[imagesource: Ollie Upton/HBO]

We’re edging ever closer to the lack of sleep that’s going to come after late nights spent binging the new Game of Thrones prequel.

House of the Dragon will be coming out on HBO and HBO Max on August 21 – it’s a date.

To get you in the mood, we’re talking about everything there is to know so far.

The only two survivors of the House Targaryen, Daenerys and her older brother Viserys, were among the more captivating characters in the original series, with their white hair, tempers, and dragons.

That’s precisely what will make House of the Dragon so bewitching, as the prequel is set 200 years before the events of the original series.

It chronicles the power struggles of House Targaryen as they are “at the beginning of the end” according to CNET.

We’ve seen the full trailer already, but with so much time between now and the final episode of GOT, there’s no getting enough of the carnage, magic, and fantastical political infighting that the series brings to the table.

Fun fact – each episode cost a solid $20 million or so to make.

In Game of Thrones, the Targaryens were formerly a great house. In House of the Dragons, we get to see them as the great house:

House of the Dragon depicts the beginning of the end for the Targaryens. It follows what in A Song of Ice and Fire lore is called the Dance of the Dragons — a civil war that erupts after two Targaryens voice countering claims to the Iron Throne. King Viserys raised his daughter, Rhaenyra Targaryen, to succeed him, but after Viserys’ death, it’s Viserys’ eldest son to his second wife, Aegon, who gets crowned the new ruler.

What kicks off from there is a war that sees many a dragon slain, and many a Targaryen killed.

Fire and blood. Classic.

George R.R. Martin’s long-winded Fire & Blood, a fictional history book that chronicles House Targaryen, is being used as the source material,

Miquel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal, the two guys at the helm (Condal is also credited as the creator), say the show will work nicely alongside the book, which means you can safely consume both without getting bored:

“The fun of this show is that it plays as a bit of a companion piece to the history book,” Condal said.

“It communicates with the history book. In a sense that some things will line up. Other things will be told very differently. But the idea is that, in the end, the events are the same. It’s just the ‘why’ and ‘how’ they happened that changes as you see the actual history.”

Condal has mentioned before that the show is “like Succession, [but] with dragons”. Intriguing…

Martin has also been writing the sixth book in the series, Winds of Winter, since 2011 – something else to look forward to – and hopes to write a second volume of Fire & Blood after that.

Lots to look forward to, then.

[source:cnet]