Quote:The people we meet in House of the Dragon’s source material, Fire & Blood, are not characters in the traditional sense. The book takes the form of a historical text told through multiple primary sources, each biased in their own way. The most fleshed-out figures are lucky if they get a single defining trait, the others are little more than cardboard cutouts with hard-to-spell names. This affords the writers and performers of House of the Dragon great leeway when it comes to characterization. From major players like eternally on-edge Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) to minor roles such as Simon Russell Beale’s bone-dry Simon Strong, the show’s renderings are far more interesting, far more human, than their book counterparts.

However, one aspect of House of the Dragon’s coloring outside the lines of the original text has fallen short of the show’s otherwise high standards: These women aren’t evil enough!