One of the high points of Sunday’s long-awaited premiere of HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon) was the moment when Rhaenyra (played by Emma ‘D’Arcy) commanded “Dracarys!” to her dragon who promptly set fire to the funeral pyre of her mother and her baby brother who had lived only a few hours after being plucked from his dying mother’s womb.

This moment carries it with echoes of the past and echoes of the future as she is the ancestor of Mad Queen, Daenerys Targaryen.

These echoes reverberate throughout the entire episode, from the hulking, preposterously ugly Iron Throne, to the cyclical nature of power in Westeros, to the endless scheming around a big wooden table to secret prophesies of an unnamed evil (whitewalkers) to slightly incestuous flirtations of Daemon (played by Matt Smith) and his niece, Rhaenrya. All echoes. Of things to come: ancient future. Things that have gone before: future past. Echoes. And echoes. Of Destiny. Fire. And ice.

The agenda is set early as patriarchal leaders of the realm openly resist attempts to put a woman on the Iron Throne, slighting the older cousin, the Queen Who Never Was, Rhaenys Targaryen (played by Eve Best) for the eventual king, Viserys Targaryen(played by Paddy Considine).

One observation is that it is obvious that the showrunners wanted to find a way to put diversity in the show but the character, the insanely rich Lord Corlys Velaryon, (played by Steve Toussaint), feels a bit like tokenism. We are not sure that a rich black Rastafarian with white dreadlocks married to the Queen Who Never Was, Rhaenys, will play well with diehard fans. The trolls are already out, we will see how this plays out as the season progresses.

After one of the few actors in Game of Thrones, Missandei, was murdered in chains in season 8, maybe that’s the best we could hope for, a kind of grubby tokenism that is as transparent as it is offensive. We will wait and see if this brand new set of black characters are given backstories and dramatic arcs of their own.

The biggest takeaway from the show is that it’s tough in Westeros for women. Queen Aemma (played by Sian Brooke) attempts to give advice to her young daughter, musing that “the childbed is our battlefield” – advice that is jarring and portentous given what is to come later.

One of the most interesting characters is that of Daemon (demon?), the younger brother of current Westeros ruler, King Viserys I Targaryen. He’s also the uncle of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen who, by the end of the first episode, has been named heir to Viserys’ throne. He is a violent, hot-tempered man full of naked ambition and vile predilections as seen by the complex (incest again) nature of his relationship with his niece Rhaenyra. He feuds with and insults Otto Hightower (played by Rhys Ifans ) and shows moments of weakness and self-doubt only to his courtesan girlfriend.

By the end of the episode, he is rightfully pissed that he has been usurped by a girl. Cue: mad machinations and savage bloodletting in the offing.

The show moves at a breathtaking pace. The juxtaposition of a jousting tournament and the bloody, fatal act of child-bearing by Queen Aemma is perhaps apt. All that blood and gore. At one point, a squire loses his lunch after a knight opens up his opponent’s head like a juicy watermelon, while Allicent (Emma Riley) savages her nails and battles with her gorge, only moments before nurses open up the in-labour queen like a grape and snatch out her soon-to-be-dead son from her womb.

The charming friendship between Alicent and Rhaenyra seems destined for doom, especially after Otto Hightower, the King’s Hand, one-ups his rival Daemon while using his own young nubile daughter, Alicent, as bait for the grieving ruler by sending her to the King’s chambers. Hightower later sets up the king to banish Daemon and name Rhaenyra as his new heir, breaking with 100 years of tradition. Everything seems set up for a delightful season of backstabbing, sweaty sex romps and gore fueled by the murderous machinations of mad people in Westeros.

These new episodes will showcase the bitter conflict over who will take over as heir to the throne as the current king prepares to end his rule, and the in-family fighting that tore them apart and ultimately lead to a civil war. The messed-up Targaryen family has a tradition of squaring off over succession claims and this season will be no different.

The premiere of “House of the Dragon” pulled in 10 million viewers, HBO said, making it the biggest start for a series in the network’s history. We can’t wait for the next episode this Sunday.

Dracarys!