The non-war between HBOs house of the dragon And The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power seemingly just gone to a whole new level of passive aggression.

Online ads released today for Warner Bros. Discovery’s (formerly HBO Max) rebranded Max streaming service feature a royal Daenerys Targaryen game of Thrones on the Iron Throne and the motto: “The One to Watch When You Want to Rule The All.”

Anyone who even remotely knows Lord of the rings knows the phrase “One ring that rules them all”. An unscientific survey of genre fans found that the ad immediately prompted the assumption that “ohhh, shots firedThe clever thing about the ad, though, is that of course Daenerys really wanted to rule them all, so it also makes contextual sense and gives the company something believable, even if fantasy fans think Max is trolling their caves thrones precursor house of the dragon‘s head-to-head rival from last fall.

Amazon and Max both had no comments.

It’s honestly also a way to get the entertainment sites like e.g The Hollywood Reporter embed their online ad in a story about their ad, even if they didn’t buy an ad, i.e. really play 3-D chess…or accidentally stumbled into a viral ad, that kind of thing.

Warner Bros. recently announced that they are also developing their own Lord of the Rings movies. The films will likely focus more on JRR Tolkien’s Third Age (the period of Peter Jackson’s films). The Rings of Power‘s Second Age, but still represent the company moving into a creative space currently occupied by Amazon (they are also minority shareholders). Rings of Power due to the complicated rights attached to all things Tolkien).

HBO’s dragon and Amazon’s Rings of Power each premiered within weeks of each other last fall and were the subject of considerable media debate over which ambitious fantasy prequel series was better and more popular. Both shows are filming season two in the UK and are expected to return in 2024, although it is thought they will avoid re-airing at the same time.