House of the Dragon’s biggest flaw is its unlikable characters

House of the Dragon is satisfying our thirst for Game of Thrones. The prequel series is driven by its amoral style with gray characters, but none of them are likable.

House of the Dragon‘s season finale is around the corner, and a hero has not yet risen. In fact, we have a host of main characters that just aren’t very likable. To be fair, we have to judge the characters by the standards of the environment and universe they are in. George R. R. Martin operates in the gray, but even with Game of Thrones, we had clear-cut “good guys,” in season 1, whether it was Eddard Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, or Robb Stark.

Don’t give me King Viserys. He was naïve for understandable reasons, but he put risk his entire kingdom at risk because of a decision his daughter made three times over. That’s not the worst thing. He named Rhaenyra as heir, but never trained her to be queen. The only real interaction he used as a teaching tool was him yelling at her about taking things seriously — that’s it. Another issue was his unwillingness to get his affairs in order before he died. His frivolous tactics will result in war. He’s empathetic but hardly someone you can root for.