‘House of the Dragon’ — Who Is Who in the ‘Game of Thrones’ Spin-off Series
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) is named the king’s heir before the Iron Throne on House of the Dragon.
Westeros is coming back. Three years after the ending of Game of Thrones, HBO is ready to embark on a new adventure that will be set 200 years before the confrontation between the Starks and the Lannisters. This is House of the Dragon, a new series focused on the glory days of House Targaryen.
Entertainment Weekly has published a lengthy story on the new series, where they feature interviews with some of the cast and crew that participated in the series, and contextualize what viewers around the world will get to experience starting August 21. In this time, King Viserys (played by Paddy Considine) has chosen his firstborn, Rhaenyra, as heir to the Iron Throne. Viserys then conceives a son, Aegon (played by Tom Glynn-Carney), and in the subsequent years, House Targaryen is split over the matter of succession — this eventually leads to the bloodiest civil war in the country’s history, known as the Dance of the Dragons.
The conflict will span decades, and House of the Dragon will explore the timeline linearly. In the early years, Rhaenyra is still a young girl and is played by Milly Alcock. Her childhood best friend and future Hand, Alicent Hightower, is played by Emily Carey in the early years of the timeline. Their adult versions will be played by Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, respectively.
Emily Carey on the left and Milly Alcock on the right play younger versions of Alicent Hightower and Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, respectively, on House of the Dragon.
Co-showrunner Ryan Condal explained that this was the story George R. R. Martin, who wrote the Song of Ice and Fire books on which Game of Thrones is based, first wanted to tell once HBO started exploring the idea of doing spinoffs set in Westeros. He said:
“This particular time period was the story that George thought was the thing that had the most direct, if not indirect linkage tonally to that first episode of ‘Game of Thrones’.”
Condal also explained why it was important for him to tell this story:
“I wanted to tell a story about the height of Rome before the fall and see the Targaryen dynasty at its very apex so that we can understand the thing that was lost when it all fell apart.”
The fall was a big one, as during King Viserys’ reign, the country was peaceful, prosperous, and saw a lot of economic growth. Practically every Targaryen has a dragon their own dragon to ride, the largest amount that have flown over King’s Landing in Westeros history.
Alcock explained that Rhaenyra has some similarities to Arya Stark:
“They’re both women who don’t behave the way that they’re expected to. There is that rebellious and cheeky spirit that they both possess, which I think is why people are going to adore her.”
D’Arcy, who goes by they/them pronouns, added that Rhaenyra is pushing at the edges of womanhood, saying she’s obsessed with masculinity and even views masculinity as another word for freedom. They said:
“She is a person who feels at odds with the way that she is read by the world — even this label the Realm’s Delight, which implies a passivity, being an object of people’s ogling. It’s like she has a doppelgänger. The doppelgänger is Rhaenyra born male, who has access to all the things that she craves and feels to be hers. She has this amazing connection with her uncle Daemon. In some ways, they’re [of] the same fabric, and yet the rules are completely different [for them].”
Her uncle Daemon is none other than Prince Daemon Targaryen, played by Matt Smith, the younger brother to King Viserys and heir to the throne. As we learned in Game of Thrones, it is said that whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air, and in Daemon’s case, the coin has not yet landed:
“It hasn’t quite hit the ground yet. And until it’s final doom, [we won’t] find out which side he’s on.”
His dragon, Caraxes, is “a gargantuan winged red steed”. Smith describes him as “a very grumpy, tough, surly sort.” On the flipside, Daemon’s brother, Viserys, doesn’t ride a dragon anymore (though he was once able to mount Balerion, the Black Dread, the beast that once bonded with Aegon Targaryen). Considine explained his character’s motivations like this:
“The mantra we had for him was that he’s a good man, bad king, because he just wants to please people and keep the peace. But also, Viserys has an ego. He’s got a great tragedy in his life, but there’s a part of him that’s going, ‘How am I going to be remembered in hundreds of years?’ They don’t remember peaceful kings. They don’t remember good people. They remember warriors. They remember tyrants.”
The series is anchored around the friendship between the characters of Rhaenyra and Alicent. D’Arcy explained how, right before rehearsals were due to start in London in 2020, the showrunners arranged a dinner with them and Cooke, and their connection was instant, as D’Arcy recalled:
“I don’t know what Liv would say, but I think I fell in love with her in about 45 seconds. Well, I probably worked quite hard to cover that up. You know those chance meetings that happen where there’s a familiarity? For some unknown reason, I really felt that with Liv.”
Condal explained the following about the relationship between both characters:
“They are central female characters who are at once credited and also blamed with this particular war. Because the history is written by men, we were really interested in the dynamic forces that a certain medieval level of innate chauvinism puts on the two women.”
Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke in House of the Dragon
Alicent’s bond with Rhaenyra was formed during their childhood, as they both grew up in the Red Keep. Alicent is the daughter of Otto Hightower, Hand of King Viserys (played by Rhys Ifans), and according to the two actresses that play the character in House of the Dragon, she’s been misunderstood for many years by readers. The character appears in Martin’s Fire and Blood, which is essentially an in-universe historical document written by Archmaester Gyldayn, who was not a direct witness of many of the events he related, making the separation between truth and fiction in Martin’s world a bit confusing (Condal confirmed that House of the Dragon will be the “truthful” narration of how the Dance of the Dragons). Carey said:
“There’s a preconceived notion that she’s [always] scheming.”
To which Cooke then added:
“You can understand why,” Cooke, 28, adds. “The woman whispering into a powerful man’s ear has never been positively written about. So the fun was to try to find the nuance.”
Alicent’s father, Otto, is a very interesting character too. Similar to Littlefinger, he has his own political ambitions, and more than anything else, he fears Daemon will sit on the Iron Throne at some point and become the next tyrant to rule Westeros. Ifans said the following about his character:
“He’s an astute, high-functioning political creature. He knows the machinations of this court better than anyone. He’s kind of his own CCTV system, in terms of knowledge of what’s going on at any place with whom at any time. He’s ruthless, but he struggles with some of the decisions he is forced to make as Hand of the King.”
House of the Dragon adapts the Great Council of Harrenhal from George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood.
Rhaenyra’s claim to the Iron Throne is stonewalled in House of the Dragon by the verdict of the Great Council of Harrenhal, which gave Viserys his kingship after ruling that the kingdom could not be passed to a woman. This event, which will be portrayed in the series, effectively prevented Princess Rhaenys Targaryen (played by Eve Best) from sitting on the Throne, even though she had a more legitimate claim than Viserys. Best said the following about it:
“Effectively, it’s about the disillusionment of the patriarchy, of this system that has been going and going for hundreds and hundreds of years. Rhaenys’ relationship with Rhaenyra is very complicated. There’s an element of mentorship. There’s also an element of other things that go along with that, potentially friendship or sympathy. At the same time, there’s all kinds of other, much darker things. Especially at the beginning, I think Rhaenys feels that [Rhaenyra] needs some taking-down a peg or two.”
Rhaenys is a savvy politician, as Best explained:
“She’s able to navigate this incredibly dense political environment with such finesse, calm, and effortless grace. It’s impossible to deny that underneath, there is this sword in her heart of that core wound, which is a combination of all kinds of things.”
She is also the best dragonrider in House of the Dragon. Rhaenys is married to Corlys Velaryon (played by Steve Toussaint), the most famed nautical adventurer in the history of Westeros who is also known as “The Sea Snake” after his preferred ship. Another prequel series that is currently in the works at HBO will explore Corlys’ adventures as a young man and how he turned House Velaryon into one of the wealthiest houses in the country after he traveled farther than any before him and brought back rare riches from foreign lands. Toussaint said the following about the Sea Snake:
“No one wants to f— with him. [The Targaryens] have dragons, but still they don’t want to lose the whole ocean, which he commands. He knows he has power, and he knows that they need him… He’s this fearless guy. He’s very rich now. He likes people to see that he’s rich. But you, as the actor, have to find a way to humanize it.”
Much like Alcock sees Rhaenyra as this show’s version of Arya Stark, Toussaint sees Lord Corlys as House of the Dragon‘s Tywin Lannister, to which he added:
“Sea Snake is a father and wants what he thinks is the best for his children. It’s much simpler then. If you don’t do it right, you die. That’s it. There’s no gray area. But of course he has this huge ambition. This idea of legacy, it’s a big deal for him.”
To say that making House of the Dragon has been a wild journey is definitely an understatement. Sapochnik and Condal have been sitting on this story for several years now, but the cast also felt the pressure. D’Arcy explained how they dealt with it:
“My tactic is called, ‘Don’t think about it.’ At the moment, we’re in quite a special place. None of it is in the ether yet, and no one knows who I am.”
Cooke shared the sentiment:
“I love my life, and I love the anonymity that I’ve managed to hold onto, even after having a decade’s worth of credits. But I am excited for people to see all the hard work that everyone’s done because, God, people slogged for a year, and it is f—ing great.”
The world will meet her and the rest of the cast very soon. House of the Dragon will premiere on HBO and stream on HBO Max right after, on August 21st. Here are additional looks at some of these characters revealed by EW:
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- House of the Dragon, Eve Best photographed by Nadav Kander in London, February 3, 2022
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- House of the Dragon, Steve Toussaint photographed by Nadav Kander in London, February 3, 2022
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- House of the Dragon, Rhys Ifans photographed by Nadav Kander in London, February 3, 2022
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- House of the Dragon, Olivia Cooke photographed by Nadav Kander in London, February 3, 2022
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- House of the Dragon, Paddy Considine photographed by Nadav Kander in London, February 3, 2022
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- House of the Dragon, Matt Smith photographed by Nadav Kander in London, February 3, 2022
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- House of the Dragon, Emma Darcy photographed by Nadav Kander in London, February 3, 2022.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
