The Internet is convinced that House of the Dragon is just a Shrek remake
Flying fire-breathing dragons, jousting knights, an ageing monarch, and a princess dressed up in green. If you think these are some of the visual elements of House of the Dragon, you are right. And if you think these just describe a Shrek movie, then you are right again.
Similarities with Game of Thrones were evident in the HBO series (that concluded its first season last week) given their shared universes, but now the Internet has pointed out striking visual and thematic similarities between House of the Dragon and Shrek. It doesn’t even seem meme-like when some HOD scenes seem to be frame-to-frame remakes ripped off from Shrek!
Who would have thought that a gory and nudity-filled George RR Martin adaptation would be inspired by one of the most beloved family-friendly animated films?
The dragons: Parodying dated fairy tale tropes, the first Shrek film found Princess Fiona trapped in a castle guarded by a dragon. Instead of a Prince Charming, the damsel in distress finds the green ogre Shrek to be her saviour who fights the dragon.
However, the green-eyed, red-skinned beast (simply known as Dragon) survives and becomes a neutral supporting character in the sequels, even marrying Shrek’s sidekick Donkey. Going with the franchise’s eccentric humour, Dragon and Donkey even end up having hybrid kids!
So, naturally, a film series that began with a Dragon is bound to have several dragon flight sequences. While Dreamworks’s other successful animated franchise How To Train Your Dragon featured even more of such flight scenes, the dragon scenes from Shrek somehow seem to be the closest to the Targaryen clan’s dragon-flying adventures.
Be it Rhaenyra landing her dragon in an open ground or Rhaenys storming inside a castle with her dragon, there is a visual reference for each scene in Shrek. Even the camera angles and pacing seem to be matching. It is hilarious to note how a steely-eyed and valiant dragon-rider like Rhaenys has Donkey as her Shrek universe counterpart.
Dinner table sequences: Oftentimes in medieval-era Shakespearean dramas, the real drama ensues not on the battlefield or the court but the dinner table. Shrek 2 and HOD are no exceptions to this rule.
When Fiona decides to break the news of her ogre romance to her royal family, awkward tensions turn into full-fledged banter during supper. The Targaryen family dinner in Episode 8 is similar when it comes to the atmosphere. But then, the placement of a roasted pig, the wine-sipping, and Aemond getting up angrily just like Shrek seem too similar to be just mere coincidence.
A dying king: Fiona’s father King Harold might have his reservations regarding Shrek but he’s a quite mild-mannered and good-natured monarch otherwise. However, the weak administrator is nearing death in Shrek 2 after it is revealed that he was originally a frog (a parody on the tale of The Princess and The Frog). He finally passes away peacefully in his amphibian form.
Does this arc remind you of anyone?
HOD’s Viserys I was a similarly kind yet weak monarch who dies in a rather more unfortunate evolution arc. He takes his last breath in a ghastly state with half of his face rotting away, eaten by a fictionalised form of leprosy. If it is any consolation, both Harold and Viserys thankfully died peacefully resting on their royal beds.
Green dresses: Green is a major motif in the Shrek series as not only is the titular ogre green but Fiona is also always shown to be wearing a green dress with golden embroidery.
A watershed moment in HOD is in Episode 5 when Alicient interrupts her husband Viserys’s speech during a royal wedding. The most striking plot point is her showing up in green (the colour of her house Hightower as opposed to her husband’s red-stained Targaryen). It is a symbolic protest from Alicient, implying that no longer would she bow down to the Targaryens. The obsession with green only develops further with Alicient’s faction of royal supporters being collectively known as simply “the greens”.
Even before the recent comparisons, people on Reddit began pointing out the similarities in Fiona and Alicient’s green dresses around the time when the episode's teaser dropped, even accusing the HOD character to have stolen “Fiona’s drip”.
Neither George RR Martin nor the creators of House of the Dragon have responded to these numerous coincidences yet. It would be really amusing if the showrunners start adding deliberate Shrek references in the future seasons!
In fact, fans in the past have even pointed out hilarious similarities between Shrek and Game of Thrones! So, move over Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, the Shrek series seems to have set a benchmark for fantasy fiction of the future!