House of the Dragon episode 3 spoilers are included in this article.
Speak with any avid Game of Thrones fanor even those who were in it for the dragons and ice zombiesand theyll tell you issues they had with HBOs former flagship series: Daenerys Targaryen's descent into madness was swift (or that it occurred at all); Jaime Lannister threw away his redemption arc in one hackneyed scene with Brienne; how could they forget about the Iron Fleet?!
Yet for author George R.R. Martin, none of these things are his greatest regret. Rather, it's a sequence that happened during the very first season of Game of Thrones, one which House of the Dragon just gently corrected while serving as the starting ground for the most recent series episode.
Martin revealed that his least favorite Game of Thrones scene during the fifth episode of Game of Thrones first season consisted of a handful of cutaways: the one where King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) and a select few courtiers go boar hunting in the kingswood.
Martin said at the time that his least favorite episode of the show, was when King Robert goes hunting. Four individuals walking on foot through the woods carrying spears, and Robert is giving Renly a shit. In the books, Robert goes off hunting, and we get word that he was gored by a boar, and I never did [a hunting scene]. But I knew what a royal hunting party was like. He would not have just been walking through the woods with three friends carrying spears, hoping to encounter
When HBO first shot Game of Thrones' first season in 2010, the fledgling fantasy series was a major gamble. It therefore failed to have the resources or expectation to execute a medieval kings hunting party onscreen.
House of the Dragon has no such issue.
The greatest part of the Game of Thrones prequel isn't the showy battle sequences involving dragons and man-eater crabs; it's what happens when Paddy Considines King Viserys holds court in the woods, according to the showrunners. On television, it provides a subtle opportunity for showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik to portray Martin's grandeur: Visery's whole court rests under building-sized pavilions (as opposed to mere camping tent
House of the Dragon gets an opportunity to recreate the lavish details that Game of Thrones could not afford until its later and more costly final seasons, both based on actual history and Martins own extravagant tastes.
The sequence provides a striking background on which the problems that will rot Visery's reign will already take root as a king who seeks to stag rather than his country from war (or his daughter from gossip) instead attempts to skew a stag. Badly.