Two days before the last chapter of the first season aired House of the Dragon, HBO condemns its leak on the Internet. And no, it doesn’t feel like a publicity stunt, although it has come up on other occasions, basically because the series doesn’t need it.

Indeed, a premiere House of the Dragon at the end of last August on HBO Max, not only was it a hit, but the series continued on in crescendo a fascination for locals and foreigners who saw it as a crude attempt to continue to exploit the success achieved Game of Thrones.

And as it is, the motivation behind the production is more than evident. However, the result is far from gross. which he enjoyed Game of Throneseven those who stuck through the two final seasons, which squandered the consensus built up during the previous years of broadcast and which elevated George RR Martin’s TV adaptation to series Olympus, conceded.

Well, at least general feeling, as confirmed by the ‘meta-ratings’ that can be found in the main online services: in Metacritic, the average is 69 for critics and 5.1 for the public, the site where it is rated the worst; but on Rotten Tomatoes, the average rating rises to 85 and 84 percent for critics and audiences, respectively; and on IMDb, the series has an average score of at least 8.6, based on more than 197,000 users.

At first glance, it doesn’t seem so House of the Dragon gave the media a bell The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerbut putting aside the appeal of Tolkien’s work and the millionaire Amazon has had to promote the series, the reception of the former to the detriment – to the detriment, yes – of the latter is seen on every internet forum that pops up

Of course, all this has its echo piracy that has haunted every chapter of the series thus far and that it reached its climax with the leak that concerns us, which HBO described as “disappointing” because they understand “this illegal action interrupted the viewing experience for loyal followers of the program”, while warning that it “monitors and gradually removes these copies from the Internet.

HBO is wrong. First, because this leak (subtitled in Hebrew, mind you) won’t affect “faithful followers” who are supposed to pay for — or seek out — HBO Max. And secondly, because House of the Dragon is the most pirated series of 2022… way up The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Tomorrow in the United States and the day after tomorrow in Spain you will be able to see the result of his first season.