House of the Dragon (Game of Thrones prequel series) Spoiler thread !post evening airing! - The Bear and Badger

I_R

He's worth a fortune as a hostage, that's why he's such good bait. Of course they shouldn't really have been shooting arrows at him.

It's worthwhile to show what a maniac Daemon is, those final couple of shots are great, but it really fitted in with the long run of bad GoT battles.

Paul the sparky

They didn't seem to be the type to ransom for money to be honest. Seemed to be the watch the world burn kind of chaps. Probably because they didn't bother showing anything about the fella other than his hobby of feeding folk to crabs and hiding his deformity behind a mask.

Having said that the king was concerned about starting a war with the free cities over it so crab boy must have had some connections. Probably fleshed out better in the book

Blocks100

Crab king had the gray-scale yeah?

I am rather enjoying this. See no issues with Daemon's mad dash. It was the last throw of the dice for him. And now the character has been reborn as a ruthless 'do anything to win' guy. Works for me.

Matt Smith didn't do anything for me as Dr Who strangely enough, but I rate his performance in this. Paddy is boss as the King too nice to be a King. My only concern is these jumps forward in time each episode mean we ain't got much screen time left for the young actress who plays Rhaenyra so well.

LivDiv

I'm still finding the characters mostly lacking due to the time jumps.
Maybe they will slow down now but having 5 minutes of clunky plot filling each ep isn't ideal

ShabbyMcCrabby

Yeah I'm finding this to be rather dull. Emphasis on rather as it sounds as posh as the dull posh dialogue. To me it feels like Game of Thrones does Downton. People talking about nothing in particular in posh accents. 3 years goes by and apparently nothing of note has happened in the interim and the same conversations are just playing out again.

There's no substance in this writing. No push and pull and strong characters battling their wits. It's just posh person having their say and another posh person having their say back.

The interest in Game of Thrones for me was the little details in the character work and their storylines and how their best intentions or dreams would play out. Jumping years is an interesting concept but not if it may as well have been a jump to next week in terms of character development

monkey

Why would you even surrender in those circumstances? The enemy were under siege. If you’re giving up, you’d fuck off home on your dragon. That whole bit was so dumb.

hunk

Blocks100 wrote:

Crab king had the gray-scale yeah?

Aye, that's what I thought as well!
I don't mind the jumps in time as long as the script handles them well. The actors do a splendid job of breathing life into their respective roles. I like the performances of young Rhaenyra and the mad uncle.

Basically, all the factions within the Targaryen family have now been touched upon. The infighting for succession will soon come into focus I assume.

Armitage_Shankburn

monkey wrote:

Why would you even surrender in those circumstances? The enemy were under siege. If you’re giving up, you’d fuck off home on your dragon. That whole bit was so dumb.

It made zero sense. It was utterly stupid. That's the wy it goes now. Grand scene, no sense in it, but people clap.

poprock

Best episode so far, but still underwhelming. It’s at least made me want to stick with it now.

I seem to have misinterpreted the crazy plan from Daemon. I thought those two dragons were part of the aid from the King. As in - Daemon read the aid note. Knew the coming ships and infantry would make it look like the King saved him and won the war. But also knew it would be weeks away, while dragons would be arriving imminently. So decided to go full mental and play the hero right now, knowing he had a good chance of being backed up with an airstrike.

I thought Daemon and his dragon was the only dragon in the fight until that moment.

But if that’s not the case and had those other two dragons onside all along (which must be sea snake family members? At no point did we get any inkling that family owned dragons, all they talked about was ships and money) … how the fuck hadn’t he already won the war ages ago?

LivDiv

They were his dragons I think.
It was mentioned that the crab people were dug into the caves. Something like "we could circle them until dragons dropped out the sky and they still wouldn't come out"
Daemon drew them out by going down there.

poprock

Yeah, seems that way but wasn’t told well. Daemon flounced down there with one dragon. Year and a half later he has three. No explanation offered.

LivDiv

That's seems par for the course.
I feel like I'm watching a season catch up every ep.

Kow

Who was riding the dragon that came to his aid?

I_R

Corlys' wife should have had a dragon and I'm assuming their kids have one as well. The only real discussion about it though is the shouting match between Otto and Daemon - putting eggs in the cradles of royal babies, not whores.

I_R

Kow wrote:

Who was riding the dragon that came to his aid?

Corlys's son. He was recommended as a potential husband if he survived earlier.

poprock

I_R wrote:

Corlys' wife should have had a dragon and I'm assuming their kids have one as well. The only real discussion about it though is the shouting match between Otto and Daemon - putting eggs in the cradles of royal babies, not whores.

This is what I felt was badly (ie. not at all) explained. From the first two episodes I had the impression that the Targaryens had 10 dragons and other families had none. But apparently the sea snake family had two after all. Okay then. With three dragons on hand, why exactly had they not tried the ‘draw them out of the caves and burn them’ strategy a year and a half ago?

LivDiv

My assumption is they tried everything but a suicidal run from their leader.
It's a massive issue with skipping time though. Things just seem to happen.

poprock

Every time the crab people attacked a ship, they were targetable. Should have been flambéed ages ago.

LivDiv

My main gripe right now, which may be addressed later.
The show is about ascendancy but I cant really see a great deal of difference who inherits it outside of the effect on themselves and their rivals.

When we had the 5 kings and a queen in GoT it was clear that each of them would create a very different Westeros.

Paul the sparky

It doesn't make any sense. It feels like Dr Who and his pals were cut off, maybe their ships destroyed? That would make the dwindling supplies/siege thing work. But the king's courier was able to wander up and deliver his message no problem?

And yeah, air support beats ground/naval units every time doesn't it?

monkey

The idea was they were 'losing' the war. According to one of the blokes, it was Matt Smith's fault they were losing because he steamed in with his dragon and CrabMan retreated into the caves.
But that's winning shirley? Keep them trapped in there. Pick them off when hunger forces them out. What are extra ships from the King going to do?

Maybe there's a line of dialogue somewhere that this is just one front and they can't stop other pirate attacks until they get the leader. I dunno.

The Paddy Considine bits were good. I'm enjoying watching him deteriorate.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Paul the sparky wrote:

It doesn't make any sense. It feels like Dr Who and his pals were cut off, maybe their ships destroyed? That would make the dwindling supplies/siege thing work. But the king's courier was able to wander up and deliver his message no problem?

And yeah, air support beats ground/naval units every time doesn't it?

Was the message delivered by those ships that were coming in and got fired upon?
My understanding was that this spot was like a Panama Canal and that they needed to take control back of it so that could use the passage freely.

poprock

Away from the nonsense war, I liked the parallels drawn with the beginning of OG Thrones. Robert Baratheon being killed by a wild boar when out drunk on a hunt. Our King here being drunk and depressed on a hunt. The pathetic spectacle of him slaughtering a captured stag in contrast to Baratheon really hunting. His daughter taking out a boar up close and personal like it’s no big thing.

I_R

poprock wrote:

I_R wrote:

Corlys' wife should have had a dragon and I'm assuming their kids have one as well. The only real discussion about it though is the shouting match between Otto and Daemon - putting eggs in the cradles of royal babies, not whores.

This is what I felt was badly (ie. not at all) explained. From the first two episodes I had the impression that the Targaryens had 10 dragons and other families had none. But apparently the sea snake family had two after all. Okay then. With three dragons on hand, why exactly had they not tried the ‘draw them out of the caves and burn them’ strategy a year and a half ago?

Age of the kids maybe. It's all a bit weak.

I just don't think people can do this stuff on TV and we've been a bit spoiled into expecting it. Early GoT went out of their way to avoid showing battles and the only one I think really works is Daenerys stealing her army from the slavers, which is opening, flames, army marching away.

I suspect the whole sequence might have been cooked up specifically because Rings Of Power started on the same weekend and the showrunners have spent millions on extras and CGI for a battle they have no clear picture of.

Paul the sparky

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

Paul the sparky wrote:

It doesn't make any sense. It feels like Dr Who and his pals were cut off, maybe their ships destroyed? That would make the dwindling supplies/siege thing work. But the king's courier was able to wander up and deliver his message no problem?

And yeah, air support beats ground/naval units every time doesn't it?

Was the message delivered by those ships that were coming in and got fired upon?
My understanding was that this spot was like a Panama Canal and that they needed to take control back of it so that could use the passage freely.

Maybe. I remember squinting at that shot and wondering what the fuck was supposed to be going on. I don't really understand how you can't protect your ships from the archers/catapults or whatever they were using on top of that cliff with a couple of dragons to hand. Not permanently, but during the siege for supplies etc

Basically, leper in a mask with a few ships and pirates vs fully equipped armies with more ships and a couple of dragons. Only one winner, especially over three years when only side could possibly resupply? Surely the pirates weren't out and about raiding in their ships for the whole time?

Paul the sparky

I'll see it through but this is boring me to death. Feels like Coronation Street or Hollyoaks at times

LivDiv

The Hand got interesting until they resolved it in a single scene.

The show lacks a hook.
Also I stand by it desperately needing a B plot to cut to to help with the passage of time and offer variation in tone.

I_R

I'm loving it. I get the criticism about it not opening up the world too much, I expected to see a bit more of the Velayrons and what we did see of Storms End was interior only.

The flip side is that I don't feel that they're wasting many scenes. Lots of show, not too much tell and watch out for the plots and lies.

ShabbyMcCrabby

I think I might be done with this. I find my interest rarely holds past the mid point of every episode. They just keep talking about the same stuff and nothing interesting is actually happening because none of it is really affecting anybody in anything other than a surface level way. Where's the butterfly effect type ramifications? where's characters hopes and dreams and plans and how those are scuppered?

It feels just like an expensive soap to me. I may as well watch Bridgerton, at least that show has some pep to it

LivDiv

They cancelled Neighbours for this!?!

I agree that the lack of consequence is a huge issue. It being a prequel doesn't change that.

I started thinking half way through that they might have the reverse budget issue as GoT. I cant see this keeping audiences interest into S2 enough to justify $20mil per episode.

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