House of The Dragon opens with a scene of contested succession. In the 12 months 101 AC, 182 years earlier than the start of Daenerys Targaryen, King Jaehaerys I calls the lords of Westeros to King’s Landing to witness him formally announce his successor. Both his son and his brother have died, leaving the dynasty with out an all-important male inheritor. And quite than appoint the apparent subsequent in line — his granddaughter Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best), solely baby of the king’s oldest baby — as queen, Jaehaerys chooses the son of his second son, Viserys (Paddy Considine), to rule. It’s a choice that units the tone for not solely the premiere episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, however for the destiny of all the Targaryen dynasty.

Dubbed “The Queen who Never Was,” Rhaenys accepts her destiny gracefully sufficient. Fast-forward 9 years, and we meet three extra girls whose existences are outlined in relation to males, whether or not they be fathers, husbands, or sons. Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock, on this first episode) is the king’s oldest — and, for the second, solely — baby, who’s at all times felt as if she disenchanted her father just by being born feminine. She doesn’t notably benefit from the courtly way of life, and desires of driving to glory in battle on the again of her dragon. That doesn’t matter, nonetheless, as a result of energy could be very gendered in Westeros.

As Rhaenyra’s mom, Lady Aemma Arryn (Sian Brooke) tells Rhaenyra early on within the episode, “the childbed is our battlefield.” Aemma’s — and subsequently her daughter’s — energy lies in her capability to get pregnant and bear a male inheritor. Nothing else issues. But, as Aemma tells her husband shortly earlier than she goes to labor, “this will be the last one.” She’s suffered by way of a number of stillbirths and miscarriages, and her physique can’t take any extra pregnancies. And so she ceases to be of worth to the realm, as is illustrated within the bloodiest scene in an episode filled with them.

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

While Aemma makes an attempt to ship a child who’s breeched (i.e., is turned with the toes downward as a substitute of the top, a typical and harmful complication), the maester pulls the king apart and tells him it’s time to “make an impossible choice.” Who will stay, and who will die? What’s extra essential: The potential of a child boy, or the actual, grownup girl screaming in ache mere toes away? Significantly, nobody asks Aemma her opinion on the matter.

In truth, she’s stunned and terrified when her husband kneels down beside her, strokes her hair and tells her to not be afraid, and nods to the maester to start slicing. Aemma will die because the maester performs a medieval Cesarean part on her, slicing immediately into her abdomen with solely as a lot anesthesia as he may administer “without hurting the child.” (One assumes that Aemma was not consulted on this level, both.) Viserys’ face falls with reduction when the maester tells him the kid is a boy. The sacrifice was price it — at the very least, till the boy dies as properly.

Director Miguel Sapochnik begins with a closeup of blood dripping from the maester’s fingers, ramping up the gore as he cuts forwards and backwards between the violence of Aemma’s murder-by-surgery and the bloodshed of the match occurring exterior the citadel partitions — a tourney placed on, sarcastically sufficient, within the child boy’s honor. Once the nightmarish act is full, Sapochnik pulls again for an overhead shot of Aemma’s mutilated physique splayed on sheets darkish with blood, like a tableau from a horror film. The gendered juxtaposition of jousting, with its phallic lances and roaring machismo, with the blood and ache of childbirth could be very a lot intentional: Last month, Sapochnik instructed The Hollywood Reporter, “In medieval times, giving birth was violence. It’s as dangerous as it gets […] We have a number of births in the show and basically decided to give them different themes and explore them from different perspectives the same way I did for a bunch of battles on Thrones.”

In the House of The Dragon premiere, girls are the unwilling foot troopers being despatched out on the entrance traces of males’s battles. Later within the episode, Viserys’ resolution to make Rhaenyra his inheritor is motivated extra by his anger in the direction of his brother Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) than his religion in Rhaenyra’s talents. And Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) has apparent ulterior motives for sending his daughter Alicent (Olivia Cooke) to the grieving king’s bedside to “comfort” him. (A wedding between Alicent and Viserys could be fairly advantageous certainly — for her father.) Both males are placing their reputations and emotions above their daughters’ happiness and security, as a result of they each see these women as property that they will do with what they may.

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

Although it takes place in a fantasy context, this view of girls because the property of the boys of their lives, who can resolve if these girls stay or die with out them having any say within the matter, could be very a lot current in our world. And it’s not a relic of the medieval period, both: It’s a query that’s turn out to be terrifyingly tangible within the U.S. in current months, the place the repeal of Roe v. Wade has already led to pregnant folks being denied life-saving medical care, risking an infection, hemorrhaging, and demise as a result of a bunch of legislators determined to prioritize the likelihood that their fetus would possibly outlive them. And it’s lengthy been a actuality in international locations all over the world the place abortion has by no means been accessible.

Like these real-life examples, House of the Dragon reveals us what occurs when girls are handled as vessels and incubators. This is the norm in Westeros, a kingdom whose mores and attitudes are based mostly on the equally misogynist world of medieval Europe. The creatives behind Game of Thrones have lengthy been criticized for insisting on historic accuracy on this space, however not in, say, the existence of dragons; in that very same Hollywood Reporter interview, Sapochnik kicked up his share of on-line mud by saying that House of the Dragon doesn’t “shy away” from depicting violence towards girls.

According to its inventive group, House of the Dragon — which, as Roxane Gay already identified on Twitter, has two male showrunners, and is predicated on books written by a person — differs from Game of Thrones as a result of it’s coming from a “female perspective.” It appears, on this first episode, meaning we’re being arrange for a collection about gentle energy, concerning the behind-the-scenes affect of moms, daughters, and mistresses on the boys who really get to sit down on the Iron Throne. With that in thoughts, House of the Dragon could also be following an identical arc to Game of Thrones, the place it breaks down its feminine characters in order to construct them again up afterward. And the best way that disempowerment — and, presumably, eventual re-empowerment — performs out will say quite a bit about what the boys behind this present suppose that ladies’s relationships, ambitions, and internal lives are all about.