spoilers [Spoilers] Episode 101 Discussion

[Lord Varys]

26 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I mean, that’s kind of what grooming is, isn’t it? Molding a younger person into being your ideal partner while having them think it’s for their own benefit.

I thought 'grooming' was pretending you are interested in a young person for their own sake when in fact all you want is to sexually abuse them.

I guess there is a broader spectrum there, of course, but the show got rid of the uncle sucking up to his preteen niece by aging Rhaenyra up. What we had in the first episode seemed like genuine close uncle-niece relationship, nothing overtly or implicitly sexual.

I mean, do you view Daemon there as a guy who wants to mold Rhaenyra into his 'ideal wife' or prepare her for some sexual shenanigans?

26 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Either way, Matt Smith is almost 40 and looks older. Milly Alcock is 22 and looks younger. It’s going to be weird no matter how they play it.

Sure enough, but I imagine much better than the attempt to pair 12-year-old Laena with Viserys or the later arranged marriage between Aegon and Helaena. There is attraction and love and affection there, while there should be little or nothing of that sort in those other relationships. I think they will Daemon-Rhaenyra make an actually working incest match (and Rhaenyra-Laenor as well, to a point, if one wants to number it among those) while Aegon-Helaena clearly don't.

 

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Barely. They're walking on very thin ice here.

Yeah, it’s simply unavoidable in this day and age. I don’t want to place too much emphasis on Twitter, because I don’t think it’s reflective of the rest of the world beyond one small clique, but there’s already a lot of uproar on there about a clip that came out today (looks like it was mistakenly uploaded early by a review site) of Viserys and Laena discussing a potential marriage. One week in, and the “anti-woke” backlash from before the show started already feels like small potatoes in comparison. 

[Ran]

Twitter is absolutely not real life. Having recently been enmeshed in silliness there, and seeing others there, what's fascinating is how completely random the people who jump in to howl are. You check what they follow and who they follow and they literally have no commonalities with you or anyone you know -- they live in their own bubble of an insular splinter fandom and they show up to howl for awhile because everyone else they know is doing it and then they go away to do their thing again.

I think the show's going to be fine.

[The Bard of Banefort]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

Twitter is absolutely not real life. Having recently been enmeshed in silliness there, and seeing others there, what's fascinating is how completely random the people who jump in to howl are. You check what they follow and who they follow and they literally have no commonalities with you or anyone you know -- they live in their own bubble of an insular splinter fandom and they show up to howl for awhile because everyone else they know is doing it and then they go away to do their thing again.

I think the show's going to be fine.

Well, yeah, sure. GOT did just fine no matter what they did until S8, and even then that didn’t affect the ratings. HBO probably prefers the publicity. (Of course, by that notion, the Variety TV trends don’t matter either, since it relies on Twitter traffic).

[zajaz]

I do wonder how people overall might react to the end of the Dance. We saw how many were upset by Daenerys' fate, some by the potential sexist implications of having her go Mad Queen only to die at the hands of Jon. Some even said that having the only two female monarchs seated on the Iron Throne be trigger-happy murderers was a little problematic. Imagine when they watch what becomes of Alicent and Rhaenyra.

Edited August 26, 2022 by zajaz

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

And while the viewership was tremendous, we don’t know if it’ll last.

I was a bit on the fence before the premiere, but now I can't even imagine how badly HotD needs to crash and burn for viewership to drop.

Drop to alarming lows, I mean.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

If GoT was ever the best show on television, it was only briefly (perhaps after Breaking Bad ended and Homeland went downhill, but before the rise of The Americans or Succession). Does anyone have such expectations for House of the Dragon? After enduring the last seasons of GoT? I believe the initial expectations for most of us were "I hope it doesn't suck".

I believe that the optimism is due that while this first episode is far from perfect and has some issues that should have been addressed, is still the best episode in this world since, I'd say, season 4 of GoT. And most importantly, it shows that it's been done with great care and not on autopilot.

To be fair to D & D (not something I often say) I loved The Winds of Winter and the The Field of Fire. Even The Bells was impressive, if marred by absurdities.

The problem with later seasons is that these high points were few and far between, and everything was riddled with plotholes.

[RumHam]

5 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Forgive me if this has already been brought up downstream on this thread, but is it possible that Daemon never said "Heir for the Day".  We're taking his lack of denial as proof that he said it, but there is one other possibility.

That Daemon is protecting the person that actually said the toast, his mistress Mysaria.

Interesting idea, but I don't buy it. For one thing there were a lot of Gold Cloaks in the room. One came forward (I remember speculation that he was that Strong captain) but there were tons of other witnesses. So lying about the story wouldn't have been a great idea. If Daemon could establish with other witnesses that it wasn't him that said it, all Otto's credibility on the matter goes out the window.

I can personally relate to being drunk and saying something that you then deeply regret. I think you can see that regret on his face in the throne room confrontation. It's not clear how much he cares for Mysaria at this point, but I think had he not said it his reaction would have been very different.

As far as Daemon grooming Rhaenyra goes, I never thought he was sexually interested in her. Fond of her sure. I might be wrong but I saw him as determined to be king, and when she was named heir and the birth of all the kids bumped him way down the line of succession he decided marrying her was his path to power.

But then I haven't read it in a while. I own two copies of Fire and Blood and only one bookshelf, and yet somehow I can't find either copy.

 

[SeanF]

On the theme of "decadence", it's surprising really, how popular remains the notion that dynasties and civilisations are brought down by sexual licentiousness.

In reality, there's very little evidence for it.  Rome was filled with sexual licentiousness, in the last hundred years of the Republic, and yet, hundreds of years of military success lay ahead of it.  Any number of successful military leaders have had absolutely voracious sexual appetites (eg Caesar, Wellington, Napoleon, Zhukov).

[C.T. Phipps]

11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

On the theme of "decadence", it's surprising really, how popular remains the notion that dynasties and civilisations are brought down by sexual licentiousness.

In reality, there's very little evidence for it.  Rome was filled with sexual licentiousness, in the last hundred years of the Republic, and yet, hundreds of years of military success lay ahead of it.  Any number of successful military leaders have had absolutely voracious sexual appetites (eg Caesar, Wellington, Napoleon, Zhukov).

It's a fascist talking point. There's a lot of talk about how "traditional values" need to be culturally enforced or the culture will collapse as a force. Gibbon is the most famous historical example of decadence being used as an argument for the fall of an Empire (and he actually included CHRISTIANITY) as a primary reason for it. However, Gibbon famously went from one of the most famous historians of the Enlightenment to someone barely taken seriously once his views were put under scrutiny like, say, the Roman Empire actually even fell versus moved to Constantinople.

[Lord Varys]

27 minutes ago, zajaz said:

I do wonder how people overall might react to the end of the Dance. We saw how many were upset by Daenerys' fate, some by the potential sexist implications of having her go Mad Queen only to die at the hands of Jon. Some even said that having the only two female monarchs seated on the Iron Throne be trigger-happy murderers was a little problematic. Imagine when they watch what becomes of Alicent and Rhaenyra

Well, I also don't like how Rhaenyra's story ends, so that's that.

I guess they will make it more interesting - possibilities I can see is playing up Alicent's role in all that, have Rhaenyra drag her with her to Dragonstone as a hostage and have her make the call to kill her - or have her being there trying to stop this madness only for Aegon's goons to push his mother aside.

In any case, Rhaenyra is going to be clearly a tragic figure rather than a demented mass murderer.

 

14 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Interesting idea, but I don't buy it. For one thing there were a lot of Gold Cloaks in the room. One came forward (I remember speculation that he was that Strong captain) but there were tons of other witnesses. So lying about the story wouldn't have been a great idea. If Daemon could establish with other witnesses that it wasn't him that said it, all Otto's credibility on the matter goes out the window.

From what we heard in the reports

Spoiler

they seem to have shot the actual speech but cut it in the episode for some reason. Daemon apparently does call Baelon 'the Heir for a Day' but does so in a sincere toast, not in a cynical joke. But folks interpret it as the latter and start to laugh. Otto then flies, of course, with all that, not caring how Daemon may have meant it.

I hope they restore that scene in an extended version since it is kind of odd to have only half the scene there.

14 minutes ago, RumHam said:

As far as Daemon grooming Rhaenyra goes, I never thought he was sexually interested in her. Fond of her sure. I might be wrong but I saw him as determined to be king, and when she was named heir and the birth of all the kids bumped him way down the line of succession he decided marrying her was his path to power.

That seems to be it in the book - although we never really know how much either of them was in love with the other.

Spoiler

The show seems to go with a Daemon who acutally as a kind of mentor-figure for 'sexual stuff' for Rhaenyra shortly before her marriage ... only then for Rhaenyra to seduce him later on after Laena's funeral.

 

6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

On the theme of "decadence", it's surprising really, how popular remains the notion that dynasties and civilisations are brought down by sexual licentiousness.

In reality, there's very little evidence for it.  Rome was filled with sexual licentiousness, in the last hundred years of the Republic, and yet, hundreds of years of military success lay ahead of it.  Any number of successful military leaders have had absolutely voracious sexual appetites (eg Caesar, Wellington, Napoleon, Zhukov).

Yeah, that's a childish, early bourgeous historical frame, in part inspired by the traditional take to paint 'bad' rulers as morally depraved, too, but stretching it to an entire society/class just doesn't make much sense.

If one wants to look for 'decadent elements' in the late Roman era then the whole focus Christian spirituality, monastic life, turn against traditional piety and cultural accomplishments may be a much better markstone than imagined sexual depravity. Not to mention all the book burnings (and the decision to just not copy most of the classics anymore) that were going on.

In a sense one can illustrate this pretty well with the post-Diocletian and post-Constantine emperors as aloof and isolated sacral figures, who were shrouded from the public and attended by eunuchs.

[SeanF]

Just now, C.T. Phipps said:

It's a fascist talking point. There's a lot of talk about how "traditional values" need to be culturally enforced or the culture will collapse as a force. Gibbon is the most famous historical example of decadence being used as an argument for the fall of an Empire (and he actually included CHRISTIANITY) as a primary reason for it. However, Gibbon famously went from one of the most famous historians of the Enlightenment to someone barely taken seriously once his views were put under scrutiny like, say, the Roman Empire actually even fell versus moved to Constantinople.

The ancients attributed the fall of civilisations to "luxury", which is not quite the same thing, but covers some of the same ground.  The brother of Scipio Africanus was (in modern terms) a homosexual, and Old Cato thundered about the moral laxity of his army, in the Senate, eventually driving both Scipios out of public life.

Gibbon was just taking at face value, an ancient trope, but reinforced by his own prejudices against "degenerate and effeminate" Greeks.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, I also don't like how Rhaenyra's story ends, so that's that.

I guess they will make it more interesting - possibilities I can see is playing up Alicent's role in all that, have Rhaenyra drag her with her to Dragonstone as a hostage and have her make the call to kill her - or have her being there trying to stop this madness only for Aegon's goons to push his mother aside.

In any case, Rhaenyra is going to be clearly a tragic figure rather than a demented mass murderer.

 

From what we heard in the reports

  Reveal hidden contents

they seem to have shot the actual speech but cut it in the episode for some reason. Daemon apparently does call Baelon 'the Heir for a Day' but does so in a sincere toast, not in a cynical joke. But folks interpret it as the latter and start to laugh. Otto then flies, of course, with all that, not caring how Daemon may have meant it.

I hope they restore that scene in an extended version since it is kind of odd to have only half the scene there.

That seems to be it in the book - although we never really know how much either of them was in love with the other.

  Reveal hidden contents

The show seems to go with a Daemon who acutally as a kind of mentor-figure for 'sexual stuff' for Rhaenyra shortly before her marriage ... only then for Rhaenyra to seduce him later on after Laena's funeral.

 

Yeah, that's a childish, early bourgeous historical frame, in part inspired by the traditional take to paint 'bad' rulers as morally depraved, too, but stretching it to an entire society/class just doesn't make much sense.

If one wants to look for 'decadent elements' in the late Roman era then the whole focus Christian spirituality, monastic life, turn against traditional piety and cultural accomplishments may be a much better markstone than imagined sexual depravity. Not to mention all the book burnings (and the decision to just not copy most of the classics anymore) that were going on.

In a sense one can illustrate this pretty well with the post-Diocletian and post-Constantine emperors as aloof and isolated sacral figures, who were shrouded from the public and attended by eunuchs.

The Eastern Empire was in no way lacking in martial prowess, long after it became Christian.  The Iconoclast Emperors, however, railed against monacticism, for the reasons you indicate. They hated the idea of generals and ministers retiring to the cloister.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

20 minutes ago, SeanF said:

On the theme of "decadence"...

HBO released a clip just today again emphasizing the theme of decadence in HotD. I don't know how many times they've done that now.

[Ran]

Whete the hell are they posting these stills and clips? They used to mail them out but now it seems they just show up through the ether.

[SeanF]

8 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

HBO released a clip just today again emphasizing the theme of decadence in HotD. I don't know how many times they've done that now.

Brett Devereaux calls it the “Fremen Mirage”, ie the notion that civilisation is inherently corrupting, whereas men who live hard, simple lives will invariably defeat their civilised opponents, who have gone soft.

In fact, military history does not bear that out in general.

[C.T. Phipps]

32 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Brett Devereaux calls it the “Fremen Mirage”, ie the notion that civilisation is inherently corrupting, whereas men who live hard, simple lives will invariably defeat their civilised opponents, who have gone soft.

In fact, military history does not bear that out in general.

I mean, it's an idea as old as Sparta that the Romans loved. Except the Romans explicitly would have kicked the shit out of the Spartans and did a lot of very "strong simple living" folk. And as we know, technology and logistics is now (one of) the greatest deciding element in warfare.

But yes, I think there's a good sense of foreboding in the show that the times are nice, the wealth is abundant, and yet there's a simmering nasty bubbling undercurrent of violence that is waiting to bust out.

It's all throughout the episode, not just the tournament (that people complain about). The Goldcloaks are ready to murder anyone they can get their hands on. Westeros is a country about to explode into violence for reasons that aren't immediately clear.

Edited August 26, 2022 by C.T. Phipps

[SeanF]

12 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I mean, it's an idea as old as Sparta that the Romans loved. Except the Romans explicitly would have kicked the shit out of the Spartans and did a lot of very "strong simple living" folk. And as we know, technology and logistics is now (one of) the greatest deciding element in warfare.

But yes, I think there's a good sense of foreboding in the show that the times are nice, the wealth is abundant, and yet there's a simmering nasty bubbling undercurrent of violence that is waiting to bust out.

It's all throughout the episode, not just the tournament (that people complain about). The Goldcloaks are ready to murder anyone they can get their hands on. Westeros is a country about to explode into violence for reasons that aren't immediately clear.

There is a limited truth to it.  Over time, Italians mostly stopped volunteering for military service, whereas people from poorer parts of the empire did so in large numbers, but that was mostly about economics.  A career as a legionary ceased to be attractive in wealthy places, but was very attractive in poorer places.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Rome was filled with sexual licentiousness, in the last hundred years of the Republic, and yet, hundreds of years of military success lay ahead of it.

Either way, Westeros is not based on Rome, it's based on Europe during the Middle Ages. That period wasn't known for decadence.  

[C.T. Phipps]

12 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Either way, Westeros is not based on Rome, it's based on Europe during the Middle Ages. That period wasn't known for decadence.  

Depends on where you are and what you're preaching.

Throughout the Middle Ages, for example, England's early propaganda machine was constantly shitting on France for it.

And Westeros is more properly inspired by the Renaissance, which absolutely was decadent.

(We have no less than TWO Henry the Eighth figures in Westeros history after all)