Dragons and Dracarys

For some it will have been an eternity, for others a sigh: three years after the end of

, its first spin-off series is released.

also arrives ready to star in its own television confrontation, because only 10 days after its premiere on HBO Max, the first series derived from

will arrive on Prime Video .

Will we recognize which series each dragon belongs to?

A few very entertaining weeks await us.

The house of the dragon

is not only faithful heir to

in what counts, but also in who and how it is done.

Set a couple of centuries before the events of

(you know: multiple families, one throne, what could go wrong), the series centers on

a noble lineage whose advantage in life is having and knowing. use dragons.

Although, as King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine) makes clear in the first episode of the series, who owns who, who controls who.

This warning (it is: we have seen more series before) is given by

to his daughter

(Milly Alcock), who at times seems to have information about the future (or access to HBO in 2016) and what her descendant

You know: from a sold girl to a vengeful girl, from there to a military chief and then...

Oh that ending.

closed with a tremendous betrayal of its cruel, cynical and novel essences.

The war was not won by the one who most deserved it, but by the one who least stained it with blood.

Neither the smartest nor the most resistant nor the most violent sat on the throne.

Suddenly the sword and sorcery series that wanted to be more than just a sword and sorcery series decided to play nice.

Rhaenyra seems to be thinking of all this as she sees what is happening around her: the need for a male heir (and we continue to patriarchal bingo) leads her father to almost lose his temper, her uncle

(Matt Smith) declares himself in rebellion and out there people are still dying in battles of all kinds.

Because this is the world created by

violent, bloodthirsty, unjust and, ultimately, medieval.

This last adjective has been providing a lot of work for British interpreters in this type of fiction for years.

There is no such thing as a white American Middle Ages, so the way to make any medieval portrayal more believable is usually to populate it with Old World actors and actresses.

Thus we paved the way for another of the favorite qualifiers for series like

: "Shakespearian".

A word that doesn't really mean anything but that we can define as people dressed in period costumes speaking with great solemnity.

And if they are families, ahem, thunderous, much better.

Besides, who would want to see well-matched noble clans?

The relatives of

are in the fight, of course.

The series with this is not kidding.

There his medieval portrait is as crude as it is brave from an initial episode masterfully directed by Miguel Sapochnik.

Neither he nor Ryan J. Condal,

, skimp on bloody scenes.

Truculence and gore occupy an interesting place in

, stretching those limits that

clearly set itself.

But now you knew what you were coming for, so

And the first "dracarys", a word that we could define as "that happens to you for messing with someone with dragons", is received as a gift for those who had been waiting for it for three years.

Dragons, so anticipated (so well anticipated) in

, appear in

from the get-go.

In these magnificent bicharracos the two concepts of the series are perfectly combined.

They are highly sophisticated creatures and at the same time primitive beasts, wonders and mysteries, realities and legends.

They are the bridge between drama and fantasy.

And they are, all told, gorgeous.

And it is that if something is noticeable in

it is that those responsible have learned a lot from the eight seasons of the mother series.

We do not see in the new production the scarcity of means of the first installments of

.

Nor is the series by Ryan J. Condal and JRR Martin sinful of that unnecessary visual rococo in which

fell in some of its sections, more concerned with exhibiting the bulging budget that it already had then because it was a really adult series.

There are visual compositions in

that know how to be epic and stylized at the same time, because one is perfectly compatible with the other.

The series is well served by the muted, almost rotten tones and the confused sounds of some of its most violent scenes.

It is not falling short, it is betting on the long term.

It also works, like

at the time , a cast without superstars that the viewer will soon associate only with this story.

Because the real star of

is

.

With permission of the dragons, of course.

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