[TV] House of the Dragon

[InfiniteCharger]

I think the problem with Rhaenyra at this point is that they changed Alicent to make her more of a childhood friend than scheming villain. So her attitude doesn't have the same resonance without that.

[babalou1]

I'm not sure what I think about episode 3. Like I enjoyed it but I feel like they regressed Rhaenyra over the two year time skip. She was just childish for most of the episode and I felt she was more mature in episode 2.

After a 2 or 3 year time skip, Id say less childish, just more arrogant. She's the heir and with 2nd name day and her bff/gf pregnant, shes just doesnt give a shit because she believed she was about to lose the only thing that is hers. The heir to the kingdom

[Jotaux]

I just figured that she was acting mature when she was getting her way and then being pouty when she thought she wasn't.

But she wasn't getting her way in episode 2, she had to take control of the situation with her uncle to gain any respect.

[HeatherRae]

I think the problem with Rhaenyra at this point is that they changed Alicent to make her more of a childhood friend than scheming villain. So her attitude doesn't have the same resonance without that.

Alicent is definitely coming off as more of a victim, with her father being the villain, than a villain herself. Well, so far.

[RH92]

Alicent is definitely coming off as more of a victim, with her father being the villain, than a villain herself. Well, so far.

I think it will change once her children will be more involved and she will be forced to pick a side. However that's good I think, gives her way more complexity as a character.

Overall I really like what the show is doing. They are humanizing every character in a way that you can clearly understand how and why they are feeling certain way and acting the way they are as result of it. I like nobody is clearly good or evil, makes it way more interesting in my opinion.

Even if you know the story it still makes it highly entertaining to watch as it gives you a different perspective. And it will make the Greens vs Blacks conflict much more intriguing, you will be picking a side and cheer for them like it's a football match.

Amusing how little anger and vitriol there is in this thread compared to LOTR

Because I think HotD did much better job at changing things in a rather logical way.

For example Corlys Velarion is white in the books. However him being black doesn't seem so weird. His family is from Valyria which was already far away from Westeros where the main story unfolds and it isn't that strange for a sailor to be at least mixed. It makes sense they would marry on their travels across the world to forge strong alliances to ensure their trade. Also his and Rhaenys' children are mixed and his whole family is black.

On the other hand, in LotR you get those things thrown in without much thought other than meeting quota. To be honest, I find it kind of disturbing and disrespectful. Not that the actors are doing bad job and white could do much better but because it feels like an afterthought. They didn't attempt to expand on the change at all, which reduces the whole issue down to skill color and therefore it's rather racist too.

[Sialina]

I think it will change once her children will be more involved and she will be forced to pick a side. However that's good I think, gives her way more complexity as a character.

Overall I really like what the show is doing. They are humanizing every character in a way that you can clearly understand how and why they are feeling certain way and acting the way they are as result of it. I like nobody is clearly good or evil, makes it way more interesting in my opinion.

Even if you know the story it still makes it highly entertaining to watch as it gives you a different perspective. And it will make the Greens vs Blacks conflict much more intriguing, you will be picking a side and cheer for them like it's a football match.

I very much agree, I haven't read the books or anything, so I'm going in blind, and in the first 2 episodes I didn't like Viserys very much, but this last episode made him one of my favorite characters. I also like how Corlys was so staunchly against stoking mutiny, and Daemon/Otto are just brilliant, I love me some evil leaning grey characters, Rhaenys is also leaning that way, I hope we get more of her!

The only thing I slightly dislike was the final scene, it made the enemy seem a little naive I guess. But all in all it's great so far.

[RH92]

I very much agree, I haven't read the books or anything, so I'm going in blind, and in the first 2 episodes I didn't like Viserys very much, but this last episode made him one of my favorite characters. I also like how Corlys was so staunchly against stoking mutiny, and Daemon/Otto are just brilliant, I love me some evil leaning grey characters, Rhaenys is also leaning that way, I hope we get more of her!

I am telling you, nobody in the story is good or truly evil. Everybody is quick to remind you of that whenever they do something good.

The only thing I slightly dislike was the final scene, it made the enemy seem a little naive I guess. But all in all it's great so far.

I thought it made some sense to be honest.

House Targaryen is the most powerful one in Westeros and having a royal member and potential heir captured alive makes for a great bargaining tool against the enemy force you are at war with. If they immediately killed him, it would be a quick downhill from there as Viserys would most likely try to avenge his dead brother and sent entire army there.

Daemon was also forced to act as he didn't want to look like a fuck up and needed a help from a big brother once again.

[Nebron]

After 3 episodes, I like the "talking scenes" a lot. There's quite some amount of characters development, pretty enjoyable dialogs. I believe more of these boring scenes could easily be filled with a comedy - there's no counterpart for that when compared to GoT.

Battle scene looked ok. CGI wasn't really top-notch, but visually it worked well enough to please me. But the suspension of disbelief wasn't enough to take the deus-ex-machina easily. It was literally 07x06 ('Beyond the Wall') episode of GoT when Daenerys saves this group of suicides in the frozen wastes. One guy, no matter how agile and talented, literally cuts through 20 warriors, while constantly being aimed by archers, only to be shot 3 times in a single moment, just before the cavalry arrives... I mean, the startegy to bait Crabfeeder was a good idea, but the execution of the plan is purely hollywoodian.

I know they are rushing it, to catch up to "Dance of the Dragons" asap, but Crabfeeder, with proper development, could easily be a main villian for this season. Looks amazing, gives me chills, there's something unsettling about him. But even if that couldn't be the case - Stepstones overtaking content begged for entire episode, not 20 minutes of mediocre action

[Geckoo]

So far the show has been great, but i do have a few issues with the third episode.

The whole final attack... Daemon is reckless, i get that, he wants to win the war before his brother sends any help, but did the enemy that has been holding off for two years suddenly become stupid? I understand why they did it and it works great for a show, but the more i think about it the more silly the whole situation looks to me.

As for the time skips i understand why they are needed here since the juicy parts of the story require time. I would prefer more time developing how relantionships within the royal family deteriorate or how talks about who should be the heir probably started as soon as Alicent was pregnant. The whole episode felt like if everyone had been waiting 2 years to voice their opinions, but as i said, the time skips are needed and it's probably better to do it this way than to have more episodes but with less interesting parts on them.

For example Corlys Velarion is white in the books. However him being black doesn't seem so weird.

The only thing weird about the whole family is the white hair, but the same could be said about the Targaryens and their hair, if it's meant to be natural then it doesn't work on the screen (not all actors have a skin tone that fits well with that kind of hair colour), but if it's meant to be a style choice from a noble family it would be in line with something that could happen on medieval times.

[Mhyroth]

I quite liked Viserys' acting this episode.
All the different emotions and troubles he has in his mind stick to the screen pretty well.

[Twdft]

I very much agree, I haven't read the books or anything, so I'm going in blind, and in the first 2 episodes I didn't like Viserys very much, but this last episode made him one of my favorite characters. I also like how Corlys was so staunchly against stoking mutiny, and Daemon/Otto are just brilliant, I love me some evil leaning grey characters, Rhaenys is also leaning that way, I hope we get more of her!

Yeah, they're all great. Best thing is that nobody is obvious evil, you can root for everyone. Just wait when green/black sides develop more and most viewers choose a side, will be a nice time in coffee breaks at work again.

I quite liked Viserys' acting this episode.
All the different emotions and troubles he has in his mind stick to the screen pretty well.

The dude just wants to chill and have a good time. Love him.

[RH92]

The only thing weird about the whole family is the white hair, but the same could be said about the Targaryens and their hair, if it's meant to be natural then it doesn't work on the screen (not all actors have a skin tone that fits well with that kind of hair colour), but if it's meant to be a style choice from a noble family it would be in line with something that could happen on medieval times.

The silvery hair is explained to be a common feature for people of Valyrian descent. Only house Targaryen and Velarion are of that origin.

In books people of Valyrian blood have silvery hair, pale skin and purple eyes. The purple eyes were obviously cut from both HotD and GoT before that and I guess another reason why they decided to make Velarions black is to help them distinguish from Targaryens.

[ClassicPeon]

I think a lot of people have lotr closer to their hearts than they do got.

It's a lot of people's first foray into fantasy when they were younger whereas most people hadn't heard of got before the TV show and the main story books aren't the best after maybe book 3.

Not that I've been bothered about any of the 'controversies' and am enjoying them both despite lotr having a weak first episode.

I think its the other way around tbh.

That being said - GoT didnt have a "fan trailer" that only talked about diversity

[Primohastat]

It seems that the third episode in every TV series is the turning point. You watch first one, you think "ok, slow start". You watch second, you think "ok, it's boring but it's second episode, I'm sure that after this warm up it will start". Then you watch third episode and you know that this is it. It's not warming up. That is all you will get from this show.

After boring first half of 3rd ep. where GuzzlerKing sits on different chairs (cannot afford thrones I guess), and gets to pour himself wine (because you know, king of sevensomething kingdoms can't afford servants) talks to some people we don't really know who they are (in normal 2hour movie there is enough time to properly introduce all the important figures, but apparently in this TV series we have only 10 hours of screen time so its not possible to do that) we found out that Hangover King is approaching scared to death alpha deer from the front and he and his environment is completely ok with the fact that king is in range of the horns. It's so stupid (seriously, I thought that this was assasination attempt) and symbolically meaningless that showrunners hop in to...

...KaptainKrab sitting in the cave entrance, surrounded by really high cliffs, desperatly trying to spot a dragon. Like, they were holding this area for 2 years and they didn't position spotters and observers on top of the mountains? No visual or sound alarms?

For 2+ years poor Krab people tribes were hiding in the caves from NATO aircraft and everytime NATO airstrikes destroyed poor freedom fighters artillery (which was a really heavy ordnance measuring how they oneshotted one of the ships traversing the bay), Krab people were rebulding it so fast using sand and rocks, that they were able to continue blockade on the same day!
So after 2+ years of stalemate, blond naval aviator went full MOAB and soloed half of the freedom fighters (not only fire proof, now arrow proof too!) and then clear caves full of enemies, killed KaptainKrab (sorry, no duel of fates, all the budget was spent on deer animation) and there was no one to high five him? Not even one of his NATO allies that miraculously teleported from the other side of the bay? Rude!

I mean, they couldn't come up with this plan earlier? Years of camping on some rocks, when they could just tell the dragon to walk, melt everything in the frontcone, cover sides with his arrowproof wings and carry a strike team to clear the caves? So many weird thoughts clashing in my head after watching this mess. Hard to express them without flaming. Give more tragic childbirth in the incoming episodes instead of dialogues or this series is not gonna last.

[Geckoo]

The silvery hair is explained to be a common feature for people of Valyrian descent. Only house Targaryen and Velarion are of that origin.

In books people of Valyrian blood have silvery hair, pale skin and purple eyes. The purple eyes were obviously cut from both HotD and GoT before that and I guess another reason why they decided to make Velarions black is to help them distinguish from Targaryens.

I know, but that's precisely my point.
Pale skin and sylvery hair works great in the books because we don't have to rely on real people to portray those characters, we just use our imagination. But in a show or movie like this one, you have actors that don't have those traits, so you need to rely on wigs and dyes and in the end each actor has its own hair, their own skin tone, they are not related to each other and each of them has his own features, so a lot of consistency is lost and not all of them look good with those rare Valyrian traits.
This already happened with Daenerys in GoT and with the Velarion house in particular those issues get bigger because they decided to change their skin color from pale to black and in my opinion the pairing with silvery hair makes them look even worse than just some dark eyebrows or beards as it happens with Daenerys or Viserys. But ultimately, this means nothing in terms of quality for the show, just a creative choice that i personally dislike.

[Myradin]

So far, so good. The characters aren't grabbing me as much as GoT did in S1, but they may grow into their roles.

Yeah thats been my stance too. The story's good and all, but we don't have the stand out character/performances GoT did. It didn't take multiple episodes to realize Tyrion was a great character. He started great and got greater.

[RH92]

I know, but that's precisely my point.
Pale skin and sylvery hair works great in the books because we don't have to rely on real people to portray those characters, we just use our imagination. But in a show or movie like this one, you have actors that don't have those traits, so you need to rely on wigs and dyes and in the end each actor has its own hair, their own skin tone, they are not related to each other and each of them has his own features, so a lot of consistency is lost and not all of them look good with those rare Valyrian traits.
This already happened with Daenerys in GoT and with the Velarion house in particular those issues get bigger because they decided to change their skin color from pale to black and in my opinion the pairing with silvery hair makes them look even worse than just some dark eyebrows or beards as it happens with Daenerys or Viserys. But ultimately, this means nothing in terms of quality for the show, just a creative choice that i personally dislike.

Got it, I understand.

I always found it weird too but maybe that's what they were going for. It looks somewhat strange and uncanny to highlight they are different.

[Skandulous]

Yeah, they're all great. Best thing is that nobody is obvious evil, you can root for everyone. Just wait when green/black sides develop more and most viewers choose a side, will be a nice time in coffee breaks at work again.



The dude just wants to chill and have a good time. Love him.

Otto hightower is evil I don't know why anyone would root for him. He made his own daughter marry the king and have kids all so he could run the 7 kingdoms.

[Dakhath]

Otto hightower is evil I don't know why anyone would root for him. He made his own daughter marry the king and have kids all so he could run the 7 kingdoms.

I don't know if I would call that evil. While it's a bad look today, it was pretty common during periods depicted in the show. He's political and a manipulator, but he hasn't crossed that evil line yet.

[Twdft]

Otto hightower is evil I don't know why anyone would root for him. He made his own daughter marry the king and have kids all so he could run the 7 kingdoms.

OK Hightower comes close to evil. You could still argue that he wants to stabilize realm by having a clear male heir conforming to hundreds of years of tradition. Every house is trying to marry off their daughters and sons to get as near as they can to enjoy some of that sweet Iron Throne power.