This move comes with the explicit goal of bringing the various river lords over to Rhaenyra’s cause (and using their armies against the Greens’) and the more implicit one of putting some distance between himself and his wife after she pretty much kicked him out of Dragonstone in episode 2. The reason being that little incident known as Blood and Cheese.

The post Turning Harrenhal Into a Literal Haunted Castle Is One of The Best Decisions ‘House of the Dragon’ Could Have Made appeared first on The Mary Sue.

While we only know the dragons that have flown over Westeros from the Conquest onward, that’s still more than enough to create a wide group of characters—because they are characters, there’s no arguing that—with their separate personalities and storylines. So here are the twelve best ever mentioned in Fire & Blood, The World of Ice and Fire, and anywhere in between—based on both their role in the story and my personal preference.

The post Here Are The Twelve Best Dragons in Targaryen History, Ranked appeared first on The Mary Sue.

The latest one to arise out of the depths of X-formerly-Twitter and take the fandom by storm was born out of a tweet from user @KenniMiddleton, who posted a picture of a kind of lopsided basketball court hidden in the alleys of the historic centre of the Croatian city of Dubrovnik—which was used as the setting for King’s Landing throughout major parts of Game of Thrones. The caption reads, “Yoooo Kings Landing has a basketball court. House of the Dragon about to go crazy.”

The post King’s Landing Has a Basketball Court and the Memes Are Predictably Hilarious appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Spoilers ahead for season 2 episode 5 of House of the Dragon, “Regent,” as well as some lore from Fire & Blood

The post Just When You Thought The Targaryen Family Tree Couldn’t Be More Circular, You Get Visions Thrown in appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Spoilers ahead for season 2, episode 5 of House of the Dragon, “Regent,” as well as the lore from Fire & Blood

The post ‘House of the Dragon’ Finally Introduces Us to Another One of the Ruling Ladies of Westeros appeared first on The Mary Sue.

This arc gives one of the cast’s most talented actors a chance to really flex his acting muscles as Daemon goes through a whole range of human emotions. It also does justice to Harrenhal being one of the creepiest, most cursed locations in Westeros. And it truly takes us deep into the mind of Daemon Targaryen who, like him or hate him, is one of the most fascinating characters in pretty much the entire Targaryen family tree.

The post The Translation of What Rhaenyra Tells Daemon Has Surfaced and It’s Making Me Want to Tear My Hair Out appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon season 2, episode 4

The post The First Dragon Battle of ‘House of the Dragon’ Did Not Disappoint appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon season 2 episode 4, as well as for future events described in Fire & Blood

The post Grandma Vhagar Seems Indestructible, But Is She Really? appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Spoilers ahead for season 2, episode 4 of House of the Dragon as well as for some more events from Fire & Blood

The post Is This Really Goodbye to One of ‘House of the Dragon’s Best Characters? appeared first on The Mary Sue.

The fourth episode of the ongoing second season of House of the Dragon, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” continued to show us Daemon literally fighting his demons during his stay at Harrenhal. 

The post Young Rhaenyra Wasn’t the Only Familiar Face ‘House of the Dragon’ Brought Back appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Based on a series of novellas—The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight—collected under the name of Tales of Dunk and Egg, the show will be set around eighty years after the events of House of the Dragon and some ninety years before Game of Thrones, so it will still be in the years of House Targaryen’s reign over the Seven Kingdoms.

The post We’ve Already Got Our Attention Set on the Next ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel, ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ appeared first on The Mary Sue.

That’s because the contracts of the four members of Blackpink were set to expire at the end of the summer of 2023, which meant that they would either renew and continue with the entertainment agency under which they debuted—that’s YG Entertainment—or choose a different path. The great specter of K-Pop, disbandment, was kind of hanging around the fandom.

The post Together but Apart, Here’s What Happened to Blackpink appeared first on The Mary Sue.

My Lady Jane truly has everything that anyone could possibly need—incredible chemistry between its leads, a beautiful romance based on the tropes we all love the most, witty exchanges, excellent costumes, and an underground resistance of people who can shapeshift into animals. As I said, everything.

The post ‘My Lady Jane’ Knows Exactly What We Want to See, and Boy Does It Deliver appeared first on The Mary Sue.

As a long-time fantasy girlie, this is part of what drew me to ASOIAF in the first place and also really what is making me stay here and manifest every single day for a scrap of news about The Winds of Winter. So you can imagine my delight when I saw yet another clear-as-day example of a trope being completely demolished in the third episode of the second season of House of the Dragon, “The Burning Mill.”

The post Ser Criston Cole Weaponizing Courtly Love Is Exactly What ASOIAF is About appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Spoilers ahead for season 2, episode 3 of House of the Dragon, “The Burning Mill,” as well as for some lore notions from Fire & Blood

The post ‘House of the Dragon’ Made Some Changes to the Story of Three Dragons Eggs We Know All Too Well appeared first on The Mary Sue.

And that’s what makes watching female characters try to navigate a society that is so stacked up against them so compelling, especially when those female characters are well-written and well-understood—something that House of the Dragon seems to be doing very well. Every single woman on screen has to deal with the patriarchy, and it influences not just her own actions but also her relationships with the other women around her. 

The post There’s Nothing I Love More Than Seeing Female Dynamics at Play in Westeros appeared first on The Mary Sue.

That’s why very few pet peeves annoy me more when titles are misused—not in relation to real life, but when it comes to that story’s own internal logic. And so here we are at what has to be the silliest complaint I could ever move towards House of the Dragon. Why oh why are Baela and Rhaena alternatively referred to as Lady or as Princess?

The post This Might Be the Silliest ‘House of the Dragon’ Pet Peeve to Have and Yet Here I Am appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Still, as someone who watches the episode and then spends roughly five hours pinging around various social media to see how the fandom discourse is going, I have picked up some discussions that I think are worth analyzing. And that’s how House of the Dragon has chosen to deal with war.

The post ‘House of the Dragon’ Refusing To Glorify War Is So Right Actually appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Spoilers ahead for everything that happened during House of the Dragon season 2, episode 3, “The Burning Mill.” Be warned.

The post The Queer Subtext in ‘House of the Dragon’ Is Not Even Subtext Anymore appeared first on The Mary Sue.

Don’t worry, though—this adaptation of My Lady Jane, a novel by authors Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, has none of the historical tragedy and all the romantasy tropes that we all know and love. 

The post Just Like Everything Else in ‘My Lady Jane,’ the Affliction Also Has Its Historical Counterpart appeared first on The Mary Sue.