"House of the Dragon" returns June 16th for a second season

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You're not getting Jon Snow. He's not even born for another couple of hundred years after this show takes place.

It would be like having Elizabeth II make an appearance on the next season of "Queen Charlotte."

I heard that in the final episode all the dragons will be killed and the characters will all laugh and say, dragons suck and are stupid.

THE END

Good interview with Matt Smith in "Variety" about the new season.

The new season is getting mostly great reviews.

SPOILERS

It looks like the new season will, as predicted by many, begin in the first episode with the "Blood and Cheese" incident, the event that is as horrific in terms of this series as the Red Wedding was for "Game of Thrones."

SPOILERS 2

There will apparently be a new credit sequence for this season which is good--I had so much trouble figuring out the one from last season, and yet it seemed too derivative of the "Game of thrones" credit sequence.

The new one will be based on a famous medieval work of art.

[quote] The new one will be based on a famous medieval work of art.

Yay! I’m so happy.

I find this show such a waste of time and space. What’s its point? Life with dragons. I didn’t miss GOT especially after that last season. Enough fantasy.

The new season is getting great reviews: 90% on rottentomatoes (though they've only given critics the first four episodes).

It's got to be better than the first seasons.

There was more than one first season?

There were a bunch of them. They were like one to thee episodes each. And shown back to back. It was weird.

It was alright. The pacing feels really off though. Beyond child murder being bad the promise Blood and Cheese would be worse than the Red Wedding fell flat because we spent about ten minutes with them.

Book readers were hyping up Blood and Cheese far too much. I've read Fire and Blood and sure it's horrible but it doesn't have the emotional weight of Catelyn and Robb who are characters we have really bonded with.

The main point of this is show that Team Black also drawing blood. Both sides have had a child killed so it ups the stakes and the animosity.

But I liked the premiere a lot. It felt more deliberate, season 1 was so ham strung by how it had to cover decades of time. This episode really felt like the show could take its time with our main cast.

They should just leak all the episodes. Like they did with one GoT season

not torrented yet...must suck.

Can Rhaenyra’s twink son be gay?

I watched it but couldn't connect.

I couldn't remember who anyone was.

When it ended, I realized I couldn't recall one thing I saw. Except a baby was killed.

But that tends to be the case for me these days.

Eve Best has such an interesting face. That's all I got.

The show doesn’t connect. The plot moves forward by having people I don’t care about make stupid decisions. The dragons are good, but that’s not enough.

A lot of lesbian actresses on this show. Actress that plays young Alicent Hightower is. Then both actresses playing Targaryen sisters are gay. Emma D'arcy is something

I think I found a gay couple. The actor playing Prince Jacaerys (harry Collett) and Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor), met on set for a day of shooting. They had to shoot one more scene a few weeks late. Harry mentioned he was going to spend his break form shooting in Spain. Tom asked if he can join. Just the two of them hungout in Spain by hid private little rental/pool. Harry called it bonding with his co-star. They had like 10 lines together and wont be in any other scenes together this season. They did have loads of chemistry on screen.

I suppose 20 year olds can be spontaneous, but rarely do I see two single men, with no girlfriends in sight on their Instagrams, go off for a private 1-on-1 vacation. You can see that Harry was happy to post Tom all over his social media.

I think they were fucking.

Small correction, they might have had other friends with em, I don't know. But he only showed this blond hunk on his instagram.

Haven't yearned for the just death of a one-eyed fictional character in a long time. Not since Elle Driver. Maybe Popeye.

I suspect I will just have to wait.

You think the idea of guys going on a trip together without girls is unheard of r24? What?

I have no idea if those guys are gay but some of you seem like shut ins that have never heard of people having friends.

I think two actors that just met for only 1-2 days going off on a trip together in Spain is a little bit suspect. Neither man has a single woman in sight on their social media pages so....

Yes, two attractive young actors running off to the Spanish riviera after a brief encounter on set does read like a gay romance.

Didn't mean to repeat myself.

Last night's was a very good episode, even though George RR Martin pretty much stole the Arryk/Errryk storyline from Tennyson and (before that) Sir Thomas Malory. I thought the awful funeral for Jahaerys was done very well--the resonances to Diana's funeral were very much there, with Helaena and her mother forced to parade behind the cortege, like William and Harry, for propaganda reasons, and then becoming greatly disturbed by it. Phia Saban has been excellent this season as Helaena--it's a small part, but she's done quite a lot with it in just two episodes this season. I also very much have liked what Tom Glinn-Carney has been doing with her husband Aegomn this season--Martin wrote the part as pretty much a redux of Joffrey, but Glinn-Carney has worked hard to show that Aegon may be awful but he's not as sociopathic and much more pitiable. Similarly, Olivia Cooke's character Alicent is written as a bloodthirsty bitch like Cersei in the book, and she and the writers have made the character much more interesting by making her so conflicted and unhappy.

My biggest disappointments so far have been that we've had almost no nudity for Fabien Frankel as Ser Cristin Cole, even though he is so gorgeous and we've had lots of sex scenes between him and Alicent, Maybe it makes sense, though, that they're both so repressed that they don't show much skin most of the time when they fuck.

I wish Matt Smith's character weren't so much like Prince Philip in "The Crown." He seems stuck in a rut.

How can you people watch so much TV? I'm lucky if I can swueeze one PBS prigram in a week.

No one wants these types of shows

Agree that this second episode was one of the better of this series, but will miss the hot twins. Fabien Frankel is indeed very cute but he has such flawless skin that sometimes he seems like a cartoon character.

To me the weak link is Aegon. The actor is ugly and overacts (though the role is indeed over the top). The blond wigs aren’t helping anyone other that Ranyra.

People didn't like Aegon? He and Otto were pretty much the only performances I liked this episode and most of the reviews I've seen keep calling him the highlight of the 4 set up themed opening episodes.

R34, that doesn’t sound good. I thought Aegon was dire. I don’t care what happens to him, I just want him to shut up. The actress who plays Helaena is outstanding. She’s barely spoken but she’s mesmerizing.

The actor playing Aemond needs to eat a cheeseburger or two.

The funny thing about the actor who plays Aemond is that he is attractive and charismatic in real life, but on the show in his Targaryen wig and make-up he looks like he suffers from acromegaly.

I agree about the Helaena actress, Phia Saban, r35. I hope they give her more to do this season.

Amateurs.

How can you tell they're wigs? i thought wigs fooled everyone into thinking they were real hair.

Yes r36. Aemond is supposed to be a great warrior but seeming him naked and he is just skin and bones with no muscle ruins the fantasy a little.

And Helaena doesn't have a ton to do in the source material so I wouldn't get too excited.

But I am enjoying the increased Aegon screen time, I found the actors performance entertaining for what the character is supposed to be.

[quote] And Helaena doesn't have a ton to do in the source material so I wouldn't get too excited.

I don't think you can put too much stock into the source material, since the writers have really experimented with fleshing it out in different and unexpected ways. I just re-read all the chapters about the Dance of the Dragons in FIRE& BLOOD: Rhaenys's part was far bigger last season than it was in the relevant sections of the book, as was Viserys's. And they've already announced Baela and Rhaena will be given much more to do this season than in the relevant chapters of the novel. And Helaena's prophetic abilities were not even in the original book either.

One thing I never understand is why half the dragons have cool Valyrian names like Vhagar and Caraxes, and then the other half sound like they were named by New Age lesbians: Moondancer, Dreamfyre, Sunfyre, etc.

I'm coming to the conclusion this shows writing is a bit shit.

Episode 3 was not on par with the first two episodes. Very slow.

Criston Cole changed his hair!!

I really wish they'd not hinged Aegons entire claim in this show on Alicent being a retard and mixing up which Aegon a dying man she hated was hallucinating about. Its the medieval era and he has a dick thats more than enough already.

r31 no one is that busy that they can't muster in more than an hour of TV a week. Rich folks used to go to the theater weekly to get their fix of live storytelling. You are the outlier but it's probably because your dull ass wastes your weekly hour of TV on PBS.

The last series I enjoyed on HBO was True Detective Night Country. Nothing of interest to me lately.

Am I the only that thinks Aemond is the eventual White Walker King?

Interesting theory R49

R46, all of the nobles had sworn an oath to Viserys to support his choice of heir. They couldn’t just back out, they needed an excuse. A similar series of events happened in the “real life” version of the story.

By similar events I presume you mean Stephen bribing Henry I's chamberlain to say he'd changed his mind about who should be his heir on his deathbed rather than there being a secret prophesy passed through the royal family that William the Conqueror only invaded to stop the Scots climbing over Hadrian's wall making everyone confused? If the show had gone that rout I wouldn't mind. Its competent dynastic politics. Instead as a way to not make Alicent not as bad person they invented a bizarre tie in to GoT as the reason. That scene last night with Rhaenya sneaking around as a nun and Alicents "Oh I done fucked up" face when she realised the error needed a laugh track.

Yes! It's completely ridiculous that Rhaenyra thought it would be a great idea to sneak into King's Landing with a single bodyguard and count on uber cunt Alicent not calling her out.

I find the DL comments about the show more entertaining than the show itself.

I think this show is a total disappointment. I hate it. There's no one in it I like. By now with Game of Thrones we had really great characters. This show is shit.

This is what happens when you push too hard on a guy like George RR Martin for content. Fucking Dragons.

'What say you, my king?"

The stilted pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue is awful. No actor can deliver it and be credible.

I’m enjoying this show a lot. I agree with R55 about no one being especially likable, but I’m also not sure I need to like anyone to enjoy the show. I think the actress playing Queen R has had some really fantastic scenes, so perhaps I like her.

Why do characters need to be likable? I always find that a childish complaint. I need characters to be interesting and entertaining to watch.

Aegon is an awful human being, but I think all of his scenes are entertaining.

But I am surprised by the negative comments, or maybe not for this board, I think Season 2 has been a noticeable improvement over Season 1 so far.

I don't think characters have to be likable. But they they do have to be interesting. The original series was full of detestable characters whose scenes I looked forward to. But I think HotD is really struggling to develop these characters. Which is bad because half of them are about to be culled in a fratricidal civil war that will take up the bulk of the next season and a half from the start of next episode, and I couldn't care less.

I get confused because Rhaenyra’s oldest sons look like they should be Alicent’s, and vice versa.

The show lacks humor. Tyrion was very funny in the early seasons of GoT. Lady Tyrell could be pretty funny too.

r61 To be fair the Targaryen's are meant to be inbred to an almost Egyptian royalty level so that's pretty normal.

This was the weakest episode this season.

I thought the scene with Alicent and Rhaenyra (which is not in the original book) was both ridiculously contrived and uninteresting. The only thing it achieved was that Rhaenyra now knows the mistaken assumption that caused Alicent to think Visaerys wanted Aegon on the throne. But that's not really that important in terms of anything.

It was also hard to care much about whichever daughter of Daemon and Laena didn't want to go to Essos with Rhaenyra's surviving children, since we had seen so little of her before and we never got to know anything about her personality previously.

I love this show, much to my surprise after seasons 7 & 8 of Game of Thrones. Even the DEI casting doesn't bother me. The only thing I do dislike from both seasons are their respective opening credit sequences, both the retained GoT musical theme and the animation. on the plus side, the casting is so great, the art design, the weight and sense of inescapable fate that pervades it all. Although not a lot of juicy fun to be had

This episode had plenty of juicy fun with a three-way dragon dogfight over the Battle for Rook's Rest! It looks like Aemond was doing everything he could to take his brother Aegon out in the dogfight, as well as Rhaenys. She's now gone, but Aegon's fate is unclear.

The writers of this show genuinely hate Aegon its amazing. I can't think of a single scene in a season and a half where he's not shown either to be callus, reckless, incompetent or stupid. He may be the most pathetic character ever at this point.

Well, fuck. Rhaenys was my favorite character.

Second half of the episode tonight was riveting

Did you even watch the episode r66?

There were only two dragons in the sky at any one point. Rhaenys was torching the attacking soldiers. Aegon flew in….but Aemond saw Aegon, and settled into to wait on the ground. Rhaenys made short work of Aegon, who was no warrior. Aegon crashed to the ground. THEN Aemond flew to challenge Rhaenys, and won.

🫡 Rhaenys, brave dragon warrior. She should have been queen.

R70, I was sure that I saw Aemond, on his dragon, confront Aegon and order his dragon to shoot fire at his hapless brother. The dragon and king then fell to the ground and exploded, like a car in an old movie.

Aemond ordered his dragon to shoot dragonfire at his brother Aegon first, NOT at Rhaenys.

And then when Ser Criston came upon Aemond standing over his brother at the very end, Aemond had drawn his sword as if he were about to kill Aegon... but then he thought better of it.

Watch again. When Aemond shows up and does his Dracarys he is doing it at both Aegon and Rhaenys. So he has a little bit of an excuse there, even though its clear his real intention is to take his brother out, but there is enough to give himself cover.

They did a great job with this episode. Really pulled off three dragons that all looked and behaved different and it "felt real". When the dragons were ripping each other apart and felt brutal and heart breaking.

r70/r73, this interview tonight with Ewan Mitchell, who plays Aemond, makes it VERY clear both he and the showrunner/writer intended Aemond's actions towards Aegon to be purposefully ambiguous and to imply that Aemond might be planning to do away with his brother:

______

After Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) unexpectedly showed up at the battle atop Sunfyre, and began sparring with Rhaenys (Eve Best) and Meleys, Aemond swooped in to save the day with Vhagar. [bold]Instead of just taking down Rhaenys, Vhagar also attacked Sunfyre, leading Aegon and his dragon to plummet from the sky. [/bold]While Aegon was caught in the crossfire as Aemond tried to take out Rhaenys, one could argue that Aegon’s look of terror prior to Vhagar’s blow implied that Aemond’s attack on Aegon was intentional.

[bold]“That’s one of the compelling arguments that it raises in what Aemond does, whether or not he always intentionally was going to hurt Aegon somewhere down the line, or whether or not Aegon, in that moment, was just collateral damage, because he was entangled with Rhaenys,” Mitchell told TheWrap. “Was the target just Rhaenys, or was it Rhaenys and Aegon?”[/bold]

Given the already fractured history between the brothers — which came to a head when Aemond put Aegon in his place in front of the small council earlier in Episode 4 — Mitchell said the Rook’s Rest sequence reflected the “two characters trajectories finally [coming] into an accumulation in the skies.”

After the battle, Criston Cole found Aemond — with his sword drawn — close by Aegon’s still body and wounded dragon. [bold]With Aegon’s fate left unclear by the end of Episode 4, Mitchell said he prefers Aemond’s actions to be left “ambiguous,” though it’s clear the brothers’ relationship has been permanently altered. [/bold]

Another interview published tonight with Ewan "Aemond" Mitchell, where he makes even more clear that his character tried to kill his brother Aegon:

------

But it's more than just victory that Aemond sees within his grasp in this moment. He also sees revenge. Aemond and Criston have secretly planned for Aemond to lie in wait with Vhagar under the cover of the forest to defend the attack on Rook's Rest if needed. It proves to be a wise move when Rhaenys and Meleys descend from the heavens to torch the army. But what none of them expected was that a drunken Aegon would also show up with his dragon, Sunfyre, in a childishly misguided attempt to prove he's in control after his mother, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), admonished him as more puppet than king. It should be two brothers against a common enemy, but Aemond hasn't forgotten the events of last week's episode, when a drunken Aegon (notice a pattern?) humiliated him when he found Aemond in Sylvi's bed.

"Aegon and his crew very much violated Aemond's safe space, and they catch him in the most vulnerable state we will probably ever see Aemond: belly up," Mitchell said. "They humiliate him. In a moment, his code comes into play and that facade comes up. It is the image of someone who does not care what you think of him and sees himself as bulletproof."

He proves as much over Rook's Rest when he directs Vhagar's fiery dragon breath at Rhaenys and Aegon, unbothered by the likelihood he could kill his brother.

"In the Battle of Rook's Rest, you do have to wonder if Aemond always planned to get back at Aegon, or whether or not Aegon was just in the way and he was collateral damage," Mitchell said. "I think that Aemond views the world through a very black-and-white filter. You are either with him or against him, and if you get in the way, that's on you."

The not-so-friendly fire aimed at Aegon and Sunfyre, along with damage done by Meleys, sends the pair plummeting to the ground, and the episode ends without confirming whether either survives. Vhagar, meanwhile, kills Meleys in midair, and Rhaenys is crushed to death when her beloved dragon's body falls into the castle below. It is yet another devastating blow to the cause of Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy), again delivered by Aemond and Vhagar — making them two for two in dragon battles for the series.

"The first time Aemond uses Vhagar in Episode 10 of Season 1, he lets his emotions get the better of him, and it was ultimately an accident when he kills Luke," Mitchell said. "But he witnessed firsthand what these dragons are capable of. That is in contrast to Aegon, who, in the skies over Rook's Rest, didn't completely understand what he was getting himself into. But Aemond does now, [bold]and it was purely intentional, what he did this time."[/bold]

Oops--sorry--here's the other interview with Ewan Mitchell i was quoting at r75 (I had the wrong link):

What insulting a mans relationship with an old hooker will get you. Though granted that pig prank in s1 is probably the main reason this war is even happening right now. In short don't bully your psychotic Japanese anime protagonist younger brother I guess.

Ryan Condal, the writer of tonight's episode and the showrunner, on Aemond's scorching tonight of his brother Aegon:

*****

Team Green’s plan to take Rook’s Rest involved the element of surprise from Aemond and Vhagar, which was subsequently shaken up when Aegon unexpectedly flew in atop Sunfyre and began attacking Rhaenys and Meleys. With Sunfyre and Meleys sparring each other in the sky, Aemond and Vhagar swooped in just in time to take out Rhaenys, though Aegon also got caught in the crossfire when Vhagar expelled fire on Sunfyre.

While Aemond’s attack was successful in wounding Meleys — Vhagar finished the job later by killing both Meleys and Rhaenys — Aegon’s look of terror implied the possibility that Vhagar’s blow to Sunfyre might have been intentional.

“I can see how it can be ambiguous, but I think in the dramatization of it, it’s pretty clear Aegon is collateral damage in the action,” Condal said. “Certainly Vhagar is looking to take out Rhaenys, but it doesn’t look like [Aemond] does it with much care for his brother.”

[quote] Did you even watch the episode r66?

Yes I did: and so did the television critic for the NYTimes, who saw the same things I saw but that you for some reason did not:

[quote] Indeed, the episode’s most shocking moment comes when Aemond, who delayed his own assault when his detested brother Aegon crashed the battle uninvited so as not to appear weak, turns Vhagar against not only their enemy Rhaenys, but Aegon too. Only the timely intervention of Ser Criston prevents Aemond from striding across the broken body of Sunfyre and putting his fallen, burned brother out of his misery at the battle’s end.

[quote] But what none of them expected was that a drunken Aegon would also show up with his dragon, Sunfyre, in a childishly misguided attempt to prove he's in control

He had egg on his face after that battle.

In the next episode, Aemond will become involved in some hilarious hijinks with a fat, but mute, knight.

The hope of an eventual and just death for Aemond is all I need to sustain me.

r82 Aegon's first thoughts when he wakes up

Aemond is an interesting character. His actions are actually pretty believable.

Team intentional regicide/fratricide.

Intentional regicide/fratricide

The names are too similar and the relationships too convoluted for me to keep track without a chart.

There really is no room for purposeful amiguity on the internet is there? I think we're not supposed to know. It is supposed to be vague, at least at this point. Maybe Aemond will strut up to his crispy brother's beside next episode and whisper in his ear, "Tell Cersei it was me" but I hope not - I prefer the murky intentions. I like to think it's all mixed up in Aemond's head too

amBiguity, scuse me

This is the second time Aemond has used his dragon to attack a relative. His dragon seems to know what he wants to do.

What is ambiguous about standing over Aegon with a drawn sword? Is there no way to engage in dragon battle without sending your brother the King hurtling to earth? Besides, the Small Council scene already established him as a usurper.

[quote] Maybe Aemond will strut up to his crispy brother's beside next episode and whisper in his ear, "Tell Cersei it was me"

Tell Cersei what?

“It was me.”

Are you blind?

As a non reader of the books (I tried and found it unreadable), this episode was shocking for me. I figured Rhaeynes would die when she set out to battle, but saw nothing else coming that happened.

Unrelated to dragons, but I do want to shout out Freddie Fox as Gwayne Hightower who has been a great addition, perfect amount of pompous sass. The character so clearly reads as gay to me, I kinda want the writers to embrace it and make him gay.

[quote] The character so clearly reads as gay to me, I kinda want the writers to embrace it and make him gay.

More like Gayne Hightower amirite?!

Nepotism Hall of Fame.

He is the son of actress Joanna David (née Joanna Elizabeth Hacking) and actor Edward Fox. He is the younger brother of actress Emilia Fox and the half-brother of Lucy Arabella Preston (the Viscountess Gormanston), the grandson of actress Angela Worthington Fox and theatrical agent Robin Fox, and the great-grandson of the playwright Frederick Lonsdale. He is the nephew of producer Robert Fox and actor James Fox, and a cousin to actors Laurence, Jack and Lydia Fox. He was named after Fred Zinnemann, who directed his father in The Day of the Jackal, and after his great-great-grandfather Victorian industrialist Samson Fox, who invented the corrugated boiler flue and built Harrogate's former Kursaal now known as the Royal Hall. Asked if he believes in his acting gene, he said, "I used not to until my sister Milly was on the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?" where they discovered the thespian thread goes back 100 years.

Freddie Fox is really attractive.

Is Freddie Fox a ginger or blond?

R70 slow clap

[quote]The writers of this show genuinely hate Aegon its amazing. I can't think of a single scene in a season and a half where he's not shown either to be callus, reckless, incompetent or stupid. He may be the most pathetic character ever at this point.

Ahem.

Aegon is not as one dimensional as Joffrey was. The scene of him sobbing over his dead son was heartbreaking. The scene of him smiling and cuddling his dragon was cute.

[quote]The names are too similar

The names are too silly. It wouldn't be so bad if they tried to medieval it up only occasionally but every character has some tricked-up moniker.

House Targaryen is a foreign dynasty. Their names are supposed to sound weird and foreign and not like "normal" English medieval names.

Please say Aemond meets a nasty end. Criston Cole, too. They're both cunts and this show/GoT rewards cunts for too long.

I thought this episode was exceptional. It had everything.

This has definitely been House of Dragon's "break through" episode, internet chatter has really exploded r106 with people coming around to the show.

[quote] I thought this episode was exceptional. It had everything.

Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.

[quote] Please say Aemond meets a nasty end. Criston Cole, too. They're both cunts and this show/GoT rewards cunts for too long.

Keep watching. A LOT MORE people die in this than GoT.

I don't understand the criticism. You're into series 2 and you're still moaning about their names like you expect them all to suddenly be called John, James or Deborah. If you've watched like ten hours of this story and you can't get your head around it, that sounds like a you problem.

It’s definitely a me problem.

Rhaenyra, Rhaena, Rhaenys/Daemon,Aegon, Aemond—who could be confused?

[quote] Please say Aemond meets a nasty end. Criston Cole, too. They're both cunts and this show/GoT rewards cunts for too long.

This show will only run four seasons if things go as planned, and GoT ran eight. So things will sort themselves out eventually. George RR Martin likes to kill off likeable characters sometimes, like Ned, Caitlyn, and Robb Stark, Queen Margaery and King Tommen on GoT; but remember too that on GoT every one of the nastiest assholes got what was coming to them eventually: King Joffrey, Queen Cersei, Tywin Lannister, Littlefinger, Lysa Arryn, Ramsey and Roose Bolton, Walder Frey. So you can expect lots of nasty charcters to be killed off eventually if they follow Martin's schema from his books. Unfortunately, you can expect many more likeable characters to die too (such as last night when who was for most people the single most likeable character so far, Rhaenys, was killed).

I'm taken by Daemon's visions these last two episodes--those are not in the original book, but they're very haunting, and make the character more interesting. I like how he thought he saw Aemond with the eye-patch in one of the visions, and was about to strike when the vision turned around and we saw it was Daemon himself with Aemond's eye-patch. the two characters are in fact very much alike--they both are arrogant second sons who think they could do a better job ruling than the family member they're sworn allegiance to; they're both vicious killers; and they're both responsible for the death of a very young person recently.

Since Daemon's had visions of two of his wives so far, I hope he soon gets a vision of his first wife whom he secretly murdered, "The Bronze Bitch."

Vhagar is a vicious old beast r90.

Remember is it has been peaceful, dagons have only been used for flying around. Almost none of these dragons have ever been in a battle.

Vhagar is the big exception, she is 180 years old and helped conquer Westeros. She is used to to being vicious and killing people. Liked how last season's finale they had to be Vhagar that choose to kill Luke without being commanded.

All these dragons do have their own histories and personalities as well.

Rhaenys and Daemon’s dragons, and their riders, have been in battle extensively r115

Dragon versus dragon combat for is the exception

I'm more frightened of the Wyte Worm more than anyone. Rhanerya is better for her allegiance. As everything knowledge is power.

Daemon and Caraxes of course r116, just watching the show you see his battle in the Stepstones.

Rhaenys though based on the books we have no knowledge of when she would have ever been in combat before Rooks Rest.

[quote]Rhaenys though based on the books we have no knowledge of when she would have ever been in combat before Rooks Rest.

Yeah, that doesn't make much sense to me either. I thought they said Jaehaerys's (her grandfather's) reign was one of peace, and there hadn;t seemed to have been any wars under her cousin Viserys until the War in the Stepstones--and Rhaenys did not take part in that.

R119, Raenyra specifically mentioned they are in an 80 year period of peace. The only living things that have known battle are the oldest dragons.

I wonder if they'll differ from the books much. I've never read them, but I've read a summary and so far events seem to be roughly in line with the books.

The broad-brush strokes like who lives and dies will probably be the same but they've changed a few things. Also Joffrey mentions Rhaenyras ultimate fate in GoT, and they seem REALLY set on tying this show to GoT so that's definitely not changing.

Some changes so far have been that in the books:

*Viserys does not have the disgusting wasting disease he has in the series

*There is no indication Daemon murdered his first wife

*Alicent and Rhaenyra were not close childhood friends, and Alicent is significantly older than Rhaenyra

*Alicent is a scheming bitch who is more like Cersei, and has people killed when she's queen if she's angry enough

*There is no mention that the Velaryon family are black--in the Martin books, all the black characters hail from a place called the Summer Isles

*There is no mention that Laenor's death is a fake and that he really survived

*There is no mention that Helaena has prophetic visions

*Aegon and Helaena have a second male baby, Maelor

*The whole Blood and Cheese incident is different. They force Helaena into playing "Sophie's Choice," and ask her at knife-point which of her two boys she wants to have killed. She chooses Maelor since he's second in line to the throne rather than the heir, but then Blood and Cheese kill the elder son in front of her just to be cruel and explicitly tell the very young Maelor his mother wanted him dead. Helaena is so unnerved by this she cannot bear to have the younger son in her presence ever again.

*There is no mention that at the Battle of Rook's Rest Aemond purposefully tried to torch Aegon

*There is no mention Daemon has strange hauntings at Harrenhal

Thanks for the info, R123. Interesting that Alicent is so different, considering Cersei was so much of a love-to-hate character. I'm thinking it may be HBO's way of responding to the admittedly merited complaints about GoT's rampant sexism and overly exploitative nudity & sex scenes. (It's not a coincidence that we've seen plenty of cock on HOTD and little or no vagine.) I know women marry relatively young in Westeros, but Olivia Cooke is still WAY too fucking young to be a grandmother! (The actor who plays Aegon is only a year younger than her.)

And yes, I'm sure they decided to add Black Velaryons solely because GoT was so overwhelmingly white. (They'd also need to be at the center of the show's action, not way off in the Summer Isles.)

Finally, as noted upthread, it's apparently not clear even among the *writers* – and the actors! – whether Aemond intentionally tried to torch his brother. Per the showrunner on the after-show following the credits, it's intended to be unclear. (Possibly because Aemond is destined to become this show's Daenerys and can't go fully off the reservation until late in the final season.)

Thanks also to R123!

I wonder if Alicent isn't a mega bitch because then people would say she's a clone of Cersei, but also because Aemond and Cristen Cole are mega cunts and -- while the GoT universe is known for mega cunts -- it becomes exhausting if every character is equally as unlikeable. Alicent isn't nice, but she's more complex than Aemond/Cristen.

I have no issue with Black Velaryons, given Martin is involved in the show and they're his books. It would seem weird to not cast great black actors in a fictional universe. There's no "but black people weren't even in England!" type arguments, given Westeros obviously isn't a real place.

I like shows that often interpretation, whereas I needed no time to decide that the Greens are 'worse' than the Blacks (admittedly not by much) and that Aemond definitely intended to kill his brother. The latter seems pretty obvious considering it was preceded by his humiliation in the brothel, his obvious attempt to usurp his brother by planning without consulting him, the fact he's said he'd have made a far better King than Aegon and the fact that -- not to sound repetitive -- he's a mega cunt who's shown to have no morals but just a desire for power. Maybe I've been too hasty to judge him, though? Heh.

R125, Aemond was not very distraught at seeing his brother and mangled dragon on the ground. The show also took care to show that Aemond was a shrewd strategist, so he’d be just the person to think of getting rid of his brother while blaming it on Rhaenys. Of course, the writers also took a few minutes showing Aegon wearing Aegon the Conqueror’s armor, which might be relevant in the next episode.

R126 All good points. And he had his sword directed towards Aemond at the end of the recent episode which appeared to show him about to finish the job.

To me, it's as subtle as a sledgehammer so all the "ambiguous" comments confuse me.

Apologies, I meant "towards Aegon"!

Making the Velaryrons black was honestly smart. People already had an impossible time keeping track of the characters, can you imagine if they went book accurate and the Velaryrons looked just like the Targaryens?! Normal viewers would be so lost.

[quote]Of course, the writers also took a few minutes showing Aegon wearing Aegon the Conqueror’s armor, which might be relevant in the next episode.

Unless it contained a fuckload of airbags, the armor probably only made his fall from hundreds of feet in the air even *worse*. If they do any sort of "dragon breaking his fall" bullshit, they'd BETTER have him suffering from second- and third-degree burns (from the dragon fire) and doomed to die at some point in the near future. (Even today people severely burned nearly always die within 12 hours. Your body can't function absent skin that hasn't been literally scorched to death.)

R130 Aren't Targaryens unable to be burned?

Aren’t Targaryen immune to fire?

Dani killed the Khals by immolation and she walked out there alive her pussy proud and unburnt

R131, very good point. I stand corrected.

Targaryens aren't immune to fire. In the books, that was a one time magical event with the birth of Dany's dragons. In the show they decide Dany was special and immune to figure, which fine. But doesn't mean the rest of them are.

R134 It seemed in this episode none of the Targaryens riding the dragons were hurt by any of the dragon fire which was why they relied on the dragons fighting each other physically?

Though also in S1 when Eve Best turns up with her dragon in front of the whole Royal Family and could have eliminated them all, they all looked like they knew they were about to burn to death. So I've confused myself now.

Laena, daughter of Rhaenys, died in season 1 by having Vhagar burn her with fire.

Good epised, i was becoming bored by all the dreams/visons segment, but it sure picked up.

Like r94, I haven’t read the books but i was expecting Rhaenys to die, especially when there were two dragons against her.. Eve Best is a great actress but i still think they didn’t give her enough to do in the series. They did give her a good, cinematic death.

Re Allicent, she gave some Cersei vibes in her talk with Aegon, but i agree they probably toned down the cuntiness so not to make her Cerseei version 2 (that would be a lost battle).

R137 I thought Alicent's scene with Aegon was among the best she's done so far. It really conveyed the frustration of her character but also how useless Aegon is. Her "Or what?" was brilliantly played.

I like what they're doing with Alicent. She's not a "baddie". She's far more layered than that. And Olivia Cooke is doing really well with it.

Yeah Alicent in the Fire and Blood is a pretty flat one dimensional character. The show had to made her into a three dimensional person to work. I'm glad they did, and I'm glad they added her and Rhaenyra as best friends growing up.

I don't like adding in she went along with Aegon's crowning because she misheard with the prophecy, that was too much of a softening. That should have been a decision she consciously decided to make to help her family with no excuses.

R138 Very true, though I thought her little talk with Rhaenyra showed she did know Viserys didn't want her son to be King, but she doesn't care.

I also though the dream sequences were boring. They seemed to be invented to give Emma D'Arcy a few scenes.

Olivia Cooke is beautiful and has been great this season. Also casting Tom Glynn-Carney as her kid was great. The big round eyes work perfectly.

Her mishearing the prophecy makes the whole war a tragic mistake. I like that. It allowed her to say “even if I was wrong, it’s too late now.” I like that, too. Adds some spice to what would otherwise be just another power struggle.

Susan “Stop the Insanity” Powter should sue whoever is in the OP’s photo.

I hope Harry turned around at some point, curled those pouty lips and took a good whiff of Hero's pits

R134, that may have been a bit of narrative retrofitting. Dany knew early on that she was immune to fire and therefore that she, not her horrid brother, was the true heir to the throne. So there was a suggestion that fire-immunity might be a trait of the Targaryen super-elite. But now it seems clear that no one else in the family has that ability.

R145 but all the dragon riders in the latest episode seemed untouched by the huge amount of fire going on in the battles. We see them fly through fire unharmed, with not even a singe on their lovely hair.

You say that but I am pretty sure Aegon got burned by Vhagar, we will see the after math next episode but I didn't see any indication the show was trying to say he was immune.

We have had a season and a half of a show about Targaryens and there has been zero indication of magical fire proofness, just the opposite we have had a dragon rider already die by fire.

Yes, when he sees that Vhagar is going to attack with flames, Aegon clearly covers his eyes and face.

Freddie Fox can’t play a straight character, god bless him. Even if he’s straight in real life.

Yeah I think Martin fucked up a bit making Dany immune to fire, because then the logical assumption is that all Targaryens are, when we know that's not the case.

And you can't even say it's because she was noble, because look how she ended up.

[quote] [R134] It seemed in this episode none of the Targaryens riding the dragons were hurt by any of the dragon fire which was why they relied on the dragons fighting each other physically?

[quote] Though also in S1 when Eve Best turns up with her dragon in front of the whole Royal Family and could have eliminated them all, they all looked like they knew they were about to burn to death. So I've confused myself now.

Ryan Condal and several on-line commentators agree that although Targaryens are immune to regular types of fire, they are not immune to dragonfire (which seems to be at least partially magical in origin).

Similarly, Valyrian steel (which is what the armor Aegon wore to battle) cannot be melted by regular human-made fire, but CAN be melted by dragon-fire.

I also think making the Velaryons black was a very believable way to integrate the show more than GoT. It has allowed for some fine black actors like Steve Toussaint to have big roles on the show, and it's much more believable to have a family originally not from Westeros to be black.

Westewoos.

Martin did not make Dany immune to fire r149. That was a show invention from David and Dan on Game of Thrones.

I was curious to see how this show would handle it, but they haven't given any indication they are following David and Dan down that route.

I've never seen Ryan Condal talk about this in an interview, if such a thing exists please link r150.

Idk if I am remembering it right, but didn’t Jon Snow have some moment of being immune to fire?

No r155, actually in Season 1 episode 8 Jon Snow (or Aegon Targaryen using his "true name"), burns his hand.

Fuck it I'm TeamAegon the man has male preference primogeniture on his side and owns a dildo collection.

AegonTeam

[quote] I also think making the Velaryons black was a very believable way to integrate the show more than GoT. It has allowed for some fine black actors like Steve Toussaint to have big roles on the show, and it's much more believable to have a family originally not from Westeros to be black.

I agree. And Steve Toussaint is one handsome man, too.

There are elements of this show that are much better than Game of Thrones, in my opinion; I always thought the white walkers stuff was nonsense and was much more interested in the palace intrigue and King's Landing, for example. But it suffers from a really weird and serious problem that Game of Thrones had after about season 4: the characters seem to lack any kind of inner life. The show's about these flat characters hitting particular plot points in order. And Alicent does seem much better developed than most but I actually think that's because of Olivia Cooke's performance, not the writing.

I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something. (I didn't read any of the books.)

r160, more will come for the characters as the show develops, if it follows the book. Rhaenyra's character will change quite a bit over time, as will Corlys's. We still have much more to see with the Dragonseeds, who will become very important--one of them, Nettles, has yet even to appear as a speaking character.

They seem to be adding quite a bit already to deepen some of the characters who are only sketched out vaguely in the book, particularly Helaena and Aemond as well as Alicent and Viserys and Rhaenys.

R120, “peace” may be one of those “eye of the beholder” things. Everyone is armed; the ruling class has fancy battle gear and dragon harnesses; armies can be summoned quickly. It looks pretty militaristic.

[quote]Making the Velaryrons black was honestly smart.

I don’t understand why they’re all blonds. Was that in the books?

Daenerys Targaryen: We will bring peace back to Westeros.

Olenna Tyrell: Peace? Do you think that's what we had under your father? Or his father? Or his? Peace never lasts, my dear. Will you take a bit of advice from an old woman? He's a clever man, your Hand. I've known a great many clever men. I've outlived them all. You know why? I ignored them. The lords of Westeros are sheep. Are you a sheep? No. You're a dragon. Be a dragon

-GOT

r163 Yes blond with purple eyes is the general Targ and associated Westeros invaders description. Though it seems very situational since the Baratheons are bastard Targs and them being black Irish featured (for lack of a better description) is a pretty important plot point.

Yes in the books both House Targaryen and House Velaryon are survivors of the Valyrian Empire. Valyrians tended to have silver hair and purple eyes. The TV show abandoned the purple eyes thing because actors wearing colored contacts is annoying.

But I like the TV show gave House Velaryon that hair color, it makes it clear they are still "exotic" and strange people from another culture.

[quote] I don’t understand why they’re all blonds. Was that in the books?

Yes.

[quote] House Velaryon is of Valyrian descent, and [bold]its members often have Valyrian features, such as silver-gold or silver hair[/bold] and purple eyes.Some Velaryons have blue or grey-green eyes.

The dragons are here because of magic. Fire made flesh.

So Aegon is still alive, right?

Yep r169.

Aegon and Sunfyre are injured, but they still have a lot more to do before this show is over.

R157 That scene annoyed me, too. "Let me show how superior I am by speaking High Valyrian knowing you can't that well!"

*twirls mental moustache and smiles smugly like a soap opera villain*

Aemond would be a good panto baddy but he's a bit too on the nose for this universe.

I am very intrigued by how Aemond’s eyepatch survives all those windy dragon flights.

[quote] be a good panto baddy

I always think that about Daemon. Every time he's about to do something morally questionable ( e.g. wife or child murder) he puts on a hooded black cloak and Matt Smith redoes his Prince Philip scowling face from the Crown. I just find it funny at this point.

R154, in case you've missed it, there's an aftershow following each episode, after the credits and next week's preview. Condal's the main one doing the narrating, though I like that they're interviewing even the actors in relatively minor roles, assuming they've done something interesting in that episode. It's about 7-8 minutes total, and all the actors interviewed are in full costume. (OTOH I'm curious if that's more or less a feint to avoid having to show nonbinary Emma D'Arcy looking nothing whatsoever like their character.)

[quote]But it suffers from a really weird and serious problem that Game of Thrones had after about season 4: the characters seem to lack any kind of inner life.

STRONG disagree, and if anything, we're seeing far too MUCH of one person's inner dialogue, namely Daemon. Rhaenyra had more last season – remember the horrific childbirth scene?? – but she's pretty clearly the most affected by the show's events, particularly losing her son. Despite that, she's sensible enough to understand that going to war with King's Landing will result in basically everyone dying, and unless they deviate significantly from the source material, that's an all-but-certain given, particularly since we know the show has a finite life.

Also, as a poster noted above, Aegon has quite a bit more depth than Joffrey did. They're both grade-A cunts, but at least Aegon isn't a flat-out sociopath devoid of feeling.

[quote]Aegon and Sunfyre are injured, but they still have a lot more to do before this show is over.

Given how freely both HOTD & GOT have deviated from the books, I'd assume nothing whatsoever in this respect. See R123's post for the specifics.

R174 is clearly our resident know it all for this show. You know the type. Every quality television show has one. This is the guy who knows more than anybody else — about the show, its characters, and even the intentions of its show runners and writers. I am waiting for him to drop the shopworn “you just don’t understand the show!” next.

Fabien Frankel wants the show to give us Criston hooking up with Gwayne Hightower

[Quote]Frankel: Romance. I don't think [Criston's] built to have relationships . Maybe he falls in love with Gwayne Hightower on the road.

Forgot link

R174 contributes knowledgeable posts, r175. What do you bring?

While i do not disagree with r174 about inner life, i still find much more difficult to care about the characters one thing is inner life, another complexity. Take Daemon extremely boring dreams, sure, he feels some guilt, but this guilt towards his wife/niece doesn’t make him particularly interesting. The one that is getting better in tbis regard is Allicent. Even Rhaenys, played by the great Eve Best, was sort of a cypher. Except for her scenes with the dragons, she had no great scene, just wondered around looking ominous.

Also, some actors are very devoid of charisma. Fabien Frankel is the most obviously so, handsome as he is.

And the politics scenes are much more boring. They were a great part of GOT but here, since most of the characters are unknown (at least for me who hasn’t read the books), they just scream around the table. We knew them better in GOT as truly secondary characters. Now that the war has truly began I expect this will change.

who can keep the characters all straight?

we watch for the dragons.

[quote]all the actors interviewed are in full costume. (OTOH I'm curious if that's more or less a feint to avoid having to show nonbinary Emma D'Arcy looking nothing whatsoever like their character.)

R174 I just assumed it was because they were interviewed on set. After all, the cast have spare time between scenes they're not in and they're readily available. It's easier to talk about an episode you've just filmed, rather than months (or sometimes more than a year) later.

I also meant to say that I've seen plenty of interviews with Emma D'Arcy out of costume. It's easy to tell who they are; especially considering they don't alter their voice for Rhaenyra (as far as I can tell anyway).

not!

I don’t find Fabian Frankel handsome. He just has good hair.

So is the plan just to turn Cole into a gigolo then? Seems like a bit of a downgrade from the description I saw of him from the book. Its about as big a downgrade as what they did to Loras tbh.

What did they do to Loras?

[quote] especially considering they don't alter their voice for Rhaenyra

Are you referring to Emma D'Arcy and Milly Alcock?

Are you saying that because they added in Cole sleeping with Alicent r185?

Personally I didn't mind that. I actually Cole is more interesting of a character in the show than he was in Fire and Blood. Fabien Frankel is one of the weaker actors in the cast, but I think they made Cole into a compelling douchebag of an antagonist, as he should be.

[quote]This is the guy who knows more than anybody else — about the show, its characters, and even the intentions of its show runners and writers.

Not even remotely true. I haven't read any of the books, and the only way I can keep all the characters straight is via online recaps (as was also true for GoT). But sure, by all means keep jumping to false conclusions, while I most certainly will *not* apologize for doing my fucking homework.

[quote]Also, some actors are very devoid of charisma. Fabien Frankel is the most obviously so, handsome as he is.

Agreed, as much as I hate to say it, along with most of R179's other remarks. Definite agreement that this show's council meetings have been mostly tedious & dull. (That's probably the only area where I'd agree with Aegon.)

[quote]It's easier to talk about an episode you've just filmed, rather than months (or sometimes more than a year) later.

True, except this *isn't* what they're doing. The interviews with each producer, director, writer or actor – covering the *entire* season – were clearly filmed in a single day (per person, not literally everyone on the same day). Ryan Condal wears the same outfit in each, and looks the same, as is also true for everyone except the cast. Also, each cast member's interview has them in the same location, and at the same camera angle, as all of their previous post-show clips. What I'm admittedly wondering is how they handle it with actors like Eve Best whose characters die, e.g. whether they return later on for interview purposes.

Btw HBO does something similar with "Hacks," except in its case the people discussing the episode are the three showrunners. They're always dressed the same, so I assume they filmed all of those sequences in one sitting. (It's admittedly silly to have the same group of people return every single week for all of 10 minutes, dressed in identical attire as before.) Another spin is how they do it for the various "Star Trek" shows on Paramount+: Wil Wheaton hosts a half-hour after-show each week that a live-action series has a new episode, and you can tell it's all done well after filming is finished – mostly within a month or so of the show's airing. In that case it's by necessity, given that they've filmed some in Toronto and others in L.A.

Anyway, I assume all the people doing long-after-the-fact interviews – and keep in mind that this is standard for any given theatrical movie, meaning the actors have to go on numerous talk shows & the like to discuss something likely filmed at least a year before – do some degree of homework beforehand, e.g. watching the finished episode or at least a rough cut of it, with some prompting by the never-seen interviewers.

The actor who plays Aemond has a very distracting chin.

You can watch Steve Toussaint and Eve Best play a game on youtube where they have to identify characters from the show based on lines from the show they read out loud, and Best refers to Fabien Frankel as "that really handsome actor on the show." I thought that might be a bit of an unmeant diss towards Toussaint or the other men, but I think it's impossible to deny Frankel's the handsomest, objectively speaking.

I agree he's not brought much to the part at least so far. Like the actor who plays Jacaerys (who is also very good looking), he's not much of an actor, especially when compared to the women (all of whom so far have been fantastic).

[quote] while I most certainly will *not* apologize for doing my fucking homework.

You looking for a cookie? It’s a TV show. There is no homework. Get over yourself.

Ewan Mitchell does have a huge jaw, but he can look handsome if made up right.

[quote] What did they do to Loras?

They blowed him up real good!

[quote]I think it's impossible to deny Frankel's the handsomest, objectively speaking.

Pretty sure Matt Smith has a sizable fanbase who'd beg to differ, though I think he peaked with "Doctor Who" and is WAY overdoing it with dermal fillers now. I agree with you, in other words, but he's had stans for over a decade because of that.

Smith has the same online fanbase Cumberbatch used to have before he went mainstream Hollywood. The women horny for a slightly odd looking English man with a good voice brigade.

Aren’t Aegon’s facial burns on the wrong side?

Well that was a snore.

R198 I literally fell asleep three times. I don’t even really know what happened in the episode.

Yeah it was a slow episode, but that is expected after the big battle last week.

Harry Collett is a pretty little thing but unfortunately not a great actor. It was hard to take him seriously when he was meeting with the Freys IMO.

And Daemon hallucinating at Harrenhall is officially starting to get boring, we need some forward momentum with that plotline

I had one of those moments when I realized I was paying no attention to the show, and I decided there was no point to rewinding back to where my attention drifted.

R200, I can't figure out where they are going with the Harrenhall story. Yes, it's an evil house, and under well-established story telling conventions, it will go after people who are susceptible to its influence. That's why lovable Ser Simon would never be a target. But we're not learning anything new about Daemon's character, are we?

The Daemon segment is getting beyond boring. This was the inevitable slow episode that always comes after an eventful one, but still.

Agree that some young actors are lacking. Rhanyra’s son was not great, but the actress playing Baella was dismal in her talk with her grandfather.

Allicent is now the one with the good lines and character arch.

It's not as bad as "The Bear" is about it, but I'm feeling like the majority of this season – with the definite exception of last week's triple dragon fight – is basically just filler in anticipation of more significant plot lines down the road. Not sure why they made such a to-do about the "Aegon reveal": I said upthread that he was probably alive but barely so, and covered in third-degree burns & broken bones. While he only seems to have broken one bone (which is absurd from a fall from that height), his skin having literally MELTED – hence the reason they had to dislodge the Valerian armor piece by piece – should've been the end of him.

And yet it's not. S2 is repeating one of the same mistakes as S1: last season they dragged out Viserys's death until the literal end, long after it got tedious. Now that Aemond has gotten a taste of what it's like to lead, why the AF would he NOT smother Aegon in his sleep at the earliest opportunity?

R202, I think the Harrenhal reveal will likely be related to what Rhaenyra & Jace figured out near the end of the episode: their ace in the hole is having a total fuckload of dragons. What they don't have, and badly NEED, are dragon riders, and they figured – correctly – that descendants of Old Valyria may have what amounts to an untapped superpower: the ability to "match" with, and ride, a dragon. Vhagar may be the biggest, but even huge foes can only withstand a finite number of attackers at once.

Or the entire Harrenhal bit might be there to result in Daemon's demise. He already ordered the flat-out slaughter & rape of women & children – prompting the midnight visit from the Brackens, since the Blackwoods curiously insisted on raising the Targaryen flag despite Daemon saying they needed to be kept out of it – and is now literally being haunted by all of it, at least while he's not busy eating out his own mother's pussy in his dreams. (Even Cheryl was grossed out by that part!)

Finally, as for the acting: I was bored last year and went back to watch the earliest episodes of "Game of Thrones." Holy SHIT is Sansa an aggravating, utterly spoiled twat! (Not that any character deserved the twofer of Joffrey followed by Ramsay Bolton, but it turned her from a ditz into a legitimate lead character. Even Kit Harington's acting was as bad as Harry Collett's at the time, and they were around the same age IRL.) Daemon's antics are getting *very* old, but OTOH they seem to be setting him up to fail. Denying Rhaenyra as his queen – while the Greens are doing the same – while also slaughtering innocents seems like a great setup for a season-ending dragon-heavy finale between either him and Aemond, or him and Rhaenyra.

R204, Kit Harrington’s acting never improved,

What do dragons eat? Especially the ones that are in the hole and aren't flying?

Dragon Chow

We see in season 1 then bringing livestock like goats and sheep into the dragon pit for the dragons to eat.

And obviously the bigger the dragon the more it has to eat. There has been lots of mention this season of how farmers are suffering because Vhagar has to eat so much of their flock.

But they would have to have hundreds if not thousands of goats every day for that many dragons.

R209, dragons are all fun and games until they turn into an enormous drain on the economy.

How many dragons do you think there are r209?

Kings Landing only has three dragons present.

Now Dragonstone has more, but Dragonstone has caves that dragons sleep in but they can come and go as they please to go hunt. They are not kept caged in like in the dragon pit at Kings Landing.

Didn’t they say the dragons were “slumbering” below them?

Yes, Dragonstone is a volcanic island with lots of caves and caverns. The dragons hang out in those caves. So like Jace said they are slumbering beneath them.

It being a perfect home for dragons is why the Targaryens made their home there in the first place. But those dragons are free to hunt, we see Seamoke flying around in a few scenes this season.

R211 One of those big cunts would need dozens of goats a day

It's kind of weird how unorganised the dragon feeding system is you'd think setting up farms and livestock taxation for Dragon Uber Eats would be one of the first things they did after invading instead they've gone for a just let them fly around and kill shit to eat approach for a few hundred years.

Dragons demand their freedom.

The dragons are a giant flying Pentagon budget.

To make a nerdy correction, it hasn't been few hundred years r216. We are about 130 years "AC", or after Aegon's Conquest when the Targs claimed Westeros. The entire Targaryen dynasty lasts ~282 years until Roberts Rebellion happens which leads to Game of Thrones.

Interrupted lezzie action! Is there a dragon named Subaryx?

[quote] "I was horribly raped by my dad"

[quote] *dykery immediately ensues*

Sure why not at this point.

Daemon’s hallucinating is beyond tedious at this point.

There is really only one true queen of Westeros—-Gwayne.

This season itself is beyond tedious at this point. Politicking set-up episodes are fine but 90% of these characters are just bland and uninteresting repeating the same scene over and over.

Freddie Fox is so good here r222. Loved that scene between him and Alicent.

Also good is the guy that plays Larys, that scene with Aegon was the best of the episode.

Rhaenyra going for a walk on the gay side with Mysaris surprised me, but that's fine. There is even wilder lesbianics in the text where there are rumors that she, Laena and Daemon used to all play together.

R221, I completely agree and was actually irritated by it. So very boring and if they are going for sentiment it utterly fails.

Another filler episode. With tight writing all this could ve taken place in 10 minutes or so.

I don't get the whole Lady Jeyne Arryn, Daemon's daughter, baby dragons scenario. Whatcia that all about? Who is she?

B O R I N G

What are you confused on r226?

Daemon's daughter Rhaena, who failed at claiming a dragon, is currently in the Vale with Rhaenyra's youngest children. She is there to make sure Lady Arryn keeps her promise about providing men for Rhaenyra's cause and then she is meant to take the family to Pentos.

However she finds out there is a wild (meaning a dragon that has never had a rider) dragon currently hunting in the Vale. Clearly she is thinking about trying to claim it so she no longer feels useless as the only Targaryen in the family who doesn't have a dragon.

She didn’t “fail” fail.

R228, I think R226 asked fair questions. Someone who watches this every seven days and isn't into the mythology can get confused as to where subplots are going. One of the most effective things about GoT was it's map-like opening sequences; it reminded viewers where one place was relative to other places and identified what specific spots would be important in the current episode. House of the Dragon seems to take it for granted that we knew where the hell the Vale and the Riverlands are and why they are important, and that's not necessarily true.

Judging by the angry nerd screeching on reddit they've given her some character called "Nettles" story arc so she has something to do.

R228 Yeah, but who is Lady Arryn? What's her role in the Hotd world?

Rhaenyra’s mother was an Arryn.

The Arryn family are the rulers of the Vale, one of the kingdoms of Westeros. Like the Starks of The North.

Rulers? I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Thanks. All these names and different houses confuse me. Especially when they are not even showing them, but are just talking about them in every episode. It would be easier if you had a face to pin the name to

[quote] It would be easier if you had a face to pin the name to

Fans have created a convenient wiki for that.

The Sevemn Kingdoms at the time of Aegon's Conquest:

*The Kingdom of the North, ruled by House Stark of Winterfell

*The Kingdom of the Mountain and the Vale, ruled by House Arryn of The Eyrie.

*The Iron islands, ruled by House Greyjoy of Pyke

*The Ringdom of the Rock, ruled by House Lannister of Casterly Rock

*The Stormlands, ruled by House Durrandon of Storm's End (which was later given after their extinction by Aegon I to his close friends the Baratheons to rule)

*The Kingdom of the Reach, ruled by House Gardener of Highgarden (later given after their extinction by Aegon I to House Tyrell, who supported his invasion)

*Dorne, ruled by House Martell of Sunspear. Dorne is the only nation that successfully resisted Aegon's Conquest, but later the family married into the Targayen dtynasty, bringing it into alignment with the other kingdoms and under Targaryen rule,

In addition there are two regions that were powerful enough that after the conquuest they became protectorates (akin to sub-kingdoms):

*The Riverlands, ruled by House Tully of Riverrun

*The Crownlands, ruled by whichever dynasty controls King's Landing (currently the Targaryens of the Red Keep, who also rule all of the other kingdoms)

I love the Daemon dream elements, which I believe (could be wrong as I haven't yet read the source material) aren't in the books? And I thought the whole Ser Simon thing was wonderfully done. Perhaps even ... well done

It’s a very sad state of affairs when Fabien Frankel is considered the handsomest actor on the show. He’s cute and masculine-looking, but nothing special, and certainly not handsome. He’s the type of blando who plays the young dad in a bank commercial. He’s also an incredibly weak actor. I wondered if he got the part because he was sleeping with a female producer on the show . . .

Week after week I am shocked at how mediocre the male actors looks are. — there ought to be one stunning guy after another. Alas, no.

[quote] I wondered if he got the part because he was sleeping with a female producer on the show . . .

Female producer?

Have you seen Fabian Frankel in interviews?

His hair this season is so much better.

r241, does he set the gaydar off?

R243 🚨

To be fair to Frankel, it’s not as if the writers have done anything with the character. He pretty much just stands there.

In GOT, every character around the council table was so distinctive. Here, it’s just a bunch of place holders. And that truck with the marble balls is just silly.

^trick

A lot of things people are complaining about have to do with moving the pieces around the chessboard, which is a necessity for this show as it was for Game of Thrones (given that most people in Westeros cannot fly dragons and so it takes forever to get from one part of the continent to another). Also, it's because the original source material (which was just about half a book) was a bit underwritten. There should be a big battle coming up at the end of the season, and then another big one early or midway through the next season, but in the original book Martin did not give anything for Daemon to do during that time other than occupy Harrenhal. So they've added to the series all this business with the dreams and/or ghosts for him because Matt Smith is the star of the show (he's literally first-billed) and they need to give him something to do onscreen.

Many of the other plot threads people are complaining about--Aegon's disfiguration and long healing after the Battle of Rook's Rest, the finding of the Dragonseeds who can ride the mature dragons housed underneath Dragonstone--will pay off next season or the season after. Suffice it to say that Aegon needs to become even more bitter and twisted for later plot developments to occur, and that the Dragonseeds will be a huge part of next season once they take their dragons and start fighting.

SPOILER!

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An interesting thing: during the riot aimed at Alicent and Helaena after they left the sept, an elderly member of the smallfolk grabbed Alicent and then had his arm holding her gown chopped off by a member of the Kingsguard. There's quite a speculation on line that this guy (the elderly man who now has only one hand) will become the future character known as The Shepherd, who will become very important during later seasons. Helaena looks like she's having a scary vision or remembering one from a dream during the riot, so she's probably there seeing the horrible things The Shepherd does later in the show (since she has prophetic visions that always come true).

R247, everyone here has been watching long-form TV for years. We know all about story arcs and slow build-ups. There’s no question that the show suffers from weak writing. It’s not enough to promise us that something will happen at some point in the future. Every episode needs a reason to exist.

Oh, boo hoo hoo, r249.

If you're so miserable and hate it so much, stop watching.

This is Datalounge. The fanboy forums are elsewhere.

I really want to hang out with Gwayne. Not the actor who plays him—the character. It is rare that I feel like this.

i stopped watching.

R245, though i agree he has not the best of lines, he still has stories going on to exploit, his relationship with Allicent, with her children, etc. He had a prominent role in the Rooks nedt battle, but sill there is nothing there, just a void, due mostly to his lack of charisma and acting ability. There were many secondary characters in GOT who did much more with lesser roles.

Whatever the reason for the dream sequences re cast, they are boring and bad to the point of being a disservice to the character.

There are still good scenes, which only showcase the bad ones. This episode, as r224 says, the best scene was a short quiet scene when Lord Larys visits Aegon in the bedroom. It was very well acted and tense.

I also really liked the sequence with the smallfolk's riot outside the sept. Any scenes with Phia Saban are good scenes.

I've devoted more time in this show to trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with Mysarias accent than anything else.

R256 The accent was not the actress’s fault. The producer wanted her to do a French/European accent in the first season and it got criticized so they had her tone it down in season 2. It was a stupid idea on their part to begin with. They should have let her do a British accent and leave it at that.

Don't all from her part of the Game of Thrones world have that accent?

Really good episode tonight. The long sequence with Rhaenyra more or less offering the bastards as sacrifices to the dragons in order to see if any were worthy was pretty chilling. Hugh succeeded in taming Vermithor by being brave; Ulf succeeded in taming Silverwing by being acquiescent,. but dozens of people died. Even so, the last shot with a defiant Rhaenyra staring out at Aemond turning tail on Vhagar, with three dragons behind her, was pretty amazing.

I liked the sequence with Daemon finally being called out for being a monster by the very young Lord Oscar Tully, who was sort of like Lyanna Mormont in the final season of Game of Thrones in being much braver than he looked. Daemon was not expecting that scene to go the way it did--he had to sell our lord Blackwood (to whom he had promised so much last episode) in order to get Oscar Tully's support. You could tell how hard that was.

Next episode looks nuts, with Aemond having to ask Helaena (of all people) to fly with him to battle on her dragon Dreamfyre, which we've yet to see, in order to defend the Greens.

I really enjoyed how badass Lord Oscar Tully was for a young teen. Total alpha

Tally of dragons and their riders on each side at this point:

BLACKS:

Syrax (Rhaenyra)

Vermax (Jacaerys)

Vermithor (Hugh)

Seasmoke (Allyn of Hull)

Silverwing (Ulf)

Moondancer (Baela)

GREENS:

Vhagar (Aemond)

Dreamfyre (Helaena)

Tessarion (we have just been told at the end of the episode that Daeron, Alicent's youngest son who has been much discussed but remains unseen, has claimed it as a rider)

We don't know the final fate yet of Sunfyre, Aegon II's dragon, but like his rider he seems to be out of commission.

We seem to be being set up for Rhaena either claiming or being killed by the wild dragon in the Vale.

Right now the Blacks very much have the edge in the dragons' arms race.

Joffrey already told us how this ends.

[quote] Daemon was not expecting that scene to go the way it did

Daemon had Aeg-on his face.

So did Shireen.

The ending has in fact already been revealed in great detail if you've read the book [italic]Fire and Blood,[/italic] which takes you through the entirety of the war.

Oops--I forgot: you can also add Caraxes, whose rider is Daemon, to the Blacks' list. They clearly have the advantage.

266 posts about watching paint dry while wearing bad wigs.

It was probably the second best episode of the season (which admittedly isn't saying much) because of that last 15 minutes.

The Dragonseeds plan does seem stupid as shit from a dynastic standpoint though. They already had a dragon advantage over the greens, and they've just pissed away the families main means of power and authority by giving a dragon to anyone who asks and manages to ride one.

They didn't have the advantage really r268.

Her dragon riders were Jace and Baela who both have very young dragons which would be useless against Vhagar.

That was the thing, with Daemon ignoring her she was in a bad position which led to this desperate man.

But of course, there are serious risks for what she did.

Desperate plan*

I’m reading the book and I think the show would have really benefitted from including the Mushroom character. It would have added humor and lightness. I realize nobody will ever be better than Peter Dinklage in GoT but he didn’t necessarily have to be a dwarf in the show.

You know, that clip of Shireen talking to Stannis is a great showing of everything that HOTD hasn't been able to attain. It's a very good show that I enjoy watching, with some truly outstanding performances, but it will never be Game of Thrones. Excellent dragon CGI, but the writing often keeps it firmly in mid tv for me.

That last shot of Rhaenyra flanked by three dragons was absolutely meant to recall Daenerys. They've tried to position Rhaenyra as a Daenerys-like figure every chance they've had. Wonder how that will play out for them by the final season.

They didn't show almost any of the jesters on "Game of Thrones" either--only that drunk guy who got Sansa out of king's landing after the Pruple Wedding and then was killed by Littlefinger. Jesters are hard to make work on television.

This show is no longer on IMDb's top 250 TV shows? When did it fall so hard? I think it had a score about 9.0 during the first season

Might be because this season is still ongoing and they'll recalculate it at the end? So far s2 is still somehow rated 8.1 average, and thats with a lot of mid episodes, and Arabs review bombing the lesbian kiss episode.

Daemon did not crack that slight smile because he was being attacked as a monster. That smile was him recognizing a young master at work delivering D the army he so badly needed.

It was a dance and the youngster knew exactly what was needed and he delivered. As did Daemon who played his part to perfection.

[quote] They didn't have the advantage really [R268].

[quote]Her dragon riders were Jace and Baela who both have very young dragons which would be useless against Vhagar.

This is 100% spot-on.

Rhaenyra is herself not an experienced fighter on dragonback, and neither are Jace nor Baela. The only experienced dragonrider in battle on her side at that point was Daemon on Caraxes, but he had gone AWOL for weeks.

In the meantime, Aemond's Vhaegar is much larger than her dragon, Syrax, and all the others she could muster then with riders then too; and for all Rhaenyra knows, Helaena could be willing to fly for the Greens' side on Dreamfyre (one of the oldest and most experienced of the dragons).

Well that season was shit.

It felt like episode 8 ended where it did because HBO ran out of money for the production.

SPOILERS!

Very good episode. We did not get to Rhaenyra invading King's Landing, but everything has been set in place for that to happen in the first episode of the third season.

Things I liked:

*the showdown between Rhaenyra and Alicent at Dragonstone, with Rhaenyra being a total bitch to Alicent (she has lost the plot by this time).

*Alicent standing up for Helaena as being the kindest and most worthy member of their family before Aemond, and Helaena also standing up to Aemond when they were alone.

*Daemon taking the knee to Rhaenyra (finally!)

*Daemon's and Helaena's visions of the future intersecting.

*Jacaerys and Baela finally being given personalities!

*Adam of Hull telling off his negligent father the Sea Snake (something that doesn't happen in the book).

*Rhaena FINALLY encountering Sheepstealer the dragon (though it took her long enough!)

*Larys and Aegon getting the hell out of Dodge, and Helaena revealing Aegon's and Aemond's futures to Aemond (which is nice for teasing next season).

A few notes:

*Rhaenyra is becoming more and more ruthless, and she is losing sight of why she wanted to become queen in the first place.

*Aemond is pretty desperate at this point. No one in his family will back him, even though he is the Regent.

*I hope they let Simon Russell Beale live for a while into next season, because he is such a fine actor.

*The actors who play Rhaenyra (Emma d'Arcy), Alicent (Olivia Cooke), and Helaena (Phia Saban) all showed how excellent they are this episode.

*The beautiful but hitherto uninteresting Fabien Frankel finally showed some acting chops this episode in his scenes with Freddie Fox.

R280 agree!

It was Allyn of Hull who told off the Sea Snake, though. Addam is the dragon rider.

I agree r279. This was not a finale, it is not paying off many plotlines it is just still setting up things to come. The pacing of this season makes no sense.

The season got cut from 10 episodes to 8 (because money?), and it honestly feels like they never recovered from that. They just pushed stuff that should have been in this season into season 3.

This was not the way to end things when it will likely be two years until another season.

Olivia Cooke is magnificent in this role in both acting and her looks. What a beautiful woman. She also looks natural unlike every “beauty” pushed on us through the media.

S3 they need to move past this relationship with Alicent and Rhaenyra as the focal point or at least make it realistic with the fact these 2 should actively hate each other by this point.

Olivia Cook is good but that is honestly a detriment to the r283. They are too obsessed with Alicent and making sure she remains a sympathetic figure rather than a villain and contriving reasons to give her more screen time. Two secret rendezvous between Rhaenyra and Alicent this season was too much IMO. They have diverged so far with Alicent I am honestly not sure where the show is going with her.

It's a complete unknown.

What an action-packed season! No expense was spared!

A son for a son?

Hello?

As I said before, I like the fact that neither woman is a heroine or a villain.

I'd argue in attempting to whitewash them they've managed to make Rhaenyra the least interesting character in her faction, and Alicent an actual retard who may as well have a "Support Rhaenyra for Queen" shirt on at this point.

[quote] I'd argue in attempting to whitewash them they've managed to make Rhaenyra the least interesting character in her faction

She has a lot of competition there—her fascinating son, her sulking husband/uncle, her vivid array of councilors

And the Queen whose main trait this seasons is she's so peaceful she doesn't really want to fight a war. Yes I'm sure its meant to contrast the "Maegor with tits" she's meant to become (if the show actually has the balls to do that) but for the last 8 episodes its made watching her slightly more enjoyable than paint drying.

The Sea Snake looks cool, but he doesn’t actually do or say anything particularly compelling. His granddaughters are ciphers.

I agree with the poster who said that this felt like episode 8 of 10. Episode 9 would have been the war, episode 10 then would be the fallout and setup for what’s to come. HBO makes really shitty decision sometimes.

"History will paint you as a villain." Then proceeds to give a description of Alicent from the book: "a cold queen grasping for power and then defeated". I wonder if Martin's head has exploded yet.

The same woman who attacked Rhaenyra with Aegon's blade in S1 to literally take "an eye for an eye" after Aemond was maimed is now just shrugging her shoulders at having her sons beheaded once Rhaenyra takes the throne that she will help her win. I mean, I understand the decision doesn't come easy for her, but this is all essentially stemming from being pushed aside on the small council? Maybe the history of Dance was being kind.

It does feel like a jumbled message from the writers

[quote] Green Royal Council: Women are too emotional and should not be involved in politics

[quote] Alicent exactly one and a half episodes later: Welp time to commit treason and betray my entire family for that girl I want to fuck

We saw Otto Hightower locked up somewhere. So that's why he hasn't been heard from.

Helaena's scene with Aemond was great. We've been waiting for more than a word or two from her for the whole season and it paid off.

Olivia Cooke really is a terrific actress; too bad she's stuck in this awful role. Her offer to throw her sons to her enemies is the right call, though. It's the one queen-worthy thing that's she's done.

The Ulf scenes were tiresome and heavy-handed. It seems like noble-looking, sensible Hugh is the one who's going to be the problem.

The Ulf scenes were just opportunities for Prince Jace to serve face

Why did they turned Ulf into a jester overnight?

Ulf has always been ridiculous, r299--the tavern braggart who spun outrageous stories just to cadge free drinks.

They needed a "BASTARD MONGREL!" for Jace to get annoyed at.

I was truly stunned to see ZERO actual battles on the finale, and judging from the SEVERELY negative pissed-off viewers chatter, I'm in the majority. It's not as bad of a fuckup as the final two GOT seasons, but I do *not* get why they switched from 10 eps to eight, especially given how long the delay between seasons can last.

The finale had at least a few interesting character scenes, and it was nice to *finally* see Daemon getting his shit together, but the entire season was more or less treading water. The finale should've gotten us *through* more water, meaning some substantive action scenes, but did not. Ridiculous, particularly given that even if things *do* go well & without delay, it'll likely be 2026 until it's all resolved.

All I want to say is that I do not trust Allicent one bit. Telling Raynera to come to the Red Keep in 3 days to take it? Bullshit. See, this is where drones would have come in handy.

R297, I think they mentioned earlier in the season that the Greens had gotten word of Otto possibly being imprisoned. (Maybe at one of Aegon's small council meetings?) I'm curious who took him, e.g. whether they're Rhaenyra's flunkies or Alicent's (it's not clear if that's where Alicent actually *went*, to rescue her father).

R298, that's what I figured as well, but I know what happens to Jace in the books, so I'm wondering if he's yet another character whose plotlines will be starkly changed for the show.

R300, true, but both Elf & Jace are oddly one-note at this junction. Instead of endless scenes of Daemon hallucinating at Harrenhal, why not give one or both of them some *actual* character development time? Elf seems like little more than a useful idiot at this point, and Jace is a whiny, pissy little bitch. "I'm a Targaryen and I am *pissed* that the commoners can learn How To Train Your Dragon, never mind that I'm a bastard & literally married my own sister!"

Ending the season there is a big “fuck you” to the viewers. Not sure I’ll be back..

[quote] Jace is a whiny, pissy little bitch. "I'm a Targaryen and I am *pissed* that the commoners can learn How To Train Your Dragon, never mind that I'm a bastard & literally married my own sister!"

I think part of the issue with how much they've purified Rhaenyra in this is the audience genuinely have come to the conclusion Team Black are the good guys fighting for equality and democracy. In reality they're one side of a family that conquered a foreign country with a superweapon that's kept them on top for over a century pressing their claim against another side. Jace not being in favour of arming the peasantry or potential future claimants to his throne (assuming they win) is honestly one of the only sensible well written plot lines added this season.

The fact that the King and the Prince Regent are twisted sickos has something to do with why the audience is Team Black.

Not the finale I was hoping for. It seemed like a trailer for S3.

But this series has been very good. Olivia Cooke deserves all the awards.

Two seasons down and I still can't keep track of how all these characters are related to each one another.

Distinguishing the relations is made more difficult by casting a 30 year old actress as the mother of actors in their mid-to-late 20s.

Olivia Cook is only one year older than the guy who plays Aegon and only three years older than the guy who plays Aemond. Hollywood.

Why do I find Aemond sexy?He is not attractive in a conventional way. It's not the eye patch. And his profile is sharp enough to cut glass.

Well for one thing Allicent can't deliver her son's head on a platter because he's run off with his crippled sidekick. And did anybody else get flirty vibes between those two? Larys kept being like, "We should run away together" and Aegon kept replying with details about his inability to have sex and his mutilated dick -- weird pillow-talk for sure but no weirder than this show's delivered in the past

[quote]Elf seems like little more than a useful idiot at this point,

Oh, [italic]dear.[/italic]

I haven't read the book but they're setting Ulf up to die, right?

All the characters will die, r315.

R316 Well, yes. I didn't think any of them were immortal.

You know what I meant.

SPOILERS

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In "Fire & Blood," George R. R. Martin lays out the deaths of practically all the characters involved in The Dance of the Dragons. Very, very few of them survive past the war. Most of them die horrible deaths, either in battle or after being captured by their enemies.

It's a real bloodbath, which is why it's such a decisive civil war for Westeros. It's no spoiler (since they said it bluntly several times on "Game of Thrones") to point out that by the end of the war every single dragon is dead, and that things remain that way until Danaerys's three dragon eggs hatch decades and decades later.

I guess spoilers are allowed from the Martin books since we don’t know how closely the producers here will follow them.

So fill me in since I haven’t read them. The episode ends with the hope that a war might be avoided, but I guess that doesn’t happen in the novel? The montages at the end of armies on the march suggests that momentum may be too great to hold folks back. Is that what happens?

If there is a war, I would think that it would take up more than an episode, so all the whining and whinge-ing above seems misplaced. A war could never comfortably be handled at the end of this season.

I would think a war would take up virtually all of season three, given how many fronts it would have to be fought on and given the huge cast of characters, most of whom will die, according to some of you. That seems about right to me.

War is not avoided, nor can be be avoided at this point. War is already happening mind you.

However there are a couple specific battles/events the show has been building up to all season r319. People were expecting that at least one of those set pieces would be included in this season.

They didn't expect the Battle of Rook's Rest to be the only major sequence covered in this season.

I would say this was also complicated by Ryan Condal saying there were two major set pieces this season in pre session interviews.

Turns out they were counting the dragon claiming sequence as the other major set piece, which is not something the fanbase really counted.

r319: Ryan Condal has said se,veral times seasons 1 and 2 were the build-ups to war, and all of season 3 will be all-out war. Season 4 will be mostly the aftermath of war--one of the things about a war this massive is that when the majority of it is over, there will be not be many people left in power to pick up the pieces.

The problem isn’t so much the casting. We meet adult Allicent before her children are born. But they decided not to age her with makeup and hair appropriate for he age when her kids are adults.

R315 Ulf and Hugh both do something of some significance to the story for minor characters. Whether the show sticks with what the book does with them, I don’t know. The show is pretty different from the book in some ways so far. Mostly improvements, but not everything.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Condal has just announced that the series will end with season 4, so this confirms what you posted, R322.

Condal also announced they're working on scripts and the third season won't start filming until into 2025 -- I hate how slow the turn around is for this damn thing

[quote]Why do I find Aemond sexy?

Perhaps you find Jeopardy's James Holzhauer sexy. James and Aemond have the same smirk.

For R319

I find Matt Smith Sexy. I love his voice and his intensity.

I think most people wouldn't be upset with the season finale if we didn't have to wait 2 WHOLE YEARS for season 3. With the exception of Season 8, GoT only made us wait 1 year. The HotD show runners need to make note of that.

Daemon and Aemond are both ugly sexy. Aemond is too young for me but I would fuck Daemon’s brains out. I am not attracted to Matt Smith outside of this character.

I guess the other Game of Thrones Spin off is set to drop in 2025. Gives them breathing room for the dragons. But I don't see how the Dragons can milk more than one more season out of this.

I think the Kof7K is going to be a dud. Although I am curious about the character of Bloodraven. We saw him for a second in Daemon's vision, but he was a young boy there, by the looks of it.

R333 it would be hard to ruin Kot7k because the short stories are wonderful. GRRM’s best work.

I didn't think much of the finale. When I saw it was on for over an hour I was expecting at least one skirmish or showdown, but it was quite sedate. The padding out of Lannister in Essos was boring and took far too long. As others have said, it made me wonder if they'd used up the budget, hence why they dropped two episodes and meandered towards the end.

It would have been fine if it had been episode 8 of 10, because then episode 9 would have focused on fighting and episode 10 would have been the aftermath of said fighting, while setting up more for season 3.

It seems to be the norm to have two years between seasons now, but it feels too long. I'll have forgotten most of it come 2026 and I know I won't rewatch it all in preparation - who has time for that?

That youtuber pirate was just awful. A recast is necessary.

Like watching cosplay paint dry with bad wigs. Pass.

Have they said if HBO is hiving them more money for s3? Because if they managed to go broke on an 8 episode season that was mostly filmed reusing the same 3 sets and had a lot less cgi dragon fights than you'd expect I'm not quite sure how they expect to film an all war 10 episode season.

"In June 2022, it was reported that a Jon Snow sequel series with Kit Harington to reprise his role was in early development at HBO. The working title is Snow and Martin confirmed his involvement with the project and that Harington initiated the idea. Also in June, Martin said there were still three other live-action series in development: 10,000 Ships (written by Amanda Segal), 9 Voyages aka Sea Snake (written by Bruno Heller), and the Dunk & Egg prequel series (written by Steven Conrad), tentatively titled either The Hedge Knight or Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

In January 2021, an animated drama series was announced as in development at HBO Max. In July 2021, two more animated series were in development at HBO Max, with one being set in Yi Ti, a nation in Essos loosely based on Imperial China."

They are going to milk this dry

R304 Wait, Jace is married to his sister?

Step-sister and cousin.

R339 It sounds like what Disney has been doing with Star Wars. It feels like there's a new Star Wars TV series/spin off every six months on Disney Plus.

I assume they'll be shooting them back to back, otherwise Martin will probably be dead before they release them all.

R339, they're not doing the Jon Snow spinoff, as confirmed earlier this year by Kit Harington.

[quote] We Couldn’t Find the Right Story to Tell

That hasn’t seemed to stop them in the past.

The Dunk & Egg series drops in 2025. It's ready. Then in 2026 the next season of dragons. But honestly they're saying four seasons and I think 3 will do it.

Kit also confirmed that it was actually HBO who came to him with the idea. He got a team together and they visited Martin, but he's said he was only going to commit to it if they could come up with a really great premise for it. He said this, too, very recently, which I thought was interesting:

[quote]Q: Since the Jon Snow spin-off ultimately didn’t happen, are you surprised that only prequels seem to have worked out in that world, or do you feel like you might have had more luck in figuring out a story if there was source material behind it?

[quote]HARINGTON: No. I think a prequel is a natural thing to do. They did it with Better Call Saul, and with House of the Dragon. You run into a lot of issues with a sequel. A lot of the cast are done with it by then. So, who are you bringing back? Are you bringing back the same people? So, no, I’m not surprised that a prequel is something that is easier to do. It’s not easier to do, but a more natural place to go. With ours, it was just about not finding the right story and not finding something that was worth doing, to bring me back to it and to stay in it. It just made less sense, the longer we went on with it, so we recanted

I imagine HBO was hoping to bring back some of the old cast and no one was biting. They worked on developing it for two years, he's said, before they decided to leave it alone.

But he does have a point about prequels being easier to cast.

Tales of Dunk and Egg is an idiotic title.

R346, I agree. And honestly with both Jamie and Cersei dead, we could only see NCW andLena in flashbacks.

I think if they want to do a sequel, they should focus on one character. So maybe the Adventures of Jon Snow. Or WEHT Arya. Or Sansa. Littlefinger and Varys were interesting. They're gone. I don't especially like Bronn so he could never hold my interest. Gwen Christie wants to do other things and who can blame her. Sophie and Maisie do too. And Peter Dinklage has never been out of work. He is an established actor.

The only cast I can think of that all got together after a popular series ended was the Downton Abbey cast and they it's just for movies.

The flashforward was cringy, but I hope they continue to dig into the subtle magic of Weirwood trees, why they were built into ancient fortifications, how they're supposed to interact with fire/ice/blood, connections to religions in Essos, etc. If Martin can keep dropping bits of expanded lore in the upcoming shows, that would be a nice holdover until the presumably big battles of the final novels.

Amateurs.

R346 I think many of the cast hated the ending of Game of Thrones, like the rest of us. A few of them have hinted at it, but either they're not supposed to give negative opinions publicly (due to contracts) or they're worried it could harm future role opportunities with HBO, or anywhere else for that matter, if they were candid.

For example Emilia Clarke must have hated the ending and what they did to her character... all that build of Daenerys being a noble future queen who wanted to help the less fortunate, then... well I won't say as I don't want to spoil it for the few people who haven't seen it and might still want to.

I thought this was very funny.

Queen Alicent Hightower (i.e. a British mustached gay male comic in drag, Joe Hegyes) answers all your questions.

I've been watching some YOu Tubers who have [posted a lot of analysis of House of the Dragons and it's connections to GoT. Explaining a lot of things about the various families and events.

R352, that’s great. This is the Alicent we need.

Alicent and Rhaenyra have a Hot Ones competition.

[quote] I have no idea what Ryan has planned — if indeed he has planned anything

GRRM disliked the season so much he wrote an entire blog post about how much he hated it.

[quote] GRRM disliked the season so much he wrote an entire blog post about how much he hated it.

I just read the piece after you posted it. He has genuine concerns about how they've changed his book, but he did not "hate" it.

The man watched the entirety of the last seasons of GoT and didn't bother writing an opinion piece criticising the show and directors but apparently season 2 of HotD apparently concerned him enough to so I struggle to believe he's enjoying the show at the moment.

r358, that's different from saying he "hates" the show, which is a huge overstatement.

And the man has terminal logorrhea (diarrhea of language). He will write anything to procrastinate from finishing the "Song of Fire and Ice" sequence.

Interesting to read about budget being an issue. I can't remember if I read that was the case, or if it was speculated about when they decided to reduce the amount of episodes this season.

Don't get me started about the way GoT ended! It still raises my blood pressure. Dany should have died heroically, with Jorah, fighting the Dead. John should have become King. End of story. Grey Worm executes Cersei. Jamie and Briann of Tarth live happily ever after, and Bron should have taken the crossbow, and the chest of gold and departed for Dorne to live happily ever after. I loved that Arya killed the Night King. and Sansa became the Ruler in the North. No way wuld Grey Worm have the authority to imprison Jon. Tyrion could still be Jon's Hand.

R360, I thought it was confirmed that the season was planned to be 10 episodes, then cut back to eight. Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO, is helmed by David Zaslav, who is tasked with destroying popular culture as we know it.

HOD proves incel nerds will lap up any luke warm vomit and proclaim it Dom Perignon.