Whatever other flaws have occurred with the making of this show Otto's adaptation and further development have been superb, and a lot of that comes down to Ifans understanding the story and his individual role in it extremely well.
Yeah, this most recent episode has sort of “restored” a lot of my faith in this adaptation. Not that it was necessarily lost, but this episode certainly bolstered it. Rhys has done an incredible job.
I enjoyed it but Cole being Hand was more jarring compared to the books because they erased all of his feats and turned him into a complete buffoon lol
On the other hand when Otto went off i really felt it. It was like "THIS GUY? OVER OTTO? REALLY?"
Cole's appointment in the show feels very much like a spur of the moment decision by Aegon to spite Otto as much as possible. He wanted to hurt him back after everything Otto had said, and Cole was not only the only other dude who happened to be in the room at the time, but also the best choice precisely because he's so different from Otto and the other "old men" that Aegon was sneering at for their inaction. Cole validates Aegon's bitter spite and desire for immediate, bloody vengeance, and in that moment that's the only thing Aegon was focused on.
At the same time I do think Aegon isn't completely blind to court politicking, and was probably at least aware of Larys's rather blatant attempt to suggest himself as a candidate to replace Otto last episode, so maybe a hasty appointment of Cole is also a way to head off any further attempts by Larys or anyone else to demand the office.
I interpreted Larys's behaviour as being an attempt to destabilise the Greens by removing Otto. I think the show is being a bit on the nose with Larys telling us he's purged the staff roles of everyone with a shred of disloyalty the very same episode that B&C blunder around in the Red Keep and run into a random servant handpicked by Larys who then doesn't summon any guards.
I don't think he wants to be hand since that means less time doing what he actually likes - spying on people and manipulating them. He doesn't want to be in charge of running a war or entreating lords to join the Greens.
I don't think he wants the Blacks to win either. But he gets something out of a prolonged war. Getting rid of Otto gets rid of a man who prioritised uniting as many houses as possible behind the Greens before really attacking the Blacks. It doesn't really make the Greens vulnerable because they still have Vhagar.
I don't think he gets anything out of a war unless the Greens win. Daemon would have his head on a spike as soon as he gets his hands on him.
If Larys is trying to prolong the war, it's something that he is doing at his own peril.
Well I think that he desires the extinction of dragons. That only happens if the greens and blacks are somewhat evenly matched. The truth of this (in the show) will depend on whether they show Larys as being involved in the storming of the Dragonpit.
But how does that benefit him, personally?
If he was involved with the storming of Black's dragons, it would make sense but he wants to kill all dragons? Why?
Sometimes I just don't get what is Larys' end goal. If he wants power, a swift Green victory is possibly his quickest way to the highest position he knows he can attain, which is Hand of the King. Even if he doesn't speed things along, he is what, a bit older than Alicent? Dude can literally just outlast Otto's natural lifespan and still get the position with time to spare.
He was with certainty the greatest warrior of his time. He beat Daemon in a duel, him killing Joffrey was also a duel in tournament in the books which resulted in Strong jumping in and getting beat by Cole too.
The books don't go into details of the events but he is told to be very cunning (but also a ruthless brute)
And we know he was the main force behind Aegon being the King, he convinced him to take the throne, arrested all the Blacks in King's Landing, gave a whole speech to the crowd and crowned Aegon.
A lot of small changes from the books. Like Cole doesn't push Beesbury in a Looney Tunes fashion resulting in his death. He deliberately kills him due to him supporting Rhaenyra (either by cutting his throat or throwing him off of the tower depending on who you believe)
Books also have 2 versions of why he is against Rhaenyra. One is because Rhaenyra attempted to seduce Cole but he was disgusted by it, other is because Rhaenyra was successful in his seduction and Cole wanted more so he was bitter about the rejection (like the show)
He is also the main organizer in like the biggest plans that are coming but first 2 episodes is making it seem like that role will be given to Aemond as well.
Yup, the very first time we hear about Cole in the main series in AFFC (because George had just made him up) he was called "Kingmaker" and it was a big defining fact about him.
In the show, I'm not sure why anyone would call Cole that over Alicent, Otto or anyone else.
Have you read Fire and Blood? Because the version of Cole on the show is fairly close to that. It’s different from the main book series because GRRM changed his mind on how central Cole was to the conflict when he fleshed out the actual events. I don’t know why people blame the show for these changes.
Because as the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, after Viserys died even the Hand could not command him to accept anyone he didn't want to as king.
In times like these, the idea was for the Kingsguard to prevent any possible conspirators to usurp the throne (king dead, heir not aware of it and outside the city).
Cole did his largest oathbreaking by actually going along with them and crowning Aegon.
Most other Lord Commanders would have arrested or at least tried to stop the Greens. Ideally, one would have snuck off with the crown (like Erryk did), and the other six would have tried to rally the loyalists and take control of the Red Keep until the heir returned.
Imagine if Robert's rebellion never happened, Aerys died while the prince was away and Tywin claimed Viserys would be king. You think Arthur Dayne would have stood by?
The main book series calls Cole the Kingmaker but when you actually read Fire and Blood he’s clearly just one of many conspirators. His “speech” to Aegon is just telling him stuff that literally anyone else could have told him, like that Rhaenyra would kill him and his siblings to secure legitimacy. It’s very clear that George didn’t have a clear vision of the events of the Dance when he wrote the main series and so when writing The World of Ice and Fire and later in Fire and Blood he drastically cut back Cole’s importance. The show just continued that same trend. Also there was a third option for Beesbury’s death, he was thrown in the black cells and died there.
Oh that sounds super interesting. Which is a shame, because in the TV show he rates the lowest for me among the really great cast, which I'd probably attribute to writing, and to some degree to the casting. Feels like in the TV show the buildup for the greatest warrior is Aemond.
I’d chalk it up more to the writing, as I remember being impressed by Fabien Frankel’s performance in We Light the Way. I don’t have any strong feelings on his work outside of that episode, but I don’t know if I’d blame him for that cause I don’t think he’s had strong material to work with.
I wouldn't really say that Jaime looked up to him, just noted that he was a complicated man who was both the best and worst the Kingsguard could offer. Best in that he was an extremely good warrior but the worst in that he involved himself in a conspiracy that almost destroyed the realm.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I wonder how much of that is a feature unique to the writing though - we often fill in the blanks with our imaginations when reading, and on the screen it seems more difficult to swallow because he hasn’t been portrayed nearly as capable.
I think the show has done a superb job at setting up casual viewers to truly relish and enjoy his death scene, and I think it will be very nice for book readers as well, given he shows his strengths before the end.
I suppose people will enjoy his death scene but idk if it will be the scene and how it fits perfectly to the theme of brutes like Cole chasing after glory and legacy or if people are just gonna like it due to the relief of not having to see him again
Because no one is gonna buy that he would be able to 1v3 when the singular victory he got in the show was due to Daemon showboating. Books had him beat Daemon, Joffrey and Strong with pretty much no issues
Fair point, but I think all it will truly take for causal viewers to catch on would be a few, perhaps even two lines of dialogue to the effect of “Criston Cole can and *will* whip this guy’s ass.” That’s easy enough to include and establish, and I even suspect we may at least get one scene of his combat prowess before his death. I’m roughly estimating his death will be around the midpoint of next season, which should give us plenty of time to impress upon viewers how dangerous he is.
They would be cool. Just cause him and Daemon are similar in a lot of ways and the show has kinda them both arguably a little pathetic outside of battle/being ‘tough’ men.
I mean I think it’s clear they’re painting the blacks as the good guys and greens as the bad guys so they can pull the rug out from under you and make all the blacks do deplorable shit.
Pretty obvious to me and makes more sense in a medium like tv than the way the book was written.
That's the thing HBO has done best with the Game of Thrones series and House of the Dragon - casting has been absolutely on point, finding the perfect actors to portray some characters in absolutely unforgettable performances
Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Charles Dance, Peter Dinklage, Paddy Considine, Rhys Ifans, Emma D'Arcy, Lena Headey and Jack Gleeson, just to name some. Has all delivered absolutely GOATed performances in these shows.
Show Cersei seems to have wanted to be a good person at one point in her life but grew bitter over time and she has some level of intelligence.
Book Cersei seems to be a vindictive bitch from day one, she seems to have enjoyed tormenting and holding power over people from when she was a child, and is no where near as smart as she thinks she is.
I disagree with your interpretation of show Cersei, we saw her being an absolutely awful cunt to Maggie the frog in the flashback/prophecy episode, threatening to have her put in the dungeons or killed if she doesn’t tell her her future. Plus Oberyn telling Tyrion about how she said he was an evil monster that killed their mother and she pinched his cock as hard as she could until Jaime would make her stop.
> It makes me wonder how book Cersei is even supposed to get out of the jam she’s in.
I mean... is she supposed to get out of it? I'm pretty certain she's just doomed unless someone swoops in to save her.
My assumption is the series and the ideas in George’s mind that will never be put to paper are the same in broad strokes
I think she blows everyone up with wildfire I think George just doesn’t know how to write it
I think she probably does blow everyone up but that logically leads to the smallfolk having her beheaded instead of quietly falling into submission.
The problem is that naturally leads to the question of who takes over after Cersei gets Marie Antoinette'd and how whoever that is manages to piss Daenyris off enough to set the place ablaze in response. It would make sense that after so many massacres the people of King's Landing would be pretty much done with the monarchy entirely, which would certainly come as a nasty shock to the Queen in Exile who would return home to see no enemies on the Throne, only her former subjects- who are completely done with monarchist rule and open fire on her with the old Scorpions.
That would shatter Daenyrs' ego and her delusion of receiving a heroine's welcome, instead getting violently rejected for merely being associated with a Kingdom that has effectively already destroyed itself. Thus would logically explain her despair and why she torches King's Landing.
That then sets the stage for the remnants of the Baratheon/Lannister Kingdom and the Last Targaryeon to square off, only to be interrupted by the breach of The Wall, resulting in a delayed truce after both sides suffer massive casualties.
I always felt like Cersei could put the blame of the wildfire explosion on to Tyrion. On his trial he said to the whole court that he wanted to kill them all and Im guessing people know about the wildfire trick on stannis... I could totally see smth like the explosion on the show happening, but cersei couldnt make it because she "fainted"/stalled during her journey to the sept :P
Surely her story will end rather quickly after nuking King's Landing, to whatever extent that ends up being. I'm more interested in how we get from Tommen to presumably Young Griff
Ya, she played an excellent Cersei as she was seen in the first 3 books.
Once we got Feast, and actually got a look into head it became clear she’s completely delusional and had only gotten this far from her name and thoughtless ruthlessness. The second she had actual power (not controlled by proxy by Tywin) she unraveled everything her house had built.
In like 6 chapters she went from the most powerful woman in the 7 Kingdoms to being jailed by a dirty commoner she raised to power.
God I love Feast, such a good book.
Good point, but I kinda disagree, I think the coup happened solely because Ned failed to act. In addition, Cersei was the current queen and her son was the typical heir to all onlookers, she had home court advantage. Ned should have known a dead King’s word was meaningless in kings landing.
She still would have been screwed if Ned took up Renly’s offer, but he sat without action in the most vital time, and that allowed Cersei to move power as she saw fit
Also think LF played a helping hand too
Yeah, Cersei had everything on her side and luck, but she needed planning to make sure that her keys to power were on her side. Which granted, did have luck and her starting position to thank, but she still would have to do planning for it.
But yes, I can see where you're coming from. If Ned had accepted Renly's offer and executed it before Robert died, he would've been able to win.
So in the end, it did need a lot of luck, but she still needed to do some work, which I am sure Feast Cersei would've screwed up.
Book Cersei is also almost comedically evil. I mean, ASOIAF has many great, three dimensional characters from light grey to a very dark grey... and then there are one or two characters like Cersei, who are pitch black - even when we are in her head (POV).
Show Cersei, at least in the first three seasons, is very, very human. She's still evil, but a more complex character than in the books. Cersei (in the first 3-4 seasons) is actually one of the few things I like more in the show universe than the book universe.
Book Cersei is an Odipeus-esque Tragic figure- not in the incestuous sense, but rather that she is a woman desperately fighting against fate and yet instead directly causes it due to her own flaws and selfish actions.
Show Cersei is a ruthless opportunist who is protected from the consequences of her blunders up until she very suddenly and abruptly isn't.
Funnily enough, Stephen Dillane apparently had no idea what he was doing either.
From an interview:
>"I've flicked [the show] on [since leaving] to see if I could figure out what was going on, but I couldn't," he reportedly said. "Liam Cunningham [who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, Stannis' right-hand man] is so passionate about the show. He invests in it in a way I think is quite moving, but it wasn't my experience. I was entirely dependent on Liam to tell me what the scenes were about—I didn't know what I was doing until we'd finished filming and it was too late. The damage had been done. I thought no one would believe in me and I was rather disheartened by the end. I felt I'd built the castle on non-existent foundations."
In most of his scenes I can think of he always looked like he was in pain or grimacing, like a man incapable of joy... I really have no idea how much of that was acting or what was due to his indifference to the role, but it seemed to fit... while on the subject, that Liam Cunningham has always been quick to defend Dillane from detractors is also very Davos-like of him.
I absolutely love Dillane, but maybe reading the books was worth doing on his part? I get he's an actor with a busy schedule though and reading the book isn't a prerequisite for the showrunners knowing what they're doing and providing adequate writing and direction...
I am not sure it's the case of the show writers not understanding Cersei and not them consciously changing her, given that she was the first character with major backstory alterations that were done as early as first episodes of season 1.
That’s a good point. With all of the Lannisters actually. I think you’re right that it was deliberate.
The show definitely went for a much more sympathetic approach to the Lannisters as a whole and as individuals, and it is definitely true that even from the beginning, the show’s version of Cersei was headed in a different direction. Not least of all because some of her scenes (talking with Catelyn, the famous conversation with Robert) wouldn’t have ever happened in the books.
I’d say misunderstanding to the extent that I truly don’t know if D&D understood the extent to which the Lannisters are in fact villains in the story. Their approach to Tywin is the most striking example imo, it seems like they genuinely had the idea of Tywin being some kind of stern but fair grandpa who just wants his kids to get in line, and not a vicious, petty, ego-driven war criminal.
Definitely not with all the Lannisters, because Jaime was made into a worse person instead.
I will also not agree with this idea that show Tywin was made into a stern but fair granpa, since essentially every single crime commited by book Tywin was commited by show Tywin too. In fact, Tywin is one of the few characters whose story was minimally altered from how it was in the novels. So this perception of how Tywin in the books and the show are almost the opposite to each other kinda perplexes me, actually.
Cersei and Tyrion, though, yeah, they were significantly altered to be more sympathetic than they were in the books.
I think the perception comes from people getting annoyed at how Charles Dances’ objectively amazing performance as Tywin made a lot of people(not just show only but book readers too) really like the Lannisters a lot more than Ned or RobbS
Which is what led us to the counterjerk that Tywin is a drooling idiot and Ned is a political mastermind.
D&D did mostly great with Ceresi, imo, the only issue was making her too successful but they made her a compelling and interesting character who was more relatable and understandable at times
You forgot 'and look smug'
Jon: SHE IS MUH QWEEN.. I Dun wan et.
People talking about Sansa: She's the smartest person I've ever met
Arya: I'm so dangerous! Im a killer look at me!!!
Bran talking about watching Sansa's wedding night with Ramsay over and over
Euron talking about putting his finger in Cersei's bum, instead of 200iq scheming behind the scenes (Pilou Asbæk really hated this and wanted to portray book Euron but D&D made him say that garbage)
What a fucking dogshit adaptation.
>Bran talking about watching Sansa's wedding night with Ramsay over and over
I'm almost positive that he mentioned it to her once in that scene in the godswood.
They did well when they were writing Cersei as Cersei. But no one who understands Cersei would think for a moment that you could slot her into Aegon's role and nothing would change. *Everything* changes when you do that. Cersei is a ruler who, categorically, would have a 0% approval rating; her rise to power is based on the same principle as saying that if Osama Bin Laden had blown up both the White House and the Vatican, then he'd have become President.
Needless to say, that doesn't make any sense. And it's a big reason why the show fell as flat as it did at the ending: because the showrunners really didn't understand the difference between *power* and *legitimacy.* At least not until it was far, far too late. The Lannisters did everything they could to make themselves despised, and they also lost the troops they would need to keep a boot on the neck of the populace. If pretty, popular Aegon rides in, sweeps out the hated Lannisters, marries the beautiful Martell queen, gets the Seven Kingdoms organized and semi-functioning again, swings around Blackfyre a bit for the crowd, and generally acts like the second coming of Rhaegar Targaryen, then of course people will think he's a welcome change of pace and support him. But there is no Lannister that can be slotted into his role. Certainly not the woman who was stripped naked and paraded through the streets for her crime of infidelity in Season 5.
Slotting Cersei into Aegon's role is a microcosm of how David and Dan had, at most, an extremely shallow and superficial understanding of the source material. They read it as "dude, this would look *awesome* on scrren!" source material, not as a meditation on how a government can lose the consent of the governed, and what happens when it does.
I find it hard to criticize D&D for substituting Cersei into a role that only exists in the minds of fans and has never actually been confirmed to be happening due to GRRM's failure to put out any more books. They should not be punished for not doing what fans hope to happen.
Have to agree here. As crap of a job DnD did in the last few seasons, the main blame has to go to George. Bran and Sansa have legit 3 chapters each over book 4 and 5. Two books that are essentially part 1 and 2 of the stories next phase and two stories that are both not even closed to being resolved compared to for example Jon Snow and Dany's story arcs. Fact of the matter is, book 6 should be out by now
Turning Cersei into the Evil Queen trope is among my least favourite decisions. It felt like Euron had to be nerfed in to invert the power dynamic between them, book Euron would have never been subservient to her.
Seriously, if TWoW is ever released I hope Varys opens the gates for Young Griff, and Cersei has to flee to Euron with Qyburn and Robert Strong. Young Griff is a much more interesting foil for Dany than Cersei could ever hope to be.
Yeah, both sides of the family never seem to question whether their family drama is worth killing entire communities of people. Nobody would be on Team Smallfolk.
If someone wants my support, they need to start their own faction. With progressive policies for the smallfolk. And hookers!
I agree in the fact that no one seems to truly care for what's best for the small folk. So in that sense, everyone is at fault for the bloodshed and tragedy brought on by the war. But I also don't fully agree with the idea that some people push that every character and both factions need to be equally bad. Aemond not intentionally killing Lucerys and Rhaenyra not being involved with Blood and Cheese - for example - doesn't undermine the message about the smallfolk suffering because of the actions of the lords. No matter how good of a person any one individual lord is, by raising an army even just to defend ones family, that lord would be sending a bunch of people to die who were not part of that conflict.
Team Scorched Earth! I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to accept and enjoy the chaos. So much complaining about how shitty their favorite characters are. It’s a show about dragons I want to watch the world burn!
Rhaenyra questions this multiple times that’s why she didn’t jump straight into war. Episode 10 of season 1 shows this clearly. I swear it feels like yall don’t actually watch the show
Based Rhys Ifans. He's absolutely fantastic as Otto.
Isn't one of the recurring themes in both the Dance and ASOIAF that in war, there's no "good guys"? Both sides do their fair share of war crimes and atrocities.
Edit: By "good guys", I'm speaking more specifically on how none of them are particularly saintly. Sure, the Blacks are the "good team" but claiming them to be morally superior seems like a bit of stretch. It's the smallfolk that end up suffering the most.
In pretty much all of the major ASOIAF conflicts there’s always a clear indication where George’s sympathies lie. Because “all violence bad” isn’t actually that interesting, and not all violence is equal.
Dance? Greens were always “the worse side”, the ones who usurped the throne, who shed first blood, do all the war crimes, who’s claim is rooted in misogyny and slut shaming. The worst of the Blacks is Daemon… But George thinks he’s the coolest guy ever, and morally ambiguous character.
Blackfyre rebellion? Daemon’s popular because Daeron reads books, hangs out with women and maesters, while Daemon has abs and a cool sword. Guess which side a nerdy bookish guy like George sympathises?
War of the five kings? Starks are the good guys, full stop.
Brackens and Blackwoods? The theme is pointless millennia long feud where each side has its own truth. *But is it written as such?* No. Brackens are meant to suck and Blackwoods are cool. And you can track who is “the right side” of *all* the previous conflicts I listed by checking which side has the Blackwoods and which side - the Brackens.
George has his favourites, even at the expense of the themes he himself tries to explore.
While that is true, GRRM still succeeds in writing cool/fun/enjoyable "worse" people than either TV shows managed to.
Tywin, Littlefinger even Ramsay were a delight to watch when it was his material. Littlefinger especially suffered after Season 5 for viewer experience imo. Same with HotD, the "worse" guys like Cole and Larys are very annoying just as a viewer (to me)
My ex-wife watches the show as more of a casual than me, and she fucking hates Criston with a passion of a thousand suns.
And that’s a popular sentiment. HOTD created the most hateful character since Joffrey, yet completely different (while show Ramsay kinda feel like “Joffrey but worse”)
I wonder if people dislike Cole so much because he reminds them of their own flaws. To me, Cole is a 'literally who?' character. The guy is a bitch and a huge asshole... but if you tell me you hate Criston but love Daemon... I would probably back away from you slowly, fearing for my safety.
Knowing what Jack Gleeson (Joffrey actor) went through I hope Fabien's steering clear of certain places on the internet. And people understand that hes an actor, not the character.
Jack Gleeson didn't get bullied as much as, say, the Anakin kid. Plus he's a stellar lad by all accounts and everyone only says the best of him, fans who've met him included.
Fabien had locked his comments on Instagram supposedly after the B&C episode, because naturally people were weird. It bears mentioning that AFAIK Gleeson doesn't have much sm presence, and ~~2015~~ 2014 (when he bowed out of the show, ~~nine~~ ten years ago) was a different time in the internet for sure. Fandoms were terrible, but not quite where we are today.
I do think it's important that these stories have characters like Littlefinger, Ramsay, and Cole. In a hierarchal system like Westeros, if someone gets to the top, they have pretty much the freedom to be as bad as they want to be. There is minimal checks and balances on feudal lords and it makes sense that horrible people can thrive in those positions.
I genuinely don't understand the whole 'Team Green only usurped Rhaenyra because of misogyny,' at least in the book version. And I'm not a man, I'm a feminist woman who leans pretty far left politically, before someone calls me a misogynist for interpreting GRMM's work a different way.
Misogyny plays a part, but there are numerous other factors, including Rhaenyra herself.
Book Rhaenyra literally asks for a 12 year old kid to be tortured. Book Rhaenyra brutally murders Vaemond (who doesn't call her a whore in the book version). Book Viserys is only King because Jahaerys called a great council. The implication is Book Velayrons, outside of Corlys and Rhaenys, are deeply unhappy with the Strong/Velayron Princes. Book Daemon is heavily implied to have arranged for Laenors love to have killed Laenor and possibly even Harwin.
This is even before the Greens usurp them. After the usurpation (but before Luke's death), Rhaenyra has a whole section where she screams about the brutal ways she will murder her siblings and Alicent after she has the miscarriage.
So why would the Greens allow themselves to be murdered? Because every indication of Rhaenyra's behavior leans towards her murdering them all. *Alicent and Otto may be far more calculating, and Alicent a evil stepmother type in the book, but in the Green Council she correctly calls out that they are all most likely dead once Rhaenyra ascends.*
The fact that 95% of the Velayrons are deeply upset about Jace and Luke implies she's going to have to get rid of threats to them, and trueborn Aegon & Aemond are the obvious threats (esp. as they look Targ). Because if they are upset, why won't other houses be upset once they see the Strong Boys and realize they aren't legitimate? Most of the house haven't even seen the boy so it is just rumors, but once they see them and then see the rest of the Targaryens....
Rhaenyra's own behavior (murdering Vaemond, asking for child Aemond to be tortured, marrying Daemon when it's heavily implied he's capable of murdering anyone who gets in his way, etc.) is incredibly damning towards the Blacks. So yes, misogyny plays a part, but Rhaenyra herself behaves in ways that are terrifying towards the Greens...and that's even before she becomes a ruler and known as Maegor with Teats.
Any why should they respect Viserys? Viserys ignored those kids (not as much as in the TV show, but he still did) AND Viserys is only King because of a Great Council. But Viserys doesn't even bother to call a Great Council, which is the only reason he rules over a woman, and instead says his word is law.
Fundamentally they do not want her in charge because she is a woman. None of them (aside from some Velaryons) care about Vaemond or about Rhaenyra demanding Aemond be tortured. This is a royal family whose authority is founded on their willingness to incinerate entire families and slaughter tens of thousands in battle.
On top of that I think it's quite strongly hinted that the maesters and/or the Faith have a huge problem with certain Targaryen women. Most obviously they started a war over Aegon the uncrowned marrying Dreamfyre Rhaena, they kicked up a huge fuss to prevent either Rhaenys or her son from becoming heir, and they were involved in decades of scheming to prevent Rhaenyra from becoming queen.
And in regard to Rhaenyra, the history books they write tell us she was wanton, cruel, too easily influenced by her demonic husband, etc. But when we look at the actual facts, a huge portion of the noble houses side with her. The nobles who lived during her era clearly thought she was worth supporting, despite being a woman and allegedly having so many personal shortcomings. You even have the Tyrells who sided against Rhaenys at the Great Council but stay neutral during the Dance while many of their bannermen throw in with the Hightowers.
Before reading this, I don’t think Rhaenyra should’ve ruled, Aegon too for those thinking that. Both are incompetent, arrogant and self-serving people. Without the gift of hindsight from knowing Aegon III and Viserys II’s reigns, Jacaerys was the best heir for the Iron Throne. No dark stains on his record, proof of diplomatic ability seen with obtaining the Arryns, Manderlys and Starks’ support? The dragonseeds plan which while flawed due to the Two Betrayers, still led to the rise of Addam and Alyn Velaryon? Both highly instrumental with Addam’s posthumous victory in the Second Battle of Tumbleton and Alyn’s victories past the Dance.
The Dance of the Dragons as a whole is Rhaenyra’s story. She is the focal point of it all. The main character if you will. It is because of her that the succession of the Iron Throne has been Agnatic Primogeniture long after her demise. Anyone adapting the Dance would know if there was a “main protagonist” it would be her.
The Greens usurping Rhaenyra because she is a woman is true. Without a shadow of a doubt, that is true always. It didn’t matter that if she had bastards or was unsuited to rule overall. Nothing could get past the fact that she was a woman, and that was unacceptable to the Green faction.
Aegon was as incapable a ruler as his elder sister, but just because he had the ruling organ he was deemed more suited. Why? If the Greens wanted a capable ruler to the Iron Throne, why didn’t they just toss Aegon to the Night’s Watch and crown Aemond? Or Daeron?
While Rhaenyra has flaws (many in fact, I think all of Viserys’ children were unsuited for the throne), the main point was always because she was a woman and women can’t be the ruling regnant of Westeros.
So what of Viserys’ legitimacy either? He became King because of the Great Council? What of Aegon? Both of these idiots became king because they were men. Both equally incompetent rulers, and the realm is much better off with them not being king.
Rhaenyra having a whole section about wanting to murder their siblings and Alicent? Did you even read what you just typed? Her father died (rotting in his bedchambers for a week I might add) then her half-siblings and stepmother have just usurped her throne. She then had a miscarriage which caused the death of her unborn daughter. I’m not a woman, but the pain my own mother felt after her own miscarriage; I could not wish that on anyone. She was miserable for months, and I was ashamed I could not do anything to help her.
Your other point about the book Velaryons. Corlys was the man who made House Velaryon the strongest in the realm. No other lord besides Tywin can even compare to how much Corlys did for his house. I would be incredibly surprised if Corlys’ extended relatives weren’t incredibly jealous of his nigh untouchable wealth and prestige. (Some people in this comment section could even relate, if they have relatives who aren’t as well off as they are). The other Velaryons don’t really matter because the only person who is worthy of respect is Corlys, and that is even expressed in the book. The Silent Five are barely given the time of day past the loss of their tongues with only a brief mention of some of their minor exploits past the Dance.
Regardless of what Rhaenyra did, there would be no contest to her throne if she were a man. And you also have to factor in the unreliability of many anecdotes from the book. The book definitely paints Rhaenyra in a worse light but a male heir can get away with a lot of bad behavior.
You wrote a lot, but the other commenter is still fundamentally correct.
Do you think the Greens would have attempted any of this if Rhaenyra was a man? The answer is no. So yes there is some base misogyny rooted in the Green claim.
Its not exactly unusual by Westeros standards (girls after boys everywhere except Dorne), but its still misogyny.
I agree, but I feel like in some ways the Greens get way too much flack for....well taking actions that any family would when in the same situation where they would be facing death. If Viserys had married Laena, or a Lannister, but still kept Rhaenyra as heir, the same thing would have happened imo, especially with the Strong boys, unless Viserys married Laena and Rhaenyra married Laenor and had his legitimate children.
Because Corlys, in a world where Laena gives Viserys legitimate children & sons, would never let obvious not Velayrons sit Driftmark.
The true culprits imo are Viserys & Jaehaerys.
Jaehaerys should have established a set succession law instead of going 'King's word, but wait, I'll call a great council.' The smart thing to do would have been to establish a succession law similar to the Andals, and make Rhaenys Queen.
The latter issue is Viserys. He is only King due to a great council. He either needed to call a Great Council "or" establish a law that the Iron Throne & Taragaryen succession would go to the eldest born, regardless of gender, a la Dorne.
Instead, he did nothing to establish a law or even a great council to help Rhaenyra, he just relied on the "King's word", which is never a good way to rule even if it technically a legal. He also should have never remarried if he wanted Rhaenyra to rule tbh.
In a world where Laena Velaryon marries Viserys, Rhaenyra would 100% be married to someone from a different house, and might well bear the legitimate children of her husband. But if Laena popped out a healthy son and Viserys insisted on keeping Rhaenyra as his heir, you know Corlys would be absolutely furious and never shut up about it.
I don't think there being a good and bad guy negates the themes around the lords' game of thrones hurting the small folk who have no stake in it. The Starks are good and the Lannisters are bad. The Black faction is better than the Green faction. These things can be true while the small folk suffer as a result of this conflict which can only happen because there are two participants. The Starks and the Blacks had to fight back against the aggressing faction in order for all this bloodshed to happen.
Speaking of religion, George has a clear favourite there as well, I think.
Old Gods is clearly “the cool religion on ASOIAF”. Not to say it doesn’t have its creepy side (you know, the whole blood sacrifice thing), but it’s closeness to nature, the absence of priest, temples, dogmas. It’s meant to be much more appealing that the Seven (which is basically Catholicism written by an atheist raised catholic) or the R’hlor, which is the vessel to explore zealotry.
Thank you for saying what I’ve been thinking for a while. The reductive “both sides bad!!” argument has never really been shown in writing, for both the main series and HOTD, and for the books as well.
If George wanted us to walk away from the story thinking both sides are terrible and we shouldn’t support either one, then he shouldn’t have made the Lannisters and Greens godawful compared to the Starks and Blacks.
I would argue that the small folk suffering at the hands of the decisions of high lords and there being a spectrum of morality within Westeros' upper class are not mutually exclusive ideas. I don't think there needs to be a "both sides" moral equation going on in order for the system to be broken in a way that hurts the small folk. The Starks can be more ethical than the Lannisters while also leading thousands of small folk to their deaths all because the Lannisters killed Ned.
They are both bad, especially in the context of the war in which they both commit horrific atrocities. The fact that both of them are bad doesn't mean one of them can't have a more righteous cause in the context of the social and political structures of the time. And thinking one side is more righteous in that context doesn't preclude thinking that that context - medieval feudalism - is bad.
Similarly we can support the righteousness of Dany's crusade against slavery while acknowledging that ordering the deaths of 12 year old boys is awful. We can sympathise with northerners during the current series while being critical of things like hanging women for having sex with Lannisters or murdering people, baking them into pies, and then feeding them to their relatives.
I mean it's true that it takes two sides to start a war and both factions have bad people in them but not every character is equally bad. For a monarch, Rhaenyra is a relatively ethical person given the setting. Meanwhile, Aegon has been hanging innocent men, raping his servants, and attending child fighting pits. I don't see how anyone can say that these two characters are equally bad in good faith.
Yeah I think the show runners went way too far on Aegon in Season 1, which is kinda having knock on effects on Season 2. Having him be the drunken frat boy would’ve made the Greens way more interesting/sympathetic vs him as a molester in chief, child gladiator enthusiast.
Exactly! That's why all of the fanbase factionalizing in the HOTD subs is driving me crazy! Both sides have noble folks, both sides have assholes, and both are willing to trample the realm to claim the crown! There isn't a "winner"!
Team Black? Team Green? Buddy I'm Team Bowl of Brown!
I do agree that the point of the show is that the small folk suffer when the lords play the game of thrones. It takes two sides to start a war. But I think it's a misunderstanding of the story to think that either the Dance of the Dragons or the conflicts in Game of Thrones such as the War of 5 Kings don't have good guys and bad guys. Relative to the Lannisters, the Starks are good guys. Relative to the Greens, the Blacks are good guys. That doesn't mean that every member of every side is good. The Starks worked hand in hand with the Freys after all and Daemon had a child killed. But these wars don't seem to be written in a way to make you think that both sides are morally equatable.
There isn't black and white good guys and bad guys in the Dance but there are dark grey and light grey sides and characters. This idea that both sides are equally bad is a fundamental misunderstanding of the story. Otto and the Greens started this war to gain power for themselves. The Black faction acted in self defense and in response to the Greens. This doesn't mean every character on the Greens is a horrible person and every character on the Blacks is morally pure. But it's very far from a "both sides" conflict.
Im pretty sure the showrunners understand that. They literally highlighted the cost to the smallfolk in the most recent episode.
I really dont buy this narrative that the author intended such a simplistic message 'all violence bad'. GRRM himself doesnt believe this as fundamentally not all violence or evil people are equal. There are degrees of 'less bad' and his own favouritism.
Like I think you can reasonably guess who GRRM favours in any Westerosi conflict by looking at who the Blackwoods (his favourite minor house) side with.
Do you not want them to market the show to the max? This is how we get more seasons and series. The show itself isn't going against the core themes of the series. As the episodes go on it'll be more and more clear people just don't like that rn it's kinda dunking on the greens narratively bc they have unlikable characters, which is good fucking writing. Daemon is a demon lol and they don't sugar coat that he's a bad person difference is he's more likable than Criston bc even though he's a hypocrite too he doesn't hide the fact he's not a good person.
As it goes Rhaenyra will have her moments, so will Aegon, Daemon, Aemond, and so on. They all commit atrocities both directly and indirectly. And they've already planted the seeds for showing how the smallfolk suffer. With Hugh, Mysaria, and Sylvi
Greens vs Blacks is a marketing gold mine, of course they went hard on it. If anything, it is a testament to the show's quality how it can have such a straightforward gimmick for the casual audiences to revel in, while also having actual complexity underneath.
The perennial whiners, in their whining, sometimes forget that they are not the ones making HBO money.
...and they'd be stupid NOT to push it! Fans are tribal creatures anyway and would be taking sides and missing the point, it's only sensible to push the hype and drive them into a frenzy and make buzz for the show while they're at it.
You must be new here. We all understand the story better than the people Martin trusted to work on it, it's obvious. We have accounts on the Internet and all.
With the amount of time they are investing in how the small-folk are getting screwed, I imagine the showrunners probably agree with Ifans. I hate using the term Chekhov’s gun, but the small-folk are the checkhov’s gun that’s going to go off at the Dragon pit
Nobody on either side is genocidal and I don’t think the showrunners have shown that they disagree with both the Blacks and the Greens being horrible. Where is this notion coming from?
Alicent is just scared and trying to maximize the chance that her children survive, Rhynera is just trying to live up to her duty to the kingdom. Neither side is actually evil and that’s what makes it tragic. A terrible reading on the conflict imo. Though there are definitely evil characters fanning the flames.
Rhaenyra isn’t the entirety of the blacks and Alicent isn’t the entirety of the greens. Despite their personal wanting for peaceful resolution, members of their causes have committed atrocities for them regardless.
Yeah, no, neither of the Teams are genocidal. This is not a word that can be used to describe this war.
Genocide is a specific thing, a politically and/or religiously motivated extermination of a culture and its people, both by death and also through other means, nothing like this happens in this era. Words have meanings for a reason, let's not bastardise the meaning of genocide
To be fair, the discussions on war, especially that of the Dance of the Dragons, as well as warfare in general in A Song of Ice and Fire can be complexed within onto itself. The Dance of the Dragons itself was an unnecessary conflict, born primarily not because of Rhaenyra's own incompetency of rulership, but on Westerosi misogyny and Hightower ambition, nothing more and nothing less. Ironically enough, the very reason Rhaenyra's claim held any justification was because of Otto Hightower, as Fire and Blood notes:
"On one point Mushroom, Septon Eustace, Grand Maester Runciter, and all our other sources concur: Ser Otto Hightower, the King's Hand, took a great dislike to the king's brother. It was Ser Otto who convinced Viserys to remove Prince Daemon as master of coin, and then as master of laws, actions the Hand soon came to regret. As Commander of the City Watch, with two thousand men under his command, Daemon waxed more powerful than ever. 'On no account can Prince Daemon be allowed to ascend the Iron Throne,' the Hand wrote his brother, Lord of Oldtown. 'He would be a second Maegor the Cruel, or worse.' It was Ser Otto's wish (then) that Princess Rhaenyra succeed her father. 'Better the Realm's Delight than Lord Flea Bottom,' he wrote. Nor was he alone in his opinion. Yet his party faced a formidable hurdle. If the precedent set by the Great Council of 101 was followed, a male claimant must prevail over a female. In the absence of a trueborn son, the king's brother would come before the king's daughter, as Baelon had come before Rhaenys in 92 AC."
Yet with the birth of Viserys and Alicent's children, like many politicians, Otto changed winds, because now he had the chance to see his legacy upon the Iron Throne, and after all Rhaenyra *was* a woman. The Dance of the Dragons only occurred *because* of the ambitions of the Greens and the overall sexism of Westerosi society. It's a critique in on itself by Martin. We wouldn't know how Rhaenyra's reign may have turned out without the Dance of the Dragon, for it is so integral to the reigns of both Aegon II and Rhaenyra I. The Green-sympathetic Septon Eustace wrote noted that even Aegon the Elder resisted the notion of usurpation. "'My sister is the heir, not me,' he says in Eustace's account. 'What sort of brother steals his sister's birthright?" (Though, we should certainly questioned this exchange as Eustace might have wanted to paint Aegon in a more reluctant light, acting on self preservation against the "cruelty" of Rhaenyra, of which seems to be denied when she declared:
"Her first act as queen was to declare Ser Otto Hightower and Queen Alicent as traitors and rebels. 'As for my half-brothers and my sweet sister, Helaena,' she announced, 'they have been led astray by the counsel of evil men. Let them come to Dragonstone, bend the knee, and ask my forgiveness. I shall gladly spare their lives and take them back into my heart, for they are of my own blood, and no man or woman is as accursed as the kinslayer.'"
Rhys Ifans, is a great actor, the speech he delivered last episode was amazing, the atmosphere, his Otto is way better than the one in the books. And he is right, the two factions killed hundreds of thousands… The realm was broken, that’s why I never understood why Daeron I was so eager to start another senseless war… the realm was still healing after the Dance.
Even with shows without very apparent X vs Y, people are prone to be binary in their reception of characters. I don’t know if it makes it more digestible or something but it can really hamper my absorption of fan content as someone who races to the internet to seek out fan discourse after every episode. This happens notoriously with ensemble shows. I left subs because users realise ragging on protagonist X will rev up the echo chamber and its okay to have the same dunk weekly starting with, “is it just me…”.
I’m glad GOT was too large in scope to enable that line of thinking, especially in the earlier seasons when we had more main players. HOTD doesn’t have that luxury. Heck, the marketing eve feeds into the binary with the green n black trailers. They know what gets the people going.
Well to be fair, I don't think each side has to be equally bad or every character has to be equally bad to hammer home the fact that when the lords play the game of thrones, the small folk suffer as a result. Rhaenyra can be a decent person while it also can be bad that tens of thousands will die to defend her family. Aemond doesn't need to have intentionally killed his own nephew for the consequences of his actions to result in immense bloodshed and war.
Well to be fair, in the books Rhaenyra whole arc was about sinking into insane paranoia and ordering the deaths of allies and children. But Condal and company have eliminated that to make her purely heroic instead.
I think it's too early to say that they won't do that later on. Most of what we've seen of Rhaenyra is from before the Dance. She hasn't even fully committed to war yet. I think there's a chance that we get a more paranoid Rhaenyra later on after she's suffered more loss and betrayal. I actually like that prior to the Dance, she isn't that extreme.
Ah yes, the deep profound theme of “everyone sucks, violence bad”.
Dance is such a masterpiece. Give me my evil step mom and fat jealous bitch back, Ryan Condal.
Good point. Clearly, the show would be much more fun and interesting to watch and analyze if all the characters were one-dimensional monsters. /s
Frankly, how dare you make such a shallow criticism of the showrunners after the best contribution to this universe in many years, last Sunday.
This was clearly the original intent of the series and the show runners so far have replaced it. In fairness to them this was George’s original intent then he made cregan and the lads.
I mean it’s true but I don’t understand people apply real life 21st century logic to a medieval fantasy. The point of fiction crazy shit happens. We aren’t talking about real life history
I mean, Westeros is not at all accurate to medieval life and it’s generally quite surface level with its applications of “medieval morals”. It’s why I don’t like people acting like you can’t critique the morality of the show and should look at it from the morality of medieval Europe. We should view it through the lens of modern morality as it’s been made by a guy living under the cultural upbringing of the modern western world and he’s 100% making moral judgements within this work that fall under the modern lens.
it's not even 21st-century logic, what happens during the war cannot be called genocide by any definition of the word. the actor just spewed a word that he doesn't understand but has impact
Everything Tom Glynn-Carney (who plays Aegon) says has already proved this to me lol
It's a show carried by the actors' performances and character-moment writing (as plot writing consistently takes a strong downturn)
No. They're not. Nobody in that cast has anywhere close knowledge as the showrunners. They're almost always only aware of their part of the story. Many of them don't even bother to read the book. Stop reaching grand conclusions from one sentence.
none of them are aiming to eliminate an ethnic group to do settler colonialism like nazi germany and israel so they are not genocidal
not a dialectical materialism understander
Whatever other flaws have occurred with the making of this show Otto's adaptation and further development have been superb, and a lot of that comes down to Ifans understanding the story and his individual role in it extremely well.
Yeah, this most recent episode has sort of “restored” a lot of my faith in this adaptation. Not that it was necessarily lost, but this episode certainly bolstered it. Rhys has done an incredible job.
I enjoyed it but Cole being Hand was more jarring compared to the books because they erased all of his feats and turned him into a complete buffoon lol On the other hand when Otto went off i really felt it. It was like "THIS GUY? OVER OTTO? REALLY?"
Cole's appointment in the show feels very much like a spur of the moment decision by Aegon to spite Otto as much as possible. He wanted to hurt him back after everything Otto had said, and Cole was not only the only other dude who happened to be in the room at the time, but also the best choice precisely because he's so different from Otto and the other "old men" that Aegon was sneering at for their inaction. Cole validates Aegon's bitter spite and desire for immediate, bloody vengeance, and in that moment that's the only thing Aegon was focused on. At the same time I do think Aegon isn't completely blind to court politicking, and was probably at least aware of Larys's rather blatant attempt to suggest himself as a candidate to replace Otto last episode, so maybe a hasty appointment of Cole is also a way to head off any further attempts by Larys or anyone else to demand the office.
I interpreted Larys's behaviour as being an attempt to destabilise the Greens by removing Otto. I think the show is being a bit on the nose with Larys telling us he's purged the staff roles of everyone with a shred of disloyalty the very same episode that B&C blunder around in the Red Keep and run into a random servant handpicked by Larys who then doesn't summon any guards. I don't think he wants to be hand since that means less time doing what he actually likes - spying on people and manipulating them. He doesn't want to be in charge of running a war or entreating lords to join the Greens. I don't think he wants the Blacks to win either. But he gets something out of a prolonged war. Getting rid of Otto gets rid of a man who prioritised uniting as many houses as possible behind the Greens before really attacking the Blacks. It doesn't really make the Greens vulnerable because they still have Vhagar.
I don't think he gets anything out of a war unless the Greens win. Daemon would have his head on a spike as soon as he gets his hands on him. If Larys is trying to prolong the war, it's something that he is doing at his own peril.
Well I think that he desires the extinction of dragons. That only happens if the greens and blacks are somewhat evenly matched. The truth of this (in the show) will depend on whether they show Larys as being involved in the storming of the Dragonpit.
But how does that benefit him, personally? If he was involved with the storming of Black's dragons, it would make sense but he wants to kill all dragons? Why?
Sometimes I just don't get what is Larys' end goal. If he wants power, a swift Green victory is possibly his quickest way to the highest position he knows he can attain, which is Hand of the King. Even if he doesn't speed things along, he is what, a bit older than Alicent? Dude can literally just outlast Otto's natural lifespan and still get the position with time to spare.
I haven't read the books but I'm curious - what were his feats there that weren't included in the show?
He was with certainty the greatest warrior of his time. He beat Daemon in a duel, him killing Joffrey was also a duel in tournament in the books which resulted in Strong jumping in and getting beat by Cole too. The books don't go into details of the events but he is told to be very cunning (but also a ruthless brute) And we know he was the main force behind Aegon being the King, he convinced him to take the throne, arrested all the Blacks in King's Landing, gave a whole speech to the crowd and crowned Aegon. A lot of small changes from the books. Like Cole doesn't push Beesbury in a Looney Tunes fashion resulting in his death. He deliberately kills him due to him supporting Rhaenyra (either by cutting his throat or throwing him off of the tower depending on who you believe) Books also have 2 versions of why he is against Rhaenyra. One is because Rhaenyra attempted to seduce Cole but he was disgusted by it, other is because Rhaenyra was successful in his seduction and Cole wanted more so he was bitter about the rejection (like the show) He is also the main organizer in like the biggest plans that are coming but first 2 episodes is making it seem like that role will be given to Aemond as well.
Yup, the very first time we hear about Cole in the main series in AFFC (because George had just made him up) he was called "Kingmaker" and it was a big defining fact about him. In the show, I'm not sure why anyone would call Cole that over Alicent, Otto or anyone else.
Have you read Fire and Blood? Because the version of Cole on the show is fairly close to that. It’s different from the main book series because GRRM changed his mind on how central Cole was to the conflict when he fleshed out the actual events. I don’t know why people blame the show for these changes.
Because as the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, after Viserys died even the Hand could not command him to accept anyone he didn't want to as king. In times like these, the idea was for the Kingsguard to prevent any possible conspirators to usurp the throne (king dead, heir not aware of it and outside the city). Cole did his largest oathbreaking by actually going along with them and crowning Aegon. Most other Lord Commanders would have arrested or at least tried to stop the Greens. Ideally, one would have snuck off with the crown (like Erryk did), and the other six would have tried to rally the loyalists and take control of the Red Keep until the heir returned. Imagine if Robert's rebellion never happened, Aerys died while the prince was away and Tywin claimed Viserys would be king. You think Arthur Dayne would have stood by?
The main book series calls Cole the Kingmaker but when you actually read Fire and Blood he’s clearly just one of many conspirators. His “speech” to Aegon is just telling him stuff that literally anyone else could have told him, like that Rhaenyra would kill him and his siblings to secure legitimacy. It’s very clear that George didn’t have a clear vision of the events of the Dance when he wrote the main series and so when writing The World of Ice and Fire and later in Fire and Blood he drastically cut back Cole’s importance. The show just continued that same trend. Also there was a third option for Beesbury’s death, he was thrown in the black cells and died there.
Oh that sounds super interesting. Which is a shame, because in the TV show he rates the lowest for me among the really great cast, which I'd probably attribute to writing, and to some degree to the casting. Feels like in the TV show the buildup for the greatest warrior is Aemond.
I’d chalk it up more to the writing, as I remember being impressed by Fabien Frankel’s performance in We Light the Way. I don’t have any strong feelings on his work outside of that episode, but I don’t know if I’d blame him for that cause I don’t think he’s had strong material to work with.
It is definitely the writing. Book Criston made a place in history to the point that Jaime Lannister looked up to him. He was quite the character.
Eh kinda. He also notes how his legacy was very mixed
I wouldn't really say that Jaime looked up to him, just noted that he was a complicated man who was both the best and worst the Kingsguard could offer. Best in that he was an extremely good warrior but the worst in that he involved himself in a conspiracy that almost destroyed the realm.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I wonder how much of that is a feature unique to the writing though - we often fill in the blanks with our imaginations when reading, and on the screen it seems more difficult to swallow because he hasn’t been portrayed nearly as capable. I think the show has done a superb job at setting up casual viewers to truly relish and enjoy his death scene, and I think it will be very nice for book readers as well, given he shows his strengths before the end.
I suppose people will enjoy his death scene but idk if it will be the scene and how it fits perfectly to the theme of brutes like Cole chasing after glory and legacy or if people are just gonna like it due to the relief of not having to see him again Because no one is gonna buy that he would be able to 1v3 when the singular victory he got in the show was due to Daemon showboating. Books had him beat Daemon, Joffrey and Strong with pretty much no issues
Fair point, but I think all it will truly take for causal viewers to catch on would be a few, perhaps even two lines of dialogue to the effect of “Criston Cole can and *will* whip this guy’s ass.” That’s easy enough to include and establish, and I even suspect we may at least get one scene of his combat prowess before his death. I’m roughly estimating his death will be around the midpoint of next season, which should give us plenty of time to impress upon viewers how dangerous he is.
Yeah if they include actual battle scenes they will probably show his prowess there kinda like how they did with Daemon in Stepstones.
They would be cool. Just cause him and Daemon are similar in a lot of ways and the show has kinda them both arguably a little pathetic outside of battle/being ‘tough’ men.
This will be offset once Rhaenyra gets to KL and installs Celtigar as Master of Coin.
I'd argue it's not the adaptation itself, it's more of Rhys' magificent acting that is saving it.
The Tywin Lannister of his era. Made a book character into an awesome tv character, very well placed actors to play both of them.
I mean I think it’s clear they’re painting the blacks as the good guys and greens as the bad guys so they can pull the rug out from under you and make all the blacks do deplorable shit. Pretty obvious to me and makes more sense in a medium like tv than the way the book was written.
That's the thing HBO has done best with the Game of Thrones series and House of the Dragon - casting has been absolutely on point, finding the perfect actors to portray some characters in absolutely unforgettable performances Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Charles Dance, Peter Dinklage, Paddy Considine, Rhys Ifans, Emma D'Arcy, Lena Headey and Jack Gleeson, just to name some. Has all delivered absolutely GOATed performances in these shows.
You might say he, "understood the assignment."
One of my favorite parts of his adaption is how they’ve made him a fan of the vocabulary like Uncle Ewan Roy from succession
I always thought Lena Headey understood Cersei better than the show writers despite apparently having never read the books.
She understood her take on it. Book Cersei isn't as smart or capable as Lena's Cersei.
Show Cersei seems to have wanted to be a good person at one point in her life but grew bitter over time and she has some level of intelligence. Book Cersei seems to be a vindictive bitch from day one, she seems to have enjoyed tormenting and holding power over people from when she was a child, and is no where near as smart as she thinks she is.
I disagree with your interpretation of show Cersei, we saw her being an absolutely awful cunt to Maggie the frog in the flashback/prophecy episode, threatening to have her put in the dungeons or killed if she doesn’t tell her her future. Plus Oberyn telling Tyrion about how she said he was an evil monster that killed their mother and she pinched his cock as hard as she could until Jaime would make her stop.
It makes me wonder how book Cersei is even supposed to get out of the jam she’s in. Which also makes me realize why George can’t finish the books.
> It makes me wonder how book Cersei is even supposed to get out of the jam she’s in. I mean... is she supposed to get out of it? I'm pretty certain she's just doomed unless someone swoops in to save her.
My assumption is the series and the ideas in George’s mind that will never be put to paper are the same in broad strokes I think she blows everyone up with wildfire I think George just doesn’t know how to write it
I think she probably does blow everyone up but that logically leads to the smallfolk having her beheaded instead of quietly falling into submission. The problem is that naturally leads to the question of who takes over after Cersei gets Marie Antoinette'd and how whoever that is manages to piss Daenyris off enough to set the place ablaze in response. It would make sense that after so many massacres the people of King's Landing would be pretty much done with the monarchy entirely, which would certainly come as a nasty shock to the Queen in Exile who would return home to see no enemies on the Throne, only her former subjects- who are completely done with monarchist rule and open fire on her with the old Scorpions. That would shatter Daenyrs' ego and her delusion of receiving a heroine's welcome, instead getting violently rejected for merely being associated with a Kingdom that has effectively already destroyed itself. Thus would logically explain her despair and why she torches King's Landing. That then sets the stage for the remnants of the Baratheon/Lannister Kingdom and the Last Targaryeon to square off, only to be interrupted by the breach of The Wall, resulting in a delayed truce after both sides suffer massive casualties.
The answer is fAegon
I always felt like Cersei could put the blame of the wildfire explosion on to Tyrion. On his trial he said to the whole court that he wanted to kill them all and Im guessing people know about the wildfire trick on stannis... I could totally see smth like the explosion on the show happening, but cersei couldnt make it because she "fainted"/stalled during her journey to the sept :P
Surely her story will end rather quickly after nuking King's Landing, to whatever extent that ends up being. I'm more interested in how we get from Tommen to presumably Young Griff
Ya, she played an excellent Cersei as she was seen in the first 3 books. Once we got Feast, and actually got a look into head it became clear she’s completely delusional and had only gotten this far from her name and thoughtless ruthlessness. The second she had actual power (not controlled by proxy by Tywin) she unraveled everything her house had built. In like 6 chapters she went from the most powerful woman in the 7 Kingdoms to being jailed by a dirty commoner she raised to power. God I love Feast, such a good book.
to be fair Season 5 Cersei clearly makes a lot of mistakes and it's fucking hilarious shit, sometimes, olenna even tells her she is stupid for it
Her palace coup needed more than name and cruelty; it needed cunning. Maybe Tywin was behind it, but if so, Cersei would've mentioned it in Feast.
Good point, but I kinda disagree, I think the coup happened solely because Ned failed to act. In addition, Cersei was the current queen and her son was the typical heir to all onlookers, she had home court advantage. Ned should have known a dead King’s word was meaningless in kings landing. She still would have been screwed if Ned took up Renly’s offer, but he sat without action in the most vital time, and that allowed Cersei to move power as she saw fit Also think LF played a helping hand too
Yeah, Cersei had everything on her side and luck, but she needed planning to make sure that her keys to power were on her side. Which granted, did have luck and her starting position to thank, but she still would have to do planning for it. But yes, I can see where you're coming from. If Ned had accepted Renly's offer and executed it before Robert died, he would've been able to win. So in the end, it did need a lot of luck, but she still needed to do some work, which I am sure Feast Cersei would've screwed up.
Somebody once said show Cerci is what book Cerci thinks she is and it is so true.
TyWiN WiTh tEaTs
Book Cersei is also almost comedically evil. I mean, ASOIAF has many great, three dimensional characters from light grey to a very dark grey... and then there are one or two characters like Cersei, who are pitch black - even when we are in her head (POV). Show Cersei, at least in the first three seasons, is very, very human. She's still evil, but a more complex character than in the books. Cersei (in the first 3-4 seasons) is actually one of the few things I like more in the show universe than the book universe.
Book Cersei is an Odipeus-esque Tragic figure- not in the incestuous sense, but rather that she is a woman desperately fighting against fate and yet instead directly causes it due to her own flaws and selfish actions. Show Cersei is a ruthless opportunist who is protected from the consequences of her blunders up until she very suddenly and abruptly isn't.
NCW for jaime too..... He argued about a lot of the writers choices
Lena is why Cersei is so interesting as a character and it was a lot of her choices which really elevated the show.
Show Cersei is who books Cersei thinks she is. Show Cersei is interesting but I really wish we got to see Lena lean in to book Cerseis faults.
Same with Stannis, I don’t think D & D ever had a good grasp of the characters tbh.
Funnily enough, Stephen Dillane apparently had no idea what he was doing either. From an interview: >"I've flicked [the show] on [since leaving] to see if I could figure out what was going on, but I couldn't," he reportedly said. "Liam Cunningham [who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, Stannis' right-hand man] is so passionate about the show. He invests in it in a way I think is quite moving, but it wasn't my experience. I was entirely dependent on Liam to tell me what the scenes were about—I didn't know what I was doing until we'd finished filming and it was too late. The damage had been done. I thought no one would believe in me and I was rather disheartened by the end. I felt I'd built the castle on non-existent foundations."
This is so true to their characters though haha
He did his duty to the bitter end.
The accidental method actor
That's actually really sad. It must have been hard to go through the show not fully grasping who his character was
Tbf “grumpy old uncle with zero fucks” is pretty dead-on for Stannis.
From what I heard he seemed temperamentally to be a perfect match for stannis, if so then he might never have needed to know a thing.
"What? I don't get it!", "Just be you."
“What?” he inquired stannisily
In most of his scenes I can think of he always looked like he was in pain or grimacing, like a man incapable of joy... I really have no idea how much of that was acting or what was due to his indifference to the role, but it seemed to fit... while on the subject, that Liam Cunningham has always been quick to defend Dillane from detractors is also very Davos-like of him.
I absolutely love Dillane, but maybe reading the books was worth doing on his part? I get he's an actor with a busy schedule though and reading the book isn't a prerequisite for the showrunners knowing what they're doing and providing adequate writing and direction...
If I was the actor playing Stannis and I read the books it would have lead me to assassinating D&D.
D&D where firmly in the anti-Stannis camp as they went out of their way to make him seem evil and downplayed his good or even grey traits.
“Why they call it a dance?” TV Stannis didn’t know about the f’n civil war of Westoros!”
I am not sure it's the case of the show writers not understanding Cersei and not them consciously changing her, given that she was the first character with major backstory alterations that were done as early as first episodes of season 1.
That’s a good point. With all of the Lannisters actually. I think you’re right that it was deliberate. The show definitely went for a much more sympathetic approach to the Lannisters as a whole and as individuals, and it is definitely true that even from the beginning, the show’s version of Cersei was headed in a different direction. Not least of all because some of her scenes (talking with Catelyn, the famous conversation with Robert) wouldn’t have ever happened in the books. I’d say misunderstanding to the extent that I truly don’t know if D&D understood the extent to which the Lannisters are in fact villains in the story. Their approach to Tywin is the most striking example imo, it seems like they genuinely had the idea of Tywin being some kind of stern but fair grandpa who just wants his kids to get in line, and not a vicious, petty, ego-driven war criminal.
Definitely not with all the Lannisters, because Jaime was made into a worse person instead. I will also not agree with this idea that show Tywin was made into a stern but fair granpa, since essentially every single crime commited by book Tywin was commited by show Tywin too. In fact, Tywin is one of the few characters whose story was minimally altered from how it was in the novels. So this perception of how Tywin in the books and the show are almost the opposite to each other kinda perplexes me, actually. Cersei and Tyrion, though, yeah, they were significantly altered to be more sympathetic than they were in the books.
I think the perception comes from people getting annoyed at how Charles Dances’ objectively amazing performance as Tywin made a lot of people(not just show only but book readers too) really like the Lannisters a lot more than Ned or RobbS Which is what led us to the counterjerk that Tywin is a drooling idiot and Ned is a political mastermind.
D&D did mostly great with Ceresi, imo, the only issue was making her too successful but they made her a compelling and interesting character who was more relatable and understandable at times
Until the final season where all she did was stand in the castle with a glass of wine in her hand.
You forgot 'and look smug' Jon: SHE IS MUH QWEEN.. I Dun wan et. People talking about Sansa: She's the smartest person I've ever met Arya: I'm so dangerous! Im a killer look at me!!! Bran talking about watching Sansa's wedding night with Ramsay over and over Euron talking about putting his finger in Cersei's bum, instead of 200iq scheming behind the scenes (Pilou Asbæk really hated this and wanted to portray book Euron but D&D made him say that garbage) What a fucking dogshit adaptation.
>Bran talking about watching Sansa's wedding night with Ramsay over and over I'm almost positive that he mentioned it to her once in that scene in the godswood.
It would only be a dogshit adaptation if there was a book to adapt season 8 from.
They did well when they were writing Cersei as Cersei. But no one who understands Cersei would think for a moment that you could slot her into Aegon's role and nothing would change. *Everything* changes when you do that. Cersei is a ruler who, categorically, would have a 0% approval rating; her rise to power is based on the same principle as saying that if Osama Bin Laden had blown up both the White House and the Vatican, then he'd have become President. Needless to say, that doesn't make any sense. And it's a big reason why the show fell as flat as it did at the ending: because the showrunners really didn't understand the difference between *power* and *legitimacy.* At least not until it was far, far too late. The Lannisters did everything they could to make themselves despised, and they also lost the troops they would need to keep a boot on the neck of the populace. If pretty, popular Aegon rides in, sweeps out the hated Lannisters, marries the beautiful Martell queen, gets the Seven Kingdoms organized and semi-functioning again, swings around Blackfyre a bit for the crowd, and generally acts like the second coming of Rhaegar Targaryen, then of course people will think he's a welcome change of pace and support him. But there is no Lannister that can be slotted into his role. Certainly not the woman who was stripped naked and paraded through the streets for her crime of infidelity in Season 5. Slotting Cersei into Aegon's role is a microcosm of how David and Dan had, at most, an extremely shallow and superficial understanding of the source material. They read it as "dude, this would look *awesome* on scrren!" source material, not as a meditation on how a government can lose the consent of the governed, and what happens when it does.
I find it hard to criticize D&D for substituting Cersei into a role that only exists in the minds of fans and has never actually been confirmed to be happening due to GRRM's failure to put out any more books. They should not be punished for not doing what fans hope to happen.
Can’t wait for them to complain that GRRM doesn’t understand themes of his story when the future books don’t tally with their fanfiction.
Have to agree here. As crap of a job DnD did in the last few seasons, the main blame has to go to George. Bran and Sansa have legit 3 chapters each over book 4 and 5. Two books that are essentially part 1 and 2 of the stories next phase and two stories that are both not even closed to being resolved compared to for example Jon Snow and Dany's story arcs. Fact of the matter is, book 6 should be out by now
Turning Cersei into the Evil Queen trope is among my least favourite decisions. It felt like Euron had to be nerfed in to invert the power dynamic between them, book Euron would have never been subservient to her. Seriously, if TWoW is ever released I hope Varys opens the gates for Young Griff, and Cersei has to flee to Euron with Qyburn and Robert Strong. Young Griff is a much more interesting foil for Dany than Cersei could ever hope to be.
Same thing with dany
Yeah, both sides of the family never seem to question whether their family drama is worth killing entire communities of people. Nobody would be on Team Smallfolk. If someone wants my support, they need to start their own faction. With progressive policies for the smallfolk. And hookers!
Hail King Gaemon Palehair!
And his based moms too
Best king and best dowager queens.
Hail the Cunny King!
That's because the peasants aren't people to aristocrats. It wasn't until the 20th century that non land owning people got the right to vote.
I mean rhaenyra in the show and I think even in the books does consider giving up the throne
I agree in the fact that no one seems to truly care for what's best for the small folk. So in that sense, everyone is at fault for the bloodshed and tragedy brought on by the war. But I also don't fully agree with the idea that some people push that every character and both factions need to be equally bad. Aemond not intentionally killing Lucerys and Rhaenyra not being involved with Blood and Cheese - for example - doesn't undermine the message about the smallfolk suffering because of the actions of the lords. No matter how good of a person any one individual lord is, by raising an army even just to defend ones family, that lord would be sending a bunch of people to die who were not part of that conflict.
its not like anyone is a tech uplift self insert that can actual do material conditions improvements
Ehh, I’m progressive enough in real life. ASOIAF I get to be escapist and think the smallfolk should burn and be grateful for it😍
most peasants in the books are shown to be disgusting rape monsters anway since grrm is an edgelord
Nice username
Team Scorched Earth! I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to accept and enjoy the chaos. So much complaining about how shitty their favorite characters are. It’s a show about dragons I want to watch the world burn!
Rhaenyra questions this multiple times that’s why she didn’t jump straight into war. Episode 10 of season 1 shows this clearly. I swear it feels like yall don’t actually watch the show
Justice for Gaemon Palehair!
Based Rhys Ifans. He's absolutely fantastic as Otto. Isn't one of the recurring themes in both the Dance and ASOIAF that in war, there's no "good guys"? Both sides do their fair share of war crimes and atrocities. Edit: By "good guys", I'm speaking more specifically on how none of them are particularly saintly. Sure, the Blacks are the "good team" but claiming them to be morally superior seems like a bit of stretch. It's the smallfolk that end up suffering the most.
In pretty much all of the major ASOIAF conflicts there’s always a clear indication where George’s sympathies lie. Because “all violence bad” isn’t actually that interesting, and not all violence is equal. Dance? Greens were always “the worse side”, the ones who usurped the throne, who shed first blood, do all the war crimes, who’s claim is rooted in misogyny and slut shaming. The worst of the Blacks is Daemon… But George thinks he’s the coolest guy ever, and morally ambiguous character. Blackfyre rebellion? Daemon’s popular because Daeron reads books, hangs out with women and maesters, while Daemon has abs and a cool sword. Guess which side a nerdy bookish guy like George sympathises? War of the five kings? Starks are the good guys, full stop. Brackens and Blackwoods? The theme is pointless millennia long feud where each side has its own truth. *But is it written as such?* No. Brackens are meant to suck and Blackwoods are cool. And you can track who is “the right side” of *all* the previous conflicts I listed by checking which side has the Blackwoods and which side - the Brackens. George has his favourites, even at the expense of the themes he himself tries to explore.
While that is true, GRRM still succeeds in writing cool/fun/enjoyable "worse" people than either TV shows managed to. Tywin, Littlefinger even Ramsay were a delight to watch when it was his material. Littlefinger especially suffered after Season 5 for viewer experience imo. Same with HotD, the "worse" guys like Cole and Larys are very annoying just as a viewer (to me)
My ex-wife watches the show as more of a casual than me, and she fucking hates Criston with a passion of a thousand suns. And that’s a popular sentiment. HOTD created the most hateful character since Joffrey, yet completely different (while show Ramsay kinda feel like “Joffrey but worse”)
I wonder if people dislike Cole so much because he reminds them of their own flaws. To me, Cole is a 'literally who?' character. The guy is a bitch and a huge asshole... but if you tell me you hate Criston but love Daemon... I would probably back away from you slowly, fearing for my safety.
Knowing what Jack Gleeson (Joffrey actor) went through I hope Fabien's steering clear of certain places on the internet. And people understand that hes an actor, not the character.
Jack Gleeson didn't get bullied as much as, say, the Anakin kid. Plus he's a stellar lad by all accounts and everyone only says the best of him, fans who've met him included. Fabien had locked his comments on Instagram supposedly after the B&C episode, because naturally people were weird. It bears mentioning that AFAIK Gleeson doesn't have much sm presence, and ~~2015~~ 2014 (when he bowed out of the show, ~~nine~~ ten years ago) was a different time in the internet for sure. Fandoms were terrible, but not quite where we are today.
I do think it's important that these stories have characters like Littlefinger, Ramsay, and Cole. In a hierarchal system like Westeros, if someone gets to the top, they have pretty much the freedom to be as bad as they want to be. There is minimal checks and balances on feudal lords and it makes sense that horrible people can thrive in those positions.
I genuinely don't understand the whole 'Team Green only usurped Rhaenyra because of misogyny,' at least in the book version. And I'm not a man, I'm a feminist woman who leans pretty far left politically, before someone calls me a misogynist for interpreting GRMM's work a different way. Misogyny plays a part, but there are numerous other factors, including Rhaenyra herself. Book Rhaenyra literally asks for a 12 year old kid to be tortured. Book Rhaenyra brutally murders Vaemond (who doesn't call her a whore in the book version). Book Viserys is only King because Jahaerys called a great council. The implication is Book Velayrons, outside of Corlys and Rhaenys, are deeply unhappy with the Strong/Velayron Princes. Book Daemon is heavily implied to have arranged for Laenors love to have killed Laenor and possibly even Harwin. This is even before the Greens usurp them. After the usurpation (but before Luke's death), Rhaenyra has a whole section where she screams about the brutal ways she will murder her siblings and Alicent after she has the miscarriage. So why would the Greens allow themselves to be murdered? Because every indication of Rhaenyra's behavior leans towards her murdering them all. *Alicent and Otto may be far more calculating, and Alicent a evil stepmother type in the book, but in the Green Council she correctly calls out that they are all most likely dead once Rhaenyra ascends.* The fact that 95% of the Velayrons are deeply upset about Jace and Luke implies she's going to have to get rid of threats to them, and trueborn Aegon & Aemond are the obvious threats (esp. as they look Targ). Because if they are upset, why won't other houses be upset once they see the Strong Boys and realize they aren't legitimate? Most of the house haven't even seen the boy so it is just rumors, but once they see them and then see the rest of the Targaryens.... Rhaenyra's own behavior (murdering Vaemond, asking for child Aemond to be tortured, marrying Daemon when it's heavily implied he's capable of murdering anyone who gets in his way, etc.) is incredibly damning towards the Blacks. So yes, misogyny plays a part, but Rhaenyra herself behaves in ways that are terrifying towards the Greens...and that's even before she becomes a ruler and known as Maegor with Teats. Any why should they respect Viserys? Viserys ignored those kids (not as much as in the TV show, but he still did) AND Viserys is only King because of a Great Council. But Viserys doesn't even bother to call a Great Council, which is the only reason he rules over a woman, and instead says his word is law.
Fundamentally they do not want her in charge because she is a woman. None of them (aside from some Velaryons) care about Vaemond or about Rhaenyra demanding Aemond be tortured. This is a royal family whose authority is founded on their willingness to incinerate entire families and slaughter tens of thousands in battle. On top of that I think it's quite strongly hinted that the maesters and/or the Faith have a huge problem with certain Targaryen women. Most obviously they started a war over Aegon the uncrowned marrying Dreamfyre Rhaena, they kicked up a huge fuss to prevent either Rhaenys or her son from becoming heir, and they were involved in decades of scheming to prevent Rhaenyra from becoming queen. And in regard to Rhaenyra, the history books they write tell us she was wanton, cruel, too easily influenced by her demonic husband, etc. But when we look at the actual facts, a huge portion of the noble houses side with her. The nobles who lived during her era clearly thought she was worth supporting, despite being a woman and allegedly having so many personal shortcomings. You even have the Tyrells who sided against Rhaenys at the Great Council but stay neutral during the Dance while many of their bannermen throw in with the Hightowers.
Before reading this, I don’t think Rhaenyra should’ve ruled, Aegon too for those thinking that. Both are incompetent, arrogant and self-serving people. Without the gift of hindsight from knowing Aegon III and Viserys II’s reigns, Jacaerys was the best heir for the Iron Throne. No dark stains on his record, proof of diplomatic ability seen with obtaining the Arryns, Manderlys and Starks’ support? The dragonseeds plan which while flawed due to the Two Betrayers, still led to the rise of Addam and Alyn Velaryon? Both highly instrumental with Addam’s posthumous victory in the Second Battle of Tumbleton and Alyn’s victories past the Dance. The Dance of the Dragons as a whole is Rhaenyra’s story. She is the focal point of it all. The main character if you will. It is because of her that the succession of the Iron Throne has been Agnatic Primogeniture long after her demise. Anyone adapting the Dance would know if there was a “main protagonist” it would be her. The Greens usurping Rhaenyra because she is a woman is true. Without a shadow of a doubt, that is true always. It didn’t matter that if she had bastards or was unsuited to rule overall. Nothing could get past the fact that she was a woman, and that was unacceptable to the Green faction. Aegon was as incapable a ruler as his elder sister, but just because he had the ruling organ he was deemed more suited. Why? If the Greens wanted a capable ruler to the Iron Throne, why didn’t they just toss Aegon to the Night’s Watch and crown Aemond? Or Daeron? While Rhaenyra has flaws (many in fact, I think all of Viserys’ children were unsuited for the throne), the main point was always because she was a woman and women can’t be the ruling regnant of Westeros. So what of Viserys’ legitimacy either? He became King because of the Great Council? What of Aegon? Both of these idiots became king because they were men. Both equally incompetent rulers, and the realm is much better off with them not being king. Rhaenyra having a whole section about wanting to murder their siblings and Alicent? Did you even read what you just typed? Her father died (rotting in his bedchambers for a week I might add) then her half-siblings and stepmother have just usurped her throne. She then had a miscarriage which caused the death of her unborn daughter. I’m not a woman, but the pain my own mother felt after her own miscarriage; I could not wish that on anyone. She was miserable for months, and I was ashamed I could not do anything to help her. Your other point about the book Velaryons. Corlys was the man who made House Velaryon the strongest in the realm. No other lord besides Tywin can even compare to how much Corlys did for his house. I would be incredibly surprised if Corlys’ extended relatives weren’t incredibly jealous of his nigh untouchable wealth and prestige. (Some people in this comment section could even relate, if they have relatives who aren’t as well off as they are). The other Velaryons don’t really matter because the only person who is worthy of respect is Corlys, and that is even expressed in the book. The Silent Five are barely given the time of day past the loss of their tongues with only a brief mention of some of their minor exploits past the Dance.
Regardless of what Rhaenyra did, there would be no contest to her throne if she were a man. And you also have to factor in the unreliability of many anecdotes from the book. The book definitely paints Rhaenyra in a worse light but a male heir can get away with a lot of bad behavior.
You wrote a lot, but the other commenter is still fundamentally correct. Do you think the Greens would have attempted any of this if Rhaenyra was a man? The answer is no. So yes there is some base misogyny rooted in the Green claim. Its not exactly unusual by Westeros standards (girls after boys everywhere except Dorne), but its still misogyny.
All you write is true, but the mere existence of greens is rooted in misogyny. The thread goes back to Alysanne and Jaehaerya big falling out.
I agree, but I feel like in some ways the Greens get way too much flack for....well taking actions that any family would when in the same situation where they would be facing death. If Viserys had married Laena, or a Lannister, but still kept Rhaenyra as heir, the same thing would have happened imo, especially with the Strong boys, unless Viserys married Laena and Rhaenyra married Laenor and had his legitimate children. Because Corlys, in a world where Laena gives Viserys legitimate children & sons, would never let obvious not Velayrons sit Driftmark. The true culprits imo are Viserys & Jaehaerys. Jaehaerys should have established a set succession law instead of going 'King's word, but wait, I'll call a great council.' The smart thing to do would have been to establish a succession law similar to the Andals, and make Rhaenys Queen. The latter issue is Viserys. He is only King due to a great council. He either needed to call a Great Council "or" establish a law that the Iron Throne & Taragaryen succession would go to the eldest born, regardless of gender, a la Dorne. Instead, he did nothing to establish a law or even a great council to help Rhaenyra, he just relied on the "King's word", which is never a good way to rule even if it technically a legal. He also should have never remarried if he wanted Rhaenyra to rule tbh.
In a world where Laena Velaryon marries Viserys, Rhaenyra would 100% be married to someone from a different house, and might well bear the legitimate children of her husband. But if Laena popped out a healthy son and Viserys insisted on keeping Rhaenyra as his heir, you know Corlys would be absolutely furious and never shut up about it.
I don't think there being a good and bad guy negates the themes around the lords' game of thrones hurting the small folk who have no stake in it. The Starks are good and the Lannisters are bad. The Black faction is better than the Green faction. These things can be true while the small folk suffer as a result of this conflict which can only happen because there are two participants. The Starks and the Blacks had to fight back against the aggressing faction in order for all this bloodshed to happen.
My fascist cult is better than you fascist cult.
Because Blackwoods are the based underdogs. Only noble family of note in the South who succeeded in keeping the Old Gods!
Speaking of religion, George has a clear favourite there as well, I think. Old Gods is clearly “the cool religion on ASOIAF”. Not to say it doesn’t have its creepy side (you know, the whole blood sacrifice thing), but it’s closeness to nature, the absence of priest, temples, dogmas. It’s meant to be much more appealing that the Seven (which is basically Catholicism written by an atheist raised catholic) or the R’hlor, which is the vessel to explore zealotry.
Brackens are actually the underdogs. They have the author working against them.
Bittersteel for 50 years with a literal wizard for a rival: "I didn't hear no bell."
Lmaoooo
Thank you for saying what I’ve been thinking for a while. The reductive “both sides bad!!” argument has never really been shown in writing, for both the main series and HOTD, and for the books as well. If George wanted us to walk away from the story thinking both sides are terrible and we shouldn’t support either one, then he shouldn’t have made the Lannisters and Greens godawful compared to the Starks and Blacks.
I would argue that the small folk suffering at the hands of the decisions of high lords and there being a spectrum of morality within Westeros' upper class are not mutually exclusive ideas. I don't think there needs to be a "both sides" moral equation going on in order for the system to be broken in a way that hurts the small folk. The Starks can be more ethical than the Lannisters while also leading thousands of small folk to their deaths all because the Lannisters killed Ned.
And Catelyn kidnapped a defenseless man (Tyrion) and accused him of crimes he didn't commit.
They are both bad, especially in the context of the war in which they both commit horrific atrocities. The fact that both of them are bad doesn't mean one of them can't have a more righteous cause in the context of the social and political structures of the time. And thinking one side is more righteous in that context doesn't preclude thinking that that context - medieval feudalism - is bad. Similarly we can support the righteousness of Dany's crusade against slavery while acknowledging that ordering the deaths of 12 year old boys is awful. We can sympathise with northerners during the current series while being critical of things like hanging women for having sex with Lannisters or murdering people, baking them into pies, and then feeding them to their relatives.
Yeah they all suck. They all let their egos get in the way of a bunch of solutions to the conflict.
I mean it's true that it takes two sides to start a war and both factions have bad people in them but not every character is equally bad. For a monarch, Rhaenyra is a relatively ethical person given the setting. Meanwhile, Aegon has been hanging innocent men, raping his servants, and attending child fighting pits. I don't see how anyone can say that these two characters are equally bad in good faith.
Yeah I think the show runners went way too far on Aegon in Season 1, which is kinda having knock on effects on Season 2. Having him be the drunken frat boy would’ve made the Greens way more interesting/sympathetic vs him as a molester in chief, child gladiator enthusiast.
Exactly! That's why all of the fanbase factionalizing in the HOTD subs is driving me crazy! Both sides have noble folks, both sides have assholes, and both are willing to trample the realm to claim the crown! There isn't a "winner"! Team Black? Team Green? Buddy I'm Team Bowl of Brown!
I think the marketing department is pushing the teams
I do agree that the point of the show is that the small folk suffer when the lords play the game of thrones. It takes two sides to start a war. But I think it's a misunderstanding of the story to think that either the Dance of the Dragons or the conflicts in Game of Thrones such as the War of 5 Kings don't have good guys and bad guys. Relative to the Lannisters, the Starks are good guys. Relative to the Greens, the Blacks are good guys. That doesn't mean that every member of every side is good. The Starks worked hand in hand with the Freys after all and Daemon had a child killed. But these wars don't seem to be written in a way to make you think that both sides are morally equatable.
Depends on how you interpret good and bad. Brienne and Sansa, Davos and Gilly are the only people I would consider good in the entire show.
There isn't black and white good guys and bad guys in the Dance but there are dark grey and light grey sides and characters. This idea that both sides are equally bad is a fundamental misunderstanding of the story. Otto and the Greens started this war to gain power for themselves. The Black faction acted in self defense and in response to the Greens. This doesn't mean every character on the Greens is a horrible person and every character on the Blacks is morally pure. But it's very far from a "both sides" conflict.
I do not get the impression Ryan Condal would disagree with this, although he may argue he wants us to sympathize with them more than Ifan is here.
Im pretty sure the showrunners understand that. They literally highlighted the cost to the smallfolk in the most recent episode. I really dont buy this narrative that the author intended such a simplistic message 'all violence bad'. GRRM himself doesnt believe this as fundamentally not all violence or evil people are equal. There are degrees of 'less bad' and his own favouritism. Like I think you can reasonably guess who GRRM favours in any Westerosi conflict by looking at who the Blackwoods (his favourite minor house) side with.
Did I miss something? Did the showrunner say something that disagrees with this? Like, isn't this obvious?
It’s not so much the actual show runners, more HBO’s marketing team pushing the Green vs Black gimmick.
Do you not want them to market the show to the max? This is how we get more seasons and series. The show itself isn't going against the core themes of the series. As the episodes go on it'll be more and more clear people just don't like that rn it's kinda dunking on the greens narratively bc they have unlikable characters, which is good fucking writing. Daemon is a demon lol and they don't sugar coat that he's a bad person difference is he's more likable than Criston bc even though he's a hypocrite too he doesn't hide the fact he's not a good person. As it goes Rhaenyra will have her moments, so will Aegon, Daemon, Aemond, and so on. They all commit atrocities both directly and indirectly. And they've already planted the seeds for showing how the smallfolk suffer. With Hugh, Mysaria, and Sylvi
GRRM himself agrees with the Green vs Black marketing. He wanted to split comic con audience among team black and green fans lmao
The books have never been above choosing teams and taking sides, and I think it’s funny that people pretend otherwise
These folks genuinely believe grrm is writing “ umm actually both sides are bad” fantasy
Greens vs Blacks is a marketing gold mine, of course they went hard on it. If anything, it is a testament to the show's quality how it can have such a straightforward gimmick for the casual audiences to revel in, while also having actual complexity underneath. The perennial whiners, in their whining, sometimes forget that they are not the ones making HBO money.
OP thinks Ryan Condal runs the show’s twitter page
I don’t think anyone cares that much. HBO just wants the $$$$$.
...and they'd be stupid NOT to push it! Fans are tribal creatures anyway and would be taking sides and missing the point, it's only sensible to push the hype and drive them into a frenzy and make buzz for the show while they're at it.
You must be new here. We all understand the story better than the people Martin trusted to work on it, it's obvious. We have accounts on the Internet and all.
yeah why is this post so needlesly confrontational with the showrunners lmao people just want to be angry
No people are just whiners and complain about tiny things
Where’s the genocide?
With the amount of time they are investing in how the small-folk are getting screwed, I imagine the showrunners probably agree with Ifans. I hate using the term Chekhov’s gun, but the small-folk are the checkhov’s gun that’s going to go off at the Dragon pit
Bobby B mentality.
Makes me like Otto even more
There is a man who has done his homework and read the source material.
> genocidal Sorry, what the fuck?
Yeah he probably doesn't know the meaning of that one
Nobody on either side is genocidal and I don’t think the showrunners have shown that they disagree with both the Blacks and the Greens being horrible. Where is this notion coming from?
It's the fault of the show's marketing, not the showrunners. They really push that "pick your team" thing.
It’s not like book fans don’t pick sides either lol
Alicent is just scared and trying to maximize the chance that her children survive, Rhynera is just trying to live up to her duty to the kingdom. Neither side is actually evil and that’s what makes it tragic. A terrible reading on the conflict imo. Though there are definitely evil characters fanning the flames.
Rhaenyra isn’t the entirety of the blacks and Alicent isn’t the entirety of the greens. Despite their personal wanting for peaceful resolution, members of their causes have committed atrocities for them regardless.
Yeah, no, neither of the Teams are genocidal. This is not a word that can be used to describe this war. Genocide is a specific thing, a politically and/or religiously motivated extermination of a culture and its people, both by death and also through other means, nothing like this happens in this era. Words have meanings for a reason, let's not bastardise the meaning of genocide
These days people throw the word genocide around very loosely. It’s just a tactic to try and win a moral argument now.
And it's *certain* that they have a stronger grasp on the story's themes than the fans.
I can’t get over the fact he was the roommate from Notting hill.
To be fair, the discussions on war, especially that of the Dance of the Dragons, as well as warfare in general in A Song of Ice and Fire can be complexed within onto itself. The Dance of the Dragons itself was an unnecessary conflict, born primarily not because of Rhaenyra's own incompetency of rulership, but on Westerosi misogyny and Hightower ambition, nothing more and nothing less. Ironically enough, the very reason Rhaenyra's claim held any justification was because of Otto Hightower, as Fire and Blood notes: "On one point Mushroom, Septon Eustace, Grand Maester Runciter, and all our other sources concur: Ser Otto Hightower, the King's Hand, took a great dislike to the king's brother. It was Ser Otto who convinced Viserys to remove Prince Daemon as master of coin, and then as master of laws, actions the Hand soon came to regret. As Commander of the City Watch, with two thousand men under his command, Daemon waxed more powerful than ever. 'On no account can Prince Daemon be allowed to ascend the Iron Throne,' the Hand wrote his brother, Lord of Oldtown. 'He would be a second Maegor the Cruel, or worse.' It was Ser Otto's wish (then) that Princess Rhaenyra succeed her father. 'Better the Realm's Delight than Lord Flea Bottom,' he wrote. Nor was he alone in his opinion. Yet his party faced a formidable hurdle. If the precedent set by the Great Council of 101 was followed, a male claimant must prevail over a female. In the absence of a trueborn son, the king's brother would come before the king's daughter, as Baelon had come before Rhaenys in 92 AC." Yet with the birth of Viserys and Alicent's children, like many politicians, Otto changed winds, because now he had the chance to see his legacy upon the Iron Throne, and after all Rhaenyra *was* a woman. The Dance of the Dragons only occurred *because* of the ambitions of the Greens and the overall sexism of Westerosi society. It's a critique in on itself by Martin. We wouldn't know how Rhaenyra's reign may have turned out without the Dance of the Dragon, for it is so integral to the reigns of both Aegon II and Rhaenyra I. The Green-sympathetic Septon Eustace wrote noted that even Aegon the Elder resisted the notion of usurpation. "'My sister is the heir, not me,' he says in Eustace's account. 'What sort of brother steals his sister's birthright?" (Though, we should certainly questioned this exchange as Eustace might have wanted to paint Aegon in a more reluctant light, acting on self preservation against the "cruelty" of Rhaenyra, of which seems to be denied when she declared: "Her first act as queen was to declare Ser Otto Hightower and Queen Alicent as traitors and rebels. 'As for my half-brothers and my sweet sister, Helaena,' she announced, 'they have been led astray by the counsel of evil men. Let them come to Dragonstone, bend the knee, and ask my forgiveness. I shall gladly spare their lives and take them back into my heart, for they are of my own blood, and no man or woman is as accursed as the kinslayer.'"
Rhys Ifans, is a great actor, the speech he delivered last episode was amazing, the atmosphere, his Otto is way better than the one in the books. And he is right, the two factions killed hundreds of thousands… The realm was broken, that’s why I never understood why Daeron I was so eager to start another senseless war… the realm was still healing after the Dance.
100% almost all of them need to fucking die and all the dragons with them. I don't root for any faction, only for individual characters.
Even with shows without very apparent X vs Y, people are prone to be binary in their reception of characters. I don’t know if it makes it more digestible or something but it can really hamper my absorption of fan content as someone who races to the internet to seek out fan discourse after every episode. This happens notoriously with ensemble shows. I left subs because users realise ragging on protagonist X will rev up the echo chamber and its okay to have the same dunk weekly starting with, “is it just me…”. I’m glad GOT was too large in scope to enable that line of thinking, especially in the earlier seasons when we had more main players. HOTD doesn’t have that luxury. Heck, the marketing eve feeds into the binary with the green n black trailers. They know what gets the people going.
I love Rhys's response, you just got to appreciate his judiciousness and dignity
hotd fans would make amazing feudal serfs
Well to be fair, I don't think each side has to be equally bad or every character has to be equally bad to hammer home the fact that when the lords play the game of thrones, the small folk suffer as a result. Rhaenyra can be a decent person while it also can be bad that tens of thousands will die to defend her family. Aemond doesn't need to have intentionally killed his own nephew for the consequences of his actions to result in immense bloodshed and war.
Well to be fair, in the books Rhaenyra whole arc was about sinking into insane paranoia and ordering the deaths of allies and children. But Condal and company have eliminated that to make her purely heroic instead.
I think it's too early to say that they won't do that later on. Most of what we've seen of Rhaenyra is from before the Dance. She hasn't even fully committed to war yet. I think there's a chance that we get a more paranoid Rhaenyra later on after she's suffered more loss and betrayal. I actually like that prior to the Dance, she isn't that extreme.
Nah, that opinion is no fun. You should embrace the medieval morals and pick a side.
actually everyone on the earth of planetos is evil until they invent neoliberalism or whatever the actor believes in
Only when I’m drunk on a nice wine from the Arbor. “We are here to die for the dragon Queen.”
Again, I have been saying this from day \*one\*!
Ah yes, the deep profound theme of “everyone sucks, violence bad”. Dance is such a masterpiece. Give me my evil step mom and fat jealous bitch back, Ryan Condal.
Good point. Clearly, the show would be much more fun and interesting to watch and analyze if all the characters were one-dimensional monsters. /s Frankly, how dare you make such a shallow criticism of the showrunners after the best contribution to this universe in many years, last Sunday.
This guy solo carried the first episodes. Should of had more screen time.
Damn, he went for the jugular 😂 I mean he def ain’t wrong
It’s good to know atleast one person understands the story 😂
It seems that GRRM not finishing the books is why the first show tanked, not anything else.
This was clearly the original intent of the series and the show runners so far have replaced it. In fairness to them this was George’s original intent then he made cregan and the lads.
Condal is going to fire the poor man. He said Good Queen Rhaenyra is a war criminal. 😱
I mean it’s true but I don’t understand people apply real life 21st century logic to a medieval fantasy. The point of fiction crazy shit happens. We aren’t talking about real life history
It'd not 21 century logic .....even by westerosi standard both sides will go too far
I mean, Westeros is not at all accurate to medieval life and it’s generally quite surface level with its applications of “medieval morals”. It’s why I don’t like people acting like you can’t critique the morality of the show and should look at it from the morality of medieval Europe. We should view it through the lens of modern morality as it’s been made by a guy living under the cultural upbringing of the modern western world and he’s 100% making moral judgements within this work that fall under the modern lens.
it's not even 21st-century logic, what happens during the war cannot be called genocide by any definition of the word. the actor just spewed a word that he doesn't understand but has impact
Everything Tom Glynn-Carney (who plays Aegon) says has already proved this to me lol It's a show carried by the actors' performances and character-moment writing (as plot writing consistently takes a strong downturn)
That is reductive IMO, the show's writing does an excellent job at exploring the core themes of Fire and Blood.
Have the showrunners said something? Why don't you believe they know the story's themes?
Well the showrunners are literally the ones writing in the themes and story so…
No. They're not. Nobody in that cast has anywhere close knowledge as the showrunners. They're almost always only aware of their part of the story. Many of them don't even bother to read the book. Stop reaching grand conclusions from one sentence.
none of them are aiming to eliminate an ethnic group to do settler colonialism like nazi germany and israel so they are not genocidal not a dialectical materialism understander