Jump to content

[Spoilers] Episode 109 Discussion


Ran
 Share

Recommended Posts

10 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

It also makes me think that, looking back, perhaps young Rhaenyra wasn't supposed to be seen as "grey" but as a "sassy badass" like Arya. And maybe it says something about the audience that we didn't find that as cute and charming ten years later.

IIRC, Milly Alcock said that an Arya Stark scene was used in auditions for young Rhaenyra.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way (kinda offtopic) the King's Landing scenes this episode were all shot in my grandma's hometown of Cáceres. If anyone ever visits Spain I implore you to go there, it's a lovely place, the Roman and Middle Age parts of the city are wonderfully preserved.

Edited by Ingelheim
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Ingelheim said:

Yep, that is probably the angle they are going for. Aemond-Helaena, specially after Rook's Rest, and Alicent and Cole.

Watching the preview from HBO and the supposed leaks, it seems we are getting Aemond vs Lucerys this finale, so maybe they open Season 2 with Blood and Cheese and Daemon using Mysaria also to take revenge on Larys and Otto

When they make her kids his bastards, all hell will break loose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’m glad to see other people online who are disappointed with this show’s approach to women. 

And I really don’t buy the “unreliable narrator” excuse for every change from the books. There were three different sources referenced for the Green Council in the books—none of them claimed Alicent was anything less than an active participant in the coup. Claiming that the maesters are biased is just a convenient excuse. By that logic, you could argue that the entire story is a lie and therefore completely irrelevant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I’m glad to see other people online who are disappointed with this show’s approach to women. 

And I really don’t buy the “unreliable narrator” excuse for every change from the books. There were three different sources referenced for the Green Council in the books—none of them claimed Alicent was anything less than an active participant in the coup. Claiming that the maesters are biased is just a convenient excuse. By that logic, you could argue that the entire story is a lie and therefore completely irrelevant.

Wow… you really think “historians” wouldn’t be impacted by political realities in a society where they can be murdered at the whim of their ruling lords?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Chad Vader said:

The Cargyll twins story is shaping up very nicely. Wasnt a fan of Rhaenys and Meleys at the end. Didnt make much sense to me. She killed lots of smallfolk and when she had the Greens cowering she has her dragon yell at them.

I agree - I think it would have been enough if the "beast beneath the boards" would have applied to Aegon since they got him from underneath the boards of the sept anyway. Just a final shot of him changing his demeanor drunk on his own power would have been effective, I think, and just let Rhaenys escape. Although I took the scene to be a contrast to what Alicent told Otto about "Let them see true Targaryen power" - she's has never seen dragon being used as a show of force so I think in the moment when Rhaenys came up with Maelys Alicent realized what the true power of Targaryen's is, not the sword or the crown or the name or none of that. 

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

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Wow… you really think “historians” wouldn’t be impacted by political realities in a society where they can be murdered at the whim of their ruling lords?

One of the three sources was Grand Maester Orwyle, who was directly involved and present for the small council. While he colored his pariticpation to try and save his own skin, there's no reason to suppose he futzed around with Alicent's role.

Remember, the show has massively changed the relationship between Alicent and Rhaenyra. We're well off-book when we talk about it, and no amount of "the histories" really matters because for all intents and purposes Alicent is a different character from that of the book canon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those who state that Rhaenys held back on her family and the sept because she was "honourable" and the small folk are simply too irrelevant to factor into her decision making, she actively put both family and sept at risk with her escape. 

While she was unnaturally speedy to rush down the stairs and go all the way to the dragon pit, sneak past the guards, change clothes, and mount her dragon there still was enough time for people to move. Maybe some of her family or the sept decided to head out early for whatever reason. It wouldn't be out of place, everyone in this show is very dramatic and storming out during the king's ceremony is something people in this show would do. And there was no way to guess that the entire floor wouldn't collapse, or at least that portion where her family and the sept were standing. It certainly is something that could have reasonably occurred. Her actions were high risk in endangering these people.

And I will repeat that senselessly murdering dozens or even hundreds of people with a dragon is tactically a bad idea. Smallfolk do revolt in Martin's world if deeply mistreated. When in a war to gain support for your cause, starting things by ruthlessly murdering is a politically nonsense maneuver.

In the end, it's worth reiterating that none of this needed to happen. This was a deviation from the book and the book was way better.

Edited by IFR
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Am I the only one who is a little thrown off by the show whitewhasing certain Green characters (Alicent mainly, but also Aemond) but making Aegon actually worse?

They seem to be going for many of Mushroom's accounts on him, while making Rhaenyra quite better than she was in the books.

Edited by Ingelheim
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Wow… you really think “historians” wouldn’t be impacted by political realities in a society where they can be murdered at the whim of their ruling lords?

I think this is a work of fiction written by an author who wants to get his point across. I don’t think he’s playing 4-D chess with us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Allow the women to be full-fledged human beings. That’s part of what fans love about ASOIAF.

No disagreement on the premise and the lack of consistency between fully fledged male and female characters overall.

 

But iirc, Rhaenyra (at least Milly's version) and Alicent have been pretty human to me. A lot more than people like Daemon and Aemond who are creations to their universe. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Ran said:

He seems pretty much like the accounts to me. How is he worse? But yes, they are giving him some of the uglier details put forward by Mushroom... and not also giving those to Alicent or Rhaenyra.

We are told this episode that he watches kids fighting to the death for amusement. He raped a young maiden last episode and didn't even deny it to his mother.

Book Aegon always seemed like kind of a fuck up but they never explicitly mentioned any of this except for Mushroom, who was away at Dragonstone at this time.

Edited by Ingelheim
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My thoughts. I thought the episode was pretty lackluster.

  • I think Alicent is a very interesting character. She's obviously whitewashed compared to the books, but she's still a very complex and layered character. One of the best written characters in the GOT show universe, in my opinion.
  • I liked the conflict between Alicent and Otto, among other things, for control of Aegon. The court intrigue was very well done.
  • I could sympathize very much with Aegon II at times. I do have to say that I didn't think it was a particularly good decision to involve him in the fighting pits with children. That makes him a completely immoral character in the eyes of the audience. The viewing public can rationalize or excuse a lot of bad behavior to defend certain characters (including rapists like Robert, Jaime and show-Margaery, don't ask me why), but this might be going too far for them. The showrunners should have sought a better alternative.
  • It is a book-accurate portrayal of Flea Bottom, though, I must admit.
  • The dialogue written was generally very good - some scenes among the best of the season. So was the cinematography.
  • I was disappointed in how the death of Lyman Beesbury was handled. What on earth happened? His head was smashed to death against the table?
  • I am dissatisfied with how Mysaria was written. Early on I had problems with the character, but I was hoping it was still going to work out. I think this episode is the last in the season in which she will appear, and I can't deny that she is anything but a coherent character: there is a character arc lacking. She really behaves depending on what the plot demands. For a character who belongs to the main cast, the results are very disappointing.
  • I have a similar opinion about Larys Strong. Earlier I was of the opinion that I found Larys more interesting than show-Littlefinger (who I hate with passion), but now I am no longer sure. The foot fetish was handled better than some rumors before the episode led me to believe, but I found this scene quite unnecessary
  • I'm not a fan of the Rhaenys scene in the Dragonpit. The reasons why are pretty obvious and have probably been mentioned in previous posts. I agree that despite that, it does provide a very good foundation for the Storming of the Dragonpit later on. Still, I would have preferred that Rhaenys managed to escape the night prior to the coronation and the episode ended with a close-up of Aegon II's conflicted feelings.

 

I note that Game of Thrones does have a pretty big influence on the decisions made for HOTD and the overall approach. Previously, it was mostly about the excessive bloodshed, the battle on the Stepstones and generally the fast pacing... Now I must also say that the ending of this episode 9 fits into that list. The showrunners of HOTD clearly used D&D's formula that the penultimate episode should end on a shocking twist or a big battle.

That particular formula for GOT (and D&D's general approach to GOT) was successful in creating hype and media attention in general... And HBO is trying to use the formula again. Likely the casual target audience will love how the Dragonpit scene ends, but I had hoped HOTD would take more risks and have more of an identity separate from its predecessor... Even though that would mean it will be less liked by casual show-watchers.

HOTD Episode 9 was the first episode for me anyway that I would put roughly on the level of GOT season 5/season 6, but I can't deny that there are quite a few positive aspects in the episode that were generally absent for GOT in that time period. For example, some main characters in HOTD get more character development and depth in one episode than characters in GOT such as Daenerys and Jon Snow in ten episodes during the last four seasons. For that reason, I still have faith in the showrunners of HOTD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Ingelheim said:

Am I the only one who is a little thrown off by the show whitewhasing certain Green characters (Alicent mainly, but also Aemond) but making Aegon actually worse?

They seem to be going for many of Mushroom's accounts on him, while making Rhaenyra quite better than she was in the books.

Everyone is better in the show except Aegon, he still the scum of the earth just like in the books.

Edited by Leticia Stark
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...