House of the Dragon (The Show) Thread

[Juggs]

This thread is for the show ONLY. Do not discuss any book spoilers please

Who watches this show? I was a HUGE Game of Thrones fan until Dumb & Dumber legitimately ruined it. Anyway, loved the first season of HotD, and have enjoyed this season as well. Episode 7 of season 2 that aired last night was awesome, curious what opinions y’all have of it and the show.

Oh and obviously there will be show spoilers. But do NOT post book spoilers or leaked spoilers. Thanks

I haven’t loved the pacing of this season, but only because we waited 2 years for this season and have to wait a week in between episodes. I think the pacing may be okay if you were to watch all the episodes in one sitting. Or at least 2-3 per sitting. Anyway, it was awesome finally seeing Aemond scared WHILE on Vhagar for the first time since maybe he fought (and killed) Lucerys aka Luke. And he wasn’t really scared for himself necessarily when he fought Luke anyway. Even though I like Aemond, he reminds me of season 1 Daemon (btw, I swear I sometimes hear them call him “Daemond”, but anyway), just less creepy. Speaking of Daemon, man, they sure are turning him into a whacky puss puss huh? Saw this picture and it made me laugh



Anyway, for those who watch, what are your opinions? If you hate it don’t be afraid to say you hate it either. I just was curious to see who watches it and what their views are on it

 

[LEGEND]

Daemon's gotta be like 50 or 60 y/o by now right? I feel like he's just out of his prime and filled with regret. Plus the weirwood (spelling?) messing with him.

Glad there was payoff to the smallfolk storylines.

 

[kingjolly]

Some episodes are interesting while some episodes are quite boring. They need to work on the pacing. I enjoyed the last episode.

 

[Juggs]

Some episodes are interesting while some episodes are quite boring. They need to work on the pacing. I enjoyed the last episode.

This is how I have felt as well. I think the pacing works if it was a Netlfix show where you can watch all the episodes whenever you want. But watching episodes 1 week at a time AFTER waiting 2 years… yeah the pacing is insanely drawn out.

 

[zerosebaz]

I actually have liked this season more than the first, even it's somewhat uneven at times.

 

[Darth-Nero]

yeah the pacing is shit after a 2 years wait, the reason it would feel better if it was a Netflix release is because all the main events put together would only make 2 episodes. There is nothing much happening in the season that requires 8 long episodes to tell, between having to sit through 10 minutes of Daemon's hallucinations every episode and Rhaenyra's crying over how her own council doesn't respect her all while doing every thing she can to undermine them. we're hardly getting any story advancing events that would make up for the long wait.

However am expecting a strong finale, looking forward to that and hopefully would leave us satisfied without an obnoxious cliffhanger.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

Im overall enjoying this season, minus the obvious "daemon hallucinating at harrenhal" thing, that shit took way too much screen time. Also (SPOILERS FOR LAST EPISODE)

I found it dumb how the last dragonrider was actually the idiot from that tavern. I was hoping they would do a double plot twist and have the dragon roast him just after seemingly being accepting him as his rider.

 

[Law Hero]

Season 2 has been really disappointing for me so far. Apart from some bad pacing and sloppy dialogue, I think there's a really weird meta issue that's making it less enjoyable. Even though this is all obviously speculation, I believe one of the main root causes of the drop in entertainment stems from The Greens having most of the interesting characters while The Blacks are very clearly favored by the writers. The vast majority of interesting scenes happen when The Greens are on screen, but whenever we pan back to The Blacks, all they do is whinge and whine about how they're victims. I really do think that in trying to show favor to The Blacks, they have sanded off many of their rough edges, and made them less interesting.

Now, despite all of that, I actually think that Jayce and Rhaenyra had the best scene of the episode in e07. I liked his argument about how, if they make Dragonriders out of peasants, then his legitimacy will be called into question when it comes time for the crown to pass on to him. Good stuff. Also, all I can think about when I see Jayce is Zoolander's "Blue Magnum" because of his facial expressions.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I'm going to copy/paste my status update about the show a week ago or so because it sums up my thoughts well:

House of the Dragon has to be the first show in a while where I’ve unironically rooted for the “bad” guys, the greens all behave in ways that make sense given their backgrounds, suffer consequences for their actions, make mistakes, and have understandable motivations for their choices based on what the show tells us about them, while all the protagonists behave according to the writer’s morality and flip flop their entire personalities randomly.

When the show is done, Aegon II Targaryen is gonna go down as one of the most well written and well acted characters in any show if they keep it up, meanwhile they are squandering the Rhaenyra they were building in season 1.

It’s a great TV show but a pretty bad adaptation of fire and blood.

The show insists Rhaenys is this wise and just character despite her having the highest on screen kill count of innocents pisses me off so much. Then they had to make Aegon a rapist so we wouldn’t respect his bravery or empathize with his neglect.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

The show loses me with some of the character motivations. Particularly the Velaryons. Corlys and Rhaenys whole heartedly think Rhaenyra and Daemon killed Laenor, Daemon isolated Laena from her family only for her to die pushing out a third baby for him, and Daemon did in fact kill Corlys' brother Vaemond. And yet....

The fan base is kinda stupid too. It baffles me that Criston Cole is as hated as Joffrey, in a show where we have Daemon who is a pedophile and groomer. Cole is hated for calling Rhaenyra bad words, but Daemon actually murdered his first wife by bashing her face in with a rock. But he's "charismatic".

The show obviously favors the blacks so much and most of them are boring as hell, it ends up making the greens far more enjoyable. Every single one of the greens is a well defined, fleshed out character aside from Halaena (who still is interesting to me) and some of the council members. Grand Maester Orywle shows more depth than Baela Targaryen lol

 

[Juggs]

That was the finale of s2…????

 

[kingjolly]

House of Boredom

 

[Juggs]

Some cool things is that I suppose the “prince that was promised” was actually Dany all along?

 

[LiangHuBBB]

for some reason I just cant get into this, I find this rly boring most of the time its just talkin about stuff I dc about and more talkin oh well

 

[Juggs]

Yeah this entire season felt like a filler episode. But like those half canon half filler anime episodes, except for the entire season. I typically love character development and good long story telling. But you have to couple it with payoffs every now and then, even if they’re “small” in the grand scheme of things. These payoffs are especially important when you’re having to watch the episodes 1 week at a time, AND we had to wait 2 years for this season 2, it’s a slap in the face to not have any payoff the entire season. I know that next season is supposed to popoff, but fuck man. And no, I’m not suggesting “nothing happened” this season. But the payoffs were relatively weak compared to how abysmal the pace has been impo

I think next season I’m gonna wait until the season is done so I can watch the entire season whenever. So if I wanna watch multiple episodes in one sitting I can.

Also, a lot of questions need answering. And I still think that Larys is some sort of Warg. No hard evidence yet, just some extremely subtle clues. I looked it up recently and it seems some others think the same thing. I haven’t read any of the books so I have no idea about anything that happens or anything like that. And as I said, please no book spoilers. I will have to ban you and I don’t want to do that.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Yeah this entire season felt like a filler episode. But like those half canon half filler anime episodes, except for the entire season. I typically love character development and good long story telling. But you have to couple it with payoffs every now and then, even if they’re “small” in the grand scheme of things. These payoffs are especially important when you’re having to watch the episodes 1 week at a time, AND we had to wait 2 years for this season 2, it’s a slap in the face to not have any payoff the entire season. I know that next season is supposed to popoff, but fuck man. And no, I’m not suggesting “nothing happened” this season. But the payoffs were relatively weak compared to how abysmal the pace has been impo

I think next season I’m gonna wait until the season is done so I can watch the entire season whenever. So if I wanna watch multiple episodes in one sitting I can.

Also, a lot of questions need answering. And I still think that Larys is some sort of Warg. No hard evidence yet, just some extremely subtle clues. I looked it up recently and it seems some others think the same thing. I haven’t read any of the books so I have no idea about anything that happens or anything like that. And as I said, please no book spoilers. I will have to ban you and I don’t want to do that.

Larys is definitely a warg imo. Not a book spoiler, but there’s a rat in any scene that Larys later goes on to show knowledge of.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

That finale was shit. Complete character assassination for Alicent. Not even book Alicent because that ship sailed a long time ago, but season 1 Alicent.

Alicent in season 1 was ready to attack a 6 year old for Aemond after he was maimed. She told Aegon he HAD to be king because if he wasn’t, Rhaenyra and Daemon would find a pretext to kill him and his brothers. But then when the green council goes through with it, she’s all confused?

She now agrees to send Aegon and Aemond, Daeron and the Hightowers, and Gwayne and Cole to their deaths all for her conscious. She goes from being a flawed character that at least will go up to bat for her kids to being a smug bitch that hates her sons for being the men she raised.

Blood and Cheese being so sanitized is disgusting to me, that Halaena would assist Daemon who had her son beheaded, or that Alicent would do the above mentioned things.

The best scenes in the episode were Alyn and Corls, Gwayne and Cole, and Larys / Aegon talking.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Some cool things is that I suppose the “prince that was promised” was actually Dany all along?

Which is extra insane because neither the books nor GOT support that, it is OBVIOUSLY Jon Snow.

The song of ice and fire being Aegon’s dream is more made up bullshit to give Rhaenyra a moral claim instead of it just being a succession crisis. The song of ice and fire is not confirmed to be anything specific in the books, but it makes way more sense for it to be Jon Snow, the offspring of the Starks and Targaryens.

 

[Juggs]

Larys is definitely a warg imo. Not a book spoiler, but there’s a rat in any scene that Larys later goes on to show knowledge of.

That’s what I’m saying!! Like, it shows a rat going down the stairs while those two idiots (who break in to try and kill Aemond but instead kill another kid), are going up those same stairs. And then Larys very quickly not only finds out who one of them were, he also finds where he is and apprehends him! Yes, I know he has a bunch of spies and what not, but aside from all the obvious rat stuff, there’s things he knows that he simply should not know.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

That’s what I’m saying!! Like, it shows a rat going down the stairs while those two idiots (who break in to try and kill Aemond but instead kill another kid), are going up those same stairs. And then Larys very quickly not only finds out who one of them were, he also finds where he is and apprehends him! Yes, I know he has a bunch of spies and what not, but aside from all the obvious rat stuff, there’s things he knows that he simply should not know.

Agreed. And Larys and the Strongs are from the first men like the Starks, his half sister Alys obviously is connected with the old gods as well.

Halaena being afraid of the rats I think also references Larys and not just Blood and Cheese.

In the books, all of the Stark kids are wargs and not just Bran, because of the first men blood

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Agreed. And Larys and the Strongs are from the first men like the Starks, his half sister Alys obviously is connected with the old gods as well.

Halaena being afraid of the rats I think also references Larys and not just Blood and Cheese. It is also well within character for Larys to let the murder happen to capitalize on it.

In the books, all of the Stark kids are wargs and not just Bran, because of the first men blood

 

[zerosebaz]

I just read next one might come in 2026. Wtf? I assumed the delay on this one was due to the writer's strike. GoT came out every year, why would HotD come out every 2 years?

 

[chrisisnice]

I actually really enjoyed the series, but I do think what happened to Rhaenys was the pinnacle of the season. This should have been the peultimate episode. After this, it fell a bit flat.

The Daymon storyline was too drawn out and as boring as bat shit... the dickwad commoner who will obviously turn against Rhanyra was a waste of time too,

I love the scenes with Rhanyra and Allicent (she is amazing).

 

[Law Hero]

That finale was shit. Complete character assassination for Alicent. Not even book Alicent because that ship sailed a long time ago, but season 1 Alicent.

Alicent in season 1 was ready to attack a 6 year old for Aemond after he was maimed. She told Aegon he HAD to be king because if he wasn’t, Rhaenyra and Daemon would find a pretext to kill him and his brothers. But then when the green council goes through with it, she’s all confused?

She now agrees to send Aegon and Aemond, Daeron and the Hightowers, and Gwayne and Cole to their deaths all for her conscious. She goes from being a flawed character that at least will go up to bat for her kids to being a smug bitch that hates her sons for being the men she raised.

Blood and Cheese being so sanitized is disgusting to me, that Halaena would assist Daemon who had her son beheaded, or that Alicent would do the above mentioned things.

The best scenes in the episode were Alyn and Corls, Gwayne and Cole, and Larys / Aegon talking.

Still can't believe how much they butchered Blood and Cheese. I've heard people call this PG-13 Game of Thrones, and I feel that too. The season finale was really disappointing, so I went back to reread "The Princess and the Queen, Or The Blacks and the Greens" since I remember enjoying it. It was actually a great read, and I recommend it for fans of the show who want to read the original story. Considering how many changes are in the show now, I don't think it will end anything like the books either.

For those who've no doubt heard book readers complain about the Blood and Cheese scene, here is a snippet. If we had gotten this in the show, I think it would have been almost as infamous as the Red Wedding.

[
The Tower of the Hand was less secure. The two men crept up through the walls, bypassing the spearmen posted at the tower doors. Ser Otto's rooms were of no interest to them. Instead they slipped into his daughter's chambers, one floor below. Queen Alicent had taken up residence there after the death of King Viserys, when her son Aegon moved into Maegor's Holdfast with his own queen. Once inside, Cheese bound and gagged the Dowager Queen whilst Blood strangled her bedmaid. Then they settled down to wait, for they knew it was the custom of Queen Helaena to bring her children to see their grandmother every evening before bed.
Blind to her danger, the queen appeared as dusk was settling over the castle, accompanied by her three children. Jaehaerys and Jaehaera were six, Maelor two. As they entered the apartments, Helaena was holding his little hand and calling out her mother's name. Blood barred the door and slew the queen's guardsman, whilst Cheese appeared to snatch up Maelor. "Scream and you all die," Blood told Her Grace. Queen Helaena kept her calm, it is said. "Who are you?" she demanded of the two. "Debt collectors," said Cheese. "An eye for an eye, a son for a son. We only want the one, t' square things. Won't hurt the rest o' you fine folks, not one lil' hair. Which one you want t' lose, Your Grace?"
Once she realized what he meant, Queen Helaena pleaded with the men to kill her instead. "A wife's not a son," said Blood. "It has to be a boy." Cheese warned the queen to make a choice soon, before Blood grew bored and raped her little girl. "Pick," he said, "or we kill them all." On her knees, weeping, Helaena named her youngest, Maelor. Perhaps she thought the boy was too young to understand, or perhaps it was because the older boy, Jaehaerys, was King Aegon's firstborn son and heir, next in line to the Iron Throne. "You hear that, little boy?" Cheese whispered to Maelor. "Your momma wants you dead." Then he gave Blood a grin, and the hulking swordsman slew Prince Jaehaerys, striking off the boy's head with a single blow. The queen began to scream.
Strange to say, the rat-catcher and the butcher were true to their word. They did no further harm to Queen Helaena or her surviving children, but rather fled with the prince's head in hand.
Though Blood and Cheese had spared her life, Queen Helaena cannot be said to have survived that fateful dusk. Afterward she would not eat, nor bathe, nor leave her chambers, and she could no longer stand to look upon her son Maelor, knowing that she had named him to die. The king had no recourse but to take the boy from her and give him over to his mother, the Dowager Queen Alicent, to raise as if he were her own. Aegon and his wife slept separately thereafter, and Queen Helaena sank deeper and deeper into madness, whilst the king raged, and drank, and raged.
]

 

[Wigy]

Season 2 was awful.

Couldn't believe that was the finale with the amount of unimportant shit that happened.

Did we really need a whole season of people putting together armies and one dragon fight then a whole lot of pointless nothing.

daemon storyline was ass and should have been wrapped up in 2-3 episodes max.

why in the finale is like 10minutes with random lannister character and some pirates?

a lot of the storylines just seem a bit pointless and contrived.

had good moments but a big fall off from
S1