Game Of Thrones Is Officially Going To Fix Itself In 2 Years
Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy.
Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones).
We are just a couple of years away from the Game of Thrones franchise fixing itself. The root of the issue here comes down, of course, to the ending of season 8 of the central Game of Thrones series. Ever since the high fantasy show wrapped up, there have been cries for a do-over, with fans going so far as to sign petitions or demand that George R.R. Martin hurry up and finish his A Song of Ice and Fire series so we can all find out how things were actually supposed to go. Of course, neither of these has happened yet. Instead, we've received spinoffs.
The first Game of Thrones spinoff to hit the scene was House of the Dragon, which just wrapped up its third season. The story revolves around the Dance of the Dragons, the terrible Targaryen civil war that led to the ultimate extinction of dragons in Westeros. Through the series' existing episodes, we've gotten to know Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and the immediate members of her family. At the end of season 3, we watched her finally slip into the role of tyrant against her very own wishes.
HBO has maintained that House of the Dragon will end with season 4, and with about two years between installments, we can expect the spinoff series to conclude in 2028. Just how things will wrap up isn't quite as much of a mystery as it was for Game of Thrones, since the source material for this series, Fire & Blood, is complete. Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen will die, just as Queen Daenerys Targaryen did. Still, there are bound to be some surprises here, and based on what has been set up so far, it will have everything to do with Game of Thrones.
House Of The Dragon Is Fully Aware Of Game Of Thrones' Biggest Problem
Martin details the events of the Dance of the Dragons in his book Fire & Blood, which is written more like an in-world history than a novel. For this reason, HBO's House of the Dragon has had ample opportunity to play around with how this story is presented. A key example here is that Martin's version of Rhaenyra's story makes no mention of Aegon's Dream of the Prince That Was Promised. In House of the Dragon, however, the idea of a Targaryen uniting the realm against a threat from the North is precisely what drives Rhaenyra's conviction to rule.
House of the Dragon goes as far as to give Daemon Targaryen a vision of Daenerys hatching her dragon's eggs, and he comes to believe that this young woman, who he knows to be a descendant of his and Rhaenyra's, is the Prince That Was Promised. To ensure she comes to exist and fulfill her destiny, the Black Targaryen faction must claim victory. Essentially, House of the Dragon made Game of Thrones' ending the central motivator for everything that happened to the Targaryen dynasty centuries earlier.
The trouble here is that Game of Thrones never really confirmed that Daenerys was the Prince That Was Promised, at least not in the way everyone expected. Whether it was her or Jon Snow is left ambiguous, and, either way, Daenerys' predestined role was ultimately to break the wheel by burning King's Landing to ash, all so Jon could murder her to keep her from taking it any further. It was a twist, to be sure, but it's one audiences have had a hard time swallowing. The whole thing was too rushed to accept easily.
HBO obviously knows this. Fans haven't exactly kept it a secret that they were displeased with Game of Thrones' ending. It's therefore meaningful that House of the Dragon would incorporate that ending in its own story when it never needed to. The Dance of the Dragons would be just as entertaining without the added idea that it all happened because of the prophecy. There's clearly a plan here, and season 4 is when it will come to light.
Game Of Thrones' Divisive Ending Is All But Guaranteed To Feature In House Of The Dragon Season 4
We obviously know how Game of Thrones ended. We also know, thanks to Martin's work, how House of the Dragon will end. The fact that the existing story of this series has been so intentionally intertwined with Daenerys' ending suggests that the plan here is to bring it all full circle. So, what we don't know is precisely how House of the Dragon season 4 will link Rhaenyra and Daenerys across time—but it will almost certainly happen.
Question 1 of 3
House of the Dragon season 3 was almost entirely dedicated to Rhaenyra's efforts to be the sort of queen her father would have wanted. However, the intense challenges and loss cause her to decline quickly. Said and done, all she can do is hold on to hope that all this fire and blood has been for a reason. It's almost a religious obsession, and this leads straight to tyranny. What's interesting here is that this is precisely the sort of season-long arc that Daenerys would have benefitted from in Game of Thrones. Her story was rushed, but the franchise is making up for it.
Now that House of the Dragon season 3 has thoroughly established the poetic parallels between Daenerys and Rhaenyra, season 4 will have the chance to drive it home. Daenerys was murdered by her nephew and lover, while Rhaenyra will be killed by her brother and rival. It's all Targaryen vs. Targaryen. When this moment comes in House of the Dragon, the big question will be whether it was all worth it. All this death so Daenerys could be born, while Daenerys was born so she could destroy the kingdom Rhaenyra believed the Prince That Was Promised would protect.
The endgame here may be irony. House of the Dragon may wrap things up with a simple "see? It was all for no reason. Your outrage over Daenerys' ending was always the point." Or, the way this spinoff show wraps things up and brings Daenerys and Rhaenyra's story could send the message of, "see? There was still so much you didn't know, and every new spinoff will come with more answers." Regardless, the ending of Game of Thrones will have been built up with more context. Therefore, it will be that much stronger.
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House of the Dragon
8/10
- Release Date
- August 21, 2022
- Network
- HBO
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Prince Daemon Targaryen
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Fabien Frankel
Ser Criston Cole
Taking place about 172 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon tells the tale of the rise of the Targaryens, the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria.
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Game Of Thrones
10/10
- Release Date
- 2011 - 2019-00-00
- Showrunner
- David Benioff, D.B. Weiss
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Jon Snow
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Isaac Hempstead Wright
Brandon Bran Stark
Based on George R. R. Martin's ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, Game of Thrones is a fantasy drama set in the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos. It follows noble families like the Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryen vying for control of the Iron Throne while a rising threat from the undead looms in the North.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.