Dearest Gentle Reader,

Shit. Wrong fandom.

The Dance of Dragons has begun!

Raise Your Banners!

All must choose.

Are you #TeamBlack or are you a great big traitor (#TeamGreen)?

Is anyone else obsessively staring at their MAX app in hopes that HBO will be a good little multinational conglomerate and drop tonight’s premiere early??? No??? Just me??? Fine. (liars) Does anyone else remember when they used to do that with Game of Thrones episodes?? Same with The Walking Dead over on AMC. I used to get those eps first thing in the morning the day they were supposed to air. I miss that. But alas, no joy. I checked my app at 6am and again at 12pm. It’s not there and wont be until 9:01pm EST. Fuckers. So we wait.

While we do….

This spoiler warning shouldn’t be taken lightly. I’m going to spoil the series ending. It’s not my fault. I didn’t do it first. Joffrey Baratheon did it first. Then Princess Shireen Baratheon did. If you watched Game of Thrones, you already know and just might not remember. We’re going to talk about it a bit so if you don’t want to know, don’t read on. I’m doing this as a separate post from tonight’s after the premier specifically so it’s not included in the same post. Stay tuned!

For everyone else, read on. ⚔️

Before I dip into this at all, I want to say as I have in the past that this has nothing to do with the A Song of Ice and Fire books. I’m only talking about the shows and the facts of the shows. I’ve got nothing against the books but the HBO showrunners have already proven that they like to go rogue in that regard so there is no point in even discussing the differences or what they changed. The books and the shows and are not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Also, this post is not a season one recap. I think I’ve covered season one enough here, here, and here.

How It All Ends

Remember this delightful collection of piss and moldy bread crust?

Ugh, I do not miss him at all. Throughout his run on Game of Thrones, he has a number of moments that really make the needle on his psycho meter begin pinging off the far end of the scale. One of those moments was in S3E04. Taking Margaery on a tour of the crypts in the Great Sept of Baelor, he’s nearly vibrating with excitement as he recounts to her how each Targaryen buried there died. This is when we learn how House of the Dragon ends.

This tells us that she is eaten by either Aegon II’s dragon Sunfyre or Aemond’s dragon Vhagar (the same big mofo who ate her son Lucerys). This also tells us that she likely dies dragonback in battle, which I kind of can’t wait to see. Not that I want to see the Black Queen bite the big one but that dragon battle will be awesome, I’m sure of it. As for the son that watched it happen, there are four possibilities there: Jacaerys (her heir), Joff, Aegon, or Viserys. Though, if I’m not mistaken, Aegon and Viserys are both still really young at this point so they’re unlikely to be anywhere near a battlefield. The same possibly goes to Joff. If Luke was old enough to ride as a messenger during wartime, I doubt Joff is far off given that she’s had three more children since he was born (her daughter Visenya was the stillborn baby she birthed in the season one finale).

The other side of this is what Princess Shireen Baratheon had to say in S5E09. First is this cute anecdote about a doomed plot to take down the biggest, baddest dragon on the playing field:

First, she’s not the only Targaryen on that side who could sit the throne. There is a whole line of Valyrian blood on #TeamBlack, many of whom are Targaryens.

Second, you know what name you don’t hear on Game of Thrones? Hightower. That’s not a Westerosi house anymore by the time Daenerys is born one hundred and seventy-two years later. Or, at least not an influential one. If the Hightower house is still in existence, its never mentioned on Thrones. So, I’m not entirely convinced #TeamGreen even survives this fight. We know a Targaryen remains on the throne but that’s still a wide field of possibilities at this point.

Third, brothers fought brothers caught my eye. The only brothers I can think of that this might be about would be the twins Arryk and Erryk Cargyll, both of whom are white cloaks in the Kings Guard. Erryk is the one who turned up at Dragonstone and bent the knee to Rhaenrya with the gift of her father’s crown. However, The Dance of Dragons isn’t just about House Targaryen and those who served it. The brothers fought brothers line is going to be about bannermen disagreeing among themselves about which side to choose. As Shireen says, “It’s all the choosing sides that made things so horrible.” So far, the bulk of the screen time has been about worldbuilding in an unfamiliar era of Westeros. We now know who most of the players are. We know the decades of history that lead up to the war’s flash point (Vhagar going nom nom nom on Lucerys and his dragon). We understand the true size of what happened in that moment and the best thing they ever could have done was to leave that moment as the season finale cliffhanger. Now that all of us are up to date on how this era ticked, they’re going to come out of the gate swinging. I cant wait to see Rhaenyra go full vengeance monster. It’s going to be awesome.

I, for one, cannot wait for the premiere. I’m so over hearing people bitch about the show and/or Game of Thrones world. It was fun to see the marketing push behind this season. The #RaiseYourBanners campaign was fun to watch unfold. I love this world so much and as long as they keep throwing this kind of effort into it, I say bring on all the spin-offs you can imagine. There are thousands of years of mentioned history to pull from for storyline. It doesn’t need to be cannon to the books. Pick an era and let your minds run wild.

With just shy of an hour left, I’m counting down the seconds until go time. Are you watching tonight???

Eryas awaits…

Game of Thrones but with vampires, absolutely terrifying magick,
and a world in which humans are food.

Click Here to Read the Prologue

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