House Of The Dragon Season 2's Bloody New Title Sequence Is Based On A Real Work Of Art

House Of The Dragon Season 2 is finally here, and in addition to more dragons (and more danger), the Game Of Thrones spin-off's second season also features a new intro animation that plays during each episode's opening credits.

Viewers got their first look at Episode 1 (entitled "A Son For A Son") over the weekend, and the episode naturally kicked off with an intro sequence featuring the series' iconic theme song. Just like Season 1, Season 2 starts each episode off with a bloody (yet undeniably beautiful) animation sequence, but the visuals have been completely changed for the new season.

Season 1's intro featured close-up shots of a miniature model of Old Valyria (made by and tended to for years by the late King Viserys) being flooded with blood--an obvious reference to both the importance of bloodlines in the show's plot, and the blood that would inevitably be spilled in the lead-up to the Targaryen civil war. Known as The Dance Of Dragons, that war is now in full-swing, and the new season's title sequence is no less bloody than the last. But instead of a three-dimensional model of Old Valyria, the new intro sees a flood of blood soaking into an intricate tapestry that seems to be embroidering itself.

According to the series' showrunners, the new intro sequence is inspired by the real-life Bayeux Tapestry, a massive 230-foot-long tapestry depicting the Norman conquest of England and lead-up to the Battle of Hastings.

"The amazing opening sequence for the original show put us in this place where--not that we were trying to top it, but that we were trying to continue the tradition of an evolving credit sequence that changes," showrunner Ryan Condal recently explained (via The Hollywood Reporter). "In the original show, the credits change as the show changes geography, showing you more and more of Westeros. We wanted to continue that with our title sequence, but as we got to the end of Season 1, we realized that the bloodlines and ancestry story we were telling that season--20 years of time in Season 1--had been brought to an end because now the Targaryen ancestry is sort of set. We didn't have much place to go, so we decided to go with radical change."

The intro sequence currently features various moments from Targaryen history, like The Doom Of Valyria (which left House Targaryen as the only remaining dragon-riders) and Aegon's conquest of Westeros. The latter is depicted by a shot of two embroidered dragons--Vhagar and Balerion--breathing fire on Harrenhal. Vhagar eventually died of old age, but as we saw in Season 1, Vhagar is still alive, with Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) as her current rider. In the show, Aemond's inability to control Vhagar leads to the death of Rhaenyra Targaryen's son, Lucerys (Elliot Grihault), and his dragon, Arrax. The death of Lucerys serves as the inciting incident that kicks off the civil war.

"Now that the page has turned and we're at war, this is a living history and we want to depict that history in a visual way and give the fans new things to take apart and dive into," Condal continued, explaining that the creators of the show pitched the Bayeux Tapestry concept to a company called yU+co, which makes animated title sequences for various film projects.

"Those guys took it and ran with it and came back with this [new sequence], and I love it," Condal said. "It gives us a lot of places to go. The story obviously starts on Valeria and and then at some point in the sequence, you’re like, 'Oh, I remember that from from season one,' and you see how we've moved from Aegon the Conqueror’s time and pass[ed] through all the kings, and now we're telling the story as we're seeing it unfold, and also seeing it literally being stitched into this tapestry."

Last season, the oft-overlooked Helaena Targaryen--known for befriending spiders and occasionally spouting dragon-related prophecies--alluded to the tapestry, saying, "Hand turns loom; spool of green, spool of black; dragons of flesh weaving dragons of thread," in Episode 7. The franchise's various intro sequences are known to change over time as each season progresses, so it's likely that viewers will see new events depicted on the tapestry as Season 2 continues.