Fire & Blood Change House of the Dragon Made? Yeah, That Was a Mistake

After the global disappointment of the Game of Thrones series finale, most fans just wanted House of the Dragon season 1 to deliver a compelling story and save the franchise. And despite a slow start, most agree that the show did just that.

But it could have been better. Had the showrunners stuck to the story as told in Fire & Blood, they would have had more room to explore the season's central theme - the relationship and conflict between Rhaenyra and Alicent.

In the book series, they are both ambitious women. And that is the cause of the rift between them. While their unravelling friendship and the tension between them in House of the Dragon was a feature of the series, it was based more on confusion over a prophecy passed down through generations of Targaryens than on their personal ambitions.

And it seems that this was an attempt to tie the show to Game of Thrones. But it was unnecessary. As viewers, we knew we were getting a glimpse of Targaryen history. It was all about the family name, so there was no danger of HotD being seen as something completely different, just in the same world.

House of the Dragon Season 2 Will Be Shorter, But That's a Good Thing, SomehowBut it felt like the importance of the prophecy was an attempt to link it to references in GoT. And in the end, it became the central element of the story. It was Alicent's misunderstanding of Viserys' mention of the Prophecy of Ice and Fire that led to the fallout that will culminate in the Dance of the Dragons.

Given that we have seen factions forming in the family and the small council in previous episodes, there was no need to introduce a new device to drive a wedge between Alicent and Rhaenyra.

In fact, it could be argued that this change actually weakened the show. The books were written with conflicting points of view, so there was no one truth. In the show, however, we know that Rhaenyra was the chosen heir according to the late King.

This makes Alicent the 'inadvertent' usurper, which takes away from the relationship between her and Rhaenyra. But both already had what might be called 'legitimate' claims to the Iron Throne. While Alicent's attempts to present her son as the rightful heir are motivated by fear that he will be assassinated, there is at least a genuine claim.

Prior to this development, the show had spent time (and four actors) detailing the relationship between Alicent and Rhaenyra. To then disregard all that had gone before and make the dying king's last words the central factor in the events that followed his death was disingenuous at best, and damaging to the show at worst.