House of the Dragon director explains shocking scene in series premiere

‘Game of Thrones’ spin-off debuted on Sunday night

Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon has finally debuted on HBO Max.

Like its predecessor, the series looks set to include its fair share of violent shocks – if episode one is anything to go by.

In the aftermath of the series premiere, director and showrunner Miguel Sapochnik opened up about the episode’s most horrifying moment.

Spoilers follow for the House of the Dragon premiere – you have been warned!

In the episode, Aemma Arryn (Sian Brooke) is preparing to give birth to a son, when she faces complications. Her husband, King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine), has to choose between attempting to save her life or the baby’s, who would become heir to his throne.

Viserys orders that a caesarean be performed to attempt to save the baby. In a particularly brutal scene, this lethal procedure is carried out while Aemma is fully conscious.

Aemma does not survive, but neither does the baby, kickstarting one of House of the Dragon’s central conflicts, as Viserys overlooks his fickle son Daemon (Matt Smith) in favour of daughter Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) to be his heir.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Sapochnik addressed the sure-to-be-controversial scene.

“Aemma says, ‘The child bed is our battlefield’,” he said. “We felt that was an interesting way to explore the fact that for a woman in medieval times, giving birth was violence. It’s as dangerous as it gets.

“You have a 50/50 chance of making it. Many women didn’t. If given the choice, the father would choose the child over the mother as a cesarean would kill you. It was an extremely violent part of life.”

Paddy Considine in ‘House of the Dragon' (© 2022 Home Box Office, Inc. Al)

He continued: “We have a number of births in the show and basically decided to give them different themes and explore them from different perspectives the same way I did for a bunch of battles on Thrones, where each time I tried to put a different spine in each so it wasn’t just doing the same thing as I don’t think putting a bunch of violence on screen for the sake of violence does any good in the world.”

You can click here to read The Independent ’s review of the House of the Dragon series premiere.

Or go here for a breakdown of all the Game of Thrones callbacks, references and Easter eggs found in the first episode.

House of the Dragon is available to watch now in the UK on Sky and NOW.