HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones dominated television and pop culture discourse for much of a decade. Its upcoming prequel series, House of the Dragon, is similarly generating conversation, although not in ways the producers might prefer. Much of this has centred on discussions of sexual assault and rape on screen.
This new series is set 200 years before Game of Thrones. It dramatises the Dance of the Dragons, a war of succession in which factions of the Targaryen family fight for the Iron Throne of Westeros. A key trigger is whether Princess Rhaenyra, the ageing king’s firstborn, will become the first queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The showrunners have stated that a dominant theme is whether an entrenched “patriarchy would rather destroy itself than see a woman on the throne”.
