House Of The Dragon's Showrunner Loves How George R.R. Martin's Messy Prophecies Open Up Story Possibilities
Did you love all the prophecies in "Game of Thrones?" If so, you and the showrunner for "House of the Dragon" have something in common.
The first season of the spin-off and prequel just wrapped up its wildly successful run on HBO, and in its aftermath, fans are buzzing with anticipation about what comes next on "House of the Dragon." In the finale, "The Black Queen," the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons certainly kicked off as two dragonriders fought a battle in the skies that resulted in the casualty of a young Targaryen prince, which will definitely send the factions known as the "Greens" and the "Blacks" into full battle soon. On top of all of that, the Black Queen herself, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) has a prophecy to contend with, passed down from her ancestors regarding the White Walkers we later see in "Game of Thrones."
So how will "House of the Dragon" handle this prophecy, especially since those who watched "Thrones" already know the ending? Here's what co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal has to say on the matter.
Ryan Condal loves the prophecies in the Game of Thrones universe
In the finale, Rhaenyra struggles both with the fact that her former best friend Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) has quickly installed her eldest son Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) as well as the fact that she's the only person who knows the whole prophecy — as King Viserys I (Paddy Considine) died, he muttered part of it to Alicent, who immediately misunderstood. Now, faced with the realization that a king unfit to contend with this prophecy sits on the Iron Throne, Rhaenyra is driven to fight for her birthright.
As Deadline points out, Alicent's son could be the subject of the prophecy rather than Rhaenyra, and then continues, asking if Condal and his team will explore how iron-clad these prophecies might be.
"I think that's one of the lovely things about the way George R.R. Martin writes prophecy: it's a bit messy," Condal shared. "I think part of the fun of this series as it unfolds is that ... we've seen how this ends. The fun is to play with it in the middle as everybody's wrestling with what does this mean? Everybody takes a myopic worldview, or at least an autocratic worldview. When Aegon had the dream, he assumed that the White Walkers were gonna come across the wall in his lifetime. And when Viserys heard it, he assumed that it was gonna happen in his lifetime. And then Rhaenyra thinks it's gonna happen early. They don't realize that they're preparing for an eventual future that is decades, if not centuries away. We know where it ends. We know the Titanic sinks in the end. What's interesting is what happens along the way and how we got there."
"House of the Dragon" is streaming on HBO Max now.