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House of the Dragon


The Choc
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I know alot of people were left with a bad taste in their mouth over the end of "Thrones" and for me it was far from my favorite season. However at the same time the final 3-4 episodes not being great doesn't take away from the dozens of great episodes there were throughout the run. I know for some people it does for some reason but not for me. 

The follow up is out in a few weeks and there are a few reasons I think it could/should be very good.

1-This is an interesting story. It's written about in a book however not in anywhere neat the detail of "A Song of Ice and Fire" and it has some great characters and some interesting twists and turns. From the stuff they could have chosen this probably would have been my 2nd choice to be adapted after The Blackfyre Rebellion but this is a great choice also.

2-Thrones had in general 3 major theaters: Kings Landing, The Wall and Dani in Essos. Although there were great moments at the Wall and with Dani I think most fans would agree that what made the show great, what made skeptical people who didn't want to watch a "show about dragons" tune in was the politics in Kings Landing. That's what this show should mostly be, the focus will be on the twists and turns and turkcloaks and all of that even more than in Thrones. It may lose a bit of it's epic feel by not being so vast (I don't think we will need a map at the start of every show to keep perspective) but by focusing on what really made "Thrones" great the show can avoid the difficult situation of "why do all these wars and politics between kingdoms even matter when any of zombies is coming to kill everyone anyway?"

3-The show could be less likely than most to become a victim of it's own success. When I first heard of this show my concern was "is there enough story to cover 5+ seasons if it does well?" There probably isn't in this story. Recently though one of the showrunners said the series could become an anthology with different seasons telling different stories of the Targaryan Dynasty. If this story takes 2 seasons to tell, thats fine then maybe the third season they switch to Aegons Conquest for a season and then go and do the Blackfyre Rebellion for as long as that takes and then Roberts Rebellion. Ofcourse if the characters on this show become wildly popular HBO could balk at this idea but I think it's a good idea that the show runners know this story probably ain't gonna take a decade to tell. 

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13 hours ago, Darth Krawlie said:

My interests have moved on. I just don’t care much about this world anymore. It’s not just the end of GOT, it’s Martin’s disinterest/disdain/inability to produce, or whatever you want to call it, as well. Hope it’s a great show and people who DO still care enjoy it, though.

Yeah this 1000%. Martin essentially moving on is very telling, his obviously just re-writing the books based off the reaction to the shows. I think the show followed the planned ending to the books a lot more than fans would like to admit. 

But also I’m just sick of all the franchises at this point. This, a million Marvel things, Lord of the Rings, more Star Wars all coming out at the same time. And more of each to come. There is so much of it now it’s kind of hard to be excited by any of it. 

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Im excited for both, I think they both look like they have a chance to be very good. More so though for House of the Dragon. Reading a bit about some of the creative processes leading up to the show and how some decisions were made just gives me alot of confidence. Plus as I said the idea this could be an anthology I think makes alot of sense. Let them take each story of the Targaryans and it takes as long as it takes to tell it then move on to another. There are definitely enough great eras and characters to choose from over the 300 years of Targaryan rule. 

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One of my good friends is on the GOT prequel. She’s had a blast. She hasn’t given me any spoilers, but when the writers are happy that generally means production has gone well. She’s already on to season 2.

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28 minutes ago, Tank said:

One of my good friends is on the GOT prequel. She’s had a blast. She hasn’t given me any spoilers, but when the writers are happy that generally means production has gone well. She’s already on to season 2.

Its a good story. Pretty much all of Martins stories are good with interesting characters. It will be interesting to see how they adapt it because this story takes place over a long period of time. Like there are important seminal events that impact the story and then long periods of time where these things kinda simmer until something else happens and eventually it all leads to the main conflict. They could obviously just compress events but if they are going to do like a "Targaryan Universe" and adapt other stories they may not want to change the timeline that much. Itll be interesting to see.

One thing I do like is that its not super concerned with matching up with "Thrones" perfectly. The Iron Throne from that show is an iconic piece of tv history and it looks much different here in House of the Dragon. I love that. Screw worrying so much about fitting every detail in perfectly with whats come before. I think that bodes well for the show.

Also just some of the look of it. Its much more colorful than Thrones was, especially Thrones from season 5 on. Look at the bright colors some of the characters wear. Look at the total flex of a suit of armor that Matt Smith's character wears. This kinda stuff was missing from late era Thrones, even the excellent season 6. Westeros is not just some drab setting for the plot its supposed to be a fantastical world beyond our imagination. This show seems to get that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I thought the premiere was great. Really did a great job of setting up the characters and the stakes. Very clearly showed how the precedent was set that the Throne would pass through the male line and then King Viserys pretty quickly changes that. Although we can all see the pending disaster that all of this sets in motion we can also see that Daemon would be an awful King and Viserys had little choice. 

Just really enjoyed it and was very happy to be back in that crazy, violent incestuous place we call Westeros!

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On 8/24/2022 at 10:31 PM, The Choc said:

Anyone else think that Daemon didn't actually say "Heir for a day"? 

Or if he said it, he didn't say it in a mocking way, more a sympathetic way.

But yeah, the King has himself a wormtounge for an advisor I think. 

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Yeah! I get what you mean with that! It’s still muggy here in the UK, but more grey and gloomy, so getting that way already! Ha!

Second episode was good - very different feel to Thrones with it being to closely focused on one family and (mostly) one city. Still the same strong characters and lots of manipulation going on! Good stuff, really enjoying it so far!

Also good to see the theme tune back - I did enjoy that on the original show going round the map. Little different this time - assume the symbols were house crests? Was hard to make them out.

 

4C65C194-ADB2-40BF-8D8E-AE635831B949.jpeg

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3 hours ago, Rogue 3 said:

Yeah! I get what you mean with that! It’s still muggy here in the UK, but more grey and gloomy, so getting that way already! Ha!

Second episode was good - very different feel to Thrones with it being to closely focused on one family and (mostly) one city. Still the same strong characters and lots of manipulation going on! Good stuff, really enjoying it so far!

Also good to see the theme tune back - I did enjoy that on the original show going round the map. Little different this time - assume the symbols were house crests? Was hard to make them out.

 

4C65C194-ADB2-40BF-8D8E-AE635831B949.jpeg

Yeah man, I live in Somerset about 40mins from Bristol. Deffo having a few more grey days lately and some rain thankfully but it's still muggy as fuck. 

Can't wait for the change of season proper. I love the UK more in its full grim winter splendor 

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4 hours ago, Odine said:

Yeah man, I live in Somerset about 40mins from Bristol. Deffo having a few more grey days lately and some rain thankfully but it's still muggy as fuck. 

Can't wait for the change of season proper. I love the UK more in its full grim winter splendor 

I hear that! We are in south London (near Bromley), and totally agree! Bring on the autumn fresher weather!

One other thing about the show is how much Viserys, whilst being so much calmer than his brother when he talks and gets opinions, is stubbornly making lots of bad choices. 
Wonder if we will see some time jumps in this show - I’m thinking that could be an option to cover some time that future rulers are on the throne as we can’t see the high turnover we saw in GoT?

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3 hours ago, Rogue 3 said:

I hear that! We are in south London (near Bromley), and totally agree! Bring on the autumn fresher weather!

One other thing about the show is how much Viserys, whilst being so much calmer than his brother when he talks and gets opinions, is stubbornly making lots of bad choices. 
Wonder if we will see some time jumps in this show - I’m thinking that could be an option to cover some time that future rulers are on the throne as we can’t see the high turnover we saw in GoT?

There are time jumps in this first season. Very significant ones. Rhaenyara and Alicent both have different actresses later in the season. Just in a general sense though this season takes place over about 25 years, judging by the titles of the final episodes. Also Alicent's grandchildren play a very important role in the story down the line. 

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Second episode was good. This is already better than the final season of GoT. Still not super attached to any characters yet but I suppose that's to be expected. I quite like Daemon, I don't think he's as antagonistic a force as the show and the other characters are trying to paint him. 

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14 hours ago, The Choc said:

There are time jumps in this first season. Very significant ones. Rhaenyara and Alicent both have different actresses later in the season. Just in a general sense though this season takes place over about 25 years, judging by the titles of the final episodes. Also Alicent's grandchildren play a very important role in the story down the line. 

Ah nice one - that’s good to know. Makes sense for sure from what I have seen so far.

 

6 hours ago, Odine said:

Second episode was good. This is already better than the final season of GoT. Still not super attached to any characters yet but I suppose that's to be expected. I quite like Daemon, I don't think he's as antagonistic a force as the show and the other characters are trying to paint him. 

Agreed - he backed down to his niece fairly quickly, so that’s good to see he is not an out and out unredeemable villain, merely just fairly understandably making it clear he wants what was owed to him.

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I love how craftt Otto is, hes basically doing Inception on the King.

You have Corlys Valyron who just comes out and says what he wants. "We need to deal with the crab feeder in the Stepstones!" Well yeah it is an issue for the realm but everyone knows his real motivation is that his House's wealth and power are based on the sea and trade. He wants to fight a war in the Stepstones for selfish reasons and everyone knows it.

Same goes with offfering his daughter to the King. Yes it is true she is a good match politically and for other reasons. However once again everyone knows the reason he wants the marriage is to strengthen his own House and has nothing to do with the King.

Then you craft Otto who is just like "im gonna have my very pretty, very nice and sweet and charming daughter spend time with the newly widowed King." Then when Corlys offers Laena he doesn't try to tell the King not to. He is basically like "yes its a good match but I don't envy you as King having to marry out of duty." Saying essentially that it sucks you have to marry someone you don't want.

Well the King agrees that sucks and then decides he wants to marry that very pretty, very nice and sweet and charming girl who has been spending time with me while I grieve. Otto never suggests the match. I actually wish we could have seen when the King tells Otto he wishes he marry Alicent just so Otto could act all shocked.

It's really an amazing playing the king like a fiddle. For the King this was never Otto's idea, it was his own which is why it seems right for him and why he does it. Otto completely incepted him!

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I feel the overall quality of the 3 episodes has been pretty consistent. Very good but not reaching greatness, although has been a bit of greatness in there. The bridge scene in the 2nd episode was pretty damn great. As for this episode all the stuff around Kings Landing and the hunt was excellent. The stuff on the Stepstones not so much. Felt a bit like some of the rushed battles from the last couple seasons of Thrones. 

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