The House of the Dragon respects its women. It’s time for the fantasy genre to catch up.

There isn’t much crossover between real life and House of the Dragon. There are no giant lizards flying through the sky. There are no knights wielding swords or protesting the king for more land for your sheep, and thank goodness our monarchs don’t go around cutting off babies’ heads. That’s why it’s called “fantasy,” after all. But for any woman watching, some of the scenes—brutal childbirth, leaking breast milk at an important meeting, being dominated and undermined by men below your status at those meetings—are all too familiar.

If you take The Dragon House (and HBO’s relentless marketing) At first glance, you might think this is a series about two warring factions of the same family – House Targaryen, which has ruled Westeros for over 100 years, divided over who should sit atop the Iron Throne. But in reality, the Game Of Thrones The spin-off is less a macho fest of sword fights and dick-smacking, and more a subtle meditation on the complex and multifaceted – but no less brutal – state of femininity.

The two sides in the war known as the Dance of Dragons (which begins in earnest in today’s new episode with disastrous consequences for both sides) are the Greens—led by King Aegon, advised by his mother Alicent Hightower—and the Blacks, who support Queen Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne after her father initially declared her as his heir. As young girls, Rhaenyra and Alicent (Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, both spectacular) were once inseparable—now they find themselves on opposing sides of a civil war that has made little progress toward peace.

The heart of the drama is entirely centred on the kingdom’s anxiety about having a woman at its head – an anxiety that was only officially dispelled for the actual British throne in 2011, when royal daughters were granted equal ascendancy rights as sons. It’s a pretty basic and obvious example of sexism, and very recognisable in our own society (only 10 FTSE 100 companies have female CEOs), but The Dragon House goes much further in its attempts to show the good, the bad, and the ugly of being a woman, both in that fantasy world of old and in our own. The series isn’t just about Alicent versus Rhaenyra or Green versus Black – the real drama comes from the insidious, more understated battle of men versus women.

Why does all this matter? Well, having a female-centric story that is delicately told and revolves around the intricacies of what it means to be a woman is very rare in the world of fantasy. Game Of Thrones was regularly condemned for the misogynistic treatment of its female characters (that scene from season 2 in which the rape of a young Sansa Stark is shown in a gratuitous – even titillating – manner still makes me shudder). The Dragon House The film needed to be less overtly sexist and aimed at a stereotypically hot-blooded male audience to avoid accusations of misogyny and cultural out-of-touchness. It works.

Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) is a stoic, powerful, and quiet woman. Her followers consider her the true heir to the Iron Throne, the first woman to claim the title thanks to her father’s lack of a son. Yet her war council is filled with men who are constantly trying to erode her power. “Unleash the dragons,” they tell her with misplaced authority. At one point, they even suggest that the queen lock herself away under her protection and wage war in her stead. They only back down when Rhaenyra rightly points out that doing so would amount to treason. Few women who have sat in a meeting with a group of boastful men fail to recognize Rhaenyra’s tolerant smile as she tells them simply, “I have heard your arguments… and I will consider them.”

Alicent’s power is more subtle—and transactional. To the men around her, she is a sex object to be toyed with, and she knows that by complying with their desires, she gains a foothold in the male-dominated council of King’s Landing. This may seem anti-feminist and misogynistic at first, but we experience Alicent not through their eyes, but through hers. She has the power to act—she is far from passive. And even if The Dragon House is not based on reality, it is inspired by the social politics of medieval England – Alicent acts as a fitting reminder of the conflicts (which here apparently include giving in to the foot fetish of one of the king’s advisors to gain information) that real women had to endure just to get a foot in the door and, in far too many cases, still do.

These women aren’t held up as perfect role models, nor do they fit the typical TV “messy woman” mold – they’re three-dimensional, conflicted and conflicted, neither good nor bad (in fact, I wish they were a little more ruthless, more evil, though there are still plenty of episodes left for them to spiral). Fans of the show will have already chosen their side – Team Black here – but watching the show as a woman, it’s impossible not to identify with both Rhaenyra and Alicent’s plight.

The idea that women ruling the world means instant world peace is absurd – any woman who has ever had a fight with her best friend as a teenager knows that women can be just as vindictive and aggressive as our male counterparts. The Dragon House knows it too – and let’s be honest, there’s not a lot of excitement to be found in a series about a quiet queen of Westeros ruling a peaceful kingdom.

Motherhood is also a major theme of House of the Dragon. Rather than seeing the role as simply an obligation for women to produce an heir for their husbands, it is a burden, a blessing, and—most importantly, as it really is—a job. Childbirth is bloody and viscerally savage; miscarriages are common, but the weight of their loss is expressed in the dialogue. The anger of a grieving mother is at the heart of the drama, more powerful than any dragonfire. I can think of no other fantasy series that gives as much weight to the status of mother.

Being a woman is not easy. Being a woman in Westeros is even harder. Being a woman in power (even contested power) is even harder. It may not be a feminist triumph (women are still second-class citizens, regardless of royal lineage), but acknowledging sexism without perpetuating it is a step forward for the genre. Women should be able to see their own experiences reflected in the television they watch, even if that television is about dragons. After all, when it comes to who shouts loudest, there is little difference between a boardroom and a Targaryen war council.

‘House of the Dragon’ airs Mondays at 9pm on Sky Atlantic and streams on Now.