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.)

In the books he had the same mismatched eyes as a famous Targaryen woman, but personally I thought Tyrion was Tywin's true heir.

I interpreted this at the time as the dragons being a bit like an intelligent dog, that they knew who was friendly and not a threat to their “mother” and who wasn’t.

You must be right. And he just knew everything about dragons. Way more than Dany.

Yes, Dany was visibly shocked at her dragons’ behaviour at times! And had to chain them up in Mereen.

I seem to remember some wild dragons being ridden by non Targaryen small folk.

I guess the Night King did not ride a live dragon. Wasn't it reanimated?

Yes, I think it's pretty clear that the Night King controls all those he re-animates.

No, dany only ever rode drogon.
I suppose the GOT dragons being more obedient could be because they are the only case where the human is older than the dragon -targ practice was to put an egg in a baby's cradle so if it hatched it would be their dragon.

If it didn't hatch (which is what happened with aemond and daemon's younger daughter) the human would have to take over an adult dragon.

So the dragons would either be much older than the human or at the very least the same age whereas daenerys was an adult (or close to) human who brought up dragon babies from birth. Plus she used blood magic to hatch them which might give them an extra bond. She also pretty much raised them herself whereas the dragons in HOTD were looked after by (brave!) staff at the dragonpit 99% of the time with the humans only coming down to do a bit of training with them or to fly on them as shown when the boys give the pig to almond. So basically dany has a much closer bond with them.

Her dragons definitely shouldn't have been as big as they were though! Luc's dragon was hatched shortly after he was born so would have been about 14, drogon was half that age so should have been half the size but was clearly much bigger!
Perhaps they grow faster in the sun!
Presumably essos is closer to old valyria than westeros -tyrion and jorah see drogon going for a flyover round the old valyrian ruins at one point so they could have been affected by the left over dragon magic?

There were definitely references in GoT to them not growing properly when kept locked up in the dragon pit, and I think some speculation that that was why they got smaller and smaller and eventually died out.

This popped up on Facebook, if anyone is interested.

Emma D'Arcy on Daemon choking Rhaenyra
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
"Me and Matt talked about this scene a lot. We wanted to make sure we understood it intimately. That moment could be perceived as a huge change in their dynamic. In that scene, by the fireplace, two things happen at once- First, you have two characters who are grieving. And I think one might say that Daemon is managing that grief less eloquently than Rhaenyra is.
I don't think he [Daemon] has been violent to her before, although there's been a lot of conflict. But fundamentally, when Rhaenyra realizes Daemon was never taught the prophecy, she suddenly gains legitimacy, because she understand it was her, she was chosen for this.
She begged him to show her what to do because she can't do it alone, and I think in this scene, she gets a message from beyond the grave the moment that she understands that Daemon wasn't chosen. 'Wow, it was never you.'-
Simultaneously, Daemon gets shafted from beyond the grave by his brother, who he loves more than any other character in the show. On the one hand, he can say that he doesn't believe in prophecies. But he was never trusted to anyway."

Thank you for posting, that’s interesting as I wondered what that was about.

@Ohsugarhoneyicetea
try

Flight of Dragons. Maybe YouTube. It’s a cartoon from the 80s with loads of dragons and trolls. Probably more age appropriate

I would say 14 up, but depends on the 14 year old. My son would never watch something like this. It has some very graphic birthing scenes but my cousin’s daughter watches stuff like CSI, so I doubt she’d be fazed.

I would say it’s definitely upper secondary school age depending on the child - skip the birth scenes - scenes like this is why women with phobias of CB are on the increase.

Is this really why there are phobias about childbirth?
Not trying to derail the thread or anything but Rhaenyra’s baby loss reminded me of my own. It was uncomfortable to watch but none of my pregnancy experiences we’re comfortable either. It felt more realistic in a fantasy show.
anyway.
sorry.

Thank you.

I didn’t mean to invalidate anyones birth experience, and I am so sorry for your loss.

@Yutes I agree with you and don't think you're derailing. Much-wanted babies die or are born with disabilities sometimes caused by birth trauma or more commonly because birth comes too early and sometimes things don't go right in making their little bodies.

I think it's good for a popular programme to acknowledge that. If there was a suggestion that the baby died because like Dany's baby she was part dragon that's okay with me too. There may not be dragon/human babies in real life but real babies are born with conditions that are sadly incompatible with life.

I don't think Rhaenyra's labour scenes were distressing. She was moving around and mooing with the pain which is what women should do unless there is a good reason for them to be flat on their backs and monitored all the time.

I know she refused to let her midwives help her but I'm prepared to accept that bit of dramatic licence. The brief scenes where she was cradling her baby and then tenderly wrapping her for her funeral were very moving.

I'm sorry for your loss. I don't think @LittleMrsPerfect should beat herself up over this either. We're all scared until we can count the fingers and toes and then cross our fingers that everything else will be all right.

I really don't think it's this that is causing a rise in phobia of childbirth (didn't know there was). Don't see how it can be as I think that a birth on TV is rarely depicted as difficult. For the most part TV birth create an ideal expectation that a lot of women will never experience (and that in itself cause many women to feel they have 'failed').

Says a lot about us as a people if we are fine with seeing someone head sliced in two but not seeing a woman give birth when it's depicted as more than her lightly sweating giving a few pushes, then all is fine and dandy!

Sorry for you loss @Yutes

I think that if you're telling a story about inherited monarchies wielding absolute power then that means that the fate of a nation rests on a woman's body and the ability to bring a pregnancy to term and have a successful birth. That was famously true of Henry VIII's wives, but also at the end of the Regency.

Princess Charlotte, the heir to the throne and the Realm's Delight, died giving birth to a stillborn baby, leading to a stampede of her bachelor uncles racing to marry and father a legitimate heir - the winner being Victoria's father. The race of these middle aged men to sack their mistresses and look for eligible fertile princesses has a comic side, but it has its roots in such a tragedy. Charlotte was only twenty one. Her husband and parents were devastated and her obstetrician shot himself from guilt.

And even in the twenty first century, Empress Masako of Japan has suffered terribly from the pressure to give birth to a boy.

It's such a private and personal thing to hang the world upon.

I don’t think there is a ‘growing phobia of childbirth’. I would’ve been a lot more scared of it hundreds of years ago when there was no life saving medical care. I think it’s always something that has been feared because it’s, for most, the most painful experience of your life which can go on for quite some hours and involves something you’ve never done before you actually do it.

Should add I literally mean us as people and not just LittleMrsPerfect - a lot of shock horror about it.

The Guardian called it "an act of violence against viewers". (Mind you Tom Huddleston is coming across like a right prat in general.)

My grandmother died shortly after giving birth to my mother at home in London in 1923. My mum had no idea why but we thought it was probably an infection rather than blood loss because it was a few days after the birth. Women just died because of pregnancy and childbirth and everyone had to get on with it.

When my mum had her first baby, my brother in November 1948, a couple of months after the institution of the NHS, she grabbed it with both hands and delivered in a hospital. Her experience was not what we'd expect in London 2022 but she felt as safe as safe could be. She also stayed in for a week after a normal vaginal birth albeit with forceps which helped her recover and established breastfeeding.

She could never understand why women chose to give birth at home. That doesn't make their choices wrong but we need a healthy respect for my mum's experience that childbirth can be lethal.

I whinge about House of the Dragons but not in this respect.

The Guardian called it "an act of violence against viewers". (Mind you Tom Huddleston is coming across like a right prat in general.)

He is such a twat @AnImaginaryCat. I imagine he is quite horrified at being confronted with the idea of women giving birth and being presented with that messiness.

I loved the late great Sarah Hughes's writing on GoT. He took over her column and carried on things like Random Brit Of The Week and Sex/Violence quotient that didn't work because it was a different show. He also stubbornly stuck to the idea that HoD was good when it's not. He finally gave in a bit in the force of the BTL comments pointing out the laziness and howlers.

Sorry it's Stuart Heritage. All those beardy blokes in The Guardian blend into one.

I completely agree the need to show things going wrong, as that is the reality of life. But I was more referring to the long drawn out scenes of her screaming in pain and frustration. I do have a fear of childbirth and I had to pause the show and watch another day after her first child was born!! I hat to mute or skip all other CB scenes. I just couldn’t watch her being in so much pain.

I liked (wrong word) the birth scene, found it more palatable then slicing heads. I thought it was realistic & captured the loneliness of labour (if that makes sense).