Hopefully this season can live up to the hype. The House of the Dragon official trailers for Season 2 came out a few days ago, and the marketing technique of splitting them up was very clever…if not kind of silly.
Wait, you’re supposed to choose sides in this fight? Why did the last season completely trash one side then?!?!
With the show rearing for a return this summer, House of the Dragon has seen two brand new, exciting trailers drop with both being set from the perspective of the opposing sides. And, even though I think the idea is quite clever, it’s kind of silly given how one side was completely trashed by the show last season.
So, House of the Dragon is finally coming back.
It’s been a long two year wait between each season, but these two new trailers really have brought back my excitement for the show. As has the case been with House of the Dragon, the costumes, set designs, acting (apart from a few TERRIBLE choices IMO), battle choreography, sound design, CGI, visual effects, etc. have been top quality and more than worthy of a Game of Thrones successor show.
I mean, it’s the reason why Season 1 earned a Golden Globe for being the Best Television Drama back in 2022…with a weakened playing field.
Regardless, I don’t have an issue with the show or the trailers themselves as I eagerly await the next season, but rather an issue with the marketing/direction behind the last and this upcoming one. Namely, the show and the two trailers wish for us to have this epic choice between two “equal, yet unique” sides in the grand Dance of the Dragons conflict, but what choice can you REALLY have.
I’ve already said in the past the show made the Blacks seem way more sadistic, ruthless, cruel, and murderous than they really were in the books, but they’re still viewed as the “good guys” in this conflict. Hell, the entire first season was centered around Rhaenyra and her struggle to cement her status as King Viserys’ heir against the Green faction.
(Warner Bros. Discovery/HBO-House Of The Dragon-Official Black Trailer)
Why would we all of a sudden turn on Rhaenyra, the main protagonist of our story, in favor of her enemies and antagonists when she has given us no reason to do so? That’s not how storytelling is supposed to go. You’re not supposed to root AGAINST the protagonist of the story…unless the story was never designed to just have one central, good protagonist in the first place.
And this is where I have the biggest complaint against the show: the Dance of the Dragons in the show is NOT going to be like the one in the books as they made the Blacks the only protagonists.
It’s true the novel sees the Greens set as the more “righteous side” from the biased point of view of the maestar writing the history down, while George R.R. Martin himself, the true author of the novel, paints the Blacks as the more “righteous” of the two. But do you see how conflicted that is?
That’s what the Dance of the Dragons is supposed to be about. Two sides fighting tooth and nail in a fantasy equivalent of nuclear war for the right to sit on the Iron Throne and rule over the ashes; yet such a battle can only mean one thing: both sides are unfit to rule.
Is that how the show has portrayed both sides? Inadvertely so, in my humble opinion with the Blacks appearing just as bad as the Greens by accident, but it’s not the intention of the writers and showrunner.
Rhaenyra and her noble Blacks allies are meant to be the true heirs to the heir throne, while Aegon II and his supporters are perverted, amoral, and corrupted hacks who wish for nothing more than power. How is that a REAL choice to make between the two sides as the trailer and marketing wants us to make?
I just feel there was a major opportunity missed in the last season to make both sides seem like power-hungry entities rather than one being purposefully perverted, corrupt alliance and the other an inadvertently framed murderous, callous cohort of otherwise “just” individuals.
But I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out in the show.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Warner Bros. Discovery/HBO) (House of the Dragon | Official Black Trailer | Max (youtube.com))
In Text Image 1: (Warner Bros. Discovery/HBO) (House of the Dragon | Official Green Trailer | Max (youtube.com))
