It all comes down to obedience training on the 'House of the Dragon' finale

Oct. 24—[Contains spoilers for the "Game of Thrones" series up through season 1, episode 10 of HBO's "House of the Dragon."]

In the world of "Game of Thrones," dragons are referred to multiple times as "fire made flesh." They're magical creatures, and the Targaryen family has a mystical connection with them.

At the end of the day, though, they're wild beasts. And just like a dog that doesn't always listen, sometimes you have to deal with misbehavior. But when these pets misbehave, people — and junior-varsity dragons — can get chomped in half... and the result could be a full-blown war in the second season of "House of the Dragon."

If poor old Lord Lymon Beesbury was the first official casualty in the Dance of the Dragons, the climax of the first-season finale was the true inciting event. Lucerys' dragon Arrax punches way above his weight class, shooting a lick of flame at Vhagar and incurring the old giant's wrath.

I promised earlier in these reviews that I wouldn't discuss the books, and in terms of future spoilers, I still will not be doing that. But book-versus-show up through tonight's events are now fair game.

The books are written, as always, from an unreliable-narrator perspective, with multiple sources claiming slightly different versions of major events. So there's no "definitive" version of how the dragon-fight over Shipbreaker Bay went down. After all, Aemond only wanted one of Luke's eyes. But having the dragons as the ones to officially instigate this war? I don't know if I like that as a narrative choice. It removes some agency from Aemond, who's clearly been strolling merrily down the road to war for several episodes now. I was expecting at least a little smile on his face, but the look he sported was more worry than anything else.

The show has worked hard — sometimes too hard — to give shades of gray to all the major players, showing us reasons why they're awful but also reasons to sympathize with their motives and actions. But a lot this has been shaped by characters just stumbling backwards toward a massive war. Alicent misunderstands her husband's addled dying ramblings. Criston Cole accidentally murders Lord Beesbury. And then Arrax gets snippy with Vhagar and ends up getting himself and his rider chomped. Then again, at least Luke doesn't have to worry about inheriting Driftmark now, right?

Sorry, that was a little dark.

Speaking of the dark, Daemon Targaryen is all-too-ready for war, skulking the dimly-lit rooms of Dragonstone and once again doing his best to squander any goodwill he's built up. I'm not sure why so many people seem to adore Daemon no matter how many terrible-awful-no-good things he does. This week he chokes his third wife because she won't let him fly his dragon straight to the Red Keep and burn her childhood best friend to a crisp. Nice.

Ser Erryk Cargyll shows up with Viserys' head-gear to pledge his loyalty — honestly, that may have been the best moment of the episode; I kind of teared up a little when he was reciting his oath — but while Rhaenyra has gained a crown, she's already lost two children before this war has even begun.

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More 'House of the Dragon' stories:

—Episode 9 review: A 'wow' moment is also a weird narrative choice on 'House of the Dragon'

—Episode 8 review: The king gets confused as 'House of the Dragon' dances on the edge of war

—Episode 7 review: If looks could kill, they wouldn't need daggers on 'House of the Dragon'

—Episode 6 review: Tough to find someone to root for on 'House of the Dragon'

—Episode 5 review: The kettle boils over and all the tea gets spilled on 'House of the Dragon'

—Episode 4 review: Targaryens gonna Targaryen on this week's 'House of the Dragon'

—Episode 3 review: Everyone's on the hunt in this week's 'House of the Dragon'

—Episode 2 review: A good man makes a real bad decision on 'House of the Dragon'

—Episode 1 review: 'House of the Dragon' gets back to the backstabbing we loved in 'Thrones'

—TV Talk: HBO recaptures 'Game of Thrones' political dynamics in 'House of the Dragon'

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The series veered back into uncomfortable territory, lingering several times on the aftermath of Rhaenyra's miscarriage. This is a heavy show, but even still, that's doing a lot.

We got what I thought was a fairly reasonable answer to why Rhaenys didn't roast the whole dais at the end of last week's episode: She tells Daemon and Rhaenyra that it's not her war to start. And that's true. Watching Rhaenyra earn Rhaenys' respect and endorsement as the finale went on was nice to see. She'll be a strong ally in the wars to come.

So where do things go from here? I said I wouldn't introduce book spoilers, and in that sense, the show has an extra hurdle to overcome. You could go on "A Wiki of Ice and Fire" website right now and read about everything that's going to happen as the Dance of the Dragon progresses. And that means the show-runners don't have a ton of options for surprising the audience, other than veering from the source material.

Sometimes those departures worked in "Game of Thrones." But much like that show's later seasons, "House of the Dragon" writers are basically working from the broad strokes of a plot, filling in the details while also trying to make a wildly entertaining show.

So without getting into plot spoilers, what might be coming down the line in the second season?

I'm interested to see if the series keeps going with the "Song of Ice and Fire" prophecy side of things. Will Rhaenyra try to learn more about the mysterious "threat from the far North" that the prophecy talks about? If she makes an ally of the Starks, maybe we'll get into some of the White Walker lore that's alive and well in the North.

It's no spoiler to say that Daemon is ready to play dragon match-maker and find some off-brand Targaryens to ride the spares sitting around on Dragonstone. I don't know what the purpose was behind the Valyrian song he was singing as he approached what I believe was the dragon Vermithor, but perhaps we'll find out next season.

Honestly, the plot lines surrounding the future "dragon-seed" riders are probably the most ripe for meddling. A clever writers' room could toy with some of the moves they make to cook up a few surprises that won't derail the main arc of the "Fire and Blood" history.

Was the first season successful? I think so. It leaned pretty hard into some of the more-uncomfortable aspects of medieval natal care. And while I'm still firmly Team Black, there aren't a whole lot of admirable people here.

On the positive side, the show knows what we're here for. We want Big Dragon Action, and the show used its dragon effects just often enough to whet our appetite for more. Young Aemond's first flight on Vhagar showed how awesome a good dragon sequence could be. And adult Aemond's storm-soaked pursuit of Luke in the finale showed that the special-effects department has come a long way since the indecipherable three-way dragon scrum between Jon Snow, Dany Targaryen and the Night King.

That said, the second season can't just be dragon fights punctuated by army battles. So it will be interesting to see what other plot lines come into the series.

A few stray dragon eggs

—Seriously, can we stop with the Daemon worship now? He's not a good dude.

—Corlys Velaryon is down with Team Black, which now controls the Narrow Sea and can impose a hardcore blockade on King's Landing.

—Otto Hightower is pretty lucky he made it out of this finale alive. He couldn't even give Rhaenyra the alleged reason that Aegon was crowned king. He just rolls out and is all, "Well, Aegon's the king now. You guys cool with that?"

—Good casting choice for Borros Baratheon. He's got that Bobby Baratheon oaf energy for sure. Plus he can't read! In the immortal words of Chris Rock, the Baratheons love to keep it real... real dumb.

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick by email at pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .