Warning - major spoilers ahead for anyone who has not finished Game of Thrones, or seen the first episode of the new spin-off series, House of the Dragon.
Three years after the world's most-watched fantasy show came to a bitterly disappointing end, Game of Thrones fans have been treated to another slice of Westeros with the new prequel series, House of the Dragon.
Many fans called Game of Thrones' eighth and final season a disaster that rushed key plot points with the White Walkers, made nonsensical character decisions, and crowned one of the show's least interesting characters king. Thankfully, fan reactions to the new series has been much kinder.
Posting on social media after the premiere aired on HBO, one fan (@milo_afc) said: "House of the Dragon was a solid reminder that Game of Thrones was great at its peak. The performances are top notch, and the thing looks like a million dollars. Loved Matt Smith in this."
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For many fantasy buffs, the quality of storytelling, pacing, and fantastic dragon visuals in the new series has only reminded them of the original show's poor ending, with one Twitter user saying: "Finished watching the first episode of House of the Dragon. So far, a million times better than season 8 of Game of Thrones."
However, at the ending of House of Dragon's opening episode, King Viserys Targaryen passes down a prophecy to his heir from the infamous Aegon Targaryen, the first of their line to conquer Westeros, which fleshes out the disastrous season's back story.
Viserys reveals that Aegon did so following an apocalyptic vision, which saw "the end of the world of men" in a dark and "terrible" winter. In Aegon's dream only a Targaryen "king or queen, strong enough to unite the realm against the cold and the dark" can stop this from happening.
To hardened Game of Thrones viewers, this is an obvious allusion to the series of events that lead Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow to unite against the forces of the dead in the first few episodes of Season Eight - with "king or queen" pointing to the ambiguity introduced by the revelation that Jon also carried Targaryen blood.
While this fight for the survival of all mankind fleshes out and solidifies elements of the Targaryen tale left out of the Game of Thrones series and books, its epic tale of light versus dark, or "Song of Ice and Fire " only makes Season Eight's rushed ending more disappointing.
At the time, fans complained of the relatively quick resolution to the series' "big bad", the White Walkers, with the Battle of Winterfell seeing them off by Episode Three.
Now with this new information from Aegon's dream, resolving a centuries-long epic struggle against the very force of death itself, within an hour-long episode in the first half of a season, only seems more ridiculous.
