The Silliest Criticism Of ‘House Of The Dragons’ Is That It’s Too ‘Woke’

One of the sillier bits of criticism I’ve seen for House of the Dragon is that it’s too ‘woke’—something we’re also hearing about The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power even though almost nobody has seen that show.

Don’t get me wrong, I think some shows are overly woke! There’s a tendency to dumb down the writing so much when it comes to certain subjects that The Message (as it’s referred to these days) becomes little more than a cudgel to bash over viewers’ heads.

As much as I did think She-Hulk was entertaining and charming, this is definitely one problem with that show. As I noted in my review, the tactic that show’s writers use to make Jennifer Walters (aka She-Hulk) appear strong is to make most of the men look terrible, to the point that some are just caricatures of sexist jerks. I won’t go into more detail on that as I’ve already spelled it out in my review.

But House Of The Dragon is the furthest thing from ‘woke’ and it appears the only reason people think that about the Game Of Thrones prequel is because there are black people in it—gasp!

Well, all I have to say about that is that there were also black people in Medieval Europe (and in Game of Thrones, for that matter). In fact, the Moors held control over parts of Spain and Portugal for 800 (rather prosperous) years! There were also black knights—as in black people who were knights—during the Middle Ages.

St. Maurice, pictured below, has been depicted as a black man since the 12th century. Sir Morien was a black knight in the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and even if he was just a legendary figure, there’s always some truth to the legends. There’s a great character in Bernard Cornwell’s The Winter Knight saga who is black and a knight as well, though don’t ask me for details. It’s been many years since I read those books. I remember loving them, though, so maybe it’s time to dive back in.

(I wrote more about Medieval depictions of black knights and saints in Europe over on my Facebook page if you care to know more).

House Of The Dragon’s co-showrunners, writers and Martin himself all did a great job introducing diversity to this show in my opinion. Instead of just making random characters in Westeros black or brown, they picked a specific House—House Velaryon—and its leader, Lord Corlys and his family to have a different race from the largely white Westerosi people.

Like the Targaryens, the Velaryons come from Old Valiria, the empire that fell before Aegon the Conqueror came to Westeros with his dragons. Also like the Targeryons, the Velaryons have silver-white hair. It’s actually a really cool contrast to have one family pale white and the other so dark. The children of Corlys and Princess Rhaenys Targaryen are mixed-race, but still sport that silver-white hair.

It’s a thoughtful and considered approach to diversity in a Medieval fantasy that I think goes above and beyond what many modern shows attempt. And it’s not woke.

I made a video about this topic as well, which you can watch below:

What do you make of all this? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

Further House Of The Dragon Content From Yours Truly: