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House of the Dragon is through with its second season. While the ending wasn't as thunderous as one would have expected it to be, the show has still managed to live up to its predecessor Game of Thrones, which was perhaps the biggest TV show on the planet during its second season.
The two shows, set in the same universe and from the same author, share their DNA in more than a single way. Both shows have also proved to be phenomenal with their respective character treatments (we are going to ignore the last season of Game of Thrones in this conversation, entirely). But there is something crucial that House of the Dragon does not have, and that makes a big difference.
The thing that made each episode of Game of Thrones more appealing was humor, one element that seems to be lacking in the majority of the episodes in House of the Dragon. While humor need not necessarily make serious scenarios funny, but a bit of humor sprinkled in dialogues and characters goes a long way in turning even slightly lackluster scenarios much more fun.
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An instance of humorous characters in the HotD Season 2 finale, which involved Tyland Lannister and Admrial Lohar (Abigail Thorn), completely stood out simply because it made the spinoff series more akin to Game of Thrones.
If HotD does manage to include this one element in its future episodes, there could perhaps be a big difference in how fans see the show.
House of the Dragon is humorous in offbeat ways but Game of Thrones made a meal out of it
The subject matter of neither of the shows has any space for comedy. But humor is not solely based on comedy. For instance, certain characters in Game of Thrones, like Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) and Bronn (Jerome Flynn), made even dark and serious situations much lighter and much more entertaining.
We have seen this towards the end of House of the Dragon Season 2, where we were given more screen time with Ulf White, who genuinely seems to be the only "funny" character in the show apart from Daemon Targaryen's (played by Matt Smith) oddly-timed situational comedy.
It is not wrong that House of the Dragon approaches a serious matter with all seriousness, but the beauty of Game of Thrones perhaps lies in its ability to find little pockets of space to insert the various humorous situations and dialogues.
Not everyone will agree that the spinoff needs the same amount of c*ck jokes and Tyrion sarcasm to make it better since many already criticized the over-the-top humor in many instances of Game of Thrones.
Does HotD need to inherit the humor element of its predecessor?
While it will certainly be more entertaining, especially if we were to break down the show in the sum of its episodes, it does not "need" to make the show more humorous. However, in case it does start accommodating more humor in the show, it will work out better, especially for the fanbase.
House of the Dragon has made sure this season that the show is not a clone of Game of Thrones. So, it may perhaps stick to its format and approach, and that too, will not be bad.
However, few would deny that humor made Game of Thrones a more appealing prospect.
House of the Dragon Season 2 is now streaming on Max.
