HotD doesn't have to start as amazing as GoT... It just needs to end better.

I doubt HoTD can ever be as great as the early seasons of GoT, but after this brilliant beginning I'd say they can come pretty close.

In favor of HotD, S1 had the heavy lift of bringing the franchise back from the dead and restore the fandom.

Personally I prefer GOT season 1's cinematography. The warm, Mediterranean colours are quite inviting and really make you feel like you're in a coastal city. To be honest, real life just doesn't look like how HOTD looks.

Got season 1 can never be fairly compared. It was brimming with compelling world building, characters, and plot. And it truly shocked and surprised us as we learned about what this world was. It really challenged what we were used to seeing on TV and it asked the audience to broaden their expectations. I love hotd though. It is a great show about a political fantasy and a family drama in a world we understand and feel comfortable being in.

I think Alicent Hightower’s character arc is one of the best between both shows. The switch between Emily Carey and Olivia Cooke felt very fluid and Alicent’s character evolves so much over the season. She goes from the timid, anxiety-ridden girl who is “content to being the spectator” to the Queen and finding her footing there to finding her own wearing the green dress at Rhaenyra and Laenor’s wedding. Becoming a player of the game in her father’s absence and the overflow of jealousy and being gaslighted and betrayal at Driftmark and turning to religion to cope with what has happened. Not to mention that the juxtaposition between Alicent and Rhaenyra as mothers is phenomenal. Her arc is just fascinating and even the switch between actors felt so clean.

LOVE HoTD but GoT is god-level TV. Pretty much near perfection.

I think It's unfair to compare a show that comes from an amazingly-written novel with excellent existing dialogues and a structure that is already ideal to fit into a series because of the POV chapters with a show that comes from a fictional history book with a lot of different sources, much fewer dialogues and a structure that is quite hard to bring into television. In ASOIAF Martin has already done all the hard work, in HoTD the writers need balls. D&D could never adapt succesfuly Fire and Blood, it needs to actualy read a lot the source and have a full vision.

For me seeing Viserys and his arc was definitely the highlight of HotD

I think got season one has great lines because of the source material. Hotd didn’t have much dialogue from the source material to use and that makes their brilliant dialogue more impressive

I prefer GOT season 1 by a mile. Not only did i find the plot more compelling, the show also had the incredibly hard job of introducing the world (which i think it did masterfully), whereas Hotd didnt need to introduce the world. Feels like got season 1 was bigger accomplishment in that department

GoT S1-4 is a friggen masterpiece, so HotD coming even close in these categories is a great accomplishment. It's almost as if the HotD team created a redemption arc in response to what Derp&Derpier did to the GoT denouement.

In terms of pure single characters, Viserys is the best single-season character in both HOTD & GOT. We love Ned and Robert, but they did not have the pure development Viserys had. Certain characters overtook Viserys overall with time, such as Jaime by season 3 & 4, but for a single season Viserys is a masterpiece of character building.

so hyped for season 2

The only moment where HOTD came close to Got, was after the death of Vyseris, when Otto tries to steal the Throne. Still i didn't like how Ser Criston just killed the old man at the council with no consequences. I think GoT>>>

I wish Game of Thrones season 1 had the costumes and armour quality of House of the Dragon

I think doing the scoring system with checkmarks (winner/loser) was a mistake cus it does HotD such a disservice. If you gave them each a score out of 10 (or 100), then we could visually see that yes, GoT was better, but it was really close. Otherwise I think you brought up some great points that I agree with for the most part (Although, I think Aegon, Aemond, and Corlys were more compelling than some of GoT's secondary characters like Theon, Jorah, or Sam, for example)

The only time we ever get about all the houses of HOTD is the part where Rhaenyra was introduced as the heir of the throne and every lord of all seven kingdoms swore their allegiance to her.

HoTD feels smaller. GoT every single set felt new but HoTD I know they entire layout of their sets. GoT was grand in scale of set building.

Game of Thrones is to House of the Dragon as Breaking Bad is to Better Call Saul.

I agree, but honestly it's not really fair because ASOIAF proper (not F&B) is much more nuanced, with more dialogue and incredibly character focused in order to tell the best story possible, so all the twists, lines, characters etc are there because GRRM wrote it that way and F&B Is just a companion book. So it was always going to be almost impossible for HOTD to win in anything other than cinematography.

I've already rewatched HOTD 5 times in the past year and i can never get enough of it. The writing of the characters, given the frequent time jumps in the first season alone is mind blowing. i just LOVE how engaging each episode is and has its own conflict unlike GOT that mostly focussed on the larger plot of the season or show. Every single episode of HOTD feels like a movie of its own written with such adherence to the story and character development. the conflicts and relationship dynamics between the characters is the best part.

Comparing HOTD season 1 to the legendary status of the first four seasons of Game of Thrones. There is no competition. The first four seasons would win. That said...... I think this first season of HOTD season 1 is the closest we've gotten to a good season in Westeros since those first four seasons of the Main Show. Now that it's got all the set up done. I think going forward the show has potential. That is if they can maintain the quality or grow from it. 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

I like HOTD characters as they are more relatable on the personal level. With GoT, they seem like they were cut from a rpg video game where you customise their character attributes.

You uploaded just in time for me to eat my dinner to watch this, thanks

In terms of dialogue I think they're actually both equally good in completely different ways. GoT is a lot more memorable with it's iconic lines and how imbued with meaning every piece of dialogue is, in a Shakespearian literary kind of way, but I feel like HotD isn't because it's more focused on being believable and authentic which it is excellent at. GoT is clever with dialogue but in the way which highlights the talent of the writers and author, HotD is a lot more grounded in a way which isn't as obviously impressive but that ultimately helps the immersion. This might mostly be down to just how flawlessly the cast became their characters but I still think HoTD deserves a lot more credit

"HOT D" My brain: "Stop giggling...STOP IT!" In all seriousness, this was a great comparison. I didn't really have anything to argue about. Thrones is better, but that's like saying milk chocolate is better than dark. Both amazing in their own way

HOTD season 1 had a more difficult job in my opinion, Love for GOT franchise was dead, it had to compress 20 years of history in to one season and it decided to not go straight into the dance of dragons story line in season 1 which was the whole reason it was adapted and still managed to make a compelling narrative with fleshed out characters and recapture the magic of GOT which was destroyed by dumb and dumber...I do think season 2 will be better than GOT season 2 if it maintains this quality.

When viserys slowly crawled his way to the iron throne with the "I don't care if this kills me, I'm going to set things straight" look on his face, I realized how invested in these characters I became.

Appreciate the use of the Regal Ancestor Spirit ost from Elden Ring during the dialogue segment! Love it! Also great video of course!

nice video man, thanks for the dedication !

What I liked with GoT season one is that it was very concentrated, while HoTD has big time gaps between some episodes, which gave me a very weird feeling when I was watching it.

The fact that HoTD got CLOSE to season 1 of GOT that alone show how good of a story was, and that's a lot of quality in 1 season of TV, I wish OTHERS fantasy shows try this hard as much HoTD did, GOT is just on a whole different tier but again the fact that HoTD can compare says a lot. Awesome analysis....wonder if you will like to compare more shows like ROP with Willow, or Madalorian with Book of Boba Fett for example, or later on ROP vs HoTD (I know will be a massacre but still fun to watch if you do).

Keep making content bro it’s fire

My favorite part of HOTD is there is less amount of characters which makes things feel more Intimate and makes it easier to get to know the characters and I’ve always loved the Targaryens so I’m glad that in Hotd there’s a Targaryen in basically every scene 😂

Great Analyse Job. As Always.

I'd wager a good number of the cinematography credits for HotD are the result of Miguel Sapochnik being so closely involved in the first season. Man is a legend in the GoT crew.

I would find it really interesting if you made a video ranking all the main battles in Game of Thrones.

Big fan of the vs. style videos

Legendary comparison 👏👏

Game of thrones was really unique it was basically 4-6 separate shows that you watched together. All separate stories just playing side by side with each other will little crossover till later seasons

nostalgia will never allow for a fair comparison

Bro sounds like he’s got a degree in Game of Thrones

great vid as usual

People be getting carried away with hotd. It's GOT season 5/6 levels of good, miles away from GOT seasons 1 - 4

Great video, thank you! But I must say, the comparison is somewhat flawed since try as one might, you cannot think about GoT S1 without it being somewhat informs by the greatness that follows in seasons 2-4. Would be interesting to do this again at the end of HOTD.

I find it very hard to judge characters in GOT s1 because we got attached to them after 3,4,8 seasons, we know well how complex they can be or where they are going to go. It's hard to comprehend how much of that is introduced in only the first season (Jaime for exemple only get really interesting in season 2-3). I'm still amazed by how many characters and plotlines were established in GOT s1though so I don't mind where this point went

Hey can you do a house of dragon being devoid of logic

Oh, man, so much time till Season 2!

The awkward time jumps honestly crippled the ability for HODT to match GOT. The time jumps were entirely necessary, however, they're still jarring and make it difficult to work around from a logistics and writing perspective. I have a feeling HOTD will have no problem matching or surpassing GOT in future seasons, mostly because they can now maintain a much cleaner sequence of events as the story in HOTD unfolds. So excited for the future of HOTD, and hopefully the few weird choices they made in the first season (mostly rhaenys' scene at the coronation) don't make much of a comeback and we can continue to see a tightly written epic unfold.

made it to the end of the video i usually watch and don’t comment but yes, please keep doing these videos!! i love watching these 😭

If you consider the quality of the acting, I’d give that one to HOTD, on the basis of Paddy, Emma and Matt’s skillz especially. Most of the cast were pretty great, too. Should have been more Harwin, tho, because he is excellently hot. GOT’s acting was also great, but less consistent, as some of the (beloved) cast were learning on the job. Paddy and Emma had me in emotional knots. Too good.

This style of video would be great to explore different shows with similar narratives and direction. GoT vs the Expanse comes to mind as one that could be really interesting

Great video!! I agree!

every time i see another one of these videos, i literally click as fast as humanly possible. Keep up the amazing vids!

GOT>>>

Very nice how you summized Paddys acting of Viserys... and then he didn't even get a nomination... absolutely insane..

Nostalgia aside episodes 1 and 2 GOT standalone back in 2011 when they were aired were barely watchable and I gave up on GOT afterwards. Then I decided to return to the show after episde 5 or 6 was aired, so I had to catch up previous episodes since the begining and oh boy did my perspective change.

Good topic NGL

Best GoT season 1 line has to be “Go get the damn breast plate stretcher”

It seems the only categories HotD won were because they walked through doors that GoT had to kick down

I always feel this comparison is a tad unfair as the source material of AGOT is far superior to Fire & Blood, since obviously AGOT is Martin's magnum opus. Plus given the time and the moment, the first season of GoT changed how people viewed television forever. Nothing is gonna live up to that. However, there are certain things that HoTD did do better, especially the attention to details and medieval realism, which was visible from everywhere from the Viserys hunting scene to the details in the coup and the Aegon coronation ceremony. It was a lot less "we have a new king now" and a lot more "this is how it happens". The casting and the acting I would say was also on par with GoT and at times better, which is saying something given the calibre of actors GoT had. But overall I think there's no debate. HoTD Season 1 is a very good season. GoT Season 1 was a once in a lifetime season.

This video must've been tough to make

My personal issue with hotd was indeed the 2:1 aspect ratio. I've hated that aspect ratio ever since it was introduced to the OTT platforms because firstly the black bars when you dont zoom that in, secondly when you DO zoom in, it's not a rectangle anymore because the stupid smartphone companies have to make the corners so round plus that big ass notch

Best line in either show: “Wear it in silence or I’ll honor you again”

Anyone else going to mention that there's an awesome mashup of AGOT and Star Wars music in the background of the video?

Is it possible to do a GoT season ranking some point? Curious to know your thoughts.

I wish there was a section for bad writing/contrivances. Daemon winning his 1v30, Alicent figuring out plot points because characters aren't speaking clearly etc

The biggest issue of HoTD is it's time jump. I can't correctly identify each new adult cast untill half the episode. And then all of their sons .. so much rabbit hole the HoTD 1st season is.

At this point we can all agree that matching GRR Martin writing is pretty difficult. Last seasons of GOT and HOTD prove this.

I think a very telling sign concerning dialogue is the fact that even though you have been narrating over almost all of this video, a lot of the clips from GoT s1 I’ve been mouthing along to.. cannot say that for most of the hotd clips

I liked HotD season 1 but GoT season 1 will remain the better season for me. I think that the Dance of Dragons and the Fire and Blood book has such huge potential to make for an amazing show. The showrunners just need to use the source material wisely. If done correct I would venture to say the show could overshadow peak GoT.

Hot D is ok, but GOT season 1 is just amazing

Got season 1 felt miles better, specifically in pacing for me

HotD ≥

GOT also had a lower budget for season 1. And HotD got to skip a lot of world building since the audience is already familiar with Westeros and Essos, the wall, and the North aren’t included in S1 of HotD.

What I think most people are overlooking is that HoTD is also building an entirely new world. GOT focuses on just King's landing, Winterfell, The wall and the Vale. It introduces only 3 houses and 4 major locations (and the 2 wildcards which are the night's watch and the Dothraki). While HoTD introduces the Targeryens, Valerions, Hightowers, Strongs, The Stepstones, Storm's end, Dragonstone(the one in its prime, not the one in GOT) and a whole new King's landing (the dragonpit, new small council chamber and gardens etc.) That is 4 major locations and 4 houses (the crabfeeder is also an interesting introduction). They are introducing nearly the same amount of world-building related things as GOT S1.

For me the only problem with HOTD was just the skipping of some scenes and maybe a little more screen time for some characters or development. For example I would’ve loved to see more screen time of daemon fighting on the step stones, or more of Harwin and Rhaenera, I just felt like they had skipped some stuff viewers would’ve liked to see but at the same time I know it’s really just to set up the actual dance of dragons which pretty much starts in s2

I appreciate all these opinions and rankings; they're a great summary of what makes both projects amazing. However, I have a problem with the "twists" section. Like, none of the events described are twists; they're just events in the story. The story is already defined. There can be no Dance of the Dragons without the death of Lucerys. There cannot exist a death of Eddard Stark without the death of Robert Baratheon. Plot twists? You weren't expecting it? Sure enough, some events will have a bigger impact on the audience, but you shouldn't judge any of them in terms of how they affect the plot or the story as they are, in and of themselves, part of the story.

Gave it a like without watching 👏

The only knock against HoTD is that the dialogue had to be made up by the show runners, whereas a lot of the character moments in GoT were taken strictly taken from the books. HoTD (the book) was designed that way intentionally, and honestly the writers and show runners did an amazing job in HoTD making dialogue for this series. Was it S1-S4 GoT good? No, but it's certainly better than most of the dialogue in the later seasons of GoT. This leads to a lot of character development in the first few seasons of GoT which despite budgetary reasons did the show a great service. As the budgets got bigger in GoT it reached a point where it no longer had source material to draw from and the action pieces pretty much drove the series (and as such, the dialogue and character development sort of went downhill IMO). HoTD (series) thus far has moments where it does both. The dialogue is still better than later seasons of GoT but we also get great action pieces and beautiful sets as well. There are absolute moments where HoTD does better than GoT (even the early seasons). I doubt it will ever usurp the feel of the first several seasons, but damn, thus far it's not that far off. Some of the performances and casting are excellent in HoTD, and it's certainly a worthy successor to the first several seasons of GoT. HoTD also has the unfortunate task of trying to bring good will to fans of the series after S7-S8 (especially S8).

I enjoyed S1 HotD and the biggest praise I can give it is that it's given me back a franchise I was super excited about. Game of Thrones is just better for me, top to bottom. I love Paddy Constantine's performance as Viserys, but I'm not cosigning him being the best character out of either seasons.

I think they’re both equally good 👍🏾

The video is missing a separate royal hunt category for comparison

This is not a comparison. HOTD is a soap opera focusing on a one storyline with very little plot advancement and characters. GoT is an epic drama with several compelling plots and characters.

Man, I binged HotD and I had no issues with the time jumps. Im really curious how bingeing the show impacted my experience.

GoT had so much more to work with given the relative amount of source material.

It must have been so difficult for all the crew or HOTD to create a show they knew would get compared to a masterpiece and that people would inevitably say « it’s not as good as GOT season 1 » or even worse, « it’s nothing compared to GOT season 1 », shout out to them

My favorite quotes from GOT S1 fall under the category of anything that Tyrion says 😂 "I once brought a honeycomb, and a jackass into a brothel..." "What happened next?"

Nothing beats "Chaos isn't a pit... Chaos is a LADDER!"

if anyone genuinely thinks hotd season 1 is better, then they need to rewatch season 1 of Got because its not even close and i love hotd

Hook: a curved or angular piece of metal or other hard substance for catching, pulling, holding, or suspending something.

Shoutout to the Elden Ring music

All things considered I really am happy that HoD is off to such an impressive start. To be fair GoT was amazing for the first half of its run as well. I’m still on the fence for the shows potential going through a 4-5 season run since season 1 is more of an extended prologue and season 2 forward will be the main conflict/premise.

Don’t listen to the haters bro. You’re killing these reactions. You’re piecing stuff together and letting us witness your thought process, it’s great. You’re absolutely right, theorizing is half the fun of shows like this even when you’re way off base

"I would rather feed my sons to the dragons than have them carry shields and cups for your drunken, usurper c**t of a king. "

People don’t remember blood, they remember NAMES…

As much as I love GoT from watching every episodes from release date without any prior knowledge to the universe it's first season was way more confusing to me than HotD season 1.

Ngl i wish they set the cinematography for HoTD similiar to GoT, it feels much more immersive

GOT season 1 - season 4 CANNOT be Topped.