TV

AI Creates Book-Accurate House Of The Dragon Character Designs

AI Creates Book-Accurate House Of The Dragon Character Designs
Image credit: Legion-Media

If there's one thing fans of popular novels hate, it's when cinematic renditions of their favorite books feature characters that don't align with what the author wrote.

Take Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson & the Olympians, for instance. In the books, she was a blonde with a massive knowledge of Greek mythology who was a fierce fighter. In the movie, she has brown hair and doesn't know much about anything, let alone the Olympians. The audience hated it, and the films flopped.

For the most part, Game of Thrones and the first season of its prequel, House of the Dragon, have done pretty well at casting the roles in a way that's consistent with George R.R. Martin's descriptions. There were a few minor items left out, such as Tyrion having lost his nose in the Battle at Blackwater Bay, but altogether, the two series' characters have been faithful to the source material.

Joshua Correa, however, wanted it to be perfect. He used AI to make the characters look exactly the way they were described in the books, and the results are pretty wild.

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He posted on BuzzFeed pictures of Rhaenyra, Alicent, Daemon, Criston Cole, Rhaenys, Viserys, Mysaria, and Laenor along with AI-generated images of the eight House of the Dragon characters in celebration of the first season's finale. He explained in-depth the slight changes between the cinematic and novel versions of the characters.

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One of the biggest differences in House of the Dragon is the Targaryens' eyes. In the books, the family is said to have pale hair and skin along with purple eyes, symbolizing their regality. The version we see on-screen doesn't have this characteristic.

Rhaenys Targaryen was said to have black hair in the books, separate from the rest of her family. HBO decided to give her white hair, matching the rest of her family. Correa's AI version is starkly different from the rest of the Targaryens.

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Viserys has a mustache and described as more "plump" than he appears in the show. HBO's version is also a bit older at points, likely to have consistency in casting.

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Also said to be "stout and thick of waist" is Rhaenyra, whose AI version based on the books is far thicker than HBO's.

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The AI version of Daemon, however, looks almost identical to the version we see on House of the Dragon. HBO's choice of Matt Smith to play the anti-hero was spot-on.

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Some of the other characters weren't described in such minute detail, leaving it up to the imaginations of both Correa's AI and HBO's casting department. For some of the AI/actor comparisons, the resemblance is uncanny.