The first episode of HouseoftheDragon features not just one, but two succession disputes. We recap 'The Heirs of the Dragon':
The Iron Throne is up for grabs. Again. Three-and-a-half years after the divisive finale of Game of Thrones, HBO takes us back to Westeros for a new battle of wits, swords, and fire-breathing dragons that might just renew the audience’s love for this former media juggernaut. Based on the George R. R. Martin prequel novel Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon takes place 172 years before the rebellion that kicked off the events of Game of Thrones and the Song of Ice and Fire book series.
King Jaeherys’ decision to call a Great Council was intended to prevent a war that would bring forth the downfall of House Targaryen. Though he did manage to avert a crisis for the remainder of his time on the throne, his successor would soon find himself in a very similar predicament. After Prince Viserys is proclaimed the “king elect”, the show cuts to the title card , and then to the ninth year of the new monarch's reign.
When the day of the tourney arrives, spirits in the Red Keep are as high as they can: the queen has gone into labor just as the bloody festivities were about to begin. However, between one head smashed in with a lance and another, animosities among the members of the court become all the more evident.
The queen and the princeling are cremated according to the Targaryen tradition, with freshly-breathed dragon fire, and their bodies aren’t even done burning yet when the matter of King Viserys’ succession is brought up in the small council. Lord Hightower advises the king to name a successor in order to avoid Daemon’s rise to power.