Dragon Deep Dive with Sound Designer Paula Fairfield 50:02

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrade? Done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high-quality, certified pros at Angie.com.

Is him toss love see

beautiful singing voice. Jason, what kind of music do you think dragons like the most? I think it's going to be, you know, that kind of Valyrian folk music. What do you think it would be? That makes sense. I don't know. I can't stop thinking about the NPR story from like a million years ago now where they determined that dogs' favorite genre of music was reggae and it just like tracked so well. And now I like to think about dragons listening to reggae. Yeah.

I'm hopeful that one day that we can introduce the dragons to reggae. Yeah.

Welcome to the official Game of Thrones podcast, House of the Dragon. I am Jason Concepcion. And I'm Greta Johnson. On this podcast, we are diving into all things Westeros as we nerd out about the HBO original series, House of the Dragon. We are so thrilled to be back with you all because season two of House of the Dragon is right around the corner and we've gotten a few teases about what to expect and we are going to be unpacking that and much more in these pre-season episodes.

And here's what we do know at this point. House Targaryen is going to war, which means dragons. It's going to be a lot of dragons. Whether the dragons want to go to war or not, I think is an open question, but they're going. So for this episode, we're putting a spotlight on those misunderstood, monstrous creatures. We're going to answer your most pressing questions about the dragons themselves and

Do they feel love? Do they feel fear? Who do you want to ride into battle with slash on? And which dragon would you most want to grab some Valyrian ale with? And that's a question Greta and I will be asking each other in the long-awaited and upcoming 129 to 130 AC House of the Dragon Dragon Fantasy Draft coming at the end of this episode. Don't miss it.

In this episode, we're also going to talk with a real queen of dragons, the incredible dragon sound designer from both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, Paula Fairfield. And you might be surprised to learn what sounds she finds in order to bring these creatures to life. It's dragon time. Let's fly. ♪

Okay, so let's talk about these dragons. Perhaps the most important, but also the most enigmatic characters on especially House of the Dragon, but of course, Game of Thrones also. Yeah. Jason, what do you think about them? I am always reminded of the tweet that Joanna Robinson, the entertainment journalist, wrote asking whether dragons are like dogs or cats. Yeah.

Well, you know, gosh, they've been equated to weapons of mass destruction. I think that's somewhat apt. Right. There's that. They've been equated, as Joanna posted, to pets of some sort. And they're kind of that. And they're kind of like all of that, but neither. I think the thing that I'm always thinking about with the dragons for House Targaryen is they're not just like companions. They're also like very, very important companions.

of their authority. And then there are also these just terrific weapons with their own agency, as we saw at the end of last season when...

poor Arax got chomped down on by Vhagar in an attack that really Aemon didn't want to happen. So there are all of those things, and we're going to see them in action, and it's going to be a very risky thing, I think, for House Targaryen. How do you think about them? Well, I mean, the whole weapon of mass destruction thing, I think, is a really interesting parallel to draw because, you know, as we saw, like, I think about—

dragon attack at the stepstones and like you can't be hella precise with the dragon you know which means they are powerful but only to a certain extent we also I mean we saw one instance of it in season one but I think it would be really interesting to see how often somebody could just like show up with a dragon behind them as like I mean there's so much symbolic power there right essentially you're saying well I could do violent things but I'd rather

Mm-hmm.

Of those, like 40% of them are battle ready. Even less of them are battle tested. And as we heard Lena say last season, only 50% of the dragon eggs hatch. It's been eight years, sweetling. Half of them never do, you know. What? Hatch. Will they let me stay? Well, who let you stay? The Prince of Pentos. I don't understand.

He wants you and father and Bela because you have dragons There is more than one way to bind yourself to a dragon. I was without one until I was 15 years old and now I ride a vehicle the largest in the world. You have a harder road Bela's dragon was born to her, but if you wish to be a rider you must claim that right

I do think it's interesting listening back to that clip and thinking about how much it has to suck being born to those families, like wondering what your future is and whether or not you'll be

given the fact that so much of your value in that family is also whether or not you are, right? I mean, that's really complicated. Oh, it must be a terribly lonely feeling to be a Targaryen whose egg never hatched. Right. The eggs themselves are exceedingly rare, so how, you know, it's not like you could just be like, hey, Dad, get me another egg. This one's not hatching after eight years. It must be an awful feeling. And I think we get a great feeling

feeling of that in that scene. Totally. What it makes me think of, honestly, is that scene from season one where Viserys, and of course I'm going to butcher the quote, but he's essentially like the reason Targaryens are so close to gods is because of the dragons. His antipathy towards dragons is quite interesting. He mentions, and it's talked about in season one, that he rode Balerion, the Black Dread, the dragon of Aegon the Conqueror. Huge, monstrously sized dragon

black dragon and honestly came away with it just shaken by the experience. Terrified. Let's listen to a minute of that. When you look at the dragons, what do you see? What? You haven't spoken a word to me since Mother's funeral. And now you've seen your king's guard down. Answer me. It's important. What do you see? I suppose I see us. Tell me. Everyone says Targaryens are closer to gods than to men, but they say that because of our dragons.

Without them, we're just like everyone else. The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion. They're a power man should never have trifled with. One that brought Valyria its doom. If we don't mind our own histories, it will do the same to us. Targaryen must understand this to be king or queen. Or queen. Man, Viserys, such a prudent ruler. I have a feeling I'm really going to miss him moving forward. Yeah, a very, very fascinating guy. You know, from that clip...

You can kind of glean the thing that was so promising about his reign and also that kind of brought it down, which is he wanted to progress past this reliance on dragons as this awe-inducing weapon and move towards something else. What that thing is, you know, unclear. But like, you know, he was always pulling his –

His advisors, he was always trying to listen to people. He was always trying to be even-handed and just.

And sadly, what the world wanted from him was this warrior king who rode dragons, who burned people that didn't listen to him and cut out tongues a lot more than he actually cut out tongues when he was threatening to cut people's tongues out. And that's kind of like the tragedy of his reign. He seemed like almost like a modern leader trapped in this medieval realm in which dragons are the source of...

his family's power. So, Jason, I think it's pretty fair to assume that we're going to see battles involving dragons in this coming season. What do you think those fights are going to look like? I mean, it kind of seems to me like once dragons are involved, nobody's winning. Sure. Well, I think the important thing that we need to think about coming up to this season is

How do you beat a dragon? Like, how is it done? As we were talking about, like, they are on-spine creatures, but also, like, have very particular weaknesses. I mean, listen, we saw it last season. Kragus Drehar, Craig, as I like to call him, Craig the crab feeder. I think he kind of set the blueprint for how you do it, which is the two Ds. You dig in and you disperse. You hide out in caves. You hide in the caves and you don't,

get caught outside in a mass formation where the dragons can just come down out of the sky and burn you up. If there are dragons around...

Just don't fight. Just wait. Yeah. Wait it out. Yeah. Because you can do a lot by just waiting. And I think that's going to be the important thing is can you just hold out without giving the dragons the pitched battle that they want? Because what they want to do is just come down and burn a bunch of soldiers out in the open. If you don't give them that, you can win. You can really win against them. Wait.

Waiting it out doesn't necessarily imply the most exciting television, but if anybody can do it, it's these guys. So I'm really, I'm so curious to see how it goes. Craig the Crabfeeder, he had a very ragtag force of pirates and they had Damon tied up down there for years. They had two dragons in the field and they couldn't do it. So that's the blueprint. That's how you want to do it.

So, Jason, you mentioned that in general, people try to avoid just like straight dragon-on-dragon warfare, except for in the case when there is very clearly a much larger dragon and a much smaller dragon, which is something we saw at the end of season one, of course. We've kind of alluded to it a couple times now. The very sad confrontation between Aemond One-Eye and Vhagar, that huge, hoary old dragon Vhagar who participated in the conquest of Westeros,

all those many years ago, and Luke Valerian's Eryx, who just had no chance. There was no chance. Just a little guy. He's just a little guy, and it's so sad. And Eryx was flapping for his life to get out of there. Luke was smart in the way that he rode Eryx down into these kind of like canyons to kind of try and avoid Vhagar.

And then, of course, quite fascinating in how it ended, because I think it's clear that Aemond, that's not what Aemond wanted. And that is, to me, the most terrifying part of this is when these battles finally kick off and we see dragons fighting, it's going to be a thing that's beyond anybody's control.

Beyond anyone's control. Yep. I think that scene really exemplified that. I mean, the fact that Vhagar does seem to be out of control, that Aemond is so clearly shocked by what happened is not a great sign. No, no, no.

Really not a good sign. Jason, let's spend a couple of minutes looking at the state of the dragon, what side each of these dragon warriors are on, team black or team green. We actually got a pretty good little rundown of that from Damon towards the end of season one. Let's listen to that, and then we'll dig into it. Pray forgive my blindness, Your Grace, but talk of men is moot. Your cause owns a power that has not been seen in this world since the days of old Valyria. Dragons. Dragons.

The Greens have dragons. They have three adults, by my count. We have Syrax, Caraxes, and Maelys. Your sons have Virmax, Arax, and Tyraxes. Baelor has Moondancer. Daemon, none of our dragons have been to war. There are also unclaimed dragons. Seasmoke still resides on Driftmark. Vermithor and Silverwing dwell on the Dragonmount. Still riderless. Then there are the three wild dragons, all of whom nest here. And who is to ride them? Dragonstone has thirteen to their four.

I also have a score of eggs incubating in the dragon mound now. We need a place to gather. 13 to 4 sounds deeply imbalanced, but I mean, you think about those four on Team Green and like, that's different. You know, as we saw at the end of last season, as we've kind of been talking about, it's all about, you know, this is a very simple game with the dragons. Who's the biggest? And they have the biggest. Right. Which is a big deal, a huge deal. Vhagar is massive. She has been through many, many battles. Yes.

She is a little bit slower in her old age, but when roused is clearly a fearsome creature and frankly can take out a bunch of team blacks dragons with just a single bite. So we have to kind of balance those things. And though, I mean, Damon is right to point out that they have a lot of dragon eggs on Dragonstone, but folks, it's going to be years to those already years. So I think that while, you know,

Team Black on paper, it looks good. Yeah.

It's not quite the advantage that you would think. Well, also to Rhaenyra's point about the dragons not being battle tested. Right. And very, very few of them are. That's kind of a wash, to be honest. Like, Vhagar still is the most experienced. But outside of that, it's kind of a push. And it's really, at that point, going to be about the rider. Like, how experienced is the rider? What does the rider know how to do?

And there, I think, is where Team Black really does have a pretty great advantage, right? Wouldn't you say? Well, yeah, a lot of those writers are battle-tested in a way Team Green isn't necessarily.

Daemon knows what he's doing on the back of Caraxes. Rhaenys, as we saw at Aegon's Coronation in the Dragonpit, can really make things happen on Maelys. She has tight control over that dragon. Now, the rest of them, it's an open question. Seasmoke has been to war, but who's going to ride Seasmoke? Vermithor has been to battle, but again, who's going to ride Vermithor? So you'd have to be feeling very, very confident if you're Team Black. Yeah.

But you need those riders. You need the rider for Seasmoke. You need the rider for Vermithor because, you know, the other thing is having more dragons also means having to put more very high value people on the backs of them, people that you love. And to lose the dragon and the person potentially is devastating. That's huge.

All this dragon talk wouldn't be complete without talking to one of the people responsible for bringing these beautiful, cuddly, gorgeous beasts to life. We're so lucky to be joined by dragon sound designer extraordinaire Paula Fairfield. Paula's an Emmy and BAFTA winning sound designer whose credits include Lost, Rings of Power, and of course Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. And we are very lucky to be joined by Paula who is coming to us from her studio where she is now.

busy making the dragon roars extra rich and vibrant for us ahead of season two. Thanks so much for joining us in this busy time, Paula. Hey, my pleasure. Paula, I read that you were told to create Carax's roar as if he was a failed white boy rapper. How do you take that direction and do something with it? The direction actually was that

Caraxes was deformed. He was the dragon nobody loved, and he had a deviated septum. And so I kind of added the white boy who wanted to be a rapper for the swagger that is daemons in a way, but it's like misplaced in the sort of dragondom. So these dragons, I mean, what's interesting about this show is

is that the most fantastical thing about it is that the dragons are normalized, which is kind of an interesting thing, right? There's 17 of them. The ones that have riders are limbic in the sense that they're a projection of their riders' emotional states and personality and stuff. And so...

You know, we had a good chuckle over that one, but it really was about coming up with something really unique for that dragon. He's got a lot of presence in the show, as does his rider, as does Damon, you know? I mean, he's irritating, he's loud, he burps a lot. He burps a lot.

And I started playing around with these wild whistles that are great for his announcement. And you hear the whistle now, you know it's him. And that was sort of part of it, too. It's like, because he's a very iconic dragon in this show, you want that kind of like, oh, that's Caraxes.

I mean, I developed the whistle earlier for, you know, while I was working on episode two, but episode three, it was perfect for the announcement of his arrival at the battle, you know, and you could just hear it long before he shows up. And we use that in a couple of instances. So it's about finding something wild. And I remember when two came out and people were like, what the hell is that? And, yeah,

Because it was not what they were used to hearing because So couldn't be more different from the Game of Thrones, dragons from Drogon in particular. But I love that by the end of the season...

They were doing dragon polls like, what's your favorite dragon? And Caraxes was like winning by a mile. And when people asked what they liked about him, one of the things was that they loved his singing. And I love that, you know, because it was sort of a thing that won people over and made him kind of very unique and sort of endearing in his weird ass way. And...

So it was great. So does that mean, like, to what extent are these dragon sounds, like, evolving over time as you get to see more of the dragons and get to know them yourself? Going from last season to this season, there's small adjustments, but I'll take wide swings. I mean, Caraxes was a wide swing, obviously. It's like deep wide swing to come up with something completely wacky and unexpected, you know? And I think that's the thing. Initially, he took everybody off guard, but then he kind of

literally wormed his way into everybody's hearts. My approach to dragons, I have dogs and everybody's got dogs, in particular, multiple dogs. You know, you hear their personalities, you see how they interact. And every once in a while, they'll make some kind of weird sound that is unexpected. But mostly, you know, their vocal palette, you know, and they tend to be

kind of restricted. I mean, they kind of have a palette that is unique to each dog. So that's the approach I take with these. Ballpark, how many sounds go into a Dragonor? How do you make them? How complicated is that recipe? It depends on the dragon. Caraxes and Vhagar, but Caraxes probably more so. Vhagar's not very vocal, so she has a lot of

body elements to express size and stuff. She's an old girl with IBS and no fucks to give. That's her. Just sweep a guy right here. Yeah.

So yeah, I would say probably Caraxes right now is the most complex because he's got the squeals, he's got the burping and gross shit with his mouth. He's got the crazy stuff. He's got some low end stuff too for intimidation. So Caraxes has four levels of voice and each level can have up to

10 layers maybe wow you know in like episode 2 where right you feel the spit on your face and smell that skanky breath and he like you know the closer they are the more detail you need to really because you want that you want to feel that spit on your face yeah I do yeah maybe I'm weird but I do you know smell his nasty teeth I mean all that I like viscerality I like to kind of feel it like almost like you can touch it you know and uh

So there's layers of stuff to add to that. And then there's all the body stuff going on because all the way the body is and then the way the whole body and being interact with the environment around it. So there's many layers to all that stuff. So, I mean, it's thrilling to feel these dragons and feel like you're up close to them. And, you know, that's literally my job. And I mean, so whatever it takes. And I love it. I mean, I just sit in here all day with these

stinky dragons. I think you're winning, Paula. It's pretty awesome. I'm winning. When you talk about the different elements, can you tell us about what some of them are? I imagine a lot of them are digital, but like, are you also using... Oh, you just shook your head. Are none of them digital? I don't use any...

any synthesis at all. That's wild. I use a lot of processing, but no synthesis. So because the idea is that you want to feel the realness, you know? And so everything I use is organic based and generally vocal in some way. And I don't use generally use human voices though, because I've tried in the past on various pieces, um,

to use vocal actors. And that works to a point depending on what the thing is. But here's my thing about it is that I'm shaping kind of a performance essentially, right? I mean, you're shaping a performance and you want to believe the nuance of emotion and all that kind of stuff in it. And for me anyway, it's like,

I can hear a vocal actor doing a creature and recognize it as such and not quite believe the emotion involved. Whereas I prefer to use real animals that are expressing primal emotion. Now, the thing is, I'm taking these emotions and

And slotting them into places where if I had an animal who could talk to me and translate what is in the piece, probably it is horrifying. But, you know, the thing is that for me, the expressions of emotion are the thing that are so beautiful that are in the pieces. So I use that.

I use also sometimes baby sounds because babies are primal. Sure. Yeah. There's actually baby sounds in Vhagar. Wow. Which was fun for me to try to see if I could do it. And then they were so startling in some places. I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah.

There's some kind of cool whistles and vocal. So that's being produced by pushing air through something. So that may not be such an expressive emotion, but to me still has that organic quality. I'm quite a, I think, emotion-based sound designer. And it's what I'm interested in. I'm interested in exploring music.

visceralities, psychophysio effects of sound on the body and how I can use those to express things or elicit a response from the listener. It then involves the viewer in the storytelling in that way, right? Because you're feeling something and I'm trying to draw the viewer in by feeling something in that moment. And it makes it more meaningful and

For me, I want my fantasy to be fully immersive and pull me into a completely different world where I'm feeling some feels and another place where I can process maybe my day, which has gone to shit or whatever. But you know what I'm saying? Like, that's the richness of fantasy. And I think that's why we're loving fantasy right now. Fans are really into fantasy right now because our real world is not fun, you know, at all.

Do you ever go out into the field? Like, did you do that for House of the Dragon? You're like, you know what? I need something that I just don't have right now. And then go out and record something. Is that like you go to the zoo or something? I do do that. I did do that. I mean, I've gone to, a few years ago, I went down to this place, White Oak.

conservation place in Jacksonville. They have, I mean, it's an incredible place. So I recorded a bunch of stuff that that was for Thrones, but obviously I have some of that stuff that I'm still using. And actually my uncle and his partner have,

wildlife rehab outside of Banff. And I've both recorded there, plus I've gotten them into doing recordings themselves. So they'll send me stuff and some of that stuff will make its way into this because they've got about 160 acres up there and they rehab animals. So they've got

Mississippi Sandhill Cranes and they've got, you know, because they've got a big pond and they had bears that were hibernating there and they've got a bunch of bison. And so we try to get mics out there and pick up little kind of interesting stuff. And then I also, you know, I also buy recordings from our amazing community of sound recordists who are going all over the world to pick up incredible stuff because we

We have in our community recordists who are going out to the far nether regions of the world and getting incredible stuff. So I keep my eye out and then touch with a number of them and try to buy recordings as they have stuff from expeditions that have gone on. So I find it ironic that...

the world can fall in love with mythical beings. And it's ironic because...

I'm using the voices of animals like who are on the edge of extinction or very close to create this mythical beings. And there's more love for the mythical beings than there is for the creatures who are providing their vocals in a way or the source material and are disappearing from our world. And we don't seem to care. And it's, I find that an irony and all of this that I've discovered along the way is

It's like if you love the dragons, consider all the beautiful voices of the animals of our planet that have gone in to creating these mythical beings. It's one of the beautiful pleasures of my job to sit with the vocals of these beautiful animals. And it's just something for all of us to think about. Yeah, for sure. That's a really beautiful sentiment. Yeah.

So you mentioned having created all of these different sounds for all these different dragons. I think it might be time for a little game. So the idea is we have five dragon sounds and you can tell us which dragon is which. And then we'd love to hear a little bit about some of the key sound elements too, if you're up for it. Did you know we were going to put you up to this, Paula? No. I'm thrilled. Damn you. Yeah.

I'm sorry. Are you ready? Okay. Okay, great. Here's the first one. Okaraxis. Jeez. Our boy. Our boy. Our best boy. That's spelled O-I. He's our deviated septum boy. He's got lots and lots of stuff. He's got dolphins, whales, seals. Wow.

I think he's got some bison in there. He's got, I think, some walrus. He's got lots of things. He's good. And he has lots of issues, too. But this show is not long enough for that. How do you do the wings? What does the wings sound? Yeah, lots of cloth moves.

There's kind of some rope stuff, some leather stuff in there. It depends on what we see. And I try to kind of give articulation, you know, if there's little flutters, whatever, try to pull all that out. It just kind of adds to the viscerality of it and makes it kind of feel real. So lots of layers to that stuff because you've got to express size and then all the kind of delicate elements too. That's so wild. Well, should we listen to another one? Okay. Oh, yeah.

Bad boy Vermax. Burning goats. He is a spitty little guy. Um...

I love making him. He was so much fun, honestly. He's got some bird stuff. I was going to ask if there was bird stuff in there. Yeah, there's some kind of, I think some like little vulture things. I think some like badger spits and different things like that. Wow, that's so cool. Make him angry. What about the eating sounds, that kind of mastication sounds? How do you create that? You know, if I told you that, I'd have to kill you. Ooh.

Well, Paula, it's been such a pleasure to have you today. There's dog stuff. There's goose stuff. Stuff like that. Oh, my gosh. That's so funny. Well, I think we have a couple more sounds. Should we do them? Are you up for it? Sure. That sounds like Xerox, yeah? Yep. Good one. You are so honest. Crushing it. I guess it makes sense. You've spent a lot of time with all of these noises. And I don't have a life, so...

They are your life. And that's okay. They are my life. It's okay. It's okay. The crazy dragon lady. There you go. So she was described to me as being very eagle-like. Like if you look at that, her head and all that. So she's got a lot of eagle falcon stuff, little weird stuff that's been twisted for those chitters. She's got a couple of funny little things. So that's the leaning of her.

Her elements in that. She's our big bird. Well, should we listen to another one? Okay.

She mad. She mad. She's sleepy. She mad. She's sleepy. She mad. Yes, that's our girl, Vhagar. So she has lots and lots of stuff to her. Again, really, some of our big animals are in there. Plus, her gullet is very cracky and old, you know, that kind of stuff. And so there's some, there may be some babies stretching in there. And...

If I remember correctly, there is some reed instrument stuff that's pulled and stretched a little bit. Oh, interesting. A bassoon will do that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, and it's just stretched and pulled. So you've got, it kind of starts to almost fall apart in a way. And, you know, I went to a very radical art school and...

Literally. And my training isn't conceptual stuff, but I also am just not afraid to do horrible things to sound that should never be done. Now, when Vhagar chomps down on Arax in the season one finale, R.I.P. to our friend and the beautiful prince that went down with her, Vhagar makes a kind of very specific kind of grumbly sound. How did you make that?

It's like a satisfied munch. Oh, yes. Well, I was eating a BLT. No. That was trying to get that kind of crack happening, crack munch. So there are some, an animal kind of, but added to that are other elements with the bone and the flesh and squishes and stuff. And it really, I mean...

Those little tiny moments are crafted all the way through. I mean, that's where you get those kind of little details where you're pulling a little blood squirt from here and a little moan from there and a little bone crack and trying to get those elements. Because the other thing, we've got a lot going on. We've got music, we've got flying, we've got screen, you know, all that stuff to try to get that stuff in there that is just specific elements.

to that moment. So it reads is tricky and takes a lot of sculpting. So there were a lot of

different elements that have gone through there but they're definitely when a dog grabs a bone you know that you know and then the crunt you know so it's like breaking that sound down into 10 pieces that it needs to be to tell that story because one sound is not going to do it you know what i'm saying so yeah yeah have you mourned the loss of arax and no longer having to design for for him

You know, he was a splashy little dude that didn't really stick around long, you know? I was sort of sad. And God bless us for season two. My goodness. Well, and we don't have much longer to wait either. I know. Don't remind me. Thanks for that, Nat. Hey, hi!

Oh, no. No, it's going well. So, yeah, we're cranking away and everybody's having a good time and this stuff's coming together really well. So, yeah, it's exciting. Well, Paula, crazy dragon lady, thank you so much for coming on. It was really, it was a pleasure to talk with you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, likewise. And good luck with your show. Thanks. You too. Thank you.

So, Jason, partly why we are spending so much time talking about these dragons, obviously, we are curious to see what happens in season two, but also, we are going to do a fantasy draft where we pick our own dragon teams.

As you know, I'm a huge sports fan and this is everything I've dreamed about. I do kind of feel like this is your time to shine. I have never actually done a fantasy draft. So you have any tips for me before we get started? Before you're my opponent in this situation? Well, as I said, as I said up top, you know, I think this is a game of size.

It's a big dragons game. Okay. Well, that said, we have a couple of rules that we laid out. You and I are going to decide among ourselves who goes first. Should we like flip a coin or something? Yeah, we'll flip a coin. Okay. So we are each going to have a team of six dragons. Do you want to call it? Yeah. I'm going to call heads. It is tails. Okay. I will pick first.

And in keeping with my strategy, which I'm going to be very transparent about, it's all about the size. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. With the first pick in the 2024 House of the Dragon, Dragon Draft, Team Jason is going to pick Vhagar. Oh, shocker. Team Green's

Biggest, most dangerous dragon, the biggest and oldest dragon currently in the world. This is the dragon that Ava Targaryen claimed on Driftmark. And, you know, don't mention this, she's very sensitive about this, but she's 180 years old. Yeah. Doesn't look a day over 120. Yeah.

Okay, so I was thinking about this ahead of time. And given that I am like severe underdog in this entire situation, have never done a draft. No, you're not. Don't know as much about the Dragons as you do. I have decided that my strategy is going to be to get all the little guys and to garner loyalty from them because they're going to be really grateful to feel desired by me on this team. I love that.

So I'm going to start then with Moondancer, who is written by Bela, which of course is Lena's daughter. She's betrothed to Jace. I say that she's written by Bela, but Bela hasn't even actually written her because she's so small. So obviously she's my first pick.

Beautiful little moon dancer, a little pale green dragon with kind of like these pearl detailing in the horns. Yeah, I like her. I think it's a great strategy that you have. Thank you. And honestly, one that Team Black should think about

swarm tactics what if you got three or four of the little dragons to just kind of swarm the big dragon and just you know one could kind of act as the one to kind of like annoy it and then the other ones attack from the sides I think it's a great idea and it's one they should think about they should think about it I appreciate that I think that's very gracious of you

With my second pick, I'm going to pick Caraxes. Damon's Caraxes. Damon is an experienced warrior. We've seen Caraxes doing his thing. Although, again, Craig the Crab Feeder did manage to stymie Damon and Caraxes for a number of years. That's okay. I'm picking Damon and Caraxes, and I think they know what they're doing.

I'm going to keep with my trajectory and choose Vermax next, who of course is Jace's dragon. He is also a little guy. Green scales, red spine. We saw Jace riding him in the season one finale. He's probably 12-ish. And he just seems like a nice dragon. That's so wonderful. I'm just trying to bring some good vibes, you know? Yeah, good vibes. I mean, honestly, there's not enough good vibes in this world. Let's go with the vibes. Exactly.

I am going to, with my third pick, I'm going to go with Melis, Rhaenys, the queen that never was, is dragon. I love those two. Yes. You know, Rhaenys, I think maybe my favorite character in season one. A badass. Just a badass and in a very tough position and I think made the most of it, came through for her side. Yeah.

When her side needed her, had to play a very subtle game, was having a lot of marital issues, was separated from her husband for a number of years, and listen, can really ride that dragon. Yeah, she really came through for Team Black there, for sure.

Okay, my next pick is going to be Tyraxes, who we have not seen in season one, but this is Joffrey Velaryon's dragon, and he is even smaller than Vermax. So we've each chosen three now. With my next pick, I will pick Seasmoke. That's a good one. Seasmoke is Laenor's old dragon. We saw Seasmoke and Laenor in action over the Stepstones episode.

Currently riderless as Laenor is, air quotes, dead. So looking for a rider for that one. But this is just all about the name. I love the name Seasmoke. What a beautiful name. It is a good name. And a real melding of the Valerian and Targaryen house lineages. The majesty of the open oceans and the waves and then the kind of

fire of the Targaryen side. I love the name of that dragon and its beautiful sea smoke. Kind of sounds like it could be like a vape flavor. You know what I mean? Next for me, I'm going to broach into the older generations and pick Cyrax.

who is older than the other ones. Cyrax is around 30. Of course, this is Rhaenyra's dragon. And she doesn't have battle experience, but you can tell her bond with Rhaenyra is really strong. And Rhaenyra is so tough that, like, her dragon has to be also. That's a really cool dragon. Maybe the most important rider that we have. Yes. With my next pick, I'm going to go with this unclaimed dragon, Silverwing. Okay.

Currently unclaimed. Essentially a free agent. Just because, again, I love the name. And I'm fascinated to see who will ride that dragon. And so I'm going to take Silverwing, currently just flying wild and free around Dragonstone. Okay, my next pick is going to be Sunfire, who's about 20. This is Aegon II's dragon. Okay.

And don't like Aegon II, but that's going to be an important one, I would guess, just given that he's like actually the king's dragon at this point. I love that pick. Thank you for your support. Yeah, always. With my next pick, going back to my original plan, I need a big boy. I need a big boy. I need Vermithor, a big dragon. Yeah.

The dragon of old, King Jaehaerys, had been just kind of chilling in its cave for a while until awakened by the shockingly good singing voice of Daemon Targaryen. Oh yeah, that's what we heard at the top of the show. Shockingly beautiful, tenor, mellifluous, honey-dipped singing voice in the reverb of that song.

Kind of dragon cave sounded wonderful. Vermithor currently waiting on a rider, but real big. Okay, well, Jason, that leaves me with Dreamfire, which is Helena's dragon. We haven't seen much of Dreamfire in season one, but she's an older dragon, which is cool. I also just like...

Helena, I mean, we haven't even seen a whole lot of Helena, really, but she seems like such an excellent weirdo that, like, I assume she would be a badass writer. So I feel like that's a strong last pick, I think. Well, this has been a lot of fun. And I'll tell you one thing that I want for both of us. Okay. Is for nothing to happen to our dragons. Oh, I like that a lot. Yes. That would be wonderful. That's all. Yeah.

I feel like it won't happen. No, no, I don't think that's the show we've signed up to watch, Jason. But I think we'll still have a good time either way. So we will keep track of this throughout the season to see who's in air quotes winning. Can't wait to see what happens.

All right, that's our episode for today. I have to say, I feel closer to these dragons than ever before. I am so excited about my little dragon team. Make sure to join us next week when we unpack some of the real-world inspirations of Westeros and what that could mean for Season 2. And don't forget, Season 2 of House of the Dragon comes out on June 16th, and we will be here for you right after the premiere drops to unpack everything.

If you like what you're hearing, don't forget to leave a rating and review on your podcast player of choice and find us on the Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon social media handles. You can find me on X and Instagram at netw3rk. And you can find me at Greta M. Johnson on X and Instagram. The official Game of Thrones podcast, House of the Dragon, is produced by HBO in collaboration with Pineapple Street Studios. This podcast is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Greta Johnson.

Our executive producers for Pineapple Street are Gabriel Lewis, J.N. Berry, and Barry Finkel. Our lead engineer for the show is Hannes Braun, and he also mixed this episode. Pineapple's head of sound and engineering is Raj Makija. Pineapple's senior audio engineers are Marina Pais and Pedro Alvira.

This episode was edited by Darby Maloney with fact-checking by Melissa Akiko Slaughter. Our producers are Ben Goldberg, Elliot Adler, and Jason Concepcion. Special thanks to Michael Gluckstadt, Allison Cohen, Kenya Reyes, Savon Slater, and Aaron Kelly from the Max Podcast team. Thanks for listening. Come at me again and I'll feed you to my dragon.