We’re less than a month away from the premiere of the Game Of Thrones prequel, House Of The Dragon. More and more details are coming out about the upcoming series, including its setting and of course, dragons. For instance, there will be more than just dragons in the series. In a world with dragons, there must also be those who take care of the dragons. These are the Dragonkeepers in House Of The Dragon.

Courtesy of HBO Asia, House Of The Dragon co-showrunner, executive producer and director Miguel Sapochnik (he is also best known for having directed iconic Game Of Thrones episodes like The Battle Of The Bastards and Hardhome) said:

“This show really is a family drama and the dragons are for the most part domesticated. It’s 200 years before Game of Thrones and dragons were at their height — they were their weapons of mass destruction and they also used them to ride around. So it was like having a really cool car that had nukes in it. We approach the dragons as we did in the original show, which is they’re not fantasy, they’re large animals.

But we do go a bit further into dragon lore: we have a group called the Dragonkeepers who basically look after dragons. They’ve been around for thousands of years. They’re almost not affiliated to anything. They just treat the dragons like deities and really big horses and they do everything for dragons. They’ve all got dragonglass daggers on them because if they get burned in the line of duty they can cut their own throat. Basically they’re monks, they only speak Valyrian and then each older Dragonkeeper has an acolyte with them who interprets for them and speaks English.

They all wear clothes that have been handed down over generations so they are really dirty. It’s all about mythology but it has inklings of magic. So we’ve kept the magic alive in that sense, in the mythology of fire and ice, but there’s less magic in this show than there was before.”

He also revealed more about the dragons themselves:

“We spent almost a year working with concept artists, designing each dragon. The dragons are connected to their riders and so we wanted them to both have an aspect of them but also be individually unique in their own way.

Daemon’s dragon Caraxes, for example, is like this deformed dragon. Vhagar, who’s the largest dragon in the world is this cantankerous old lady who is the most powerful dragon there is — but really she just wants to sleep. She’s just a grumpy old sod.

Syrax, who is Rhaenyra’s dragon is this slightly kind of eagle-like, built-for-speed dragon. She’s far more twitchy and fidgety and Rhaenyra has carved stuff in her horns, like jewellery.

So there was a chance to play out this idea that the rider and the dragon have this symbiotic relationship. The rider chooses their dragon. And once a rider has chosen they are paired for life until one of them dies.”

House Of The Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO GO on 22 August 2022. You can also revisit all eight seasons of Game of Thrones on HBO GO.

You can subscribe to HBO GO online at https://www.hbogoasia.my/ or the mobile app via the App Store or Play Store for RM23.30 per month. You can also access HBO GO via Astro. HBO GO is also available on Android TV, Apple TV, LG TV and Samsung Smart TV – and comes with AirPlay and Google Cast functionality.

In the meantime, check out the House Of The Dragon featurette below: