House of the Dragon

HBO has made the first episode of its Game of Thrones sequel series, House of the Dragon. The exciting thing is, as a marketing effort, HBP made it available for free to watch on YouTube. This marketing move coincides amusingly with the Friday before the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime last week.

House of the Dragon – Who Has Free Access?

Thanks to HBO Max, the first episode of House of the Dragon is now available on YouTube. The first episode, “The Heirs of the Dragon,” lasted approximately 65 minutes and was made available to HBO Max subscribers on August 21.

According to reports, there were no geo-blocks when the show was first released on YouTube in the United States, allowing people worldwide to watch it for free, but the YouTube video was restricted to only US users after a while; on the other hand, Sky TV later made the episode available to UK users on YouTube, where they can now watch it for free.

Since the first episode is available to anyone in the United States, many people will likely use a VPN to circumvent this restriction. Making the first episode available for free will almost certainly encourage some people to subscribe to HBO Max to watch the remaining nine episodes. The following episodes will be released between now and October 23.

Story of House of the Dragon

The House of the Dragon TV show is an American fantasy drama series. The second in the Game of Thrones series, also developed by George R. R. Martin and Ryan Condal for HBO, is a precursor to the original series, which lasted from 2011 to 2019. They use Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels as their source material. The showrunners are Condal and Miguel Sapochnik.

Set about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and 172 years before Daenerys Targaryen was born, the series is based on elements of the novel Fire & Blood. It depicts the events leading up to and including the Targaryen War of Succession, also known as the “Dance of the Dragons,” which marked the beginning of the end for House Targaryen.

There are plenty of dragons, family feuds, and long, flowing wigs for those disappointed by the more modern haircuts in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Why Did HBO Offer Free Episodes?

Amazon has released the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; the reason for providing a free episode is to compete with that. Amazon’s new series broke a Prime Video record by attracting over 25 million viewers from all over the world on its first day. But reviews won’t be up for 72 hours, so it will be hard to know how well it’s been received.

However, the prequel, House of the Dragon, is based on Game of Thrones, which has eight seasons and 73 episodes. According to Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, Game of Thrones has generally received positive reviews from critics and audiences, and when the first episode was released, it successfully crashed the HBO Max app on Amazon devices.