House Of The Dragon Trailer Reveals The GOT Prequel's Biggest Challenge

The Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon faces a significant challenge that may prevent it from matching the success of the HBO phenomen

The trailer for House of the Dragon highlights the biggest challenge facing the Game of Thrones prequel. Set 200 years before the brutal events of Game of Thrones, the series will tell the story of the “Dance of the Dragons,” a bitter war between opposing factions of the ruling Targaryen dynasty. With its story already mapped out by George R. R. Martin in 2018’s Fire & Blood, HBO can expect House of the Dragon to avoid the slow decline suffered by Game of Thrones after the show outpaced its source material. Following the negative reaction to the final seasons of Game of Thrones, this is something of a make-or-break moment for the franchise, with the prequel series tasked with winning back a skeptical audience – or face losing it forever.

With a brooding orchestral score, electric cinematography, and big-budget set design to match that of any Hollywood production, the trailer for House of the Dragon pushes the same buttons that helped Game of Thrones capture audiences across the globe. The trailer also provides a glimpse of the series’ key players, including Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen, Olivia Cooke’s Alicent Hightower, and Paddy Considine’s Viserys I. All of them look like they could have stepped straight out of the original HBO smash hit – but this only masks a key difference between House of the Dragon and its predecessor.

Put simply, House of the Dragon boasts a cast of main characters who are resolutely unlikable. This marks a significant split with Game of Thrones, the flawed and gray characters of which remained largely sympathetic, including supposed villains like Jaime Lannister and Sandor Clegane. On the other hand, the cast of House of the Dragon – as described in Fire & Blood – presents a less flattering portrayal of the moral and personal bankruptcy that accompanies the unbridled lust for power. However well-drawn its characters are, and however tightly plotted its storyline might be, it will be difficult for House of the Dragon to truly capture audiences if it lacks sympathetic personalities to match the likes of Ned Stark and Tyrion Lannister, and this ultimately presents a significant challenge for the show going forward.

This difficulty can be traced back to House of the Dragon’s central premise. While Game of Thrones featured a wide range of likable characters, it largely achieved this by focusing on underdogs and outcasts, from the exiled and hunted Daenerys Targaryen to the “bastard” Jon Snow. However, in a story that focuses on a — largely gratuitous — struggle between two sections of the same ruling family, it is much more difficult to craft compelling protagonists in this mold. While the likes of Daemon and Alicent may be motivated to do terrible things out of love, a noble motivation alone does not make a sympathetic character. This is well illustrated by the case of Cersei Lannister, whose immense love for her children added nuance to her terrible actions throughout Game of Thrones, but whose position of power made her very difficult to truly root for.

With the House of the Dragon trailer providing a long-awaited glimpse of the upcoming HBO series, it remains to be seen whether the prequel can match the incredible success of Game of Thrones. While Steve Toussaint’s portrayal of undeniable badass Corlys Velaryon may provide viewers with an instantly engaging protagonist, this may not be enough to offset an otherwise amoral and unlikable main cast. With Game of Thrones having shed a lot of audience goodwill towards the end of its run, House of the Dragon risks falling flat without a core of sympathetic characters to reel viewers back in. For as HBO should well know from the final series of Game of Thrones, CGI dragons can only take a show so far.