In just two weeks, Game of Thrones fans will be treated to their first spinoff — a prequel called House of the Dragon. The new series is set about 200 years before the events of GoT, and as the premiere draws closer more details are emerging about the timeline. This has helped clarify the events described in the books and the show’s slight manipulations to the continuity.
Game of Thrones was based on George R.R. Martin’s novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, but the author has now expanded the world of Westeros both geographically and chronologically. House of the Dragon is based on Martin’s book Fire & Blood, which is not a novel but an “imaginary history book” written from the perspective of a maester from Westeros. Fire & Blood is all about House Targaryen’s reign over Westeros, starting from “Aegon’s Conquest” about 300 years before GoT and up through “The Dance of the Dragons” — a civil war that took place about 130 years later. House of the Dragon will zoom in on the latter part of that story, and so it starts off about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones.
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There are nuances to the timeline worth noting here. For one thing, die-hard fans freaked out last month when trailers began to depict an event called “The Great Council of 101 AC.” Many did not expect the show to go that far back in the continuity, but according to reviewer David Lightbringer, the council scene was short and is short and is just used as a framing device at the beginning of the pilot episode. From there, the show reportedly jumps ahead a few years.
Up until now, many reports have simply said that House of the Dragon is about The Dance of the Dragons, which is true but not entirely accurate. As far as Martin’s narrator Maester Yandel is concerned, the war officially lasted from the year 129 AC to 131 AC, but the show will explore the buildup to that conflict at least as much as the battles. In fact, two main characters in the story, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Lady Alicent Hightower, have been cast twice so that they can be depicted by separate actors in their younger versions.
It’s not much of a spoiler to say that in the Great Council of 101 scene at the beginning of the show, Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) will be named heir to the Iron Throne. The show will then jump ahead several years, but it’s hard to say how many. It will pick up during Viserys’ reign when he faces his own crisis of succession, and his daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) is his only living child. According to early reviews, it seems like most of Season 1 will take place during this time, exploring the friendship of teenage Rhaenyra and Alicent (Emily Carey) and the drama surrounding the Iron Throne.
When it comes to continuity and accurate adaptation, there are two important things to keep in mind. For one thing, the show writers have inevitably reorganized some events to happen closer to each other, tightening up the story and making it more dramatic. For another, the description of events in Fire & Blood is not necessarily accurate. The book heavily utilizes the “unreliable narrator” convention, and Martin often points out how Yandel relies on secondary sources for his information. The show will be a more straightforward narrative rendition, so even book purists may rightly consider the show to be “more canonical” than the book in some cases.
House of the Dragon will depict about three decades of history, starting about 200 years before Game of Thrones and ending about 170 years beforehand. Showrunner Ryan Condal has said that he expects to tell this whole story in about four seasons, and, if HBO allows it, he would then like to jump backward in the timeline and adapt even earlier episodes of Westerosi history. You can read all that history for yourself in Fire & Blood now in print, digital and audiobook formats. House of the Dragon premieres on Sunday, Aug. 21 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
