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.)

It's going to be released week by week and in theory it won't be possible to watch quicker than that. In practice they seem to have released the first six episodes to a whole bunch of reviewers so it's not impossible that they'll get leaked onto dubious websites. OTOH if you go looking for leaks on dubious websites you're probably more likely to find viruses and god knows what else.

It was excellent. I loved GoT (mostly) and this did not disappoint. I had the same excitement that I had in the earlier seasons of GoT.
Agree that we need some humour, but hopefully it will come.

HBO have a Character Guide on their website which is really helpful!

www.hbo.com/house-of-the-dragon/character-guide

Just subscribe to Now TV. You can always get special offers and it's much better value than Sky.

I enjoyed it. It didn’t grab me as much as GOT yet because it doesn’t have a Tyrion, or amusing character. I was disappointed we had to have the gratuitous brothel scene. But it looks big budget and flash like GOT.
(they all looked like elves from Lord of the Rings though!)

Any thoughts on suitability for a rather mature 15yr old 🤔..?

And no Bronn. I loved his character. The soldiers with their hard headed sense of reality were a clever counterpoint to the lord's and ladies of Westeros.

I forgot the Onion Knight, stanis's right hand man. There were so many well drawn characters!

@WinterIsComingKnitFaster - thank you for that - I'll wait week to week rather than dodgy website - Just sometime there is a way of getting them all at sonce but apprciate the advice

@Boopear - personally with my DS I think a mature 15 year old who knows what they are letting themselves in for would be fine with , but just one example. Others will have other views but I would have let 15 DS year old watch

& yes it is going to be the worse for not having Tyrion methinks.

I must be hard to please because I found Episode 1 very tedious. Had to fastforward the jousting, childbirth and orgy scenes. Don't like Milly Alcock; she seems very bland ( though early days). I find the focus on only one house a bit dull; what I liked about GoT was the contrast of the different houses. And yes, humour conspicuously lacking.

Also, do they only have one type of name for all the Targaryen women? Rhaneys, Rhaenyra, Rhea...

Ok, I am hard to please!:)

Watched episode 1. Was ok. Nice scenery at the beginning. Dr Who Matt was ok, just.

What I’m not understanding is how this is set 172 years in the past and yet there seems to have been no technological advances made in present day game of thrones.

I realise I’m commenting on historical continuity in a world with dragons

I thought it was ok but a bit of a slow opener. Will stick with it.

no technological advances made in present day game of thrones.

When would the Wall have been built? I always thought that would have been a quite extraordinary achievement in terms of both labour and technology. (I haven’t read any of the novels so am hazy on the chronology.)

But you’re right - if you begin with fantasy-medieval it’s hard to then portray a couple of hundred years before that convincingly!

Yes not only is there no technological advance, there's not even any fashion.

I guess the fact that they're living in the shadow of lost civilisations which did astonishing things like The Wall with magic may have hampered their ingenuity. And the multi-year Winter/Summer cycle might make it more difficult to sustain technological advance.

I think the wall was built (with magic long since lost) about 8000 years ago

Oh? So we might expect to see it during this series?

I think the Wall might have been one of my favourite characters in GOT. (Relieved to hear it was produced through magic. The tremendous work of construction used to worry me.)

The wall was build as a result of the long night, when the white walkers came for the first time. After defeating the white walkers the first men, particularly Bran the Builder (A Stark) and the children of the forest built the wall with magic etc. This was around 8000 years before the GOT events. I agree, I would love to see what the nights watch were like back then!

I don't think we shall see wall in this. In the book, one of the targaryan Queen flies on her dragon to wall but that is way before the events of a dance with dragons in the current TV series.

I enjoyed it although wasn't blown away. Will definitely keep watching though, if just for the music as that gives me goose bumps every time!

Really wish they didn't have such gratuitous sex scenes as they don't add anything to the story line IMHO. Violence is a bit gory too, so I'd rather they tame both of those, but given how GOT was, I'm sure that's not going to happen!

I actually liked that it focused on one family and that progress could be made in one episode.
Also liked the cast and where it looks like the plot will go.

And also very tempted to look up the spoiler on the family tree

We met members of other houses - I confess total over excitement each time a "Baratheon" was mentioned and when "Rickon Stark" pledged allegiance to the princess. We also met a Tarly as well. I'm hoping this means we will see more of them as the series goes on.

Yep just fully ruined the whole season for myself 😂 I just can't resist!
Make sure you DON'T google this everyone!

No I know what you mean. And yes the joust was too drawn out. It was like they had to get as much gore in as they could. And hated that we’ve gone back to the brothels again.

It will have to develop A LOT to compare to GoT. Hopefully it will. But it still caught my attention, when from the preview I thought it wouldn’t.

I'm reading fire and blood atm, so I know spoilers are coming... just need to see if I can hold out long enough to not Google it while I wait to get to the right point of the book

(I'm positive I read it before when I read all of the SOIAF books and the Knight of seven kingdoms books, but so far nothing is ringing a bell... 🤔)