The Dragon Demands

I’m really worried about this “Alyn” announcement

God help us all.

So suddenly a politically respected and powerful black man must face accusations of impropriety? That’s Green talk. seriously though…has Addam been cut?

Abubakar Salim is 30 years old and he’s playing “Alyn of Hull”? What’s going on?

https://www.google.cl/amp/s/variety.com/2023/tv/news/house-of-the-dragon-alys-rivers-season-2-1235592500/amp/

The problem with adding material to season one isn’t so much that it ruins a strong stopping point; if the end of THR is the end of episode 3 it’s an arc ending - not unlike what Andor is planning with its second season; miniarcs of three episodes (across 12 episodes). So it’s possible they’ll round out the season by going to Oldtown then Dorne, then the outbreak of the Great Spring Sickness…and even earlier in the season, padding out with flashbacks to the First Blackfyre Rebellion. But no…there is a potential problem with that - not the argument about a strong endpoint, but what would be left to do in Season Two? All of these potential additions were technically introduced as flashbacks in the second novella, which is otherwise a relatively thin story even compared to the events of the first novella: “Dunk gets involved in a water dispute between minor lords during a drought”? So maybe it’s better if all that gets saved for season 2?

I don't consider it "unfaithful" if in ADDITION to the text, they decide to show on-screen some other events that were happening in this time period. Fleshing it out more. I mean, after introducing all the Targaryens at the tournament, then actually follow some of them back to King's Landing, to see the outbreak of the Great Spring Sickness through their eyes.

Two years from now, we’ll have three live action Daerons. and 3 to 4 Aegons

I think a better cliffhanger to end the season on is the outbreak of the Great Spring Sickness…but they could do that in all of five minutes at the end of the last episode. then season two could back up a bit the first two episodes as basically long flashbacks showing “this is what they were doing in Dorne at the time”

Ah, new update confirms “Sworn Sword” is season 2. Six episodes in season one…will it all just be on the tournament? He mentions their Dorne adventure…but for season one or two?

A thought occurs.... it might not be this way, but we can't rule it out either....what if they actually intend to do ALL THREE of the currently printed novellas as "Season 1", make it about 9 episodes long? And they're just collectively calling "it "The Hedge Knight"? With 12 planned novellas in total, that would equal a 4 season TV show. Add in a few things that happened off-screen - I'm still surprised at the things that the second novella retroactively said happened in the gap since the first one. Like, you know, a DEVASTATING PLAGUE, plus Dunk & Egg visiting Maester Aemon in Oldtown, and their misadventures in Dorne with Mad Lady Vaith. ....then again, Martin stated that Season 1 "is based on the first novella". Perhaps...he was speaking loosely? I don't know. Wait, let's parse this out....as Zionius said, going by the graphic novel issues, a reasonably faithful adaptation of "The Hedge Knight" would take about 3 TV episodes to make, right? Maybe "Season 1" will be rounded out with that other stuff - they're not beholden to 10 episodes. So an episode on visiting Oldtown, another one on visiting Dorne, then an episode or TWO on the Great Spring Sickness (give or take) from the perspective of other characters....yeah I can see this filling the 6 to 7 episode region, maybe 8. They wouldn't be long episodes. I'm not worried about "padding" Season 1. I'm worried about Season 2.

I asked Entertainment Weekly's lead Westeros reporter Nick Romano what's going on with Steve Conrad and who's the showrunner, and he said even he doesn't know and is checking with business contacts:

Is it "naive" to be a knight who remembers his vows to defend the weak and innocent?

Question: I was under the impression that both the fourth and FIFTH novellas are nearly done, because Martin couldn't decide which to do first - indicating they're both near completion. We've got the She Wolves of Winterfell, and "The Village Hero" (in which we go to the Blackwoods and meet Egg's future wife).

Oh that's exactly what happened, as GRRM explained in his blog post back in March of 2022: Apparently they split the difference and decided to use the title of each novella as the byline for each season, after a colon.

But we've read The World of Ice & Fire, we know how it ends! In great detail! We all know what happened in the Third Blackfyre Rebellion...

HBO Max - now called "Max" - just greenlit the Dunk & Egg prequel: they were deciding between calling it "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" or "The Hedge Knight", and decided to just combine it: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight" GRRM is attached as a "writer" (???) and executive producer, along with Ira Parker (who wrote HotD episode 1.4); Martin's agent Vince Gerardis as well as Ryan Condal are also attached. No mention of Steve Conrad but I assume he's on it? https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/game-of-thrones-prequel-series-a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms-hbo-1235578466/

This does raise an issue: the Starks & Lannisters are barely in the first half of Fire & Blood, from the Conquest through the fall of Maegor. The general audience will be eager for them. Oh they're in it a bit, but as important "guest stars"; even the Lannisters were outsiders at the royal court in the first century of the Iron Throne - Tyland was the FIRST one on the small council. This wasn't too much of a problem with House of the Dragon Season 1: maybe not too many Starks, but hey, there's a Lannister on the small council we can point to. In contrast....this is more episodic. The Starks are barely in it except for Torrhen, then they utterly disappear in the Faith Militant uprising years because they follow the Old Gods. Lannisters...show up a BIT in Rhaena's side story, but don't really do that much. Let's hope that House of the Dragon gets a general audience ALSO interested in "hey, what are the Hightowers and Velaryons doing in the Conquest generation?"

That sounds like Stark talk. I don't like it. Fire & Blood alone move the wheels of history!

They might not be doing it the way we would, but it should start with the Conquest and end with the fall of Maegor - the through-line is that Visenya lives to be very old, near the end of Maegor's reign. Given GRRM said "Sons of the Dragon would be 3 books if I fully narrativized it", I think we're looking at a 5 "Act" structure: Season 1 - The Targaaryen Conquest Season 2 - First Dornish War Season 3 - The weak reign of King Aenys Season 4 - The Rise of Maegor Season 5 - the Fall of Maegor "Season 1" or "Act 1" here has the least source material by word count, and is very action heavy...so...yeah, I can see that working as a big budget movie on the scale of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Telling the whole thing in 3 hours (hopefully not less). Reasonable men might differ on this but...the idea has merit. EDIT: Thomaerys Velaryon said basically the same thing a few posts up in the thread, the difference is that he said Maegor should be a single season. I cite that GRRM said 'Sons of the Dragon is 3 books worth of story" that it has 3 "Act breaks" in it. ...MAYBE have Maegor's reign be one of those super-sized final seasons that gets split in half to functionally make two smaller seasons, like final seasons of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Mad Men, etc.

....nothing in House of the Dragon really merited a dedicated "Rant or Rave Thread Because We're So Angry About How This Went Off The Rails but We Can't Let Yelling Dominate the Entire Forum" ---- I mean there's highs and lows but overall it's been a very well received adaptation by most if not all of us. There's always a point or two to disagree with, as with anything, but nothing I need to...."veny my frustration" about to maintain my basic sanity in a world gone mad. No real need for that again.

She can CHANGE him! All he needs is her love to break through his tough exterior!

Oh yeah that was an official change. Which I disagree with. They said they wanted to contrast a "Warm" King's Landing with a colder Winterfell. Because apparently it's just those two extremes with no Temperate zone in between. SMH...

I'm sarcastically setting up dialogue from a Simpsons joke. I couldn't find a clip but here it is in text: Bart: [about Jimbo Jones] What do you like about him? He's just a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules. Lisa and Laura: [sigh wistfully] https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/New_Kid_on_the_Block/Quotes I left out the "Good looking" part because that would have made the sarcasm too obvious. And m'lord, to quote Oscar Wilde, it would be hard to find someone who was not Lord Byron's lover at the time...

I think Emily Carey mentioned rumblings about a cameo or something.