House of the Dragon, the first episode starts on the right foot: dragons, blood and a lot of ambition

London – It could only start with a giant dragon flying over King’s Landing House of the Dragonthe highly anticipated series prequel of game of Thrones which arrives from 22 August exclusively in Italy on Sky and Now TV, at the same time as Hbo. A return, the one in the lands of Westeros, which many were really waiting for with trepidation and a pinch of apprehensionafter the final season of the parent series, game of Thrones, he had left with a lot of bitterness in his mouth. “I watched the original series all at once and I just realized how difficult it is to close these stories“, he tells Wired Paddy Considine, the actor who plays the crucial character of re Viserysin London with the rest of the cast for the European premiere: “Looking back it is true that something was done in a rush, without the guidance of the books, but this new series everywhere the mold of George RR Martin, so the fans I think will be happy“.

The Targaryen background

In fact since first episode House of The Dragon it imposes itself as the worthy heir of the parent series, at the same time trying to free itself from a too stringent confrontation. Obviously the atmospheres, settings and points of reference they are those, but in a way that also manages to be unprecedented, perhaps more aware. History itself speaks of inheritance, placed 172 years earlier of the birth of that Daenerys mother of dragons we all know: King Viserys, at the height of the power of the House of Targaryen, sits on the Iron Throne but has no male heir. When an immense tragedy strikes him in this sense, his obsession with lineage leads him to an unspeakable decision – represented on the screen with particular monstrous suffering, in pure Westeros style – and he finds himself torn by doubt: to designate as his successor the sadistic and unpredictable brother Daemon or your own eldest daughter Rhaenyrawho is a young woman?

“Viserys is not ready for the task that belongs to him and somehow underestimates the situation, because he comes from such a long period of peace that he does not expect the status quo to fail – still says Considine -. But right from the start he is forced to make a decision that will mark the rest of his life“As is typical in Martin’s stories, this king too is faced with choices that must be weighed on one side his manias and his frailties and on the other the moral weight of his role. The same can be said of Daemon, played by Matt Smithnow used to the great fantasy sagas like Doctor Who but also to royal lineages as in The Crown (where he took on the role of Prince Philip). “I believe that Daemon only do what he thinks is right according to him, according to his moral code which is particular, very personal – says the actor a Wired -. Part of the frustration he has with his brother is that he is loyal to his family, to being a Targaryen, so he doesn’t tolerate when Viserys treats him like a king, he just wants to be treated like a brother.“.