HOTD Musings

[Ran]

39 minutes ago, Werthead said:

it's said to be two days from King's Landing

To be fair, with a pony express-style changing of horses, a rider could in fact cover that distance in that time. I'm not sure that's what they meant to indicate, but I guess they could justify it to themselves that 200 miles = 2 days (for messenger riders) is internally consistent.

But yeah, even before the late seasons you had Littlefinger with his jetpack or teleportation device, so to some degree the distance shrank and grew according to the needs of their plotting.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Ran

[Werthead]

46 minutes ago, Ran said:

To be fair, with a pony express-style changing of horses, a rider could in fact cover that distance in that time. I'm not sure that's what they meant to indicate, but I guess they could justify it to themselves that 200 miles = 2 days (for messenger riders) is internally consistent.

But yeah, even before the late seasons you had Littlefinger with his jetpack or teleportation device, so to some degree the distance shrank and grew according to the needs of their plotting.

This was the entire Northern army marching to besiege King's Landing having just fought the Battle of Winterfell, so very definitely not that.

[The Bard of Banefort]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

To be fair, with a pony express-style changing of horses, a rider could in fact cover that distance in that time. I'm not sure that's what they meant to indicate, but I guess they could justify it to themselves that 200 miles = 2 days (for messenger riders) is internally consistent.

But yeah, even before the late seasons you had Littlefinger with his jetpack or teleportation device, so to some degree the distance shrank and grew according to the needs of their plotting.

One reason why I resisted the RamSan leaks for S5 for so long was because it would take way too long for Sansa and Littlefinger to get to Winterfell for that plot to happen and, up until then, the show had been very meticulous with travel times.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

This was the entire Northern army marching to besiege King's Landing having just fought the Battle of Winterfell, so very definitely not that.

Huh. Guess there were some benefits to not watching after S5!

[Annara Snow]

On 5/3/2023 at 5:16 PM, Aelwen said:

Ok, she does love cake in the show.

Let's be blunt, book Rhaenyra is worse than Aegon IV. Frankly. I don't know how they going to adapt it to the show. Even mad Dany was better. At least she had her goal. 

 

I hope Mysaria will be a kind of female Varys. 

How is she worse than Aegon IV? 

[Annara Snow]

On 5/3/2023 at 1:45 PM, Aelwen said:

How do you think will be portrayed Daemon and Mysaria relationships? 

They were not as close in the show (or the writers as always, cramp it due time restrictions).

Will they portray Rhaenyra as this only cake-eating, fat, dumb figure? 

 

 

On 5/3/2023 at 5:13 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

The writers have already said that they consider fat Rhaenyra propaganda, so no, I wouldn’t expect that.

Rhaenyra being super fat is  a fandom exaggeration. She's described as becoming "stout" and "thick of waist" after her childbirths (and grows 'even more stout' while ruling King's Landing), but there's no indication she's incredibly overweight to the level of Aegon IV (for instance, in a way that would limit her movements). 

Viserys I is also described as "plump" as a boy and later getting "stout" and "plump" as he ages (and the official art is in line with that in both TWOIAF and Fire & Blood), and Helaena is also described as "plumper and less striking than most Targaryens". It certainly doesn't seem like any of them was Aegon IV-level fat, but if we're going for accuracy, Viserys and Heleana should also be 'plumper' on the show, not just Rhaenyra. (One might argue Aegon II too, since he's said to look like his father, and all the official art makes him certainly look bigger than Tom Glynn-Carney is - muscles or fat, he's certainly not as thin as Tom). Mysaria's waist is also said to have thickened with age (it's a part of Gyldayn noting as remarkable that Daemon was still into her though she wasn't young and slender). 

For some reason, it's only Rhaenyra this ever comes up about. Although, to be fair, Rhaenyra's weight is given more weight (no pun intended) than Viserys' or Helaena's, since 1) Mushroom claims Rhaenyra resented Alicent because Alicent remained slender and graceful after her childbirths (what a smart way to interpret political conflicts between women! Reminds me of one of the GoT showrunning duo - I think it was Weiss - saying Sansa hated Dany because she's pretty), and 2) Gyldayn wonders if people would still want to support Rhaenyra now that she wasn't a cute slender teenager (imagine how hard I'm rolling my eyes).

The "writers have said fat Rhaenyra is propaganda" idea, I assume, comes from a Sara Hess interview where she said:

Quote

in [George R.R. Martin’s Targaryen history book Fire & Blood] the history was written by these unreliable narrators and nobody really knows what happened in those rooms. They know the big events that happened historically, but they don’t know what anyone’s intention was. And history is often written by men who write off women as crazy or hysterical or evil and conniving or gold-digging or sexpots. Like in the [book], it says Rhaenyra had kids and got fat. Well, who wrote that? We were able to step back and go: The history tellers want to believe Alicent is an evil conniving bitch. But is that true? Who exactly is saying that? That’s part of the thing we’re playing with in this and in season two.

Well, "she says Rhaenyra getting fat is propaganda" is one interpretation. I'd say she mostly likely acrtually meant "who writes about that as something that actually matters"? Who writers that her weight was politically important and that people wouldn't support her because she wasn't slender anymore, or that her conflict with Alicent was about who was more slender? 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Annara Snow

[Ran]

37 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Rhaenyra being super fat is  a fandom exaggeration.

Yes. You can see Amok's depiction that he did with George's input, and again in Fire and Blood by Doug Wheatley which George and his team would have reviewed.

She wasn't the slender young woman of her youth, but people seem to swing through extremes -- either you're slim or your morbidly obese, no inbetween.

 

[Lord Varys]

Rhaenyra was never particularly fat. At least not during her reign unless there are intentional contradictions in FaB. We have her as being not as slender as Alicent after the births, but Eustace's claim of her gaining weight during her reign while Gyldayn later describing her as thin and haggard both prior to and during her return to Dragonstone means we talk about a few pounds there, not a massive gain and loss of weight. Both would need time George never gave Rhaenyra.

The Amok description and portrait of Rhaenyra makes no mention of body size. Her face looks more haggard than fat in the portrait and her body type is more tall and slender woman, kind of like the Amok Alysanne compared to the FaB version.

Rhaenyra's height we actually know nothing about, but I'd imagine her as a tall woman like many of the male Targaryens.

[The Bard of Banefort]

I think it says a lot about the showrunners that they view being fat as a slander. It reminds me of when they thought that Laena dying in childbirth was weak and that she should commit suicide instead because that was more badass. The “feminist” reasoning is instead quite misogynistic. HOTD can boast about how diverse it is all they want, but at the end of the day they couldn’t contemplate hiring fat actresses, even though there are plenty out there and the source material calls for it. Plenty of people wanted Rhaenyra and Helaena to be chubby not so that they could hate them more easily but because it’s actually quite refreshing to see and reflects real life. No, they didn’t need to include the part about her resenting Alicent for being thin. But like it or not, most women gain weight from pregnancy. I see no point in pretending otherwise. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by The Bard of Banefort

[SeanF]

On 5/7/2023 at 7:52 PM, Werthead said:

This was the entire Northern army marching to besiege King's Landing having just fought the Battle of Winterfell, so very definitely not that.

IIRC, it was three day's march from the Trident to Kings Landing, by season 8.  I'm quite sure the distance was several times greater in Season 1.

Not to mention, 108,000 soldiers (plus horses) were apparently fed and supplied by Dragonstone.

Edited May 10, 2023 by SeanF

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think it says a lot about the showrunners that they view being fat as a slander. It reminds of when they thought that Laena dying in childbirth was weak and that she should commit suicide instead because that was more badass. The “feminist” reasoning is instead quite misogynistic. HOTD can boast about how diverse it is all they want, but at the end of the day they couldn’t contemplate hiring fat actresses, even though there are plenty out there and the source material calls for it. Plenty of people wanted Rhaenyra and Helaena to be chubby not so that they could hate them more easily but because it’s actually quite refreshing to see and reflects real life. No, they didn’t need to include the part about her resenting Alicent for being thin. But like it or not, most women gain weight from pregnancy. I see no point in pretending otherwise. 

That is certainly true, especially with Helaena. With Rhaenyra the source material isn't that clear about how fat she was as I pointed out - but adult Rhaenyra could easily have be played by a chubbier actress. Emma has a kind of round face so that's not that bad, but she clearly didn't gain any weight during her pregnancies.

Also, of course, the whole overindulgence and decadence theme could have been portrayed much better if everybody had just been heavier - especially, of course, Viserys I but also the older Daemon (who is never described physically in his later life, so he could have gained a couple of stones sitting on his ass on Dragonstone all the time) and effectively all the royals and nobles who are not explictly described as a great warriors and/or people who are still young enough to not have enjoyed the great food too much.

But something like that goes, of course, way beyond anything Hollywood would ever do.

[Annara Snow]

16 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think it says a lot about the showrunners that they view being fat as a slander. It reminds me of when they thought that Laena dying in childbirth was weak and that she should commit suicide instead because that was more badass. The “feminist” reasoning is instead quite misogynistic. HOTD can boast about how diverse it is all they want, but at the end of the day they couldn’t contemplate hiring fat actresses, even though there are plenty out there and the source material calls for it. Plenty of people wanted Rhaenyra and Helaena to be chubby not so that they could hate them more easily but because it’s actually quite refreshing to see and reflects real life. No, they didn’t need to include the part about her resenting Alicent for being thin. But like it or not, most women gain weight from pregnancy. I see no point in pretending otherwise. 

Why just Rhaenyra and Helaena? Why not Viserys, who was very consistently portrayed as chubby in the source material and official art? The moment they cast Paddy it was obviousl they went in a very different direction.

Let's be honest here. The reason why all of those characters aren't chubby in the show has nothing to do with whatever sexist ideas you believe the showrunners have* and everything to do with the reality of TV and with HBO wanting a hit show and to draw on the GoT audience. That's the fandom that trashed Emma on Twitter when they were cast not because they weren't plump but because they thought they weren't as pretty as Emilia Clarke or the Magali Villeneuve's portrait of Rhaenyra in TWOIAF. (Same with Matt when he was cas)

 

*Why do you keep saying "showrunners" when the only one who said anything like that is Sara Hess, who is not a showrunner on HotD? Even if you think she meant in that quote that gaining weight after childbirth is slander, rather than that it makes no sense for historians to focus on thar as something important.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Annara Snow

[Lord Varys]

Thinking about slenderness as a (female) beauty ideal in Westeros:

That shouldn't have been a thing. It wasn't in the real world middle ages but especially in this fantasy world where winters can and do last years and people starve to death in those winters left and right it actually should be very desirable to prepare yourself for winter by eating enough to have fat stores for winter in your very own body.

Also, of course, if you are rich and powerful you would also enjoy and celebrate a plentiful harvest by enjoying as much of the food as you possibly can. A fat lord and a fat king would be a sign that they did their job right. Slender and thin people would show that something was amiss in their lands.

In that sense we would have to conclude that the whole Rhaenyra-Alicent jealousy thing there really doesn't make much sense. It is a bad concept that doesn't seem to fit into the world.

In context, one would also have to conclude that the contempt the Manderlys face for their fatness in the books really makes no sense. It should be opposite. The other Northmen should be jealous of the Manderlys that White Harbor is so prosperous that its lords have the luxury to grow as fat as they are. That wouldn't be seen as decadence or weakness but success. In the North everybody would eat as much as they can when they can eat. Because winter is coming.

[The Bard of Banefort]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Thinking about slenderness as a (female) beauty ideal in Westeros:

That shouldn't have been a thing. It wasn't in the real world middle ages but especially in this fantasy world where winters can and do last years and people starve to death in those winters left and right it actually should be very desirable to prepare yourself for winter by eating enough to have fat stores for winter in your very own body.

Also, of course, if you are rich and powerful you would also enjoy and celebrate a plentiful harvest by enjoying as much of the food as you possibly can. A fat lord and a fat king would be a sign that they did their job right. Slender and thin people would show that something was amiss in their lands.

In that sense we would have to conclude that the whole Rhaenyra-Alicent jealousy thing there really doesn't make much sense. It is a bad concept that doesn't seem to fit into the world.

In context, one would also have to conclude that the contempt the Manderlys face for their fatness in the books really makes no sense. It should be opposite. The other Northmen should be jealous of the Manderlys that White Harbor is so prosperous that its lords have the luxury to grow as fat as they are. That wouldn't be seen as decadence or weakness but success. In the North everybody would eat as much as they can when they can eat. Because winter is coming.

I think George was using Manderly as a self-insert in this instance. In the “North remembers” scene, Wyman talks about how people view him as being a lesser person because of his weight, and that’s a sentiment many heavyset people have encountered.

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think George was using Manderly as a self-insert in this instance. In the “North remembers” scene, Wyman talks about how people view him as being a lesser person because of his weight, and that’s a sentiment many heavyset people have encountered.

Sure, he also does that with Illyrio to a point.

But the Manderlys were fat when they first showed up in the books. The worldbuilding would have suggested other values there. 10-20 pounds more or less can be the difference between life and death in winter.

[SeanF]

13 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think George was using Manderly as a self-insert in this instance. In the “North remembers” scene, Wyman talks about how people view him as being a lesser person because of his weight, and that’s a sentiment many heavyset people have encountered.

Manderly likes people to view him as a slave to his appetites.  That means, they underrate him.

[Aelwen]

Do you think Daemon would have become such an awful king as Otto and Viserys feared? 
 

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

2 hours ago, Aelwen said:

Do you think Daemon would have become such an awful king as Otto and Viserys feared? 
 

We are told Daemon quickly grew bored of his offices as master of coin and master of laws. He was a man of action not a man of governance. Best case scenario, he would be an absentee monarch with a competent Hand like Robert and Jon Arryn. Worst case scenario, his boredom could transform into frustration and anger. From that point on who knows what Daemon is capable to do.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Thomaerys Velaryon

[The Bard of Banefort]

Does the writers strike extend to all forms of communication, or just words written on paper? Because I’m trying to imagine how Ryan Condal will manage showrunning without running into writing complications. If is a scene isn’t working, can he make suggestions or does he have to keep his mouth shut?

[The hairy bear]

2 hours ago, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

We are told Daemon quickly grew bored of his offices as master of coin and master of laws. He was a man of action not a man of governance. Best case scenario, he would be an absentee monarch with a competent Hand like Robert and Jon Arryn. Worst case scenario, his boredom could transform into frustration and anger. From that point on who knows what Daemon is capable to do.

That's a fair assessment, but I wonder if those traits are still as prevalent at Daemon in his forties as they were in his twenties. An older parent of four who has already become king may act a little bit more responsibly, I'd guess.

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Does the writers strike extend to all forms of communication, or just words written on paper? Because I’m trying to imagine how Ryan Condal will manage showrunning without running into writing complications. If is a scene isn’t working, can he make suggestions or does he have to keep his mouth shut?

This article covers that issue.

It's muddy, but I'd say that the most likely scenario is that the scripts will have to stay as they are, and only very minor changes may be introduced by the directors (probably without Ryan Condal's involvement, at least officially).

The seasons of many shows filmed during the 2007 strike were noticeably sub-par in terms of writing. I recall that the inability to change scripts during filming was the excuse given by some showrunners.