Anyone watching House of the Dragon?

theMot

Reformed collector of junk
10 Year Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2012
Posts
7,887
I was sceptical about how good this show would be after the debacle that was the last couple of seasons of GOT. It was a bit slow to get going but now it’s hitting it’s stride.

Anyone a fan?
 

HornheaDD

Viewpoint Vigilante
Fagit of the Year
Joined
Mar 22, 2016
Posts
4,657
Only watched the first ep the other night because the wife and I were looking for something new to watch. I didn't want to watch it because it will probably end up like Game of Thrones and shitting all over itself after a couple seasons.

The first ep was ok.

1. I just cant see Matt Smith playing a villain. He was terrible in (lol) morbius, and for the 5 minutes he was in that Terminator movie he didnt seem threatening at all. In this one he just looks like a dork and belongs back on Doctor Who.

2. Why did they choose a really weird looking little girl to be the new Daenerys analogue? She has a weird face and mouth.

I dunno if we'll keep watching. Wife didnt seem all that interested and other than Paddy Considine being in it, its just kinda meh.
 

Lagduf

2>X
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2002
Posts
47,918
We have a TV thread you mongs, plenty of ppl discussing it there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jro

Johnny16Bit

Super Spy Agent
Joined
May 20, 2015
Posts
616
Season 1 was a mixed bag imo. The memory I have of it is a slow start, a weird change of pace, a couple good episodes that suddenly get you to enjoy it, and then it falls apart and becomes disappointingly silly.
Still curious about Season 2, because half ass is already better than the average show.
 

terry.330

Black Tank Top Enthusiast
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
12,381
The first half of the first season was so bad I almost gave up but it really turned itself around after the time jump. Despite that I still felt kind of burnt out after GOT and didn't get too invested in it. I'll probably check out season 2 but I'm not in any hurry.

1. I just cant see Matt Smith playing a villain. He was terrible in (lol) morbius, and for the 5 minutes he was in that Terminator movie he didnt seem threatening at all. In this one he just looks like a dork and belongs back on Doctor Who.

2. Why did they choose a really weird looking little girl to be the new Daenerys analogue? She has a weird face and mouth.
I was skeptical of Smith but he pulls it off.

God yes she was creepy as fuck looking, like one of the freaky little kids from the live action Grinch movie.
 

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
(Disclaimer: I am a book purist. As such, my opinions on both this series and the one that preceded it are going to be critical of the changes that have been made in order to accommodate an average thinking audience. Martin writes for smart people. HBO makes TV shows for dumb and easily manipulated people. Bear this in mind and understand my position is not a criticism of anyone enjoying the show. As you will see, I am enjoying it as well in spite of its many, MANY flaws).

I'm enjoying the show so far but it is nowhere even close to the enthusiasm I felt fort the original series. This is largely because it is absent any authentic spark of heroism, valor, the doing of great deeds or sacrifice in service to a just cause (despite the show's best efforts to convince you that fighting over a throne can be considered 'noble' by way of plot contrivance, which I detail below). It would be easier for me to gripe about all the things wrong with it, from characters to alterations from the original story Dance of the Dragons that don't sit well with me. And so, if you will permit me for a bit, that's exactly what I'll do.

I'm a tremendous fan of the original story, which is far more gritty and realpolitik than the TV show, which tries to paint Rhaenyra and Alicent as these sort of flawed but ultimately noble figures in the midst of all the drama and intrigues. They have all this power and influence but I'm supposed to believe they aren't involved in anything going on that they don't approve of. Almost everyone is a Daemon Targaryen in the original story: flawed, ambitious and pursuing their goals without any mercy for their enemy. If I had to guess the reason for this, it's to sort of spiritually 'reform' Daenerys by telling a story about a character in a similar position, unfairly 'robbed' of her kingdom (whatever the hell that means) and trying to do things the 'right way'. This is HBO laboring to prove they can write that kind of story and not step on their own dicks in the process. This is what it feels like to me. All I can think of is Danaerys herself smiling smugly in that last season and saying 'See? I can be nice.'

There's also the dunderheaded feminism shoehorned into things, which I'll also touch upon.

There's too much of an effort to focus on the two women as the sort of 'figureheads' for this story. It was never Rhaenyra and Alicent. It was Rhaenyra and Aegon. That is the oppositional element in the blueprint, and that's where the focus needs to be. But HBO's flawed attempt to bring more feminism to a story that never needed it to begin with (women are already strong, and also weak as any three-dimensional portrayal should be, in the original story) is just another example of shaping a narrative to find an audience that doesn't exist and, more to the point, infantilizes the people they want to watch this show. Remember all those morons that named their daughter Khaleesi and Danaerys before the series ended and then felt betrayed when the writing about Dany was on the wall from the start? Now HBO wants them to name their daughters Rhaenyra and Alicent. At least the guy that renamed himself Turok was paid for it.

Furthermore, they try to ennoble Rhaenyra's cause by making her want the throne in order to somehow help fulfill the prophecy of The Prince That Was Promised', which is a flaccid cock of a MacGuffin since we know that when that vision is finally fulfilled, it ends up not mattering one whit: Jon becomes a bystander in his own story by the writers of the original show. Yes, he united everyone under his cause but does anyone believe that TV Jon had the chops to pull that off? Book Jon was a horse, a giant of a character. TV Jon was undercut by the activism subtly present in the TV adaptation and it's so blatant that it borders on offensive.

What did this supposed 'Prince That Was Promised' end up doing? Killing his aunt/girlfriend after she burned a city? If the intention was to show how it took a Targaryen to end the Targaryens' rule over Westeros, then they didn't focus enough on that element of the story in the original series. Probably because the writers and D&D had a fetish for Maisie Williams and women in general (maybe a HBO directive, I don't know). Jon was the Prince That Was Promised but the series treated that like a wet fart and instead made it all about the Iron Throne and the women that decide what happens to it at the end.

And make no mistake: The Iron Throne was the ACTUAL villain of the story. It was never the Night's King, who doesn't even exist in the books. This is why Drogon melts it at the end of the final episode of GoT. It's the last wish of the last Targaryen (Jon, not Dany).

Which makes this new series' decision to christen Rhaenyra a heroine all the more baffling. The Iron Throne is no longer the villain in this new interpretation: it's now the pathway to fulfilling a glorious prophecy that will restore peace to the Realm. So the Iron Throne, despite being the source of strife, war and chaos for the entirety of its existence, is now just another misunderstood character. Postrmodernist deconstructionist trash at its absolute worst.

The decision to use the original series' theme for the opening here is a misstep. They should have used the Targaryen theme music, since this is a series concerned with Targaryens and another succession war for the Iron Throne. I am enjoying the tapestry opening more than the first season's cut and paste of clockwork kingdoms rising from tables. It makes the show feel more like its own thing.

There are some truly confounding story beats in this interpretation, but none as mind numbing as Rhaenyra trusting Mysaria simply because she ran back to Dragonstone to warn her about Aryk. Rhaenyra isn't shown to be that stupid in the series but suddenly, she trusts this woman that, for all she knows, set the whole thing up to get in her confidence? This smacks of more of HBO's clumsy feminism at play here (again): force an awkward story beat to put another woman into a position of influence and power when the proper thing to do would be to throw her back in the dungeon and force her to keep providing what information she can. Whatever, we can't have Rhaenyra be mean to other women or anything. HBO is disproving its own unspoken thesis about how unfairly women were treated in these kinds of environments. If it's so easy for women to become powerful and influential, what's the big deal? I could go on about how the underpinnings of this story are that 'if women made all the decisions, things would be better'. But at the risk of incurring 100Proof's wrath (much love, brother), I'll refrain.

When Rhaenyra tells Daemon that Vyseris wasn't afraid of him and that it was that he 'couldn't trust him', I'm screaming at the TV 'BITCH THAT MEANS HE'S AFRAID OF HIM!' Anyway...

(Cont'd)
 
Last edited:

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
(Cont'd)

The whole Blood & Cheese assassination was totally botched in the TV series on a number of levels. Here is the original, and vastly superior, version from the short story (taken from the wiki on Helaena Targaryen, don't read the entire entry if you want to avoid spoilers):

After Prince Aemond caused the death of Rhaenyra's son, Prince Lucerys Velaryon, her husband Daemon Targaryen hired two men to murder one of Aegon and Helaena's sons as revenge. The assassins were aware that Helaena was accustomed to bring her children to her mother's chambers in the Tower of the Hand every night before they were put to bed. Thus these two men, known as Blood and Cheese, hid in Alicent's chambers, bound and gagged Alicent, and murdered her bedmaid. There, they awaited Helaena's arrival. After killing her guardsmen and barring the door, they took Helaena and her children hostage, and forced Helaena to choose which one of her sons would die. Helaena offered herself, but was refused. The two men forced Helaena to make a decision when they threatened to have Blood rape Jaehaera, and to kill all three of her children should she refuse to choose. In the end, Helaena reluctantly named her youngest child, Prince Maelor, who she deemed to be too young to understand what was happening. In response, the two men killed Prince Jaehaerys instead, cutting off his head with a single swing of a sword, and fled with it while Helaena screamed.

After Jaehaerys's death, Helaena became deeply depressed and slowly sank into madness, and refused to eat, bathe, or leave her chambers. Nor would she look at her younger son, Maelor, knowing that she had chosen him to die.[6] Aegon and Helaena slept apart from one another from then on, and after Aegon was severely injured at the Battle at Rook's Rest, Helaena did not even make an attempt to visit him. She became unreliable as a dragonrider, incapable of flying into battle.

Compare that with the version in the episode A Son For A Son and you can see just how impotent it is when compared to the vastly more powerful version in the book. I can only guess the changes were made to absolve Alicent and Rhaenyra of any guilt or complicity in the breakdown of the succession. But I can tell you that Rhaenyra is NOT disappointed in Daemon over his decision to have one of Aegon's kids assassinated in the original story after Luke is killed by Aemond. Also, Alicent is likely a conspirator in the plot to give the throne to her son Aegon II.

This reinforces Martin's original mission statement that where it concerns the Iron Throne, there are no heroes. This is further solidified, later, by Jon being the only hero in the entirety of ASoIF: anyone that wants the crown does not deserve it and is, therefore, no one to cheer for. The TV adaptations make the mistake of treating the Iron Throne as a birthright or an inheritance that one is 'entitled' to. Something to pursue, something to chase and covet and regain when it's taken from you.

It's a trick. Don't fall for it.

However, having levied those gripes at the series (and I could bring more guns to bear on it if I wanted to), it does have enough going for it:
  • Brilliant acting in general. Matt Smith and Emma Darcy are absolutely the best actors to appear in either series. They are both great. I'm especially enjoying Daemon's current arc. And Emma is fantastic as Rhaenyra, despite the baffling effort to ennoble the character. I'd also say that Ewan Mitchell is top notch as Aemond. He's always been an underrated actor in my book. He was excellent as Osferth in The Last Kingdom, another pretty great series.
  • The dragons are everything I could have hoped for in an adaptation. The way they have presented Vhagar, that dragon is truly terrifying every time you see it and this is exactly how you're supposed to feel.
  • They are planting the 'Dragonseeds' very nicely, and I expect that development in the story will be pulled off expertly.
  • The production values and soundtrack are still top notch and merit acknowledgement.
  • The politics and bureaucracy are mostly well handled. The echoes of Dance of the Dragons are present and resonate enough to keep me invested. As it was for Game of Thrones during its initial run (excepting the awful final season).
I am looking forward more to next year with their adaptation of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. It was The Mandalorian before The Mandalorian, and it's a very clever way to tell a story about adventures in the Seven Kingdoms and those who have them. you get more of 'a view from the ground' about how Targaryen rule and the bureaucracies of the vassal states affect the common folk and the petty lords presiding over them. Duncan is an immensely likeable character and his interactions with Egg (also a fine character, as are they all in Martin's works) are very charming while at the same time impressing upon the reader the importance of the responsibility imparted upon our wayward knight errant. They're smaller stories but far more human for all that.

But to get back on point, House of the Dragon is good enough to give an hour a week to, for sure. Certainly, a much better investment of your time than Rings of Power, an absolute bastardization of Tolkien's works that deserves only vilification, or Wheel of Time, an insult to Jordan's works of the highest infraction. And never mind whatever the fuck Disney is doing with lolStar Wars.
 
Last edited:

NeoSneth

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2000
Posts
11,255
I have no knowledge of the books other than I know there are books.

I was able to look past the feminist arc as it wasn't forced in season 1. Season 2 it is starting to wear on me, but I think thats mainly fatigue from the current media environment. They blatantly call out the patriarchy a number of times, and I'm only a few episodes into it.

I like the original theme. Makes me think of better times before Season 8.

The build up to conflict is paced wonderfully so far.

I think they are using the dragons well. Not too much, not too little.

However, I don't care about any of the characters. Live or Die. I think it's because this is a prequel. There's no reason to be invested in any of them.
 
Last edited:

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
Regarding the 'book' of House of the Dragon:

Originally it was a short 'historical' account called The Princess and the Queen, published in the fantasy anthology Dangerous Women. When Martin again went out of his way to avoid writing The WInds of Winter to instead write a history of the Targaryens called Fire and Blood, The Princess and the Queen was expanded, renamed The Dance of the Dragons and inserted into the book as one of its chapters. In Westeros, they would call this conflict between Aegon II and Rhaenyra the 'Dance of the Dragons' as well, hence the name of the chapter. This conflict led, ultimately, to the demise of dragons in Westeros until Dany's three eggs hatched in ASoIaF.

RE: Feminism.

I have been watching Xena: Warrior Princess with my roommate Jenn (purely platonic, nothing going on). She grew up watching it and she's been badgering me to give it a try. We're currently in the fourth season and somewhere between season three and season four, the homoerotic undertone has lost all of its subtlety and the feminism is so pernicious that it's clear the showrunners and writers had an axe or twelve to grind. Strange, because it's written and produced entirely by men, although Rob Tapert is married, I believe to Lucy Lawless. Raging leftist but also a very talented woman so I'll give her her flowers.

There was a time when we could say 'well, that's a show for women so who cares?' That time is over.
 

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
Matt Smith spent too much time at Harrenhall isolated from the rest of the cast. He was the best thing about the show but he needed that interaction with other familiar characters to maintain his gray moral mystique. The ghost of Vyserys is all well and good and Paddy Considine is fantastic but the character is dead and it took way too much time for him to show Daemon that the crown isn't worth the trouble. Having him banter with characters that are nothing more than macguffins to draw him away from the central conflict has been a drawn out slog.

I am starting to grow tired of Alicent and Rhaenyra trying to be heroines that no one understands, good people tryinig to resolve this conflict without bloodshed. It's stupid. The original story didn't feature Alicent as prominently as all that and Rhaenyra was not nearly so morally conflicted. She was robbed of her birthright and she wants to reclaim it. That's the whole story with her. None of these changes makes them more interesting. Alicent having her power taken away from her, power that she would not have and didn't have in the book, is not an interesting story. It just sticks out like a sore thumb, it's a square peg forced through a round hole, it's clearly not part of the blueprint and it's narratively awkward.

I don't feel like they're giving us their best effort with every episode. I feel like they've spent a lot of time stalling in this season because they want the finale to seem so incredible.

Shoot for the moon. Every time. That way, even if you miss, where it lands is still pretty good.

This season isn't 'bad'. It's just underwhelming.
 

NeoSneth

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2000
Posts
11,255
Those details do help because I was starting to get confused by the decisions. I guess they made more sense in the original story because some of what is happening seems counterproductive to anything.

I was mostly annoyed by Matt Smith's visions, but then someone reminded me about Targaryen madness. I guess that is what they are trying to show. I really dont know at this point.
 

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
Last season, people said things moved too fast with the time jump.

This season, it's all moving too slow. Here's to hope A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a bit more rousing of a tale.

As for Daemon's Targaryen madness, in the original story he seemed to be more of just an aggressive warrior that didn't let anyone deter him from what he wanted. This doesn't mean he was one dimensional but he was, shall we say, undaunted in his efforts.

People probably would have liked that too much so they had to emasculate him for the TV show. Can't have the male lead outshining the women on a HBO show. That would be patriarchy or something.
 

Fygee

Bewbs! Z'OMG, Teh BEWBS!,
20 Year Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2001
Posts
4,224
About 1/3 of the season finale leaked a couple of days ago. Spoilers galore out there, FYI.
 

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
It was a perfectly good episode.

But a terrible finale.

This entire adaptation has turned from a pretty cool, bloody and violent succession war into 'Danaerys Apology Tour.'

Tying everything into the Long Night is a stupid modification. Especially considering we all know how the TV show version of those events end and it ends up being less important to the story than the Iron Throne. They're trying so hard to retcon the Targaryens into great and noble heroes that 'make mistakes' that it's embarrassing.

Danaerys was a tyrant with a smile. Nothing more. They're trying so hard to say they're sorry to idiots that named their daughters Khaleesi. They need to stop this retarded idiocy.

They should have just stuck to the blueprint. And people ask me why I hate these kinds of deviations.

At least they gave Raenyra a good reason for letting Alicent go back to King's Landing. Without her, conquering the city would be more difficult.

The entire thing with Tyland Lannister mud wrestling can get right the fuck out. Just a waste of everyone's time. Likewise with the dinner between the Dragonseeds and the royal family. So stupid.

Daemon in the books is way cooler. He doesn't go through a crisis at Harrenhall. He just shows up, rallies the banners and has an army. He never tried to dispute Raenyra's claim in the book. This is all so gay and pointless.

Looks like Baela will get Sheepstealer in the TV show rather than introducing a new girl named Nettles. In the book, Daemon is reported by the historian giving the account as having an uncommonly close relationship with Nettles that he believed was sexual in nature. I always believed that Nettles, because of her ability to commune with Sheepstealer, was his bastard daughter and that was why he focused on her once they met.

And if anyone's wondering why the dragon is named Sheepstealer, it's because there were three wild dragons at the time, and all were named by the smallfolk:

Grey Ghost-because he was difficult to spot and almost never showed up anywhere
Sheepstealer-because he ate the farmers' sheeps without warning
The Cannibal-because he would attack other dragons if he came across them

So they don't have elegant names like Syrax or Vhagar.
 

Fygee

Bewbs! Z'OMG, Teh BEWBS!,
20 Year Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2001
Posts
4,224
It was definitely more of a "penultimate" episode than a season finale. Fantastic in what it did, but definitely not the usual season finale we expect from GoT.

I enjoyed the mud wrestling scene. Was nice to get even just a hint of levity. The dinner scene with the Dragonseeds is important character building. It's clear Ulf is going to be problematic whereas the other guy is going to show he's worthy of being a dragon rider.

From what my wife has told me as she's read the books, the thing about them is that they're all told from the perspective of a historian, and that some of the information in it is considered unreliable or fuzzy. Thus, that's how things in the show are expected to deviate. With Daemon, you could easily say that the story of him showing up to Harrenhall and mustering up an army is "historically accurate" based on the information the author had, but that's not actually what happened entirely. I think it's a pretty neat story mechanic personally.
 

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
I enjoyed the mud wrestling scene. Was nice to get even just a hint of levity. The dinner scene with the Dragonseeds is important character building. It's clear Ulf is going to be problematic whereas the other guy is going to show he's worthy of being a dragon rider.
No they both turn out to be turncloaks at the end. And it's not important. That can all be expressed as the fighting goes on.

And mud wrestling is gay. This is not the time for levity in the story.

Both of the scenes sucked.

But I liked when Ulf said 'Well then make me a knight.' Ouch lol

The entire theme of the episode is 'only men that vow to serve women are any good.' Fuck that.

I also liked the scene when Gwayn Hightower and Criston Cole have that conversation at the beginning. That was a good scene.

And the book version is told from a historically constructed perspective but the show is a shitty adaptation of even that.
 

Fygee

Bewbs! Z'OMG, Teh BEWBS!,
20 Year Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2001
Posts
4,224
Well, I guess the dragonseeds are spoiled for me now.
 

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
RE: The reality of Daemon rallying the banners at Harrenhall

Daemon was a respected warrior and an experienced military leader. While he is portrayed, frequently, as being somewhat wild and aggressive in Fire and Blood, no one had cause to question his quality as a leader. The Riverlands had already declared for Rhaenyra and Daemon was a known military leader with great battle prowess. Historically speaking, Daemon is the kind of man that armies will flock to because he will all but guarantee them victory on the battlefield. There is nothing -NOTHING- to suggest that the men of the Riverlands would be anything other than loyal to Daemon so long as his loyalties to Rhaenyra were clear. All of this prevaricating over whether or not to serve Daemon after utiliziing underhanded tactics is silly, an ugly addition to a blueprint that absolutely didn't need it at all.

This is my problem with the modifications. It's not that they're within the realm of probability, given the presentation in the book as a historical construct.

It's that these modifications don't need to exist when the book already has PLENTY of material to make a more compelling story without muddying the waters. It's just more of HBO being...HBO.

When I read the first presentation of this story, The Princess and the Queen, in the fantasy anthology Dangerous Women, I immediately knew it was a pitch for a TV show. One read of it and you could just tell.

When I read The Dying of the Dragons in Fire and Blood, it was all the more obvious that he was shopping it for an adaptation. Martin is an experienced television writer. He knows that his material is going to get changed for the screen, to some degree. He writes these historical constructs precisely to accommodate the production process.

My frustration is with the degree of the deviation. Should I expect it? Yes.

Should I accept it? Fuck no.

This thread exists for all of us to share our praise and grievances.

I like the show. It's just a shitty adaptation. Just like with Game of Thrones, Martin gave them everything to produce a satisfying TV show without needing to all but redesign it to where it is half unrecognizable.

Apologies for spoiling the Dragonseeds. I'll try to be more thoughtful when I act out about these things from here on.
 

LoneSage

A Broken Man
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Posts
45,821
[spoiler.][/spoiler.] without the periods covers up anything spoilerific for future reference 👍
 

Taiso

Outside of Causality
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2000
Posts
14,607
So.

I'm finding it remarkable just how much the hype has died out for HBO's Martin adaptations.

Not just here, but everywhere.

I wouldn't call it being on life support, per se, but there is absolutely no buzz about this show after it ended. And I don't think it has anything to do with people knowing how the story plays out.

This speaks more to the colossal failure of Game of Thrones to finish on a high note.

It is still astonishing to me how they could have fucked it up so bad that it has created a gravity well of apathy.

We were talking about Got for DAYS. Now everyone knows that HBO doesn't even know how to tie their own shoelaces properly. Or rather, that they KNOW how to tie their own shoelaces but they fucked with both the blueprint of Martin's masterpiece AND essentially lied to our own knowledge of what Truth is by forcing agendas into stories where we know they don't belong. HBO essentially tried gaslighting us about the nature of medieval warfare, dragons or no.

We know that there is just too much about these live adaptations that are flat out bullshit. Our brains can smell it even if our noses don't sense it.

The facade was lain bare when they couldn't keep the mask on any longer. And even though season 7 of GoT was not good, it didn't feel dishonest so much as it felt clumsy and lacking the agility of the earlier seasons.

I don't believe it's solely because they lacked source material to draw from, although that is a major factor.

No, D&D are feminist cucks and not legitimate storytellers. Or maybe not them, but HBO was definitely baking ingredients into the recipe that we know, subconsciously, just don't belong there. In the books, for example, Brienne exists but she faces a LOT of criticim and harsh treatment from others because she's a tall, brutish and unattractive woman in a world dominated by men. Martin writes it honestly, as a character driven story. None of that struggle is evident in the TV series. In the TV series, nobody really thinks it odd that she even exists, let alone has such a prominent role in Westerosi politics.

We know the HBO version is a lie.

Why do I say all this? Because, quite simply, when the liars telling the lie aren't good enough to convince us that it's the truth, the truth always outs.

Or, maybe less articulately, you can't cheat the audience. We know when something is nonsense.

These lies, simmering under the surface of an adaptation that clearly stopped understanding the author's intentions or the meaning of the story it was adapting, unravelled the whole thing. And it was never more evident than when HBO started producing the show for the social media reaction. The Burlington Bar fagets were a terrible audience to cater to. But even worse than that were all the people creating shitty and useless engagement by responding and reacting to those viral clips. This speaks to a bigger issue with society that I am not really qualified to write a treatise on at this time, but I'll only say that society's desire to have an opinion on everything when, largely, most of us only understand a few things (if any) to such a degree that what we say is even remotely relevant, is the snake oil we sell ourselves.

To wit, social media is fagetry of the highest order. It makes us all gayer.

And so here we are, watching a production that is akin to a house with no walls or a car with no wheels. You can't live in that house. You can't drive that car anywhere. So of course, we abandon it. Why stay there? Why keep it? We know these are useless things. And even if we derive any value from them at all, they are fleeting distractions and not meaningful possessions worth owning as they may once have been.

That HBO chose to go this route with GoT and HotD when they could have built something to last, like the books, just tells you that they don't take you seriously. They never did. They could have, no SHOULD have, replaced D&D and kept going with the long form story. Putting those two above the cast, the crew, the audience and the material they were adapting is not virtuous. It's scandalous.

And more than a little disappointing. Martin has grumbled about it, subtly, here and there. But really, he probably wishes he'd maintained more control over it the way Rowling did with Harry Potter. Nothing gets past that woman without her say so. And despite all the social media attacks she's suffered, she is still the monolithic presence behind that franchise. And it still thrives and is largely respected. Nobody takes HBO's interpretation of Westeros seriously.

What a shame.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wyo
Top