Warning: Contains SPOILERS for House of the Dragon season 1.Lord Cregan Stark will be introduced in House of the Dragon season 2, and he will break a tragic Game of Thrones curse. The Starks may have been the main house in Game of Thrones, but they have been largely absent from its prequel so far. With the story more focused on the warring Targaryen factions in King’s Landing and Dragonstone, there’ll been little cause for updates from Winterfell, but that will change with the Dance of the Dragons beginning.
Eventually, House of the Dragon‘s Cregan Stark will make the journey to King’s Landing. He arrives at the end of the civil war, cleans up the mess – briefly serving as Hand of the King – and gets to happily go home. It’s a contrast to Game of Thrones‘ Starks, who were often doomed going south. As Catelyn reminded Ned in Game of Thrones‘ pilot: “Your father and brother rode south once on a king’s demand.” That proved their undoing, and was also Ned’s. Almost every Stark who went south of Winterfell in Game of Thrones suffers either death (Robb, Catelyn) or great turmoil (how much Sansa, Arya, and Jon Snow go through), but Cregan will break that trend.
Why Starks Don’t Fare Well When They Go South In Game Of Thrones
The Starks’ unfortunate fates when going south – which really begins with Rickard and Brandon Stark being killed by Aerys II Targaryen, aka the Mad King – lie with their difference to the rest of Westeros. The North is the largest of the Seven Kingdoms, but it’s more isolated from the politics of King’s Landing than the rest; it has its own people, its own culture, its own ways. It’s said there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, but in truth it’s often the case that Starks are simply better off staying put and focused on the North.
This isn’t a land with a huge amount of political intrigue or even interest, and certainly not in the kind of games seen by House Lannister in Game of Thrones and House Hightower in House of the Dragon. They don’t know how to play it; they are more honorable and honest, but that also means they’re easier to defeat. The Targaryens and Lannisters beat the Starks before they even realize they’re in the game of thrones. It’s great for them as people, but means they are outmatched and outwitted when they go to King’s Landing, because it operates so completely differently from the North, and they have to learn how to juggle those power dynamics the hard way.
How Cregan Stark Is Different To Game Of Thrones’ Starks
Cregan Stark, even by the usual standards of his house, is a formidable character. He’s stern, strong-willed, and utterly ruthless in his approach. Though he believes deeply in honor, he takes the more brutal ways of House Stark to their extreme. Ned may have once said “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword,” but he had no desire to kill. In contrast, Cregan will arrive in King’s Landing and look to execute a lot of wrongdoers. He comes off as more bloodthirsty, but he also gets results, and in being able to go south, get the job done, and return to Winterfell he achieves what so many of Game of Thrones‘ Starks sadly failed at.
All 10 episodes of House of the Dragon season 1 are now streaming on HBO Max.
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