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.)

Interesting in other peoples perspective.

I agree. At some point in my labours I 'turned inward' and it was just me, my body, working with the pain, and the child I was delivering. Everything else sort of faded into the background. It wasn't loneliness I felt though, it was a feeling of power (I can't think of a better word).

Rhaenyra seemed to be portrayed as feeling the same thing when she told the midwives to leave her alone. That it was just her and her struggle.

I actually think that the way she acted was the way a lot of us would have wanted the freedom to act during labour.

Aemma said in the beginning of the show that Rhaenyra's battlefield is childbirth. It is only fitting that they showed her side of the battle, not only Daemon's. A lot of this story is about motherhood.

Looking at that, there's about 8 generations separating Rhaenyra from Daenarys. Yet HotD is set only 172 years before GoT, right? That's a lot of generations to get through in less than 200 years! But I suppose the Targaryens married and had children very young. Certainly Dany is meant to only be 11 or 12 in the first GoT book when she's married off to Khal Drogo.

Also, while watching HotD I did wonder if Rhaenyra was based on Empress Matilda, and it looks like I was right! Matilda was a fascinating woman and anyone looking to fill a HotD gap for the next year or so could do worse than reading the books there are about her.

She's 13 - there's a specific line where she realises she's pregnant a few months after the wedding and says its her 14th nameday. Still pretty shocking but in line with laena/alicent as prospective brides for viserys!

Given aegon is supposed to be 20 so helaena must be about 18, they must also have married young to have at least 2 children by episode 6.

I'm think they made the right decision to age up most of the younger characters for GOT even if it probably was more out of practicality (hours adults could work for) rather than anything else.

I suppose 172/8 is still an average of over 20 years rule per monarch so not that bad in medieval-equivalent times!

I am reading 'Fire and Blood' and enjoying it. It's interesting how the series has differed from the book and made the Greens more sympathetic.

Alicent and Laena are also older in the books and Viserys younger.

Viserys was about 29 when he got married to Alicent who was about 20 and when a marriage between him and Laena Velaryon was suggested before, Laena would have been about 16. So whilst the prospect of a 16 year old marrying a 29 year old is still weird as hell it’s not quite as weird as a 12 year old marrying someone in their 40s. To me aging Laena down seemed unnecessary in the show and I think it was done for shock value.

Laena is also older than her brother Laenor in the books.

I don't think Viserys is meant to be old in the tv series, it's just that he has an illness like leprosy which has aged him prematurely.

I also found the ages confusing. Viserys didn’t want to marry Laena as she was too young but married Alicent. Daemon didn’t marry Rhaenyra because she was too young, but married Laena.

I also found the timelines confusing sometimes. Like Rhaenyra and Daemon were to leave King’s Landing in the morning but Viserys was found dead that morning. If Mysaria sent a raven to Daemon to tell of the king’s death when she first found out, surely it would have arrived while Rhaenys was still held captive.

I think it might have helped if they aged the actors a bit.

I think George RR Martin took a lot of the Targarean behaviour from Antient Egyptians. (Marrying siblings and doing so at a young age.) If you look at Ancient Egyptian dynasties there's a lot of generations in a short space of time.

I can only imagine the repeated incest caused a lot of health issues and shortened life spans.

Look at Tutankhamun. He died at 19 and had married (his half sister) and had children before his death. (His parents were full siblings.) The dynasty he was in spanned about 250 years I think and had something like 14 Pharaohs. (Will need to double check those numbers.)

Just looked, it was the 18th Dynasty between estmated 1550–1295 bc with 17 rulers.

Laena was an actual child of 12, Alicent was a young woman of around 18. Still a bit icky, because of the age gap, but not in the same league. Daemon's behaviour I grant you is all over the shop, but that's Daemon for you.

I'm not sure Myseria is still sending intel to Daemon.

The Eqyptian influence makes a lot of sense (but it's also clear Rhaenyra's set up was inspired by Empress Matilda: the two situations are almost identical up to being 'usurped' by a 2nd marriage vs a cousin as in the real case).

Even the age of marriage must come from the Eqyptians, maybe. Medieval marriages were not actually as young as people think (average age at first marriage is about 19). There are just a few notorious exceptions (looking at you, Margaret Beaufort) that skew our image. Royal marriages did tend to be younger because of the need for polticial alliances, but even then consummation was mostly kept until everyone was older.

Ok, I've looked up the ages a bit. I think in the TV series Alicent and Rhaenyra are about the same age but apparently in the book Alicent is 9 years older than Rhaenyra, so that would make more sense. Laena is 5 years younger than Rhaenyra and married Daemon when she was 23, and died when she was 27, so the twins would have been around 3 when she died, but they seemed much older than 3 in the TV show. I think this is why the timelines in the show are a little confusing. I get there are reasons for this and it doesn't bother me greatly, but I don't think they quite work.

I also found the timelines confusing sometimes. Like Rhaenyra and Daemon were to leave King’s Landing in the morning but Viserys was found dead that morning. If Mysaria sent a raven to Daemon to tell of the king’s death when she first found out, surely it would have arrived while Rhaenys was still held captive.

They kept Viseys’ death quiet for several days while they got their ducks in a row and got Aegon back inside the Red Keep.

But did them locking up Rhaenys and the others loyal to the blacks not cause some suspicion? The gossip in Royal circles is rife, especially in such a large place with so many servants. Did no one question why the red keep was locked up?

It felt like Paddy Considine was the only actor they aged up. Matt Smith barely looked any different by the last episode than he did in the first one and I think 20 years had past? Likewise Alicent is a grandmother by the end of the series but actually looks younger than Aegon!

Younger than Aemond, rather. Aegon looks 15 and Aemond looks 35!

I just want to be clear that I thought it was an amazing series and I'm really going to miss it today. My only gripes are that sometimes it's too dark to see what's going on. I know they said this is a stylistic choice but it's annoying. I don't get the timelines sometimes, but that might be me misunderstanding, like I thought the hunt for Aegon just lasted the one morning rather than days. I think maybe they should have aged the characters a bit just to make things a bit more believable. My book still hasn't arrived but I will definitely re-watch the series after reading the book. i will probably understand it better. And apparently George is making progress with Winds of Winter, so that's hopeful!

I think the next series will be a lot more straightforward timeline wise.

I know this is an old thread, but anyone going to be watching the new season, first episode is on Sky now so looking forward to it!

Oh gosh I didn’t realise it was starting already. They haven’t made much noise about it! Ivan barely remember what happened up to now, but yes I’ll be watching.