House of the Dragon Makes its Debut on August 21st on HBO

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Time waits for no person, Game of Thrones fans. The long winter is over, and the countdown begins. We can officially announce (well, technically HBO can officially announce) that House of the Dragon premieres on August 21st. Have your TV/computer/iPad/phone/video boom box ready because it’s coming at us, and it’s coming soon.

Along with the poster above, they have released new photos featuring Paddy Considine as Viserys Targaryen, Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen, Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Steve Toussaint as Corlys Velaryon and Eve Best as Rhaenys Velaryon, Milly Alcock as young Rhaenyra and Emily Carey as young Alicent, Fabien Frankel as Ser Criston Cole, and Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria:

HOTD Viserys Targaryen

Daemon Targaryen HOTD

Rhaenyra Targaryen HOTD

Alicent Hightower HOTD

Otto Hightower HOTD

Corlys Velaryon Rhaenys Velaryon

Young Rhaenyra Alicent

Criston Cole

Mysaria

Additionally, HBO’s press release officially confirms several actors playing the following young characters, some of whom were rumored or discovered during filming: Bethany Antonia plays Baela Targaryen, Phoebe Campbell is Rhaena Targaryen, Harry Collett as Jacaerys Velaryon, Tom Glynn-Carney is Aegon Targaryen, Ewan Mitchell is Aemond Targaryen, and Phia Saban plays Helaena Targaryen.

With a longer teaser I’m sure a month or two away, a full trailer likely won’t come our way until June or possibly July, based on historical precedent. However, you can always revel in the briefest of teases we’ve had for months:

When will it debut? I’d bet 10:1 odds that 9pm, “prestige drama time” will continue for House of the Dragon, but I suppose stranger things have happened (no pun intended). Anyway, I know where I’ll be on August 21st at probably 9pm, do you?

55 Comments

  1. Are our comments still lost in the ether or can I express my excitement for HotD now? I’m loving the costume designs, particularly Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria and the detail in the armor. Which is great because I don’t think Michele Clapton is involved with this show? But I see the wigs haven’t improved much….

  2. I’m simultaneously filled with excitement and dread,…will it be as good as GoT? How can it be? What if it’s better? What if it’s awful? Aaargh!

  3. I can’t help but be optimistic! I’m stoked and loved the new images! August can’t get here soon enough!!

  4. Missed all the speculation and anticipation for game of thrones in it’s prime. Hope this is decent

  5. I’ve seen Sue’s comment upthread about Askimet. I had wondered if the site was on ice. Is Winter Coming? (the snark site) is going to be discontinued on 6th. I’ll see if I can watch HoD when it comes out. I’m not reading the source material so that I won’t be miffed by any changes – not that I know there will be any. I decided not to read any more of ‘Wheel of Time’ (I’ve read the first book). I didn’t mind the first season of WoT though some parts of the story had been changed and some viewers weren’t any too pleased with the changes. I think I might be rather old for the WoT novels.* Getting back to HoD the photographs look decent. I’m going to be cautiously hopeful – and it’s pretty easy to stop watching something if it’s not to my taste.

    *There’ll probably be someone who says they first read it when they were 99!!!

  6. At last, some news! I don’t care – I know HBO’s production value and this show will be spectacular. Can’t wait to see the fandom reunite!

  7. Dame of Mercia:
    I’ve seen Sue’s comment upthread about Askimet.I had wondered if the site was on ice.Is Winter Coming? (the snark site) is going to be discontinued on 6th.I’ll see if I can watch HoD when it comes out.I’m not reading the source material so that I won’t be miffed by any changes – not that I know there will be any.I decided not to read any more of‘Wheel of Time’ (I’ve read the first book).I didn’t mind the first season of WoT though some parts of the story had been changed and some viewers weren’t any too pleased with the changes.I think I might be rather old for the WoT novels.*Getting back to HoD the photographs look decent.I’m going to be cautiously hopeful – and it’s pretty easy to stop watching something if it’s not to my taste.

    *There’ll probably be someone who says they first read it when they were 99!!!

    IWC dead on the 6th? End of an era. Fucking Tapatalk killed us. Rest in power, bitches. And we were right about The Mountain that Bides from day one.

  8. Most impressive thing is that it looks just like game of thrones. It doesnt look like a wannabe like wheel of time or rings of Power.

  9. Cumsprite,

    It’s been fairly quiet there for a time but I did like the snarky humour. I can understand the person behind the site not wanting to pay to keep it going if it’s in the doldrums but unless anyone’s saved it to archive.org the snark will be lost forever after 6th. And indeed the Mountain that Takes Its Time has been slow regarding WOW.

  10. Adrianacandle,

    Nice to see you back Adrianacandle. I’m hoping this site keeps working. “August is Coming” perhaps should be the new tag line for HotD. I’m very excited by what I see in the promo shots. I’m curious how they will work in the young character storylines to go with the adult characters. It looks like awesome casting.

    I hope we can continue HDM talk at some point when they have a release date. I’m also excited by some of what I hear recently, but I know the 3rd season will be the toughest and most challenging to film.
  11. Koalafter:
    MOP WIGS – THE VENGEANCE

    Aw, don’t be mean about mop wigs, Koal. Though I won’t be surprised if such wips are used in cosplay – for all I know they might already be.

  12. Tron79,

    Me too and nice to see you again too! And yes, looks like great casting 🙂

    I agree — maybe we can start an off-site HDM email thread when it starts back up again?
  13. Well, I guess it’s my turn to “check in” after many months. First, happy to see we have a firm release date set! Second, I’m glad WotW is back to being active and I hope it stays that way… it’s still my “go-to” site when it comes to GoT-related articles.

    I’m not really sure how much will I be actually participating when HotD gets released considering I’ve been repeatedly dealing with serious anxiety problems in last two years and now even with occassional high blood pressure… fandoms are something I’ve been staying away for most of the time in recent time, especially if they become polarizing.
    But if anything, I’ll likely throw looks at articles themselves.

    And if I do end up participating, I won’t take the Lord Parramandas mantle this time… that’s the past and I wish to be fully myself using my actual first name.

    Final note: I think I need to update my profile picture as well with more recent one.

  14. Just testing….

    I’m still not sure if i’ll watch the show, i’ll probably wait a couple of weeks to see how people react to it. If it was about any other family i’d be in, the Targ’s do nothing for me. I wish they hadn’t decided to air at the same time as Rings of Power, it would have been more fun to watch and discuss them back to back. Big ego’s at play in that decision I suspect, I really don’t know who benefits from it.

  15. Dame of Mercia:
    Cumsprite,

    It’s been fairly quiet there for a time but I did like the snarky humour. I can understand the person behind the site not wanting to pay to keep it going if it’s in the doldrums but unless anyone’s saved it to archive.org the snark will be lost forever after 6th.And indeed the Mountain that Takes Its Time has been slow regarding WOW.

    Some of the first-hour members have the good stuff on file. If only we knew where they are. But life moves on, I guess.

  16. Dame of Mercia:
    Cumsprite,

    It’s been fairly quiet there for a time but I did like the snarky humour. I can understand the person behind the site not wanting to pay to keep it going if it’s in the doldrums but unless anyone’s saved it to archive.org the snark will be lost forever after 6th.And indeed the Mountain that Takes Its Time has been slow regarding WOW.

    BTW, re snark – you may want to check into the legendary Kings of Snark, the originals, the one-and-onlys: Pesci and Liotta from FTBG. They left the scene 10 years ago, but their entire work is still available. Some of their stuff sounds absolutely visionary, considering the current situation. Here goes:

    https://grrrm.livejournal.com/

    The complete archives are hidden on the left side. Pretty user-unfriendly, as it should be.

  17. Aah, lovely pictures… A date set for the premiere! All good!

    Good also to see WotW has been revamped and apparently becoming active again. Great! I’ve missed my daily/weekly WotW fix. Interacting with some of the regular folk here. (You know who you are.)

    Of the pictures, I’m most intrigued by the one with young Rhaenyra and Alicent. Cheek to cheek, holding hands, looking perhaps at a mirror. Were they friends before Alicent married her (Rhaenyra’s) father? Or even after, before Alicent had her children and turned to think about a dynasty of Targaryen-Hightowers on the throne instead of the king’s expressed will that his oldest child, Rhaenyra, should succeed.

    House of the Dragon is going to be juicy for rights and wrongs and picking your side. I tend Black (Rhaenyra’s side) but they did some atrocities and stupid things, and Rhaenyra wasn’t a very wise ruler… However, Alicent’s grasping Green side did a palace coup and Aegon and especially Aemond were horrible people. This dynastic war had no clear right or wrong side, it was messy and ugly.

    From the pictures, production values look good (insert here the usual complaint about the wigs) and I’m really looking forward to the premiere – might even renew my HBO subscription for this.

  18. Dame of Mercia:
    Dame of Mercia,

    wigs not wips

    Though the mop strands could be used as whips I guess though they wouldn’t hurt much though I guess that’s a good thing.

    I’m on mobile because I need to take my laptop which has intermittent problems for service so apologies for any mistypes.

  19. A little later than I expected but at least we have a date now. I’m going to approach this with an open mind and not set too high expectations or compare it too closely to GOT but I’m definitely going to watch it.

  20. Well, this follows the end of Better Call Saul, which at least has proven it’s possible for a prequel to be just as good and possibly even better than a very good original. If nothing else, Fire and Blood is much better suited for television than A Song of Ice and Fire. There are the obvious budget issues because of so many gigantic battles and all the dragons, but it’s a tightly scoped story that doesn’t have nearly the same sprawl in characters and settings and it has an actual ending. Less ambitious, but that means the ambition is achievable.

    I think it should do better than Wheel of Time, which I love as a book series, but the television adaptation has no choice but to cut ruthlessly all over the place because of how gigantic it is. House of the Dragon not only won’t have to do that, but should actually fill in gaps since the book is written from the perspective of a writer with very incomplete information that doesn’t totally know what happened.

  21. Adam,

    I skipped WOT, I’m a bit of a stickler for costume design and those costumes didn’t look lived in. It’s all part of the world building and I didn’t find it convincing at all. Something about it felt off. I will add the books to my reading list though. Rings of Power looks better in that respect, so I do have slightly higher expectations. I can handle dodgy wigs (see pictures above lol) but costumes are make or break for me

  22. Mr Derp,
    Well, I can see YOU are excited! 😊

    I’m getting my Fire & Blood reread now. So I know what to bitch about, of course 😋

    Super excited. Hope it has success and a long life!

  23. Happy to see that the blog is active again. I’m putting all my concerns aside about the showrunners for the time being and am going to join the hype train until August 21. There is a lot to look forward to, this is a very dark and twisted story from what I’ve told. So yeah, I’m definitely hoping it’s good. We shall see.

  24. TormundsWoman:
    Mr Derp,
    Well, I can see YOU are excited! 😊

    I’m getting my Fire & Blood reread now. So I know what to bitch about, of course 😋

    Super excited. Hope it has success and a long life!

    As long as Bran doesn’t become king then I will be watching

  25. Pigeon:
    Erik, formerly Lord Parramandas,

    Anxiety is a real ass, here’s hoping it eases up for you very soon.

    Thank you. I hope so myself because I actually started to get really worried about myself in past couple months. While I’ve had a bit of anxiety issues (mainly social anxiety issues) as far back as I can remember, it’s been straight bad for me in last two years and this has nothing to do with social anxiety.

  26. oh what a nice day! the wall is manned again. i have sacrificed three comments to the seven moderation hells. the first of them around christmas last year, the last some few weeks ago, suggesting “Oh, George!” should be the new “Hodor!” for those writing the first comment.

    with this community being active again, waiting for news on HotD is so much more exciting. not to talk about waiting for the premiere. i got into GoT years after it started when i found season one and two dvds in a second hand market. then, it still took time until i got the books. or paticipated in this community.

    this time, i’d love to have a different start into this new adventure. i want to read the source material before watching the show… ok no, that was a bit cocky for someone with my language skills. to be honest: can anyone recommend a good sum-up of Fire and Blood that helps me get a raw overview? be it blogged or youtubed.

    i hope i can see as many episodes of the show as possible before vlad the impaler (no uppercase letters for you, assburger!) decides to burn us all.

    oh the shit times and the desire to ignore the shit before we all get mad of fear and/or hate…

  27. death by chickenfire:

    this time, i’d love to have a different start into this new adventure. i want to read the source material before watching the show… ok no, that was a bit cocky for someone with my language skills. to be honest: can anyone recommend a good sum-up of Fire and Blood that helps me get a raw overview? be it blogged or youtubed.

    i hope i can see as many episodes of the show as possible before vlad the impaler (no uppercase letters for you, assburger!) decides to burn us all.

    I don’t know of a summary of F&B but if you do decide to read it, maybe you can do it along with the Game of Owns podcast. Luke and Hanna are funny and informative, they go chapter by chapter and they just posted a couple of days ago A Surfeit of Rulers so they didn’t yet get to the meaty part of J&A’s rule so maybe give them a chance.

    Shameless plug in: http://gameofowns.com/fireandblood

    Also, I think that’s a insult to king Vlad Țepeș!

    Also he was assassinated… So there’s that.

  28. Dame of Mercia,

    I would be kinder if after TWELVE YEARS the production had got the wigs right. Yet, they still can’t get the Targ wigs right.
    I call it now a sabotage against the Targaryen ’cause the costume designers are sick of ’em all already and just want some juicy set on Essos to fill with precious fine clothes.
    AND I’M ACTUALLY ON BOARD WITH THIS!

    death by chickenfire,

    Actually, If you listen closely, you can hear Wylis shouting “Oh, George!” “Oh-G’george!” “Oh-geordge!” “Oh-dgordge!” “Ho-dgeor!” “Hodor!” smash to black, the end credits roll.

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