Review: House of the Dragon Imagines Dragon Combat and It's Awesome

Much like in nuclear war, there’s no way to win when both sides have dragons.

While the awful finale of HBO's Game of Thrones series spoiled most of the goodwill the show had earned over its eight-year run, House of the Dragon—a prequel series set two centuries earlier—debuted with a confident, enthralling first season in 2022. The second season is slower than expected, but it nevertheless includes some scorching-hot action, mostly in the form of dragon battles.

House is derived from George R.R. Martin's overarching, multidecade history of the fictional Targaryen dynasty. That makes it a more difficult adaptation than A Song of Ice and Fire, the character-based drama series from which Thrones was derived. Even so, showrunner Ryan Condal has done an admirable job depicting an epic civil war between two rival branches of the dragon-riding royal family.

Said conflict is costly and destructive—and not just for the combatants. While Thrones periodically dwelt with the plight of civilians caught up in war, the greater involvement of dragons changes everything. Much like a modern-day confrontation between two nuclear powers, there's simply no way to win; the entire countryside burns.