Posted in: Game Of Thrones, HBO, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: a song of ice and fire, fan fiction, game of thrones, george r r martin, HBO, house of the dragon, max

House of the Dragon Offers Fan Fiction TV Version of the Book

House of the Dragon is like a TV fan fiction version of George R.R. Martin's "Fire and Blood," with many changes that aren't in the book.

House of the Dragon is an odd TV series – it's a fan fiction version of a book that is already fan fiction for its own franchise, a rather redundant prequel to the main story. The reason the series exists is due to the massive size of Game of Thrones fandom, even after the disappointment over the final season. Unlike Game of Thrones, it already has a completed story, and it manages to find entire areas where it can create fan fiction. It can do this because the book Blood and Fire is written like a dry history lesson told by a biased and unreliable historian, so the series writers could find plenty of instances to add things that might correct, contradict, or even "improve" the characters and the story and get away with it.

If you've read the book, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen to the characters by the time House of the Dragons ends in its fourth season, which is years away. However, there are plenty of things in the series not in the book, like the streamlining and re-ordering of some storylines and new characters. Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), Daemon's daughter, who is a new character created for the series in place of Nettles, an orphan Daemon adopts in the book. But there are significant fan fiction-style instances in the series, not in the book we want to talk about.

Larys Strong's Foot Fetish

In season one of Dance of the Dragons, the series writers not only made Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) the ruthless and wily schemer he was in the book, confirming the book's rumour that he plotted the deaths of his father and brother, but also gave him a foot fetish just to show he was a depraved creeper. The TV series version of Larys is the kind of guy who would Google "Alicent Hightower feet" and subscribe to the Onlyfans of women who did foot stuff. That's just hilarious.

Deemon's Spirit Walk

Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) went to Harrenhal to gather allies for Rhaenyra as he does in the book, but in House of the Dragon, he has a mind to use them to seize the crown for himself until Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) sends him on a hallucinatory spirit walk where he's forced to confront his resentment and towards his brother King Viserys and Rhaenyra, his guilt over the murder of his nephew and his ambition for the crown. This causes him to fully support Rhaenyra's bid for the throne. The book doesn't have him thinking about seizing the crown for himself or moping around in a season-long spirit walk. Alys Rivers is also not so overtly a witch in the book.

Rhaenyra and Mysaria's Slashy Kiss

Slashfic is fan fiction where characters who weren't gay in the official version of a story have a same-sex romance and kiss. House of the Dragon decides to have Rhaenyra and Mysaria suddenly kiss, which got all the fans very excited. Whether they take the kiss any further past season two remains to be seen.

Rhaenyra and Alicent: Slashy Frenemies

House of the Dragon follows the key events of Blood and Fire but takes the American television writing route to find the "hearts" of the story, namely the former friendship and love between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) as the subtext that drives both women's actions that end up leading to war. The book painted Alicent as a rigid and inflexible queen who installed her son Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) against her husband's dying wish to name Rhaenyra as his successor, which kicks off the war known as the Dance of the Dragons, which fans of Game of Thrones know would result in the death of nearly every dragon in the Seven Kingdoms and vastly diminish the Targaryeans' power.

House of the Dragon spends the second season showing that Alicent realizes she'd made a terrible mistake and misinterpreted the dying King Viserys' words, and she has caused this war that's likely going to get her sons killed on top of thousands in the land. Alicent is regretful and guilt-ridden in the TV series, where she was described as brittle and unwavering in the book, and unlike the book, she admits her mistake to Rhaenyra and tries to help her end the war with an offer to betray her own son before opting to peace out of the game of thrones, which might ensure her survival in the war by the series' end. None of this was in the book, which portrayed Alicent as a villain just the way Rhaenyra said she would be in the season two finale. The TV series shares Alicent feeling bad about everything she did while the book did not, but it seems to be something the writers think fans want to see.

Prophecy and Spoilers

The climax of Daemon's spirit walk has him witnessing the Prophecy of Ice and Fire, namely the coming of the White Walkers, the Three-Eyed Crow, the death of the dragons, and the future emergence of Daenerys Targaryen, pointing toward Game of Thrones. This was not in the book. Daemon also sees his probable death as depicted in the book (though Fire and Blood also offers a rumour that he could survive). Helaena (Phia Saban) also witnesses the same visions, revealing she has the gift of prophecy, and tells Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) he will die in the war without realizing any of his ambitions. In the book, none of the characters experience any prophecy or become aware of their upcoming deaths, nor is Helaena a mystic.

Prequels Often Already are Fanfic

All the above seem to be the kind of fanfiction elements in House of the Dragon that fans want to see (well, maybe apart from Larys Strong's foot fetish, that was just extra), and with George R.R. Martin's approval since he's more directly involved in the show. You could argue they might be redundant, but then prequels could also be said to be redundant since we already knew the outcome before the start of the main – and more popular – series. Maybe George R. R. Martin wrote Fire and Blood as his procrastination therapy to avoid finishing off the final novels in A Song of Ice and Fire. Currently, in the books, can you believe Jon Snow is still dead, Arya is still blinded in her assassin's initiation test, and Jaime and Brienne are still on the verge of getting executed by Lady Stoneheart, who's the very pissed-off resurrected zombie Caitlyn Stark, who stayed dead in Game of Thrones? It's been more than ten years and we're still stuck at those cliffhangers. We're supposed to have another three or four years of House of the Dragon to tide us over.

House of the Dragon is streaming on MAX.

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