[Spoilers] Episode 105 Discussion

[The Bard of Banefort]

5 minutes ago, RumHam said:

In the inside the episode thing some guy they oddly don't bother to identify says he read the book and "obviously Daemon killed his wife." Except this is the passage:

So she probably would have identified Daemon as her killer if that was the case. 

Also he was fighting in the Stepstones at the time. It's a far distance and people would have noticed Caraxes flying back and forth overhead. These BTS segments aren't great.

[zajaz]

1 hour ago, nara said:

I really love this series so far. Really gripping episode IMO and nice setup for blacks vs. greens in the future.

Gotta say, if I had not read the novella, I would be Team Alicent all the way. They have done a great job of making her someone sympathetic to root for.  At the same time, they have created enough doubt about Rhaenyra to make it a true choice between the two women.

I also like the Criston Cole storyline and how he became Team Alicent. Although I know the future, I was genuinely afraid he might kill himself. That’s good direction!  I’m so glad he offed Joffrey. I was thinking “that doofus gots to go!” But Laenor named his youngest after him, so I guess he does get to linger in that sense.

I gotta say that the changed/added storylines in this show seem much better than those in GoT. 

How the hell did Laena age so much when Rhaenyra and Alicent still look so young?

also Viserys looks too sick for someone who has to hang around for another 16 years!

I, for my part, just want to know what kind of potion Rhaenys drank in order to gain eternal youth; seriously, I swear that lady does not age. At this point, I'm wonder why they even bothered with Milly and Emily (but I'm glad they did) when they have Eve Best, Matt Smith, etc, looking the exact same age even in-universe decades later.

Edited September 19, 2022 by zajaz

[Winterfell is Burning]

2 minutes ago, nara said:

I really love this series so far. Really gripping episode IMO and nice setup for blacks vs. greens in the future.

Gotta say, if I had not read the novella, I would be Team Alicent all the way. They have done a great job of making her someone sympathetic to root for.  At the same time, they have created enough doubt about Rhaenyra to make it a true choice between the two women.

I also like the Criston Cole storyline and how he became Team Alicent. Although I know the future, I was genuinely afraid he might kill himself. That’s good direction!  I’m so glad he offed Joffrey. I was thinking “that doofus gots to go!” But Laenor named his youngest after him, so I guess he does get to linger in that sense.

I gotta say that the changed/added storylines in this show seem much better than those in GoT. 

How the hell did Laena age so much when Rhaenyra and Alicent still look so young?

also Viserys looks too sick for someone who has to hang around for another 16 years!

I mostly agree with all of this, specially the Viserys' part. I'm almost wondering if they're going to kill him earlier.

 

[Mark Antony]

Place could use a rat catcher.

Enjoyed the little bits of Harwin. Finally can see why he got his nickname. Him and Larys seem to get on pretty well. I can’t wait to find out who set the Harrenhal fire, Larys was my main suspect but idk, 
Alicents entrance was a great scene. 

[RumHam]

2 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Also he was fighting in the Stepstones at the time. It's a far distance and people would have noticed Caraxes flying back and forth overhead. These BTS segments aren't great.

Yeah I thought the "he may have done it impulsively" thing was pretty weird given that he normally travels by dragon. 

[butterweedstrover]

Another dark and joyless episode. 

Oh yeah, and a fake out death at the end. All the audience are going to be anticipating the fallout of the king's death for episode 6. 

Larys has not gotten subtlety down, I mean he could have been a bit less obvious that he is taunting Alicent. His personality is supposedly soft-spoken and under key. 

More bad writing covered up by long stretches of quietness as the actors let their facial expressions do the speaking. 

[Mladen]

7 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

But the elephant in the room is Rhaenyra's dress. So are we getting the whites vs the greens now, or is the show simply not going to utilize those monikers? Would a red dress not have worked?

I thought they would use black marriage cloak, at least.

But then again, that green was always more important from Alicent's POV, a clear departure from Viserys and Rhaenyra and I think it was used here in such fashion. Much like Sansa vocalizing her Stark roots in Season 6 "I am a Stark, I will always be a Stark", Alicent just quietly said the same.

[RumHam]

Just now, butterweedstrover said:

Oh yeah, and a fake out death at the end. All the audience are going to be anticipating the fallout of the king's death for episode 6. 

Not anyone who stuck around for the preview at the end. 

[C.T. Phipps]

20 minutes ago, lakin1013 said:

Don't you think that a woman who knew him, who was his wife, would continue insulting him in the bitterest of terms, when she knew what he was capable of?  I found this a bit contrived. 

I don't believe she thought Daemon was a murderer. He just insulted her in a way that got back to her.

Most fans here and the boards I frequent were shocked he became guilty of femicide.

Edited September 19, 2022 by C.T. Phipps

[IFR]

A lot of this episode was good. However.

That ending...it seems like the writers felt that the audience would get impatient with the slow moving character drama and decided to put a shocking scene in to keep the easily bored engaged. 

And it was awkwardly done. Cole beating someone to death in the midst of a wedding feast? Knocking over the king consort to be? And then the wedding vows being said not twenty feet away from a pool of blood? Come on, did HBO hire a Wheel of Time writer to doctor the end of this script?

This is a mostly good show, but already it has made too many missteps to compare well with early Game of Thrones.

Edited September 19, 2022 by IFR

[RumHam]

20 minutes ago, zajaz said:

I mean Lucamore Strong did, and he didn't kill another knight at a wedding feast, AFAIK. Also, the Kingsguard being a law enforcement institution? I thought they were just glorified bodyguards. The Gold Cloaks fit the bill much better, I would think.

I think what Strong did was considered far worse because he had actual wives and children. It might be like the night's watch where they're mostly willing to overlook visits to mole's town as long as you're not embarrassing the order. 

[C.T. Phipps]

14 minutes ago, Mladen said:

I thought they would use black marriage cloak, at least.

But then again, that green was always more important from Alicent's POV, a clear departure from Viserys and Rhaenyra and I think it was used here in such fashion. Much like Sansa vocalizing her Stark roots in Season 6 "I am a Stark, I will always be a Stark", Alicent just quietly said the same.

Black is also the Targaryen colors.

So it's kind of a backhanded insult by the Maesters to Alicent since clearly they weren't associating her with the house she married into.

[Crona]

I really didn’t like the ending then realized it wasn’t that bad. I have to take my book reader glasses off. Criston getting away with this? Joffrey posed a danger to Rhaenyra and the Velaryons are ok with it because it covers Laenor. 

[C.T. Phipps]

3 minutes ago, Crona said:

I really didn’t like the ending then realized it wasn’t that bad. I have to take my book reader glasses off. Criston getting away with this? Joffrey posed a danger to Rhaenyra and the Velaryons are ok with it because it covers Laenor. 

The Kingsguard, after a careful deliberation, have determined that Criston did nothing wrong.

*abolish Kingsguard unions*

[lakin1013]

38 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Why not? Plenty of people do that, and this probably wasn't the first time she did it.

It certainly is the last time. 

[Caligula_K3]

That ending was... very, very silly. Are there no murder laws in early Targaryen Westeros? Can highborn people really just murder each other at tourneys, marriage proposals, and marriage betrothal feasts?

It was also shot so weirdly. The focus is Rhaenyra and Daemon, the crowd closes so there's ambiguity about what's happening there, and then... suddenly it's Cole beating up Joffrey? And a bunch of other people are fighting too? Really strange choices.

Five episodes in, I feel like I have no handle on Daemon. He comes into an episode, commits some random acts of violence, and otherwise either sulks or preens. It doesn't feel like there's much coherent there, unless he's just meant to be the Joker.

Faults aside, I liked a lot of the rest of the episode. Alicent came into her own (damn, that actress is good- I'm sad we're losing her), there was some nice development of other characters like the Velaryons, and a eerie sense of rising dread during the wedding. I'm more invested now than I was earlier in the season. But somehow the show isn't all adding up to a greater whole for me.

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Caligula_K3

[Daeron the Daring]

This makes no sense to me. 

If Daemon was willing to kill his wife to marry Rhaenyra, why not do it earlier and not risk anything? I mean, he could've easily made Rhaenyra choose him (when she still had a choice), and he didn't have to risk anything with the whole taking a second wife sidenote if he widowed himself earlier. Not sure why they had to whitewash Daemon only so that they make him do things he actually didn't in the book, so much so that they may have ruined the character.

Sidenote: Episode 10 is called "The Black Queen", so they will go with the greens vs blacks narrative as far as colors are concerned. It's just that they choose a different route to present this.

Another sidenote: All the rats in the episodes are the foreshadowing of Jaehaerys' death, the Blood and Cheese incident, since Cheese was a ratcatcher.

And another one: Just realised Daemon was doing magic tricks for Rhea's horse, and Rhea's line of "I knew you couldn't finish" is just another hint of Daemon having issues with, well, finishing.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Daeron the Daring

[The Bard of Banefort]

This episode also reinforced my perception that HOTD is trying to be artistic and profound, which I think is a lot more admirable than GOT, which was just trying to make headlines. That said, sometimes people try a bit too hard to be profound and it turns a bit silly and self-serious, and that happens a lot on this show. 

 

That Alicent immediately knew what "the tea" was is also a subtle indicator that while she may be mild-mannered, she is more observant and knowledgeable than she appears to be at first glance. Rhaenyra didn't know what moon tea was last episode.

Edited September 19, 2022 by The Bard of Banefort

[nara]

Btw, I was not able to post on previous episodes due to account issues so I will say it here. The opening credits would be better if they displayed a family tree from Aegon the conqueror down to this generation and added children as they were born.

[Corvinus85]

35 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

Larys has not gotten subtlety down, I mean he could have been a bit less obvious that he is taunting Alicent. His personality is supposedly soft-spoken and under key. 

He sounded pretty soft-spoken to me. Were you expecting ASMR levels of soft speaking?

34 minutes ago, Mladen said:

But then again, that green was always more important from Alicent's POV, a clear departure from Viserys and Rhaenyra and I think it was used here in such fashion. Much like Sansa vocalizing her Stark roots in Season 6 "I am a Stark, I will always be a Stark", Alicent just quietly said the same.

Yeah, I agree about this point. The scene was more about Alicent, than they impending rivalry.