House of the Dragon (HOTD) is the long-waited spin-off/prequel to the successful fantasy drama Game of Thrones (GOT). Fans of GOT were sceptical about this new show due to the controversial last season of the hit drama.

However, HOTD managed to pleasantly surprise everyone with critics and fans alike giving it stellar reviews. The point of this article is not to discuss the merit of the show though, but whether it’s a good adaption of the source material, so we’ll look at the book that inspired it and talk about some hits and misses in the TV adaption.

Adapting Faux History

Game of Thrones is an adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF), which is a series of five novels (with two more on the way) that is told through point-of-view chapters in third person limited perspective. House of the Dragon, on the other hand, is an adaptation of a fictional history book rather than a conventional novel.

HOTD is based on Fire and Blood, which is a historical account of the reign of Targaryen kings and queens written in third person perspective by a known narrator. The book was written by a master who collected accounts of the events from numerous sources and thus there are two potential issues for the TV adaptation.

First, we don’t get to explore the inner world of the characters as we do with the POV chapters in ASOIAF. Additionally, the sources presented in the book often contradict each other and express biases (unlike the narration in ASOIAF), so the accounts are unreliable at best.

While this allows for more creative freedom, it also makes it more difficult to adapt characters whose motivations and feelings are not explicitly represented in the narrative, which reads like a biased history book with a narrator born long after the events in the story.

Hits and Misses in HOTD

Although the unreliable narration of Fire and Blood allowed the showrunners of HOTD to pick a perspective to follow or create a new one based on the known events, this doesn’t absolve them of criticism, so this section will discuss the misses, but also hits in the adaptation.

Hits

Here are all our favourite things about the adaption of Fire and Blood in HOTD, many of which can be considered changes to the original source:

• King Viserys – Viserys was a minor character in the book, his (arguably) only qualities being gluttony and indecisiveness, which doesn’t make for a compelling character. HOTD plays on his indecisiveness, but gives the character depth by exploring his relationships with those closest to him, as well as his strengths such as peace-making and loyalty. George RR Martin even said he preferred show-Viserys to his own version.
• Laenor’s fate – Laenor was killed by his lover Qarl in the book, but HOTD turns that event on its head by having Laenor fake his death to live freely with his lover abroad. While some fans felt the change was too “happy end-y”, others enjoyed the subversion of the “bury your gays” trope. In our opinion, the change also portrayed the healthy platonic relationship Laenor shared with Rhaenyra, which is present in the books.
• Rhaenyra – most historical accounts in the book present Rhaenyra as a blood-thirsty villain, because her descendants tried to forget about her due to the civil war, while the maesters had biases against her because she was a woman; a sort of “history is written by the victor”. HOTD portrays the Targaryen princess in a more positive light.
• Rhaenyra’s and Alicent’s relationship – in the books, Rhaenrya is 9 when the 18-year-old Alicent marries her father and they have a strained stepmother-stepdaughter relationship. In the show, however, they’re childhood friends, which makes the downfall of their relationship more tragic.
• Lucerys’ death – the show made an interesting decision with Lucerys’ death – it’s accidental, rather than intentional. The book implies that Aemond did it on purpose, but there are no first-hand accounts of the event, so it’s possible that he didn’t. By making it an accident, the show portrays the unintended consequences of war and the loss of innocent life.
• Valyria – the show is doing a good job in portraying Valyrian culture (even giving us a Valyrian wedding) and showing how it differs from Westerosi culture.
• Expanding footnotes – the section of the book discussing the events before the civil war is quite short, but HOTD managed to extend it to 10 full episodes by exploring minor events such as the Battle of the Stepstones, and by adding new events such as the hunt in the Western lands.
• Dragons – HOTD goes much deeper into the relationship between dragons and their riders.

Misses

Here are our least favourite things about the way HOTD adapted Fire and Blood:

• Rhaenyra – Rhaenyra is both a hit and miss in the show. On one hand, it’s good that the show explores the unfairness of her situation and gives her more positive qualities, on the other, this could distort the original source too much. It often feels like the showrunners want us to explicitly support her and see only through her POV, which creates a very black-and-white perspective to the conflict. Hopefully, the next few seasons will represent her in a more nuanced manner and show us her dark side, which is definitely there.
• Viserys’ last words – Alicent misunderstands Viserys’ last words, which prompts her to crown their son. In the books, Alicent has much more agency and lust for power and she doesn’t crown Aegon due to a simple misunderstanding, which doesn’t even exist in the books.
• Daeron – Daeron is Alicent’s and Viserys’ youngest child, but he hasn’t even been mentioned in the show. He plays an important part in the story, so hopefully the showrunners will include him in the next season.
• Rhaenyra’s and Daemon’s relationship – the show represents this creepy relationship in a much more positive light than the books do. They’re shown as two star-crossed lovers rather than an older man grooming his niece. In addition, while Rhaenyra is deeply in love with Daemon in the books, it’s implied that Daemon is lusting for her throne, not her.