George R. R. Martin has compared a moment in House of the Dragon's first episode to Game of Thrones' infamous Red Wedding, which saw Robb and Catelyn Stark brutally murdered during a bloody massacre.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Martin reflected on a scene that's been drawing strong reactions from all who've seen it in the first episode of House of the Dragon. "That scene is… you don't want to use the word 'enjoyable' for a scene like that, but it's incredibly powerful," he said. "It's visceral and it'll rip your heart out and throw it on the floor. It has the kind of impact that the Red Wedding had. It's a beautifully done scene of something horrible."
House of the Dragon is a prequel to Game of Thrones, set some 200 years before the events of the series. It will tell the story of the Dance of the Dragons, the Targaryen civil war that practically wiped the fire-breathing creatures from the face of the Earth.
The main Game of Thrones show wrapped up in 2019, but Martin has assured his readers that things will play out differently in the books. "What I have noticed more and more of late, however, is my gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series. Yes, some of the things you saw on HBO in Game of Thrones you will also see in The Winds of Winter (though maybe not in quite the same ways)… but much of the rest will be quite different," he wrote on his blog. "And really, when you think about it, this was inevitable. The novels are much bigger and much much more complex than the series. Certain things that happened on HBO will not happen in the books. And vice versa."
House of the Dragon begins this August 21. In the meantime, check out our guide to the best Netflix shows streaming now to fill out your watchlist.
