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9 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

 

I saw your post on YouTube where you said something about how you know some reporters who don’t want to cover the show. Why not?

Oh I'll talk more about this later but it's not a spoiler or leak it's just...

I talked to one freelancer journalist I know (and then some others who said the same thing)....who said that they're having a REALLY hard time pitching articles to mainstream TV news sites about House of the Dragon. NOT even "comparisons with Game of Thrones" or "what went wrong with Game of Thrones" articles. I'm talking basic, "hey, can we do a character profile article on Rhaenyra and Alicent to introduce new viewers?"....they're getting shot down.  News sites are doing the most simplistic, bare-bones reporting on "there's a show called House of the Dragon" and then copy-pasting the same description template, but - for the most part - putting no effort into it.

MOST of them expect House of the Dragon to fail, and have decided there's no interest in it....even though, objectively, there are analytics showing that say, IMDb's site traffic rankings officially listed it as the most anticipated new show of the year, OVER Lord of the Rings prequel, Sandman, or Star Wars/Marvel projects.  Simply looking at GOOGLE TRENDS, a readily available tool, there are charts showing how much more it's being searched online than those other shows. 

Nonetheless, MOST mainstream news sites are...still so bitter about Game of Thrones that they "rage-quit".  

Which is annoying for us: They wouldn't report on how the show was going bad from Season 5 onwards, BRUSHED OFF our complaints about the Season 5 abandoning the books....then when Season 8 was rock bottom bad....they didn't turn around and go "let's analyze what went wrong".  These aren't people who analyze things - if they did, they wouldn't have stayed hyped after Season 5 and ignored our warnings and complaints.

YES there are a few exceptions with news sites that have relationships with HBO like Entertainment Weekly or Hollywood Reporter but....most aren't promoting this at all.

It's an odd mirror of how no one wanted to report on Game of Thrones Season 1 in the leadup to it in 2011, because it's "just a silly fantasy show".

These conversations I had with reporters about the behind the scenes bias against House of the Dragon were....were sobering. Made me realize how much of an uphill battle this show has.

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15 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

He is from the Dornish Marches, which is on the border between the Stormlands and Dorne, so it's not a big deal.

We know so little of House Cole that the bio on HBO doesn't really sound odd at all if it's an addition to the character. The Coles aren't mentioned at all before Criston('s father), so perhaps he was a man recently raised to nobility from being a commoner like Janos Slynt. And some marriages between the Stormlands Dornish Marches and Dorne itself to forge peace would absolutely make sense, as well as if Criston's perhaps common-born father was already in a love match with a traveling Dornish woman when raised to nobility, etc.

In any case, book!Criston was raised to the Kingsguard for martial reasons. The Coles in general seemed beneath notice as a vassal of a vassal of a great house.

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10 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Wasn't it because Emilia Clarke struggled with contact lenses on GoT?

No idea. She is not in HotD, so no reason to drop the eyes because of her.

And there are ways to to digitally recolor eyes. That is why I hope that there will be a fanedit doing just that. This is a special effects show, after all, and it is ridiculous to assume that they can create dragons and whatnot ... but not purple eyes.

Yennefer looks gorgeous with her purple eyes in 'The Witcher'. If they can do it, so can everybody else.

Hell, they could have given all the characters from GoT their proper eye color. Tyrion his mismatched eyes, the Lannisters their green eyes, the Baratheons their blue eyes, the Starks their grey eyes, etc.

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4 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Milly Alcock and Olivia Cooke are arguably the most photogenic members of the cast, so that's not surprising.

I thought we would see more of Matt Smith's Daemon by this point, though.

Honestly, yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. I wonder if it bothers the other two actresses though. 

Matt Smith has a lot going for him, but I don’t think most people would consider him very photogenic. He’s also not that well-known in the US. Maybe he features more prominently in the UK marketing. 
 

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I can’t tell if this is satire or not. If it is, it’s pretty funny. If not. . . 
 

 

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

No idea. She is not in HotD, so no reason to drop the eyes because of her.

And there are ways to to digitally recolor eyes. That is why I hope that there will be a fanedit doing just that. This is a special effects show, after all, and it is ridiculous to assume that they can create dragons and whatnot ... but not purple eyes.

Yennefer looks gorgeous with her purple eyes in 'The Witcher'. If they can do it, so can everybody else.

Hell, they could have given all the characters from GoT their proper eye color. Tyrion his mismatched eyes, the Lannisters their green eyes, the Baratheons their blue eyes, the Starks their grey eyes, etc.

Someone should ask Ryan Condal about this at a future convention. I could see digital eye colors being something that was considered but discarded in favor of enlarging the dragon budget.

8 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Oh I'll talk more about this later but it's not a spoiler or leak it's just...

I talked to one freelancer journalist I know (and then some others who said the same thing)....who said that they're having a REALLY hard time pitching articles to mainstream TV news sites about House of the Dragon. NOT even "comparisons with Game of Thrones" or "what went wrong with Game of Thrones" articles. I'm talking basic, "hey, can we do a character profile article on Rhaenyra and Alicent to introduce new viewers?"....they're getting shot down.  News sites are doing the most simplistic, bare-bones reporting on "there's a show called House of the Dragon" and then copy-pasting the same description template, but - for the most part - putting no effort into it.

MOST of them expect House of the Dragon to fail, and have decided there's no interest in it....even though, objectively, there are analytics showing that say, IMDb's site traffic rankings officially listed it as the most anticipated new show of the year, OVER Lord of the Rings prequel, Sandman, or Star Wars/Marvel projects.  Simply looking at GOOGLE TRENDS, a readily available tool, there are charts showing how much more it's being searched online than those other shows. 

Nonetheless, MOST mainstream news sites are...still so bitter about Game of Thrones that they "rage-quit".  

Which is annoying for us: They wouldn't report on how the show was going bad from Season 5 onwards, BRUSHED OFF our complaints about the Season 5 abandoning the books....then when Season 8 was rock bottom bad....they didn't turn around and go "let's analyze what went wrong".  These aren't people who analyze things - if they did, they wouldn't have stayed hyped after Season 5 and ignored our warnings and complaints.

YES there are a few exceptions with news sites that have relationships with HBO like Entertainment Weekly or Hollywood Reporter but....most aren't promoting this at all.

It's an odd mirror of how no one wanted to report on Game of Thrones Season 1 in the leadup to it in 2011, because it's "just a silly fantasy show".

These conversations I had with reporters about the behind the scenes bias against House of the Dragon were....were sobering. Made me realize how much of an uphill battle this show has.

I think that HBO needs to win back viewers after what happened with GOT. I’ve said before that even as a bitter book fan, I was taken aback by how much show fans turned on S8. D&D are name-checked constantly in the comments for HOTD trailers. Then there’s the RT audience scores, IMDb, etc. It’s crazy how big the shift was. I’ve seen a surprising number of people say they’re going to wait until the end of the season to find out if they should watch it. There are also a lot of comments about how people “invested a decade of their life” in GOT, which is a really strange way to view a TV show, even if I understand it in spite of myself.

I think that with reporters, a number of them were stung by the stans on social media, who could be more than a little intense. I remember when The Bells premiered, Joanna Robinson tweeted something along the lines of “My heart goes out to all the Dany stans tonight, including the ones who told me to kill myself over the years. It sucks to have your god killed.” I think the zeitgeist around GOT just got to be too intense for some of the people who covered the show professionally. It’s one of the many bizarre parts of today’s fan culture.

If HOTD is a hit, outlets will start covering it, just like with any other show. (Although I also wonder if some people looked up Rhaenyra on the wiki and were discouraged when they found out how her story ends. It really is remarkably similar to Dany’s).

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6 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Milly Alcock and Olivia Cooke are arguably the most photogenic members of the cast, so that's not surprising.

I thought we would see more of Matt Smith's Daemon by this point, though.

Yeah, on the female spectrum. On the male spectrum they have Fabian (Cole). 
 

The rest are all surprisingly unattractive. Not that that is wrong, I’m not a shallow person. It just that those three are on a different tier.

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31 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Better than Breaking Bad? That's some high praise indeed. :unsure:

In retrospect BB wasn’t that good, especially after watching BCS. 
 

Yeah it had better writing overall compared to GOT but it was very plot heavy leaning on unrealistic surprises and artificial cliff hangers. 
 

The prestige Television of that era, the Sopranos, Mad Men, the Wire, etc. were all better. 
 

BB was closer to early Walking Dead, Dexter, and Thrones. The difference was Breaking Bad called it quits before it got bad and overextended the story so it’s remembered more fondly. 
 

The other three went on for 8+ seasons and screwed the pooch.

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11 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

In retrospect BB wasn’t that good, especially after watching BCS. 

The prestige Television of that era, the Sopranos, Mad Men, the Wire, etc. were all better. 

It's all subjective, of course. But if HotD is even remotely close to any of these shows in terms of quality, then HBO have nothing to worry about.

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17 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

In retrospect BB wasn’t that good, especially after watching BCS. 
 

Yeah it had better writing overall compared to GOT but it was very plot heavy leaning on unrealistic surprises and artificial cliff hangers. 
 

The prestige Television of that era, the Sopranos, Mad Men, the Wire, etc. were all better. 
 

BB was closer to early Walking Dead, Dexter, and Thrones. The difference was Breaking Bad called it quits before it got bad and overextended the story so it’s remembered more fondly. 
 

The other three went on for 8+ seasons and screwed the pooch.

I’ve heard so much about how Breaking Bad is the GREATEST SHOW EVER that it has actually made me not want to watch it because I’m so tired of hearing about it. 

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3 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I’ve heard so much about how Breaking Bad is the GREATEST SHOW EVER that it has actually made me not want to watch it because I’m so tired of hearing about it. 

I do think it’s very good, but I’d hesitate to call it the greatest ever - and there are parts that drag.

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3 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I’ve heard so much about how Breaking Bad is the GREATEST SHOW EVER that it has actually made me not want to watch it because I’m so tired of hearing about it. 

The cinematographer got really pretentious after a while. The camera angles were trying to be really evocative and powerful but put attention onto scenes that were not in of themselves deserving of that attention. 
 

It created the illusion of psychological depth whereas the story was more focused on surprising twists and turns that toyed with the viewer. 
 

Better Call Saul which incidentally has stronger thematic elements does not need to rely on these gimmicks as much, but that show too has it’s own flaws. 
 

But yeah, the groupies all thought it was comparable to the greatest literature of the modern era, probably due to the aesthetic manipulations that suggested something more than what there was. 

The Salamanca Twins crawl through the desert was the most miserable experience of my life, but it was so long and monotonous I think viewers had to convince themselves they were watch ‘art’ to rationalize their own suffering. And to buy what they themselves were selling required them to convince everyone else how great it is and how completely absent of flaws it was.

3 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

It's all subjective, of course. But if HotD is even remotely close to any of these shows in terms of quality, then HBO have nothing to worry about.

Definitely, I’d be surprise if it’s up to season 1-4 quality of GOT.

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1 hour ago, butterweedstrover said:

The cinematographer got really pretentious after a while. The camera angles were trying to be really evocative and powerful but put attention onto scenes that were not in of themselves deserving of that attention. 
 

It created the illusion of psychological depth whereas the story was more focused on surprising twists and turns that toyed with the viewer. 
 

Better Call Saul which incidentally has stronger thematic elements does not need to rely on these gimmicks as much, but that show too has it’s own flaws. 
 

But yeah, the groupies all thought it was comparable to the greatest literature of the modern era, probably due to the aesthetic manipulations that suggested something more than what there was. 

The Salamanca Twins crawl through the desert was the most miserable experience of my life, but it was so long and monotonous I think viewers had to convince themselves they were watch ‘art’ to rationalize their own suffering. And to buy what they themselves were selling required them to convince everyone else how great it is and how completely absent of flaws it was.

Definitely, I’d be surprise if it’s up to season 1-4 quality of GOT.

There are a bunch of other great shows that I wish received more attention: Deadwood, Six Feet Under (which had the best finale I’ve ever seen), Friday Night Lights (which had the best pilot I’ve ever seen). All three had small budgets and got by on the talent of their casts and especially their screenwriters. Hell, I’d put Mindhunter up there too based on what we’ve seen so far. I hope they eventually come back for another season.

Now that I think about it, Deadwood was an historical show that handled sexual assault way better than GOT did. It had its own fair share of sexposition (i.e. the blowjob monologues) but at least three of the main female characters were SA survivors (and the fourth barely escaped a rape attempt at one point) yet it never felt titillating or outrageous. It just goes to show how you can have “the dark side of human nature” without turning into torture porn. (Also, the women had armpit hair. Guarantee we won’t see that in HOTD).

By the way, I just wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading your throw downs on the HOTD subreddit :D You make a lot of good points and that sub is weirdly cultish.

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I'll be honest that I'm hoping for this show's full success as much as possible. There was almost no interest in the show at Grimdark Magazine where I do writing and I've been doing every single article I can plus also trying to persuade other people to give it a try because I want Westeros to continue as a part of television for decades to come. Yeah, I hated what happened after Season 5 but I don't let that spoil my love of everything good.

It's why I want a proper Mass Effect 4.

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On 7/31/2022 at 7:44 AM, C.T. Phipps said:

I think whether it's a good plotline or not, it's pretty clear it's canon to George's view.

It also makes it very likely a pivotal moment of Westeros going horribly wrong is Rhaenyra knows she's the Defense of the World against the zombie apocalypse but Aegon II never learns because he kills her before she can pass it along to Aegon III.

It could also make the Jacaerys plotline in the North more interesting. As the heir, his mother may have told him the truth of the matter. So when he goes to appeal to Cregan Stark, there's further reason to make the Pact of Ice and Fire. It's not just about protecting the throne for Rhaenyra, but about protecting the North when the Others come. This is mostly speculation, of course, but it's interesting to think on,.

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