'House of the Dragon' Trailer: 'Game of Thrones' Spinoff's First Look Is Here
The first trailer for the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon is here, much sooner than many fans dared to hope. The show is still filming in the U.K. and Europe, yet this early glimpse looks incredibly polished. Hopes are now higher than ever for when the show premieres in the spring of 2022.
The trailer features an ominous voice-over from Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) while giving close-up looks at some of the other characters and the sights both familiar and unfamiliar to Game of Thrones fans. Notably, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) wears the same Hand of the King broach as characters wore in the main series, showing some continuity there, but the Iron Throne appears to have been changed to be more jagged and less symmetrical. The teaser has a few action shots as well, including a jousting match and a clash of swords between two people inside the Red Keep.
House of the Dragon is a prequel set about 180 years before the events of Game of Thrones when House Targaryen still ruled Westeros and still had many full-grown dragons at its disposal. The trailer gives us a glimpse of them, but author George R.R. Martin recently confirmed that there will be at least 17 dragons to see in Season 1 of the series. He spoke about it at length in an episode of The Stuff Dreams are Made Of podcast with showrunner Ryan J. Condal and co-host David Mendel.
The show will not concern White Walkers or even an existential threat to humanity, but that does not mean the stakes will be low. The series is about a civil war between two factions of House Targaryen, both of whom have dragons on their side. This means that the country will be engulfed in war once again, and this time the dragons will be pitted against each other.
The storyline of House of the Dragon is not new, although it has never been told in this form before. It is based on Martin's recent book Fire & Blood, which is written as a Westerosi history book, not a novel. It covers about 130 years of Westeros' history in a pseudo-academic fashion, including the period this show will cover known as "The Dance of the Dragons."
This means that in the book, this story is told from a distant, unreliable perspective with no internal monologues or even much dialogue at all. The show will have a finished story to work with — unlike Game of Thrones — but it will still have plenty of room to explore for itself without upsetting the source material.
Fire & Blood is available now wherever books are sold in print, digital and audiobook formats for those interested in reading ahead. Otherwise, House of the Dragon is expected to premiere sometime in 2022 on HBO.