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[Spoilers] Episode 110 Discussion


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I was worried that Luke’s death would not have an emotional impact because of the way they rushed through everything, but the conversation with Rhaenyra definitely helped.

Also, while not a Daemon Rhaenyra shipper per se, I definitely got the impression that they loved each other in the book (despite his subsequent affair with Nettles) and was shocked by the strangling scene.

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2 minutes ago, zajaz said:

Still weird that no one remebers a giant freaking dragon killing or maiming like a hundred people the day Aegon was crowned, tho. Or that Alicent was actually around Rhaenyra's age, instead of a decade older, like most maesters claimed. Or that Viserys actually died because he turned into the cryptkeeper, and not because he got obese

I assume that the books are completely accurate in the Game of Thrones timeline. Which this is, not A Song of Ice and Fire.

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9 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

That doesn't make any sense. Nothing indicates he's sleeping with Helaena 

I dunno there was the scene when they were kids were Aemond indicated he wanted to marry her and a few scenes that shows he’s annoyed with Aegon’s cheating 

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I maintain what I said last week, that the showrunners' attempts to demonstrate the patriarchal world of Westeros has ultimately led to Rhaenyra and Alicent being flattened as characters. They're both far more passive and, dare I say, boring than their book counterparts. Both the fictional world of ASOIAF and the history of our world are littered with women who were powerful, ambitious, and fascinating despite living in a patriarchal society. The writers seem afraid to let them act like real people.

Edited by The Bard of Banefort
Sometimes shorter is better
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5 minutes ago, zajaz said:

Still weird that no one remembers a giant freaking dragon killing or maiming like a hundred people the day Aegon was crowned, tho. Or that Alicent was actually around Rhaenyra's age, instead of a decade older, like most maesters claimed. Or that Viserys actually died because he turned into the cryptkeeper, and not because he got obese.

Yes.  Historians… can… be… wrong.

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23 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Are we assuming he didn't want to kill him?

Because, he was chasing him down.

What did people think he thought would happen? That he'd pull over and surrender?

Haha yes pull over and let him slash his eye out I suppose.
 

btw That’s pretty much what I thought! Only not quite so hilariously put.

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8 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This episode also confirmed for me what I was saying last week, that the screenwriters have turned all the female characters into saints and martyrs, and in doing so have inadvertently stripped them of their agency and personality (and it's been gratifying to see other people online talking about this over the course of the last week). I'm sure part of it is because of a genuine desire to rectify the mistakes from GOT, but I also think another part is a fear of the same backlash that D&D received, who were accused of being misogynists and worse. And I think that's understandable, by the way--just look at how deranged the Twitter scolds have been towards Sara Hess for a handful of fairly innocuous statements this past week. But ultimately, Alicent and Rhaenyra are not passive peace-makers who get bossed around by the men in their lives. In the books, Alicent actively conspired to usurp the throne, and Rhaenyra reacted to that usurpation with rage and action. The message they seem to be going for on the show is that if everyone had listened to the two queens, the world would be at peace, but men and their egos ruined everything.

. . . which isn't as empowering as the writers seem to believe it is. Elizabeth I, Isabella of Castile, Catherine the Great and Catherine de Medici (among others) were all ambitious and powerful. Does that make them less female than if they hadn't been? Strong performances have kept both Rhaenyra and Alicent engaging, but the writers have all but completely flattened them by this point. 

It's weird, actually. For some writers, if the woman is not a cold, emotionless, rude badass, she is not strong enough. But, at the same time, those same writers are afraid of making women beings that can be as cruel and vicious as the worst of men.

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Rhaenyra, my queen.

She broke my heart twice during this episode. As she tried to bring Visenya into the world and wrapped her up for burial while the Silent Sisters watched. The second time, when she bowed in shattered grief after Daemon brought news about Lucerys. Yet, she also shone brightly and showed herself a worthy heir, in her temperance and restraint during her council meetings. No queen of ash and bone. Even Rhaenys recognized it, her slight nods and mild smiles, the first signs of acceptance and even pride in a ruler worthy to sit on the Iron Throne. Whatever the next seasons of the show may bring, at least here, it’s clear why Rhaenyra was the right choice. Her last scene left me thinking, they’ve woken the dragon now.

Consistent characterization is one thing this show does poorly or not at all. People changed and behaved inexplicably, in contrast to their earlier behavior, for whatever reason the showrunners deemed expedient. D&D made a travesty of some characters in the last seasons of Game of Thrones by rushing, so when I knew HotD wanted to start the Dance, I also knew the time jumps would not help developments. The only person I felt was even remotely consistent was Alicent Hightower. I totally got why the emotionally repressed, obedient daughter became an equally repressed broodmare. But one theme that resonated with her is that she wanted to be loved for herself, beyond whatever her father and husband thought they needed her to be.

I’ll be doing my usual binge rewatch now that this first bit is over. Maybe I’ll see something I missed, but likely not. Otto Hightower, Ser Crispy Coal, and Aemond Targaryen will remain cunts. Aemond was bullied as a child, and I’m sorry for that experience, but he’s gone too far now. This entire season left me feeling conflicted, mostly about Alicent, because I’ve been Team Black for a long time, but it also affirmed the Dance was a useless waste that might have been avoided. Which is probably the saddest part.

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12 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm wondering, though, whether there could be some Vale action which could possibly involve Jace or other dragonriders. We know that Jeyne Arryn faced considerable trouble from her male cousins, so it could make sense to move aspects from the later succession war in the Vale from the Regency era to Dance proper, with Jeyne's first cousin escaping his cell and mounting one of his rebellions against her, possibly/likely backed by the Royces who would be still very wroth over Daemon murdering Rhea.

One could see Jace intervening in such a struggle in the Vale during his return flight from Winterfell, say, or at a later point in the show.

And I also hope they add a subplot to the Storm's End issue, with some dragonriders paying the castle a visit after Luke's death. That they let this issue stand makes no sense in the book. Jace could insist on a show of force there to avenge the death of his brother ... and to show the Baratheons that you do not insult Queen Rhaenyra and get away with it.

If Rhaena is going to mount one of the riderless dragons, we could also see her avenging the death of her betrothed.

Interesting Ideas.  My only concern is that the main issue this season is they really haven't had enough time for character development/to get the audience invested enough in characters for some of the deaths to really make the sufficient impact.   While I'd love to see that kind of thing brought in from the Vale is we had more episodes/seasons, not sure it would work/really help the 2nd season.   But, a visit to the Stormlands (maybe making it more difficult for the Stormlanders to gather/assemble a host/explaining their seeming delayed entrance in the books) and Rhaena substituting for a drawn-rider might make sense.  

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4 minutes ago, nara said:

I was worried that Luke’s death would not have an emotional impact because of the way they rushed through everything, but the conversation with Rhaenyra definitely helped.

Also, while not a Daemon Rhaenyra shipper per se, I definitely got the impression that they loved each other in the book (despite his subsequent affair with Nettles) and was shocked by the strangling scene.

The strangling is in keeping with Daemon’s character.  It is Rhaenyra who is surprised.  She thought he saw her, at least, as his equal.  That was the action of someone who is seeking control and domination.  Then again, if Daemon simply see’s, what he believes, is his brother’s weakness in Rhaenyra… maybe he thought he had no choice.  Regardless, Daemon can clearly make brutal choices.  He isn’t a “nice guy”.  And he put that on display, again.

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5 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This episode also confirmed for me what I was saying last week, that the screenwriters have turned all the female characters into saints and martyrs, and in doing so have inadvertently stripped them of their agency and personality (and it's been gratifying to see other people online talking about this over the course of the last week). I'm sure part of it is because of a genuine desire to rectify the mistakes from GOT, but I also think another part is a fear of the same backlash that D&D received, who were accused of being misogynists and worse. And I think that's understandable, by the way--just look at how deranged the Twitter scolds have been towards Sara Hess for a handful of fairly innocuous statements this past week. But ultimately, Alicent and Rhaenyra are not passive peace-makers who get bossed around by the men in their lives. In the books, Alicent actively conspired to usurp the throne, and Rhaenyra reacted to that usurpation with rage and action. The message they seem to be going for on the show is that if everyone had listened to the two queens, the world would be at peace, but men and their egos ruined everything.

. . . which isn't as empowering as the writers seem to believe it is. Elizabeth I, Isabella of Castile, Catherine the Great and Catherine de Medici (among others) were all ambitious and powerful. Does that make them less female than if they hadn't been? Strong performances have kept both Rhaenyra and Alicent engaging, but the writers have all but completely flattened them by this point. 

I dunno, that's a weird remark to make when the biggest change of this episode is that a male character known as a Complete MonsterTM who massacres entire towns is shown to have not intended to do one of his most infamous acts.

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17 minutes ago, slant said:

What I did not like about the dragon fight was how easily Vhagar catches up to Arrax. Arrax should have been faster and nimble, but it looks like Vhagar just outmanoeuvres Arrax despite being larger. Visually, it was pretty cool though. 

It looked really cool indeed.

I agree that it is pretty much insane to assume that Vhagar could even follow Arrax in such an intense storm. You can always fly with 'magical dragon sense' but the idea that Arrax actually was too, well, agitated or afraid to run further, eventually reacting like a little barking at a much larger hound ... actually helps to explain how Vhagar could catch up with and kill Arrax in both book and show.

Even if we assume, like in the book, both princes got to their dragons at the same time, it would have taken Aemond much longer to get Vhagar into the sky, so Arrax should have been far away at that point ... or at least so deep in the storm clouds that it would be impossible to find the younger dragon.

17 minutes ago, slant said:

And yeah, same question, what was Aemond even trying to accomplish there.

I think they may have shot but cut the goading scene with Maris Baratheon. It explains why Aemond went after his nephew in the book, and it could have explained it in the show. If they shot it or thought about shooting it and dropped it then the reason for this would have been them wanting to go with the surprise appearance of gigantic Vhagar behind small Arrax.

But it comes at the cost of the audience not really knowing why Aemond is doing this.

If he was pushed by the girl, his line of thinking would have been to save face by going out there in the rain with his dragon, assert dominance of his cowardly nephew, and then return to Storm's End telling everybody how they flew away like they cravens that they are. He could have said that he would have killed them easily enough but for the storm, etc.

17 minutes ago, slant said:

They also showed some kind of psychic connection between Rhaenyra and Syrax, which showed a bit of skinchanger like abilities, something that was downplayed in GoT (was so disappointed that we did not get a full-fledged Varamyr Sixskins). This was one aspect of Westeros that always intrigued me. 

The leaked reports claimed the babe would be a monstrous dragon-human hybrid, so perhaps they originally wanted to go with that and the Syrax scenes there were supposed to lead up to that. If this was the case I imagine the point there is that - at least in a pregnant dragonlord female - intense negative emotion/stress combined with or emplified by an emotional connection with a dragon can trigger some monstrous transformation in an unborn infant. Something similar could have happened with Rhaego due to Dany's strong emotions and her close connections to Drogon in the egg.

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6 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This episode also confirmed for me what I was saying last week, that the screenwriters have turned all the female characters into saints and martyrs, and in doing so have inadvertently stripped them of their agency and personality (and it's been gratifying to see other people online talking about this over the course of the last week). I'm sure part of it is because of a genuine desire to rectify the mistakes from GOT, but I also think another part is a fear of the same backlash that D&D received, who were accused of being misogynists and worse. And I think that's understandable, by the way--just look at how deranged the Twitter scolds have been towards Sara Hess for a handful of fairly innocuous statements this past week. But ultimately, Alicent and Rhaenyra are not passive peace-makers who get bossed around by the men in their lives. In the books, Alicent actively conspired to usurp the throne, and Rhaenyra reacted to that usurpation with rage and action. The message they seem to be going for on the show is that if everyone had listened to the two queens, the world would be at peace, but men and their egos ruined everything.

. . . which isn't as empowering as the writers seem to believe it is. Elizabeth I, Isabella of Castile, Catherine the Great and Catherine de Medici (among others) were all ambitious and powerful. Does that make them less female than if they hadn't been? Strong performances have kept both Rhaenyra and Alicent engaging, but the writers have all but completely flattened them by this point. 

:yawn:

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2 minutes ago, zajaz said:

Couldn't it be budget issues, tho? As much as I dislike what D&D did, I found the Wall and the Lands Beyond the Wall to be quite beautiful, back in GoT.

Budget issues? As in budget issues for an episode that primarily took place on an island fortress with its two gigantic dragons, two large dragons, three smaller dragons, CGI thunderstorms, a castle on a cliff, a glowing table-map and ensemble cast with four of them getting top billing.

Give me a break.

I hate that budget issue excuse. It's a lie. D&D were getting blank checks from HBO from the last couple seconds and HBO was willing to give them more so that they could make more seasons.

 

In any case, the lands beyond the Wall don't count as those are real places.

Apart from what we saw in some episodes in season 1 and 5, the Wall was nothing to be too impressed with.

Storm's End and Shipbreaker (in addition to the way that Dragonstone looked in this episode and the way that Harrenhal looked in the first episode and the general vibe of the Red Keep) blows anything that GoT did in terms of sets, locations and moods in its last few seasons away. The only thing that came close to looking this good was the Eyrie when we first saw it in season 1...only for them to completely abandon it for the cheap, boring stupidity of Winterfell...

But this isn't Rant & Rave so I'll stop there.

11 minutes ago, Ingelheim said:

Everything feels better on this show than it ever did on GOT, imo, and GOT already looked fantastic. But the cinematography, production design, and CGI here is just brilliant.

Exactly. Even with small things such as the sigils, the embroidery, the crowns, the jewelry, the banners...

Like this show is so much more colorful and magical than the original series DESPITE the fact that the story of HotD is much less magical and colorful than that of ASoIaF.

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Just now, zajaz said:

It's weird, actually. For some writers, if the woman is not a cold, emotionless, rude badass, she is not strong enough. But, at the same time, those same writers are afraid of making women beings that can be as cruel and vicious as the worst of men.

I think it comes from an insecurity, both in wanting to do right by the characters, but also of how it will be perceived by the audience. I think I would find it less jarring if Alicent and Rhaenyra were more like their book counterparts, but they're totally different at this point. No change is more head-scratching than Mysaria though. Turning Lady Misery into Jane Addams is a bigger personality swap than any other character has had in either HOTD or GOT. 

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23 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Pretty sure you're mistaken. They say as much on the inside the episode thing. I think he thought he'd make him shit his pants.

I will be very straightforward and honest about this:

I still think that if you feel you must voluntarily explain your reasoning in a set up as this Inside the Ep, before people even ask you about it, then you are either unsure of your work (that your message got across) or you think you didn’t do a good job to begin with. But that’s just me.

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6 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This episode also confirmed for me what I was saying last week, that the screenwriters have turned all the female characters into saints and martyrs, and in doing so have inadvertently stripped them of their agency and personality (and it's been gratifying to see other people online talking about this over the course of the last week). I'm sure part of it is because of a genuine desire to rectify the mistakes from GOT, but I also think another part is a fear of the same backlash that D&D received, who were accused of being misogynists and worse. And I think that's understandable, by the way--just look at how deranged the Twitter scolds have been towards Sara Hess for a handful of fairly innocuous statements this past week. But ultimately, Alicent and Rhaenyra are not passive peace-makers who get bossed around by the men in their lives. In the books, Alicent actively conspired to usurp the throne, and Rhaenyra reacted to that usurpation with rage and action. The message they seem to be going for on the show is that if everyone had listened to the two queens, the world would be at peace, but men and their egos ruined everything.

. . . which isn't as empowering as the writers seem to believe it is. Elizabeth I, Isabella of Castile, Catherine the Great and Catherine de Medici (among others) were all ambitious and powerful. Does that make them less female than if they hadn't been? Strong performances have kept both Rhaenyra and Alicent engaging, but the writers have all but completely flattened them by this point. 

I would argue that Rhaenyra in this episode was active and had plenty of agency, she just wasn't in the rage mode that we may have expected. She was actively trying to secure her rule but by giving priority to peaceful methods. Daemon wanted to secure the allegiance of the great houses for the upcoming war, Rhaenyra wanted their allegiance to ensure that there is no war. Luke's death is the only thing that will be changing that. Plus, wasn't it in the books that after Luke dies, Rhaenyra becomes distraught and doesn't do anything so Jace has to take over? I don't think that final look from Emma D'arcy is indicative of that. She will take action.

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