Spoiler Warning: House of the Dragon Season One, Episodes 1-4

Over the last decade, Game of Thrones changed the way we view TV. It started with a bang and, sadly, ended with a whimper, thanks to shoddy writing and a rushed timeline leading to a hasty conclusion. But there is no denying that Game of Thrones, which ended in 2019 after eight seasons, redefined what TV could do, both tonally and technically. Game of Thrones spearheaded the revival of the fantasy genre, established that adult themes can co-exist in a world of dragons and dark magic, and brought back massive viewership to network television.

The hunt for the next “Thrones,” a show with similar splendour and viewer interest, has been on ever since Game of Thrones debuted in 2011. Every big network – from Apple to Amazon – has been trying to find the next big blockbuster TV show. But HBO seems to have beat everyone to it once again by dipping right back into George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire & Ice lore. House of the Dragon debuted to nearly 10 million viewers in the US on its first night alone. The show's premiere caused HBO Max to crash, pretty much in line with the craze garnered by its predecessor.

Interest in Game of Thrones still remains high; it was again ranked as the most pirated TV show this year, a regular occurrence when the show aired weekly. The success of Game of Thrones is still in a league of its own. While Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power has been praised for its cinematic beauty and world-building, only time will tell if it can surpass what Game of Thrones achieved. But more than The Rings of Power, it is House of the Dragon that is under scrutiny to see how it compares to the OG series.

Game of Thrones' Sexual Violence Problem

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HBO

Even though only four episodes of House of the Dragon have aired, it has received generally positive reviews, with a few criticisms here and there. The very first episode had a graphic childbirth scene involving Queen Aemma’s horrific death. This scene was lambasted for failing to treat women characters better than its predecessor, despite that being a sore point among critics, fans, and even actors of the show.

RELATED: How House of the Dragon Is Reigniting Fans' Love for Game of Thrones

Milly Alcock, who plays the young Rhaenyra Targaryen, recently echoed Emilia Clarke’s sentiments that Game of Thrones made her “uncomfortable” like it did many viewers of the show. Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen in Thrones) had spoken out about feeling uncomfortable acting in some of her nude scenes, so much so that sometimes she would be in tears before shooting the scenes.

From Daenerys to Cersei to Sansa – Game of Thrones gave us some of the most riveting fictional female characters, and yet all of them had to endure ghastly brutalisations. Arya Stark was perhaps the only one who ended up challenging conventions. She was neither a Mary Sue, a femme fatale, nor a little birdie who had to suffer sexual assault in the name of character development.

In a brutal political saga with dragons and White Walkers, we don’t really need the particular touch of realism that has to be depicted with sexual violence on (or unnecessary titillation of) female bodies. In a morally ambiguous story about the worst of human greed and indecency, there are worse fates that can await its characters.

Even in a fantasy world, women can’t seem to escape their patriarchal constraints. While the men get to fight bloody for honour and glory, the women have to find sneakier ways to get their fair share of their rightful holdings. Even House of the Dragon, based majorly on Fire and Blood (the novel chronicling the history of the Targaryen family), is the contentious story of succession where a woman cannot ascend the Iron Throne because she was born without male genitalia.

But the slight hitch for House of the Dragon is that the story is pivoted entirely on this premise with no other kind of conflict in sight, which can make for tedious storytelling compared to Game of Thrones, which had excellent stories intertwined within its major plot points. We haven't even seen much of the dragons in action so far, even though the series promises to have as many as 17 by the time it wraps up.

House of the Dragon's Missteps So Far

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HBO

Perhaps this prequel needed to be made, more so given how things ended with Game of Thrones. That should not have been the lasting legacy of a story that changed the face of entertainment the way it did. But is House of the Dragon doing a good job so far? The fact that there are fewer characters in House of the Dragon compared to Game of Thrones means we should get to spend more time getting under their skins, especially before there is a cast change – Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke will be taking over from Milly Alcock and Emily Carey (Lady Alicent Hightower) to play their adult versions respectively.

Even though having all the houses turning from allies to foes (sometimes back again) kept the story more engaging in Game of Thrones, eventually, the showrunners scrambled to bring them all to worthy conclusions. Some characters like the Sand Snakes, Daario Naharis, Quaithe, and Kinvara (the High Priestess of the Red Temple in Volantis) were simply forgotten later in the show. Perhaps having fewer characters means there will be fewer such sacrifices. This is more reason why showrunners of the prequel need to stop with so many time jumps and let the characters breathe.

RELATED: House of the Dragon: What Will Come of Daemon and Rhaenyra's Relationship?

We should've seen more of the Crabfeeder conflict that is rushed through in the first three episodes without getting much of a sense of who the character was and what his lore was, even though he is presented as a formidable foe. We are four episodes and several years into the story already but still know very little of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen. Even the casting choices for teen Ser Laenor Velaryon (Theo Nate) and Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) have been more distracting than engaging because of their odd style of dialogue delivery.

Why We Are Hopeful of House of the Dragon’s Legacy

Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon
HBO

When it comes to depictions of sex (both consensual and otherwise), House of the Dragon has fared better than Game of Thrones already. The fourth episode, "The King of the Narrow Sea," was praised for Clare Kilner’s direction. Rhaenyra and Ser Criston Cole’s (Fabien Frankel) sex scenes were steamy and sensual without being lurid. In contrast, the non-consensual scenes of intimacy between Alicent and her much-older husband, Viserys I (Paddy Considine), were uneasy to watch, just as intended.

The incestuously forbidden moment (that ends abruptly due to Daemon's recurring impotence issues) between Rhaenyra and Daemon (Matt Smith) was captured just as masterfully in this episode. The young actors involved in these scenes, Alcock and Carey, thanked the ‘amazing’ intimacy coordinator for making everything more comfortable for them, in stark contrast to Sean Bean (Ned Stark in Game of Thrones) dismissing the need for them. The series has often been criticised for its gratuitous and profuse sex scenes. Even Smith contemplated to Rolling Stone, "You do find yourself asking, 'Do we need another sex scene?'"

Kilner has brought the female gaze to the Thrones-verse with guns blazing, and audiences are all here for it. We can only hope she returns with more episodes, and so do other women. Michelle MacLaren, who had directed four episodes of Game of Thrones, was the only female director of the entire series' run. We can only hope that House of the Dragon does better when it comes to representation both on-screen and off-in addition to bringing more compelling storytelling to TV.