House Of The Dragon Will Be Different From Game Of Thrones In One Important Way

"House of Dragon" is battling enemies on all fronts. For one, the "Game of Thrones" prequel series has to contend with long-time fans who refuse to watch thanks to lingering ill will from a finale that the new creative team had no part in. The prequel also has to stave off conjecture that it will drown beneath boring, flimsy source material. And that doesn't even begin to take into account people, like those at Paste Magazine, who are asking if there was ever a need for a "Game of Thrones" prequel series to begin with. 

Be all that as it may, "House of Dragon" very much intends to exist, dragons and wigs and all. As the HBO series is a little over a month from release, press is ramping up in hopes to redirect the conversation as to what "House of Dragon" has to offer potential viewers. 

One way that the discussion is being framed is to showcase what "House of Dragon" will accomplish that "Game of Thrones" could never do, simply by the merit of the story it's based on. To that end, the creators behind the upcoming series have publicly shared their ambitions. Here's what they have to say. 

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, co-showrunner Ryan Condal said, "People are always going to have something to say about the way a beloved thing comes to an end. What they say doesn't really affect the way we approach this. We have this huge legacy to carry forward. [And we want to] do that in the best way that honors what came before, but also doesn't do the thing that I think a lot of sequels do: Here's [what] you love wrapped up in a different packaging. 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."

There are a few takeaways from this. Condal's primary intent seems to be that potential audiences should, hopefully, understand how "House of Dragon" thematically differs from "Game of Thrones" in that the former focuses on living inside a golden moment, while the ladder showcases that moment's disastrous fallout. It's interesting to note that while Condal vocally supports honoring his perceived legacy of the "Game of Thrones" series, he intentionally states that legacy is in no way shaped by the public response to the final season of "Game of Thrones," which fans almost universally despised. It's hard to know how to take this message — how do you honor a legacy, while ignoring the negative fallout which is a big part of that legacy? — but of course, "House of Dragon" might truly be an entirely new beast. Whatever else, the stacked casting is enough to draw viewership.