BLOND AMBITION

TWO HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE GAME OF THRONES, THE DRAGON-RIDING TARGARYEN DYNASTY WENT TO WAR FOR THE IRON THRONE. SHOWRUNNER RYAN CONDAL REVEALS HOW NEW PREQUEL SERIES House Of The Dragon IS BRINGING SUCCESSION TO WESTEROS

- RICHARD EDWARDS

IF GAME OF THRONES TAUGHT US anything, it’s that finding a successor to the king is a big deal – such a big deal, in fact, that an entire continent will happily go to war to get their preferred candidate on the throne. HBO faced a similar power vacuum when its smash hit fantasy series called it a day back in 2019, but thankfully the US cable giant’s solution to the problem seems to involve rather less actual bloodshed, and a considerably larger budget.

Set around 200 years before the Lannisters, Starks, Baratheons, Greyjoys and Martells began their monumental tussle for the Iron Throne, prequel series House Of The Dragon is based on author George RR Martin’s Fire & Blood. This “fake history” book – jokingly described by the Tolkien-loving Martin as the “GRRMarillion” – details the three centuries of the Targaryen dynasty in the run-up to Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire saga.

This being Westeros, you can guarantee that dysfunction and back-stabbing will be rife among the blond-haired, dragon-riding members of King’s Landing’s first family. In fact, we’ll meet Daenerys’s ancestors just before a Targaryen spat descends into an epic, continent-spanning civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons.

“House Of The Dragon was the show that George really wanted to do and that HBO was very much interested in,” co-showrunner Ryan Condal (Colony) tells SFX. “As you’ll know if you’ve read Fire & Blood or the original books, there are a lot of fascinating stories to be told within the 300 years of the Targaryen dynasty. This is the one that George cared about the most because he felt like this story and the result of it have the greatest impact on