House of the Dragon Flood Gates Open

[dsjj251]

10 hours ago, zajaz said:

So if the Jon Snow spin-off writers came along and said that Arianne existed this whole time, as Doran's daughter, that should be fine, right? They are different writers, and they get to change things as they see fit, no? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it.

As for Jaehaerys II not existing, seeing as Aemon said that Aegon was succeded by his son Aerys, it's obvious that (at the very least), Jaehaerys either was Aerys' elder brother that died before Aegon, or he did not exist in the first place. In both cases, Jaehaerys II's reign is not part of the show canon.

Then again, the writers could simply say: 'While maester Aemon the Senile kind of forgot that Aerys was his brother's grandson and not his son, we certainly haven't forgotten that fact'.

Arianne existing would be a giant change, if she actually would be the same Arianne from the books. reincluding Jaehaerys II is reconning like 2 lines. 

[Lord Varys]

20 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

Re: Hobart Hightower, my guess is they'll just take the Hobart Hightower that exists in F&B and make him the Lord of Oldtown. The Hightower family tree circa the Dance is very complicated/unclear, so combining some characters would make sense. 

It is Hobert Hightower.

Wouldn't make much sense in this context, since Otto's elder brother is going to die (long) before the Dance and Ser Hobert Hightower is the ineffective guy who takes over the Hightower army at Tumbleton after Lord Ormund Hightower, Otto's nephew, is killed in battle.

There is no chance that they can be the same person, nor is there any chance that the plot could have a Hightower army under the command of an ineffective general until after First Tumbleton. Also no chance that Daeron the Daring is that general instead since his plot is that he isn't an effective leader, either, but rather a youth who is pushed around by the Two Betrayers.

Also - kind of obvious that Otto's elder brother, the Lord of Oldtown, has to be dead and gone by the time of the Dance - or else he would be honor-bound to uphold his vow to defend Rhaenyra's right to throne. But the Lord of Oldtown is not going to do that. We are likely going to see a considerable number of important lords to swear the vow ... and then some of them will die, allowing their sons to take a different route. We are going to get that for the Lannister twins, Borros Baratheon, and also Hobert Hightower's son Ormund.

3 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

Must be really stuck in his craw if he wants them to change a detail that won't even be relevant to the upcoming spinoff. 

I guess it is the context that matters there. It is kind of silly to make a big show about the core dynasty of ASoIaF ... and then garble the family tree.

3 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

That said, there's really no reason you couldn't just make Aerys the fourth son of Aegon V and swap out Shaera for Rhaella. The generations are so compressed at that point, it wouldn't really make a difference. 

Pretty clear that it is going to turn out that Jaehaerys II is one of the most important Targaryens in recent history. He is the guy who believed in the prophecy about the promised prince to the point that he forced Aerys and Rhaella to marry. That is something that couldn't happen in a show version where the character is missing or reimagined as an elder brother of Aerys and Rhaella because Rhaegar is born at Summerhall, i.e. at a time when Aegon V still sits the throne, so a Jaehaerys II who was Aerys and Rhaella's elder brother could never force them to marry. That's something only a father could do.

All that makes it pretty likely we are going to get flashbacks to/memories of the dwarf woman's prophecy about the promised prince and how the marriage came about.

And the might be more to this, of course. This is a character who affected and influenced key elements in the main story ... whereas most of the other Targaryen kings are dead and done history at that point - Aerys II, Jaehaerys II, and Aegon V aren't.

23 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Also, D&D really did screw over a lot of actors and creative types beyond just the bad ending. They made a lot of questionable decisions even if kicking them while they're down is low hanging fruit.

It is kind of obvious that they spit on the source material. I mean, this started as an alleged faithful adaptation, and then we get ... all the shit we got.

[Ran]

4 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

They were all too high-profile at the time to throw away new opportunities for a show that had already been ongoing for years.

Were they really? Most of them have not been all that busy.

To me, the fact that HBO certainly believed the show could have run longer meant that they also believed the actors were likely able to be convinced to stay on board.

I'm not sure about the hysterics over George's remark. We knew already that he felt the show should run longer (HBO was on his side, but let D&D decide), we know that his last script had a number of changes made to it almost entirely aimed at setting up their shorter run plans, and we know George was finding the increasingly-diverging story difficult to be involved in.

I can well believe they decided for a variety of reasons to not consult George in the final seasons, for reasons both good and bad. I fully expect that they didn't want to get repeated push back from him on their sticking to their plans for a shorter run than what George thought sound, and that they wanted to own the story at the end. 

But just to underscore, during the 7th season, George, David, and Dan got along personally. George invited them to his party at Worldcon, and they hung out with a bunch of fans and George. I chatted with George, Dan, and another writer for a bit at one point, and George and Dan seemed on very good terms. Things were cool. Whatever professional disagreements they had were not, at the time, causing any interpersonal friction that I could see.

Its certainly possible that the backlash at the final season has changed the dynamic in some ways -- George may feel a bit vindicated in thinking they needed more time to setup the end of the show, HBO may be wincing and hoping it doesn't negatively impact HotD's fortunes over much (I don't think it will), and of course we've read how HBO has now invested George with a much bigger say in future projects after seemingly having joined D&D in sidelining him on the initial batch of successors -- but I don't think there's any reason to make more of it than what's been said already. They worked together closely to begin with, less so later, the reasons aren't entirely clear for George or he feels it's not his place to speak for them, and that's it.