House of the Dragon Flood Gates Open

[The Bard of Banefort]

8 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I suspect it was the graphicness of Sansa's sexual assault and the fact she was a beloved character we'd watched since the actress' childhood that heavily influenced the backlash.

I am curious what will be kept and changed, though.

There’s also S4 to consider. When we last saw Sansa, she lied to the Vale lords, dyed her hair, donned a Maleficent dress and was a new woman. The year leading up to S5, media outlets kept promoting “Darth Sansa,” and we even saw that in the first few episodes. But it turned out that, nope, she’s still a victim, and now she’s wed to an even bigger psycho and spends the rest of the season locked in a rape tower. In all the defenses I’ve seen of RamSan, not a single one was ever able to make this fake-out make sense.

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

There’s also S4 to consider. When we last saw Sansa, she lied to the Vale lords, dyed her hair, donned a Maleficent dress and was a new woman. The year leading up to S5, media outlets kept promoting “Darth Sansa,” and we even saw that in the first few episodes. But it turned out that, nope, she’s still a victim, and now she’s wed to an even bigger psycho and spends the rest of the season locked in a rape tower. In all the defenses I’ve seen of RamSan, not a single one was ever able to make this fake-out make sense.

It made no sense at all that she would marry the son of the man who had betrayed and murdered her mother and brother.

I was expecting Malificent to spend Season 5 poisoning Sweetrobin.  

[Angel Eyes]

6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It made no sense at all that she would marry the son of the man who had betrayed and murdered her mother and brother.

I was expecting Malificent to spend Season 5 poisoning Sweetrobin.  

And it makes less sense for the obsessed Littlefinger to give her up like that and not to have done his research... unless it shows how much he doesn't care about her, which makes some sense.

[The Bard of Banefort]

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It made no sense at all that she would marry the son of the man who had betrayed and murdered her mother and brother.

I was expecting Malificent to spend Season 5 poisoning Sweetrobin.  

And Littlefinger’s rationale is that Stannis would take Winterfell and name her Wardeness of the North. Stannis would have declared her a traitor and executed her. If the plan was to team up with Stannis, then they should have brought the Vale army north to help Stannis take Winterfell, not marry off the last known Stark heir to the son of the man who deposed them. It was as stupid as it was offensive. 

[Angel Eyes]

Just now, The Bard of Banefort said:

And Littlefinger’s rationale is that Stannis would take Winterfell and name her Wardeness of the North. Stannis would have declared her a traitor and executed her. If the plan was to team up with Stannis, then they should have brought the Vale army north to help Stannis take Winterfell, not marry off the last known Stark heir to the son of the man who deposed them. It was as stupid as it was offensive. 

Why would Littlefinger team up with Stannis? I would imagine there's a mutual dislike between them, Stannis is the stern, mostly rigid Baratheon who banned prostitutes from Dragonstone while Littlefinger is the duplicitous schemer who operates brothels on the side.

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

And Littlefinger’s rationale is that Stannis would take Winterfell and name her Wardeness of the North. Stannis would have declared her a traitor and executed her. If the plan was to team up with Stannis, then they should have brought the Vale army north to help Stannis take Winterfell, not marry off the last known Stark heir to the son of the man who deposed them. It was as stupid as it was offensive. 

I'd excised that from my mind.  A truly bizarre explanation.  Sansa would have been feeding R'hllor's fires, as a traitor to both Stannis and her own family (as he would have seen it)

[Angel Eyes]

8 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I'd excised that from my mind.  A truly bizarre explanation.  Sansa would have been feeding R'hllor's fires, as a traitor to both Stannis and her own family (as he would have seen it)

Again, why would Stannis want to work with Littlefinger?

[Ran]

This is not a GoT thread, folks.

[Lady Anna]

After reading the whole thread, one thing I'm a bit iffy on is that quote shared by @The Bard of Banefort in regards to sexual assault on the show. Maybe it was taken out of context but it seems a bit weird considering the rightful backlash GOT had because of that type of scenes.

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, Angel Eyes said:

Why would Littlefinger team up with Stannis? I would imagine there's a mutual dislike between them, Stannis is the stern, mostly rigid Baratheon who banned prostitutes from Dragonstone while Littlefinger is the duplicitous schemer who operates brothels on the side.

Which is part of what made it so stupid.

54 minutes ago, Lady Anna said:

After reading the whole thread, one thing I'm a bit iffy on is that quote shared by @The Bard of Banefort in regards to sexual assault on the show. Maybe it was taken out of context but it seems a bit weird considering the rightful backlash GOT had because of that type of scenes.

The tweet links to the THR article, if you want to take a look. I think they were trying to say that they were going to be sensitive with how they portrayed assault, but instead it just came across like they were already trying to justify rape scenes preemptively. And like I said earlier, I don’t think HBO has earned the benefit of the doubt on this topic.

[Corvinus85]

My kindle copy of Fire & Blood changed its cover recently to a four-legged orange dragon. 

At least I still have the hardcover. Only sorcery will change that.

[TormundsWoman]

HotD - SDCC panel highlights (?)

It confirms the Hollywood Reporter earlier article reporting that they are ready to green light season 2. They seem to be pretty confident of being decently successful with the first season, since they are working already on season 2 new dragons.

[C.T. Phipps]

2 hours ago, Lady Anna said:

After reading the whole thread, one thing I'm a bit iffy on is that quote shared by @The Bard of Banefort in regards to sexual assault on the show. Maybe it was taken out of context but it seems a bit weird considering the rightful backlash GOT had because of that type of scenes.

To put it delicately, it's a series that thrived a great deal on its controversy. Game of Thrones is a series that broke a lot of molds because of the (inaccurate, reductionist) view it was "grimdark" and "fantasy for adults" that was critique of the perceived Disney-like treatment of fantasy that still hangs over a lot of the genre despite Lord of the Rings. The comment may be an attempt, badly phrased as it may be, that they will not attempt to remove the shocking and horrifying elements of the franchise that a lot of people watch for.

I never watched for sexual assault but totally was there for throwing children off towers, for example.

[C.T. Phipps]

6 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

There’s also S4 to consider. When we last saw Sansa, she lied to the Vale lords, dyed her hair, donned a Maleficent dress and was a new woman. The year leading up to S5, media outlets kept promoting “Darth Sansa,” and we even saw that in the first few episodes. But it turned out that, nope, she’s still a victim, and now she’s wed to an even bigger psycho and spends the rest of the season locked in a rape tower. In all the defenses I’ve seen of RamSan, not a single one was ever able to make this fake-out make sense.

A lot of people blame the failures of the final season on going past George R.R. Martin but I think it was a combination of other factors as well as simply bad timing (plus going against fan popular expectations). However, the choice to shunt Sansa into Jeyne Poole's role more or less ruined both Sansa and Littlefinger's arcs as the latter is made to look stupid--which is the one thing his fans would never forgive. I can understand not having much to go on for Sansa but it was a case where you couldn't substitute and mix/match.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Apparently there was an “extended trailer” shown at SDCC that will premiere tomorrow night alongside Shark Week. An odd choice, if you ask me.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Perhaps Mysaria was just a spurned lover, jealous that Daemon had abandoned her for Nettles. I don’t think that Nettles was his daughter because a) parent-child incest is the kind that even GRRM tends to shy away from, save for Craster, and b) if she wasn’t a dragonseed, then that means you don’t need to be Valyrian to tame a dragon. We know Jaehaerys was terrified of a dragon hatchling falling into another’s hands, which would suggest that he believed this was a real possibility.

I hadn’t realized that Ulf and Hugh rode Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s dragons. If that’s not symbolism, then I don’t know what is.

Since Jace persuaded his mother to make Addam heir to Driftmark rather than he or his brother, is that indication that he figured Laenor really wasn’t his father?

[C.T. Phipps]

55 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Perhaps Mysaria was just a spurned lover, jealous that Daemon had abandoned her for Nettles. I don’t think that Nettles was his daughter because a) parent-child incest is the kind that even GRRM tends to shy away from, save for Craster, and b) if she wasn’t a dragonseed, then that means you don’t need to be Valyrian to tame a dragon. We know Jaehaerys was terrified of a dragon hatchling falling into another’s hands, which would suggest that he believed this was a real possibility.

I hadn’t realized that Ulf and Hugh rode Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s dragons. If that’s not symbolism, then I don’t know what is.

Since Jace persuaded his mother to make Addam heir to Driftmark rather than he or his brother, is that indication that he figured Laenor really wasn’t his father?

It should be noted that Nettles used animal husbandry that no other Targaryen did to tame the Sheepstealer. So, yes, I wouldn't be surprised if she was not his daughter.

But I also find daughter and not lover a very real possibility.

I also see Mysaria simply being angry at Daemon abandoning her. The Shae parallels are great with her taking a position in Rhaenyra's court.

[The Wondering Wolf]

14 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

David Hounslow cast as "Lord Rickon Stark":
 

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0396577/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t38

Didn't you say the character was renamed to Rickard?

[The Dragon Demands]

He was in the subtitles...either they renamed him back, or IMDB made a mistake (they've been known to make mistakes)....and the COPYRIGHT was for "Rickard Stark"....but I honestly don't know. I'll keep an eye on this one.

[The Dragon Demands]

I've been thinking about what our schedule will look like in the next year or two:

• Production time is much longer now because they're not rushing to crank out one season per year to compete for Emmys (even GoT's final seasons simply could not keep up with that pace). Thus we have to face the major adjustment of a year and a half between seasons.
• House of the Dragon Season 1's finale is October 23, and we've heard no news of Season 2 casting yet, much less filming, so the earliest we're looking at for the Season 2 premiere is Spring 2024 (April/May). Thinking on that....let's say they greenlight filming on Season 2 right after strong ratings for the premiere, or at least by October. Casting process takes time, though it may already be ongoing behind the scenes. Then again, casting for Season 2 will be a lot less intensive than casting for Season 1, with a months-long hunt for the series leads. Seems possible that they'd cast over "winter" and start filming again by "spring to summer" (let's say "April", as this is what they did last time).  House of the Dragon Season 1 began filming in April and finished by December...or would have, if not for COVID delays (they had "two weeks of material left to film" from December to mid-February, because they kept having to stop for COVID cases). Let's generously call this "8 months of active on-location filming". Maybe 4 months of post-production work. It COULD be done by late May, but there's a non-zero chance it might take until July like Season 7 did. There are many X-factors due to ongoing supply chain issues, various delays that crop up, the unknown unknowns, etc. 
• This is pure conjecture, but at the rate he's been going, I think GRRM can't come out with the Winds of Winter earlier than Christmas 2023 to spring 2024. Safe to say it won't come out before Season 2, though possibly near the same time. "Calendar year 2023" there's no new content.
• But then we consider the Blu-ray release: all this time, I subconsciously assumed "and then we'll go over the Blu-ray contents over Christmas break"....because we're used to SPRING premieres. I googled around and it typically takes about five months after a show's season finale for a Blu-ray to come out. GoT Season 7 was an exception, it was a Summer premiere....but it was a shorter season than normal, high priority, they managed to push it out by December, in four months. Usually they'd come out in November for the Spring premieres, just in time for Black Friday weekend after Thanksgiving in the USA. Recently, Succession Season 3 finale was December 2021 and came out on Blu-ray in May 2022. So we're looking at a turnaround time of five months - ongoing supply chain issues may also be a factor. But there's no way in hell that HotD Season 1, with a finale the last week of October, is going on Blu-ray in two months, to be out by Christmas. This honestly never occurred to me before.
• So it seems likely we'll get the House of the Dragon Season 1 Blu-ray set in March 2023. This will have a LOT of information on it because it's an entirely new series - think of how important all the featurettes were in the Game of Thrones Season 1 Blu-ray set. I'd say we'd get one month of heavy analysis discussion out of that, maybe even tapering off to two months. Think March to May, we're going over the Blu-ray stuff.
• While multiple spinoff projects are in development, none of the live-action ones have been greenlit until HotD Season 1 does well, they'd need to do casting and filming, so it's doubtful any other spinoffs would be out in Calendar year 2023.
• No new text based books, only calendars and artbooks....what's the working title for that "collection of character bios" Elio & Linda are working on, and the projected release date? (World of Ice & Fire was originally going to be a collection of bios, not unlike character profiles on the World of Ice & Fire app, but moreso).

So the schedule we're looking at is:

• August 21 - October 23: live premieres of House of the Dragon Season 1
• It's difficult to predict how much lingering post-season discussion we'll get out of it, but I would think a lot of heavy activity at least through the end of Christmas break. As the world catches up, viewers who were afraid to come back watch through word of mouth; people who DID NOT prepare for this prequel pick up Fire & Blood. Oh...and a few people who will even buy Fire & Blood for Christmas and actually read it. But "processing Season 1" could take us through mid-January, end of Christmas break.
• We SHOULD start getting some casting info for Season 2 by January to March, if not earlier. 
• Season 2 filming should start up around April. If it's anything like Season 1...there was intense exterior filming in April to May and September to November, but a lull in the summer months of June to August.
• The Season 1 Blu-ray set should come out around March 2023, and could generously provide us with maybe one to two months of hardcore analysis. 
• IF - big "if" - their filming schedule is similar to Season 1...we might be facing a but of a slump from June to August of next year. But then filming news would pick up again in Autumn (early September through early December).  
• If we're looking at an April premiere....when did we usually start seeing teasers for the new seasons? Three months before? By December we'd be close enough to Season 2 that "season 2 speculation and promos" would once again be buzz-worthy and fuel online discussion. 

Conclusion: June-July-August of next year might be a lull in news, though it would be a great chance to finally do a line by line slow re-read of Fire & Blood, reading the print off it to speculate on Season 2 down to minute details. Though I intend to start on that as soon as we've "finished analyzing Season 1" ----then again with a new show, season 1 analysis takes much longer, that might extend beyond January up to the Blu-ray release itself. 

That's a problem you want to have. 

In which case, might not get back to hardcore Fire & Blood analysis until June. Season 2 probably won't go beyond the next two chapters after that, but they're dense. But that is THE long-term "project" for next year: heavy book re-reading....around the Summer.