At Episode 6 there's a timejump of 10 years, thats when the old actresses will take Rhaenyra and Alicent roles... and yes, the showrunners treat Young Alicent and Rhaenyra as DIFFERENT characters than the older versions of them... hope they manage to explain how the characters have evolved in the meantime...
Matt Smith's performance really saved the battle scene for me. I was sceptical of his casting (I thought Daemon should be less Legolas and more Aragorn, if that makes sense) but he's been knocking it out of the park so far. He didn't even have a single line in this episode and you still know exactly what he's thinking and feeling.
In retrospect, its weird how so many people (myself included, this is not a knock against anyone) were skeptical of him. What a shocker: a guy who has previously shown himself to be a really good actor turns out to be a really good actor.
I mentioned this in another reply, but look up the 'serpentine' scene from Generation Kill. The beach scene was ridiculous, but Daemon was correct to not do that, which would hugely increase the time he's exposed to incoming fire. I'm not sure there's a single military on the planet who'd advise slowing down during movement to cover/concealment. Against arrows, it makes even more sense to stick to the shortest distance/time between positions.
Well, to be fair, they gave an explanation for the length of the war: the Crab army was holed up in the caves, impeding attack and even dragon fire. In addition, there have been sieges in actual history that have lasted for a year or more. So, for my part, the length and the static nature of war isn't a problem.
That battle between Daemon and The Crabfeeder looked cool but had several problems. Archers can't hit one guy. Daemon's forces just kinda snuck up on Craby (even a dragon just appeared when Craby was looking for one). And the fight was forgone and the cool looking, Pirates of The Caribbean villain just died without any pomp and circumstance. But it was still fun. And I'm really just hear for Viserys and Rhynera's political troubles so I'm still good.
My guess is that Rhanera will tell the king she wants to marry Cristen Cole, but the king will not allow it because he's lower class, which will cause a greater riff between them. He said she could choose, but he didn't put limits on that choice.
@@alexr7595 Are they though? Just because that's what the rules say doesn't guarantee that it's true. IDK the details of the oath they take, so maybe that could be used as an excuse to forbid them from marrying.
@@alison4dice , no, it’s one of the main rules. Just like nights watch, the kingsguard gives up all their lands and titles. And they also serve for life and can’t be let go (until Cersei fired Barristan in GoT season 1) That’s why Tywin Lannister was so mad about Jaime being in the kingsguard. Because that meant that he can’t inherit so Tywin was stuck with Tyrion as his heir.
It really is interesting to hear the reaction of people who don't know the source material. I am very comfortable with time jumps because in my head I just automatically fill in the gaps with the knowledge from the book to the point where I don't even notice the gap is there, but for a viewer who never read it the experience is of course very different. But this was always destined to be problematic - we need to cover 30 years of set up to actually get to the story itself, which will then play out chronologically and without any time jumps at all, and if we spent more time on the gaps here, we'd need 3 seasons for set up alone. Tough material to handle. It will also be curious to see how the pacing changes once we do get to the "present' time and stop jumping forward. At the moment it's moving FAST, there is no single scene which is filler. If that changes drastically once we get to the present time that will probably be jarring.
I haven't read the books and while the time jumps are a little jarring, they establish them as they start (at least so far) so I just go with it. It would help if they indicated the jumps more but as you also point, it's only for a certain time and it will settle at some point. I've seen enough people say that to know it will happen, I guess when the actresses for Rhaenyra and Alicent change.
@@Elwaves2925 yeah, I would imagine by episode 6-7 we will be in present time. Let's see how that pans out, but I think even if a little rough around the edges, it seems it's still easy to follow for non-readers, and that's definitely a win.
I do think there was a few things in the battle that just seemed a bit dumb. Maybe not GOT S8 dumb, but definitely dumber than I would have hoped for. Other than that I totally agree - all the elements are gelling well together and I'm having a good time with it.
For me having a 3 year and 6 month total time jump between 2 episodes isn’t good narrative things are left out cause I actually thought episode 3 was a flashback episode from before Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen left and the queen was in her second trimester not that it was 3 year jump and the king has a new queen who is also pregnant who also has a strained relationship with Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen that can’t easily be explained away in dialogue and how the princess among the 3 episodes doesn’t look older like no time has passed in her appearance
The entire point of the show is setting up the civil war And every episode has focused on pivotal moments that will start the War So narratively it's doing things aimed at that endgame
That whole scene with the archers was my biggest problem with the episode, and it seems that it's the same for pretty much everyone else too. I do like that in the post-episode interview segment, it was stated that he *shouldn't* have survived that and that it was intended to be a suicide mission, because that at least props the moment up some and also explains why he didn't go out of his way to try feinting the arrows; still, I can't ignore that if you isolate to just the episode itself it does look like a total Stormtrooper moment riddled with plot armor, so I wish what they were going for had come across in the episode more clearly. Aside from that, I really liked this episode, and Rhaenyra again has been a standout character that I've been delighted to see develop despite the long stretches of off-screen time.
Re Daemon avoiding the arrows; I believe it's typical military doctrine to maintain the shortest point between cover/concealment. And that's in the present, with modern ballistics, which are obviously traveling magnitudes faster. The aim (pun unintended... ) is to achieve the shortest amount of time exposed. Look up the 'serpentine' scene from the phenomenal Generation Kill, where the Marines just book it, and Rolling Stone/the journalist weaves all over the place... 'Dodging' slows you down and increases your exposure. It's a bad thing to do. The scene with Daemon action-hero'ing the beach battle was still ridiculous, of course... But his technique was correct.
I keep noticing that the same people who hate most of the rings of power just so happen to like house of the dragon. Could it be that one show is bad while the other is good? Or the fans are to blame like the view claims?
The action scene at the end was definitely very cool and did great work for Daemon as a character, but goodness that was some of the poorest battle logic perhaps only rivalled by GoT season 7's Beyond the Wall timeline nonsense. Three episodes in and we've already got an action hero with plot armour, terrible archers, a sudden save by an army that somehow managed to sneak up on them... by boat? A dragonrider we've had no time to get to know so no emotional connection outside of 'that looks cool' and as many people have pointed out, a stalemate between the two sides that was so poorly explained, it is hard to work out why they didn't just charge them like this in the first place. (not saying the reason doesn't exist, it just wasn't adequately emphasised). I know that seems like a really negative post, but I really am enjoying practically every other aspect of the show. I just hope this isn't a sign of all the battles to come.
Times jumps are inevitable with this format. I guess they could have done flashbacks, but there would have been a lot. It’s just the book is laid out this way and there are so many years to cover. I could nitpick but the action but it was fun and Daemon was badass. Also, it was for character and theme development more than precision.
With the source material being more of a history book with different accounts of events, the show seems to want to set the record straight and add context to events, more than fill in the time in between. I'm pretty impressed with the relationship between Viserys and Alicent though given that the actors haven't gotten to be "married" for very long with all the time jumps. But Viserys and Aemma felt like they've been together forever too even though they just had two scenes.
I think the time jumps are fine in the context of the story. I'm not sure how aware you are of the book, but it fully makes sense to do it like this because there are literally zero details being left out.
One aspect of the production my partner and I really hate are the wigs. Matt Smith's and especially the actor that plays the Sea Snake's son's are awful.
Laenor's wig looks like a mop. Corlys monopolized the good hair in House Velaryon. Daemon's is fine for me but I've seen it look great in some promo not tied back that I wish they just kept it down instead of this half-up Legolas look. We had Jon Snow fight with his hair down for five seasons, suddenly bangs are a concern.
While I still like the show, the 6 month time jump was a bit off putting in the second episode and was really distracting in the third. I watched it with friends and we spent a lot of time explaining to each other what was going on and what is happening. So I'm concerned if this is going to be a constant thing. I feel maybe if they spaced it a bit more, a la the Crown it wouldn't be so jarring. I did like the episode a lot, but I also wonder if this would be more enjoyable as a binge.
Weren't they thousands of feet away? I was under the impression volley fire isn't great at hitting a single person because from that distance you can't reliably hit anything, and it works better when you've got an army or a dragon to shoot at. Admittedly, I am not an archer.
Your reviews and relaxed attitude in the break room are great, insightful and funny. Thanks for posting.
7:41 I guess you could call that scene "Daemons run".... I'll see myself out.
Where a bad man went to war
I see what you did there 😉
At Episode 6 there's a timejump of 10 years, thats when the old actresses will take Rhaenyra and Alicent roles... and yes, the showrunners treat Young Alicent and Rhaenyra as DIFFERENT characters than the older versions of them... hope they manage to explain how the characters have evolved in the meantime...
Matt Smith's performance really saved the battle scene for me. I was sceptical of his casting (I thought Daemon should be less Legolas and more Aragorn, if that makes sense) but he's been knocking it out of the park so far. He didn't even have a single line in this episode and you still know exactly what he's thinking and feeling.
In retrospect, its weird how so many people (myself included, this is not a knock against anyone) were skeptical of him. What a shocker: a guy who has previously shown himself to be a really good actor turns out to be a really good actor.
Time jumps for this particular source material is necessary-I think they are doing a good job so far
I mentioned this in another reply, but look up the 'serpentine' scene from Generation Kill. The beach scene was ridiculous, but Daemon was correct to not do that, which would hugely increase the time he's exposed to incoming fire.
I'm not sure there's a single military on the planet who'd advise slowing down during movement to cover/concealment. Against arrows, it makes even more sense to stick to the shortest distance/time between positions.
Well, to be fair, they gave an explanation for the length of the war: the Crab army was holed up in the caves, impeding attack and even dragon fire. In addition, there have been sieges in actual history that have lasted for a year or more. So, for my part, the length and the static nature of war isn't a problem.
I understand the on-paper explanation but that doesn’t change how it feels due to framing and time jumps.
i was yelling "aim where he's GONNA be" at the screen like Jerry Seinfeld
Since the last series of X-Men films, I'm really hesitant whenever time jumps are a plot point. But, for the most part, it is working here.
What??! Martial arts and archery too! Nice
That battle between Daemon and The Crabfeeder looked cool but had several problems. Archers can't hit one guy. Daemon's forces just kinda snuck up on Craby (even a dragon just appeared when Craby was looking for one). And the fight was forgone and the cool looking, Pirates of The Caribbean villain just died without any pomp and circumstance. But it was still fun. And I'm really just hear for Viserys and Rhynera's political troubles so I'm still good.
My guess is that Rhanera will tell the king she wants to marry Cristen Cole, but the king will not allow it because he's lower class, which will cause a greater riff between them. He said she could choose, but he didn't put limits on that choice.
You should keep in mind, that Cole is not just lowborn, he is a kingsguard. They are celibate.
@@alexr7595 Are they though? Just because that's what the rules say doesn't guarantee that it's true. IDK the details of the oath they take, so maybe that could be used as an excuse to forbid them from marrying.
@@alison4dice , no, it’s one of the main rules. Just like nights watch, the kingsguard gives up all their lands and titles. And they also serve for life and can’t be let go (until Cersei fired Barristan in GoT season 1)
That’s why Tywin Lannister was so mad about Jaime being in the kingsguard. Because that meant that he can’t inherit so Tywin was stuck with Tyrion as his heir.
Stormtrooper archers
11:20 Viserys I on work-life balance for monarchs.
It really is interesting to hear the reaction of people who don't know the source material. I am very comfortable with time jumps because in my head I just automatically fill in the gaps with the knowledge from the book to the point where I don't even notice the gap is there, but for a viewer who never read it the experience is of course very different. But this was always destined to be problematic - we need to cover 30 years of set up to actually get to the story itself, which will then play out chronologically and without any time jumps at all, and if we spent more time on the gaps here, we'd need 3 seasons for set up alone. Tough material to handle. It will also be curious to see how the pacing changes once we do get to the "present' time and stop jumping forward. At the moment it's moving FAST, there is no single scene which is filler. If that changes drastically once we get to the present time that will probably be jarring.
I haven't read the books and while the time jumps are a little jarring, they establish them as they start (at least so far) so I just go with it. It would help if they indicated the jumps more but as you also point, it's only for a certain time and it will settle at some point. I've seen enough people say that to know it will happen, I guess when the actresses for Rhaenyra and Alicent change.
@@Elwaves2925 yeah, I would imagine by episode 6-7 we will be in present time. Let's see how that pans out, but I think even if a little rough around the edges, it seems it's still easy to follow for non-readers, and that's definitely a win.
I do think there was a few things in the battle that just seemed a bit dumb. Maybe not GOT S8 dumb, but definitely dumber than I would have hoped for. Other than that I totally agree - all the elements are gelling well together and I'm having a good time with it.
For me having a 3 year and 6 month total time jump between 2 episodes isn’t good narrative things are left out cause I actually thought episode 3 was a flashback episode from before Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen left and the queen was in her second trimester not that it was 3 year jump and the king has a new queen who is also pregnant who also has a strained relationship with Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen that can’t easily be explained away in dialogue and how the princess among the 3 episodes doesn’t look older like no time has passed in her appearance
The entire point of the show is setting up the civil war
And every episode has focused on pivotal moments that will start the War
So narratively it's doing things aimed at that endgame
Alicent and Rhaenyra are 13/14 in episode 1 and 2
So they are now 17 years old
So they shouldn't look too much older at all
4x speed would be nice, to disagree and relay a take… because well, yeah, “can I 4x you?”
That whole scene with the archers was my biggest problem with the episode, and it seems that it's the same for pretty much everyone else too. I do like that in the post-episode interview segment, it was stated that he *shouldn't* have survived that and that it was intended to be a suicide mission, because that at least props the moment up some and also explains why he didn't go out of his way to try feinting the arrows; still, I can't ignore that if you isolate to just the episode itself it does look like a total Stormtrooper moment riddled with plot armor, so I wish what they were going for had come across in the episode more clearly.
Aside from that, I really liked this episode, and Rhaenyra again has been a standout character that I've been delighted to see develop despite the long stretches of off-screen time.
Re Daemon avoiding the arrows; I believe it's typical military doctrine to maintain the shortest point between cover/concealment. And that's in the present, with modern ballistics, which are obviously traveling magnitudes faster.
The aim (pun unintended... ) is to achieve the shortest amount of time exposed.
Look up the 'serpentine' scene from the phenomenal Generation Kill, where the Marines just book it, and Rolling Stone/the journalist weaves all over the place... 'Dodging' slows you down and increases your exposure. It's a bad thing to do.
The scene with Daemon action-hero'ing the beach battle was still ridiculous, of course... But his technique was correct.
I keep noticing that the same people who hate most of the rings of power just so happen to like house of the dragon. Could it be that one show is bad while the other is good? Or the fans are to blame like the view claims?
This show continues to be a pleasant surprise. The characters are all terrible people and played so well, I'm here for it.
The action scene at the end was definitely very cool and did great work for Daemon as a character, but goodness that was some of the poorest battle logic perhaps only rivalled by GoT season 7's Beyond the Wall timeline nonsense.
Three episodes in and we've already got an action hero with plot armour, terrible archers, a sudden save by an army that somehow managed to sneak up on them... by boat? A dragonrider we've had no time to get to know so no emotional connection outside of 'that looks cool' and as many people have pointed out, a stalemate between the two sides that was so poorly explained, it is hard to work out why they didn't just charge them like this in the first place. (not saying the reason doesn't exist, it just wasn't adequately emphasised).
I know that seems like a really negative post, but I really am enjoying practically every other aspect of the show. I just hope this isn't a sign of all the battles to come.
Times jumps are inevitable with this format. I guess they could have done flashbacks, but there would have been a lot. It’s just the book is laid out this way and there are so many years to cover. I could nitpick but the action but it was fun and Daemon was badass. Also, it was for character and theme development more than precision.
With the source material being more of a history book with different accounts of events, the show seems to want to set the record straight and add context to events, more than fill in the time in between. I'm pretty impressed with the relationship between Viserys and Alicent though given that the actors haven't gotten to be "married" for very long with all the time jumps. But Viserys and Aemma felt like they've been together forever too even though they just had two scenes.
I think the time jumps are fine in the context of the story. I'm not sure how aware you are of the book, but it fully makes sense to do it like this because there are literally zero details being left out.
One aspect of the production my partner and I really hate are the wigs. Matt Smith's and especially the actor that plays the Sea Snake's son's are awful.
Laenor's wig looks like a mop. Corlys monopolized the good hair in House Velaryon. Daemon's is fine for me but I've seen it look great in some promo not tied back that I wish they just kept it down instead of this half-up Legolas look. We had Jon Snow fight with his hair down for five seasons, suddenly bangs are a concern.
While I still like the show, the 6 month time jump was a bit off putting in the second episode and was really distracting in the third. I watched it with friends and we spent a lot of time explaining to each other what was going on and what is happening. So I'm concerned if this is going to be a constant thing. I feel maybe if they spaced it a bit more, a la the Crown it wouldn't be so jarring. I did like the episode a lot, but I also wonder if this would be more enjoyable as a binge.
Weren't they thousands of feet away? I was under the impression volley fire isn't great at hitting a single person because from that distance you can't reliably hit anything, and it works better when you've got an army or a dragon to shoot at. Admittedly, I am not an archer.