House of the Dragon Finale is the best piece of content we’ve gotten all year, as it has elevated the show’s quality to a different ballpark altogether. The prequel of Game of Thrones started out great with a very strong pilot and each episode since simply took the show’s quality to new levels. The show wasn’t even bothered by the recasting of the main characters. Fans simply adored the carefully crafted narrative that was so investing. The pilot of the show became HBO Max’s biggest debut with 10 Million viewers. The most recent ratings reports suggests that the prequel has garnered an audience of 29 Million on an average which is the best for any show after Game of Thrones’ Season 8 which had 44 Million viewers on an average. The last 4 episodes of the show was simply unparalleled to anything we’ve seen all year.
The finale saw Aemond’s dragon – Vhagar chewing up Luke’s dragon-Arrax. Rhaenyra finds this news and her stare suggests war. The finale had packed some great performances especially from Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra. The finale was so emotional yet action packed. The callbacks and parallels that the creators drew added that touch of personal connection and care. It is true that this kind of experience can only be perceived from the Game of Thrones world. No other fantasy world is able to invest you in this manner in its characters and politics. The hatred you have towards the villains almost feels personal and so is the love for the protagonist. That being said, one of the saddest if not the saddest moment from the entire finale was when Rhaenyra rushes into labor prematurely.
The baby that eventually comes out is stillborn and even if we don’t see the body, the scene was disturbing. However, now that the prop designed to be the dead baby is officially released, seeing it in its entirety is just horrifying.
House of the Dragon Episode 10: Dead Baby Was True to How It Was Described in Fire & Blood!
Barrie Gower – the Makeup designer behind House of the Dragon has a photo of the silicone model of Rhaenyra’s stillborn child on Instagram. The prop featured in the six-minute, graphic birth scene in House of the Dragon’s Season 1 finale. The baby is covered in scale-like bumps all over his body, has a deformed head and misses a nose from the photo that he’d seen. For someone who isn’t affecting by a lot of gruesome visuals, this genuinely creeped me out because the baby looks like the combination of a dragon and human.
I know there have been many criticisms about House of the Dragon’s violent birth scenes and the reality and cruelty with which the show addresses the same, I don’t think they deserve the criticisms as it feels apt from a storytelling perspective. Also, the prop is very true to the source material, as Martin in his book Fire & Blood had mentioned that the baby looked like deformed dragon. It is not as explicit as the visuals in the book that suggested almost a dead dragon but it is a perfect mixture of human and dragon to horrify us.
House of the Dragon has an incredible ensemble cast that includes Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans. Along with the main cast, the supporting cast of the show includes- Milly Alcock, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Emily Carey, Harry Collett, Ryan Corr, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jefferson Hall, David Horovitch, Wil Johnson, John Macmillan, Graham McTavish, Ewan Mitchell, Theo Nate, Matthew Needham, Bill Paterson, Phia Saban, Gavin Spokes, Savannah Steyn, and more.
All ten episodes of House of the Dragon Season One are currently streaming on HBO Max or Disney+. New episodes will debut on every Sunday or Monday on HBO and HBO Max or Disney+ Hotstar depending on the region you live in, at 9 pm or 6.30 am.
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