the next House of the Dragon thread

[Lord Varys]

6 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

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.

But the ruling class of Valyria is never described as being diverse. They were a bunch of albino pricks who married their sisters. This completely fucks things up. In a way it is like to make one of Lincoln's generals black because 'well, it can't be that in the 19th century the entire American elite was the WASP establishment!' - but they were.

Valyria the city may be a kind of melting pot - but that doesn't mean the dragonlords or the other Lords Freeholder intermarry with foreign rabble.

22 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 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?

It seems to go back to misunderstood remark George made about having retroactively considered that it might have been a better idea to make the Valyrians (not the Velaryons) black rather than albinos. In George's mind it is crystal clear that all Valyrians with Valyrian looks look like Targaryens. There are no native Valyrians who look different ... although there certainly may have been immigrants to Valyria who looked different but who, to our knowledge, never became Lords Freeholder or dragonlords.

22 minutes ago, Maia said:

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".   

It seems they are doing some of that, although their take on reinforcing stillbirths and women dying in childbirth while actually ignoring the high child mortality rate is pretty unrealistic. Alicent should have had eight children of which four grew to adulthood, Aemma should have had a bunch of children who died in their childhood rather than in the cradle, etc.

The really big thing in the middle ages was the high child mortality rate. Childbirth also killed women, but compared to George's world (which actually should have better medicine that the real world middle ages) very few royal women in France and England (I checked the queens once) actually died in childbirth or from complications from childbirth.

And those who did mostly were older and had already health issues.

The show can only play up the role of the women, else they would just stand in the background or not even show up on the screen. Rhaenys is a non-character in the book, and Baela/Rhaena only get some semblance of depth in the Regency material, not in the history of the Dance.

Alicent is quite capable ... but Rhaenyra as depicted in the book would spend the first year of the war whining in her bedchamber to then develop into a rambling moron in record time. I guess some of this is intended to be a warped view of her personality because of the sources, etc. since if the woman was actually a naive child being groomed and abused by her uncle, was infatuated for years with lowborn KG knight, failed to produce Valyrian-looking children, didn't have the sense to expect a coup/succession war ... wouldn't really have the strength of character to insist that she was the queen and willing to fight a devastating civil war.

In that sense, I think, strengthening Rhaenyra's character does make a certain sense. That is especially relevant in context that the kind of weak-willed and indecisive ruler Rhaenyra appears to be in FaB should have indeed be very easily ruled by Daemon ... yet this never happens, so it is clear that she must have been stronger than she appears in the book.

[EggBlue]

51 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

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

 

how's that changeable though? that's odd. and any idea who's the male character Ran talked about in their not a review?

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But the ruling class of Valyria is never described as being diverse. They were a bunch of albino pricks who married their sisters. This completely fucks things up. In a way it is like to make one of Lincoln's generals black because 'well, it can't be that in the 19th century the entire American elite was the WASP establishment!' - but they were.

Valyria the city may be a kind of melting pot - but that doesn't mean the dragonlords or the other Lords Freeholder intermarry with foreign rabble.

It seems to go back to misunderstood remark George made about having retroactively considered that it might have been a better idea to make the Valyrians (not the Velaryons) black rather than albinos. In George's mind it is crystal clear that all Valyrians with Valyrian looks look like Targaryens. There are no native Valyrians who look different ... although there certainly may have been immigrants to Valyria who looked different but who, to our knowledge, never became Lords Freeholder or dragonlords.

 

The Velaryons themselves, though, were small beer.  Minor nobility might well marry foreigners. 

[SeanF]

1 hour 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 want an extended lecture on the injustice of feudalism, I agree.  We know that the system is unjust.  One of the most jarring features of the endgame to GOT was trying to bring 21st century liberal values into warfare.

Actually, I do think that Martin does ramp up the horror.  He says he based the warfare on the Wars of the Roses, but they were nowhere close to the War of the Five Kings, in term of brutality. What we get is more akin to the Thirty Years War, a brutal war of extermination on all sides.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think there’s still a good chance you’ll like it.

Oh, I definitely think I'll like it, but the reviews were still a bit of a bummer.

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The Velaryons themselves, though, were small beer.  Minor nobility might well marry foreigners. 

But they didn't in the books. The Velaryons are very proud of their storied lineage, to the point that Davos feels very uncomfortable in Lord Monford's presence.

More importantly, though, it seems HotD scrapped the whole concept of Valyrians being white albinos. In light of their silver-gold hair we would assume that the show Velaryons are as much 'native Valyrians' as the white-skinned Targaryens. They are not black because some ancient Velaryons intermarried with foreigners, they are black because some Valyrian houses simply are black.

And that's clearly at odds with George's vision of the Valyrians and their culture. They all look alike because their cultural tradition involved inbreeding and the breeding of 'beautiful people' (as continued by the Lyseni).

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, butterweedstrover said:

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.

This is the vibe that I’m getting from the negative reviews, that it’s grey to the point of being dull. There’s a surprising split between people who found HOTD exciting and those who found it boring.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

5 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This is the vibe that I’m getting from the negative reviews, that it’s grey to the point of being dull. There’s a surprising split between people who found HOTD exciting and those who found it boring.

Apparently, some reviewers are missing witty dialogue, like Tyrion's "I drink and I know things". Which I think was a show-only line.

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Apparently, some reviewers are missing witty dialogue, like Tyrion's "I drink and I know things". Which I think was a show-only line.

After Season 4, Tyrion became less intelligent than Baldrick, and I'm sure I can do without dick jokes, eunuch jokes, and brothel jokes in this series.

[butterweedstrover]

5 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Apparently, some reviewers are missing witty dialogue, like Tyrion's "I drink and I know things". Which I think was a show-only line.

That line was lame but if there is no (intentional) comic relief the show will come off has pretty drab. 
 

Tyrion at least added some color to the show. Who would do the same for HotD? 
Aemond and Daemon are too psychotic for that role. 
 

who else could it be?

[The Bard of Banefort]

9 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Apparently, some reviewers are missing witty dialogue, like Tyrion's "I drink and I know things". Which I think was a show-only line.

That line was so dumb lol, but yeah, even some of the positive reviews have mentioned that the dialogue isn’t very memorable and lacks humor.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to get rid of Mushroom. They could have just made him short if they were worried that people would be offended by a comic dwarf.

[BlackLightning]

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

but there is little way to make Shrykos and Morghul more prominent

There is.

You can add more dragonseeds. Or you can see Shrykos be claimed by one of the three kings that divide King's Landing into three factions in the month where no one is sitting the Iron Throne. Let's say Gaemon Palehair since he's likely the bastard son born of the girl that Aegon II raped. He's a relatively important figure in the regency period for Aegon III.

Or if you really want to play around and make things interesting, you can have Shrykos be stolen by Alys Rivers and hidden away at Harrenhal or something. I don't know. Granted such a thing would be convoluted but the fact that all those dragons can be so swarmed and slain by peasants (especially Syrax....that was weird)

 

[IFR]

49 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

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

It's a different climate than when GoT was released. Critics hold different expectations.

Which is good to note when considering critical assessment.

I certainly don't agree with many of the expectations of critics. I think forefront in their expectations is what kind message they interpret is being conveyed by the show.

Everyone is in a bubble now, and people want to have their views confirmed (particularly critics, I find, from reading numerous and varied reviews).

Unlike critics, I am almost utterly indifferent to what the message is. Naive hopefulness? Fine. Relentless nihilism? Ok. What I care about is that the quality of drama is up to par and the story and characters make sense on an intellectual level.

Critics also seem to prioritize using film or television to correct what they view as real world injustice, by forcing the story to work around equal representation and such, even if it causes problems for the story itself. I don't share these  priorities - I prioritize a good story above all else.

Also, I believe that one shouldn't shy away from any kind of violence. Soft footing it I view as intellectually dishonest. We live in a extremely dark, brutal world, and if you're doing a show that addresses the darker nature of humans, it comes off as dishonest and hurtful to the story if you are overly conservative on the violence you depict.

There's nothing wrong with the expectation critics have. But it's worth recognizing that there is no inherent value or elevated insight of critics. And it's a good idea to observe where you are synchronous and where you are asynchronous to their views when assessing their evaluation.

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

Some of those "critics" are really ridiculous. In one hand, they criticize the show about the Targaryen civil war for having too many Targaryens. Really ? What did you expect just two Targaryens like at the start of GOT (Viserys and Daenerys) ? They say they are confused and are not able to tell them apart due to similar names and similar hair color. But on the other hand, having less blond on screen by making the Velaryons black is also a problem.
Condal and Sapochnik saw this problem ahead of time when they said "they didn't want to make a show about only blond people" (I'm paraphrasing here, I don't remember the exact quote). Either way, there will always be people to complain about everything.
If something is popular nowadays, you have to either love it or hate it (In the Game of Entertainment, you love or you hate. There is no middle ground.). What a toxic climate, I missed the days where you could simply ignore something. Indifference is a far better opposite to love than hate in my opinion.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

2 minutes ago, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

They said they are confused and are not able to tell them apart due to similar names and similar hair color.

I have the same problem with the Kardashians. 

[aromaticanalysis]

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

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

The later seasons of GoT certainly didn't deserve their glowing reviews. I think that's part of what's going on here with the mediocre critical response - the last season took the shine off the franchise in a major way and critics aren't going into it with rose coloured glasses anymore. Ultimately you can't escape the fact that this entire show is building up to characters whose destiny it is ... to stand around uselessly during the Long Night? Get stabbed in the back by your lover without accomplishing anything useful? The gore and violence of the prequel are all in the service of nothing, which adds an extra layer of nihilism. 

[EggBlue]

10 minutes ago, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

If something is popular nowadays, you have to either love it or hate it (In the Game of Entertainment, you love or you hate. There is no middle ground.). What a toxik climate, I missed the days where you could simply ignore something. Indifference is a far better opposite to love than hate in my opinion.

that is actually accurate!!! ....you're right.. I don't know why one should have such strong feelings about shows! there's not need of indifference too .. just not pure defense of the content and pure dissing it suffice.

[C.T. Phipps]

Quote

 

But the ruling class of Valyria is never described as being diverse. They were a bunch of albino pricks who married their sisters. This completely fucks things up. In a way it is like to make one of Lincoln's generals black because 'well, it can't be that in the 19th century the entire American elite was the WASP establishment!' - but they were.

Valyria the city may be a kind of melting pot - but that doesn't mean the dragonlords or the other Lords Freeholder intermarry with foreign rabble.

 

I mean, Martin says it doesn't fuck things up and I'm okay with his opinion. Personally, I think making the Targaryens the white haired albino elves versus EVERY SINGLE house of Vayria is a good decision. I hope George actually brings it to the books proper. And while, no, there was no black generals in the Union Army under Lincoln, there WAS a black colonel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Thomas_Augusta

Which is to say, while technically true, the argument isn't actually as strong as we might think. Also, this is getting into technicalities but the Velaryons aren't necessarily Valyrian royalty. They're just Valyrians. The Targaryens are patricians and old money like the Caesars. We don't know if the Velaryons were patricians or very rich plebs.

Quote

There are no native Valyrians who look different ... although there certainly may have been immigrants to Valyria who looked different but who, to our knowledge, never became Lords Freeholder or dragonlords.

Which touches on the point that the Velaryons are not dragon riders.

If a Roman merchant family settled in, say, Great Briton after the fall of Rome, and married some Patricians (as would certainly be likely) then that would leave its own mark.

Mind you, we don't KNOW if they're not Summer Islanders married into Valyrian stock. It just might be intermarriage dating back to Old Valyria.

Quote

They are not black because some ancient Velaryons intermarried with foreigners, they are black because some Valyrian houses simply are black.

That seems like a distinction without a difference. If the Valyrian houses married foreigners and had black children, that would mean Valyrian houses are black. Alexander Dumas' father was Supreme Military Leader of France and a french nobleman and no less black for it.

[The Bard of Banefort]

17 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I have the same problem with the Kardashians. 

I have this problem with late night TV hosts. They all look the same to me.

[$erPounce]

I find it remarkable. House of the Dragon season 1 has a lower average on Metacritic than Game of Thrones season 8. Many have mixed feelings. HOTD has generally been better received by fans of George's books. The review by Elio and Linda (who were highly critical of Game of Thrones) was more positive than most.

If we look at the reviews with lower scores, they are mainly criticisms such as "the names of the characters are too similar", "too many Targaryens", "too much politics", "the lack of completely good characters and completely evil characters is bad", "too little humor", "a spin-off about Tyrion or Arya would have been more interesting", "a lack of spectacle", "the pacing is too slow, similar to GOT season 1" (there are people who prefer the pace of the later seasons)...

These criticisms are mostly applicable to the casual viewers, the so-called "Mothers and NFL players". Just about every criticism listed above are actually positives for us book readers. No one here on this site wants anything comparable to Game of Thrones season 5-8, but the casuals apparently do.

Most of the criticisms for House of the Dragon, frankly, actually reassure me. It clarifies that these casuals are not the primary audience, but rather those who love George's works.