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House Of The Dragon has faithfully delivered the dragon bit of its promise. But what has been under-examined is what those relations between beast and rider mean beyond mere firepower (pun intended) in a world with numerous dragons and multiple dragon riders. Are they broadly similar for everyone or as different as each person and dragon? Viserys rode old Black Balerion just once, only to be left dragonless when the great beast died.
Every IGN Game of Thrones Review
More of the same next time, but a little more confidence too. Even the showrunners seem to understand this first season as a slow burn, and recently promised that the next season would pick up the pace. Some episodes dragged, and the shift from the immensely likeable and charismatic Milly Alcock and Emily Carey to Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, as Rhaenyra and Alicent respectively grew up, took a disjointed minute to process. But to the credit of the cast and creators they’ve covered 20-odd years of Targaryen family history without stinting on the requisite plotting and gore. The ties to Game Of Thrones were obvious and immediate in those early episodes, down to the reuse of Ramin Djawadi’s iconic theme music. But the brand new cast, and the focus on a family already in power but riven against itself, felt fresher.
A few thoughts while warm up our singing voice
Daemon arrived in the throne room this week as a conquering hero, the King of the Narrow Sea, as the court honored his success in the Stepstones. But respectability fits him like a bad bone crown (or driftwood, or whatever it was made of). By episode’s end he was facedown in the same room, battered, banished and probably still half-drunk, which seemed like a return to the natural order of things. Rhaenyra’s hour-of-the-owl adventures forced her to finally bow to her own dynastic responsibilities. Admittedly, my untrained eye could not make out how far the incestus interuptus got before Daemon had a crisis of conscience. But the fact that I’m even parsing something like that means, with the Crabfeeder now dead and the Sea Snake pouting in Driftmark, we got the Full Targaryen this week.
Some House of the Dragon Scenes Are Quite Gory
At the 80th Golden Globe Awards, House of the Dragon won Best Television Series – Drama and D'Arcy was nominated for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama. The series earned nine Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, and won three British Academy Television Craft Awards. Laena’s death-by-dracarys scene is remarkable — it’s the first time we’ve seen a dragon knowingly bestow mercy on its rider this way to put Laena out of the miserable septic infection and shock that awaits her. But again, we can only wish that House of the Dragon would slow its roll, give us time to know these characters, mourn their deaths, and feel more for their left-behind children.
House Of The Dragon Season 2's Release Plan Makes Me Excited & Worried For The Exact Same Reason - Screen Rant
House Of The Dragon Season 2's Release Plan Makes Me Excited & Worried For The Exact Same Reason.
Posted: Tue, 05 Mar 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
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She believes it's the only thing that will make her father happy. Still, we know she's not interested in playing the traditional roles of the Westerosi woman. When her mother tells her that the discomfort of childbirth is "how we serve the realm," she says she'd rather swing a sword on the battlefield. Alicent is annoyed at Rhaenyra's ambivalence about the throne.
Read on for our hot takes after we screened the first episode earlier this summer. House of the Dragon is a prequel series that takes place nearly 200 years before we meet Daenerys Targaryen, the fan-favorite character played by Emilia Clarke. Unlike the original show, in which we traveled that famous map as houses battled for the right to sit on the Iron Throne, this series takes place at the Red Keep, where the Targaryens are in full power and battling one another. Otto has been steadily working to marginalize Daemon and Rhaenyra in order to establish his grandson Aegon as heir. But even so, he clearly knew it was a dicey business to share his White Worm intel with the king — it’s one thing to malign a man’s degenerate brother, but insult his daughter’s honor at your peril. As for Daemon, he took the king’s kicks and insults in stride, probably because it’s what he expects for himself.
Alicent goes to her father to inform him, and she shares her report of Viserys's last words and intentions. The servants who know Viserys is dead are sequestered, and the small council meets to discuss what is to be done before Rhaenyra finds out. Otto and Lord Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) reveal that they've already been working in secret to ensure that Aegon can be king when Viserys dies. Lord Lyman Beesbury (Bill Paterson) strongly objects, and Ser Criston kills him in an instant. Episode eight of "House of the Dragon" begins eight years later.
Storyline
A woman brings them to Mysaria, who will only tell them where Aegon is if Otto promises to stop the fighting pits. Viserys brings his family together for dinner and tries to make them all get along. It seems to work, until he goes to bed, and Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) insults his nephews again, calling them "Strong" once more. Still, Rhaenyra and Alicent seem to reconcile, and Rhaenyra says she will return to King's Landing after bringing her children back to Dragonstone. Importantly, the Valyrian tradition allows for someone to be married to multiple partners, making Rhaenyra and Daemon's wedding valid, and any children they have will be legitimate.
Rhaenyra and Laenor decide to leave King's Landing for Dragonstone. From a distance, this made the show look regressive, like a creative retreat for nervous producers and showrunners concerned with jeopardizing their big-budget cash cow — and in a lot of ways, that read is correct. It is at times oddly self-referential, with writing more in conversation with the show’s own status as a Game of Thrones spinoff than it is as its own discrete story. When it's time to hear everyone's case, Rhaenyra is outraged again to have someone accuse her sons of being bastards. Before Otto or Alicent can move things in Vaemond's favor — possibly dooming Rhaenyra's family forever — the King appears. Sick as he is, with help from his brother, he sits on the throne for one last time.
Laena was a tragic figure, another illustration of the constraints that even women of privilege face in this story. We met her at 12, being offered up as a political child bride. She died in anguish as a young woman, another victim of the birthing bed. Larys seems to be filling the shifty manipulator role occupied by Littlefinger and Varys in “Game of Thrones” — his name is even a portmanteau of theirs — though so far he lacks their depth, subtlety and slippery charisma. The murder of his father cleared the way for Otto to return as Hand — things seem to be heading that way, at least — even as it revealed to Alicent the quality of the company she’s keeping these days. The elimination of Lyonel and Harwin also make Larys the lord of House Strong.
While Daemon rages and plays at being the one in charge, she labors alone, and her daughter is delivered stillborn. Ser Erryk arrives from King's Landing with Viserys's crown, and Rhaenyra is named queen after her daughter's funeral. They begin their plans to make Aegon king, but no one can actually find him.
Daemon wants to kill him, but Rhaenyra decides to seriously consider not going to war. Her father made her heir to keep Westeros together, she says, and she won't break it apart because of her own pride. She mentions the Song of Ice and Fire to Daemon, who's obviously never heard of it and thinks his brother is a fool. Alicent's maid Talya (Alexis Raben) wakes her up to tell her Viserys has died.
The king interrogates his son about where he heard that rumor, but Aemond never bends. Meanwhile, Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best) tells her husband Corlys to give Driftmark to Baela, that way it will go to a true Velaryon. But Corlys says he wants it to go to someone whose last name is Velaryon because that's all history will remmber, and that's Luke. The first season received highly positive reviews, with praise towards its character development, visual effects, writing, score by Ramin Djawadi, and performances. However, the pacing, specifically of the time jumps, and the dark lighting of some scenes were criticized. The series premiere was watched by over 10 million viewers across the linear channels and HBO Max on the first day, the biggest in HBO's history.
But Princess Rhaenys, who Alicent had been holding captive to convince her to come to their side, is able to sneak out of her room with Ser Erryk's help, and she crashes the coronation on the back of her dragon, Meleys. If you want a refresher on everything that went down during the first 10 episodes of the Westeros-set drama, we've got you covered. Daemon, distrusted by many in the King's circle for his brutish tendencies, is currently the commander of the City Watch. Believing his brother to be soft on crime, he rounds up his guardsmen for a blitzkrieg on King's Landing, which he says has "fallen into squalor" under Viserys' rule. "You're a pack of hounds!" he tells the bloodthirsty troops before siccing them loose on the thoroughfare for some gory eye-for-an-eye justice. Thieves lose their hands, rapists lose their balls, and killers lose their heads.
A seething Daemon challenges Cole to a contest of arms but it plays out much like their joust, with Daemon starting strong and ending up on his back. He's lucky he didn't end up like some of the other competitors, some of whom saw their heads axed to pulp following their battles. The idea of “Greens,” supporting Alicent, and “Blacks,” supporting Rhaenyra, might have worked better if there had been much sign of House colours being significant at any point before or after Alicent came to dinner in a nice new look. Similarly, the fundamental point of differentiation between the Targaryens (and, OK, their allies the Velaryons) and everyone else is the fact that they have dragons, and that too has been strangely underplayed. She adroitly juggled Alicent’s mercurial emotions and was convincing even when the show had her doing silly things, like attacking Rhaenyra with a dagger or misunderstanding Viserys’s dying words. It was a rough start to a reign that was about to get even rougher.
But after her death, a newly unhinged Daemon may not settle for anything. House of the Dragon is an American fantasy drama television series created by George R. R. Martin and Ryan Condal for HBO. A prequel to Game of Thrones (2011–2019), it is the second television series in the A Song of Ice and Fire franchise. Condal and Miguel Sapochnik served as the showrunners for the first season. Based on parts of Martin's 2018 book Fire & Blood, the series begins about 100 years after the Seven Kingdoms are united by the Targaryen conquest, nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen.
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