The series the dragon house (two seasons in 2022 and 2024), prequel to game of thronesis inspired by another novel by George RR Martin (Fire and blood) and is, above all, a war story. Although it does not tell the story of England, Martin himself has not failed to point out the source of inspiration for his entire saga in the so-called “War of the Roses” that pitted two related families (York and Lancaster) in the dispute. for the English throne. It does not take place in an identifiable world or time, but it borrows the castles, clothing, weapons, feudal system and organization of power that we associate with the Middle Ages. As often happens, paradoxically, with the fantasy genre, it is a metaphor of human historyof what, for better and worse (especially for worse) we are capable, although it falls short.
Linked to the order of the divine, the dragons, which did not exist on Earth, but did roared in the human imaginationare superior powers that can nevertheless be managed so that they serve the interests of their drivers. Although you are never sure: these creatures (who have the power to choose who rides them) can turn against their rider. King Viserys (one of the few sensible and pacifist monarchs we will see) knows it: “The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion.”. They are a power that men should never have played with. One that led Valyria to its downfall. And if we don’t remember our stories, it will lead to the same thing.”
While this series was broadcast, rich in fictional blood and fire, I watched the movie Oppenheimer (2023), based on the biography American Prometheus (2005) that tells the life and work of the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the nuclear bomb. The blood and fire that are evoked in it are unfortunately real. And there is no dragon within reach of the rider with whom he can understand. Martin’s dragons communicate, with each other and with humans; They understand “High Valyrian,” a language spoken by the ruling nobility. The forces that Oppenheimer unleashes, no less terrifying, are impersonal, they do not speak, they do not negotiate. Nor, in any way, can they be held co-responsible, morally or intellectually, for the atrocious devastation they cause.
In a key scene of the film, The news that the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima shakes Los Alamos. The war success provokes a delirious exaltation in the group that has worked for the project and that fills the gym. The physicist, applauded, participates in the euphoria, until silent visions begin to invade him: advances surrounded by waves of fire and burning victims; As he leaves, stumbling, he steps on charred bodies. He knows, abruptly, that there is no turning back. Today they are the bodies of the enemy, tomorrow they will be all the bodies, theirs and ours. That power that men should never have played with has been unleashed.
