miyuki

It might bring him out of his bubble, for example, the man still thinks only mean people on the internet hated season 8 of Game of Thrones. No one big of noteworthy has actually ever criticized his approach to his work. Crossing over from classical franchises to never ending and ever expanding multimedia franchises seems like a trend that everyone seems to be okay with, like it's something inevitable. Maybe that's why George chose this future for ASOIAF, he didn't want to miss out on the inevitable. I believe that when you transform a work of fiction or a series into a franchise it inevitably becomes content and content is to be consumed, it's not art.

I somewhat agree, however, just as GRRM doesn't owe us anything, we do not owe him any understanding or sympathy and we can judge him for his behavior. We, his readers, made George what he is. His success comes from us reading his books. Him deciding that some tv projects are just as important to him is a slap on our (at least mine) face. I feel like some big media outlet should call him out openly for that just so he would at least feel obliged to explain himself on his blog. Yes I'm bitter.

I also believe that content for the sake of content has no artistic value and should not be encouraged.

It's been over a decade since the release of A Dance with Dragons. We will probably never see Winds of Winter getting released. But that's not what I want to complain about, that's been done to death already. What I want to complain about and what irks me is GRRM's decision to embrace Game of Thrones as a multimedia franchise. ASOIAF was literature, an unfinished series of low fantasy books. It is currently becoming another "universe", this time for HBO and there are many ASOIAF spinoffs in the making. A prequel in the form of House of the Dragon has already finished its first season. Now, I'm very strongly against the idea of cinematic universes, unnecessary spinoffs and prequels in general. In case of ASOIAF they make no sense not just due to the original series being unfinished, but because treating written ASOIAF as a base material free to interpretate in order to create whichever new spin off series would make HBO most money just devaluates ASOIAF to same level as superhero comic books. And I feel so bad that George has decided to agree with it, that he thinks Game of Thrones cinematic universe written by others based on his notes will be a great legacy for him. I have read everything George has ever written and that I have got my hands on, from his college essays in the 60s to his tv scripts in the 90s to Fire and Blood in 2018. The anti-establishment George who wrote the corpse-handler trilogy would have never been such a sellout. The George who wrote "Portraits of His Children" would have never let others ruin his work the way he lets HBO ruin it. I'm sorry but the world never needed House of the Dragon. And getting it was not better than nothing, it's success cemented the reality that finishing the novels will never be a priority to George and the future for the world of ice and fire will be seen on television and not written by GRRM. Anyway, I'm not sure if a rant like this is allowed here and I might have come off pompous and snobbish for trashing comic books and HBO, but I'm not sorry for that. I do not like the direction this franchise is heading and I am wondering if I am being the only one... I'm interested what others think about this. I just regard the ASOIAF novels as genuinely good literature and I wish I could read all of it not watch it on tv. Revisiting this soul-sinking George's quote from NotABlog last year made me write this post: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/03/09/random-updates-and-bits-o-news/

It didn't feel like a season finale at all.

I can't help but like the Greens more in this show. They are so much more weirder, edgier and flawed that it makes them just much more fun and entertaining. Larys the feetlover and Aemond the blade studier for the win. Sorry Daemon you are basic now.

Larys having a foot fetish seems more believable than whatever mess Rhaenys is as a character. I deducted points because of the ending scene.

Rhaenys goes through the trouble of busting through the Dragonpit's floor, kills dozens if not hundreds of smallfolk, does so just as a show of force and doesn't just roast the whole family right then and there.

This is so frustrating, things like this keep happening in the show. We get it, it's Game of Thrones, but this show is good enough without random violent plot twists.

Very good episode, although ended with yet another violent scene that was not needed.

I would assume it was done to avoid criticism of killing off too many gay characters.

Hmm let's see that fight 1. Rhaena attacks Aemond 2. Baela attacks Aemond 3. Jace attacks Aemond 4. Luke attacks Aemond 5. All four of them attack him at once and start pummeling him on the ground 6. Aemond fights them off 7. Picks up a rock and threatens them 8. Lowers the rock because he wasn't actually going to hit Luke. 9. Jace pulls a knife to stab him 10. Aemond finally uses the rock to hit Jace after Jace slashes at him with a knif 11. Jace throws sand in Aemon'd eyes 12. Luke stabs him in the face They completely vindicated Aemond. Every level of escalation was done by the blacks

Really fine episode, no random overly violent scenes, and the ending took the book readers by surprise. 8/10

No rats in this episode, disappointed about that, but I guess Driftmark has better sanitation than the Red Keep.

After seeing the trailer, I was really worried about the Alicent knife scene, but it was actually pretty good.

I guess it activates the fandom's PTSD that GoT season 5-8 inflicted upon us. A member of the kingsguard just killing the princess's groom's friend in front of literally everyone and then facing no consequences over it does feel like something that D&D would come up with.

I fear it's more of a "I wished I saw a bearded Mushroom on some drums". The show won't have Mushroom, because he is too similar to Tyrion. Shame, because his presence would make the entire show very very different. And the show's Saint Tyrion was nothing like Mushroom/Book Tyrion anyway, so even more shame.

Every episode seems to be about something rather than just checking up different locations and ending the episode with a twist that makes you want to see the next episode, which was the Game of Thrones formula. I've read online that some people mislike the time jumps or the fact that we're in the same place all the time but I feel it gives the show better cohesion, even if it often has scenes that overdo themselves to make a point a la the juxtaposition with the birthing scene and the overly violent tourney. But I really appreciate the show for at least trying to always make some point abut the stories it tells, because even though if doesn't always succeed 100%, it creates discussion about spicy topics such as women's agency, sex, reproductive rights and so on. Like a good fantasy story should be, it uses fictional world to tell us things about our real world, just like ASOIAF does. In it's 8 seasons, Game of Thrones never managed to do that despite GRRM's books giving them everything on a silver platter.

Does anyone else wonder.... that they have cut too much in the post production? I recently saw images of Alicent in his wedding dress and apparently they filmed the Viserys-Alicent wedding but cut it out later. This episode was under 60 minutes long so maybe they cut something from here as well?

I continue to appreciate the rats.

Really enjoyed the rats nibbling on the dragon skull and Alicent's ceiling.

I agree that action scenes aren't the show's strongest aspect. First episode had that badly edited sequence of the gold cloaks maiming criminals(?) and now this episode ended with a messy battle. The court scenes own the show at the moment.

I disagree, I think people should be harsh to criticize the show. One of the things that lead to the abysmal last seasons of Game of Thrones was people forgiving the show writers again and again because they believed that eventually things will make sense in some way. No more sunk cost fallacy.

House of the Dragon seems like a show that really loves it's source material but at the same time it doesn't fully understand it either. This is how I feel about it after the first three episodes. They got the hunt right this time - unlike in S01E07 in the original series, the entire court accompanies the king in the hunt, this was one of the things GRRM himself has complained about back in the day when he still did that. But I do not think the white hart symbolism in this episode works very well. In A Game of Thrones, Robert goes to hunt the white hart but the wolves get it before him. This mirrors the image from when Robb and Jon find the direwolf that is killed by a stag. In folklores the white hart represents many different things, including being a messenger from the otherworld. So Robert hunting and not capturing the white hart fits the story thematically very well in many ways. In this episode, the white hart worked thematically well until we actually saw it and then Rhaenyra told ser Crispin to not hurt it.

Also very surprised but also pleased to see that people still care despite the failings of the later seasons of GoT.