 Even if you start out strong, you can mess up. Because I, you know, I can't help but be negative to deliver world-building information in a way that feels organic. The only one who could destroy House Targaryen was the House itself. I am pretty picky when it comes to, well, everything. So I was pleasantly surprised that my exacting and specific standards were or have been so far met by House of the Dragon. I've only seen the first episode so far, but it was quite an episode. And I think I've seen enough to be able to say that I have high hopes for this. I mean, the original Game of Thrones show started out really strong and then went downhill. So that's not to say that you can't mess up. Even if you start out strong, you can mess up. But this is a very, very promising start. I have pretty much nothing negative to say. That's not to say that I think that it's perfect. I don't think it's perfect, but there isn't enough of anything to really speak on that I could say here is an entire con, like an entire thing that it did wrong. Like it would just be like specific things in scenes where I'd be like, that like one little piece of dialogue like wasn't quite what I would like or this shot isn't quite what I would like or things like that where like they're very, very nitpicky things. Like this VFX in this one shot was like it looked a tiny bit kind of fake like stuff like that. You know where it's like we are truly searching for reasons to complain at that point. So really this is just gonna be a list of positives but also not just a list of positives because I can't help but be negative. It's a list of positives that I also specifically want to call out because these are things that other shows and even books do badly. And so I really want to call out this show doing it well so far. Doing it well because apparently that's a really high bar. Apparently shows struggle to do this and so far House of the Dragon is acing it, nailing it, absolutely knocking it out of the park. First and foremost, when you're doing a series that is in some way a spin-off, prequel, sequel, something connected to an already existing universe and not just an existing universe but an existing universe that has already been on television by the same network. It is a boon and a hindrance because you have to decide early on, right? If you're going to try to make this be kind of divorced from the original product and have its own stamp, its own look, its own feel or if you want to make it feel like a continuation of or a part of or whatever. So basically are you wanting to acknowledge the existence of the previous thing and emulate its feel and style so that this feels in keeping with the existing what's happened or are you going to actively choose to do things to make it clear to the audience early on that we're doing something different now? So House of the Dragon is very, very much going with we are part of a shared universe with Game of Thrones which I think is the right thing to do especially considering that's what these books are. These books exist and then Fire and Blood which is what House of the Dragon is based on is a prequel for this existing universe. So the show should function the same way that the books do in my opinion so I think that's the right choice. But so that being said, now when you have when you start doing the show, right? Again, it's a boon and a hindrance. Like how much do you want to retread old ground so that a new viewer who has never seen this never seen the original thing that this is sharing universe with someone who's never seen that, never were the books so that they could watch this but also not repeat things and explain things to the point where somebody that has seen that other stuff is like, why are you wasting my time with this? Why are we retreading this? So that's kind of a difficult balance and like a lot of the ways that you're gonna explain things how much are you gonna rely on what they already know from the previous show, from the books? How much are you going to go out of your way to explain it? Again, that's a tough needle to thread, that's a tough line to walk and so far there's only seen one episode this first episode was a brilliant introduction and reorientation into this world. It does a brilliant job through like the overview shots of the place, the shots of the people, the way that it sweeps you through in the early on in the show the way it kind of navigates you through some aerial shots and some shots of the place we will be in at least in the beginning mainly King's Landing. It's fantastic because it does two things. One, it reacquaints you with an existing world so it should look somewhat familiar to you because this is the same place that a lot of Game of Thrones takes place. So kind of welcoming you back into the world of Westeros being like, here's, you know, here's where we are. Westeros, does this look familiar? Does this look like something you know? Are we feeling like we're home again? Great. But also showing you how it's not the same showing you Westeros so that you're like, yes, this is Westeros but also this is a different era of Westeros and I feel that when I watch it. I'm like, oh, this is Westeros of 200 years ago. This feels the same but earlier kind of like, I mean, anywhere in our real world if you showed the place and it's recognizedly that place but looks like it did however many years ago. So both showing us how everything is the same and also how everything is different and getting you sort of oriented physically to the environs of this place or the world that you're going to be in for the duration of this show. It does use some existing Game of Thrones characters to orient you for the time of when this is taking place. And I think that was handled pretty well. Again, it relies on you knowing who Daenerys Targaryen is. However, if you do not know who Daenerys Targaryen is, I mean, that you don't really need to be oriented in a time as much I suppose but if you already have seen Game of Thrones, it's helpful to know, okay, so like I know this is the past but like how far back? And so having this text on the screen tell you exactly how many years before Daenerys Targaryen, this is taking place. I think was a good idea. A good way to very quickly cliff notes a version of like now you have a very like a real point of reference, you know, for like, okay, I can like, you know, maybe not visualize that is the right word but you have a internal kind of sense of kind of like when you're shown things for scale, you know, like you have a sense of like when this is. So that was well done. So only to set the scene of the current political situation. Like this is a really tricky thing to do quickly and in a way that doesn't feel like a lot. Like when you read Fire and Blood, I really enjoyed Fire and Blood. I really liked the book but it is like drinking out of a fire hose. Like the amount of like details he throws at you and character names and events because it's written like a history book. So you're just like, it's not like scenes where there's like a slow unfolding of events. Like we are whipping through 300 years of history. And so the fact that this show is chosen to start in a midpoint. So we're already like a bit of a ways into Fire and Blood. And so in order to understand what's happening in this point in Fire and Blood, it's like if you're reading the book, you have been building up to this point. You've been following the families and who all is involved and all of the rivalries that have been slowly brewing and the generational politics that have been going on. But the show is dropping you in, in the middle of that already having happened. So not only does it have to orient you in terms of where Game of Thrones is and where this is in relation to that, it also has to kind of catch you up on the stuff it skipped over and not ideally in a way that feels overwhelming or info.b. It does this wonderfully. It gives you enough nods to, oh, the Targaryens have been around, they are in power, there was a conquering. Like it throws out some information like that that is general enough to where you don't feel overwhelmed by it. But you're like, I have a sense of kind of how we've come to this point. There is the brief intro telling you how specifically, maybe not every generation that came before what they all got up to and what they all accomplished, which is what you get in Fire and Blood. Basically the bit of sort of exposition prologue that you get is setting up specifically this generation's political situation, this generation's familial politics. Who is, who are the main players and how they are in the positions they are in and what built in rivalry exists in that, i.e. the decision to like the choice of who's gonna be made the heir to the throne and how this is kind of a group decision and how this was not like a given. That precedent is being set by this decision. Somebody was chosen over someone else when they pretty much had an equal chance at being chosen. And so that sets up, this is the person who is in power. They are the king and that's where we're stepping off now. That's the opening situation for this show. They are in power, but we already know that the fact of them being in power was like a 50-50. That it's not exactly the most solid of positions to be in and we get the brilliant bit of foreshadowing in the beginning of the show, which is what the entire sort of premise of this portion of Targaryen history is, is that the reason why this was all done, why they had to have this group decision and it was, you know, had to be decided in this way about who's going to be the heir to the throne was because they knew that the only one who could destroy House Targaryen was the House itself. And this spoilers is gonna be an entire show about civil war. So it's a great way to set the scene of like the rocky ground on which we already are and how this house is going to eat itself basically. Setting that up is already like a great jumping off point because you feel oriented at this world, you feel oriented at the situation and you already feel some amount of like stakes and tension and investment in the political situation that you're going to be in now. Like you all, like a lot of shows, you know, kind of how to give you a second to like show you stuff and introduce you to everybody and only then do you start to finally learn what might be the inciting incident or conflict here. And almost at the very beginning of the episode, we already feel the tension that is the sort of key problem that is going to set everything in motion. Like you're already there in the beginning of the episode and it's done so quickly and effectively through like giving you these key pieces of information and key visuals and key scenes so that you're already hooked and there and aware of how tense this is. I mentioned a couple things already. One of those being a visual storytelling and how effectively the show so far and Game of Thrones did this really well as well which is and I believe it's largely the same team doing House of the Dragon. So it's unsurprising that they're excelling at this now as well. But it uses every opportunity to tell the story which is what a good film or television show does where nothing is wasted because every single scene gives you the opportunity to further your story. So the angle of the camera, the clothing that is worn, who is in the scene, the coloring of the scene, the light and shadows in the scene, the music in the scene, all of that should be helping to further the story. So there's a lot of shows that feel like they have dead space and that they feel like they're dragging and they feel like there's nothing going on. And oftentimes that's because there isn't anything going on. But other shows will have slow scenes where like nothing is going on but you don't feel that way about them because they are still serving a narrative purpose even though there is nothing happening because what the scene does do is further develop or explain or introduce a thematic topic to establish something about a character, to establish something about a motivation, to establish something about a situation, things like this. So just having a long shot of someone staring out of a window that can often feel like wasted time and like why are we doing this and it's been five minutes, they're still staring out of a window, why are we doing this? But a well done scene can show you somebody staring out of a window and they can feel like it is doing something for the show. So this isn't a scene from the show or anything but like if you show somebody staring off into the distance, this will feel less like wasted time if it was not a given that they would be doing that, if a previous scene would have made you think that they would not do that. But the fact like perhaps they seemed very confident and aggressive in what they stated in the previous scene which was the scene where something was happening and then you cut to the next scene where they are staring off through the window and the way the light will look and the way that the camera angle is et cetera, the way that the actor performs it, nothing is happening but the fact that you're being shown this scene where they look pensive and this is the moment when they are by themselves tells you something about them as a character and the difference between their public face and their private face and this is important information perhaps in which case that is not a wasted scene it is not wasted time it is developing the character it is developing the situation and gives you more information for how to assess them the next time they are in a public place because now you know the bravado that they show in public is not the same thing as what they might truly be thinking and feeling which is again important and valuable information versus a scene where someone just is staring off into space and you get a VFX shot of like the city below like I guess that's cool that might be good if we are just setting the scene of where this is taking place but a lot of things like that will go on way too long and there's actually no narrative reason to be showing us that so my point is House of the Dragon wastes no time wastes no space wastes no scene every scene is giving you there's a lot of information in Fire and Blood and for that to feel digestible and approachable especially to a member of the audience that has not read it you have to be able to subconsciously be giving that information to people so that the information that is handed to them consciously is digestible enough small enough dose of it and then the rest of it is being filled in subconsciously and so you can absorb the feel of everything that's going on and you don't feel overwhelmed by it because you're picking up information without knowing that you're doing it so some great examples of this are in costuming and in camera angles that they're choosing so the show does this basically in every scene with every character but these are some great examples of it to illustrate my point three characters for three very key characters in particular Viserys, Reynira and Daemon Targaryen the fact that the very first time you see Reynira and Targaryen she is on dragonback and that she is clothed in a tire that would be more practical, utilitarian for if not fighting still doing something active and this is your first introduction to who she is and what her deal is so your very first impression of her is that and really the first time that you see Viserys, her father he is in a council chamber surrounded by other people and in this chamber he is not wearing armor and he's dressed like a king and before you ask me I know you do technically see him in this sort of prologue scene so we can disagree about whether that is the first time you're given an impression of him I would say a coronation scene tells you nothing about a character because no one is in their natural habitat in a scene like that so it doesn't count again so for me the first time you see him in his day to day life now that we're moving into the story is him in this council chamber where he's not dressed for war he's not dressed for any kind of action and he's not the way that the angles are framed in the shot and the way that he is surrounded by people he does not seem to it is not framed in a way where he seems to be in command or in control it doesn't seem he is not dominating the room in any way he seems to be one of a group he seems to be not at the mercy of anyone per se but he is he doesn't again it's how the angles are framed and what he's wearing he does not seem to be commanding that room then when every time we are shown almost invariably every time we are shown Daemon Targaryen he's wearing armor we also see him obviously do brutal things but throughout the first throughout the first episode of the show it's not only when he's with the city watch when he's doing violent things where it would make sense for him to wear armor in almost every other scene he is wearing armor and he looks like he's ready for action we also get lots of scenes where the way that Rhaenyra reacts to her father like just her facial expressions versus the way that she reacts to Daemon Targaryen her facial expression her bodily reactions to this the way those shots are framed the camera angles that are used tell you a lot about those characters' relationship even though they have very little dialogue they have very little that they say to each other there's you still have a very good impression of kind of what that dynamic is like and then a very key scene where camera angles again become important is when slight spoilers for towards the end of the episode when Viserys is confronting Daemon and he's had Daemon brought before him and Viserys is sitting in the iron throne and the camera angle does show, you know, look upward at Viserys, who is the king and should be the dominating presence that you are looking up at however the camera does not angle downward to look at Daemon it also is angled upward to look at Daemon so it the scene positions them almost equally in terms of where the camera is looking at them and the way that the camera shows Viserys on the throne, again it is often a wide angle shot and that wide angled shot makes him look like he is dominated by the throne rather than dominating the throne whereas below where Daemon is that is a closer angled upward shot where he does look to be commanding the space around him and he is once again wearing armor so this kind of visual storytelling the conversation that happens between them tells you a lot of information as well but the whole time the way that you are looking at those characters via the camera angle is giving you a sense of power dynamics without the show ever explicitly telling you these things speaking of dialogue dialogue is also done very very well and in general I would say in the Song of Mice and Fire books by Dora Dora Martin he's good at doing this and a lot of shows and a lot of books do this really badly and this is a really difficult thing to do so I mean I still complain about it but I acknowledge it is difficult to deliver world building information in a way that feels organic that does not feel like this was written for a scene that does not feel like this was written for you the audience to hear this information the way that a lot of especially fantasy but you know any book that has to give you a lot of like set up information about this world and traditions and cultures and peoples and history etc there will be a scene where like imagine like our world and people are celebrating Christmas and the readers listening to a story about our world don't know what Christmas is because we're a made up world and you suddenly have a conversation around Christmas time where someone says oh yes I must get that tree for that celebration that we have you know the one that was begun by the pagans but then was adopted by the Christians and for some reason we still you know like no one talks like this you'd be like why are you explaining to me the history of Christmas right now like this is super weird because it is super weird because everyone that that person would be talking to already knows this like why are you why are you saying this so in a lot of fantasy and speculative books and in TV shows characters will say wildly unnatural things like that because the audience needs to know this information but it feels jarring and out of place and that's what makes it feel oftentimes quite fake is that you're like why are they talking like this like why would they be explaining something to each other that they already know like it feels weird it feels awkward so there are much subtler ways of doing this and it's rare that a book or show can get away with absolutely never doing that although it's been done but there's a lot of times when you can have characters say things where they don't full on explain something but they do give you enough pieces enough context clues and then even if that one conversation didn't give you the whole picture still through as you go on what information you did glean from that conversation coupled with what you learn in another scene coupled with what you see in another scene coupled with your own ability to you know think logically you can piece together the situation without the the dialogue or narrator explicitly ever having to tell you something a lot of the political dynamics and the familial relationships and the the personalities of the characters and everything that's going on in Game of Thrones it did it very well but in House of the Dragon there's a lot of characters there's a lot of politics that we have skipped over and we're starting in the middle and it would be so easy to just have characters walk around and just like monologue and tell you the history of their world which would feel very strange but it doesn't do that it shows you dynamic conversations where you don't necessarily know what they're talking about these are new words to you these are new people to you but because of how the scene is framed it's clear who's in charge because of how they address one another it's clear that who is not in charge or what role they might play without anybody saying ah yes you who has this title and this role in my court you who tends to work on these things tell me of the newest thing you have to like no one would say this because we already know who they are if we are sitting in that room like that feels unnatural but the way they address one another and the kinds of things they ask them about you're like okay so this must be what they do because that's what they're being asked about the way that uh you can often employ uh taunting and and like bantering kind of dialogue to give a lot of information because it's in moments of like that where people will reference more personal details about each other that there wouldn't actually normally be a reason to bring up you know because these are things that we already know about each other um but if i'm wanting to taunt you if i'm wanting to call out something that you're embarrassed about i might bring up a detail about you that it doesn't i mean it doesn't otherwise make sense for me to mention it but it might be important for the viewer slash reader to know this so by having a character call it out as a taunt it feels normal in universe for that to be happening but also gives you information so damon targaryen is great for this because he does like taunt people and when he does that he calls out history about those characters or information about their situations that would be difficult to otherwise deliver to you the viewer or you the reader now the show does offer a lot of creative a lot of opportunities for creative liberty because the book itself is is written like a history book so it's not there aren't again these slow scenes unfolding so i'm pleased to see that they're sort of tanking that opportunity and running with it in a very good way because you know in a book like fire and blight you can say oh damon targaryen was made the head of the city watch and he did brutal things so obviously in a show you're going to be showing them do that you're going to be showing the minutiae of the reactions to him doing that you're going to see the scene in which this happens you're going to see the scene in which people react to it having happened so things like that's just one example but in a book like that where it's just basically a list of events a list of people a list of births a list of deaths a list of marriages a list of title changes and events that's kind of how the book goes i mean it has more color than that but you know what i mean where it's not a scene in the way that you would normally have in a novel and so you have the opportunity or the writers of the show have the opportunity to say okay we know this happened so we're going to have it happen but the book doesn't show you exactly how it happened it just says that it does happen and so we have the opportunity to now can invent a scene in which that is what has taken place what would they have said what would they how they would have reacted to this having happened so they get to flesh all that out a lot and it's really fun to see that if you have read the book because while they're being true to the events of the book for the most part they you're getting to see it come to life so it feels kind of like if you've studied history and then you see you know like a film that dramatizes that period of history where it sort of breathes more life into something that you did know happened but now you're going to get to see how really like minute to minute that happened so i am very very very impressed with this first episode i have high hopes for this is going to go it's there's a ton of rich material to adapt here with fire and blood there's again it's a dense book there's a lot that goes on and i i like to see that the show is trusting its audience it's trusting us to be able to piece this information together and but it's also not um making it inaccessible it's not trusting you so much it's it's just whipping you through this and not giving you the chance to follow it along i think it's it's really threading that needle quite well so far where it's a lot to to pick up it's a lot of information to be throwing at you but it's doing it in a way where it is possible to do it but it doesn't feel like it's being spoon fed to you which is perfect so so far chef's kiss i am loving it and i'm very very excited to see where the rest of the show is going well let me know your thoughts in the comments down below did you like the first episode of house of the dragon were you disappointed are you excited about where it's going have you read fire and blood or do you know nothing about the targaryen history whatever you want to let me know i post videos on saturdays other random times we'll have a dolphin saturday so like and subscribe to my patreon if you feel so inclined and i'll see you when i see you