House of the Dragon Flood Gates Open

[C.T. Phipps]

We we actually believing an unbroken line exists of this secret? I was assuming it was almost certainly a lost secret between generations.

[Denam_Pavel]

6 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

We we actually believing an unbroken line exists of this secret? I was assuming it was almost certainly a lost secret between generations.

It should be lost almost immediately. If we are gonna learn about it, I guess he must have told Visenya, so Bran or someone else in a dream can witness him talking about it at all. Visenya may have told Maegor who didn't care. If Jaehaerys knew and took it seriously, Barth, Alysanne, Baelon, Aemon, Viserys and Rhaenyra would also know at the very least and so would we by now, we have had three tellings of Rhaenyra's life, having this be a motivation for her taking throne should really be offered at least as a possibility by now.

[chrisdaw]

39 minutes ago, Denam_Pavel said:

Them being lost as to where to begin when it comes to preparing for whatever form the threat would take is fair enough.

It's the successfully held royal secret part of this theory that doesn't seem all that likely to me. All these people prove themselves to the man, terrible secretkeepers throughout F&B. King's Landing is always presented a terrible place for keeping secrets for any amount of time. Jaehaerys imparts any number of embarrassing secrets about his daughters, his marriage and his relationship with his lords to his best friend Barth who would writes just about everything down. The other Septons, the grandmaesters and Mushrooms likewise unearth tons of sordid secrets about these people that they'd rather not get out. Robert's court is just the same. There are tons of secrets running around that could get tons of people killed, but nobody is successful in keeping it to their chosen secretkeepers for any amount of time. But in this no one evidently balked, not to anyone, no matter how drunk, depressed, hysterical or senile any of them got.

Passing on this notion of what Aegon conquered the Seven Kingdoms for could only have existed as an empty ritual between the king and the heir that not one person after Aegon I, cared one iota about, if that.

I don't think it did successfully work. I think it's also going to be a situation where some Targs give it a lot more credence than others, probably based on what they're dreaming, and non Targs who overhear it just ignore it and put it down to ramblings. What they do in the show won't necessarily be what we get in the book so I'm not going to assume it's passed down orally, there is after all in world a lost book of Daenys the Dreamer's dreams which at this stage would you doubt is going to have passages concerning TWFTD, TPTWP and a 3 headed dragon in it?

[Denam_Pavel]

5 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

I don't think it did successfully work. I think it's also going to be a situation where some Targs give it a lot more credence than others, probably based on what they're dreaming, and non Targs who overhear it just ignore it and put it down to ramblings. What they do in the show won't necessarily be what we get in the book so I'm not going to assume it's passed down orally, there is after all in world a lost book of Daenys the Dreamer's dreams which at this stage would you doubt is going to have passages concerning TWFTD, TPTWP and a 3 headed dragon in it?

The Prince who was Promised and the three headed dragon sure, Aemon connects the The War For the Dawn to the Prince Who Was Promised, so this too must be written down somewhere. Only Melisandre explicietly connects it to the Others though, if anyone did the same before it was lost to time.

[C.T. Phipps]

20 minutes ago, Denam_Pavel said:

It should be lost almost immediately. If we are gonna learn about it, I guess he must have told Visenya, so Bran or someone else in a dream can witness him talking about it at all. Visenya may have told Maegor who didn't care. If Jaehaerys knew and took it seriously, Barth, Alysanne, Baelon, Aemon, Viserys and Rhaenyra would also know at the very least and so would we by now, we have had three tellings of Rhaenyra's life, having this be a motivation for her taking throne should really be offered at least as a possibility by now.

I think Rhaenyra knowing it as passing it down to the heir of the line and no one else makes sense. However, there's a sudden massive dearth of Targaryens anyway. It might also actually fit House of the Dragon that Otto Hightower doesn't understand WHY Viserys won't make Aegon II his heir but the answer is that Viserys thinks that Aegon II is unfit to protect the kingdom from the Others.

Rhaenys may actually know the truth as well.

However, both she and Rhaenyra die without ever sharing the secret with Aegon III.

[Denam_Pavel]

5 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I think Rhaenyra knowing it as passing it down to the heir of the line and no one else makes sense. However, there's a sudden massive dearth of Targaryens anyway. It might also actually fit House of the Dragon that Otto Hightower doesn't understand WHY Viserys won't make Aegon II his heir but the answer is that Viserys thinks that Aegon II is unfit to protect the kingdom from the Others.

Rhaenys may actually know the truth as well.

However, both she and Rhaenyra die without ever sharing the secret with Aegon III.

In House of the Dragon, sure, go nuts. In the books, Jaehaerys and Viserys didn't particularly rely on Rhaenys as a close counsel. Vaegon who Jaehaerys completely deferred to on the matter of succession would've known long before Rhaenys, and he sticks around for decades.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, C.T. Phipps said:

We we actually believing an unbroken line exists of this secret? I was assuming it was almost certainly a lost secret between generations.

At the very least, I would assume that Aegon IV either didn't know or didn't care about it.

[C.T. Phipps]

1 hour ago, Denam_Pavel said:

In House of the Dragon, sure, go nuts. In the books, Jaehaerys and Viserys didn't particularly rely on Rhaenys as a close counsel. Vaegon who Jaehaerys completely deferred to on the matter of succession would've known long before Rhaenys, and he sticks around for decades.

True but Rhaenys mother might have actually passed it down. We shouldn't forget that Alysane might well know.

[Denam_Pavel]

2 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

True but Rhaenys mother might have actually passed it down. We shouldn't forget that Alysane might well know.

Rhaenys' mother was Jocelyn Baratheon, that seems like a very unlikely candidate as the only non Targaryan to be let in on the secret. One of the Hands of the King or a grandmaester tasked with instructing the heir seem much more likely.

[C.T. Phipps]

11 minutes ago, Denam_Pavel said:

Rhaenys' mother was Jocelyn Baratheon, that seems like a very unlikely candidate as the only non Targaryan to be let in on the secret. One of the Hands of the King or a grandmaester tasked with instructing the heir seem much more likely.

Sorry, I screwed that sentence up. Never write while eating an egg macmuffin.

[Lord Varys]

10 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I think that rather greatly overestimates how much power Peake possesses as we see from his catastrophic fall from grace soon after. Aegon III was always a countdown until the time that he assumed true power as the King of Westeros and the moment he did, the regents utterly failed. As we see with Peake's "resignation" being so easily accepted, he was already someone who wasn't going to last long.

Peake didn't really 'fall' ... he himself was stupid enough to offer his resignation as Hand, and the regents accepted it. He miscalculated there. In turn, though, his power only began to erode because Alyn Velaryon had success in the west, was able to return Viserys to court, and Baela and Rhaena were able to install Daenaera Velaryon as the new queen.

If Peake had successfully installed Myrielle as the new queen, Aegon may have never gotten out of his clutches, not even as an adult. Aegon III tried to involve himself more in the government of the Realm, attending the council sessions, etc. ... but when Peake showed his disapproval he didn't put his foot down. He just didn't come back again.

10 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I also feel like Aegon III is underestimated for just how much of a dragon he was on the inside (as much as he'd hate that comparison). His handling of the secret siege and all his former oppressors was courageous as well as noble. He also smart enough to see through false confessions--something we struggle with today.

Aegon III can lead and command when he has to, but it is clear that he has to be surrounded by people he trusts and who care for him to develop that strength.

8 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

I'm sure this is just a mistake on the artist's side. It's not the only time that the illustrations don't match the book descriptions. Viserys still has all his fingers, the riders of Vhagar and Arrax have the wrong hair colour, Thaddeus Rowan is described as bald but has hair, and so on.

This is a rather striking mistake, though. You don't have to be deep in the matter to know that Larra's brother should look like her rather than some exotic foreigner who isn't related to her at all ... and who looks like a clichéd oriental.

6 hours ago, SeanF said:

I imagine that the general view in this world is that “real” sex requires a man, and that sexual activity between women is not thought terribly important.  A nobleman might get enraged at the thought of his wife sleeping with another man, while not caring very much what she does with handmaidens.

That is basically how love among women was considered is patriarchal cultures. Once it messes with traditional gender roles it is a problem, but sexual acts or sexual/romantic attraction as such were not vilified. They were rather ignored, not even seen, etc.

We see this kind of thing with George's depiction of Rhaena and her circle. The issue is not so much that she has sex with women, but her mother disapproves of the favors and signs of public affection she grants her close friends, Elissa's brother disapproves of the notion that she would refuse to marry and thus not do her duty as a noblewoman.

Rhaena herself had no problem with her family when she married Aegon because she did her duty and thus they apparently allowed her to do what she liked if it didn't defy convention too much.

In general, though, I think we should also not construe knights as 'gay' who might use a squire to get a handjob in camp when there are no female camp followers around. This would be men exploiting servants - like kind of did with Irri - not a sign of erotic or sexual attraction.

In our modern world we don't have body slaves or servants who obey our every whim ... but in a society where this is the case there are considerable differences between 'real people/human beings' and commoditites you use and abuse as you see fit.

I'm personally looking forward to how Jon and Satin's relationship is going to develop in this regard. I could see them ending up in a kind closer relationship if Satin were the guy caring for Jon's body and, especially, him after body and spirit have been reunited and the guy is more wolf than man for a time.

6 hours ago, Denam_Pavel said:

It's the successfully held royal secret part of this theory that doesn't seem all that likely to me. All these people prove themselves to the man, terrible secretkeepers throughout F&B. King's Landing is always presented a terrible place for keeping secrets for any amount of time. Jaehaerys imparts any number of embarrassing secrets about his daughters, his marriage and his relationship with his lords to his best friend Barth who would writes just about everything down. The other Septons, the grandmaesters and Mushrooms likewise unearth tons of sordid secrets about these people that they'd rather not get out. Robert's court is just the same. There are tons of secrets running around that could get tons of people killed, but nobody is successful in keeping it to their chosen secretkeepers for any amount of time. But in this no one evidently balked, not to anyone, no matter how drunk, depressed, hysterical or senile any of them got.

Passing on this notion of what Aegon conquered the Seven Kingdoms for could only have existed as an empty ritual between the king and the heir that not one person after Aegon I, cared one iota about, if that.

In the book context it is not surprising that a Targaryen fanboy maester historian is not going to cover their more esoteric/superstitious mad beliefs ... even if he had access to documents indicating that they believed in stuff like the Others.

If you check the books then the weirdo prophetic/magical beliefs of certain characters also mostly take behind closed doors. Even the king with a sorceress as mistress/closest advisor doesn't talk prophecy and magic all the time with all his other advisors/supporters. Rhaegar's prophetic beliefs aren't things many people talk about openly and it is not clear to the informed public to what degree his decisions were influenced by prophetic beliefs.

The way to look at this wouldn't be 'there being a secret kept among the core members of House Targaryen' but rather a weirdo prophetic belief only being shared with those members of House Targaryen who were considered to be willing to take such matters seriously.

The leaks indicate that Daemon isn't kept in the dark because it would only be shared with the heir ... but that he wasn't considered to be serious enough to be trusted with such a knowledge - because he wouldn't believe or care about it, anyway.

If we go back to Aegon the Conqueror - he would have shared his dream with both his sister-wives and, perhaps, with other close advisors as well (Orys Baratheon, Daemon Velaryon). Once Aegon had two sons and a growing number of grandchildren he would have shared this information with them as well, especially the elder grandchildren who would succeed Aenys one day. If Aegon had conquered Westeros to prepare the continent for the Others then it would have greatly mattered to him that his successors understood this.

Jaehaerys and Alysanne may have had slightly different priorities, considering that there were little to no developments at that front, but one would imagine they would have also shared this knowledge with their immediate heirs. As did Viserys later on.

Realistically one would assume that Aegon may have thought that this danger from the north would come in his lifetime, or in the lifetime of his immediate successors. When nothing at all happened in that regard during the reign of Jaehaerys the prospect of this danger may have been pushed further and further into the background. In fact, in an odd way the way Viserys in the show might deal with this is akin to how Westeros as a whole views the NW and the Wall. They kind of maintain both out of tradition and a supersitious fear ... but it isn't exactly the most important thing in their life.

For Viserys it seems to boil down to the political guideline of keeping the Realm intact so they can take on this danger together if the need arises. It isn't more than that.

[SeanF]

32 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

 

That is basically how love among women was considered is patriarchal cultures. Once it messes with traditional gender roles it is a problem, but sexual acts or sexual/romantic attraction as such were not vilified. They were rather ignored, not even seen, etc.

We see this kind of thing with George's depiction of Rhaena and her circle. The issue is not so much that she has sex with women, but her mother disapproves of the favors and signs of public affection she grants her close friends, Elissa's brother disapproves of the notion that she would refuse to marry and thus not do her duty as a noblewoman.

Rhaena herself had no problem with her family when she married Aegon because she did her duty and thus they apparently allowed her to do what she liked if it didn't defy convention too much.

In general, though, I think we should also not construe knights as 'gay' who might use a squire to get a handjob in camp when there are no female camp followers around. This would be men exploiting servants - like kind of did with Irri - not a sign of erotic or sexual attraction.

In our modern world we don't have body slaves or servants who obey our every whim ... but in a society where this is the case there are considerable differences between 'real people/human beings' and commoditites you use and abuse as you see fit.

 

Scarcely any POV character regards the smallfolk as human beings.

No one present considers Mycah to be human, for example, other than Ned and Arya, and only Arya gets really indignant over his murder.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Does anyone know when the review embargo for HOTD will be lifted?

[The Dragon Demands]

On 8/6/2022 at 6:53 PM, Ran said:

Admittedly, I think they could totally make something fun of the regency of Aegon III, and that could add a year or two.

But then there is apparently the floated idea of turning it into an anthology show and just using the same title while exploring some other period of Targaryen history.

That defeats the purpose of a separate pitch for Targaryen Conquest.

but once season one is a hit, all prior statements are irrelevant 

[Bael's Bastard]

I have a feeling HOTD is going to be our best chance to see pre-GOT history depicted in any way.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

27 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

I have a feeling HOTD is going to be our best chance to see pre-GOT history depicted in any way.

That depends on whether Dunk and Egg gets made or not.

[The Bard of Banefort]

If they really are going to do one book per novella (which doesn’t sound plausible, but whatever), then it might be that they’re only going to cover the early years of DnE, while Egg is still a squire. That could be a nice change, and it would mean that we might get a few more novellas after all. 

Were there other successful prequels beyond BCS and Star Wars? (SW was a commercial success, if not a critical one).

[C.T. Phipps]

13 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

If they really are going to do one book per novella (which doesn’t sound plausible, but whatever), then it might be that they’re only going to cover the early years of DnE, while Egg is still a squire. That could be a nice change, and it would mean that we might get a few more novellas after all. 

Were there other successful prequels beyond BCS and Star Wars? (SW was a commercial success, if not a critical one).

I mean, it really depends on how much Dunk and Egg material is available by the time that they decide to start production as well as how they're going to expand it or not. They're much-much more focused series than ASOIF and F&B so it would be either a series with a very different feel from the others or they would have to fill in the blanks massively and make them about other characters as well.

As for Star Wars, the The Clone Wars were a critical success as well as commercial.

We also have Enterprise and Strange New Worlds for the Star Trek franchise.

But the all-time most successful prequel seems to be Better Call Saul, both artistically and from the perspective of the creators.

[The Dragon Demands]

Actress Alana Ramsey has been cast...as "Lynesse Hightower" 
 

 

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I mean, it really depends on how much Dunk and Egg material is available by the time that they decide to start production as well as how they're going to expand it or not. They're much-much more focused series than ASOIF and F&B so it would be either a series with a very different feel from the others or they would have to fill in the blanks massively and make them about other characters as well.

As for Star Wars, the The Clone Wars were a critical success as well as commercial.

We also have Enterprise and Strange New Worlds for the Star Trek franchise.

But the all-time most successful prequel seems to be Better Call Saul, both artistically and from the perspective of the creators.

I love Clone Wars. I’ve never been a Trekkie, so I have no idea what order the shows are in haha.

I think DnE would have the potential to pull in new fans who were never into GOT, especially if they nail the casting. I don’t think it would ever be as popular as GOT or (presumably) HOTD though. Then again, it might not need to be, since there would be no dragons or White Walkers to eat up the budget.

It sounds like HBO is drastically downsizing their animation department, which means the animated prequels will be a lot less likely. And that is a shame, since I think that would be a good avenue for a Valyria show.