the next House of the Dragon thread

[Ran]

I think what critics look for is not necessarily what Linda and I look for! It feels like Westeros to us, and that's good enough in some ways. And since we have no problems with the names or  telling people apart, we don't run into those issues that some critics have.

To me "sexposition" was like the scene in the first scene with Ros and the other prostitute having sex while Littlefinger had his monologue, and from the first six episodes there's nothing like that. People have sex, and then they talk. Or they talk, and then they have sex. There's no long monologues or dialogs during sex scenes.

But yeah, there are sex scenes. How can there not be? It's part of the story.

[Lord Varys]

29 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

Hearing about "sexposition" makes me worry for the show. 

I'd be surprised if there was much GoT-style 'sexposition' - that mainly included dressed guys talking with a bunch of naked women in the background. From what I heard we get

Spoiler

Daemon sex stuff and Daemon dealing out harsh punishments against the criminal underworld in KL ... but that's what's in the book. Aside from that there should be a considerable amount of sex scenes, of course, but they even seem to make Rhaenyra's 'lessons' into Daemon teaching her that she can be a woman and have fun at having sex - which might actually be an empowering scene rather than the shameless Choderlos de Laclos ripoff George gave us via Mushroom.

I think the question whether torture and multiation are immature is a question of taste, really. Dealing with a medieval style world ridiculous punishments and tortures are part of the setting.

[EggBlue]

I wonder who dies in episode 5 and what's happened to the certain male character that Ran talks about and who's the GoT counterpart that received criticism (I'd be happy just to know this one last thing Ran!) 

all I hope for at this point is that they don't turn Laena's death to the weird leaked version of suicide via dragon flame. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

28 minutes ago, Ran said:

And since we have no problems with the names or  telling people apart, we don't run into those issues that some critics have.

Still, I did not expect people to complain about there being too many Targaryens on a show about Targaryens.

[butterweedstrover]

22 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I feel like Game of Thrones worked because of being a perfect combination of sex, violence, and stark contrasts to the idealism of other fantasy people had in their heads. So, there being a lot of sex and violence is a good thing because just removing all of that would make it no longer the show that became a cultural juggernaut. On the other hand, sexual violence really just turns people off especially when it's used as fanservice or for shock value.

We know Aegon II is a rapist but we really don't need it shown versus just stated or shown by the consequences.

Initially yeah, but by the red wedding it was the characters and plot that kept people watching. 
 

The premise of fantasy for adults was the selling point so they had to play it up in the first season, but this time around there are a plethora of adult fantasy shows so I don’t see much of a draw to that anymore. 
 

Also at the time HBO was the only one really advertising nudity on cable television. AMC had some stuff but it was fairly unheard of for a NA audience. Today just watch some European drama on Netflix and you’ll get a surplus of sex. The novelty has worn off.

19 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

To me "sexposition" was like the scene in the first scene with Ros and the other prostitute having sex while Littlefinger had his monologue, and from the first six episodes there's nothing like that. People have sex, and then they talk. Or they talk, and then they have sex. There's no long monologues or dialogs during sex scenes.

But yeah, there are sex scenes. How can there not be? It's part of the story.

I’m going off what IGN said in their review so I don’t know for sure. It’s just concerning to hear. 
Yeah sex scenes are fine, but if it plays too much into it for shock value I think it will be somewhat juvenile. 
 

I get they want to say, look, it’s Game of Thrones. But television has moved on, it’s not impressive anymore.

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I'd be surprised if there was much GoT-style 'sexposition' - that mainly included dressed guys talking with a bunch of naked women in the background. From what I heard we get

  Reveal hidden contents

Daemon sex stuff and Daemon dealing out harsh punishments against the criminal underworld in KL ... but that's what's in the book. Aside from that there should be a considerable amount of sex scenes, of course, but they even seem to make Rhaenyra's 'lessons' into Daemon teaching her that she can be a woman and have fun at having sex - which might actually be an empowering scene rather than the shameless Choderlos de Laclos ripoff George gave us via Mushroom.

I think the question whether torture and multiation are immature is a question of taste, really. Dealing with a medieval style world ridiculous punishments and tortures are part of the setting.

Well, medieval literature was kind of immature given the number of d*ck jokes you find in them (and not very good ones at that). 
 

Anyways this is for a modern audience and I hope we can evolve pass that. I know Martin likes that stuff but the show was advertised as toning down the explicit material. 
 

Now we have Matt Smith saying there is too much sex and IGN saying there will be sexposition (whatever that means).

[butterweedstrover]

Most of the negativity is coming from mainstream sites, the nerd/geek media is mostly positive. 
 

Example of a bad review: https://slate.com/culture/2022/08/game-thrones-house-dragon-hbo-max-prequel-review.html 

 

I guess they are more politically oriented in their distaste for sexual violence, but at some point “dark and brutal” becomes silly and unsophisticated. 
 

Sometimes I don’t think Martin gets that based on his comments. If this is just a darker more brutal version of GOT it will be boring. Smattering the screen with blood, gore, and torture adds an artificial layer of brooding depth as if the emotional core of the narrative needs to be made more severe than what the content actually demands.
 

Being artful is choosing when to withhold the ugly details and when to let them hit the audience. Over inundating people leaves the desensitized and disinterested. 
 

It doesn’t drive home a point, it’s lazy. And showing someone dismember a penis isn’t cool or badass or even frightening, just gross and comical. 

[IFR]

I absolutely was not expecting glowing critical reviews. If you look, at the top reviewed shows you have Better Call Saul, Barry, and Atlanta. BCS and Barry are both excellent and I would like to watch Atlanta.

But you also have shows like Harley Quinn, Hacks, Evil, and Reservation Dogs. I haven't seen Evil or Reservation Dogs, but I have checked out Harley Quinn and Hacks. I thought they were decent - nothing insightful or particularly hilarious, just fairly run-of-the-mill stuff.

Which is why I don't find critics particularly useful to quantitatively evaluate a show. But reading why they evaluated it as such is useful to me.

For instance, in a Collider review of Harley:

Quote

While the first two seasons of Harley Quinn were very firmly rooted in Harlivy's will-they-won't-they tension, Season 3 finds these two BFFs-now-GFFs more rock solid than ever — but of course, there are the natural growing pains in any new relationship, including the very real factor of how to cope when your partner's biggest aims and dreams might contradict your own. There's never any fear that these two will choose to split over these concerns — and what proves more refreshing is the fact that they're willing to go to the mat in honesty with one another, even if said candor happens to go down at the most random sequences in the entire series

I nearly want to kill myself just reading that description (this is a joke I'm sure that Collider reviewer would find highly offensive and not in the spirit of Harley Quinn). Even though this is a glowing review, I'm glad I stopped watching Harley because this is not what I consider good television.

This is from the Slant review of Hot D (the most negative review):

Quote

For one, the series never dwells on the impact of free-spirited, dragon-riding Rhaenerya being told by her mother, Aemma (Sian Brook), that “the childbed is our battlefield,” or of the hatred she feels for her father after he literally kills Aemma on that “battlefield.” Instead, it squanders much screen time on splashier, more superficially exciting events that are of no real consequence, like the clashes from the big jousting tournament that Viserys has held in expected celebration of the birth of a male heir.

It sounds like the reviewer wants an extended lecture on feminism, which is very commonplace in shows, and it immediately disengages me to see this. I find it very patronizing and boring.

It sounds instead that a structure of an unjust society is being used as a backdrop to something actually entertaining, not an unsophisticated mouthpiece into the critic's beliefs.

Good.

Then the review goes on quite a bit about how the show is not feminist enough by devoting all of its time on an obsessive focus of women (my interpretive paraphrasing).

Which again, for me is an emphatic positive.

The review goes on to complain that the time jumps do not allow enough time for the show to give its characters moral complexity, which I highly doubt will be my view, but we'll see.

Quote

If the childhood years had built up meaningful relationships and character work, they might be worth it. Instead, they seem cobbled together from a list of the most vile and violent events in Martin’s repertoire, as if that were what was best about Game of Thrones, or as if in somehow one-upping them, House of the Dragon might stand out, characters be damned.

Again, the reviewer is appalled by the violence, and I think violence (including sexual violence) is an important aspect of Martin's world and gives the story verisimilitude, which in turn makes the narrative more engaging.

And frankly, nothing Martin has cooked up even remotely touches on how violent and sociopathic the real world is. Not even close.

At any rate, it's quantitatively a negative review (38 on metacritic), and the tone is negative, but it informs me that I will almost certainly enjoy this show. And I wouldn't want to touch this critic's version of a good Hot D with a ten foot pole.

[Maia]

Did they explain why they decided to re-imagine Velaryons as a family, rather than just give Corlys a Summer Islander mother? I understand the decision to diversify important and somewhat sympathetic characters (which is why Cole wouldn't have been a good alternative), but given 2 centuries of inter-marriage with Westerosi, leave alone Valyrian roots,  how could the family as whole have been/remained black?

Also, having briefly scanned wikipedia about the Anarachy - wow, the 2 Matildas were so much more capable, politically powerful and active than the FaB women outside of Visenya, Rhaenys and Alysanne, it is not even funny. The same is true for many of the royal and high nobility women of the 12-13 centuries loosely connected/adjacent to the main players. Most of them lived to be over 40 - 50 too (quite a few even over 60) and only one died following  childbirth.

So anything that the show does to expand  female roles would be a good idea and even "realistic".   

[The Bard of Banefort]

34 minutes ago, EggBlue said:

I wonder who dies in episode 5 and what's happened to the certain male character that Ran talks about and who's the GoT counterpart that received criticism (I'd be happy just to know this one last thing Ran!) 

all I hope for at this point is that they don't turn Laena's death to the weird leaked version of suicide via dragon flame. 

Episode 5 is the wedding, so that’ll be Joffrey’s death.

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I honestly don't know how to feel about this. I had hoped for and expected more universal praise, especially considering that Elio and Linda seem mostly happy with it.

No spin-off is ever universally loved, because they have to strike the impossible balance between staying true to the main show’s vibe while also standing on its own. I think there’s still a good chance you’ll like it.

From what I’m reading, the two biggest pieces of contention are the pacing (which is something most of us expected the show would struggle with) and whether the character are too gray, and therefore not sympathetic.

Much like the leaks suggested, it sounds like Rhaenyra does a bit of a personality swap during the time skip. Some of the reviews noted she goes from feisty to solemn (and that Alicent grows more neurotic lol).

[C.T. Phipps]

9 minutes ago, Maia said:

Did they explain why they decided to re-imagine Velaryons as a family, rather than just give Corlys a Summer Islander mother?

I mean it actually is something I appreciate as a historian as it shows the Valyrians diversity. It was an Empire pulling people from all of the world and establishing them as rulers of a huge chunk of it. Showing that the Valyrian nobility wasn't necessarily all looking like the Targayens feel like it is a good thing rather than a bad.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

7 minutes ago, Maia said:

Did they explain why they decided to re-imagine Velaryons as a family, rather than just give Corlys a Summer Islander mother?

The EW article says that they didn't want another story about a bunch of white people, and GRRM had an old idea where he imagined the Velaryons as black, so Condal ran with that.

[The Bard of Banefort]

9 minutes ago, IFR said:

I absolutely was not expecting glowing critical reviews. If you look, at the top reviewed shows you have Better Call Saul, Barry, and Atlanta. BCS and Barry are both excellent and I would like to watch Atlanta.

But you also have shows like Harley Quinn, Hacks, Evil, and Reservation Dogs. I haven't seen Evil or Reservation Dogs, but I have checked out Harley Quinn and Hacks. I thought they were decent - nothing insightful or particularly hilarious, just fairly run-of-the-mill stuff.

Which is why I don't find critics particularly useful to quantitatively evaluate a show. But reading why they evaluated it as such is useful to me.

For instance, in a Collider review of Harley:

I nearly want to kill myself just reading that description (this is a joke I'm sure that Collider reviewer would find highly offensive and not in the spirit of Harley Quinn). Even though this is a glowing review, I'm glad I stopped watching Harley because this is not what I consider good television.

This is from the Slate review of Hot D (the most negative review):

It sounds like the reviewer wants an extended lecture on feminism, which is very commonplace in shows, and it immediately disengages me to see this. I find it very patronizing and boring.

It sounds instead that a structure of an unjust society is being used as a backdrop to something actually entertaining, not an unsophisticated mouthpiece into the critic's beliefs.

Good.

Then the review goes on quite a bit about how the show is not feminist enough by devoting all of its time on an obsessive focus of women (my interpretive paraphrasing).

Which again, for me is an emphatic positive.

The review goes on to complain that the time jumps do not allow enough time for the show to give its characters moral complexity, which I highly doubt will be my view, but we'll see.

Again, the reviewer is appalled by the violence, and I think violence (including sexual violence) is an important aspect of Martin's world and gives the story verisimilitude, which in turn makes the narrative more engaging.

And frankly, nothing Martin has cooked up even remotely touches on how violent and sociopathic the real world is. Not even close.

At any rate, it's quantitatively a negative review (30 on metacritic), and the tone is negative, but it informs me that I will almost certainly enjoy this show. And I wouldn't want to touch this critic's version of a good Hot D with a ten foot pole.

I don’t think the reviewer was asking for a lecture on feminism. I think it’s like the later seasons of GOT, where Davos conveniently forgets that Tyrion killed his son or Jaime overlooks Cersei blowing up the city like the Mad King. Dire actions should have real consequences. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

Interestingly, a lot of what I’m reading suggests the Velaryons aren’t in much of the first-half of the season.

[IFR]

4 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I don’t think the reviewer was asking for a lecture on feminism. I think it’s like the later seasons of GOT, where Davos conveniently forgets that Tyrion killed his son or Jaime overlooks Cersei blowing up the city like the Mad King. Dire actions should have real consequences. 

What you list is a character inconsistency.

But the reviewer's comment:

Quote

The case could be made that the unendurably graphic amount of time devoted to watching a deadly cesarean section is the show’s way of demonstrating the battlefield that women are made to fight upon, sans allies, but it misses the mark by not showing Rhaenerya coming to that realization herself. (Given that she ends up hooking up with the knight she met as her mother was cut open, was she traumatized at all?

This is not an inconsistency. I know plenty of people who would do something exactly like this (pertinent now, since I'm in a state where abortion is illegal).

I suppose if the show establishes that it would be against Rhaenyra's character then that will be something, but this behavior definitely is consistent with her character in the book.

[butterweedstrover]

24 minutes ago, IFR said:

 

It sounds instead that a structure of an unjust society is being used as a backdrop to something actually entertaining, not an unsophisticated mouthpiece into the critic's beliefs.

 

I agree with most of what you said as far as personal taste is concerned, but the 70s Metacritic score doesn't bode well for this being an Emmy award winning show. You don't have to care about critics but Martin care a lot. 

As for this quote above, I don't agree. It makes the difference binary as if either a show as to be rollicking bit of fun without any depth or a mouthpiece for cultural criticism.  

Great art doesn't tell viewers what to think, it leaves room for interpretation. The depth comes from the subtlety and subtext of the events rather than having a character monologue about the meaning of sexism. It is reductive to pretend its either or as regards HotD. I was hoping for a bit more sophistication in how it tackles brutality rather than just have it dwell on the gross details, but apparently we are not getting that.  

[The Bard of Banefort]

6 minutes ago, IFR said:

What you list is a character inconsistency.

But the reviewer's comment:

This is not an inconsistency. I know plenty of people who would do something exactly like this (pertinent now, since I'm in a state where abortion is illegal).

I suppose if the show establishes that it would be against Rhaenyra's character then that will be something, but this behavior definitely is consistent with her character in the book.

I was thinking more that Rhaenyra should probably be angrier with her father for a longer period of time.

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

21 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

The EW article says that they didn't want another story about a bunch of white people, and GRRM had an old idea where he imagined the Velaryons as black, so Condal ran with that.

At least Sapochnik and Condal own the fact they changed characters race unlike JD Payne and Patrick McKay with Rings of Power. 

[butterweedstrover]

https://www.metacritic.com/tv/house-of-the-dragon 

It's at 68 on metacritic which is lower than any season of GOT. It's early and more reviews will be filing in and the number will balance out I'm sure, but its on a downwards trend right now. 

I don't think that means this show is worse than GOT, just that television has moved on and HotD does not have the novelty its predecessor once had. Also stiffer competition. 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I feel like Game of Thrones worked because of being a perfect combination of sex, violence, and stark contrasts to the idealism of other fantasy people had in their heads. So, there being a lot of sex and violence is a good thing because just removing all of that would make it no longer the show that became a cultural juggernaut. On the other hand, sexual violence really just turns people off especially when it's used as fanservice or for shock value.

We know Aegon II is a rapist but we really don't need it shown versus just stated or shown by the consequences.

I felt that a lot of it in GOT was there for titillation and/or cartoonish.  

Not all.  The RW was suitably horrific, as was the burning of Shireen.  I thought that Dany's and Sansa's rapes, and Ros' death were put in for titillation.  I thought the torture of Theon (which took up about 5% of Season 3) was cartoonish, with a bit of titillation added with Violet and Myranda.  The corresponding chapters of ADWD are altogether more chilling.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

47 minutes ago, IFR said:

I absolutely was not expecting glowing critical reviews.

GoT got mostly glowing reviews, though. Even later seasons.