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This, apparently, was by design.
But that dramas pilot, 2011s Winter Is Coming, did it first and better.
Here are just six examples of how.
.Winter Is Coming starts stronger than The Heirs of the Dragon.
The opening sequence is suspenseful, gory, and a bit scary.
In 2011, it happened to arrive when pop culture was arguably at its most zombie-obsessed.
(The Walking Deads first season had wrapped just a few months earlier.)
In other words, it commits one of the cardinal sins of fiction telling rather than showing.
Like, do we really need all these council meetings in which Fleabags dad drones on and on?
These meetings could have been messages sent by a raven!
.Winter Is Coming looks more convincing than The Heirs of the Dragon.
More than a decade has passed sinceGame of Thronesfirst aired.
Yet the world established inGame of Thronesstill seems more authentic and tactile from the jump.
.Winter Is Coming establishes its patriarchal society more compellingly than The Heirs of the Dragon does.
DidGame of Thronesrun the risk of criticizing misogyny while, at the same time, being misogynistic?
Constantly in the first episode, and even more so later on!
I watched all of this and felt, honestly, nothing?
Again, its the series telling us what to think and feel rather than organically eliciting thoughts and feelings.
.Winter Is Coming Has Tyrion Lannister.
There is no similar breakout in the firstHouse of the Dragoninstallment.
Hes played by well-known actor Matt Smith, who is certainly a commanding presence.
But Daemons not necessarily someone whose presence you want to be in for very long.
And Im not just saying that because the blond wig doesnt quite go with Smiths face.
But I also might be saying that a little.
Talk about an overcoming-the-odds love story!
This is even more true after the ending of the episode, which Ill address momentarily.
but there is something a little sketchy going on in the first scene between Daemon and Rhaenyra.
They like each other a teensy bit too much.
.The ending of Winter Is Coming kicks the ass of that of The Heirs of the Dragon.
She has a look of courage on her face at first, then trepidation creeps across it.
Will Bran survive the fall?
If he does, will he tell others what he saw?
But the conclusion of The Heirs of the Dragon doesnt do anything shocking.
Like the rest of the episode, it makes you say, That was okay.
But I think Ive seen this before.
