Jump to content

[Spoilers] Episode 107 Discussion


Ran
 Share

Recommended Posts

HOTD can’t be the definitive telling because they changed too many details, namely the ages. In the books, Alicent is a decade older than Rhaenyra and Viserys is a decade older than her. Rhaenyra is still a young child when Aemma dies. Laenor is younger than Laena.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/2/2022 at 7:00 PM, Chad Vader said:

I actually really enjoyed the ending. Laenor really made off pretty good.

Me too - I'm curious to see how they handle Seasmoke. Not sure how the bonding works or it is a given that the rider must die to disconnect. Either way I hope they make that interesting. I also wonder if maybe they're setting up a Laenor to have hand in returning Viserys 2. 

Edited by Tywin's Wallet
wrong viserys
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, EggBlue said:

is the dark haired woman in the trailer , the one in white waiting for cloaked guy, Mysaria?

Yes. And the hooded guy is surely Daemon, who has already used that outfit when killing Rhea and when bribing Qarl.

2 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I believe one maester is pro-Blacks, another is pro-Greens, and then there is Mushroom, who is just salacious.

That's not quite right. The three chroniclers of the Dance are, in a way, all more favorable to the greens than the blacks:

  • Septon Eustace is clearly on the green side. He was the one who personally crowned Aegon II, and went so far as to fabricate lies to put the blacks in a bad light (the throne reufusing Rhaenyra).
  • Orwyle was part of the green council, and his betrayal was crucial in the early stages of the Dance. It's true that he writes his memories while on prison and trying to plead mercy, but the way he tries to justify his actions (and by extension, the actions of the green side) is also a biased version
  • Mushroom, as you say, is just salacious. But his lies or exaggerations harm the black side much more: Rhaenyra being a wanton with dozen of lovers, openly saying that Rhaenyra's sons are all Harwin's, accusing Daemon of orchestrating Laenor's murder, accusing Corlys of the fire at Harrenhal, claiming that Jace broke his marriage vows,... I don't think the rumors he spreads about the greens are nearly as detrimental for them.

And it's not only that. Glyndayn, Yandel and Munkun are all maesters, educated on Oldtown and very likely to gave a pro-green bias (either consciously, or due to the influence og the Hightowers). In short, I don't think we've ever heard about the Dance from a truly black point of view.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Stenkarazine said:

Aegon's answer to his father ("everyone knows") and the absolute lack of outrage (even feigned) to it confirms that in the show the Velaryons' bastardy is treated as an open secret, known by virtually everyone at Court. As said in the previous thread, I find this utterly ridiculous and unrealistic. 

Agreed.

But please elaborate. I'd be interested in hearing why you think it's both ridiculous and unrealistic.

5 hours ago, sifth said:

I'm really not a huge fan that the show is out right stating that Jace, Lucerys and Joffrey are bastards. I rather enjoyed that the novel kept it open to the reader.

I agree.

The show made it way too obvious. Especially in light of the fact that they deliberately made the entire Velaryon family black and that they changed the very distinct hair colors of Rhaenys and Aemma.

5 hours ago, EggBlue said:

is the dark haired woman in the trailer , the one in white waiting for cloaked guy, Mysaria?

Yes, it's Mysaria. And I'd recognize that cloak anywhere...it's Daemon.

Whenever he puts on that cloak, he is up to no good.

7 hours ago, Stenkarazine said:

This is probably why Dameon didn't intervene in the matter and seemed to smile approvingly (the idea that Aemond should have asked Laena's family permission before trying to tame this monster of a dragon is, I am sorry, really ridiculous).

Yes, I suppose that's why all the dragonriding adults were silent on the matter. Rhaena's grandmother didn't really say anything on the matter. After all, Daemon claimed her father's dragon after he died so..

Rhaena is not wrong to feel cheated but it is true. A Targaryen or Velaryon asking for permission to claim the dragon of a late family member would be a courtesy not a requirement.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

Yes. And the hooded guy is surely Daemon, who has already used that outfit when killing Rhea and when bribing Qarl.

10 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Yes, it's Mysaria. And I'd recognize that cloak anywhere...it's Daemon.

Whenever he puts on that cloak, he is up to no good.

alright then , I suppose you guys are right, cloaked guy must be Daemon. although , in some trailers before ep1 , Aemond was wearing a cloak like that as well.

13 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Yes, I suppose that's why all the dragonriding adults were silent on the matter. Rhaena's grandmother didn't really say anything on the matter. After all, Daemon claimed her father's dragon after he died so..

Rhaena is not wrong to feel cheated but it is true. A Targaryen or Velaryon asking for permission to claim the dragon of a late family member would be a courtesy not a requirement.

 

yeah , in  my opinion they should have made the fighting a more fair match . for example Rhaena could  take Joffrey's place in dragon droppings! or she and the kids (including Aemond )could talk about Vhaegar where she expresses her wish to claim it in her mother's honor or something and Aemond beats her to it , make her feel betrayed . what Condal said about the girls being pissed that someone on the other side of the family has taken their mother's dragon doesn't make much sense , because the girls are new there. they don't know this side of the family and that side of the family . besides , it's not like the kids feel that much of this side and that side for now . Jace and Luke were close to Aegon and they all pranked Aemond . the animosity between kids in the show should only be solidified after this particular incident . not before . 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

And it's not only that. Glyndayn, Yandel and Munkun are all maesters, educated on Oldtown and very likely to gave a pro-green bias (either consciously, or due to the influence og the Hightowers). In short, I don't think we've ever heard about the Dance from a truly black point of view.

But none of the sources portray the greens in a particularly good light either, especially Aemond and Alicent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I would actually be surprisingly fine with that.

 it just occurred to me that there was talk of gold when Daemon was talking to Qarl. I wonder maybe there is a little foreshadow that Laenor will be in business with the Rogare bank (maybe as a partner or investor). That could be a way. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

Yes. And the hooded guy is surely Daemon, who has already used that outfit when killing Rhea and when bribing Qarl.

That's not quite right. The three chroniclers of the Dance are, in a way, all more favorable to the greens than the blacks.

I don't think this reasoning makes much sense, to be honest, since Orwyle and Eustace both write during the reign of Rhaenyra's son, Aegon III. Orwyle wants to carry favor with him and his government, not praise the king he himself may have helped to murder. And Eustace doesn't write a history of the Dance but a history of the reign of Viserys I and the Dance that follows thereafter. As a septon and eventually one of the Most Devout he may have had more leeway to speak his own mind, but his history clearly was not 'Rhaenyra was a false queen' even if he didn't like her all that much personally. That alone you can draw from the fact that he exonerates Aegon II's treason by including the little tale about him needing convincing 'to steal his sister's birthright'.

And Mushroom most likely dictated the thing during his later career in Essos, wanting to entertain and amuse, not provide (even remotely) accurate information.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

And it's not only that. Glyndayn, Yandel and Munkun are all maesters, educated on Oldtown and very likely to gave a pro-green bias (either consciously, or due to the influence og the Hightowers). In short, I don't think we've ever heard about the Dance from a truly black point of view.

That shouldn't matter all that much. It is like saying because historiography was mostly a clergy thing in the middle ages there couldn't be fervent pro-Crown writings from clergymen because they would all be biased towards the church in a given struggle between the monarch and the pope or some bishop.

Rhaenyra's bloodline triumphed, so all subsequent history should either be neutral or biased towards her side. It makes no sense that anyone at the Citadel would write scathing defenses of Aegon II, Alicent, or Otto. In fact, they seem to be all duly vilified, especially Otto, who Pylos views as an exceptionally bad Hand.

You can be of the opinion that the Dance of the Dragons shows why one shouldn't name a female heir ... and still be of the opinion that Rhaenyra Targaryen was the rightful queen because her father named her heir.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For someone who is explicitly pro-green, I always found Eustace surprisingly sympathetic to Rhaenyra. He consistently portrays her as someone who is manipulated by predatory men (Cole, Daemon) and doesn’t even believe that her sons were Harwin Strong’s bastards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

He is quite literally a sneaky little... illegitimate child.

You should start asking how he could out of a locked room/castle ... or whether he would have even be tall enough to get to the door handle. Joffrey was born in 117 AC, so he turned three in 120 AC. We can pretend he was already three at Laenor's funeral, but he could just as well have still been two. It is just ridiculous.

7 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

It was a planned murder of passion. ;) Which technically is like how it was shown. Qarl was waiting for Laenor in the great hall and Laenor yells "Who let you into my father's hall?" So if the witness, the squire, reports to Corlys and Rhaenys exactly what he heard and saw, they could believe Qarl had help.

That's the way they might sell it ... although Corlys and Rhaenys should still recognize the body of their son, never mind the burned face.

It would make more sense if Laenor left behind some letter, explaining things. How they go from there would depend on whether they plan to bring Laenor back later on ... or not. If not, they should still eventually establish his death, or else the Addam-Seasmoke thing would raise questions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

For someone who is explicitly pro-green, I always found Eustace surprisingly sympathetic to Rhaenyra. He consistently portrays her as someone who is manipulated by predatory men (Cole, Daemon) and doesn’t even believe that her sons were Harwin Strong’s bastards.

Yeah, he's an interesting one. I think he takes a somewhat sexist view of women as being less culpable for their actions, not dissimilar to some of how the High Sparrow talks about some of Cersei's wrongdoing as being because women are the weaker sex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Ran said:

Yeah, he's an interesting one. I think he takes a somewhat sexist view of women as being less culpable for their actions, not dissimilar to some of how the High Sparrow talks about some of Cersei's wrongdoing as being because women are the weaker sex.

I think he has a larger issue that he wants to portray everyone as fundamentally honorable and decent caught up in a struggle beyond them versus the depraved bunch of assholes that Martin normally treats his Southern nobility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/3/2022 at 11:09 AM, Chad Vader said:

Well I daresay Corlys loves his son even while not being happy with how he turned out. You see this at the fake death.

Not to say he didn't have any love for Laenor, but considering the conversation he had with Rhaenys regarding his priorities and ambition it was partly due to the setbacks this does for his poential legacy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

For someone who is explicitly pro-green, I always found Eustace surprisingly sympathetic to Rhaenyra. He consistently portrays her as someone who is manipulated by predatory men (Cole, Daemon) and doesn’t even believe that her sons were Harwin Strong’s bastards.

He writes a history, not a propaganda text. And there is no hint that he is explicitly 'pro-Green'. He is the castle septon and has to do what he is told. In that capacity, he serves both Aegon II and Rhaenyra.

Even when he names Rhaenyra 'the Pretender' you could just assume it is how she is viewed by the majority of the people at that time, i.e. between Aegon II's restoration and before his murder and the proclamation and coronation of Aegon III.

The bleeding cuts don't have to be interpreted as propaganda, either, merely as a way to foreshadow doom. Aegon II gets similar although subtler bad portent - after his 'restoration' he cannot sit the Iron Throne again, meaning you can ask the question whether he is king at all.

It might be Eustace thought Rhaenyra should never have been named heir - but her father named her heir, so Aegon was committing treason when he agreed to be crowned. And for that he tries to exonerate the guy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sources always must be filtered through our knowledge of the time they were conceived, the authorial intents and biases, contemporary cultural mores, and the intended audience. Thus we deduct inches from Mushroom’s estimates of his member’s size and treat the testimonies of Runciter, Eustace, or Orwyle with similar scepticism.

For verily, they chronicle not only the subject of their purported histories. They chronicle themselves, and their allegiances – political, romantic, or pecuniary.

Or, in Mushroom’s case, salacious. 

Their texts are not so much lenses through which we see history, as they are mirrors through which we see the author. And, by reflection, perhaps ourselves.

We must treat the newest of sources, unearthed now weekly, with the same attitude of critical scepticism. The same understanding of the time and context in which it was conceived. Which political allegiances were important to the chronicler? Which loyalties were made manifest by the forging of the source?

We know from contemporary sources that the House of the Dragon source is conceived in time of ideological strife, where writers had to skirt certain narrative taboos, such as the killing of characters then called “of colour,” and an unwillingness to display homosexual characters as morally deficient. It is through this lens that the veracity of the Qarl–Leanor source needs to be understood. The authors of the present source would have been strongly disincentivised from having a gay man kill the remaining token black dude for money; as unacceptable as having Lhaena die of childbed fever instead of dragonfire, or of showing characters depicted by male European actors exhibit bravery, integrity, or intelligence.

Much like Mushroom’s member it’s fun to think about. It’s also unbelievable, intellectually dishonest, somewhat embarrassing, and pulls me out of the story by making me think of the source instead of the narrative.

It makes me roll my eyes and sigh. Much like Mushroom’s member.

Edited by Happy Ent
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

But none of the sources portray the greens in a particularly good light either, especially Aemond and Alicent.

One may wonder if we wouldn't have gotten a still worse image of them if we had seen a chronicle from the black side. In Aemond's case even the best of the propagandists couldn't make look good someone who murders thirteen year old nephews and spends half the war burning commoners for the sake of it.

But it's worth noting that the Hightowers themselves receive a fairly good treatment. I would be very interested in knowing how it's possible that most of their own bannermen turned against them (Beesbury, Costayne and Mullendore are black, we don't hear about Bulwers and Cuys participating in the war). It's entirely possible that Ormund and his father had been pieces of shit.

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

For someone who is explicitly pro-green, I always found Eustace surprisingly sympathetic to Rhaenyra. He consistently portrays her as someone who is manipulated by predatory men (Cole, Daemon) and doesn’t even believe that her sons were Harwin Strong’s bastards.

I think the former is due to his sexism, not being able to grasp that a woman can have any agency of its own. As I see it, the later is a common defamation tactic: just cite a rumor, thus contributing to spread it while appearing uncommitted.

But, to be fair, I believe his version is the closest to the truth in most of the pre-Dance issues.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think this reasoning makes much sense, to be honest, since Orwyle and Eustace both write during the reign of Rhaenyra's son, Aegon III. Orwyle wants to carry favor with him and his government, not praise the king he himself may have helped to murder.

Orwyle wrote his memories under the auspices of the Hand Tyland Lannister, another green. At that time, the regents were Unwin Peake (green), Roland Westerling (green), Manfryd Mooton (originally black, then green), Torrhen Manderly (black), and Munkun (from Oldtown). Those are the men that Orwyle really wanted to ingratiate with in order to save his skin. Not an eleven year old boy.

His portrayal of the Green Council is almost comical. How he starts by making it clear that he initially wanted to crown Rhaenyra, how he insists that they discussed at length about legality and precedent (presenting only the arguments of one side), how he insists that the blacks are legitimately afraid of Daemon and Rhaenyra killing them once they get the throne, how Orwyle doesn't intervene in the debate until the end when a decision is already taken, how Tyland keeps a low-profile... we can be assured that the real council was very different from that.

Edited by The hairy bear
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

For someone who is explicitly pro-green, I always found Eustace surprisingly sympathetic to Rhaenyra. He consistently portrays her as someone who is manipulated by predatory men (Cole, Daemon) and doesn’t even believe that her sons were Harwin Strong’s bastards.

As someone recently said, he had the near impossible job of writing history as part of a rather pro-green institution (although informally) and doing so during the reign of Aegon III (being Rhaenyra's son). The fact that Aegon is styled as the third also shows the consensus that Aegon the elder did legitimately rule for a time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...