Opinion – House of the Dragon Season 1, 2 & 3.
These are entirely my own opinions and feelings regarding both the source material and the changes made for the television adaptation.
I think it's pretty obvious to say that Season 1 was excellent. The show had so much potential. The characters were complex and genuinely felt like they belonged in the same world as Game of Thrones: vicious, manipulative, ambitious, and dangerous. One of my favorite episodes is still Driftmark because every character felt driven by their own motivations, and you never knew what someone would do next. This is where House of the Dragon reached its peak—unfortunately.
Even after that, the season remained very strong.
However, I think the problems began with Episodes 8 and 9.
The decision to have Alicent usurp the throne because she misunderstood Viserys' final words about Aegon the Conqueror was the first major crack in the writing for me. While I actually enjoyed Episode 9 overall—Aegon running away, Aemond bringing him back despite clearly wanting the throne himself, and Otto encouraging Alicent's misunderstanding because it aligned with his own ambitions—that change already started shifting responsibility away from the characters.
I also didn't mind the change where Aemond accidentally kills Lucerys. In fact, I thought it worked. His intention was to humiliate and terrify Luke, but he lost control of Vhagar, and that became the consequence of his own recklessness. It was a change from the book that still respected the themes of the story.
Unfortunately, I think Season 2 is where the show truly lost its plot for me.
My biggest issue is that the writers seem determined to whitewash the characters.
One of the reasons Game of Thrones became one of the greatest television series of all time was its morally gray characters. Almost everyone operated in that gray area, making ruthless decisions driven by survival, ambition, revenge, or the pursuit of power. You never knew what a character was capable of, and that unpredictability made every interaction compelling.
I think House of the Dragon initially understood that. Season 1 presented us with complex characters whose flaws and ambitions constantly clashed, making the conflict feel inevitable. But by Season 2, the show seems far more interested in making its protagonists sympathetic than allowing them to be flawed, ruthless, or even unlikeable. In trying to make them more "good," it has made many of them feel less believable.
Once Lucerys and Jaehaerys were dead, there should have been no turning back. No more peace talks. No more attempts at negotiation. No more illusions that this war could somehow be stopped. At that point, both sides had already lost children. The conflict had crossed a line that made reconciliation impossible.
Instead, the show repeatedly portrays both Rhaenyra and Alicent as passive women constantly trying to avoid conflict while being manipulated by the men around them. Rather than driving the war through their own choices, they often feel like spectators to events set in motion by Otto, Daemon, Aegon, and Aemond.
For me, that's where the adaptation loses one of the central themes of the Dance of the Dragons. This should be a war fueled by ambition, vengeance, survival, and conscious choices—not by misunderstandings, hesitation, and characters repeatedly trying to undo a conflict that had already become inevitable.
Two of the worst mistakes in Season 2 come from scenes that were never in the original source material and, in my opinion, only serve as fan service for viewers who insist on seeing Alicent and Rhaenyra as having some sort of romantic relationship. God forbid two women can deeply love and care for each other as friends.
Rhaenyra sneaking into King's Landing to speak with Alicent. Alicent traveling alone to Dragonstone.
To me, these scenes feel completely unbelievable. Not only because they no longer make emotional sense after so much blood has been spilled, but because they don't make sense politically or even logistically. How does either of them simply sneak out of one of the most heavily guarded castles in Westeros and into the other's stronghold without anyone noticing? No guards questioning them. No servants recognizing them. No rumors spreading across the realm. It completely breaks the world's internal logic.
Even worse, neither of them, as the heads of their respective houses and women in positions of power, even considers capturing the other, despite that being the most logical military decision to end the war. The only reason neither of them does is because the plot needs both characters to survive. It feels less like two intelligent political players making difficult choices and more like the writers refusing to let them behave like rulers in the middle of a civil war.
One of the things I always loved about Game of Thrones was that even women living under patriarchal systems found ways to seize power. Characters like Cersei, Daenerys, and even Sansa were constantly constrained by the men around them, but they adapted, manipulated, and fought back.
Here, Rhaenyra and Alicent often just feel... weak.
What frustrates me is that I think this could have been fixed without changing the overall story.
For Alicent, I would have preferred if, after realizing she misunderstood Viserys' final words, she simply refused to admit it—to herself or to anyone else. She could have buried the guilt, convinced herself that usurping the throne was still the right decision, and continued making ruthless choices because there was no turning back. That would have made her far more compelling.
Likewise, Rhaenyra could have slowly lost pieces of her humanity after Lucerys' death. At first, she might genuinely feel sympathy for Helaena after the murder of Jaehaerys, but as the war escalates, she could begin justifying increasingly cruel actions. That's a tragic arc. That's the kind of moral deterioration I expected from the Dance of the Dragons.
Instead, both women keep trying to hold onto peace long after peace has become impossible.
The biggest example of this is Alicent going to Dragonstone and essentially offering up her sons' lives in exchange for her own freedom and Helaena's safety.
To me, that's not only unbelievable—it feels completely out of character.
Take Cersei, for example. She was cruel, manipulative, and often monstrous, but one thing was always consistent: she loved her children. She would kill for them, lie for them, and die for them. That consistency made her believable.
If the writers wanted Alicent to abandon Aegon and Aemond, then they needed to explore why.
Maybe she never truly loved her children because they were a constant reminder of the life she was forced into. Maybe she sees Aegon and Aemond as monsters she helped create and decides they're beyond saving. That could have been interesting.
But then what about Daeron?
We're repeatedly told that Daeron is kind and honorable. If Rhaenyra's victory means eliminating every rival claimant, then Daeron would also be in danger. Alicent's decision completely ignores that reality.
Even more importantly, it contradicts one of Alicent's defining beliefs from Season 1.
She repeatedly told Aegon that, whether he wanted the throne or not, he would always be a threat to Rhaenyra simply because he was Viserys' eldest son. From Alicent's perspective, taking the throne wasn't just ambition—it was survival.
So why would that suddenly stop being true?
If anything, after blood has already been spilled, she should believe it more, not less.
Or perhaps her motivation was never really about power. Maybe it was about validating the sacrifices she had been forced to make: marrying a man she didn't love, producing heirs out of duty, and spending years defending a system she never chose. Perhaps crowning Aegon was the only way to convince herself that none of those sacrifices had been in vain.
Or maybe she genuinely believed in tradition—that the throne belonged to the eldest son, regardless of Viserys' wishes.
Any of these motivations could have worked. The problem is that the show never fully commits to exploring any of them, leaving Alicent feeling inconsistent from one episode to the next.
Episode 3x01 – The Battle of the Gullet
My first criticism is that this battle should never have been delayed until Season 3. Ending Season 2 before one of the biggest battles completely killed the momentum.
That being said, I actually like one adaptation choice: giving Nettles' storyline to Rhaena. Considering Daemon's later storyline with Nettles, I think merging those characters could be a smart long-term decision.
However, I do have doubts about how this will eventually create conflict between Daemon and Rhaenyra, especially because of three important writing choices: first, Daemon has never been shown to have any particular protectiveness or emotional attachment toward his daughters; second, Rhaenyra has been consistently written as more forgiving and soft-hearted compared to her book version (so if she can forgive Alicent and even cry over killing Otto despite them indirectly contributing to the deaths of Lucerys and Jace, it’s hard to imagine her refusing to forgive Rhaena, who has essentially been like a daughter to her, even if Rhaena is indirectly involved in Jace’s death); and third, it seems the entire infidelity storyline is being shifted toward Rhaenyra and Mysaria instead, which feels unnecessary to me.
What I don’t like is how the beginning of this conflict was handled. Once again, the writers fall back on the same explanation they used with Aemond: “We can’t control dragons.”
The first time, with Vhagar, it was shocking. The second time, with Sheepstealer, it just feels like they're repeating the same narrative device to justify questionable writing.
Even worse, Rhaena becomes another character who makes dumb choices mainly to cover for previous plot decisions instead of developing naturally.
The biggest issue for me, though, is how they changed the Battle of the Gullet itself.
In the book, Rhaenyra is devastated by Lucerys' death and isn't in a condition to lead the battle. Jace steps forward largely because his younger brothers are in danger, and that's what leads to his death. That makes sense.
In the show, however, Rhaenyra is literally locked inside Dragonstone by her own guards because Jace ordered it. I'm sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense. Since when do the Queen's guards obey the prince over the Queen herself?
It feels like another example of the writers taking agency away from Rhaenyra instead of allowing her to make difficult decisions herself. Making her a victim of circumstances and man power. Boring.
The absence of Rhaenyra and Daemon's younger children from the battle also removes much of the urgency that exists in the source material.
Another recurring problem is that the show keeps trying to portray Rhaenyra as brave by having her insist on personally flying into danger. But being a good ruler isn't about constantly proving you're brave. It's about making smart strategic decisions. A queen should know when not to fight.
Instead of demonstrating intelligence by sending the appropriate dragonriders, the show repeatedly has her trying to do everything herself, which ironically makes her seem less capable as a ruler.
Finally, I have to admit that Jace's death didn't affect me nearly as much as I expected. Not because of the scene. But because I don't think the show invested enough time in him.
We barely saw his diplomacy in Winterfell, his political instincts, or why he was such an important asset to Team Black. Instead, the show often made him seem less competent so that Rhaenyra could appear wiser or more heroic. Ironically, that decision hurts both characters.
Jace's death should have been one of the most heartbreaking moments of the series. The same Lucerys was.
Instead, it was Episode 2—watching Rhaenyra grieve over his body—that finally made me feel something. And that's a shame, because the emotional impact should have come from losing Jace himself, not from the aftermath.
Before I get into Episode 2, I want to point out a few more criticisms of Episode 1.
One of my biggest disappointments was the Battle of the Gullet itself. This battle is supposed to be one of the largest and bloodiest conflicts of the Dance, yet it never felt as grand as it should have. Honestly, I don't think it even reached the level of the Battle of Blackwater from Game of Thrones. There was something off with the audio as well.
Part of the problem is that I simply don't feel as invested in many of these characters as the show expects me to. If Corlys died here, I don't think I'd feel nearly what I felt when Rhaenys died. On the other hand, I have been enjoying Alyn's storyline, and both he and Addam are becoming some of my favorite characters this season.
Sharako Lohar also didn't work for me. I mean no disrespect to the actress, but the performance felt stiff and exaggerated, and I never really bought the character.
I was also disappointed that we didn't get to see the Winter Wolves/ Lannister in battle. At this point, I feel almost no emotional investment in that storyline, which is unfortunate.
As for Rhaena and Sheepstealer... I’m sorry, but those scenes happening during the Battle of the Gullet actually made me cringe. They completely broke the tension of what should have been one of the show’s defining battles. I was just rolling my eyes at yet another “rider loses control of their dragon” moment. It feels like the show keeps falling back on the same explanation to justify chaos in these sequences, and instead of raising the stakes, it just makes the world and the battles feel smaller and cheaper.
One thing I did love, however, was Jace's death. I thought the way it happened was believable. The arrows came quickly, there wasn't some exaggerated heroic last stand, and that made the moment much more tragic.
As for Aemond and Alicent’s kiss… honestly, I’m still not sure how I feel about it, or what the point of it even was. We already know Aemond is cruel and unstable. We already know Alicent has raised men who have become monsters. We already know she is, in many ways, powerless against them.
I just hope this isn’t the prelude to more bizarre mother–son hallucinations in Harrenhal, because that storyline is already wearing thin.
Episode 2 - Queen's Landing
Overall, I actually enjoyed this episode much more than Episode 1.
The aftermath of the battle was handled very well.
Watching Baela bring Jace's body home, seeing the guards carry him through Dragonstone, and especially Rhaenyra's reaction—it all landed emotionally. Ironically, I felt more from the aftermath of Jace's death than from the death itself, which says more about how underdeveloped his character has been than about the performances.
The sequence of Vhagar burning Harrenhal was fantastic.
Aemond executing Simon Strong without hesitation also reminded me of the ruthless character I expected him to become. Simon will definitely be missed.
However, I think the show once again falls into the trap of convenience.
Aemond being badly injured so quickly feels less like a natural consequence of a fight and more like an excuse to introduce his storyline with Alys Rivers. Personally, I think it would have been much more interesting if Alys had survived because of her intelligence and manipulation rather than because the plot conveniently left Aemond vulnerable.
The dragons arriving over King's Landing was easily one of the highlights of the episode. I completely understand why this was originally intended to be the season finale.
Otto's execution was also long overdue...
...but it's also where my biggest criticism of the episode begins.
Once again, I think the writers continue portraying both women as passive participants in a war they should be driving.
Take Alicent.
She tells the guards about Rhaenyra’s arrival, trusting them far too easily and putting both herself and Helaena in danger.
Personally, I think it would have made much more sense for her to quietly prepare an escape. She shouldn't care if dragons fought outside the city or if lives were lost in the process—as long as the chaos allowed her and Helaena to get away.
That would have been a strategic decision.
Instead, she reacts. She rarely acts.
The attempted rape scene also felt completely unnecessary to me. At this point, we already understand what Alicent has been through. We’ve watched her be manipulated since childhood, sold by her father, forced into an unwanted marriage, and made to bed a sick old man she never chose. We’ve watched her give birth too young, and endure years of emotional and psychological pressure. We’ve even seen her abused by her own son in the previous episode.
The audience doesn’t need another scene reminding us that she’s a victim. Especially after the scene in Dragonstone. This moment undercuts what the show had just established about her—she is finally gaining agency and taking power.
Simply imprisoning her would have accomplished the exact same narrative purpose while making her desperation to escape even stronger.
One character I actually think has remained surprisingly consistent is Helaena. I really don't have many complaints about her characterization. She's one of my favorite characters. That said, I do think the show missed an opportunity to let her unravel after Jaehaerys' murder. I expected to see her slowly descend into grief and madness, which would make her eventual fate all the more tragic.
Then we come to Rhaenyra.
She's grieving. She's broken. But once again... she isn't making the choice. Daemon once again has to come and push her toward action.
For a brief moment, I genuinely thought this would be the turning point of her story. She has lost her father. Her unborn daughter. Lucerys. Jace. Her throne. Everything has been taken from her because of Otto, Alicent, and the Greens. I thought this was finally going to be the moment where she decided that she had already sacrificed too much for any of it to be in vain.
Instead... Daemon has to convince her to act. Again.
I actually loved Daemon cutting his way through the Red Keep for her. It reinforces just how dangerous and skilled he is, and exactly why the Greens have always feared him. The Gold Cloaks sequence was incredible—I had no idea how the throne room would play out, but seeing them turn and side with Daemon was easily the most satisfying moment of the entire scene.
But then I have to point out the most cringe-worthy and anticlimactic part of the scene: Rhaenyra drawing her sword. Seriously?
I know the show wants this to be a “strong female character” moment, but strength isn’t about pretending to be someone you’re not.
What exactly is Rhaenyra going to do with that sword?
She has never been portrayed as a warrior. She hasn’t trained like Visenya the Conqueror, who, as we are constantly reminded, she admires. She hasn’t proven herself in combat, and she hasn’t led armies or shown consistent strategic brilliance.
She’s not suddenly going to defeat trained knights just because the music swells.
Instead of making me admire her, the scene made me react exactly like the guards did.
I laughed.
Then comes Otto.
This is where I think the show fundamentally misunderstands what makes the characters in Game of Throne so memorable.
Otto Hightower is responsible for almost everything that has happened. He convinced Viserys to name Rhaenyra heir. He spent years undermining that very decision. He manipulated Viserys into marrying Alicent. He usurped the throne. He sent men to kill Rhaenyra.
He's responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of countless people—including Jace and Lucerys.
So when she finally has the chance to execute him...
...she hesitates. She cries.
I understand why killing Otto would be emotionally difficult. He had been part of her life since childhood. He was her father's closest advisor. The father of her closest friend. In another life, he might even have been someone she trusted.
But that's exactly why I think she should have hidden those emotions.
A queen should mourn in private—especially the dead of her enemies. She cannot break down in front of the entire court she is trying to rule.
Instead, Daemon once again has to place the sword in her hand and push her toward making the decision.
At that point, I honestly think it would have been stronger if Daemon had simply executed Otto himself. Their rivalry goes all the way back to Season 1. Otto spent years trying to keep Daemon away from power. Daemon killing Otto to finally secure Rhaenyra’s reign would have been poetic justice.
I also think Alicent should have witnessed Otto's execution firsthand instead of only seeing the aftermath.
That emotional confrontation feels like a missed opportunity.
I think this scene is where I finally lost respect for Rhaenyra as a ruler. Not because she cried. Not because she hesitated.
But because, once again, the show refuses to let her make difficult choices on her own. She ends up feeling too much like Viserys: kind-hearted, indecisive, and unable to act until someone else forces her hand.
And that’s why I disagree with the direction the show seems to be taking.
It often feels like the writers want us to believe Rhaenyra is unquestionably the rightful choice for a ruler simply because she is the “less evil” option compared to Aegon and Aemond. In doing so, they’ve made her feel more naive, weaker, and less capable.
But what has Rhaenyra really done to deserve the throne? When she was younger, all she ever did was claim that Viserys named her heir and that everyone else should accept it. But she never had to fight harder, prepare more, or truly prove herself worthy of that position. That kind of effort could have made her claim feel earned, and it could also have highlighted the injustice of a system that denies women the throne by default.
After the time jump in Season 1, she loses much of the strength she once had as a younger version of herself. She has already sired bastards, which weakens her political claim in the eyes of Westeros. When she is challenged, she often shields herself behind Viserys’ authority rather than confronting criticism directly. She doesn’t feel politically sharp, and she doesn’t seem prepared for the realities of war or leadership.
At the same time, none of the alternatives feel fully compelling either: Aegon is incompetent, Aemond is intelligent but unstable, and Daemon is reckless. So Rhaenyra ends up feeling like the “best option” by default, not because she is actively proven to be the most capable ruler.
But I don’t think that should be the point anyway. That should be the viewer’s decision—who to side with—while the characters themselves remain complex and morally gray.
Instead, it often feels like that complexity is being stripped away: Aemond is pushed closer to a cartoon villain, while Rhaenyra is shaped into something closer to a martyr.
But I never thought that was George R. R. Martin’s point.
To me, The Dance of the Dragons is a tragedy because no one was truly fit to rule.
That is the beginning of House Targaryen’s decline.
Not because one side was good and the other evil…
…but because ambition, pride, vengeance, and family ultimately destroyed them all.
Instead, Seasons 2 and 3 feel less like a story driven by that, and more like one driven by misfortune, mistakes, and accidents—events that end up destroying the House, the kingdom, and, at times, even the story itself.