I, Viserys Targaryen do here by name rhaenyra targaryen heir to the iron throne
the targaryens are the sort of fascinating dynasty that we don't really know much about
from the original books because at that point they've all died out i don't even
know where i first mentioned the idea of a targaryen civil war called the dance
with the dragons but ryan and miguel and i have been working together and it's exciting
as any great tale out of george's world it's about a power struggle for the throne but the
unique one about this one is that instead of it being one family fighting another family like
lannister's fighting the starks this story is about the targaryens fighting themselves
we were 200 years in the past but we were at the height of the targaryen empire which
was a time of decadence and by definition the height of an empire usually means the height
of its technology the height of its hubris we had to show this idea that this was an
opulent and decadent group of people no war for 60 years i mean they're a happy bunch
and everybody knew that if you messed with the targaryens you would get the dragons so nobody
dared to overthrow them i lord hobart hightower promised to be faithful to king viserys
it took a lot of doing but we were able to put together a hell of a cast
we're looking for very specific people so the very first person we wanted was
paddy considering i think viserys struggles with being the king viserys feels a duty to keep
peace amongst the kingdoms being king is a very difficult seat to be in viserys has an awareness
of just how dangerous it is to sit on the iron throne targaryen must understand this to be king
or queen renera is strong-minded she's smart i think she's underestimated you have dragon
writer's father she realizes that the women within the kingdom spend their entire lives
serving she wrestles with it she doesn't like it she doesn't agree with it
brother daemon raymond has a great affiliation and love and admiration for his brother the king
but daemon's all swords and knives really i do think on some level he wants to cause chaos
i think he's interested in chaos i think he survives in chaos quite well
he's got a very quite clear moral compass and you're either in it or you're out of it
it's named king's landing because that's where aegon the conqueror aegon the dragon
landed with his ships and uh when he decided to begin the conquest of westeros and they built the
red keep which became the center of king's landing in the place of the targaryens and the iron throne
in the original books george always described the throne as being made from thousands of swords
i wanted to make a hybrid version that was closer to something described in the original book
that still honored the throne from the original series it's a kind of a throne that says a
statement look at look at my power these are treasures of people i have killed or conquered
cameras are running when i walked into the throne room for the first time
there was a sort of moment that i had of like oh wow i'm on the iron throne
for me it's really this particular period in westeros it was a time of
high decadence and peace and prosperity so you get to see what the realm looks like
before it descends into the post-decadence of war that you see in the original series
Welcome back everyone this will be my new house of the dragon trailer video there's
a whole bunch of new footage a bunch of easter eggs so we'll break it all down
i'll be doing videos for all the episodes when it starts in a couple weeks be sure to subscribe
to get them all also do a special house of the dragon giveaway during those videos too
they started the trailer with the current king viserys targaryen naming his daughter rhaenyra
the heir to the iron throne this is a little bit earlier in the timeline it is happening during
the events of episode 1. some of the trailer footage takes place from later episodes but
like this big tournament that they have they show you later is also in episode one it's basically a
tournament to celebrate the birth of viserys new son that he thinks is going to be born
it sort of helps set up some of the stakes during the series and why there's this giant targaryen
civil war where the family is battling over who's going to actually succeed to the iron throne
because when the series begins viserys does have a wife she is pregnant with a male child but he
has no living male heir so everybody's wondering who his successor is going to be and he refuses
to name either his brother daemon targaryen played by matt smith or his daughter but that's like the
two big questions people are wondering well they both have real strong claims who should we support
there's a bunch of trailer footage that kind of shows you more of daemon's skills with weapons
like he is a skilled fighter but he's not the best fighter in westeros one of the big fights
that he has during the tournament here is against kristin cole you actually see him being named to
the kingsguard later in the trailer here where he's bowing down wearing the kingsguard's armor
graham mctavish is playing harold westerling he's the current lord's commander of the king's guard
the reason why their armor looks different than the kingsguard's armor during the main show in
the game of thrones is because each time there's a regime change in westeros like somebody new takes
the iron throne they always wind up changing the kingsguard's armor to suit themselves but the big
idea during this tournament is that it's daemon targaryen wearing this dragon scale looking armor
like this really cool looking armor it looks way better in the actual episode than it does in the
trailers so you kind of get that vibe from him during the events of the series where he kind
of has this swagger about him like yes i am the next king of the realm bit of a rug pull during
the episode too because one of the things about his character and you kind of get this when matt
smith is talking about the nature of his character during the trailer he's very mercurial he thrives
in chaos that makes you think of littlefinger in his chaos as a ladder speech he's not totally
like littlefinger he just likes the more biblical era of the old school targaryen family and that's
what he wants to do like he wants to take the iron throne and take them back to what they used to be
during the era of aegon's conquest because when the series begins they're basically at the tail
end of this very very long era of prosperity it's kind of like on the main show game of thrones when
they make all the jokes about the sweet summer children of the starks like old nand is telling
them the tales you sweet summer children you know nothing of winter because up to that point for
like the past 16 17 years or so and after robert's rebellion it's been this relatively quiet period
of prosperity for the realm so a lot of these kids grew up only knowing peace the previous king
before viserys the first was jiharis the first to harris the wise he reigned for almost over 50
years and it was a relative period of prosperity in the realm so this is real vibe that people have
gotten fat and lazy by the time the current events on the show pick up like the targaryen family has
been so powerful for so long they have so many dragons they're like at the height of their power
matt smith's daemon targaryen character feels like they've kind of gotten fat and lazy
it wants to take them back to this more hardcore era like what it was during aegon's conquest
they talk a little bit about aegon the conqueror during this trailer too about how he basically
built king's landing it's called king's landing because that's the site of where he made landfall
in the seven kingdoms when he declared war on all the seven kingdoms trying to unite the realm
technically he didn't conquer dorne so it was like the six kingdoms in dorne it was until like a much
later targaryen king wound up convincing dorne to join the rest of the realm but they didn't
actually conquer dorne like later in the timeline they just agreed to join the other six realms
but when the series picks up a lot of people view patty considine's viserys targaryen character as
a relatively weak king because he's trying to hold everything together but the targaryens are
kind of resting on their laurels at this point in history and he refuses to name an official
heir which just drives the small council crazy speaking of resting on their laurels too there
are a couple scenes here where you see millie alcock's young version of rhaenyra in the small
council meetings with her father viserys and the rest of the council members here when she says
father you have dragon riders that's actually in response to the threat of crab feeder in the
triarchy you see all these battle scenes taking place in the stepstones that's happening later in
the series but when she's talking about the dragon riders here she's suggesting that they use them
to take care of the threat of crab feeder early on before he actually comes to invade westeros
and the whole idea is that he doesn't really think that it's that big of a deal like we shouldn't
worry about that which is kind of flows with the whole idea of daemon targaryen wanting to take the
family back to a more militaristic period in their history like we should be conquerors we shouldn't
just be sitting around resting on our laurels which also reminds you of kind of what happened
to daenerys targaryen when she started to show the targaryen madness and wanted to conquer the rest
of the world that's what a lot of the other small council members are worried about if he were to
name daemon targaryen his official heir so there are people in the realm that support his claim
to the iron throne but there are a lot of people that don't want him to be king because they think
that he'll be more of a tyrant the way george r martin describes the character of daemon targaren
is that he is both the most beloved character in the realm and the most hated character in
the realm like he's always doing things to get himself in trouble with his brother the king
you'll see some of that play out during episode one like you'll find out why it is that it's
his daughter that's being named the heir to the iron throne and not daemon targaryen his brother
it's also in the books too so if you haven't read the books it's all from fire and blood
that's basically like george rr martin's version of the symbol rillion like it's more of a history
text about the history of their family the new character that we meet in the trailer is
also hobart hightower here he's the current lord hightower ruling over their families territory in
old town he's the older brother of otto hightower who's hand of the king and he's the father of
alicent hightower who becomes the king's second wife there were high towers during the events of
game of thrones in the main series later in the timeline it just the show kind of cut them out of
the story it's the same thing with the valerions too like they were still around later in the
timeline it's just when robert baratheon took the iron throne after robert's rebellion he diminished
their role in the iron realm because they've been supporters of the targaryen family for so long one
of the really cool new scenes that you see in the trailer too and this is from later episodes this
isn't part of episode one is a young version of ronira heating up a new dragon egg and preparing
to hatch it like this is the cat's paws valerian dagger that she's getting ready to grab here in
the fire it's the same dagger that littlefinger eventually wound up putting in the hands of
joffrey just sort of part of his machinations to eventually start the war of the five kings
it's also the same dagger that arya used to kill the night king they made the hilt a little
bit more elaborate but it's made of dragon bone you'll find because it's meant to be the height of
targaryen power in westeros there are just so many dragon related things like dragon related items
just all over the place the iron throne itself is meant to be made of thousands of swords of all the
people who bent the knee to aegon the conqueror when he was conquering the six kingdoms in dorne
he had valerian the black dread melt all the swords down with his dragon fire and then
they basically turned them into the iron throne that's why they all look very melty the reason why
you don't see all the extra swords later in the timeline during the events of the main series is
because when jaime lannister killed the mad king and robert baratheon was successful in robert's
rebellion took the iron throne is that he tried to remove as much targaryen stuff as he could from
the red keep that's why he moved all the dragon skulls down below the throne room all the wedding
scenes like where everybody's in the throne room dancing that's all from mernier's first marriage
it doesn't happen during episode one but i'm not sure exactly which episode they're gonna do that
in the whole idea with episode one is just sort of reintroducing you to westeros during this time
period like what's different about it during the height of targaryen power introducing you to all
the main characters and sort of setting up the stakes for the season the other funny thing that
i haven't talked about before either is the giant model of dragonstone that's inside viserys the
first chambers so if you wonder what this giant model of dragonstone is this is like an actual
model that viserys the first is carving out slowly inside his bed chambers there's a lot of easter
eggs and references to parts from these scenes that reference things in real life just game of
thrones lore so i'll talk about that more when episode 1 drops i don't want to talk about too
many spoilers right now but there's a whole bunch of other trailers that have been dropping recently
i will eventually try to do videos for all of them there's like a bunch of new footage to talk about
my full episode one video will release after they actually drop the episode officially that'll be in
a couple weeks so if you have any questions or any bonus videos that you want me to do for the series
just write them in the comments below everyone click here for my house of the
dragon episode 1 review video and click here for my new she-hulk daredevil trailer video
thank you so much for watching everyone stay safe and i'll see you guys in the next one!