Everything You Need to Know Before 'House of the Dragon' | GAME OF THRONES Recap

welcome back to screen Crush I'm Ryan Airy it is officially time to return to Westeros we have to go back with the somewhat beloved Game of Thrones series long gone and the house of the Dragon series coming soon to HBO Max there have been some members in our westerosian fan base feeling a bit like what the is going on in here on this day Robert what's this new show even about is it going to pick up after that Dragon got mad at that chair no this is a prequel series that takes place about 200 years before Game of Thrones it shows us how the Targaryen Dynasty went from this invincible ruling class to this I don't want it I never have so if you haven't read the books or the original series before watching House of the Dragon so Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are based on novels written by the respectively slow writer George RR Martin by all means move at a glacial Pace you know how that Thrills me Game of Thrones is based on a series of half-written books called A Song of Ice and Fire And The House of the Dragon is based on his prequel novel Fire and Blood which gives us a detailed history of the famous Targaryen family now what some viewers may not be aware of is that prior to the events of Game of Thrones season 1 there's about 13 000 years of history that have only been depicted to the audience through character dialogue in the original series The White Walkers the children the wall the dragons magic all that is part of westerosa's long and complicated timeline first it's always best to start at the beginning we need to establish that in this world geographically there are two massive continents that are separated by one narrow sea the island to the east is called essos a land of men horses in the thriving capital city of valyria which I'm going to talk about a lot in just a minute the island west of essos is dubbed you guessed it Westeros now at the beginning of time before men ever stood foot on westerosian land the only creatures in existence were known as the children of the forest now luckily we have already had the pleasure of meeting these sassy self-sacrificing wood elves come he waits for you about 12 000 years ago the children lived in the northern forests and Villages of Westeros they possessed great magic and lived harmoniously to please their nameless and faceless gods to the children their religion was their lavish wooden environment these creepy faces carved into the huge white weirwood trees of the north were carved by the children to reflect the gods they lived to serve these faces represent the gods watching over all who cross into the woods rivers and mountains of the north now as the children were minding their own business living their best lives Along Came the first men literally these were the first humans ever recorded in westerosa's history coming from essos the first men were quick to attempt to claim the forests and lands from the children by hacking burning and conquering these Northern forests but the children put up a massive fight and after centuries of fighting a dying both sides decided to call a truce and formed was famously referred to as the pack this pact was an understanding that the first men could have dominion over all the southern lands coasts mountains and seas but North their gods and its magic would forever belong to the children and for a time there was peace tell him until roughly about 8 000 years ago when the first men were in the age of Heroes developing Westeros into a sprawling Kingdom that's when the children lost control of a creepy ice Warrior Zombie Race known as the white walkers these beings crave nothing but death and disorder and even brought about the period of time referred to as the long night which you might remember as Bran's favorite bedtime story theaters for the long night when the sun hides for years and children are born and live and die all in darkness so the first men of the children of the forest United pushing the white walkers back into the Frozen depths of the north man I hope they built a big wall or something to keep those eye zombies out oh not only did they build a wall my friend they built the wall a massive 300 mile wall of ice meant to keep anything from marching into the southern kingdoms of Westeros can I pee on it yeah why not Tyrion peed off of it now sadly as time went on the pact between the children and the first men would come to mean nothing and essos a new era of men was setting their sights on the west these men were referred to as the Andals now the Andals were voyers they were tall they had light hair and above all they were super religious they worshiped the seven gods that we came to know in the Game of Thrones series as the father the mother the maiden the crown the warrior the Smith and the stranger as the Andals moved West they had two goals to conquer the individual kingdoms and to spread their faith as the true faith of Westeros the Andals crossed the narrow sea to Westeros and slaughtered many of the first men as well as the children of the forest they hacked down most of those weirwood trees and over time came to claim Siege to the six kingdoms developed by the first men that the first men created Seven Kingdoms well they did try as they might the Andals could never conquer the north so its territories belonged to the descendants of the first men who eventually would become the Starks of Winterfell and the wildlings men and women who chose to live north of the wall detached from the rule of the Andals now as Westeros continued to develop the Eastern continent of essos remained populated it and controlled by the capital of valyria and valyria was the think of like ancient Rivendell from Lord of the Rings or even a kind of omnipotent City just a bunch of powerful beautiful and mysterious people gathered in one giant piece of land near the beach the valerians had it all magic might and most importantly the ability to tame the most fearsome beasts alive dragons what gave valyrians their empire was their ability to control these massive fire breathers no other man or woman from essos or Westeros could even come close but either through their ancient magic or willpower it was the Valerian people who kept controlled and loved all of the known dragons in existence now as some of you know from the original series dragons were the most powerful weapon a ruler could have remember this now this is where things begin to get a little bit crazy about 400 years before Game of Thrones there was this large family in Valeria known as the targaryens aenar Targaryen was a respected nobleman who went on to be humiliated by his peers when he announced that his daughter danus had a horrible dream about Valeria's downfall due to some cataclysmic event people thought he was crazy for being the jorel of his time I'm not crazy so this dream shook anar's family so much that they collected all their ships their dragons and they bounced the F out of there the entire Targaryen family sailed across the narrow sea to a small coastal Island and began constructing a castle that we know today as Dragonstone so for about 12 years the targaryens became the laughing stock of Valeria most valerians thought fleeing to a lesser World abandoning all your power and Magics all based on a dream seemed like complete Madness that was until Danny targaryen's Dream came true the Doom of Valeria was an apocalyptic event that would be forever remembered throughout history volcanoes erupted the Earth shook cracked open and sank this beautiful city of Valeria along with its citizens dragons and magic all into the sea this would mean that Anar and his family were the only remaining valerians in the world so years go by and the targaryens kept to themselves as they constructed Dragonstone they kept quiet their dragons on the ground all in an attempt to hide away from the world that was until the birth of aegon the first and with his birth the entire history of Westeros would change aegon along with his sisters who also happen to be his wives we'll get to that decided that one day they wanted to see the entirety of Westeros they hopped on their dragons and embarked on a long relaxing flight across the huge continent for the first time now it was during The Scouting session that aegon decided that he would live up to his high Valerian potential and preside over ruling all of the kingdoms as one king because I mean why not go off aegon you go Glen CoCo when he returned to Dragonstone aegon had a massive table constructed that would act as both the map of Westeros and a meeting place to plan his coming reign with the Assembly of his dragons and a few soldiers pledged to his rule aegon's Conquest had begun and it would be a conquest of both Fire and Blood he said it he said it with three obedient dragons it wasn't long until the most powerful houses of Westeros bent the knee to aegon and swore their allegiance to him as their new king something that centuries later the tarly boys refused to do for dance in fact if anyone had opposed aegon's Reign not only did their houses and lands meet a fiery confrontation but the melted swords knives and daggers from all those battles fought were ordered to be collected and taken back to aegon's Fortress it was here where the Iron Throne was then constructed and aegon's Fortress was renamed to King's Landing the spot where he first landed in Westeros sir are those swords in that uncomfortable chair came from dead soldiers the aegon defeated in battle that's right which is why in the books The Iron Throne is depicted as a massive hill-like structure it's meant to be uncomfortable for both the one who sits upon it and the ones who must kneel before it now as aegon was crowned the first of his name he had now been granted rule over all the citizens and lands within the Seven Kingdoms well technically six because Dorne didn't bend the knee yet but that's a long story now that he was officially crowned there was only one thing left to do make the babies where do babies come from so here's the tldr on this family the targaryens were all about the preservation of their bloodline by keeping it pure to achieve this brother slept with sisters cousins with cousins aunts with nephews and so on and so forth like the people in that neighbor and state we don't like nobody but we sure do enjoy making fun of that neighboring state what a bunch of Rubes incest is how most monarchs and dictatorships kept their bloodlines Alive and Kicking for centuries one of the major problems with this practice is that genetically the generational descendants have an extremely high probability of either being disfigured physically or mentally this one's your father look at him look at him how long do I have to look as long as it pleases me so from the beginning there have basically been two types of targaryens the nice and wise ones and the batshit evil Crazy Ones aegon had two Sister Wives aegon's two wives each had a son and these Sons could not have been more different the oldest and rightful heir to the throne was named anus he was gentle kind and an overall good dude but the other son maegor was a warrior who killed his brother and took the iron throne for himself he ruled for six years was a terrible King and was found impaled on the Iron Throne he was succeeded by his nephew jaharis who was the best King Westeros ever had he was the wisest he built sanitation rebuilt the King's Landing he built roads everywhere the king's rodent Game of Thrones was built by Joe Harris his wife fought for the rights of women and the two of them had 13 children now most of these kids were jerks and spoiled brats but his two oldest Sons were really good dudes and as the targaryens multiplied so did their dragons the kids slept with dragon eggs in their cribs and most became Dragon Riders when they were older so jahiris's two oldest Sons were both good men but they died before their father did and Jairus had like 12 other kids making the line of succession now questionable the next oldest child was Princess reynus so she was next in line for the Iron Throne done except she was a woman and many lords of Westeros didn't like the idea of taking orders from a woman [Music] women what frail fragile eagers they have right so ja Harris held a great council meeting where they decided the next Heir should be to Harris's grandson visiris completely passing over the princess now reynus would go on to marry the head of the house Valeria who is a really powerful shipmaster called the sea snake and visiris has a brother of warrior badass named Damon who wants the iron throne for himself and he is played by Matt Smith in the show conflict which ultimately led to the extinction of this famous bloodline there Al Qaeda so that pretty much Catches Us up on everything you need to be privy to before the series begins but what do you think have you read the books did we miss anything hugely important I'm sure we did and I'm sure you're going to let me know about down in the comments section below and if this was your first time here welcome don't forget to subscribe and smash that Bell for alerts for screen Crush I'm Ryan Erie foreign [Music]

Channel: ScreenCrush

Views: 1,155,746

Keywords: screencrush, heavy spoilers, new rockstars

Id: IJGysw1lqxI

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 15 2022