Rings of Power and House of the Dragon are the two major fantasy-themed shows on television. House of the Dragon is a Game of Thrones prequel and Rings of Power is a Tolkien adaptation. While both are doing well, House of the Dragon is outperforming Rings of Power.
One reason that Rings of Power is having difficulties is that it is struggling to attract a younger audience. The audience tends to be over the age of 35. A substantial portion of House of the Dragon audience is younger. Both shows tend to attract a male audience, however.
Both shows are performing relatively well. The cast of both shows has had to endure racism and sexism for casting minorities and strong female leads.
However, House of the Dragon has much higher fan ratings. It also added dragons and made the series less based in reality than Game of Thrones. The lower ratings of Rings of Power might simply be due to the fact that it’s not as good of a show.
One of the major differences, visually, between Rings of Power and House of the Dragon is that the latter is much more visually dark and bleak.
Rings of Power is a story of good vs. evil. However, it doesn’t say very much about these subjects. The evil in the story is not highly visible.
However, with House of the Dragon, the problems are more obvious and upfront. Because it has a plot that is much more driven, it may be more engaging to the audience.
Another issue Rings of Power has struggled with is the amount of Tolkien history it has had to cover.
While doing this, the show has struggled to build characters that the audience might care about. House of the Dragon, on the other hand, establishes several great characters early on.
One of the advantages that the writers of House of the Dragon have is that George R.R. Martin is directly involved in the creation of the series.
With Game of Thrones, the writers were forced to pick up where Martin left off. However, the new series can be more grounded in the source material because of Martin’s guidance.
It’s also easier for Rings of Power to get to the point because the Tolkien universe is much older, and larger, and has characters with lifespans that go on for centuries. It might take a while for Rings of Power to catch on and it might be more of a slow burn.
Rings of Power is also a prequel and it’s already known the direction that the plot will head in. The audience will be waiting for everyone to be tricked by Sauron into making rings that Sauron is then able to control with his one true ring.
Audiences often want a show that has action and conflict that they can immediately suck them in.
House of the Dragon has characters to root for, such as Rhaenyra, and characters to despise, such as Otto Hightower. The characters found in Rings of Power are not immediately likable or hateable.
However, it’s too early to say whether either series is a good or bad series. With the budget that Rings of Power has, the studio has been able to produce very beautiful studio work.
Therefore, it will be interesting to see whether they manage to attract more interest as the plot moves forward. Rings of Power might eventually have an edge because House of the Dragon could easily be seen as a rehash of the original series.
