How to make sense of House of the Dragon’s latest trailer and all its characters

polygon.com:

One of the greatest joys and struggles of the first few seasons of Game of Thrones was trying to figure out the story’s dozens of characters and how to keep them all straight. But if you thought eight seasons in Westeros were enough to teach you everything you need to know, House of the Dragon’s new trailer brings some bad news.

The prequel series’ latest trailer, released on Thursday, already throws a few names at viewers and gives them a whole lot of pale, blond people to keep track of. To help you get a sense of where the show’s going, and what’s even happening in the trailer, here are the characters we’ve seen so far and where they’re at in the beginning of the story.

Of course, the final series will have a lot more characters than this, but for now, this is a pretty good starting point.

[Ed. note: This post contains very light spoilers for House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood.]

Before we get into the characters themselves, it’s worth remembering what the Dance of Dragons, the long and bloody Targaryen civil war that House of the Dragon chronicles, was actually about.

The war was over succession of the throne, and the seeds were planted during the reign of King Viserys I Targaryen. Viserys named his eldest surviving child, Rhaenyra Targaryen, as his successor. However, shortly after his death, a council gave the throne to Aegon II Targaryen, the first child of Viserys’ current wife, Alicent Hightower, and the king’s eldest male heir. This sparked a civil war between the family that eventually threatened all of Westeros.

Rhaenyra Targaryen is the oldest child of King Viserys and was born of his first wife, Aemma Arryn, and is his heir. Rhaenyra is supported by her uncle and later husband, Daemon Targaryen, as well