Now that the “Dance of the Dragons” is launched in House of the Dragon, expect a boost in Season 2. We are promised more characters, pace and amplitude, like the intermediate seasons of Game of Thrones.
After the epic finale of the first season of House of the Dragon, the eyes of fans of the Game of Thrones prequel series are already on the second round of episodes. And that’s good, the production of this second season will start soon since it was announced for the beginning of 2023.
These new episodes are slowly but surely coming together and the showrunners already have an idea of what they will look like. And fans should expect some difference between the tone of the first season and the second.
Pace and amplitude will evolve in season 2
Ryan Condal, one of the showrunners, explained to The Times (via Deadline) that the pace of House of the Dragon’s first season was deliberately slowed down – despite the big time jumps – to ensure that the viewers get involved in the story of the characters.
And so radical change for season 2: “We’ll get to the show. But you have to understand the intricacies of these characters before they plunge into war.”
“The second season will hit the beats people expected, like in the middle of Game of Thrones, but it will have been earned and viewers will feel the tragedies because we put in the effort.”
HBO
The showrunner goes further in an interview for Entertainment Weekly and explains what the second season will contain: “I don’t know if Dance of the Dragons will have the same magnitude as Game of Thrones, just because of the Wall and Essos and all these other places the show has been to.
But for sure, the season we’re writing will have a mid-season pacing – like Game of Thrones seasons 3-6 – in terms of scope, scale and number of characters.”
So what can we expect from season 2 of House of the Dragon? We can surely expect to resume directly after the tragic events of the season 1 finale of the series, and especially to see the consequences of what happened, as Ryan Condal explains:
“What interests me is reuniting with all of these characters that we’ve spent all this time introducing, especially the families of Rhaenyra and Alicent, and seeing what happens now that we’ve flipped the chessboard and spilled the coins on the floor. How will they react? That’s the story we’re telling in Season 2 and beyond.”
The first season of House of the Dragon is available on OCS.