Him of Many Faces

The part about Helaena's death in season 3 didn't seem like a spoiler to me, just George's conclusion about how that character will now be handled because Maelor doesn't exist.

The logical thing, based on her actions in season 2, is to make her go over to Rhaenyra's side and be her councillor or something like that. And in season 4 they can enter in a romantic relationship with each other.

By far the worst of course. Alicent is basically team Black in the show. I guess the writers kinda forgot the second half of season 1 and how Alicent pushed Aegon's claim or how she made Rhaenyra walk across the Red Keep minutes after she gave birth or how she went rage mode after her son lost an eye and how she attacked Rhaenyra with a knife.. Alicent and Rhaenyra's friendship simply does not work as the centerpiece of this story.

Alicent's character development would make more sense if episodes 6-10 in season 1 never happened. But they did.

I think you underestimate the general audience a bit too much. Even casual audiences aren't that dumb that they clap their hands whenever they see a CGI dragons battle and completely forget everything else afterwards. Burlington bar reaction videos definitely aren't the standard for studying the human behavior. Season 2 just wasn't good enough tv. I too consider dropping this show since I only watch it because of massive sunk cost fallacy. I roll my eyes when I read about people hoping that somehow season 3 will be better because reasons. How often do tv shows improve after mediocre seasons? I can only think of sitcoms, where this is usually the case.

These don't seem like valid excuses why the season was so badly written. More battle sequences and bigger budget can't completely hide weak uninspired writing. Plenty of shows produced good seasons after the first writers strike in 2008.

Or something that's not set in Westeros at all, his older work is good too.

He's a lapsed catholic who knows a great deal about religion.

It's not Blacks vs Greens anymore, it's destined saviors of Westeros vs Aemond.

Some films that also have 8.4 rating are Sunset Boulevard, Paths of Glory and Witness for the Prosecution. It's insane how highly tv series are rated compared to movies. In my opinion House of Dragon should have a rating in the range of 6.0 to 6.5.

Modern audiences do not want realistic portrayals of middle ages or fantasy that is inspired by middle ages. They want to see a dire, grey and dirty world that feels "realistic". At least we see a lot more color and heraldry in HotD than we did in GoT, which insisted on everyone dressing up in brown leather. Leaving this here.

It will be forgotten by the show just like the Jaime/Cersei rape in the sept and Rhaenys mass murder in the Dragonpit.

It would be nice.

It would be better if this show was outright bad because right now it's plain boring, so it isn't even fun to make fun of it or nitpick at how dumb things are.

2/10. Watching this felt like a chore.