Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon, over 8 seasons it transformed the culture around watching shows and became mainstream for a good many years. While its final season has largely been seen as a bitter disappointment, the upcoming House of the Dragon series has the potential to save the Song of Ice and Fire TV franchise and restore its popularity amongst viewers.
House of the Dragon adapts George RR Martin's Fire and Blood book and is one of the most highly anticipated shows coming out. As there will be lots of people watching that have read the book, and those who have watched the Game of Thrones series have certain expectations, there are a lot of things people want to see in the series.
7 Great Writing
The writing of Game of Thrones was largely seen to have gone downhill from Season 5 onwards, around the time the show had started running out of book material. House of the Dragon will obviously want to tell its own story while being faithful to the source material, but the crew will know not to repeat Game of Thrones' mistake. GoT was a great TV show that botched its ending, and HBO will certainly be looking to avoid that happening again.
Fans are hoping to see great writing from House of the Dragon in a way that enriches the world of Westeros, stays faithful to the source material while refining it for the jump from book to TV.
6 Differences In The World
House of the Dragon takes place a few hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones but still focuses on Westeros. Since this is a prequel it makes sense that the world would be a little less developed and there'd be places in the world that maybe aren't around in the time of GoT, like how players take their time to build up a city on the best medieval games.
Fans will be hoping to see these differences explored on-screen even if it's subtle and in the background. Houses of lesser quality, King's Landing having lots of areas under construction, and so on. Little details like this help to add realism to an otherwise fantasy world.
5 Game Of Thrones Easter Eggs
While this will largely depend on the story lines and whether they can be added in without being gratuitous; fans will no doubt want to see some Game of Thrones Easter Eggs, like perhaps referencing characters only book readers would know.
While House of the Dragon is a prequel in terms of the timeline, it obviously succeeds Game of Thrones in terms of the show's releases. As such, the crew will no doubt want to pay homage to the series that started it all by adding in some non-intrusive Easter Eggs across the episodes.
4 Sword Fights
Everybody loves watching a good sword fight and there should be plenty of them in House of the Dragon. Game of Thrones always excelled when sword fights were featured, with impressive choreography and usually well-portrayed characters that help to capture the conflict better. Fans who enjoyed the sword fights would enjoy video games similar to Game of Thrones.
With the Targaryen family being at odds with one another about the rightful heir to the Throne, fans will be expecting to see lots of sword fights that directly lead to certain characters rising above their station or meeting their grisly end.
3 Patient Pacing
While nobody would appreciate the series resorting to filler and unnecessary scenes just to delay developing the plot, fans will be hoping for a less rushed pace than what Game of Thrones adopted during its last three seasons, as this is what led to it having the most disappointing series finale.
Fans will be hoping that House of the Dragon instead takes its time to establish characters, the conflict, and develop all the varying plot elements. This way everything that's important to the story gets to be told properly and without rushing and fans are more likely to be happy.
2 Dragons
With the word in the show's title, there is no way that dragons can't turn up. The Targaryen family is all about dragons, with multiple members of the main cast playing dragonrider characters.
Fans loved the scenes in Game of Thrones when Daenerys and Jon would ride their dragons so it is expected that this will continue to be featured in House of the Dragon, especially considering the budget that HBO has given it. Fans who can't wait to see more dragons could fill the time playing games to play after the Game of Thrones finale.
1 Even Better Battles
The battle scenes in Game of Thrones were one of the biggest reasons it was so popular. Battle of the Bastards, in particular, won awards and caused the show to go viral for several days. The director of that aforementioned battle, Miguel Sapochnik, will be one of the showrunners on House of the Dragon.
This is a good sign that there will be even better and bigger battles featured in the series. With many characters being dragon riders, it is also likely that fans will see more battles involving dragons, especially with the extended budget.