House of the Dragon

[Hammock Parties]

OH YEAH!

All the dragons roar as one.
The #HOTD trailer has arrived. pic.twitter.com/ug7ESvpg8U

— House of the Dragon (@HouseofDragon) July 20, 2022

[duncan_idaho]

I think the differences in portrayals of the characters are a purposeful choice …to show that history books are shaped by the writers’ biases and perspectives.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I think the differences in portrayals of the characters are a purposeful choice …to show that history books are shaped by the writers’ biases and perspectives.

Their choices make Aemond a much more interesting character than he ever was in the books.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

That shot of Vhagar in the distance as he heads into the keep was terrifying.

yeah that was like the t-rex shot from jurassic park x1,000,000

****ing terrifyingly awesome

also vhagar's groan after the chomp was epic...never heard a dragon say "**** yeah!" but i think that was it...in valyrian

[raybec 4]

It will be interesting to see if Sapochnik leaving as co-show runner will make the series worse. I hope not.

[notorious]

Badass.

They took a spinoff that came in with whale-shit low expectations thanks to the end of GOT and made it really good.

That big dragon is terrifying. The atmosphere set up in the storm was fantastic.

We also see why the dragons all die out. They don't have control.

[Sorter]

I can not believe they didn't **** this up and improved things for the story/characters.


Well done, HBO and George. Expected this to be a catastrophe and its ****ing great.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by Chiefspants

Their choices make Aemond a much more interesting character than he ever was in the books.

Agreed; they've done that for most of the major players in this show.

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

And Aemond is the great grandpa X9-10 of

Spoiler!

Danerys Stornborn

This isn’t accurate. He would be some sort of cousin. Maybe uncle? But not direct lineage.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by raybec 4

The "It wasn't my fault" angle won't play. He has to own it or it would be totally out of character for how they've painted him. If they try to go the other way it will be disappointing.

He will.

That's Aemond. And it's just another interesting thing they can do on this show given the 3rd party perspective of the source material.

It's a fascinating effort you don't see very often. They're taking the reliability of the source material and calling it into question. They're retroactively creating an unreliable narrator dilemma (which is ALWAYS fascinating reading, IMO).

I'm sure Aemond will come back talking big shit and making it sound like he absolutely did it on purpose. And frankly, he'll probably spend a fair amount of time convincing himself he DID.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

He will.

That's Aemond. And it's just another interesting thing they can do on this show given the 3rd party perspective of the source material.

It's a fascinating effort you don't see very often. They're taking the reliability of the source material and calling it into question. They're retroactively creating an unreliable narrator dilemma (which is ALWAYS fascinating reading, IMO).

I'm sure Aemond will come back talking big shit and making it sound like he absolutely did it on purpose. And frankly, he'll probably spend a fair amount of time convincing himself he DID.

I think it will be Cole who convinces him to take credit for it.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I gotta say that was a great episode.

Spoiler!

The dialogue on the war/no war thing was excellent. They did a great job of identifying the gray area/fog of war kind of stuff. Normally in this type of shit there is one narrative they want to push and the other ****ers in the room spew nonsense to push the narrative. In this case it doesn't appear that anybody was right or wrong. Really good points on both sides. Great writing. Surprisingly good.

And then shit goes off the rails. I knew one of the Strong kids was going to eat shit when they left. And they played it really well. And I gotta give them a ton of credit, I wasn't the biggest Lucerys fan. He seemed kind of ****y, but he put his big boy shorts and went into Storms End knowing Aemond was in there. Then handled himself well. Then he put up a really good evasive strategy until his punk ass dragon wrote a check his ass couldn't cash. Really nice character work there. It mattered when he ate it. Definitely landed.

I thought him dying was really good. Really fit Aemond's character. Right up until "vheagar NO". I guess they're paying off what Viserys tells Rheanyra about them not REALLY controlling dragons. But that was a really good scene.

Like I said before, the little things are what makes the thing go and they goddamned got it.

I think my favorite part of the show is that they DIDN'T age up the characters like they did in GOT.

Some of the odd/reckless decisions the Stark children make in the television series lose a little weight because it's grown ass people making them. And some of the impressive things they do are less impressive because again - adults.

But in HOTD they've kept them looking as young as they were. Luke looked like a terrified kid in that meeting with Baratheon. And if he's in his mid-20s, he has a better response then "Okay, lemme go tell my mom..."

That was an excellent decision and while it made some of the earlier scenes with Daemon and Rhaneara a little creepy, it really helped with the rest of the show.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Sorter

I think it will be Cole who convinces him to take credit for it.

****ing Cole...

[rydogg58]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

This isn’t accurate. He would be some sort of cousin. Maybe uncle? But not direct lineage.

That is correct. Daemon and Rhaenarya are the (great 9 or 10) grandparents of Dany and Jon.
Daenarys is Rhaegar's sister. Rhaegar is Jon Snow's father. So that means Jon was balls deep in his aunt.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

****ing Cole...

On second thought, it will probably be Otto.


Going to be wild seeing them meld stuff into S2 as there are few big battles/events and I'm sure they're going to end S2 with

Spoiler!

Blood and Cheese

.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by Sorter

Agreed; they've done that for most of the major players in this show.

Fully agreed.

I gotta say, I was skeptical coming into this season due to Condal's background, and the time jumps they had to make in order to finish this season (Reminder: Aemond wasn't BORN yet by Episode 5, halfway through this season).

But hot damn did they still make this compelling. Not only that, they made this season off of... 70 pages of source material? Another concern I had was a problem The Hobbit movies ran into, a lot of characters, but not a lot to actually adapt from. But did the actors (shoutout especially to Paddy Considine) ever rise to the occasion to bring life to their counterparts in Fire and Blood - and the writers, under the guidance of GRRM, really brought what was originally written as a history textbook to life.

And the thing is... this was all exposition to the good stuff.