growing up game of thrones rolling stone

#GROWING UP GAME OF THRONES ROLLING STONE SERIES#
#GROWING UP GAME OF THRONES ROLLING STONE TV#

In a bitter piece of irony, Viserys moves through middle age with only one surviving child, his teenage daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock), as various would-be male heirs keep jockeying for position, most prominently Viserys’ younger brother Daemon (Matt Smith).

Viserys is the grandson of the previous king, inheriting the Iron Throne not because he has the most direct line of succession - that distinction belongs to his cousin Rhaenys (Eve Best) - but because he is a man and Rhaenys is… not. The Targaryen dynasty has successfully ruled Westeros for a long time, with the family’s cadre of fire-breathing dragons helping to maintain order within a kingdom that, as we saw on GoT, could very easily fracture otherwise.

#GROWING UP GAME OF THRONES ROLLING STONE SERIES#

The series takes place roughly two centuries before the events of Game of Thrones. As the only subjects, they’re almost uniformly dull, preventing House of the Dragon from justifying its existence as anything other than a calculated piece of brand extension for the newly-merged Warner Bros. House of the Dragon,unfortunately, is filled with characters and conflicts that would struggle to hold the audience’s interest if they were just one small element among the many of its parent series. A more streamlined show built around a character as rich as Tyrion, or Arya Stark, could perhaps work smashingly. While there are still many characters, all of them are in some way directly tied to the question of who will succeed Viserys (Paddy Considine) as ruler of Westeros.īut the spinoff unfortunately proves a poor test case for the less-is-more theory when it comes to adaptations of George R.R. The series takes place predominantly in and around the walls of the castle known as the Red Keep, with all of the significant figures either being members of the royal Targaryen family or people in their employ. HBO’s new prequel series House of the Dragon offers one version of what that would look like.

#GROWING UP GAME OF THRONES ROLLING STONE TV#

Installments of the series could feel less like TV episodes than hasty guided tours of the Seven Kingdoms: If you look over on your right, you’ll see Jaime Lannister leaping into a pit to rescue Brienne of Tarth from a large bear! And coming up in a moment on our left is Theon Greyjoy being castrated by the mysterious sadist who’s been torturing him all season… On the rare occasions when an hour stayed entirely with one group, like Jaime’s brother Tyrion mustering the defenses of King’s Landing for the Battle of the Blackwater, the narrative focus was so potent, it was hard not to wish for more of that - or to wonder what the show could be if it didn’t have to service dozens of characters and subplots. But in striving for such breadth, GoT at times struggled with depth.

The HBO fantasy epic had a seemingly bottomless and varied well of colorful characters and places from which to draw stories, and to keep the audience from growing tired of any one corner of its fictional world. THE MASSIVE SPRAWL of Game of Thronescould be both blessing and curse.

Growing up game of thrones rolling stone