What Went Wrong With House of the Dragon Season 2 (& How Season 3 Should Fix It)

HBO failed in its grandiose ambition to bring House of the Dragon to par with Game of Thrones (at least the first 6 seasons). Season 2 lacked a compelling plot, narration, and character development. While it had its moments, it lacked the impact of the debut season. The third season, which is on HBO’s 2026 slate (per Deadline), is gearing up for filming.

The Red Sowing and the Battle at Rook’s Rest were the standout plots of Season 2. However, Daemon’s prolonged stay at Harrenhal, marked by nightmares/visions, and his poor war strategy, significantly harmed his standing and reputation in the Riverlands and ultimately impacted the show’s quality. House of the Dragon has had its highs and lows, but when all is said and done, the upcoming season is going to be crucial for its momentum. The writers have a solid chance to salvage the wreckage, and things aren’t really beyond repair.

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Where Did House of the Dragon Season 2 Go Wrong?

To begin with, House of the Dragon changed George R. R. Martin’s approved way of commissioning 10 hours every season to tell the tale of the Dance of the Dragons. Soon after “Lord of the Tides” aired, the ASOIAF novelist and HotD executive producer confirmed the 10-episode arc for every season by way of showering praise and excitement on HotD and addressing concerns surrounding its time jumps. In the October of 2022, on his Not A Blog blog, Martin wrote:

THE SOPRANOS had 13 episodes per season, but just a few years later, GAME OF THRONES had only 10 (and not even that, those last two seasons). If HOUSE OF THE DRAGON had 13 episodes per season, maybe we could have shown all the things we had to “time jump” over… though that would have risked having some viewers complain that the show was too “slow,” that “nothing happened.” As it is, I am thrilled that we still have 10 hours every season to tell our tale.

The show is based on Martin’s Fire & Blood novel series, so he is the biggest authority on all things House of the Dragon. That he’d given the 10-episode season format a thumbs up meant it was the ideal way to craft an immersive narrative and build perfectly well-balanced plots. Lowering the episode count to 8 affected the show’s pacing and character development, among other things.

Martin added in his blog post:

It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish.

The abbreviated season 2 sparked concern beforehand, simmered discontent during, and ended in disappointment. Deadline has reported that the motive behind the reduced episode count, among other things, was story-driven. As Season 2 was trimmed, HBO held off the biggest thrill, i.e., Battle of the Gullet, culminating in an underwhelming finale.

Instead of mirroring the Game of Thrones brand of truncated plots and rushed seasons (7 and 8), House of the Dragon dedicated an entire season to buildup, one unworthy of a two-year wait. Daemon’s nightmares, Rhaenyra’s rhetoric at the councils of war, Alicent’s disgraceful change of stance, and her and Ser Criston Cole‘s hot and cold dynamic, were all mistakes. Rhaenyra, even after losing Lucerys and all her allies in the Crownlands, took a sitting duck position until it was too late.

The show adopted a Rashomon-style reinterpretation of Alicent’s character. She’d feared for Aegon and other children’s lives all along and even assaulted her stepdaughter, Rhaenyra, after Lucerys took Aemond’s eye. Yet, at Season 2’s end, she sued for peace and traded Aegon’s life as a mark of surrender. This stood out as a major betrayal to the cutthroat Alicent readers know from Fire & Blood. It also felt impractical for many reasons. The war was out of her hands, and bringing peace terms at that stage would do nothing. Everyone knew Aegon was merely a symbolic head, and Aemond the real beast. The Alicent viewers knew from Season 1 would have doubled down on Aegon’s claim, curbed Aemond’s enthusiasm, and been a successful diplomat and a true war mother.

How Can House of the Dragon Recover – Season 3 Dos and Don’ts

Only War Can Bring Peace Now

If House of the Dragon wants to take corrective action, it should begin by eliminating filler scenes, and should restore Alicent’s agency, and Rhaenyra’s standing among her councilors at Dragonstone. These women, who were the face of the war in Season 1, were infantilized into damsels in distress on and off in Season 2. Rhaenyra’s councilors either suggested she flee to a safer place or questioned her decision-making and grit, while the men surrounding Alicent urged her to marry for political gain. Alicent’s back-and-forth stance on war was debilitating to her character, and Rhaenyra took her sweet time to make a decision. That said, there’s still room for a stronger Alicent and a decisive Rhaenyra.

The Battle of the Gullet should bring order to House of the Dragon

, and get the plot progression back on track. The decision to make it a season 3 opener is correct. It would mark a turning point in the course of the war, and thus improve the quality of the show overall. There’s no turning point after the Gullet, as it will increase the pace of the war and bring an end to characters still debating its course. The Gullet is the switch to turn House of the Dragon into the war known as the Dance of the Dragons.

Here’s hoping it’s written to perfection with no major plot deviations from Fire & Blood.

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