House of the Dragon (Game of Thrones Spin-off) Thread

Finally decided to give the show a chance after hearing too much good, and I'm shocked and hooked now. Wow. Love Matt Smith's Daemon and Rhys Ifans' Ser Otto and the guy playing Viserys, they really lift the scenes they're in. But everybody is doing a good job, and I adore both Rhaenyra and Alicent in completely different ways.

The trailer promised a complete cringefest, but the exploration of women's roles and childbirth in the setting is surprisingly nuanced and balanced. Outside that weird scene with the Velaryon chick that makes no sense.

The massive timeskip thing between episodes was really ambitious, too, and so far the show has been pulling it off with aplomp.

Looking forward to seeing Aegon II a little older next episode. The younger actor was something of a weak link.

They were doing something we call shooting "day for night". This allows full capture of action because the scene is actually well-lit, and then through use of camera filters while shooting and post-production work, it becomes "night". This doesn't always work out well, and when you are facing an industry-wide revolt from VFX people tired of getting screwed all the time while their workload increases with every production, this is sadly the result. Expect more of this, at least for the short-term.

"I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire."

I was reluctant to watch the show after the GoT debacle and I don't like the incest house very much, but I decided to give it a try. It is Entertainment, but it's hard to find a character, I like. So far that mostly applies to Laena (and that was sadly short lived) and Rhaenys. The rest ... well, let's just say, I won't mourn their death. I wonder, which role Daemons former lover will play, I get Varys vibes from her.
I think, I'll read the books, since I really like GRRMs writing.

A friend of mine and I recently were discussing HoD. He was a big GoT fan, even is developing a board game, so I was interested in his take on what we've seen so far.

He feels the show is missing a character like Tyrion... someone who, despite being flawed and terrible in his own ways, was always sympathetic.

My opinion on that - Tyrion is a special character, portrayed by an amazing actor. That is lightning in a bottle. Daemon almost fits this bill for me, but god damn he has done some unforgivable shit. Still, he eats the screen and I love to watch him.

Possibly interesting aside - despite deep contempt for Mel Gibson, and the many historical fantasies incorporated into what was a true story, I still enjoy Braveheart and will watch it every few years. I did this last night, and watching the elder Robert the Bruce created for me a Bizarro-world Viserys. Decomposing lords, syphilis is bad news kids.

Yeah, but Alicent is either moping or reluctant about everything, bless her heart poor gal. I am not sure I would act differently or "better" in her spot, pretty impossible setup tbh. Thanks Dad?

She doesn't have the charm or wit of Tyrion. Doesn't mean she isn't well done... her sadness is hardly over I think. Only beginning.

I can't wait for Blood's and Cheese's intro. I want them to cast these two.

Stormare's intro and his performance is the main reason i rewatch Constantine even though he's onscreen for only a few minutes. Imo his portrayal was superior to Pacino's in The Devil's Advocate and like Al's performance too.

This is funny, because book Tyrion is a terrible person, but readers don't realize this because he's a funny underdog with enough of a conscience to sometimes feel bad about the shady shit he pulls and occasionally do something nice, so long as it doesn't cost him anything.

Show Tyrion was whitewashed to the point that past the Season 4 trial, his character had nothing to do and nowhere to go. A waste of a good actor, if you ask me.

That's a pretty low bar for qualifying as a "terrible person" to my ears. Might be the source of some of the confusion right there.  And frankly, past season 4 was mostly a waste of a lot of good actors in general.

In that vein(character morality, not acting quality), I've had some luck introducing people to this series that couldn't handle Game of Thrones because that show "felt too nihilistic" just based on the first couple episodes of each. Didn't make sense to me at first since GoT is much closer to generic fantasy epic and not a single character in HoD is as pure as any one Stark in GoT. But after some discussion with one person I decided that it's specifically that lack of totally innocent-seeming, pure souls that makes the darkness and moral ambiguity easier to swallow. Everyone in HoD is, to some extent, jaded and empowered and responsible enough to feel like an agent in the intrigue and the backstabbing and the difficult morality of the setting, so you feel more comfortable settling back and taking an interest in what they do and why without having to brace yourself for the next pure heart to be fed into the meat grinder.

Something that struck me especially in episode 7 was the difference in tone between Aemond's fight with Daemon's and Rhaenyra's collective brood, and Joffrey's date with Sansa along the Kingsroad that Arya interrupts with Dogmeat. I mean, uh, Mica. Not because they're particularly comparable in terms of plot or themes, but more as two early examples of the new generation thrown into a serious conflict amongst themselves with no adults to fix it for them without anyone getting hurt.

Everyone in that cave, except maybe Aemond, felt like a real child to me with lots of entitlement and insecurity and poor impulse control, and a lack of understanding of consequences, and the escalating indignation turning to violence turning to brutality felt absolutely believable as someone who got in (and absolutely helped start) his share of fights as a kid without anyone carrying daggers in the playground. It reads perfectly as something that happened because of course it did, and people just weren't ready, and everybody is going to have to move past it as best they can. Whereas the scene with Joffrey is much more of a 'wolf among the lambs' situation with Arya and Sansa both presented as sheltered and good-hearted girls, all childish and naive, trapped in a scene with this thoroughly corrupted and vicious bastard and coming out of it traumatized and disillusioned.

And there's a sense of loss and cosmic unfairness there that there isn't with a bunch of pent-up noble brats getting into a scrap that goes too far because one got something the other wanted. Each child-character in HoD felt either stronger and hardened (Aemond, obviously), better characterized as flawed people (the girls for their entitlement and helping gang up on their already outnumbered uncle just because they resented him) or humbled (Luke and Jace), but overall more experienced rather than traumatized from the event. Like, if the atmosphere among the adults had been different for the next scene I could have imagined them sharing glances and thinking 'Okay, it's obvious enough why this happened, and our kids all learned some hard lessons today. If we all play our cards right and handle this sensibly, we can help them use what they just went through to become better people and rulers down the line, and it won't have been for nothing.'

But alas. 

...And then there's obviously the dinner scene in episode 8, with Daemon passing the peas back and forth and Otto clapping at his granddaughter dancing, which gave me serious WW1 Christmas truce vibes. One of those examples of a true and beautiful moment that will always stand as proof that true and beautiful moments can happen if people try, even if everything maybe turns right back to shit afterwards. GoT never had a moment like that in its entire decade-long runtime.

Hmmm. I'd say you're being unfair there. There is such a thing as having too high expectations. Glad I didn't have my own impression of it spoiled by the books before we were a few seasons in, but realistically there's no way on God's green earth to adapt a story like A Song of Ice and Fire to the screen without dumbing it down considerably and rearranging a bunch of things.

I think if I'd read the books back in the day and then heard about the show coming out without having seen it for myself, I'd have reacted more or less the way I did when I saw the trailer for Ender's Game 2013, and to a lesser extent The Dark Tower. Some Directors seem hellbent on humiliating themselves. It's a miracle the early seasons turned out as good and faithful as they did in my estimation. They're not quite the Peter Jackson Trilogy of TV, but took a damn good swing at it. Those movies rearranged a few themes and took some liberties as well, but they're still widely celebrated as some of the most successful book-to-screen adaptations in history.

Definitely wouldn't say the show was nihilistic either, but it does demand either a certain hardness of spirit or a certain masochism from the viewer in order to enjoy.

Obviously seasons 6-8 are an expensive trainwreck and comparing them to anything successful would be an insult, but even they are recognizably.... trying.... to present us with some kind of meaningful throughline in terms of themes and morals. It's just shit and makes no sense is all.

Aha! So this is where episode 9 and 10 from GoT season 8 went! Mystery solved.

I'm really grateful we got that Viserys story and eight episodes of cool and consistent character-writing before things started to fall apart. Like Tywin, he got out of there just in time.