HBO’s strained and curious relationship with fathers dates back to 1999, when we witnessed Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) reconcile his dueling identities of mob boss and family man on “The Sopranos.” 

Tony strives to be a present father and dutiful son to a bitter mother he blames for driving away his sainted father Johnny (Joseph Siravo). Only much later do we, and he, come to understand that the absent Soprano progenitor is more to blame for influencing his son’s behavioral shortcomings than Tony first imagines.

Balancing out that darkness is “Six Feet Under” and its genial undertaker, Nathaniel Fisher Sr. (Richard Jenkins), seen in the drama’s opening frames sneaking a smoke while driving to pick up his namesake eldest from the airport. 

This places Pedro Pascal’s “The Last of Us” protagonist Joel Miller in a noble crowd of flawed figures whose actions shaped the lives of everyone around them for better or worse. Initially, the emotionally closed-off Joel refuses to treat Ellie (Bella Ramsey), the girl he’s hired to transport across a country teeming with Cordyceps-infected zombies, like anything other than cargo. 

Five years after that journey, Joel and Ellie share a house in a safe community. They experience the emotional strain that's par for the course between a father and a daughter, made more confusing by Joel's knowing that Ellie isn’t his biological child. But like Nathaniel Sr. and Tony Soprano before him, we watch him come to terms with his mistakes while wondering what it will take for those he loves to forgive him. Sadly, he'll never receive that answer.

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Our memories of the fathers on "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under" may have faded under the glaring, angry light of more recent lions. HBO's current take on patriarchal influence is defined by “Succession” and the cantankerous Logan Roy (Brian Cox), or perhaps “House of the Dragon” and the naïve yet wise Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine). 

His “Game of Thrones” descendant (or forebear, if we’re following the network’s premiere date chronology), 

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