House Of The Dragon vs. Rings Of Power: How do they stack up?
Now that the mega fantasy franchises have both premiered, we’ve got to compare and contrast, right?
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If the executives at HBO and Amazon didn’t want us to be comparing House Of The Dragon and The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, they shouldn’t have released two massive series based on popular fantasy franchises at almost the same time.
But since they did—and not everyone gets paid to watch TV day and night like we do here at The A.V. Club (not really, but it would be nice)—we are kind of forced to do our readers a service and pit them against each other in a winner-take-all fantasy grudge match for the ages.
Which one will come out on top and earn the coveted and not-at-all-made-up title of Best Fantasy Show Airing on TV Right Now? Keep reading to find out. Of course, n the end it doesn’t really matter, because when you have two shows this good to choose from, we’re all winners.
56 Comments
Well House of the Dragon is entertaining. There also isn’t this crazed desire to immediately shut down any criticism of House of the Dragon as being sexist and racist like there is with Lord of the rings.
No one was screaming about the “source material” when a black person was in the trailer for HotD.
Oh, there were definitely quite a few people screaming about the source material when a black person was in the trailer for HotD.Thankfully most people just didn’t care about them so they went away.
Cry more.
What am I crying about son?
No one is shutting down legitimate criticism of Rings of Power by calling it racist or sexist. Only the racist and sexist criticisms.
Yes they are. Hell inferiors cried about review bombing of She Hulk too, while not mentioning it got positive review bombed too. Crying little babies.
People are only calling racist or sexist criticisms racist or sexist.
Except no, they aren’t.
Wrong.
Persuasive. What “legitimate” criticism of RoP is being unfairly characterized as racist or sexist?
HOTD? For people who adore soaps, sure. For others, not so much.
Even Rhaenyra’s crush on Ser Criston Cole can’t lead anywhere goodA romance is probably in the cards because fantasy tropes and compulsory heterosexuality, but it’s not on display in the show yet, and there’s not much in the writing nor the acting to indicate that she has a crush on him, so the fixation on this by multiple AV Club writers is weird. We’ve got Jenna pointing out Alicent’s age every recap while simultaneously pining for a relationship between a different underage girl and grown man; make it make sense.
People familiar with the source material for this show will know heterosexuality isn’t quite that compulsory for all the characters.
Obviously, but it’s a safe bet as far as the female lead is concerned. You might get a dalliance with a bedchamber maid a la Danaerys, but not much beyond that. I’ll be shocked — shocked, I say! — if there isn’t as much as an attempt at a romantic entanglement between the two in the future.
I would say there are HUGE hints that Rhaenyra is either lesbian or bisexual. The very first scene where she’s practically begging Alicent to ride the dragon with her. Then, she talking about how much she enjoys having her head in Alicent’s lap. Finally, after telling her father it’s ok to wed, she has a rather dramatic response to the new wife being Alicent.Am I the only one seeing this? Is it just wishful thinking on my part?
It was pretty obvious the only question was if Alicent shared those feelings or was just doing what her father told her to do.
I doubt it is intentional coding as bi-sexual. More likely those scenes are just there to make it more dramatic when they are at odds later in the show. While GRRM DOES have homosexual characters, in the book these particular characters were separated much farther in age and had no relationship really at all. In the show they have decided to give them a close friendship before they make them enemies.
And we don’t even really know Alicent’s age. All we know is that she was close friends with Ryaenyra. That does not mean that they are exactly the same age. Alicent could easily be 2-3 years, maybe even 4 years, older, which would put her at the same age she was in the books, 19. Mind you, 19 is the age of Diana Spencer when she got engaged to Prince Charles (I will never stop saying that).Who the heck is the King supposed to take as his second wife, someone his age who may very well be past child bearing? The whole point of remarrying is having more kids! Furthermore, Alicent seems happy in the union AND has some influence over her husband, which is more than could be said for Diana.
Terrible recaps *and* a slideshow? SOLD
This may sound a bit ridiculous, but in watching Rings of Power, every time there is a closeup shot of one of the elven characters, I keep getting pulled out of the action studying how natural their ears have been created. I will have to say in contrast to the white-blond wigs on House of Dragon, the ears win by a nose.
The ears do look good, although the Elvish haircut is really distracting for some reason.
As someone who did immediately zoom in on the ear in that elf picture, I feel seen.
It sort of is explained why Sauron turns evil, although that’s another one of those “in the material we can’t use because we couldn’t license the Silmarillion”. There was a lot of that in the first two episodes of the show, from Galadriel’s brother (can’t say it’s Finrod or specifically how he died!) to the way that the Arondir and Bronwyn connection feels like an echo of Aegnor and Andreth. Definitely going with HOTD on the visuals and set design. Almost everything looks better, from the costumes to the visual design to the way that the regular humans in the show so far have a kind of generic fantasy medieval look to them (hopefully that changes with the Numenoreans showing up soon). The one exception is the wigs, as others have pointed out.
Definitely going with HOTD on the visuals and set design. Almost everything looks betterI know subjectivity is king, and yet this is still just bewildering to me. I thought exactly the opposite.
Agreed, HOTD is mostly terrible to look at imo.
House of the Dragons: Rhaenyra leads criston cole on a wonderfully shot horse chase through the kingswoodRings of Power: ZERO HORSES in the first two episodes
I would totally read recaps written through a horse girl lens.
Star Wars and Star Trek are always compared to each other but probably shouldn’t be. I feel the same about these two: LOTR is (mostly) for the whole family and GOT is for adults only. Also, the former is about fantasy while the latter is essentially a fictional historical drama with fantasy elements peppered in it.
I also was thinking along this line, only maybe for different reasons. LOTR is like Trek, interested in exploring bigger moral/philosophical questions with the genre’s mechanics as their main tool. GOT and Star Wars are more interested in pulpy/soapy storylines where genre tropes are more for entertaining set pieces. The difference in explicit content has more to do with the time periods their writers worked in and the standards of the mass market in those days.
the latter is essentially a fictional historical drama with fantasy elements peppered in it
Eh, not really. It’s a fantasy series inspired by the War of the Roses in the same way Lord of the Rings is a fantasy series inspired by JRRT’s obsessions.
GRRM has long ago strayed far from the actual War of the Roses, independent of the zombies and dragons, and both the tone and content are GRRM’s authorial choices.
By “fictional historical drama”, I mean that Martin is more interested in the life in medieval times than the fantasy elements. Yes, he was inspired by some real events here and there, but that’s not what I was referring to.
Well unlike Rings House of doesn’t wheel out offensive Irish stereotypes, so that’s a big point for GOT .https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/lord-of-the-rings-rings-of-power-irish-accents
As an Irish I was just disappointed when I looked up the actors and none of them were actually Irish. If you’re going to make them like Leprechauns then can’t some Irish actors at least get the work?
I think it was Hemingway who said sometimes a harfoot is just a harfoot.
It’s the limitations that Rings of Power must work within that make it the more enjoyable series so far. The violence is going to be more implied than shown; rape isn’t going to be a plot point. If good people fail, it will be because of their pride and hubris, not their kindness. You can say that the Lord of the Rings world is simplistic in its idea of good and evil, or you could say that it operates on a higher level of metaphor than Game of Thrones. Think of the orc within you!Anyway, I rewatched the first two episodes of Rings of Power. And while I watched House of Dragons (though I skipped whole chunks of the more violent parts), and will probably see out the series, I can’t imagine wanting to revisit it. Rings of Power has, just about, managed to pull off some moments of wonder and moments of grace, and that is what I will want to return to.
Some people like their epic dramas to be a little visceral and bloody, some people like something a bit more PG. There’s room for both.
These aren’t really similar stories. Tolkien wrote a new mythology so the good and evil battles are of the divine level. GRRM wrote an alternate version of British medieval history with all of the human nature failings. One is a cosmic struggle with god-like beings and immortals involved. The other are about petty human nature leading to the downfall of a kingdom. Very different scale. Very different level of psychological realism. And very different take on showing the bad sides of mortals.
Got isn’t an alternate version of real europe, the fullest extent of the real world influence on westeros is the fact that lannister sounds similar to lancaster
It’s based on the French Cursed Kings and the War of the Roses and other events. It’s not an alternative European history but it’s inspired by real events.
The whole plot of the HoD is based on Empress Matilda’s story –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_MatildaGRRM is basically doing Guy Gavriel Kay.
Tolkien wrote a new mythology
I know this is the way JRRT talked, but all this means is “he wrote a popular and involved fantasy series.”
Winner ? Us.
Hard to compare. Rings is family fair Dragon is not. There is no sex in the Rings universe. Or guns!!
Casting on Rings seems like a problem. The actress playing Galadriel has the charisma of a damp flower.
I think its fair to say that the effects in Rings of Power is better, which is to be expected given the budget of the show. House of the Dragon effects are certainly excellent but there are moments with the Dragons where it does feel very CGI. Say what you want about Rings of Power, but the show feels like it has big budget movie level CGI.
I can tell you this; both of them pale drastically in comparison to my multivolume 5000 page epic saga Busty Lesbians of Agarathor, available now at most good bookshops. (Some of them chased me away and called the police when they caught me sneaking it on the shelves, but I shall not be silenced!)
When is the film adaption coming out?
Assuming I get script approval, this weekend.
House of the Dragon is such a joyless, unoriginal re-done slog compared to not only RoP, but also the first GoT, that I’m having a hard time putting it in the same class as the latter at this point. I’d put RoP at the moment as an overwhelming winner. I say that as a fan of GoT and a hater of the Hobbit.
This. It’s insanely grim and predictable, it’s so hard to get through the HOTD episodes.
I’m going to go with wrong. It’s not as though you have to pick only one show to watch. At this episode release rate, you can watch both shows and still have ~166 hours left each week for other things.Of course, any serious criticism involves comparison to other works, but these shows are not the most obvious things to compare to each other. As is pointed out below, they fill different niches and are meant for different audiences. Here’s an assignment for the writer: How does House of the Dragon stack up to Ran? Not well, obviously, but at least that work is similarly themed.
Why is romance a category? Political intrigue? Gee, I wonder who takes that… If you’re gonna pit these two against each other, be serious. Who has the better action?! World building and tone are a wash because both series successfully evoke their predecessors. So who has the better writing and dialogue so far? Cast of characters? Go for the jugular.
I think they both hit the tones of their respective properties. ROP definitely has a much grander scope and budget, but the people of HOTD are more interesting because they’re allowed to be sleazy backstabbers. Depends on which fantasy you want. For me it depends on the day
Why is this a slideshow