House of the Dragon has become a smash hit for HBO and its streaming service, HBOMax. The Game of Thrones prequel is based on the book Fire & Blood by author George R. R. Martin, who also is executive producing and helping write the series.
Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the series set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, tells the story of House Targaryen. Paddy Considine stars along with Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans.
Though season 1 is close to finished, fans expect quite a lot of drama and content from season 2. With a superb team of writers and a phenomenal cast of actors, fans of the Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon universes should expect the most from season 2.
Season 2 Renewal
House of the Dragon Premiered on August 21, 2022. The series is HBO’s first new series to stream in 4K and Dolby on HBOMax. The episodes were released to generally positive reviews, with Rotten Tomato scores over 85%.
Additionally, there were almost 10 million viewers on the first night, and that statistic rose to 25 million for the most recent episode. Five days after the show’s release, HBO announced that House of the Dragon would be renewed for season 2.
It’ll Take Four Seasons to Tell the Targaryens’ Story
Game of Thrones creator George R. R. Martin confirmed that the prequel series will consist of four seasons, with each season containing 10 episodes.
In his recent blog post, Martin briefly addressed the time jumps in the series. Right from the first episode, the audience was given a history lesson from 101 AC, and brought to the present times, while each episode since has added a few years covering the timeline from Rhaenyra and Alicent’s youth, as played by Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, to Emma Darcy and Olivia Cooke taking over as the older versions. Speaking of the jumps, Martin wrote, “I think (co-showrunner) Ryan (Condal) has handled the jumps, very well,” adding that he loves “both the younger Alicent and Rhaenyra and the adult versions, and the actresses who play them.”
While Martin’s books take a deep dive into the Targaryen history, emphasizing events that really divided the characters, he does wish the series “we’d had more time to explore the relationship between Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin, the marriage of Daemon and Laena and their time in Pentos, the birth of various and sundry children and everything else we had to skip.” The author further confirmed that Alicent gave Viserys four children – three sons and a daughter – and that their youngest son Daeron is “down in Oldtown, we just did not have the time to work him in this season.” The author further mused about having more episodes per season writing, “If House of the Dragon had 13 episodes per season, maybe we could have shown all the things we had to time jump.”
As such, Martin also confirmed that House of the Dragon will continue to tell that tale for another three seasons, should HBO continue to renew it. “It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish,” Martin concluded, before adding, should anyone be ready to ask him about pages, “but right now, Ryan Condal’s focus is on HOT D season two, and mine is on The Winds of Winter.”
