George R. R. Martin’s Westeros has been on my mind for the past few weeks. When House of the Dragon launched, I watched it in the living room of our townhome, with my wife, Aubrey peeking her head in every once in a while. Her interest in House of the Dragon led us to watch the entirety of Game of Thrones, which she had never seen before.

It seemed rather fitting that we watched the GoT Season 8 finale, ‘The Iron Throne,’ two days before the HotD Season 1 finale (Aubrey hasn’t watched HotD yet). I have many thoughts after my rewatch of GoT, but I will address them later.

Anyway, on to House of the Dragon. Fair warning, there are spoilers coming up, for the television show, Fire and Blood, A Song of Ice and Fire, and other George R. R. Martin works.

An additional addendum. I am by no means an expert in A Song of Ice and Fire lore. I have read through the majority of Martin’s Westeros-related books once and have yet to revisit them (though I plan to, they are very fun), so I do apologize if I get anything atrociously wrong. I am trying my best.

Let me start with my initial thoughts. I found House of the Dragon to be very good, but maybe not up to the echelon that was the first season of Game of Thrones. Overall, I would give it an 8 out of 10. Really, really solid show, one of the best of the year.

I have a handful of gripes, none of which are substantial. Of course, there was the episode when Aemond first rode Vhagar which was incredibly dark (the battle of Winterfell problem), that was more frustrating than anticipated. But my biggest issue was with the time skips.

Looking at this from the source material, I understand the reasoning behind having it. It allowed them to cover a lot of ground that otherwise would be impossible. Unfortunately, they just cast too well. Young Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) and young Alicent (Emily Carey).

Let me start with Milly. What a performance! I’ll be honest, in the first episode, I was not entirely sold, but as the episodes went on I was so invested in her plight and desire for duty. Her relationship with her father, King Viserys (thank you Paddy Considine) was absolutely wonderful, and played a wonderful foil to Otto Hightower and Alicent. Just incredible.

As for Emily Carey, she continued the trend of amazing performances. I previously had only seen her in Wonder Woman (she played young Diana) and it was really fun to watch her in a meatier role. Alicent’s frustration turned anger with her friend (let’s talk about that war dress) was so convincing as well as her unknowing (?) manipulation of the dying Viserys.

My favorite thing about the first handful of episodes was the foil work between Rhaenyra and Alicent. Their relationships with their fathers: from Viserys’ loving and trusting hand to the manipulative and cunning Hand of the King, Otto Hightower. To their relationship with sex; an incredible scene, by the way. Rhaenyra’s tryst with Criston Cole, interspersed with Alicent and King Viserys. To their relationship with duty.

And that’s what made the transition to the new actors so difficult. I loved the individuals performing the characters so much, I didn’t want them gone and it made the next to episodes rather difficult to enjoy fully.

Now, there is a lot more to talk about, from Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen to Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy, but I want to talk about the finale briefly before I go on.

Overall, I thought episode ten was very good. Couple of highlights: Lucerys and Aemond losing control of their dragons. That was probably my favorite thing from the episode; it so perfectly (along with Daemon’s earlier speech) explained that this civil war ould not be won by men, it would be won by dragons. And dragons that were given to the hands of children with no ability to weild them.

Emma D’Arcy was a powerhouse (how many birth scenes has she been a part of this season?); her turn at seeing the page from Alicent, staying her hand against Otto was masterfully done and I’m very excited to see more of her (even though I miss Milly).

I thought it was really cool for the penultimate episode to be entirety be wha’s happening with the Greens and the next one being the Blacks, but I really wanted some sort of resolution, instead of them leaving us on a cliffhanger for two years. I think one more episode would have done them very well.

We could have seen Aemond’s reaction to the death of Lucerys, furthermore, we could see the rest of the reaction from the Greens and some sort of emissary that gets sent to Rhaenyra from Alicent, that the Queen (Team Black all the way) rebutts.

Overall, good finale, didn’t reach the highs I wanted, but still very enjoyable.

Seriously, I can’t get over how good the last ten minutes are. Storm’s End looks incredible, the dragon flight through the storm that would do 80’s fantasy proud. Really great time.

So where do we go from here?

I’ll be honest. I don’t want eight seasons of the Dance of the Dragons. It’s a lot. And I don’t think HBO or Martin wants that. He recently gave an interview where he revealed their plans for House of the Dragon:

“It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish.”

– George R. R. Martin

But here’s the conundrum. I also don’t want House of the Dragon to be done in four seasons, either. So, what’s the solution?

A multi-season anthology series.

Alright, hear me out. In the first four seasons we have Dance of the Dragons, then what? We hop a couple of years, similar to season one of HotD, and follow Rhaenyra’s son (now a bit older), Aegon III, and the absolute madness that was going on with all of the regents while he was a boy. These seasons (two to four) would feel a lot more like the initial seasons of Game of Thrones, leaning very heavily into the political machinations of Westeros and the aftermath of a heavy civil war.

“Seven regents were six too many. Pity our poor king.”

– Mushroom, Fire and Blood, George R. R. Martin

From there, I’m initially split. Do we jump forward chronologically and go to the next person to sit on the Iron Throne? I’m of the opinion that we should jump a little further. Up to our boy, the master Maester, Aemon Targaryen. This time focus on the young boy, barely in line to be king, and his struggle to find purpose, before he volunteers to go to the Wall.

After one season of that, jump forward like 50-60ish years, then we hit the real OG, the Mad King and his son Rhaegar, along with Roberts Rebellion, ending the show with Jaime Lannister plunging his sword through the Mad King’s back, ending the Targaryen line, for a time, in Westeros.

I think that approaching the show as an anthology series about different generations of Targaryens would be really fun, open up for a lot of spin-off series (you know HBO is looking at that), and would be great for the audience.

Also, I really want to see Robert’s Rebellion on screen.

Please.

Give it to me.