WARNING: SPOILER ON THE FIRST EPISODE OF HOUSE OF THE DRAGON !
In the first episode of House of the Dragon , a prophecy revealed by King Viserys I Targaryen.
( Paddy Considine ) to his daughter and newly appointed heir to the throne Rhaenyra ( Milly Alcock ) seems to hide devastating potential for the canon of Game of Thrones and places the mother series in a whole new light.
Apparently, what Viserys reveals to her daughter is nothing new and, indeed, it just seems like a way to reconnect with the original series and make viewers smile. The king, in naming Rhaenyra her heir to her, confides that she will also have to bear the burden that this entails, which is to know things about the future of Westeros that no one else knows. In particular, he reveals the dream of Aegon Targaryen , the conquering king known for bringing the Seven Kingdoms together under one crown, an event that precedes House of the Dragon by a hundred years . The dream – not featured in the novels – mentions things Game of Thrones fans know inside out:
Aegon foresaw the end of the world of men. It will begin with a terrible winter, which will blow from the distant North. Aegon saw total darkness riding those winds, and whatever lurks in them will destroy the world of the living. When this great winter comes, Rhaenyra, all of Westeros will have to face it. And if the world of men is to survive, a Targaryen will have to sit on the Iron Throne. A King or Queen, strong enough to unite kingdoms against the cold and darkness. Aegon called his dream “The Song of Ice and Fire”.
What changes?
Now, we know a lot of this and have seen it happen. What the prophecy reveals – also by the will of George RR Martin , co-creator of the literary saga – is that the conquest of Aegon most likely had a much more noble purpose than simple power. Having seen the future, Aegon simply wanted to make sure that Westeros would be united and strong in the face of this apocalyptic threat.
But the fact that this truth has been passed down in Targaryen for nearly three centuries only underscores the importance of the house’s prophecy and mission, and the gravity of the threat. Threat that, however, in Game of Thrones is eradicated in very few episodes in season 8, where the final battle with the armies of the dead took place in just one episode. To defeat them all, simultaneously, was not even a Targaryen, but Arya Stark, stabbing the Night King.
A hasty conclusion
Beyond where to the discrepancies, though, because after all, prophecies never completely come true and are very smoky in nature, it is the hastiness with which the greatest threat to Westeros’ status quo, handed down for hundreds of years, has been dismissed. sovereign in sovereign, to leave stone after such a revelation.
There is nothing really incongruent, on the contrary: House of the Dragon is still a prequel to Game of Thrones and does not aim to scan the events of the original series. Yet, in an attempt to pay homage to her, he instead put her in a bad light. Did Martin do it voluntarily? After all, he recently said he was cut off from the last few seasons of the show, and maybe this was his way of getting revenge.