“Hey guys, I know this is supposed to be a complex story with grey characters but the patriarchy is bad and Rhaenyra can do no wrong. Also, Alicent is a great person for willing to give up her son.”
"I mean, sure, Rhaneryra and Alicent might be ultra privileged, rich, white, pretty, self centered royals fighting a pointless war for power that destabilize the entire land and cost the life of thousands, mostly low born people... but hey they are women so it's all good, slay queens"
Good thing there was no social media on westeros. Imagine people who fought for both sides found out the two figure head that they thought were arch-enemies are in fact besties behind the close doors. 😂😂😂😂😂@vee1766
I'm confused. Is that supposed to be the writers perspective or the audience. Because I feel like it's the audience saying "Rhaenyra can do no wrong," while simultaneously listing story points that show she can do wrong.
I came in as a book reader expecting to fill the GAPS in the story, detailing the time skips and choosing at each juncture the version that sat best with them. Instead they've altered it to the point that I'm not even sure why they chose to do this story AT ALL, clearly they don't like the original characters, nor the complexity of the succession crisis. They've no desire to explore the depth of the errors of primogeniture nor the problem with giving children NUKES. This feels, already, like bad fan fiction. They've lost me already.
Lol wtf...Aemond literally burns a town and murdered his cousin by accident the season before, "dragons being a power we don't understand "is one of the cruxes of the story so that alone makes you kinda wrong or just it flying over your head..in other words, COPE
@@hez859Dragons not being able to be controlled is horseshit, the onus in the books lies on the riders not the dragons for the bad things that are done.
Honestly, they could have just done a version of F and B, utilizing all it's ambiguity and hidden realities by use of clever writing I mean imagine this: Tyrion narrates the story because he's reading the in-world history book by Gyldane. Now he isn't literally going line by line, but occasionally Dinklage is coming in and giving context or his opinion on a certain outcome. For example he outlines all the possible rumors of who killed the Strongs and maybe he says what he believes really happened. Idk. Just feel like that would be fun and at least keeps to the lore
@hez859 In the book, it is Aemunds rage. He 100% goes to kill his cousin after being aggravated. In the show, it is an accident. He's laughing and tormenting him and even can be heard shouting at vhagar to stop. The difference is very important for the characterisation.
Does anyone else find it strange that Aemond feels remorse for killing Luke, a bastard who took out his eye, but doesn't express any guilt over Helaena's son being murdered as retaliation for Luke's death? It was just one of many huge missed opportunities this season.
@spiekd He doesn't. Aemond doesn't mention Helaena's son at all, not even when he tries to convince her to come with him to Harrenhall. He should feel guilty because Jaehaerys was murdered as revenge for Aemond killing Luke. If Aemond did not go after Luke, Helaena's son would still be alive.
I’m so glad you included that take on the scene from Olivia Cooke. It makes me feel validated that even some of the actors felt off about the way the show is going
Olivia has said in interviews during s1 that she was excited to see alicent go mad and go all out for her kids and then they go ahead and butchered her character, even Olivia understands her character more than the writers do, what a joke
Nah, i don't believe it one bit. Those actors have WAY more power than you imagine, they more often than not play a significant part in those "rewriting" of characters. That's what happened with GoT already with Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner using their new influence and popularity to ruin Arya and Sansa by turning them into ridiculous cliché girlboss.
@vee1766 If that is the case, why would she say she was confused about how they wrote the character? If she agreed with the direction they went and thought it was good, wouldn't she praise it?
@@vee1766 They have some power - at least some of them do. But that was also after several seasons already in GoT. They would have been hard to replace by that point. If they'd tried to change things after S1 or S2 it'd have been harder for them to argue when they might still potentially be replaced. But then recall what happened in S8 as one character after another was butchered. Pretty much no one was happy during the readings of the Scripts that have been leaked/released. Maybe Arya and Sansa (their actors) were pleased, but no one else was. Varys was appalled. So were Jon and Dany. Littlefinger certainly was too. Do you think Littlefinger wanted to go out like that? Do you think Roose Bolton would have wanted to die hugging his son that he'd never have hugged in his life? Those actors were all powerless to stop what happened to their characters. Even Dany couldn't stop what happened to her. Amelia Clarke was powerless even as arguably the most powerful actor in the entire show. She was allowed to stop doing n*de stuff but not allowed to have her descent into madness make any kind of sense or be in any way compelling or satisfying.
@@vee1766 Did it look like Conleth Hill or Aidan Gillian or even Emilia 'Now That I have Made It Big I will No Longer Put My Melons Out There' Clarke had a lot of control over the directions their characters took in S7 and S8?
@@hemanthkapavarapu8380 In Season 1, under the weirwood tree, they talked about traveling around the world together, you know- 'away from the patriarchy'. Some viewers interpreted this as a lesbian moment, and this scene confirmed that interpretation, Alicent is taking up on her offer but it's too late. 🤮 Why didn't they explore this more in season 1...
It's cowardice, simple as that, pathetic cowardice. They were worried about how people would react to a show centered around two villainous, power hungry women acting like cruel and ruthless tyrants so they decided to put all the bad stuff they do in the books unto the men around them instead and turn the women into victims while they were at it. And you can see it from the very beginning of the show, season 2 just amplifies it. It's never, EVER directly Rhaneryra or Alicent's fault.
@@rsync9490 Listen to yourself, then that means every other work where the antagonist is a dude means "men shouldn't rule". That makes most shows a critique on male rule.
@NTNG13 My point stands: If you are going to show the audience an example of a poor female leader, you must also show an example of a decent or great female leader. It's not unusual that male antagonists are the foils of male protagonists, so an example of a poor male ruler and a prodigious male ruler is very common in these stories. Sansa, an average schemer who begs her brother for independent rule, is not an example of a competent female ruler. Every other female ruler bit the dust, and it wasn't Sansa who took these women out.
@@rsync9490 You don’t need to show the audience anything because you are not trying to teach the audience anything. You’re trying to entertain them with a good story. The fragile minds who complain about things like this are the minority for a reason.
Aegon in his bed said my dragon is dead... like WHAT? No he's not. Sunfyre is still alive in the books after the battle of Rook's Rest. What's going on here....
D&D adapted GOT well . But they just wanted to do other things and gave up . The first seasons had alot of non-book canon scenes that made love the show . But HOTD writers are just not good
@@sabgogo7393The first four seasons were PEAK GOT! That's no discussion. Sometimes i just pretend Seasons 7, 8 and even 5 and 6 didn't happen at all 😂😂😂 Apparently, HotD showrunners' is to make us forget how bad the end of GoT was
@@sabgogo7393lmaoooo is that you David Benioff?!? 😂 No way on God's green earth did you just say they would have done a better job. Lmaoooo they didn't even understand the lore at all. Ryan Condal is literally knee deep in all of it and understands the story in ways D&D never could. Wow. Just wow, actual D&D apologists. Crazy. They avoided the magic of the book series at every turn and in HOTd we're getting old gods shenanigans and THE GREEN MEN And for the record, season 2 of HOTd wasn't perfect but it had some damn good dialogue at certain moments and you can tell writing for ten episodes then last minute having to change the format to 8 probably didn't help either.. it wasn't perfect but you also didn't get these ridiculous exposition dumps and penis jokes every 3 lines like we got with D&D towards the end... What they did to Euron alone is enough to make me think they had no clue wtf they were doing. House of the dragon encapsulates the world much more even compared to old GOT
Mysaria- "Lemme trauma dump real quick, my dad is a butt-head" Rhae-Rhae- "OMG I'm so sorry that happened to you for real" *out of nowhere kissing scene* These two characters had zero romantic chemistry and didn't share a scene together until 4 episodes ago. Their kiss and romantic interest makes no sense and I feel inclined to say that if rhaenyra was a man in that scene and used someone's gratuitous SA survival trauma story as a way to steal a kiss, that scene would be viewed for what it really is, out of place and pretty slimy. Fan fiction inserts and a plot that has ground to a halt. Praise THE MESSAGE, ALL HAIL THE MESSAGE!
Remember when in GOT Tyrion says he should have known his first wife was a prostitute? Because he had “saved” her from rapers, and yet she rushed into his bed right afterwards. And yet in this scene, the same thing happens. Horrible horrible incest rape story, and 20 seconds later… we’re horny? Sorry but I don’t buy it.
Cersei: " Why don't you trust me like you trust your sons?" Tywin: "I don't mistrust you because you're a woman. I mistrust you because you're not as smart as you think you are." From GoT season 4. A scene like that would NEVER happen in HotD. A woman feeling oppressed over her gender, but having that viewpoint challenged rather than validated? A man slamdunking an argument with a woman? Unthinkable with Sara Hess on the team.
@@frankvandorp2059 Sarah Hess Rewrite Cersei: Your sons are fools like you, I am my mother’s daughter. Tywin: *place quill down* I’m listening Cersei: Who shall lead the pride when the lions are unworthy? the lioness has claws as well! Tywin: Okay, you’re my heir!
That was a good scene, and definitely missing from hotd. But tywin could've taught her to be smarter. people never blame tywin for how cersei came out or robert for how joffrey came out.
@@errorsinconduct I disagree with that, I think people generally agree that Tywin's main fault was the way he messed up his children, which probably is going to undo his entire legacy.
And that scene also gave Cersei a lot more in terms of characterization. We see her feeling like she's never truly been seen, though she feels like she should have been. She felt she contributed the most when she married Robert Baratheon. This is a driving force behind why Cersei is the way she is. I had to respond to this because despite it all, Cersei is my favorite character, hands down. Especially female character because she absolutely owns who she is. She takes every lump and moment of humiliation and carries on. She's not selling her own children out AFTER she raised them to be exactly who they actually became. She's not considering a peace treaty because she was once friends with someone, even though they stole her birthright and murdered her son. She's definitely not trying to allow someone to breathe after her grandchild is beheaded. On HoTD, they are afraid to make women REACT. It's okay for Alicent and Rhaenyra to be angry. It's okay for Rhaenys to tell Rhaenyra to kiss her ass as she believes Laenor died at Daemon's hand on her orders. It's okay for Helaena to react to her child being beheaded. It's okay for Baela to drag the shit out of Corlys when they speak about Rhaenys, as that conversation should have been about THEM not Rhaenyra. It's OKAY. They act like this fandom is full of idiots and that we can't use discernment while watching this series.
GRRM is cursed to have his work written over with has been who think they can improve upon his work to fit with the modern audience. Got was understandable bad ending without guide from the books, but HoTd is unforgivable butchering of his work.
Yeah I’m really annoyed that they have the entire perfect story right there they literally just have to fill in the details and instead they’re switching the plot up for no reason. Characters getting cut out of the show is my biggest complaint, Nettles not existing is insane.
Also changing side characters to make them less interesting. I was excited for Alys Rivers, who was a manipulative, seductive, and petulant bastard of house strong. A witch who possessed great powers and her own agenda. But instead they made her Daemons bestie? Why do all the women in this universe get there morally dark characteristics erased? That’s literally sexist. Women are everything men are including human. Which means they have their own ambitions, and make evil choices sometimes.
The saddest part is that Olivia Cook and Emma D'Arcy would have been incredible to play the darker version of their characters. It's Tyrion all over again. They don't wan't characters to become ruthless or evil but they keep adapting material from the books that are clearly going in that direction.
@@arrasectum earlier D&D brilliant but later on D&D without any books to work with horrible. At least they would have done a better job with the blood and cheese strain line and would have given us our own version of the Red wedding.
@@attiepollard7847 It is Tyrion. Instead of showing the Tysha reveal at the end of Season 4 and have him go on a darker path they just cut all of that. We see the same thing happening with how they whitewashed Rhaenyra and butchered Alicent.
@@Ducky-vl7mp because of one exception. It's already established Tyrion doesn't want to go evil plus I believe the writers were just too focused on other characters to work with
Alicent shielding Aegon from Meleys was literally the only thing that was good about that terrible dragon scene in episode 9 of season 1. And now they have managed to retroactively ruin that too by retconning Alicent's character.
I'm pretty sure she is the writer who said that Alicent represents female Trump supporters. I know most books are inspired by real life events like The Hunger Games and Dune but unlike those books, the complexity of Fire & Blood was sacrificed in pursuit of sending a biased political message. No one side is perfect and the more flawed the characters are, the more real the story feels whereas in this instance the writer is saying everyone who supports someone like Alicent is evil when in history that's never the case
Man you aren’t lying. Like the mysaria stuff was super awkward and forced. I will honestly say Alicent and Rhaenyra seems more plausible but not to the point where Alicent would give up every male in her family plus her lover just have a girls trip with Rhaenyra.
@@Yamaazaka are you by chance one of those simpleton who send threat's to Joffrey's actor because "he's evil" and "he wants to destroy everyone in the story" ?
There is no way in hell I would see my enemy face to face, within earshot of my guards and not take her prisoner. No freakin way. Absolute stupid writing. The entire story is about these two women not wanting to pull the trigger on each other.
Also, how the actual fuck do they sneak in and out of fortified cities? How the fuck am i supposed to believe that alicent hightower snuck into a fucking island in a guarded fortrsess wearimg the most vibrant and ornate green dress? Lmao
@@roflmaoqwerty6not to mention, there was a blockade and Aemond had the city locked down. Logically, there is no f**king way that Alicent could have snuck out without being noticed.
Rhaenyra complaining about not having being taught warfare because of the patriarchy, while refusing to listen to the opinions of the council (that is there for that specific reason) was so funny
@@Loki-g3k Well, YEAH, cos her dad, a stinky evil bad wrong dirty no good MAN, taught her, the most powerful and independentest woman ever! We can’t have that! -these hack writers
I don’t think season 3 will be any better. I have a sick feeling that it will be a lot worse. There are illogical narrative choices that the writers just can’t fix (Alicent betraying her male family members to their deaths, Helaena comforting her son’s killer, etc). George jumping ship does not make season 3 look promising.
"There are illogical narrative choices that the writers just can’t fix", exactly what ruined Game Of Thrones in the long term, they keep making changes they think are inconsequential but n reality slowly turn the story into something else entirely...
I don't think either of those examples are illogical narrative choices that can't be fixed. 1) **BOOK SPOILER** We know that when Rhaenyra captures King Landing, Aegon has already been smuggled out of the city by Larys. When Alicent surrenders the Red Keep, Rhaenyra has her imprisoned. While there is never any reported secret negotiations between Alicent and Rhaenyra in Fire & Blood, that doesn't imply that the HotD depiction is dramatically changing the story. In fact, given the closeness between Alicent and Rhaenyra depicted in the show, the scene where Alicent agrees to hand over Aegon in exchange for peace actually might lay the television seeds of the breakdown in the relationship. When Rhaenyra sacks the capitol and finds that Aegon has fled, a natural assumption on her part will be that Alicent helped him escape knowing that Rhaenyra is committed to taking his head. This perceived manipulation by Alicent could easily be the television basis for Rhaenyra finally treating Alicent as her enemy. In other words, Alicent willing to give up Aegon, while a departure from the "historical" record (which wouldn't haven't necessarily been known to anyone outside of Alicent and Rhaenyra) is already being unknowingly undermined by Larys sneaking Aegon from the city and could still very well lead to Rhaenyra's wrath. 2. Haelena's loyalties were actually somewhat ambiguous in the book, she was initially willing and ready to declare fealty to Rhaenyra in order to avoid war when Aegon was first crowned. Her appearance in Daemon's vision could imply she has a greater awareness of the realm and less interest in the factional power squabbles. Or it could mean nothing, in that her presence in Daemon's vision doesn't imply she has any conscious or even direct agency in that vision. Is she really there, or just a vision generated by the Wierwood tree? We don't know enough about how those visions work to assume she is just comforting the man who (maybe) ordered the killing of her son.
@@chrisf7563This makes zero sense. If Alicent and Rhaenyra can get together and talk and reconcile after Alicent believed Rhaenyra killed her grandson, why won't they get together and talk for Rhaenyra to realize that Alicent didn't help Aegon escape? No matter how you slice it, the illogicality gap will keep widening. This was supposed to be a war between immoral factions; not a war between good and evil. They can't bring it back under control.
@@chrisf7563And are we supposed to forget that Alicent knows that Rhaenyra's children are not supposed to inherit the throne? Is that not the core of her opposition? Will Alicent give up Aegon for Rhaenyra and her Strong children?
@jonbolton491 That's not an absolute human nature axiom. Burying the hatchet once does not mean all future issues can be resolved between two parties. All it takes is Rhaenyra to not believe Alicent and feel manipulated/betrayed for her to no longer be so charitable. Or other issues could arise. There are still alot of ways for the show ratchet up conflict between the two, they've certainly not written themselves into a corner in which the two are simply besties for life.
I hate that they totally wasted Lucerys’ and Jahaerys’ deaths. Those deaths were supposed to galvanize both sides for fucks sake. But, all we get is Rhaenyra and Alicent looking somberly towards the distance and saying, “What would you have me do?”
The only lives that matter to her are her daughter and grandaughter's. I mean women gotta band together right? Forget the men, even the innocent one who've yet to join the battle and probably only forced to out of duty and loyalty to his dumbass family. Gosh, I already feel bad for Daeron.
The reason is because the show runners see Alicent and Rhaenyra as victims of a patriarchal society, and are writing them as two women trying to navigate a patriarchal Westeros! That’s what they mean by “two women trying to figure it out” Hence, because they are written as “victims” the show runners see them as the protagonists of the show and can’t have them actively taking responsibility or being the main catalysts for the war. That’s why Rhaenyra is so indecisive and that’s why Alicent gets sidelined by the “males” on the Green Council. Alicent and Rhaenyra have to meet up in Episode 3 and Episode 8 becaus the show runners are writing them to eventually gang up against the oppressive patriarchy. In the show runners minds, victims need to team up against their oppressors (patriarchal Westeros). Hence, Alicent has to support Rhaenyra’s claim and give up her male children as that’s the right thing to do to end the patriarchy. Sadly, this is not the story of Fire and Blood that GRRM wrote. It’s nonsensical that the show runners are doing this.
I wish this was just meme, but you nailed it. The showrunners see women as morally superior; therefore, they can be either victims or heroes. I've never read the book, so I don't have any bias towards the source material. And I still had Alicent as my favorite character in S1: a mother, an IMPERFECT mother who cares about her children and is willing to fight to protect them, with a sense of duty in her own way. However, even in Season 1 they refused to make Alicent go all out on her game and chose to make her submit to the "Aegon's Song" BS Viserys whispered... At Season 2, finally, she is not there. I tried to find that Alicent from the "Driftmark" scene, but I couldn't... Alicent was
@@luciotargino5187then I honestly think you have misunderstood her character. I have never gotten the impression that Alicent cared about any of her children.
The showrunners made me hate Rhaenyra 😂 Man, If that is a super villain in the story, that's her... She refused to choose a good mariage, what was her duty as princess and heir to the throne; She allowed herself to be seduced by Daemon and got Cole to break his vows, alienating Alicent in the process; She married to Laenor and failed to have a son with him, and could not help but to have not one, not two but three bastards stupidously different from the Velaryons. This managed to endanger her reputation, driving some lords even further from her circle and weakening her own claim to the throne, considering her heir would obviously be questioned further down the line; She orchestrated the "death"/exile of her husband in order to marry Daemon, after realizing how weak her situation was because she broke contact with Kings Landing and her own father for years; She happily sent ordinary people to be burned by Vermithor and smiled; She demanded Alicent to give up all her sons, while pretending her words didn't lead to the death of a small child in her bed... WITH ALL THUS, showrunners will never make her accountable for the bad things that happen. It's always somebody else's fault...
Ah, yes. She also demanded that Aemond, as a teen, was "sharply questioned" to say who told him the "lies" that her sons were bastards. HINT: She knew it was no lie and the boy had just lost one eye...
How tf are u blaming HER for not being able to have a child with laenor😂?? That's on laenor not on her. She tried multiple times, HE couldn't deliver. She had no choice but to have bastards then. What she did wrong is tho,not choosing a silver hair Targaryen to mate instead. She should've just convinced corlys to do the deed. Also she was choosing a suitable husband & was literally on marriage tour but it was cut short because of the stunt daemon pulled, still u can blame her for that as she clearly isn't smart.
For one Laenor seemed to be unable to have kids. It is implied that they tried and it just didn't happen. And why wouldn't she demand that Alicent give up her kids? Rhaenyra didn't put them in the position they are in, Alicent and Otto did. They committed treason for decades to ensure Rhaenyra was stripped of her inheritance, yet it's a problem because she fought back?! The Green's usurp her and murder her son. What should she have done? Behaved like Helaena? Say, that all Prince's have to die? Gotten on her knees and begged Alicent's miserable ass for forgiveness? After all, it's Rhaenyra's fault that her former bestie married her father KNOWINGLY to breed children that would one day take Rhaenyra's inheritance. It's also Rhaenyra's fault that her former bestie raised her children to hate Rhaenyra and their own nephews. Like, how can the person having their shit stolen be the villain?! This is like getting mad at homeowners who defend themselves during a home invasion. We wouldn't be here if their greedy asses didn't cross the line. This was a choice, and after everything they are fucking around and finding out. Everything after Aegon's coronation is solely on Team Green. Periodt.
@@angelyuqi6709 The fact they act like Rhaenyra is the one who started this is insane. Like what the hell are many of these people smoking? There is no justification at all for what Team Green does to start the war. This is like me saying Bran deserved to be pushed because he was a peeping Tom. It's not Jaime's fault. Bran climbing the walls of a tower in his own damned house was a crime.
Honestly im not even mad I didn't get to see the Battle of the Gullet, Fall of KL in eps 9&10, because i know I'm going to be let down in the end even if it was a complete 10 ep season. Spectacle isnt going to negate all the poor, nonsensical writing, mischaracterisations and contrived set ups that we've seen thus far.
@singstreetcar5881 Season 8 was still far worse than HOTD Season 2. HOTD Season 2 has some good stuff in it, whereas GOT Season 8 was almost completely worthless.
@@SolarDragon007 It's not just season 8 that was awful, GoT turned into trash as soon as season 5. Even season 4 was already kinda problematic. The first 3 season were masterpieces though.
You could remove Daemon's entire plot line from Season 2 (him not being loyal to Rhaenyra at Harrenhall, which wasn't even in the book) and it would make no difference. Massive waste of screen time
@@echelongirl9685 Which is dumb. In F&B Daemon's loyalty is never questioned and they did a piss poor job of translating their intentions onscreen. Daemon has done absolutely NOTHING that implies he'd turn on Rhaenyra, not one time. So, having him go through that filler haunted mansion bs was just that, bs. We got the outcome we knew we'd get. Daemon's relationship with his girls and Laena asking if he was taking care of them is the only thing I truly cared about. And I also liked the scene of closure as he consoles Viserys after Aemma and the baby die. The rest? Total waste of time. The sad thing is the fact we are going to more than likely get the same bs with Aemond/Alys.
Supposedly, it was the actors who put that in. Rhaenyra leaning on Mysaria for comfort when she is in a moment of isolation and feeling vulnerable although makes sense, they should've done it differently or built it up better because in the scene they chose it was too abrupt and felt out of place for the topic they were discussing. As a result, it felt forced and that the writers/actors were trying to deliver their own personal message rather than honoring the story being told
@@ashleyelisabeth4the scene should have been framed like Jaime and Brienne’s conversation in the bath house, with the camera panning back and forth between the two women as they sat across from each other with Mysaria revealing her past. That was such a beautiful scene of vulnerability. Instead, we got an out of place kiss.
When rheneys bursted out from the ground in season 1 killing innocent small folks in the dragon pit, that's when I knew the show was gonna turn to crap
I gave up on the season throughout. Aegon kept me going till episode 4. After that I was checked out and only watched sporadically. It seems to me that the majority of characters just say things that need to be said so that a desired plot point can be arrived at, not something that they should or would organically say as the people they are, or used to be in season 1. Also, the worst thing from season 1 - prophecies and such - spread like a plague this season. Basically every major character is tainted by a prophecy or a vision of the future now. Well, that caused my intrigue to plummet into oblivion. Excellent channel, btw. Just discovered it to my joy :).
A lot of people defending the shows pacing by saying Game of Thrones was slow must never have understood why Game of Thrones slow moments were good. Good writing. The slow moments in HotD season 2 were boring and uninteresting.
Right. And battles didn't endear me to GOT, neither did the dragons...it was the political angle, especially when Tywin was still alive. Nothing beats the KL scenes in the first four seasons. Hell, no one beats the Lannister's period.
The only 2 changes I like is making Aemond maling him accidentally kill Luke and making him look worried thay he fucked up, and making Aegon funny and later more sympathetic. The work because the source material is respected, everything else sucks and doesnt make sense.
@@mgm3649 Aemond’s change is dumb, every time we see him before that point he is doing something dark/ violent: and now all of a sudden he does not actually want to kill the boy who cut out his eye? Do you know how bad having your eye sliced out would hurt in medieval times? With their horrible methods of medicine? Aemond easily could have died from an infection afterwards. Any man would want to kill the person who did that to them, especially if they are your enemy in an inevitable civil war.
Absolutely hit the dam nail with this video. Alicent is not the same from the books or the previous season. They make all the changes to make Rhaenyra better to what she actually is…….instinct like
I disagree, they don't give a shit about the whole Black vs Green, what they want is to make Rheanyra and Alicent both somehow victims, that everything bad happening is actually the fault of the men around manipulating them.
Im so happy to hear a fellow book reader who sees the show the same as me... as minimizing the story and war itself and that the show itself is contradicting...they change the charactets and make them weaker... everyone from the blacks and greens rhaenyra beent the heir and i honestly dont like the changes none of them to be honest especially visions and dreams because viserys wasnt delusional as the show is making him he was just more supportive of his first daughter the realm delight and you are right IT IS A DIFFERENT STORY NOT A STORY OF TARGARYEN DYNASTY DESTROYING ITSELF ..
Also every deviation from the books results in a butterfly type effect where one needs to tie up multiple plotlines because you broke those connections that existed when you decided to go your own way rather than follow the source material. Veering off the books isnt always bad but if you do it with major plotpoints and major characters then one will have usually a harder time in maintaining the integrity of the original story. But it does seem that todays showrunners often think that they can write stuff as good as the original writers did. Look at Halo tv-series or the Witcher tv-series as an example.
As someone who hasn't read Fire and Blood yet, I feel like S2 is a nearly complete deflation from everything that made me feel invested in S1. First few S2 episodes weren't bad, but something felt missing (a ton of it having to do with making the Greens "bad" and the Blacks "good" when S1 stayed more in the middle with some oscillation), and by the end it just feels empty. It'd be one thing if invested writers had some execution writers, but this feels like the writers don't take the story seriously, and that's a deadly flaw.
Great video! I agree completely! For me they ruined so much the story from the books that i won't bother with next season, i think from this point this show will be a waste of time..
Also the show going out of their way to fill the cast with "muh diversity" and then snubbing and cutting nettles, the only OG story character with melanin is pure comedy. But yeah Rhae-Rhae good, Aemond grumpy and mean.
Changing the character's personality because of their gender is a writing mistake and a bad decision because it influences the story in a big way. Changing the color of the skin of some characters, however, isn't detrimental to the story. Of all the things to get annoyed by, this is the stupidest.
@@mammamonssterrI think in this case it actually is a problem. It makes Rhaenerya’s heirs REALLY OBVIOUSLY visually illegitimate like immediately on the update. Considering the entire war hinges on the legitimacy of the ruler, this really tips the scales and recontextualizes that whole plot
@@mammamonssterrand relax man, black people can handle not being cast in a show about white nobles doing incest and being evil. They don’t need you to “take up for them” (you’re not)
@@OrchinX making it really obvious is the opposite of a problem. It's a big theme how in jeopardy the position of Rhaenyra's children is, being unmistakably bastards. People KNOW they are. So much so that Aegon and Aemond tease them for it and Aemond loses an eye in a dispute related to it, and that's a big part later on in the war. Making them white instead of black is a good decision, in my opinion. Of course the hair color was obvious already, but again, the skin color makes a stronger (hehe) point.
Sara Hess isn’t more talented than George. She’s not close to being as talented of a writer than him. She shouldn’t be changing his writing for her own. It’s like going to watch Celine Dion in concert and instead you get someone who sometimes does local karaoke.
@@Male_Ficent No, I think that part (if it even happens since they spoiled it) will be like the book. Daemon sends Rhaena away and he faces Aemond alone.
After S2, it's already too late. With Aemond knowing he'll die at Harrenhall, Aemond and Aegon basically being full blown enemies at each other's throats, Daeron not even being introduced yet, Rhaenyra not being a classist bigot but rather a flawless angel, Nettles not existing, and Alicent being okay with the execution of her sons, the show is already beyond recovery. It's dead. Nothing that made sense in the book can still make sense now, and I'll explain why in order of the things I mentioned: Aemond would never go to Harrenhall knowing he'd die there. So no Gods' Eye battle can logically take place. Aegon and Aemond being enemies because Aemond is a Disney villain (literally Scar from The Lion King) means no powerhouse duo, and thus no reason for either to do the many things they did on behalf of the other, to save and help each other. This has a direct impact on Rhaenyra's seizing of King's Landing and Daemon's fight with Aemond. Daeron not being introduced yet means he can't fill this role of brotherly camaraderie either, making the aforementioned even worse. Furthermore, he's arguably the MVP of the entire Dance who turned the tides in favor of The Greens twice. Why the fuck does he not even exist yet??? Rhaenyra's bigotry, classism, racism and narcissism in the book is what makes Hugh and Ulf turn from her because she mistreats them since they're ''peasants''. But in the show, Rhaenyra is fully supportive of the peasantry and even said herself ''Let us raise an army of bastards'' like the beautiful, flawless, angelic woman she is. So yeah, that ruins the entire switch up (though I got the sneaky suspicion Jace is being set up to be the one to make Ulf and Hugh turn on them because a man is allowed to be a bigot, and in fact they'll love writing the fact that it's only due to incompetent and bigoted men that Rhaenyra's side took losses). Nettles not existing means Sheepstealer will be a loyal force to Team Black (Rhaena) instead of an independent party who basically draws Daemon away from the conflict, which makes the Daemon/Aemond fight even less sensical. On top of this, Nettles was also a huge mirror for Rhaenyra's bigotry, which is part of the reason that Daemon basically ditched her and would've left the Dance entirely had he survived his conflict with Aemond. But again, Rhaenyra is a beautiful perfect angel like all women except for Alicent always are, so no mirrors allowed, and thus no Nettles, and thus the third layer of removal of the setup for the Gods' Eye battle between Daemon and Aemond. As for Alicent being okay with this shit, her not being okay with it was (along with Tyland withholding the crown's wealth even as he was tortured and mutilated by Rhaenyra, which likely also won't happen as Rhaenyra is a magnificent, kind, perfect goddess) literally the reason Rhaenyra lost any and all favor with the common folk in King's Landing, which was the direct cause of the rebellion that expunged her from the city, which led to her death at the hands of Aegon and Sunfyre as she fled to Dragonstone and got clapped by them there. Literally none of this can happen now because Alicent sold out The Greens, meaning no common folk revolt can logically take place against Rhaenyra since The Greens (Helaena and Alicent) will allow in and condone her ascension to the throne, meaning they'd logically have the wealth and provisions of the crown, meaning no revolt from the peasantry, meaning no fleeing from the city, meaning no burning and eating alive at the hands of Aegon and Sunfyre. Honestly I knew it'd be shit as soon as I saw that the Velaryons were black. People can call me racist all they want, idc, but even putting aside the fact that erasing one ethnic group for another is hideously fucking racist; that already showed that they were prioritizing identity politics over story, because the entire reason the Dance ever happened was that Jace and Luke COULD have been Laenor's children as Laenor wasn't black, and the kids were only black of hair, which could be explained away by Rhaenys also having black hair from her Baratheon side. It could have just skipped a generation from Laenor to his kids. We know it wasn't true, but it was feasible enough for corrupt lords to go with. But in the show, it's super fucking obvious that they're bastards, sharing neither Laenor's hair, nor that of either of his parents, nor their skin colors. And that just shatters immersion, because medieval lords would NEVER tolerate that shit. They would all be team Green, all of them immediately turning against Rhaenyra and Viserys for supporting her in putting bastards on the throne. The writing has been trash from the start. People, myself included, just didn't want to see it.
They turned Daemon, GRR Martin's favorite character and the most dangerous man in the realm, into a joke. Rhaenyra who is a torturing psycho and murdering evil woman in the books (after being likable in the beginning) turned into this innocent grieving creature who wants to take the throne bloodlessly. Aemond, a guy who was the devil incarnate desperate to be like Daemon suddenly becomes a 2024 British lad full of remorse and drowning in psychobabbling that in 2024 make sense. But that in that world doesn't. Alicent giving the throne is nonsense too. Daemon who is more snake than dragon devised the plan to conquer King's Landing.
They messed Aemond up the moment they deviated from the fact that he is simply psychotic. They woobified him and now fans are upset because the real Aemond has shown up.
The writers cared more about side stuff like current day culture war than the actual story. Not once, has this made a good product. If they really want to show more women involvement, show the foreign whisperer women having more lesbian sex scenes, it’s a win win
Alicent and Rhaenyra being childhood friends was a terrible idea and it's clear it was only done to give center stage to these two characters. I don't want Alicent to be someone I can sympathize with, I want her to be the evil ruthless stepmother she was in the books. There's so much interesting stuff happening during this war, I could care less about their supposed friendship in the show.
I think we can still see conflicts with Raena (not being Nettles). I think that Rhaenyra can hold Raena accountable for what is to come with her sons and direct all of her rage towards her causing Deamon to split his loyalty between his queen/wife and his daughter. Though by the way the show writers are letting her be so forgiving of Alicent - it would be weird if she’s going hard towards Raena. It wouldn’t be weird due to the Nettles cut though. It would also be weird because the show had made Daemon have no connection with his daughters. It’s so weird
The Show writers who seem to be awfully keen on "making improvements" to well established stories surprisingly don't have any credible writing credits to their names, I wonder why.... smh
The advertised it to choose your side. But the showrunners seem to have picked a side already. Even from season 1, you can tell they already have a "protagonist" :/
4:57 - They learned nothing from Daenerys and GOT season 8. The fact that aren't laying the groundwork for what comes later makes me wonder if they're going to completely change the story so that Rhaenyra doesn't go full Mad Queen
Imagine giving someone creative control over your work, your baby, and they start to insist they know what’ll benefit the story better than you do. Now imagine that happening to you TWICE.
I’d be happy with your number of subscribers but you do deserve a lot more. Thanks for articulating what a lot of us may have felt about season 2. It sucks that the showrunners want to turn it into a borderline Rhaenyra and Alicent lesbian fan-fiction. If HotD goes the way of Game of Thrones, it would be more unforgivable as the source material is already finished.
Honestly they could've worked with 8 episodes. Was it underwhelming? Yea, but It's not even the lack of action and dragon battles that got me turned off this season, It's the awful brain dead writing, monotonous storytelling and character assassinations. I rewatched season 1 of GOT last week and god damn I could watch them just talking all day. There was tension and conflict. It goes to show that a multimillion dollar budget and all the cgi in the world cant replace good writing & storytelling. HOTD, season 2 specifically, is just filled with shameless cameos, marvel-esque fan service, and nonsensical plot lines that veered too far from the book. They're literally making the same mistake as D&D. Well at least D&D had the excuse of running out of source material.
horrible season. And season 3 will be bad also. I hope they atleast get Hour of the Wolf corretly. meanwhile team gold Aegon II and Sunfyre. And i hate Daemon this season more than any character of late. They lost me with him. Too bad because Rogue Prince isn't dog on the leash
There’s an interview with Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke being asked why each side should win and Emma hesitates then says “BECAUSE DADDY SAID SO” kinda jokingly. It made for a funny moment but when you take into consideration that that IS how the writers have chosen to portray this version of Rhaenyra it leaves much to be desired. Her wanting the crown just because she’s supposed to have it (as opposed to being power hungry and cutthroat like in the book) doesn’t really lend much credence to her actions later on so I’m curious to see how they’re gonna write that in. How she is now is a complete 180 from how she’s supposed to end up.
I never watched this show... I was such a huge GoT fan but after the last two seasons, I promised myself I wasn't going to give it another shot and now I'm glad I didn't 😅
I knew they f*cked up this season when they added Ali-Cole sex in 1st episode itself... - Alicent and Cole's relationship in Season 1 was built around the idea that Cole lost his honour due to Rhaenyra, and Alicent gave him a second chance... It is a relation much beyond simple $ex... He worships her as an angel... - Cole also sees her as an honourable woman in between dishonourable and openly lieing ppl like Viserys and Rhaenyra... That is another reason why he respects her... ---- Reducing that to simple $ex and worse showing them having $ex during Blood & Cheese is the worst thing they could do to Alicent's character... - I guess Alicent started becoming a symbol of women who respect traditional values... It is direct opposite to Rhaenyra who f*cked around with many men... So, Show-runners wanted to destroy that character... In the last episode, they even made Alicent say that Rhaenyra was correct in sleeping outside marriage... ---- It is like writers don't want anyone to have any relation other than $ex... They're ruing characters...
@@2ndgenmonkfan306 see the thing is D&D wasn't bad directors, they were bad writers when they had source material, they did a good job (got s1 to s4 or s5) the problem accrued when they ran out of source materials, when they have to come up with new idea and think how some certain characters would go on in story that's where they F up.
@@rxebec they started deviating quite a lot before the books even ended. Hence why s5-6 were particularly lackluster. They ain't no better than HOTD writers. Not to mention that given the nature of F&B, they will be forced to come up with their own thing to fill the gaps and we've seen how bad their dialogues can get. "you want a good girl, but you need a bad pussy." 😐
@@CaleebTalibit wasn’t neutered for no reason. It was done on purpose because the real scene makes Rhaenyra look bad. Condal said in an interview that the book version was made up by Alicent to “smear” Rhaenyra.
They HAD A COMPLETE STORY THAT WAS FULLY WRITTEN WITH AN ENDING! I was hoping they would follow the story thoroughly. Season 1 had changes but I still think they improved the story and was still faithful to the book. Season 2 did the complete opposite. Alicent and Rhaenyra HATE each other beyond repair. Alicent sabotaging her own son’s battle plans while willingly allowing her other son to die. What a joke. She stands be her children to the bitter end in the book. No matter how cruel they were etc. no maelor, blood and cheese was done horribly. No nettles. Horrible harrenhall subplot.
Aemond gets right criticized for killing smallfolk, but no one mentions it when Rhaenys massacred men, women and we can assume children. Rhaenyra talked about Daemon damaging her claim by killing Jaehaerys, but Rhaenys spilt one of the first blood in the war. Of course it might seem like a small point, but they harped on it with Aemond and still showed Rhaenys supporting rhaenyra’s pacifism while already killing people. Terrible writing
What disloyalty? Daemon let Nettles go and went to fight Aemond for Rhaenyra even tho he knew its a sewer side mission to go against Vhagar alone. He literally said "a whore's work" about Mysaria's rumors about Nettles being his side piece
you also forget about the conqueror dream, they made the whole dance about it and i think this coming from HBO so make us forget about the bad ending of GOT
No one seems to mention this, but due to the writer’s strikes, they were generally shooting on 1st draft scripts for the whole show, they couldn’t write more and/or make revisions. So no wonder the script was a total dumpster fire that lacked direction and conviction.
The Alicent from season 1 would have been more likely to offer her own life to Rhaenyra than Aegon's, because she and Otto pushed Aegon to take a throne he literally didn't want.
See this one the cases where black vs white morality in the show doesn’t work. I know that plenty are getting tired of grey vs grey in tv shows. Given that it will be difficult to know who to root for. And this were many misses the point. I don’t think we’re supposed to root for either side. Which might cause some feeling apathetic towards characters. And I think that is what the writers were afraid of. However, people forget that war is ugly. It doesn’t give damn who was in the right. This is a tragic story, yet I don’t feel any tragedy happening. All deaths feels so anticlimactic. Anyways I find it amusing that the writers tried making some characters “likeable”, and ended up making them boring.
I agree 100%. Accept I won’t be awaiting season 3. I’ve lost hope that anyone can adapt George’s work faithfully without writers egos getting in the way wanting to make it their own story. 😢
Very disappointed with Season 2. This was a fall off a cliff compared to the high standard Season 1 set for the show. What kept me going back to it, though, was the stunning visual effects of the dragons and costumes. So much potential being wasted, and ultimately, everybody's time! This feels like a teenage version of Game of Thrones, with the writing being equivalent for that age group.
Something I noticed and annoyed me in the writing is many times you would hear the characters saying that something has to be done or something's gonna happen and then you see it happening in the next scene instead to crisscross plots as it's normally done.
another issue....acting, in got they cast pretty looking actors but also those who look\ked average but were banger actors who knocked it outta the park like alfie allen an average looking actor but my god his performance was so nuanced especially the eyes acting, in hotd everyone is a pretty boy or gal but their acting is so mid, like the guy playing jace, just a pretty boy not saying terrible actor but he looks like he is just there to be eye candy
I did appreciate the world building. It showed that repairing and launching a giant ship takes months and hundreds of people and great resources. (Not just saying build me a thousand ships)
Last scene of s1 when renhyra was mad and her eyes were screaming revenge. 😤 just to start s2 being the least caracter who wants revenge 🤔i literally almost forgot her son died 😐
I have not finished season 2 as I gave up after when Rhaenyra Teleported herself into the capital...I mean Snuck herself in there to have an emotional conversation with Alicent Hightower. I was already getting frustrated with the constant emotional crying, and none stop "we must not go to war just yet" bla bla from Rhaenyra. I feel like after Rhaenyra's son had died it should of been all out war which would 99% of happened during the medieval period. When you have two kings or queens contesting the throne there is no sneaking into each other's castle to have a one-on-one heart felt conversation with each other. For heaven's sake even during the Ottomans brothers would kill each other for the throne. Modern writing is a joke.
So...ONCE AGAIN people (writers) that had NOTHING to do with creating a literary masterpiece, decides that they KNOW better than it's creator and just...DESTROYS the whole thing!!! Oh Hollywood...you will NEVER be missed!!! ☹
Correction: writers want to see Rhaenyra and Alicent together, not the audience.
writers said that the audience want to see them together
@@morgoth4962the writers only listens to the Twitter audience, not the majority of the audience, who just wants a good, coherent story.
The writers and the weirdos on twitter that ship them together.
🎯🔥🔥🔥🔥💯 Bingo “House of the DEI”👀🔎🧐
@@rebelwolfofmibu yes, House Blackrock is very pleased with the show’s “development”.
"Let's get Alicent and Rhaenyra in the same room again...and again"
I wont be suprised if they made them F next season 😂
@@sabgogo7393 lol might as well at this point
Would be hot as fuck but it would be really bad for the story
@@lumarrandom8144 man porn ruined our generation
Technically in the book they are in the same room
But they Skip the part when she invades Kingslanding 😂😂😂😂
“Hey guys, I know this is supposed to be a complex story with grey characters but the patriarchy is bad and Rhaenyra can do no wrong. Also, Alicent is a great person for willing to give up her son.”
"I mean, sure, Rhaneryra and Alicent might be ultra privileged, rich, white, pretty, self centered royals fighting a pointless war for power that destabilize the entire land and cost the life of thousands, mostly low born people... but hey they are women so it's all good, slay queens"
yeah like seriously, are we supposed to root for her?
Good thing there was no social media on westeros. Imagine people who fought for both sides found out the two figure head that they thought were arch-enemies are in fact besties behind the close doors. 😂😂😂😂😂@vee1766
I'm confused. Is that supposed to be the writers perspective or the audience. Because I feel like it's the audience saying "Rhaenyra can do no wrong," while simultaneously listing story points that show she can do wrong.
YASSS SLAAAYYY 🎉😂
I couldn't agree more. I think the writers really think they can do better than George R. R. Martin himself.
Which is what he called out in that blog post about adaptations.
I think Martin himself would struggle to adapt it to screen. Most of his show and film adaptations are crap.
@@J_ads2000 It's not his job anyway.
@@J_ads2000 didn't he write several of the best GoT episodes?
HBO writers have a god-complex that causes them to repeatedly murder shows by making changes to source material.
I came in as a book reader expecting to fill the GAPS in the story, detailing the time skips and choosing at each juncture the version that sat best with them.
Instead they've altered it to the point that I'm not even sure why they chose to do this story AT ALL, clearly they don't like the original characters, nor the complexity of the succession crisis. They've no desire to explore the depth of the errors of primogeniture nor the problem with giving children NUKES.
This feels, already, like bad fan fiction. They've lost me already.
Lol wtf...Aemond literally burns a town and murdered his cousin by accident the season before, "dragons being a power we don't understand "is one of the cruxes of the story so that alone makes you kinda wrong or just it flying over your head..in other words, COPE
Just mentioning it without showing it still counts as bad writing
@@hez859Dragons not being able to be controlled is horseshit, the onus in the books lies on the riders not the dragons for the bad things that are done.
Honestly, they could have just done a version of F and B, utilizing all it's ambiguity and hidden realities by use of clever writing
I mean imagine this:
Tyrion narrates the story because he's reading the in-world history book by Gyldane. Now he isn't literally going line by line, but occasionally Dinklage is coming in and giving context or his opinion on a certain outcome. For example he outlines all the possible rumors of who killed the Strongs and maybe he says what he believes really happened. Idk. Just feel like that would be fun and at least keeps to the lore
@hez859 In the book, it is Aemunds rage. He 100% goes to kill his cousin after being aggravated.
In the show, it is an accident. He's laughing and tormenting him and even can be heard shouting at vhagar to stop.
The difference is very important for the characterisation.
Does anyone else find it strange that Aemond feels remorse for killing Luke, a bastard who took out his eye, but doesn't express any guilt over Helaena's son being murdered as retaliation for Luke's death? It was just one of many huge missed opportunities this season.
Even Heleana doesn't care anymore, because kids die all the time🤦♀️
@SofiaByrsan God, I hated that fucking scene. The amount this show sweeps for the Blacks is maddening
Aemond feels remorse for Halaena's son .Why should he feel guilty though ? He didn't kill him .
@spiekd He doesn't. Aemond doesn't mention Helaena's son at all, not even when he tries to convince her to come with him to Harrenhall. He should feel guilty because Jaehaerys was murdered as revenge for Aemond killing Luke. If Aemond did not go after Luke, Helaena's son would still be alive.
Also, he regrets killing Luke but has no problem murdering his brother
I’m so glad you included that take on the scene from Olivia Cooke. It makes me feel validated that even some of the actors felt off about the way the show is going
Alicent obviously remembers all the scenes about her kids
The writers not
Olivia has said in interviews during s1 that she was excited to see alicent go mad and go all out for her kids and then they go ahead and butchered her character, even Olivia understands her character more than the writers do, what a joke
Baela’s actress also mentioned how she read the book and has been begging Condal not to change Baela’s story.
@@khfan4life365 Well, Baela doesn't even have a story/character on the show yet, though he technically didn't change it. 🙄
2:30 - It's good to know that even Olivia Cooke was baffled by Alicent's characterization.
Nah, i don't believe it one bit. Those actors have WAY more power than you imagine, they more often than not play a significant part in those "rewriting" of characters. That's what happened with GoT already with Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner using their new influence and popularity to ruin Arya and Sansa by turning them into ridiculous cliché girlboss.
@vee1766 If that is the case, why would she say she was confused about how they wrote the character? If she agreed with the direction they went and thought it was good, wouldn't she praise it?
@@vee1766 They have some power - at least some of them do. But that was also after several seasons already in GoT. They would have been hard to replace by that point. If they'd tried to change things after S1 or S2 it'd have been harder for them to argue when they might still potentially be replaced.
But then recall what happened in S8 as one character after another was butchered. Pretty much no one was happy during the readings of the Scripts that have been leaked/released. Maybe Arya and Sansa (their actors) were pleased, but no one else was. Varys was appalled. So were Jon and Dany. Littlefinger certainly was too. Do you think Littlefinger wanted to go out like that? Do you think Roose Bolton would have wanted to die hugging his son that he'd never have hugged in his life? Those actors were all powerless to stop what happened to their characters. Even Dany couldn't stop what happened to her. Amelia Clarke was powerless even as arguably the most powerful actor in the entire show. She was allowed to stop doing n*de stuff but not allowed to have her descent into madness make any kind of sense or be in any way compelling or satisfying.
@@vee1766 Did it look like Conleth Hill or Aidan Gillian or even Emilia 'Now That I have Made It Big I will No Longer Put My Melons Out There' Clarke had a lot of control over the directions their characters took in S7 and S8?
Alicent: "cOmE wItH mE" 🤡🤡🤡
audience: **d13s from cringe**
House of the Euphoria (2024)
I still don't understand what Alicent really meant when she said "Come with me."
Viserys s1 clearly bad king and father
Viserys mentioned in s2 as Good and smart
She wanted Rhaenyra to run away with her so they could be lovers, essentially. @@hemanthkapavarapu8380
@@hemanthkapavarapu8380 In Season 1, under the weirwood tree, they talked about traveling around the world together, you know- 'away from the patriarchy'. Some viewers interpreted this as a lesbian moment, and this scene confirmed that interpretation, Alicent is taking up on her offer but it's too late. 🤮 Why didn't they explore this more in season 1...
It's cowardice, simple as that, pathetic cowardice. They were worried about how people would react to a show centered around two villainous, power hungry women acting like cruel and ruthless tyrants so they decided to put all the bad stuff they do in the books unto the men around them instead and turn the women into victims while they were at it. And you can see it from the very beginning of the show, season 2 just amplifies it. It's never, EVER directly Rhaneryra or Alicent's fault.
I've never viewed Alicent and Rhaenyra as victims though? They both have done terrible things in the show
The previous show was criticized for having the final two antagonists on the show, being two women. It's screamed 'women shouldn't rule'.
@@rsync9490 Listen to yourself, then that means every other work where the antagonist is a dude means "men shouldn't rule". That makes most shows a critique on male rule.
@NTNG13 My point stands: If you are going to show the audience an example of a poor female leader, you must also show an example of a decent or great female leader. It's not unusual that male antagonists are the foils of male protagonists, so an example of a poor male ruler and a prodigious male ruler is very common in these stories. Sansa, an average schemer who begs her brother for independent rule, is not an example of a competent female ruler. Every other female ruler bit the dust, and it wasn't Sansa who took these women out.
@@rsync9490 You don’t need to show the audience anything because you are not trying to teach the audience anything. You’re trying to entertain them with a good story.
The fragile minds who complain about things like this are the minority for a reason.
Will rheanarya even get eaten by sunfyre ? Or will they have her die some heroic death that makes no sense
I wandered if they would let their lead actress be eaten by a dragon.
I don't see them doing that to this rheanyra. She's probably die fighting aegon in the sky of dragonstone being cool
@@juliusfishman7222lame
Aegon in his bed said my dragon is dead... like WHAT? No he's not. Sunfyre is still alive in the books after the battle of Rook's Rest. What's going on here....
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they have her beat sunfyre in a one vs one combat scene
"kinda forgot..." when it comes to the ASOIAF universe, those words give me PTSD.
Hilarious
D&D adapted GOT well . But they just wanted to do other things and gave up . The first seasons had alot of non-book canon scenes that made love the show . But HOTD writers are just not good
@@sabgogo7393The first four seasons were PEAK GOT! That's no discussion.
Sometimes i just pretend Seasons 7, 8 and even 5 and 6 didn't happen at all 😂😂😂
Apparently, HotD showrunners' is to make us forget how bad the end of GoT was
@@luciotargino5187 i really think D&D would do waay better with fire and blood . if they cared like they did with the early GOT .
@@sabgogo7393lmaoooo is that you David Benioff?!? 😂
No way on God's green earth did you just say they would have done a better job. Lmaoooo they didn't even understand the lore at all. Ryan Condal is literally knee deep in all of it and understands the story in ways D&D never could. Wow. Just wow, actual D&D apologists. Crazy. They avoided the magic of the book series at every turn and in HOTd we're getting old gods shenanigans and THE GREEN MEN
And for the record, season 2 of HOTd wasn't perfect but it had some damn good dialogue at certain moments and you can tell writing for ten episodes then last minute having to change the format to 8 probably didn't help either.. it wasn't perfect but you also didn't get these ridiculous exposition dumps and penis jokes every 3 lines like we got with D&D towards the end... What they did to Euron alone is enough to make me think they had no clue wtf they were doing. House of the dragon encapsulates the world much more even compared to old GOT
Mysaria- "Lemme trauma dump real quick, my dad is a butt-head"
Rhae-Rhae- "OMG I'm so sorry that happened to you for real"
*out of nowhere kissing scene*
These two characters had zero romantic chemistry and didn't share a scene together until 4 episodes ago. Their kiss and romantic interest makes no sense and I feel inclined to say that if rhaenyra was a man in that scene and used someone's gratuitous SA survival trauma story as a way to steal a kiss, that scene would be viewed for what it really is, out of place and pretty slimy.
Fan fiction inserts and a plot that has ground to a halt.
Praise THE MESSAGE, ALL HAIL THE MESSAGE!
That scene was actually improved lmaoo
@@arrasectumwhich explains why the scene is so sh*tty and why they never addressed it in the next episode.
Remember when in GOT Tyrion says he should have known his first wife was a prostitute? Because he had “saved” her from rapers, and yet she rushed into his bed right afterwards.
And yet in this scene, the same thing happens. Horrible horrible incest rape story, and 20 seconds later… we’re horny? Sorry but I don’t buy it.
and i hate how it was so unnecessary and didn't change shit in the plot cz both just continued their life as it never happened
@@khfan4life365 That scene was out of nowhere, mainly a bribery gaslighting excuse to brush aside the fact that Rhaenyra was groomed by her own uncle.
Cersei: " Why don't you trust me like you trust your sons?"
Tywin: "I don't mistrust you because you're a woman. I mistrust you because you're not as smart as you think you are."
From GoT season 4. A scene like that would NEVER happen in HotD.
A woman feeling oppressed over her gender, but having that viewpoint challenged rather than validated? A man slamdunking an argument with a woman? Unthinkable with Sara Hess on the team.
Tywin had no filter
@@frankvandorp2059 Sarah Hess Rewrite
Cersei: Your sons are fools like you, I am my mother’s daughter.
Tywin: *place quill down* I’m listening
Cersei: Who shall lead the pride when the lions are unworthy? the lioness has claws as well!
Tywin: Okay, you’re my heir!
That was a good scene, and definitely missing from hotd. But tywin could've taught her to be smarter. people never blame tywin for how cersei came out or robert for how joffrey came out.
@@errorsinconduct I disagree with that, I think people generally agree that Tywin's main fault was the way he messed up his children, which probably is going to undo his entire legacy.
And that scene also gave Cersei a lot more in terms of characterization. We see her feeling like she's never truly been seen, though she feels like she should have been. She felt she contributed the most when she married Robert Baratheon. This is a driving force behind why Cersei is the way she is.
I had to respond to this because despite it all, Cersei is my favorite character, hands down. Especially female character because she absolutely owns who she is. She takes every lump and moment of humiliation and carries on. She's not selling her own children out AFTER she raised them to be exactly who they actually became. She's not considering a peace treaty because she was once friends with someone, even though they stole her birthright and murdered her son. She's definitely not trying to allow someone to breathe after her grandchild is beheaded.
On HoTD, they are afraid to make women REACT. It's okay for Alicent and Rhaenyra to be angry. It's okay for Rhaenys to tell Rhaenyra to kiss her ass as she believes Laenor died at Daemon's hand on her orders. It's okay for Helaena to react to her child being beheaded. It's okay for Baela to drag the shit out of Corlys when they speak about Rhaenys, as that conversation should have been about THEM not Rhaenyra.
It's OKAY. They act like this fandom is full of idiots and that we can't use discernment while watching this series.
GRRM is cursed to have his work written over with has been who think they can improve upon his work to fit with the modern audience. Got was understandable bad ending without guide from the books, but HoTd is unforgivable butchering of his work.
Yeah I’m really annoyed that they have the entire perfect story right there they literally just have to fill in the details and instead they’re switching the plot up for no reason. Characters getting cut out of the show is my biggest complaint, Nettles not existing is insane.
Also changing side characters to make them less interesting. I was excited for Alys Rivers, who was a manipulative, seductive, and petulant bastard of house strong. A witch who possessed great powers and her own agenda. But instead they made her Daemons bestie? Why do all the women in this universe get there morally dark characteristics erased? That’s literally sexist. Women are everything men are including human. Which means they have their own ambitions, and make evil choices sometimes.
Poor guy and it's so much more painful when you realise GRRM is the one who hired Rayan condal and they presented it to HBO
Maybe he could finish his book series to have a lasting legacy for his stories besdies s8 GoT and this shite
The saddest part is that Olivia Cook and Emma D'Arcy would have been incredible to play the darker version of their characters.
It's Tyrion all over again. They don't wan't characters to become ruthless or evil but they keep adapting material from the books that are clearly going in that direction.
I don't think that's Tyrion. It's really the battle of the two queens again with dumb and dumber writing it.
@@attiepollard7847Nah, you can shit on D&D all you want, but at least they KNEW how to work with material.
@@arrasectum earlier D&D brilliant but later on D&D without any books to work with horrible. At least they would have done a better job with the blood and cheese strain line and would have given us our own version of the Red wedding.
@@attiepollard7847 It is Tyrion. Instead of showing the Tysha reveal at the end of Season 4 and have him go on a darker path they just cut all of that.
We see the same thing happening with how they whitewashed Rhaenyra and butchered Alicent.
@@Ducky-vl7mp because of one exception. It's already established Tyrion doesn't want to go evil plus I believe the writers were just too focused on other characters to work with
Alicent shielding Aegon from Meleys was literally the only thing that was good about that terrible dragon scene in episode 9 of season 1. And now they have managed to retroactively ruin that too by retconning Alicent's character.
Sara Hess turned this story into a lesbian love story and ruined it.
I'm pretty sure she is the writer who said that Alicent represents female Trump supporters. I know most books are inspired by real life events like The Hunger Games and Dune but unlike those books, the complexity of Fire & Blood was sacrificed in pursuit of sending a biased political message.
No one side is perfect and the more flawed the characters are, the more real the story feels whereas in this instance the writer is saying everyone who supports someone like Alicent is evil when in history that's never the case
Man you aren’t lying. Like the mysaria stuff was super awkward and forced. I will honestly say Alicent and Rhaenyra seems more plausible but not to the point where Alicent would give up every male in her family plus her lover just have a girls trip with Rhaenyra.
@@ashleyelisabeth4Amazing how writers keep putting those Trump allegories in shows, wtf is happening to writing?
I thought the actresses just wanted to?
@@Yamaazaka are you by chance one of those simpleton who send threat's to Joffrey's actor because "he's evil" and "he wants to destroy everyone in the story" ?
There is no way in hell I would see my enemy face to face, within earshot of my guards and not take her prisoner. No freakin way. Absolute stupid writing. The entire story is about these two women not wanting to pull the trigger on each other.
Also, how the actual fuck do they sneak in and out of fortified cities? How the fuck am i supposed to believe that alicent hightower snuck into a fucking island in a guarded fortrsess wearimg the most vibrant and ornate green dress? Lmao
@@roflmaoqwerty6 Even dumber: one of the guards brought one to the other, right? I would have taken her straight to a cell.
@@roflmaoqwerty6not to mention, there was a blockade and Aemond had the city locked down. Logically, there is no f**king way that Alicent could have snuck out without being noticed.
Can't even put into words how much I hate what they done with Alicent's character, it's ridiculous
Rhaenyra complaining about not having being taught warfare because of the patriarchy, while refusing to listen to the opinions of the council (that is there for that specific reason) was so funny
She said this line in episode 10 season 1: My father prepared me to rule. The writers seems to have forgotten about that as well.
@@Loki-g3k
Well, YEAH, cos her dad, a stinky evil bad wrong dirty no good MAN, taught her, the most powerful and independentest woman ever! We can’t have that!
-these hack writers
Wasn't she shown early in the first season as being invited by her father to be a cup bearer during meetings so she could listen and learn?
I don’t think season 3 will be any better. I have a sick feeling that it will be a lot worse. There are illogical narrative choices that the writers just can’t fix (Alicent betraying her male family members to their deaths, Helaena comforting her son’s killer, etc). George jumping ship does not make season 3 look promising.
"There are illogical narrative choices that the writers just can’t fix", exactly what ruined Game Of Thrones in the long term, they keep making changes they think are inconsequential but n reality slowly turn the story into something else entirely...
I don't think either of those examples are illogical narrative choices that can't be fixed.
1) **BOOK SPOILER** We know that when Rhaenyra captures King Landing, Aegon has already been smuggled out of the city by Larys. When Alicent surrenders the Red Keep, Rhaenyra has her imprisoned. While there is never any reported secret negotiations between Alicent and Rhaenyra in Fire & Blood, that doesn't imply that the HotD depiction is dramatically changing the story. In fact, given the closeness between Alicent and Rhaenyra depicted in the show, the scene where Alicent agrees to hand over Aegon in exchange for peace actually might lay the television seeds of the breakdown in the relationship. When Rhaenyra sacks the capitol and finds that Aegon has fled, a natural assumption on her part will be that Alicent helped him escape knowing that Rhaenyra is committed to taking his head. This perceived manipulation by Alicent could easily be the television basis for Rhaenyra finally treating Alicent as her enemy. In other words, Alicent willing to give up Aegon, while a departure from the "historical" record (which wouldn't haven't necessarily been known to anyone outside of Alicent and Rhaenyra) is already being unknowingly undermined by Larys sneaking Aegon from the city and could still very well lead to Rhaenyra's wrath.
2. Haelena's loyalties were actually somewhat ambiguous in the book, she was initially willing and ready to declare fealty to Rhaenyra in order to avoid war when Aegon was first crowned. Her appearance in Daemon's vision could imply she has a greater awareness of the realm and less interest in the factional power squabbles. Or it could mean nothing, in that her presence in Daemon's vision doesn't imply she has any conscious or even direct agency in that vision. Is she really there, or just a vision generated by the Wierwood tree? We don't know enough about how those visions work to assume she is just comforting the man who (maybe) ordered the killing of her son.
@@chrisf7563This makes zero sense. If Alicent and Rhaenyra can get together and talk and reconcile after Alicent believed Rhaenyra killed her grandson, why won't they get together and talk for Rhaenyra to realize that Alicent didn't help Aegon escape?
No matter how you slice it, the illogicality gap will keep widening.
This was supposed to be a war between immoral factions; not a war between good and evil. They can't bring it back under control.
@@chrisf7563And are we supposed to forget that Alicent knows that Rhaenyra's children are not supposed to inherit the throne? Is that not the core of her opposition? Will Alicent give up Aegon for Rhaenyra and her Strong children?
@jonbolton491 That's not an absolute human nature axiom. Burying the hatchet once does not mean all future issues can be resolved between two parties. All it takes is Rhaenyra to not believe Alicent and feel manipulated/betrayed for her to no longer be so charitable. Or other issues could arise. There are still alot of ways for the show ratchet up conflict between the two, they've certainly not written themselves into a corner in which the two are simply besties for life.
I hate that they totally wasted Lucerys’ and Jahaerys’ deaths. Those deaths were supposed to galvanize both sides for fucks sake. But, all we get is Rhaenyra and Alicent looking somberly towards the distance and saying, “What would you have me do?”
House of the Dragon has issues - the writers' ego.
I wish Aegon and Aemond's relationship to be as in the books. What they did to their relationship is so stupid...
dude, she was willing to give up on her son daeron who literally hasnt even appeared yet
Alicent kinda forgot that her BROTHER and LOVER are fighting under Aegon’s banners
The only lives that matter to her are her daughter and grandaughter's. I mean women gotta band together right? Forget the men, even the innocent one who've yet to join the battle and probably only forced to out of duty and loyalty to his dumbass family. Gosh, I already feel bad for Daeron.
The reason is because the show runners see Alicent and Rhaenyra as victims of a patriarchal society, and are writing them as two women trying to navigate a patriarchal Westeros!
That’s what they mean by “two women trying to figure it out”
Hence, because they are written as “victims” the show runners see them as the protagonists of the show and can’t have them actively taking responsibility or being the main catalysts for the war. That’s why Rhaenyra is so indecisive and that’s why Alicent gets sidelined by the “males” on the Green Council.
Alicent and Rhaenyra have to meet up in Episode 3 and Episode 8 becaus the show runners are writing them to eventually gang up against the oppressive patriarchy.
In the show runners minds, victims need to team up against their oppressors (patriarchal Westeros). Hence, Alicent has to support Rhaenyra’s claim and give up her male children as that’s the right thing to do to end the patriarchy.
Sadly, this is not the story of Fire and Blood that GRRM wrote. It’s nonsensical that the show runners are doing this.
Man pursuing the throne at all costs = evil, tyrant
Woman pursuing the throne at all costs = good always
Men=bad
Women=good
This is the show in a nutshell
Quest for power needs choices to be made and inherently hurts people in the process. Men or women don’t matter. That should be the story.
Yaaaaassssss😂
I wish this was just meme, but you nailed it.
The showrunners see women as morally superior; therefore, they can be either victims or heroes.
I've never read the book, so I don't have any bias towards the source material. And I still had Alicent as my favorite character in S1: a mother, an IMPERFECT mother who cares about her children and is willing to fight to protect them, with a sense of duty in her own way.
However, even in Season 1 they refused to make Alicent go all out on her game and chose to make her submit to the "Aegon's Song" BS Viserys whispered...
At Season 2, finally, she is not there. I tried to find that Alicent from the "Driftmark" scene, but I couldn't...
Alicent was
@@luciotargino5187then I honestly think you have misunderstood her character. I have never gotten the impression that Alicent cared about any of her children.
+ black cast for some reason
that with alicent and rhaenyra gave me the rest. i stay with books from now on, thank you very much
Season 2 felt like a trailer for season 3, nothing more.
This made me laugh. An eight episode trailer.
A really bad trailer, at that.
The showrunners made me hate Rhaenyra 😂
Man, If that is a super villain in the story, that's her...
She refused to choose a good mariage, what was her duty as princess and heir to the throne;
She allowed herself to be seduced by Daemon and got Cole to break his vows, alienating Alicent in the process;
She married to Laenor and failed to have a son with him, and could not help but to have not one, not two but three bastards stupidously different from the Velaryons. This managed to endanger her reputation, driving some lords even further from her circle and weakening her own claim to the throne, considering her heir would obviously be questioned further down the line;
She orchestrated the "death"/exile of her husband in order to marry Daemon, after realizing how weak her situation was because she broke contact with Kings Landing and her own father for years;
She happily sent ordinary people to be burned by Vermithor and smiled;
She demanded Alicent to give up all her sons, while pretending her words didn't lead to the death of a small child in her bed...
WITH ALL THUS, showrunners will never make her accountable for the bad things that happen. It's always somebody else's fault...
Ah, yes. She also demanded that Aemond, as a teen, was "sharply questioned" to say who told him the "lies" that her sons were bastards.
HINT: She knew it was no lie and the boy had just lost one eye...
How tf are u blaming HER for not being able to have a child with laenor😂?? That's on laenor not on her. She tried multiple times, HE couldn't deliver. She had no choice but to have bastards then. What she did wrong is tho,not choosing a silver hair Targaryen to mate instead. She should've just convinced corlys to do the deed. Also she was choosing a suitable husband & was literally on marriage tour but it was cut short because of the stunt daemon pulled, still u can blame her for that as she clearly isn't smart.
For one Laenor seemed to be unable to have kids. It is implied that they tried and it just didn't happen.
And why wouldn't she demand that Alicent give up her kids? Rhaenyra didn't put them in the position they are in, Alicent and Otto did. They committed treason for decades to ensure Rhaenyra was stripped of her inheritance, yet it's a problem because she fought back?!
The Green's usurp her and murder her son. What should she have done? Behaved like Helaena? Say, that all Prince's have to die? Gotten on her knees and begged Alicent's miserable ass for forgiveness? After all, it's Rhaenyra's fault that her former bestie married her father KNOWINGLY to breed children that would one day take Rhaenyra's inheritance. It's also Rhaenyra's fault that her former bestie raised her children to hate Rhaenyra and their own nephews.
Like, how can the person having their shit stolen be the villain?! This is like getting mad at homeowners who defend themselves during a home invasion. We wouldn't be here if their greedy asses didn't cross the line. This was a choice, and after everything they are fucking around and finding out. Everything after Aegon's coronation is solely on Team Green. Periodt.
@@angelyuqi6709 The fact they act like Rhaenyra is the one who started this is insane. Like what the hell are many of these people smoking? There is no justification at all for what Team Green does to start the war. This is like me saying Bran deserved to be pushed because he was a peeping Tom. It's not Jaime's fault. Bran climbing the walls of a tower in his own damned house was a crime.
Honestly im not even mad I didn't get to see the Battle of the Gullet, Fall of KL in eps 9&10, because i know I'm going to be let down in the end even if it was a complete 10 ep season. Spectacle isnt going to negate all the poor, nonsensical writing, mischaracterisations and contrived set ups that we've seen thus far.
The Gullet isn't going to pay off at all. They chose to basically sideline Jace the entire season because they want to focus on the wrong people.
I hope whoever is in charge of Dunk & Egg learns from these mistakes and is faithful to the story 🙏🏻
They will likely ruin that too.
Hate D and D all u want but they knew the game of thrones universe very well. Even season 8 is better than HOTD
@@singstreetcar5881no Ditch against the zombies and a night cavalierly charge in the dark toward an enemy you don’t know is unforgivable.
No Ditch.
Oh you can bet your ass they will make Tanselle MUCH more prominent in the story.
@singstreetcar5881 Season 8 was still far worse than HOTD Season 2. HOTD Season 2 has some good stuff in it, whereas GOT Season 8 was almost completely worthless.
@@SolarDragon007 It's not just season 8 that was awful, GoT turned into trash as soon as season 5. Even season 4 was already kinda problematic. The first 3 season were masterpieces though.
I’m not even excited for season 3 honestly Sara completely ruined this show
You could remove Daemon's entire plot line from Season 2 (him not being loyal to Rhaenyra at Harrenhall, which wasn't even in the book) and it would make no difference. Massive waste of screen time
Actually no, it has changed Daemon radically and his loyalty is not real cause he did it for the prophecy
@@echelongirl9685 Which is dumb. In F&B Daemon's loyalty is never questioned and they did a piss poor job of translating their intentions onscreen. Daemon has done absolutely NOTHING that implies he'd turn on Rhaenyra, not one time. So, having him go through that filler haunted mansion bs was just that, bs. We got the outcome we knew we'd get. Daemon's relationship with his girls and Laena asking if he was taking care of them is the only thing I truly cared about. And I also liked the scene of closure as he consoles Viserys after Aemma and the baby die.
The rest? Total waste of time.
The sad thing is the fact we are going to more than likely get the same bs with Aemond/Alys.
I knew when they introduced that lesbian kissing scene that this season was cooked
Supposedly, it was the actors who put that in. Rhaenyra leaning on Mysaria for comfort when she is in a moment of isolation and feeling vulnerable although makes sense, they should've done it differently or built it up better because in the scene they chose it was too abrupt and felt out of place for the topic they were discussing. As a result, it felt forced and that the writers/actors were trying to deliver their own personal message rather than honoring the story being told
@@ashleyelisabeth4the scene should have been framed like Jaime and Brienne’s conversation in the bath house, with the camera panning back and forth between the two women as they sat across from each other with Mysaria revealing her past. That was such a beautiful scene of vulnerability. Instead, we got an out of place kiss.
@@ashleyelisabeth4 anything for Hollywood to inject a lbgtq narrative regardless of how redundant and useless it is I suppose.
@@khfan4life365 Completely agree
When rheneys bursted out from the ground in season 1 killing innocent small folks in the dragon pit, that's when I knew the show was gonna turn to crap
I gave up on the season throughout. Aegon kept me going till episode 4. After that I was checked out and only watched sporadically. It seems to me that the majority of characters just say things that need to be said so that a desired plot point can be arrived at, not something that they should or would organically say as the people they are, or used to be in season 1. Also, the worst thing from season 1 - prophecies and such - spread like a plague this season. Basically every major character is tainted by a prophecy or a vision of the future now. Well, that caused my intrigue to plummet into oblivion.
Excellent channel, btw. Just discovered it to my joy :).
A lot of people defending the shows pacing by saying Game of Thrones was slow must never have understood why Game of Thrones slow moments were good. Good writing. The slow moments in HotD season 2 were boring and uninteresting.
Exactly, really not that hard to understand.
Right. And battles didn't endear me to GOT, neither did the dragons...it was the political angle, especially when Tywin was still alive. Nothing beats the KL scenes in the first four seasons. Hell, no one beats the Lannister's period.
@@janellejulianajoy The Lannisters had some of the best-written scenes of the whole show.
The only 2 changes I like is making Aemond maling him accidentally kill Luke and making him look worried thay he fucked up, and making Aegon funny and later more sympathetic. The work because the source material is respected, everything else sucks and doesnt make sense.
@@mgm3649 Aemond’s change is dumb, every time we see him before that point he is doing something dark/ violent: and now all of a sudden he does not actually want to kill the boy who cut out his eye?
Do you know how bad having your eye sliced out would hurt in medieval times? With their horrible methods of medicine? Aemond easily could have died from an infection afterwards.
Any man would want to kill the person who did that to them, especially if they are your enemy in an inevitable civil war.
Absolutely hit the dam nail with this video. Alicent is not the same from the books or the previous season. They make all the changes to make Rhaenyra better to what she actually is…….instinct like
I disagree, they don't give a shit about the whole Black vs Green, what they want is to make Rheanyra and Alicent both somehow victims, that everything bad happening is actually the fault of the men around manipulating them.
"is it possible for the show to get worse?"
It's not just possible. it's inevitable.
rhaenyra saying “a son for a son” really pissed me off like Alicent should have said she wanted a grandson for a grandson
Yeah I wanna slap her for saying that
Im so happy to hear a fellow book reader who sees the show the same as me... as minimizing the story and war itself and that the show itself is contradicting...they change the charactets and make them weaker... everyone from the blacks and greens rhaenyra beent the heir and i honestly dont like the changes none of them to be honest especially visions and dreams because viserys wasnt delusional as the show is making him he was just more supportive of his first daughter the realm delight and you are right IT IS A DIFFERENT STORY NOT A STORY OF TARGARYEN DYNASTY DESTROYING ITSELF ..
Unfourtunately i bet this video is gonna age like fine wine
Also every deviation from the books results in a butterfly type effect where one needs to tie up multiple plotlines because you broke those connections that existed when you decided to go your own way rather than follow the source material. Veering off the books isnt always bad but if you do it with major plotpoints and major characters then one will have usually a harder time in maintaining the integrity of the original story. But it does seem that todays showrunners often think that they can write stuff as good as the original writers did. Look at Halo tv-series or the Witcher tv-series as an example.
As someone who hasn't read Fire and Blood yet, I feel like S2 is a nearly complete deflation from everything that made me feel invested in S1. First few S2 episodes weren't bad, but something felt missing (a ton of it having to do with making the Greens "bad" and the Blacks "good" when S1 stayed more in the middle with some oscillation), and by the end it just feels empty. It'd be one thing if invested writers had some execution writers, but this feels like the writers don't take the story seriously, and that's a deadly flaw.
Great video! I agree completely! For me they ruined so much the story from the books that i won't bother with next season, i think from this point this show will be a waste of time..
It's like they're afraid of writing about women being horrible to eachother
The writers can not get out of their own way. The agendas that get pushed lead to so many issues.
Also the show going out of their way to fill the cast with "muh diversity" and then snubbing and cutting nettles, the only OG story character with melanin is pure comedy.
But yeah Rhae-Rhae good, Aemond grumpy and mean.
Changing the character's personality because of their gender is a writing mistake and a bad decision because it influences the story in a big way. Changing the color of the skin of some characters, however, isn't detrimental to the story. Of all the things to get annoyed by, this is the stupidest.
@@mammamonssterrI think in this case it actually is a problem. It makes Rhaenerya’s heirs REALLY OBVIOUSLY visually illegitimate like immediately on the update.
Considering the entire war hinges on the legitimacy of the ruler, this really tips the scales and recontextualizes that whole plot
@@mammamonssterrand relax man, black people can handle not being cast in a show about white nobles doing incest and being evil. They don’t need you to “take up for them” (you’re not)
@@OrchinX making it really obvious is the opposite of a problem. It's a big theme how in jeopardy the position of Rhaenyra's children is, being unmistakably bastards. People KNOW they are. So much so that Aegon and Aemond tease them for it and Aemond loses an eye in a dispute related to it, and that's a big part later on in the war. Making them white instead of black is a good decision, in my opinion. Of course the hair color was obvious already, but again, the skin color makes a stronger (hehe) point.
Sara Hess isn’t more talented than George. She’s not close to being as talented of a writer than him. She shouldn’t be changing his writing for her own. It’s like going to watch Celine Dion in concert and instead you get someone who sometimes does local karaoke.
No Nettles means the battle above the Gods eye will be ruined. They probably gonna make Rhea pull an Arya Stark and kill Vhegar.
Or they're gonna make the battle a 2 vs 1 with Daemon and Rhaena against Aemond.
They will fight over the prophecy. Daemon to make that happen, Aemond to make that not happen
@@Male_FicentRhaena probably
They will fight for the prophecy
@@Male_Ficent No, I think that part (if it even happens since they spoiled it) will be like the book. Daemon sends Rhaena away and he faces Aemond alone.
After S2, it's already too late. With Aemond knowing he'll die at Harrenhall, Aemond and Aegon basically being full blown enemies at each other's throats, Daeron not even being introduced yet, Rhaenyra not being a classist bigot but rather a flawless angel, Nettles not existing, and Alicent being okay with the execution of her sons, the show is already beyond recovery. It's dead. Nothing that made sense in the book can still make sense now, and I'll explain why in order of the things I mentioned:
Aemond would never go to Harrenhall knowing he'd die there. So no Gods' Eye battle can logically take place.
Aegon and Aemond being enemies because Aemond is a Disney villain (literally Scar from The Lion King) means no powerhouse duo, and thus no reason for either to do the many things they did on behalf of the other, to save and help each other. This has a direct impact on Rhaenyra's seizing of King's Landing and Daemon's fight with Aemond.
Daeron not being introduced yet means he can't fill this role of brotherly camaraderie either, making the aforementioned even worse. Furthermore, he's arguably the MVP of the entire Dance who turned the tides in favor of The Greens twice. Why the fuck does he not even exist yet???
Rhaenyra's bigotry, classism, racism and narcissism in the book is what makes Hugh and Ulf turn from her because she mistreats them since they're ''peasants''. But in the show, Rhaenyra is fully supportive of the peasantry and even said herself ''Let us raise an army of bastards'' like the beautiful, flawless, angelic woman she is. So yeah, that ruins the entire switch up (though I got the sneaky suspicion Jace is being set up to be the one to make Ulf and Hugh turn on them because a man is allowed to be a bigot, and in fact they'll love writing the fact that it's only due to incompetent and bigoted men that Rhaenyra's side took losses).
Nettles not existing means Sheepstealer will be a loyal force to Team Black (Rhaena) instead of an independent party who basically draws Daemon away from the conflict, which makes the Daemon/Aemond fight even less sensical. On top of this, Nettles was also a huge mirror for Rhaenyra's bigotry, which is part of the reason that Daemon basically ditched her and would've left the Dance entirely had he survived his conflict with Aemond. But again, Rhaenyra is a beautiful perfect angel like all women except for Alicent always are, so no mirrors allowed, and thus no Nettles, and thus the third layer of removal of the setup for the Gods' Eye battle between Daemon and Aemond.
As for Alicent being okay with this shit, her not being okay with it was (along with Tyland withholding the crown's wealth even as he was tortured and mutilated by Rhaenyra, which likely also won't happen as Rhaenyra is a magnificent, kind, perfect goddess) literally the reason Rhaenyra lost any and all favor with the common folk in King's Landing, which was the direct cause of the rebellion that expunged her from the city, which led to her death at the hands of Aegon and Sunfyre as she fled to Dragonstone and got clapped by them there. Literally none of this can happen now because Alicent sold out The Greens, meaning no common folk revolt can logically take place against Rhaenyra since The Greens (Helaena and Alicent) will allow in and condone her ascension to the throne, meaning they'd logically have the wealth and provisions of the crown, meaning no revolt from the peasantry, meaning no fleeing from the city, meaning no burning and eating alive at the hands of Aegon and Sunfyre.
Honestly I knew it'd be shit as soon as I saw that the Velaryons were black. People can call me racist all they want, idc, but even putting aside the fact that erasing one ethnic group for another is hideously fucking racist; that already showed that they were prioritizing identity politics over story, because the entire reason the Dance ever happened was that Jace and Luke COULD have been Laenor's children as Laenor wasn't black, and the kids were only black of hair, which could be explained away by Rhaenys also having black hair from her Baratheon side. It could have just skipped a generation from Laenor to his kids. We know it wasn't true, but it was feasible enough for corrupt lords to go with.
But in the show, it's super fucking obvious that they're bastards, sharing neither Laenor's hair, nor that of either of his parents, nor their skin colors. And that just shatters immersion, because medieval lords would NEVER tolerate that shit. They would all be team Green, all of them immediately turning against Rhaenyra and Viserys for supporting her in putting bastards on the throne.
The writing has been trash from the start. People, myself included, just didn't want to see it.
I have a feeling they are going to change to God's Eye fight which is why they let the cat out of the bag.
@@janellejulianajoy They'll have to. They'll have to chance almost everything.
It's basically a fan-fiction at this point
They turned Daemon, GRR Martin's favorite character and the most dangerous man in the realm, into a joke. Rhaenyra who is a torturing psycho and murdering evil woman in the books (after being likable in the beginning) turned into this innocent grieving creature who wants to take the throne bloodlessly. Aemond, a guy who was the devil incarnate desperate to be like Daemon suddenly becomes a 2024 British lad full of remorse and drowning in psychobabbling that in 2024 make sense. But that in that world doesn't. Alicent giving the throne is nonsense too. Daemon who is more snake than dragon devised the plan to conquer King's Landing.
They messed Aemond up the moment they deviated from the fact that he is simply psychotic. They woobified him and now fans are upset because the real Aemond has shown up.
How do they even do that? My God, season 1 was good, it had a good build up. And then, boom, season 2. 💀
House of the draggin
To be honest the Greens were more interesting this Season because of their flaws.
The writers cared more about side stuff like current day culture war than the actual story. Not once, has this made a good product. If they really want to show more women involvement, show the foreign whisperer women having more lesbian sex scenes, it’s a win win
All your stuff is so insightful, as well as engaging and interesting.
Alicent and Rhaenyra being childhood friends was a terrible idea and it's clear it was only done to give center stage to these two characters.
I don't want Alicent to be someone I can sympathize with, I want her to be the evil ruthless stepmother she was in the books. There's so much interesting stuff happening during this war, I could care less about their supposed friendship in the show.
I think we can still see conflicts with Raena (not being Nettles). I think that Rhaenyra can hold Raena accountable for what is to come with her sons and direct all of her rage towards her causing Deamon to split his loyalty between his queen/wife and his daughter. Though by the way the show writers are letting her be so forgiving of Alicent - it would be weird if she’s going hard towards Raena. It wouldn’t be weird due to the Nettles cut though. It would also be weird because the show had made Daemon have no connection with his daughters. It’s so weird
The Show writers who seem to be awfully keen on "making improvements" to well established stories surprisingly don't have any credible writing credits to their names, I wonder why.... smh
The advertised it to choose your side. But the showrunners seem to have picked a side already. Even from season 1, you can tell they already have a "protagonist" :/
4:57 - They learned nothing from Daenerys and GOT season 8.
The fact that aren't laying the groundwork for what comes later makes me wonder if they're going to completely change the story so that Rhaenyra doesn't go full Mad Queen
Imagine giving someone creative control over your work, your baby, and they start to insist they know what’ll benefit the story better than you do.
Now imagine that happening to you TWICE.
If this show was any less subtle it'd be The Boys
I’d be happy with your number of subscribers but you do deserve a lot more. Thanks for articulating what a lot of us may have felt about season 2. It sucks that the showrunners want to turn it into a borderline Rhaenyra and Alicent lesbian fan-fiction. If HotD goes the way of Game of Thrones, it would be more unforgivable as the source material is already finished.
The self discovery journey of Daemon shouldn't have been longer than 1 ep
Honestly they could've worked with 8 episodes. Was it underwhelming? Yea, but It's not even the lack of action and dragon battles that got me turned off this season, It's the awful brain dead writing, monotonous storytelling and character assassinations. I rewatched season 1 of GOT last week and god damn I could watch them just talking all day. There was tension and conflict. It goes to show that a multimillion dollar budget and all the cgi in the world cant replace good writing & storytelling. HOTD, season 2 specifically, is just filled with shameless cameos, marvel-esque fan service, and nonsensical plot lines that veered too far from the book. They're literally making the same mistake as D&D. Well at least D&D had the excuse of running out of source material.
YES! THIS GUY UNDERSTANDS! as always amazing video! This video must go viral so everybody can see the flaws of season 2.
The number of professions that employ under qualified people today is insane.
The fact not one drop of blood was spilled in the season finale was a crime within itself.
horrible season. And season 3 will be bad also. I hope they atleast get Hour of the Wolf corretly. meanwhile team gold Aegon II and Sunfyre. And i hate Daemon this season more than any character of late. They lost me with him. Too bad because Rogue Prince isn't dog on the leash
There’s an interview with Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke being asked why each side should win and Emma hesitates then says “BECAUSE DADDY SAID SO” kinda jokingly. It made for a funny moment but when you take into consideration that that IS how the writers have chosen to portray this version of Rhaenyra it leaves much to be desired. Her wanting the crown just because she’s supposed to have it (as opposed to being power hungry and cutthroat like in the book) doesn’t really lend much credence to her actions later on so I’m curious to see how they’re gonna write that in. How she is now is a complete 180 from how she’s supposed to end up.
I never watched this show... I was such a huge GoT fan but after the last two seasons, I promised myself I wasn't going to give it another shot and now I'm glad I didn't 😅
I knew they f*cked up this season when they added Ali-Cole sex in 1st episode itself...
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Alicent and Cole's relationship in Season 1 was built around the idea that Cole lost his honour due to Rhaenyra, and Alicent gave him a second chance...
It is a relation much beyond simple $ex... He worships her as an angel...
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Cole also sees her as an honourable woman in between dishonourable and openly lieing ppl like Viserys and Rhaenyra... That is another reason why he respects her...
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Reducing that to simple $ex and worse showing them having $ex during Blood & Cheese is the worst thing they could do to Alicent's character...
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I guess Alicent started becoming a symbol of women who respect traditional values... It is direct opposite to Rhaenyra who f*cked around with many men...
So, Show-runners wanted to destroy that character...
In the last episode, they even made Alicent say that Rhaenyra was correct in sleeping outside marriage...
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It is like writers don't want anyone to have any relation other than $ex...
They're ruing characters...
The blood and cheese scene was so disappointing.
Please bring back D and D
Agreed it was neutered for no reason
D and D would have had Arya jump down from the ceiling and stab them both.
@@2ndgenmonkfan306 see the thing is D&D wasn't bad directors, they were bad writers when they had source material, they did a good job (got s1 to s4 or s5) the problem accrued when they ran out of source materials, when they have to come up with new idea and think how some certain characters would go on in story that's where they F up.
@@rxebec they started deviating quite a lot before the books even ended. Hence why s5-6 were particularly lackluster. They ain't no better than HOTD writers. Not to mention that given the nature of F&B, they will be forced to come up with their own thing to fill the gaps and we've seen how bad their dialogues can get.
"you want a good girl, but you need a bad pussy." 😐
@@CaleebTalibit wasn’t neutered for no reason. It was done on purpose because the real scene makes Rhaenyra look bad. Condal said in an interview that the book version was made up by Alicent to “smear” Rhaenyra.
They HAD A COMPLETE STORY THAT WAS FULLY WRITTEN WITH AN ENDING! I was hoping they would follow the story thoroughly. Season 1 had changes but I still think they improved the story and was still faithful to the book. Season 2 did the complete opposite. Alicent and Rhaenyra HATE each other beyond repair. Alicent sabotaging her own son’s battle plans while willingly allowing her other son to die. What a joke. She stands be her children to the bitter end in the book. No matter how cruel they were etc. no maelor, blood and cheese was done horribly. No nettles. Horrible harrenhall subplot.
Aemond gets right criticized for killing smallfolk, but no one mentions it when Rhaenys massacred men, women and we can assume children. Rhaenyra talked about Daemon damaging her claim by killing Jaehaerys, but Rhaenys spilt one of the first blood in the war. Of course it might seem like a small point, but they harped on it with Aemond and still showed Rhaenys supporting rhaenyra’s pacifism while already killing people. Terrible writing
The mental gymnastics people are going through to explain how this was actually a good finale baffles me.
The insistence that the only people criticizing are those who wanted to see action and dragons is annoying af too
This show is beyond repair...
Agreed
Unless they redo the second half of s2, this show is done for
Emma Olívia and matt are mad at this too😢
What disloyalty? Daemon let Nettles go and went to fight Aemond for Rhaenyra even tho he knew its a sewer side mission to go against Vhagar alone. He literally said "a whore's work" about Mysaria's rumors about Nettles being his side piece
you also forget about the conqueror dream, they made the whole dance about it and i think this coming from HBO so make us forget about the bad ending of GOT
wake up babe, Mr Valaritas dropped another banger!!
No one seems to mention this, but due to the writer’s strikes, they were generally shooting on 1st draft scripts for the whole show, they couldn’t write more and/or make revisions. So no wonder the script was a total dumpster fire that lacked direction and conviction.
Way too many uninteresting side characters this season. They mishandled the Greens and ruined Alicents character. So poorly done but I’m not surprised
The Alicent from season 1 would have been more likely to offer her own life to Rhaenyra than Aegon's, because she and Otto pushed Aegon to take a throne he literally didn't want.
See this one the cases where black vs white morality in the show doesn’t work. I know that plenty are getting tired of grey vs grey in tv shows. Given that it will be difficult to know who to root for. And this were many misses the point. I don’t think we’re supposed to root for either side. Which might cause some feeling apathetic towards characters. And I think that is what the writers were afraid of. However, people forget that war is ugly. It doesn’t give damn who was in the right. This is a tragic story, yet I don’t feel any tragedy happening. All deaths feels so anticlimactic. Anyways I find it amusing that the writers tried making some characters “likeable”, and ended up making them boring.
I agree 100%. Accept I won’t be awaiting season 3. I’ve lost hope that anyone can adapt George’s work faithfully without writers egos getting in the way wanting to make it their own story. 😢
Very disappointed with Season 2. This was a fall off a cliff compared to the high standard Season 1 set for the show. What kept me going back to it, though, was the stunning visual effects of the dragons and costumes. So much potential being wasted, and ultimately, everybody's time! This feels like a teenage version of Game of Thrones, with the writing being equivalent for that age group.
Something I noticed and annoyed me in the writing is many times you would hear the characters saying that something has to be done or something's gonna happen and then you see it happening in the next scene instead to crisscross plots as it's normally done.
Exactly we lost the meaning of time we literally couldn't tell if any scene that happened took 3 days or 1 or a week or a month
another issue....acting, in got they cast pretty looking actors but also those who look\ked average but were banger actors who knocked it outta the park like alfie allen an average looking actor but my god his performance was so nuanced especially the eyes acting, in hotd everyone is a pretty boy or gal but their acting is so mid, like the guy playing jace, just a pretty boy not saying terrible actor but he looks like he is just there to be eye candy
I did appreciate the world building. It showed that repairing and launching a giant ship takes months and hundreds of people and great resources. (Not just saying build me a thousand ships)
Last scene of s1 when renhyra was mad and her eyes were screaming revenge. 😤 just to start s2 being the least caracter who wants revenge 🤔i literally almost forgot her son died 😐
I got so heartbroken after two years of investment into the show and the story. I left the fandom chats and forums. Its like GOT all over again.
It's just another example of Hollywood DESTROYING masterpieces that they had no hand in creating!
I have not finished season 2 as I gave up after when Rhaenyra Teleported herself into the capital...I mean Snuck herself in there to have an emotional conversation with Alicent Hightower. I was already getting frustrated with the constant emotional crying, and none stop "we must not go to war just yet" bla bla from Rhaenyra. I feel like after Rhaenyra's son had died it should of been all out war which would 99% of happened during the medieval period.
When you have two kings or queens contesting the throne there is no sneaking into each other's castle to have a one-on-one heart felt conversation with each other. For heaven's sake even during the Ottomans brothers would kill each other for the throne. Modern writing is a joke.
Remember, "it's the man faults"
So...ONCE AGAIN people (writers) that had NOTHING to do with creating a literary masterpiece, decides that they KNOW better than it's creator and just...DESTROYS the whole thing!!! Oh Hollywood...you will NEVER be missed!!! ☹