House Of The Dragon prequel to change fans’ view of Westeros women
GOT prequel House Of The Dragon has turned the tables on the often brutal treatment the central female characters face in Westeros. Warning: Spoilers
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It is time for the women of Westeros to shine.
While female characters were very much key to the story of Game Of Thrones, prequel House Of The Dragon will deliberately shed a different light on often-brutal women’s stories in the fictional medieval world.
“It was a perspective that hadn’t been covered in the original show,” House of the Dragon showrunner and director Miguel Sapochnik told Insider, sitting down in Los Angeles ahead of the first episode premiering this week.
“The original show had very strong female characters, but the way that their stories were told and at times the way they were portrayed was not from their perspective, so that seemed important to shift perspectives in keeping with where we are in the world.”
Sapochnik explained that with gender bias and inequality now huge issues in today’s society, producers wanted to reflect in the House of the Dragon storyline.
“Suddenly there was this awareness, that almost seemed like it was for the first time for some people, the inequality, the gender inequality that exists in our world,” he said.
“And so it seemed only right to cover that in this show, that needed to be a point of view that we had.”
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That dichotomy is told through the lives of two main characters in House Of The Dragon: Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Lady Alicent Hightower.
Each role is played by two different actors as the storyline will jump ahead from the girls as teens to adults.
Australian Milly Alcock is a young Rhaenyra while Brit Emma D’Arcy is the elder. Similarly, Emily Carey is a young Alicent while Olivia Cooke plays the adult character.
“We called Alicent ‘women for Trump’ and we called Rhaenyra ‘punk rock’,” Sapochnik said. “And that kind of idea and differentiation between these two women, girls at first, and then women, trying to cope with and having been fashioned from the patriarchy seemed like it was full of conflict and full of drama and full of stories that we are telling and it would be wrong not to tell them.”
House Of The Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin’s book, Fire & Blood, which tells the story of House Targaryen and specifically relates to the line of succession of King Viserys (Paddy Considine) and the conflict that ensues as a world where traditionally only men rule has to contend with powerful women.
“Fundamentally the thing that brought us both to the project – and this is something that Miguel Sapochnik said really early on and it’s why he’s also on board on the project – is because it’s an investigation of patriarchy, misogyny, and power,” D’Arcy said, sitting alongside Cooke in Insider’s interview.
“And it’s a show built around two women. And it’s a show that tells a story from their point of view. And that was a conversation that we had really early on, actually. My question to Miguel was, ‘How do you make sure that you are staying in the point of view of these two people when they’re in a world that does not afford them space? How do you make sure that you are showing that desire for self-actualisation, self-determination, when you’re in a world that doesn’t afford space for the question to be asked? That was something that we spoke about at length, and I think worked really hard to achieve.”
Cooke added: “Similarly, Miguel afforded us the space to do all of that. And (D’Arcy) said it. He’s acutely aware that he has no experience in any of that. And so he really lent on us to guide that, which was really … that doesn’t happen, especially in something that is this ginormous.”
It was impossible, D’Arcy explained, not to reflect the world of today, and specifically the fight for gender equality, in House Of The Dragon.
“I think we’re in a different climate, and that consciously and subconsciously affects both how it’s made and how it’s received,” they said.
“I think the question of the show and the one that feels really pertinent, especially right now, is if you are a woman looking to rule, how do you convince an electorate? How do you convince male subjects that you are not other? And how do you unravel the prejudicial labels that stop women getting into leadership positions? Because we are still very, very, very, very evidently choosing men to lead. And I think that speaks to the current climate.”
Award-winning actor Eve Best plays Princess Rhaenys Velaryon, also referred to as the ‘Queen Who Never Was’ as she was overlooked to ascend the throne by her grandfather, King Jaehaerys, in favour of her cousin, Viserys.
Her character provides a different perspective as an elder stateswoman to the younger Rhaenyra and Alicent.
“One of the things that really interested me when I was meeting the writers for the first time was … they hooked me in by saying at the core of this story, and something that my character says right at the beginning, is that ‘men would sooner put the realm to torch than see a woman on the Iron Throne’. And I was like, okay, remove the word ‘Iron’ from that sentence and it kind of expressed my reality as a woman, for most of us. That to me is very interesting territory to be exploring – the unravelling of a status quo. That just feels so completely relevant today. There’s still not a female president.”
Alcock, 22, meanwhile addressed criticism of the portrayal of women in Game Of Thrones, especially around its infamously plentiful sex scenes.
“In this series, especially, there’s been a lot of care and a lot of … every sex scene that happens within the show is valid and there was a very long process that every actor had to go through,” she said.
“We had an intimacy co-ordinator on set, we had a bunch of different other people who helped work with all the actors who had a sex scene. So I think that, ultimately, House Of The Dragon is trying to create a different perspective onto the first Game Of Thrones and do justice to the women that it didn’t serve in the original.”
House Of The Dragon premieres Monday at 11am AEST on BINGE and Foxtel. The original Game Of Thrones is also on both platforms.
Originally published as House Of The Dragon prequel to change fans’ view of Westeros women
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