Dragons in America

What Season Two of House of the Dragon Reveals About the U.S. Present and Future

By Valerie Kennedy

It’s little surprise that HBO’s House of the Dragon (HOTD) has become a mega hit globally and here in the U.S., which for the last five years, certainly since 2021, has been immersed within its own Dance of Dragons. Kings Landing may be a fictional representation of Westeros’ seat of power, but its hushed Red Keep chambers of political intrigue, shifting alliances and unending power struggles certainly seem to mirror the happenings of modern-day Washington, DC and its power centers, especially Congress.

Like the kingdom of Westeros in Season Two, our nation finds itself on the precipice of an uncertain future in this still relatively new century and its volatile political season. It’s a moment shaped by expediency and distrust that has led to the re-drawing of old party lines and oaths. The emerging prospect of our own civil conflict and a Dance of Dragons which could destroy our democracy through election denial tactics and outright battles in the street a la January 6, 2021 isn’t fictional, though we wish it were.

The conflict between those yearning for Old Valyria and its old gods versus those pressing for a truly united Westeros from sea to shining sea will determine the fate of our country as a 21st century mecca of democratic ideals or stronghold of authoritarian beliefs.

The internecine battle between Team Black led by Queen Rhaenyra and Team Green led by King Aegon II is not just about who will govern, but how and to whose advantage. The power struggles reflected within their respective Small Councils, especially that of the governing Red Keep, mirrors the dynamics of the existential chess game and fight for partisan advantage that has now become a new norm in the nation’s capital and state capitals around the country.

The dysfunction of Congress, the ideological pivots that continue to hurt smallfolk and functioning government, despite the best efforts of well-meaning electees who know that thoughtful legislation is critical for everyday Americans is itself a HOTD plotline. The unresolved blockade of food and supplies for the citizens of Kings Landing who are pawns suffering from the political fractures of Westeros resonates deeply as a knowing nod to the modern-day realities of a country feeling the effects of blockaded democracy and divided Congress.

The unchecked partisan acrimony between our two ruling political houses is buffeted by the dark magic of disinformation, scorched earth tactics, and whispers about policy and political bedfellows that when leaked only further undermine public trust and confidence in government. These dynamics have both defined and weakened the state of play through which our democratic future will be forged. A new political season is crucial. Otherwise, a bitter winter may be coming for all of us and the
generations that follow.

Season Two of House of the Dragon serves as both visceral metaphor and bellwether for what can happen when a house divided pursues the nuclear option of dragons to win the future, whether it be one of peace, equity, and reconciliation or sheer dominance and control sustained by unfettered aggression. Who we are as a nation and as a global geopolitical player will be shaped by how we contain the dragons that rampage among us.

In Westeros, these dragons have whimsical names that almost seem to evoke Native American naming traditions; Moondancer, Dreamcatcher, Seasmoke. These HOTD names are beautiful, even magical, but they belie the actual ferocity of their dragons. In America, the ferocity of our dragons isn’t hidden in their names. Here in America, the names are more like warning signs- literal and straightforward. Names like Project 2025, for example. In Westeros or Valyrian speak, it would be translated as Vhagar.

Long before dragons became a global pop culture phenomenon and trenchant metaphor, myths of their power and ability to create chaos prevailed among indigenous tribes whose sovereigns now comprise the Americas- North, South and Central America. One of the great blind spots of the dragon lore highlighted in film, television, and fantasy literature has been its focus on European mythology. But in fact, Native American tribes and indigenous tribes in Central and South America also recognized dragons within the oral and artistic canon of their tribal mythology.

Whether as deities or spirits like the Seneca tribe’s Gaasyendietha, a fire breathing creature that could fly and swim, or the Aztec nation’s shape-shifting Quetzalcoatl, represented as a feathered serpent, the god of wind and as a happy eagle, the dragons roaming the continents of North and South America were agents of division and danger or forces of irrevocable change. These dragons were both feared and worshipped.

One’s relationship to dragons is also a critical theme in Season Two of HOTD. Dragons are a pathway to power and respect. It’s an idea linked to ancient Chinese mythology in which those who could ride and control dragons were seen as divinely appointed to reign and lead.

One of the most pivotal scenes of HOTD’s Season Two takes place when Adam of Hull, who is Black, not silver-haired or blue-eyed, meets Queen Rhaenyra on Driftmark’s beach with his dragon, Seasmoke. He bends the knee and immediately pledges his fealty to her, but not before asserting his own divinely ordained appointment as a dragon rider by declaring “if the gods have called me to greater things, who am I to refuse them?” Rhaenyra, at first skeptical, then stunned, ultimately agrees and confirms that Adam has achieved the impossible.

The subtext within the U.S.’ own political history can hardly be ignored. Adam has come out of nowhere as a lowborn son of a shipwright on the margins of society. He is not even publicly acknowledged among the small folk of Westeros as a Dragon seed or bastard progeny of the Targaryen dynasty. (Although, he is the unacknowledged son of Lord Corlys Velaryon, Queen Rhaenyra’s hand.)

Yet, Queen Rhaenyra concedes that the dragon’s choice of Adam as its rider must indeed be divinely appointed and later remarks that he must have Targaryen blood, especially since Seasmoke independently chooses Adam over the queen’s first choice, a white noble of Targaryen descent who meets a fiery end.

Adam’s noble blood, while not readily apparent, is reflected in his elegant manner, natural talent for dragon riding, and ease in Rhaenyra’s presence. He is a member of what W.E.B. Dubois characterized as the “talented tenth” of personal exceptionalism among those whom Dubois felt were necessary to lift the Black community during America’s post slavery era. Adam’s personal exceptionalism and royal bloodlines allow him to ascend to dragon rider status and immediately gain the queen’s confidence. He is not only impressive, he is family.

Rhaenyra’s quest for members of the Targaryen bloodline to become dragon riders also underscores the internecine battle in House of the Dragon. This battle between the families of Westeros who are torn between supporting the Targaryen “Blacks” who are ride or die for Queen Rhaenyra and her claim to the throne and the Targaryen “Greens” who support and fight for King Aegon II impacts generations to come. Dragons and the threat they pose reinforce the power of heritage and family lineage associated with Westeros’ ruling families, especially the Targaryens, who are at the center of this defining generational conflict. The tensions between the “Blacks” and the “Greens” also serves as a brilliantly crafted symbiotic nod to the U.S.’ own enduring civil war over color and heritage. The Great Civil War and the fight for power that has followed is anchored in internecine conflicts of the Old South in which the majority of enslaved men and women and their progeny, DNA studies indicate at least 80 percent, shared bloodlines with slaveholding families.

America’s Civil War, our own Dance of Dragons, has been characterized simply as an essential moral battle about democratic principles and human rights. In reality, it was an incredibly complex one guided by a high- stakes chess game of economic, political, and moral considerations between regions, families, and people interminably bound by common history, blood, family dynasties and birthrights, business interests as well as unshakeable oaths of loyalty to the Union or the Confederacy. Just like Westeros.

And like shifting pieces on a chess board, the competing interests connected to money, power, and regional dominance which fractured our country have never been fully resolved. Those enduring fractures cast shadows over the future of our democracy and our nation’s ability to serve as a pillar of geopolitical stability.

In its August 2023 issue, The Atlantic magazine published an article titled What America’s Great Unwinding Would Mean for the World. The opening paragraph grimly opines “[E]verywhere you turn, there is a sense that the U.S. is in some form of terminal decline; too divided, incoherent, violent, and dysfunctional to sustain its Pax Americana. Moscow and Beijing seem to think that the great American unwinding has already begun, while in Europe, officials worry about a sudden American collapse.”
Like Westeros, the dangling Damocles sword of political implosion and civil unrest demands that we elect a leader who can unite our own Seven Kingdoms- the South, Northeast, Midwest, West, Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the remainder of Corporate America. Being a fearless dragon rider is a necessary first step as is self-awareness.

With the help of witch Alys Rivers, the crystal ball clarity with which Prince/King Consort Dameon Targaryen sees the future in the last episode of Season Two is attainable once he finally yields his own claim to power. When he does, his revelation inspires him to choose the future of Westeros’ unity and to recognize that Rhaenyra must be the queen to achieve it. It is a profoundly powerful moment.

The scene’s looking-glass resonance is deepened because the King Consort’s actions mirror the recent decision by President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, passing the torch (or Valyrian steel sword) to his Vice President, Kamala Harris, first of her name to continue the quest to unite the country.

In Season Two, House of the Dragon deftly unfolded into political and moral allegory about power and the role of all society, small folks, nobles, witches, grand masters, even Masters of Whispers in sustaining it, re-defining it, defying it and fighting for it. Dragons as a metaphor for both unchecked power and aggression and as a symbol of submission to power due to human touch and influence underscore the series’ insights about the fundamentally human nature, psychology, and manifestation of power through the prism of circumstance.

This season was the perfect alignment of themes and context that tapped into the current political moment in America and the high stakes represented by the players in our presidential election season. Whether you are Team Black or Team Green, House Velaryon, Targaryen or Lannister or consider yourself smallfolk, this season’s House of the Dragon had teaching moments about the realities of human history and politics with lessons we cannot ignore:
History does not reward tyrants (Prince Aemond, rider of the world’s largest and most fierce dragon, learns this when Princess Heleana informs him that he will disappear in the Godseye and be forgotten.) True leaders inspire others by fighting for the future and looking past the present moment and themselves and peace often requires a hard, unavoidable fight.

Finally, for all of its complexities and plot twists, Season Two of House of the Dragon never failed to convey a simple, incontrovertible truth in each episode about our country’s political future that has stretched against Time. No matter how daunting the dance of history may seem in a present full of dragons, the dawn of brighter days lies in the destiny we choose and fight for.