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Dragon S02E01 Blood for blood. Fire to fire. House of the Dragon: Season 2 will premiere in June 2024.

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"Fire reigns"
―Tagline

House of the Dragon: Season 1[1] is the first season of House of the Dragon. It consists of ten episodes. It premiered with "The Heirs of the Dragon" on August 21, 2022 on HBO and HBO Max, and concluded with "The Black Queen" on October 23, 2022. It is based on Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin.

Premise[]

Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, this epic series tells the story of House Targaryen.[1]

Overview[]

Season 1 begins approximately 200 years before the War of the Five Kings, and 100 years after Aegon's Conquest united the Seven Kingdoms. House Targaryen has reigned as the rulers of Westeros for five generations, and the number of dragons they possess has increased to more than ever before. At the end of the reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, grandson of Aegon the Conqueror, a succession dispute arises between two of his grandchildren, which is resolved when the lords of Westeros assembled at the Great Council of 101 AC select Viserys I Targaryen to be the royal heir ahead of his cousin Rhaenys - even though she had a superior claim, and largely due to her gender. The story begins a few years later when old King Jaehaerys passes away and King Viserys I ascends the Iron Throne. Outwardly, the realm has enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity for seventy years, and the Targaryen dynasty is at the height of its power. Yet factions are starting to form within Viserys's court that threaten the stability of his reign.

Rhaenys and her husband Corlys Velaryon, the wealthiest man in Westeros, remain at the royal court despite being passed over. House Velaryon have long served as admirals of the royal fleet and still wield much strength at sea, and there are still some in the realm who at the Great Council wanted Rhaenys to be queen instead of Viserys. Meanwhile, Viserys's Hand of the King Otto Hightower seeks to expand his own family's power and influence over the royal court from within. As the rulers of Oldtown, the realm's second largest city, House Hightower wields a great deal of control over the leadership of the Faith of the Seven. Complicating matters is that while Viserys was named heir ahead of Rhaenys due to male preference, Viserys himself has yet to produce a male heir of his own. His only living child when he ascended the throne was his daughter Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen - but according to the principle of male inheritance that put Viserys on the throne ahead of the Velaryons, his nearest male heir is his younger brother Daemon Targaryen, a dangerous and unpredictable rogue.

The peace of the realm is set on a knife's edge when not long into Viserys's reign, his wife Aemma Arryn dies in childbirth to a stillborn son. To avoid the risk of his brother making a play for the throne, Viserys controversially goes against the very inheritance principle that crowned him king, by officially naming his daughter Rhaenyra as the new royal heir. Both the Velaryons and Hightowers subsequently scramble to compete for Viserys's favor, trying to convince him to remarry to a daughter from one of their families: either Rhaenys's daughter Laena Velaryon or Otto's precocious daughter Alicent Hightower. Moving in between these competing factions, Viserys's brother Daemon pursues his own path to power.

Episodes[]

No. Image Title Air date Viewers
1.[16] Dragon S01E01 "The Heirs of the Dragon"[16] August 21, 2022[3] 9.99[17]
Viserys hosts a tournament to celebrate the birth of his second child. Rhaenyra welcomes her uncle Daemon back to the Red Keep.[16]
2.[18] Dragon S01E02 "The Rogue Prince"[18] August 28, 2022[3] 10.2[19]
Rhaenyra oversteps at the Small Council. Viserys is urged to secure the succession through marriage. Daemon announces his intentions.[18]
3.[20] Dragon S01E03 "Second of His Name"[20] September 4, 2022[3] ~9.20[21]
Daemon and the Sea Snake battle the Crabfeeder. The realm celebrates Aegon’s second nameday. Rhaenyra faces the prospect of marriage.[20]
4.[22] Dragon S01E04 "King of the Narrow Sea"[22] September 11, 2022[3] ~9.66[21]
After Rhaenyra cuts short her tour of Westeros, Daemon introduces the princess to the Street of Silk after dark.[22]
5.[23] Dragon S01E05 "We Light the Way"[23] September 18, 2022[3] ~9.95[21]
Daemon visits his wife in the Vale. Viserys and Rhaenyra broker agreements with the Velaryons. Alicent seeks the truth about the princess.[23]
6.[24] Dragon S01E06 "The Princess and the Queen"[24] September 25, 2022[3] ~10.25[25]
Ten years later. Rhaenyra navigates Alicent’s continued speculation about her children, while Daemon and Laena weigh an offer in Pentos.[24]
7.[26] Dragon S01E07 "Driftmark"[26] October 2, 2022[3] TBD
As the families gather on Driftmark for a funeral, Viserys calls for an end to infighting and Alicent demands justice.[26]
8.[27] Dragon S01E08 "The Lord of the Tides"[27] October 9, 2022[3] TBD
Six years later. With the Driftmark succession suddenly critical, Rhaenyra attempts to strike a bargain with Rhaenys.[27]
9.[28] Dragon S01E09 "The Green Council"[28] October 16, 2022[3] TBD
While Alicent enlists Cole and Aemond to track down Aegon, Otto gathers the great houses of Westeros to affirm their allegiance.[28]
10.[29] Dragon S01E10 "The Black Queen"[29] October 23, 2022[3] 9.3[30]
While mourning a tragic loss, Rhaenyra tries to hold the realm together, and Daemon prepares for war.[29]

Cast[]

Main page: House of the Dragon: Season 1/Cast

Starring[]

Co-starring[]

Crew[]

Producers[]

Writers[]

George R.R. Martin explained in a blog post on February 20, 2022, how the series was developed from conception to assigning specific scripts for the first season. In the early production phase, Martin himself collaborated with Ryan Condal on a pilot script for the first episode, but when the Long Night prequel pilot was suddenly rejected in October 2019, HBO greenlit a full first season for House of the Dragon - skipping the pilot stage entirely, surprising even Condal. In the early "brainstorming" stages outlining the series as a whole beyond the first season, Condal and Martin had a "mini writers room" with screenwriters Claire Kiechel, Wes Tooke, and Ti Mikkel. All three did contribute to ideas for the series as a whole, but Kiechel and Tooke departed for other projects before the writing process on specific Season 1 scripts began (thus they were not part of the "writers' room" roundtable meetings in Season 1). Ti Mikkel, however, is a writing assistant to Martin, and remained as part of the writers' room meetings for Season 1 itself (though she is not credited with writing a specific episode, Martin mentions her alongside the others as part of the Season 1 writing staff).

In his blog post, Martin listed that the Season 1 writers' room consisted of eight people: "Ryan Condal, Sara Hess, Gabe Fonseca, Ira Parker, Ti Mikkel, Charmaine DeGrate, Kevin Lau, and Eileen Shim". He also said that some of them have moved on to other unrelated projects and will not be returning for Season 2, though others do expect to return for a potential second season. Martin himself was also unable to contribute a specific full script to Season 1 due to his other writing commitments. Martin did confirm, however, that "I did co-create the series with Ryan and help give it its shape, and he and I have been in constant contact ever since". This is in contrast with the Long Night prequel series, which Martin later said HBO's (former) leadership picked and which he admitted he was barely involved with.[31]

Specific writing credits for Season 1 are:

Directors[]

Cinematographers[]

Each cinematographer (director of photography) is paired with a specific director's filming unit:

Staff[]

Production[]

Filming on Season 1 began in late March 2021 and concluded in mid-February 2022.

The season had two filming units, named "Fire" and "Blood" after Fire & Blood, the prequel anthology book that the series is based on. Game of Thrones began with two major filming units: one designated as the "home unit" filming in the British Isles and another the "travel unit" which filmed in Mediterranean countries (plus Iceland at times). The travel unit had to face the difficulties of transport and on-location shoots, thus to balance the workload, most of the large battle scenes were filmed by the home unit. For House of the Dragon, "Fire unit" is the new home unit filming in England, while "Blood unit" is the travel unit that filmed in Spain and Portugal.

While there were two main units, they technically had four by the end of filming because two sub-units split off: the "VFX Unit" and the "Volume Unit" (for the Virtual Production Stage, which is called "The Volume").[32]

On-location filming first began in Cornwall, England, at the Driftmark set at St Michael's Mount, a castle on a tidal island. Filming in Cornwall wrapped around mid-May. Exterior filming then resumed in early September, in the Peak District of northern England, after which extensive filming resumed in Cornwall,. Production then shifted to Spain and Portugal from the beginning of October through early November.

On-location filming wrapped in early November, and filming overall was intended to wrap by mid-December 2022. However, the spike of the COVID Omicron variant that winter delayed the final wrap for about three months. As director Greg Yaitanes put it, from December onward they kept thinking that they were "only two weeks away" from the final wrap, but then production would be shut down from another crewmember testing positive for COVID, then they'd start up again for a few days only to have to stop for another positive case, dragging on like this into mid-February. Yaitanes said this was all the more annoying because filming was almost finished by mid-December, including all the exterior scenes, but there were still a small number of nonetheless vital interior scenes which they couldn't simply leave unfilmed.[33]

Originally, Miguel Sapochnik was actually supposed to film the first and second episodes as a back-to-back block, while Greg Yaitanes was going to direct episodes 3, 7, and 10. Yaitanes particularly wanted to work on episode 7 because it was his favorite script. A scheduling difficulty arose with one of their exterior filming locations, however, which meant that episode 2 had to be filmed immediately - but Miguel Sapochnik was filming a different episode at the same time. Yaitanes therefore had to step in and direct episode 2, and due to time constraints had to swap back directing duties on episode 7 to Sapochnik. They weren't sure at first if Sapochnik or Yaitanes would direct episode 10, but Yaitanes felt that getting to do the season finale somewhat made up for missing episode 7, which was the one he had wanted to do the most. Yaitanes said that Sapochnik already had a very clear vision in place for what he wanted from episode 2, and he tried to follow that closely.[34]

Home video[]

House of the Dragon steelbook

House of the Dragon: The Complete First Season was released on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on December 20, 2022. Bonus features include:

  • Welcome to Westeros (Exclusive to 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD)
  • Returning to the Seven Kingdoms (Exclusive to 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD)
  • A New Reign
  • Returning to Westeros
  • Before the Dance: An Illustrated History with George R.R. Martin
  • Height of an Empire
  • Noble Houses
  • Familiar Places
  • Introducing the Characters[35]

Most of these features were already released for free on HBO's official YouTube channel, or through HBO Max. No new episode commentaries are included, though the cast & crew did take part in an official podcast series released through YouTube which interviewed them after each new episode in Season 1.

In the books[]

Main page: Differences in adaptation/House of the Dragon: Season 1

The season is adapted from Fire & Blood, the history of House Targaryen.

Gallery[]

Videos[]

Trailers[]

Behind the scenes[]

Comic-Con Panel[]

Jason Concepcion[]

Times Square 3D Billboard[]

Cast and crew[]

Inside the Craft[]

Images[]

Concept art[]

Costumes and props[]

Behind the scenes[]

Posters[]

Sigils[]

Logos[]

Character posters[]

Promotional stills[]

Advertising[]

Screenshots[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 House of the Dragon: Season 1. HBO. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 House of the Dragon. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  3. 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (HBO). The Futon Critic. Retrieved February 23, 2023.
  4. House of the Dragon: The Complete First Season (2022).
  5. Amazon.com: House of the Dragon: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray/Digital) : Kevin Lau, Vince Gerardis, Sara Hess, Alexis Raben, Jocelyn Diaz, Karen Wacker, Ron Schmidt, George R.R. Martin, Miguel Sapochnik, Ryan Condal, Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Eve Be
  6. 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 6.23 6.24 House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 1: "The Heirs of the Dragon" (2022).
  7. 7.0 7.1 House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 6: "The Princess and the Queen" (2022).
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 3: "Second of His Name" (2022).
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 8: "The Lord of the Tides" (2022).
  10. 10.0 10.1 House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 4: "King of the Narrow Sea" (2022).
  11. House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 5: "We Light the Way" (2022).
  12. House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 7: "Driftmark" (2022).
  13. House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 2: "The Rogue Prince" (2022).
  14. poplarparry93 on Instagram: "Thats a wrap for Grips and Standbys on House of the Dragon, Fire Unit, Season One. March 26th - Today!"
  15. https://winteriscoming.net/2022/03/14/house-of-the-dragon-not-close-done-hbo-game-of-thrones/
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 The Heirs of the Dragon. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  17. Variety, August 22, 2022
  18. 18.0 18.1 18.2 The Rogue Prince. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  19. The Hollywood Reporter, August 29, 2022
  20. 20.0 20.1 20.2 Second of His Name. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  21. 21.0 21.1 21.2 Variety, September 20, 2022
  22. 22.0 22.1 22.2 King of the Narrow Sea. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 We Light the Way. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  24. 24.0 24.1 24.2 The Princess and the Queen. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  25. Variety, September 27, 2022
  26. 26.0 26.1 26.2 Driftmark. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  27. 27.0 27.1 27.2 The Lord of the Tides. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  28. 28.0 28.1 28.2 The Green Council. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  29. 29.0 29.1 29.2 The Black Queen. HBO. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  30. HOUSE OF THE DRAGON Sees Biggest HBO Finale Audience Since Series Finale Of Game Of Thrones | Warner Bros. Discovery
  31. George R.R. Martin, Not A Blog, February 20, 2022
  32. Dune Pod, May 9, 2022
  33. Dune Pod, May 9, 2022
  34. Dune Pod, May 9, 2022
  35. House of the Dragon Season 1 Blu-Ray Release Date and Special Features Revealed, IGN.com

Notes[]

  1. The Great Council at Harrenhal was held in 101 AC according to "The Heirs of the Dragon."
  2. House of the Dragon starts in the year 112 AC according to the reference book Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon: Inside the Creation of a Targaryen Dynasty.
  3. "The Black Queen" picks up shortly after "The Green Council," which takes place in 132 AC.

External links[]


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