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‘House of the Dragon’ Has Officially Beat ‘Game of Thrones’ at Its Own Game

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Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 4.As the first spin-off series in the franchise, House of the Dragon carries Game of Thrones‘ legacy, making comparisons between the two series inevitable, despite significant differences. As always, it is hard for the new series to beat fans’ lingering nostalgia for the original, but in one area, House of the Dragon has surpassed Game of Thrones, and that is in its portrayal of the dragons. A vital part of both series, the Targaryens’ dragons are what set them apart. Although Daenerys’ (Emilia Clarke) story relies on her bringing them back from extinction, the prequel has many more opportunities to highlight the creatures.

House of the Dragon does better with dragons, but it’s that the series has more of them (though it does) or that they are bigger (which they are). The real difference is the prequel’s portrayal of dragons, as they have distinct personalities and strong relationships with their riders. Even though there are roughly five times more dragons than in Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon manages to make them unique, using them better and allowing the audience to connect with them in a way that Game of Thrones never did.

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‘House of the Dragon’ Gives the Dragons Personalities

While House of the Dragon aims to show how little control over the dragons the Targaryens actually had, it personifies the dragons themselves, making them more than weapons. This is a strength of the show as it makes them more interesting and likable. Though some have more screentime than others, each dragon displays a personality that helps the audience tell them apart. Vhagar is slow but quick to violence, Caraxes is fierce and defiant, Seasmoke has a puppy-like energy, and so forth. Season 3, Episode 4, “Tumbleton,” highlights this with three in particular. In a scene shared between Daemon (Matt Smith), Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), and their respective dragons, Caraxes shows off his aggression as he faces off with Sheepstealer. Sheepstealer, in turn, demonstrates a volatile and surprisingly protective personality as he tries to defend Rhaena from their unexpected visitors. The episode also explores Tessarion, who displays his loyalty to Daeron (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) by trying to guard him from Ormund (James Norton). These are just a handful of examples that show how the dragons express personality throughout the series, proving that no two are the same.



















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Collider Exclusive · Game of Thrones Personality Quiz
Which Game of Thrones House Do You Belong To?
Stark · Lannister · Targaryen · Baratheon · Tyrell

Five great houses. Five completely different answers to the same question: how do you hold power in a world that will take it from you the moment you stop paying attention? Eight questions will determine where your loyalties — and your nature — truly lie.

🐺Stark

🦁Lannister

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🐉Targaryen

🦌Baratheon

🌹Tyrell

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01

Someone powerful is acting dishonourably and everyone knows it. What do you do?
In Westeros, the answer to this question has ended more than one great house.





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02

What is the source of your power?
Every house endures because of something. What is it for yours?





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03

Who do you truly fight for?
Strip away the banners and the words. The honest answer tells you everything.





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04

How do you deal with your enemies?
A house’s method reveals its character as clearly as its words ever could.





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05

What kind of ruler do you believe in?
Westeros is full of answers to this question. Most of them end badly.





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06

You suffer a devastating loss. How does your house respond?
How a house handles defeat tells you more about it than how it handles victory.





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07

Which of these truths about Westeros do you most believe?
Every house has a philosophy. This is yours.





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08

The Iron Throne is within reach. What do you do?
The answer reveals not just your ambition — but your character.





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The Maester Has Spoken
Your House Is…

Your answers point to the great house whose words, values, and way of surviving in Westeros match your own. Bend the knee — or don’t. That’s very much up to you.

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Winterfell · The North

🐺 House Stark
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Winter is Coming — and you have always known it. You prepare not out of fear but out of duty, because the people who depend on you deserve someone who takes the long view.

  • You lead with honour even when it costs you, because you understand that a reputation built on integrity is the only one worth having.
  • Your loyalty to family and people runs deep — not as sentiment but as a code that doesn’t bend when things get difficult.
  • The North endures because Starks endure — not by being the cleverest players in the game, but by being the kind of people others are willing to follow into the cold.
  • You are that kind of person. The pack survives. The lone wolf dies. You already know which one you are.


Casterly Rock · The Westerlands

🦁 House Lannister
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You understand the game — its rules, its exceptions, and exactly when the rules become the exception. You play it without illusions and without apology.

  • You are sharper than most people realise, and you have learned to use that gap to your advantage.
  • A Lannister always pays their debts — and you always keep your word, because your word is an instrument of power, and instruments must be kept in working order.
  • You love your family with a ferocity that sometimes blinds you, and you know it, and you do it anyway.
  • The lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinion of sheep. Neither, in the end, do you.


Dragonstone · The Iron Throne

🐉 House Targaryen
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You carry a sense of destiny that is difficult to explain and impossible to ignore — the feeling that you are not simply participating in the world but meant to reshape it.

  • You are capable of extraordinary things, and you know it, and that knowledge is both your greatest strength and your most dangerous quality.
  • Fire and blood are not just words to you — they are a philosophy about what change requires and what it costs.
  • The Targaryens at their best were transformative rulers who broke chains and defied the limits of what anyone thought possible.
  • At your best, so are you. The dragon has three heads. You are one of them.


Storm’s End · The Stormlands

🦌 House Baratheon
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You are a force — direct, powerful, and difficult to ignore when you enter a room or a conflict. You do not negotiate with challenges. You meet them.

  • Ours is the fury — and yours is a kind of intensity that commands attention, respect, and occasionally fear from those who underestimate what’s behind it.
  • You value strength and straight dealing. You’d rather know where you stand in a fight than navigate a web of courtly whispers.
  • The Baratheons built their house on the back of one of the greatest military victories in Westerosi history — and then struggled with what came after.
  • The lesson of your house is that winning is not the end of the story. Governing is. You are learning that too.


Highgarden · The Reach

🌹 House Tyrell
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You understand that power does not always announce itself — that sometimes it arrives with flowers, good wine, and a smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes.

  • Growing strong is your house’s motto, and you live it: patiently, strategically, always investing in the relationships and resources that will matter most when it counts.
  • You are charming by choice and calculating by nature — a combination that makes you one of the most effective players in any room you enter.
  • The Tyrells fed King’s Landing and shaped its politics without ever sitting on the Iron Throne — and they were arguably more powerful for it.
  • You know that the person who controls the food controls the kingdom. And you always know where the food is.

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This is a vast improvement from Game of Thrones, which doesn’t manage to show dragons with the same level of personality. With only three, it should be easier to separate them, but the series only highlights Drogon, the largest of Daenerys’ dragons, as an independent and aggressive creature. It is vital to the story that Daenerys has three dragons, in a mirror of Aegon the Conqueror, but the other two — Rhaegal and Viserion — are interchangeable and make few choices on their own. Game of Thrones misses the mark by not allowing the audience to become invested in the individual dragons, making their eventual deaths less tragic as fans feel more for Daenerys than the dragons themselves. Meanwhile, House of the Dragon does the opposite, as each dragon is both its own character and an extension of their rider, making the war that much more bloody.

‘House of the Dragon’ Shows the Bond Between a Dragon and Their Rider

Not only do the dragons have more personality, but their connection to their riders is more thoroughly explored in House of the Dragon. One way the show does this is by showing the process of dragonriders claiming their dragon, through Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) in Season 1 and in the Red Sowing. However, the bond goes much deeper than that. Season 1’s finale shows Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) Syrax reacting to her emotions, then Season 2 shows Sunfyre’s joy at seeing Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), and so forth. In many ways, these bonds are enhanced by shared personality traits between dragon and rider, like Vhagar’s affinity for bold and aggressive riders or Caraxes seeking out a fight in Season 3, Episode 4 in a Daemon-esque move. This explains why dragons can be so choosy about their riders, as the dragon and their rider often share personality traits.

In fairness, House of the Dragon has more opportunity to do this because in Game of Thrones, only Daenerys has significant time with a dragon, and of the three, she only bonds with Drogon. Admittedly, Jon (Kit Harington) rides Rhaegal, but they do not display a distinct bond like the dragons and their riders in House of the Dragon. This leaves a lot unknown about dragons and dragonriders, which makes sense in that timeframe, as so much information was lost in the generations without dragons. It’s undeniable that when it comes to the dragons, House of the Dragon is far superior to Game of Thrones, but with the creatures being such a large part of the prequel’s story, that is for the best.

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House of the Dragon is streaming on HBO Max with new episodes on Sundays.


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Release Date
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August 21, 2022

Network

HBO

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Showrunner

George R.R. Martin

Directors
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Clare Kilner, Geeta Patel

Writers

Gabe Fonseca

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  • Fabien Frankel

    Ser Criston Cole

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