FIRE AND BLOOD

Fabien Frankel on his role as Ser Criston Cole in House of the Dragon

- ALEX LOW

AT ITS BEST, Game of Thrones was peak television. With its fantastical worldbuilding, masterful storytelling, as well as a conviction to break fantasy tropes and genre conventions, the HBO series was the pinnacle of fantasy television, surpassing any similar shows that had come before in terms of popularity and production value.

The television adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire's maps out its storytelling in brilliant shades of grey, presenting morality as something that is inherently cultural and subjective. In the world of Game of Thrones, consequences are paramount. Action breeds consequences, regardless of how virtuous the intention is. The show calls out on our inclination to do good, posing the question that our drive for greatness should not equate nobility, that sinister might very well be a synonym of being wise.

Unfortunately, history can be cruel to shows once lauded as the best of their era. After four seasons of excellent television, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss first hit a wall creatively when they ran out of pages to adapt. Notoriously, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin writes at his own pace and has a self-admitted history of issues with deadlines (and to this day, the books remain unfinished, with no end in sight). While the seams started to tear once the show ran out of books to adapt, it burst wide open following its eighth and final season.