HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

[houseofthedragon]

Extended trainer here:

I am so excited for this!!! Anyone else???!!!

HOTD will be premiering on the 21st Aug (22nd Aug for U.K.)

Sorry for the mistakes. Try again.

At the beginning of the fighting scene there was a lot of confusion. Nobody knew what was happening, who was attacked.
People were sent in to save the princess, because it felt like Daemon attacked her. The Hand sent his son, Harwin, to literally carry Rhaenyra out from the melee.
The Kingsguard rushed there to see what was happening with Ser Criston. And I any members of the Royal family are in danger.
The Velaryons rushed there to protect their own, also to stop Laenor from making a scene.
The rest just probably likes a good brawl.

Yes, it was Viserys collapsing.

Rhaenyra and Daemon are meant to be very similar in the show. I thought she was just teasing her to see how far he would go for power. But Daemon, so far, never openly rebelled against his brother. He is all bark.

@WhathaveIdoneagain thanks for your reply.
So she did ask Daemon to take her away? But he was too wussy, or not prepared to rebel openly against his brother? So she is in fact not that happy to go along with the marriage to Laenor, just making the best of a bad job, as she doesn't want to rebel against her father? I wonder how Daemon really feels about her?

I still would like to know how all the fighting started, which they didn't really show. So not a coup attempt then? But maybe there will be one later!

@Pemba I would not think Rhaenyra would have gone willingly with Daemon. She was just winding him up. It is clear that neither Rhaenyra nor Daemon would try to overthrow Viserys. He might not be a great king, but his family is loyal to him.

Full Targ women are very valuable, and Daemon knows that. Any power play on his part must involve Rhaenyra or someonewith a high Targ blood %. He cannot wait till Alicent's baby girl grows up, who is only half Targ anyway.

I agree Rhaenyra was just winding Daemon up, I think she was calling his bluff. Surely his plan though in killing off his wife is so he’s free to marry Rhaenyra ? As for him not rebelling against his brother I’m not so sure about this I think he was biding his time but it looks like he won’t have to to this now with Viserys collapsing at the end.

I apologise for drifting off topic previously, I find it interesting to hear what Martin based the story on because I’m really into history. I don’t think you have to know what it’s based on though to enjoy it.

@667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast I'm interested in history too. Lots of books, films and the speeches of Boris Johnson are based on classical references and though it helps you don't have to know to appreciate them.

But as a popular TV programme it doesn't work because it expects too much knowledge from its viewers and I suspect lazily relies on people knowing about the books or asking questions.

Why should viewers know the significance of "full Targ blood" or the acceptability and desirability and drawbacks of incest in many real life royal families without being told in the show? The Grand Maester could easily slip it into a debate on whether to apply leeches or poultices to Viserys's suppurating body.

And it commits little slip ups - were Viserys and Aemma closely related? I assumed they were because they both had the Targaryen silver hair and difficulties in producing a live child but I think I was wrong because I don't remember it ever being mentioned but did remember hearing Aemma had a different surname.

The significance of Alicent's green dress was sloppily done. It was almost as if the writers said: "Oh fuck! We forgot to say. Never mind. Don't bother reshooting a scene for the first spisode. Just get two wedding guests casually talking about it like it's 1970s Charlie's Angels all over again where everyone had to explain the plot holes at the end. No one will notice."

And Ser Criston's crisis doesn't make sense except to carry the plot along. Either his honour as a Kingsguard and the personal protector to the heir to the Seven Kingdoms is the core of his being and worth being castrated and executed over or he can just forget it all and ask her to run off and open a B&B in Braavos.

Worst of all is the dialogue and character development. They have a great cast and Milly Alcock but waste it.

But I'm enjoying it in a perverse kind of way.

I may have misunderstood but the big feast wasn’t the actual wedding day was it? It was just the beginning of the several days of festivities that would end in the wedding. Hence all the dramatic entrances!

That’s why we saw the wedding ceremony go ahead presumably several days later…

I agree with your point about the green dress 😂lol Charlie’s Angels 😅
However my husband hasn’t read the book (we had watched GOT so we got the incest bit as it is mentioned in that numerous times)
and he’s managing to keep up. I’m enjoying it but I love asking questions and finding out more info behind shows anyway. I read the book years ago but my memory is rubbish for stuff like that unless I’ve read a book more than once. My husband is just watching it and enjoying it but I get it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.
I thought Sir Criston’s reaction way over the top I did not see that coming at all but I guess he was more upset than we thought!

@667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast I love talking about shows too. The late Sarah Hughes's Guardian column on Game Of Thrones was the first thing I'd turn to on Mondays because she'd examine the latest episode shown at 2am British time.

She was witty and really knew her stuff. She was stern about it being about the TV show too. Discussion about the books is fine for things like here (though I had words with someone who''d deliberately spoil GoT as if she felt she was a special person for having read the books) but was confusing and pedantic in the column.

The person who has inherited her column (sorry, like most of the HoD characters I can't remember his name) is making a hash of it. He has slavishly copied her format: Sex Count; Violence Count; Random Brit Of The Week even though it doesn't work for this show. Worse, he gets things wrong and refuses to accept it's a bit duff. Thank Gods for the comments.

That’s why we saw the wedding ceremony go ahead presumably several days later…

I thought it was the first of many days of feasting and merrymaking but when the wedding went ahead the blood of the pore little Knight of Kisses was still wet on the flagstones and being licked up by a rat. So it must have been shortly after the dust up because everyone knows blood sets really quickly and is a bugger to get out of flooring let alone white cloaks.

^ sorry that was to @PuppyMonkey. I think it was another continuity mistake but your reasoning that the ceremony was some time after the initial party clears up something that was bothering me.

How did Alicent prevent Ser Criston from committing hara kiri by the sacred tree and still have time to be at the wedding ceremony? I can't remember whether she was wearing the same green dress. She didn't manage to save King Viserys from falling though. I have a feeling she doesn't care about him as much as she said.

Think the wedding was a rush job (possibly to prevent Daemon for running off with Rhaenyra) because of the antics. Definitely the same day - didn't even wait to clean up the groom's boyfriend's blood after the bride's "whore" beat his head in. Nice that they removed the body though.

Wasn't the happiest looking of weddings was it - unhappy couple, miserable guests and a possible dead father. The rat in the blood was only one having a good time.

Yes, she had the green dress on.at the wedding.

Yes I thought it was the same day the blood on the floor, and Laeonor was still in tears and shock from the death of his lover.

I've just finished reading The White Ship by Charles Spencer - can highly recommend.

Is that the Charles Spencer, former theatre critic of The Daily Telegraph who excitedly described Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room as "pure theatrical Viagra"? Smashing stuff. Iain "Ser Friendzone" Glen was in that too. So prescient;

^^ that was to @peaceandove btw. I get so excited about this subject I keep forgetting myself.

Even more excitingly, AFAIK it's THE Charles Spencer, brother of the late Princess of Wales.

Oh, Princess Di's brother. Thanks for filling me in @WinterIsComingKnitFaster . I truly didn't realise that.

It's a shame it's not by the Charles "Viagra" Spencer. But I expect it will be as smashing as that other Telegraph writer Boris Johnson's history of Churchill.

@limitedperiodonly Aemma and Viserys were first cousins. Her father was an Arryn from the Vale. That is why they tried to marry Daemon off to the Vale.

I never knew that author is Earl Spencer. I learn something new here every day.

Thank you. First cousin marriage is legal in Britain. I wouldn't want to do it and not only because my only male cousin is 20 years older than me and called Derek. As a one off it's probably okay but repeated consanguinity is definitely not. I knew that before I saw Game of Thrones.

@limitedperiodonly

They have a great cast and Milly Alcock but waste it.

Ouch! You don't rate Milly's acting then? 🤣🤣

Worst of all is the dialogue and character development. They have a great cast and Milly Alcock but waste it.

I have a question about the dialogue.

I did not read the books. Is the dialogue mainly lifted straight from them, or is it stuff the show's writers came up with?

One of the big shifts in GoT, at least IMO, was when they stopped using Martin's dialogue, which was really excellent, witty, intelligent, with very distinct character voices. After they were trying to come up with their own it was clunky, sometimes embarrassing, and generally just missed the mark.

In general I find in a lot of these really big shows, the dialogue seems to be given second fiddle. In some shows you can kind of ignore it, but in a political drama, which this is to a significant extent, it's a real problem.

The book has almost no dialogue - it's a fake history written long after the fact so pretty much just a list of events. The first four episodes are twenty pages in the book, and five of them are pictures, so the plot and some key set-piece scenes are GRRM's (with a few alterations) but the dialogue and the characterisation is all the screen-writers' (with a few steers behind the scene from GRRM).