House of the Dragon House of the Dragon General Discussion Thread (TAG SPOILERS)

[Man in the Suit]

‘House of the Dragon’ Renewed for Season 2 by HBO – The Hollywood Reporter

viewership has climbed to 20 million viewers

Twitter, 2019-2022: "Game of Thrones has disappeared from the cultural conversation."

 

[squeekness]

Twitter, 2019-2022: "Game of Thrones has disappeared from the cultural conversation."

Oops.

 

[Enriquespy]

So I've read a summary of the book!

Spoiler

And, well, at least it's not an "Evil uncle want's crown" story.

 

[Boy Scout]

I have to say I really loved this premiere. I'm not even the biggest GOT fans either because I pretty much binged it all when it was already over, but so far, I'm definitely hooked.

Loving the twisted, dark GOT esque family drama and if this first episode is anything to go by than Matt Smith is easily going to be the MVP of this show for me.

Prince Daemon Targaryen is my favorite character so far.

My exact thoughts.

 

[Drizzle]

Twitter, 2019-2022: "Game of Thrones has disappeared from the cultural conversation."

I'm not about to defend the Twitter crowd but on that point I can see where they were coming from since a lot of people were so disappointed by how it ended that it did kind of feel like it dropped out of the conversation not long after the finale aired. For a while it felt like the only topics of conversation surrounding it until House of the Dragon kicked into gear were "That final season sucked!" or "Petition to remake GOT Season 8!" or "George R.R. Martin is never going to finish the books!" while the overall greatness of the show in general was overlooked.

I'm glad to see that isn't the case since I still have a lot of love for that show and didn't even really hate how events unfolded in it, my main gripe was that the ending was rushed.

 

[Weather Witch]

With all the positive headlines this show is getting, it's definitely no surprise that we're getting a second season. Still very happy to see it though.

• HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ Premiere Viewership Soars to 20 Million (thewrap.com)
• House of the Dragon Breathes New Life into the World of Westeros | TV/Streaming | Roger Ebert
• House of the Dragon UK Ratings Make It Biggest US Drama Launch on Sky – The Hollywood Reporter

 

[Iceman]

With all the positive headlines this show is getting, it's definitely no surprise that we're getting a second season. Still very happy to see it though.

• HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ Premiere Viewership Soars to 20 Million (thewrap.com)
• House of the Dragon Breathes New Life into the World of Westeros | TV/Streaming | Roger Ebert
• House of the Dragon UK Ratings Make It Biggest US Drama Launch on Sky – The Hollywood Reporter

Oh second season already confirmed? Awesome. Seems like the reaction has been positive across the board, and that wasn’t an easy thing to do coming after the controversial end of GoT. They really chose the best direction to go IMO and put out quality in many areas without taking a huge risk. The situation has been very well managed. Maybe WB need to get some execs/managers/planners like this who can deal with recovering from unfavourable situations without continuously creating new issues.

 

[godisawesome]

I'm not about to defend the Twitter crowd but on that point I can see where they were coming from since a lot of people were so disappointed by how it ended that it did kind of feel like it dropped out of the conversation not long after the finale aired. For a while it felt like the only topics of conversation surrounding it until House of the Dragon kicked into gear were "That final season sucked!" or "Petition to remake GOT Season 8!" or "George R.R. Martin is never going to finish the books!" while the overall greatness of the show in general was overlooked.

I'm glad to see that isn't the case since I still have a lot of love for that show and didn't even really hate how events unfolded in it, my main gripe was that the ending was rushed.

Yeah… I think the response and reception between the end of GoT and the announcement that HotD was getting as exons season can be summed up this way:

GoT Season 8 damaged and hurt the story… but not the franchise.

Particularly not in terms of prequel material, which is often far more reliant on having a solid world, lore, and creators with knowledge of what made the franchise’s previous highs work.

HotD already has a solid, and more importantly *finished* plot arc in the lore to work with. HotD has a solid world to work with, since at no point was that a weak spot of GoT. And the new show runners are both closer to Martin and seem to have a clearer ambition and focus on the strengths of the franchise.

That Jon Snow show has audibly less excitement for it than HotD does, because it’s not a prequel but a sequel and thus has to deal with the fallout, bad blood, and sloppiness of Season 8 of GoT… but is still likely to have a good shot at success if the creators know what to do.

It’s arguably a less grievous situation than a comparable disappointing “finale story” in another franchise - Star Wars. The one-two-three punch of TLJ-Solo-TROS pretty effectively broke both the era of Sequel Trilogy *and* the idea of just making quick one-off spin-off movies… but the franchise survives, and when a story that’s more ambitious than Solo and less contemptuous and stupid than TLJ and TROS comes out in The Mandalorian, it’ll of course find a positive reception.

 

[Iceman]

I'm not about to defend the Twitter crowd but on that point I can see where they were coming from since a lot of people were so disappointed by how it ended that it did kind of feel like it dropped out of the conversation not long after the finale aired. For a while it felt like the only topics of conversation surrounding it until House of the Dragon kicked into gear were "That final season sucked!" or "Petition to remake GOT Season 8!" or "George R.R. Martin is never going to finish the books!" while the overall greatness of the show in general was overlooked.

I'm glad to see that isn't the case since I still have a lot of love for that show and didn't even really hate how events unfolded in it, my main gripe was that the ending was rushed.

It’s easy to lose perspective when hopes and expectations are smashed against a rock. Early GoT is still amongst the best all time TV IMO. The original Star Wars films didn’t lose their quality because of the prequels. The underlying love of what was originally created is still there even though the most recent huge disappointment can cloud that.

 

[godisawesome]

It’s easy to lose perspective when hopes and expectations are smashed against a rock. Early GoT is still amongst the best all time TV IMO. The original Star Wars films didn’t lose their quality because of the prequels. The underlying love of what was originally created is still there even though the most recent huge disappointment can cloud that.

I’d actually argue there’s some flattering parallels between the Star Wars prequels and HotD, actually; a shared strength that people sometimes overlook for the Star Wars prequels, while the better comparison for Season 7-8 of GoT is as a less contemptuous and ruinous TLJ and TROS.

Not only are both HotD and the prequels, well, prequels, but the both enjoy massive and creative increases in lore and a totally different status quo to their “older sequels”: for all that, say, Attack of the Clones was seen as the worst of Lucas’s films in quality and on a technical level, on a merchandise and franchise level is was still a rousing success because of the sheer awesomeness of the Clone Wars concept as a larger scale war across hundred more planets and featuring massive armies compared to the OT, and all at the Golden Age of the Republic…

…much like how HotD gets to enjoy the premise of “Dragons vs Dragons” in the golden age of the Targaryens.

Lucas, while blamed for the quality of the PT, arguably elevated Star Wars’s place in pop culture because his “game” outside the films was so monumentally successful - his PT characters and stories were still making money and winning awards decades later. Martin’s “histories” in Fire and Blood are very comparable in that as actual stories they’re kind of crap (since he’s just copying the dry nature of historical chronicles) but brimming with characters, conflicts, and ideas others can mine for massive output.

…Aaaaand I also think it’s time we acknowledge that the “the Star Wars prequels were disappointing!” meme should be supplanted by the “the Star Wars sequels were an embarrassing failure as an ending!” memes. The “fall” between TFA and TROS was worse, and there’s no comparison too the Clone Wars as a franchise-elevating concept in the ST. The prequels were emphatically a greater success in the long run, while the ST started stronger and ended worse - with the debate being where exactly that fall from Grace began…

 

[misjuevos]

saw a clip on youtube of the intro, not sure it is real though. I'll put it in spoilers in case you want to wait and see tonight.

Spoiler

 

[CaptainWagner]

Twitter, 2019-2022: "Game of Thrones has disappeared from the cultural conversation."

I'm not about to defend the Twitter crowd but on that point I can see where they were coming from since a lot of people were so disappointed by how it ended that it did kind of feel like it dropped out of the conversation not long after the finale aired. For a while it felt like the only topics of conversation surrounding it until House of the Dragon kicked into gear were "That final season sucked!" or "Petition to remake GOT Season 8!" or "George R.R. Martin is never going to finish the books!" while the overall greatness of the show in general was overlooked.

I'm glad to see that isn't the case since I still have a lot of love for that show and didn't even really hate how events unfolded in it, my main gripe was that the ending was rushed.

It was always fulfillment bias fueling that narrative. I hated the ending as much as most (and even more-so once I read the books.) But the facts were always pointing towards a strong launch for HOD. Game of Thrones was still consistently in the most-discussed, highest-demand series lists all-through those three years it was off the air.

But people typically don't look at the stats, they just go by what's trending. And the focus of the online conversation was on re-litigating everything wrong with GOT's ending. So of course that painted a dismal picture of its cultural cache. But the thing is, there's no drive to generate positive responses to a media that isn't currently on the air. Positive feelings towards the mythos were still there, but they weren't trending. Same thing happened to Stranger Things. You go for a few years without the buzz of news and fresh content, and the negativity rises to the top. Only for it to reemerge as a massive success once the new season/show drops.

 

[redfirebird2008]

HBO currently running the Hobbit movie that heavily features a dragon, followed by the 2 House of Dragon episodes. Smart strategy from HBO.

 

[Deck Rickard]

This show has been solid so far but it’s got me digging into the lore again and honestly, I think I would rather have a show about the Doom of Valyria. Maybe it’s just my obsession with the Dwemer in Elder Scrolls, but I have a real fascination with mysterious, lost civilizations in fantasy stories. Especially when it’s not clear what the hell happened to them. I’m guessing a Valyria series will never happen because it’s one of those secrets that GRRM will never reveal but… a lot of the stuff with Valyria has been drastically changed for the TV shows so Martin could just say, “this is the backstory for TV series version but not necessarily what happened in the books,” thus preserving at least some of the mystery. And honestly, if you just gave him enough money and publicity, he would totally do it. This is a guy who loves seeing his name in the headlines so much that every important character in Elden Ring has a name that begins with “G,” “R” or “M.”

 

[misjuevos]

Well I guess the intro was real. I thought the model in the Visery's room was dragonstone last week. He explained it was Valyria. It is cool that dragonstone is Valyrian style architecture.

This show has been solid so far but it’s got me digging into the lore again and honestly, I think I would rather have a show about the Doom of Valyria. Maybe it’s just my obsession with the Dwemer in Elder Scrolls, but I have a real fascination with mysterious, lost civilizations in fantasy stories. Especially when it’s not clear what the hell happened to them. I’m guessing a Valyria series will never happen because it’s one of those secrets that GRRM will never reveal but… a lot of the stuff with Valyria has been drastically changed for the TV shows so Martin could just say, “this is the backstory for TV series version but not necessarily what happened in the books,” thus preserving at least some of the mystery. And honestly, if you just gave him enough money and publicity, he would totally do it. This is a guy who loves seeing his name in the headlines so much that every important character in Elden Ring has a name that begins with “G,” “R” or “M.”

Yeah I was thinking the doom then we see Aegon conquer westeros would be a good series, then they move on to each king afterwards.
Switching subjects. I thought in the first episode of house of the dragon Visery's model was of dragonstone, but he explains this week it is Valyria. So I guess Dragonstone is based on Valyrian architecture, which is pretty cool.

 

[Man in the Suit]

Yeah, this franchise is massive. Second episodes are usually down from the premiere.

 

[Dr.]

Also...

HBO says Game of Thrones also reached another weekly high on HBO Max last week, up 30 percent with 8 consecutive weeks of growth. It was the No. 2 title on HBO Max last week, behind House of the Dragon.
​

‘House Of The Dragon’ Up 2 Percent From Premiere – Deadline

 

[Madam-Shogun]

Yeah, I still enjoy all the seasons aside from the final one. I know others started having big issues with season 6 and 7 but I was still having fun with it until then.

Pfft...you mean season 5

 

[Madam-Shogun]

Show has been pretty strong so far, but I wonder will the story of Dance of Dragons causes the same bitterness that season 8 of GoT received? Maybe that's why they're considering a Nymeria TV show to give said people that cathartic story they want.

Also I do wonder if Rhaenyra and Alicint had something going on between them on the down low? I mean on the show anyways, not sure about the book.

 

[Marvolo]

Show has been pretty strong so far, but I wonder will the story of Dance of Dragons causes the same bitterness that season 8 of GoT received? Maybe that's why they're considering a Nymeria TV show to give said people that cathartic story they want.

Also I do wonder if Rhaenyra and Alicint had something going on between them on the down low? I mean on the show anyways, not sure about the book.

Season 8 caused bitterness because the writing was terrible, the plot ignored so many things from season 1 - 7, it was rushed, characters and payoffs made little sense to "subvert" expectations. Most long time viewers didn't expect a happy ending. They expected a good ending.

Hell, the ending we got was a pretty happy ending all things considered.

Spoiler

Bran became king, Sansa became queen of an independent North, Arya was free to explore, Tyrion became the new Hand, Jon gets to live in peace with the Freefolk, Sam becomes Bran's Grand Maester, Tormund survived, no one south of Winterfell had to deal with the Whitewalkers, Mel dies, Jorah gets a heroes death, Brienne is knighted and becomes a member of the King's Guard, Jaime dies with Cersei, the Lannisters are slaughtered, Gendry is made a lord, Theon redeems himself and is forgiven.

The problem was Dan and Dave needed more episodes and better plotting and writing to make even half of that **** work. They rushed it and **** the bed.

As long as Condal and crew take their time with HotD and don't rush it the show should be fine.

And I definitely think Rhaenyra was sweet on Alicent when they were young.

 

[P Supreme]

Twitter, 2019-2022: "Game of Thrones has disappeared from the cultural conversation."

i was on of those guys truth be told my closest friend reminding me after we had an hour discussion after premier

"didn't u say you won't be watching ?" as friends do I told him to GFY lol

not sure how i feel about the time jumps thought

Glad I ignored myself lol

 

[Weather Witch]

Not sure how i feel about the time jumps though

I actually really like those. It means we don't waste any time. They've been quite clever with how they build character arcs as well. For example, another episode in between the first two probably wouldn't have added much. They just focus on the important stuff for both the story and characters.

 

[blackdragon6]

I didn't like the fact they reused the GoT theme song. I personally found it kinda lazy. Tbh

Hell, the ending we got was a pretty happy ending all things considered.

Spoiler

Bran became king, Sansa became queen of an independent North, Arya was free to explore, Tyrion became the new Hand, Jon gets to live in peace with the Freefolk, Sam becomes Bran's Grand Maester, Tormund survived, no one south of Winterfell had to deal with the Whitewalkers, Mel dies, Jorah gets a heroes death, Brienne is knighted and becomes a member of the King's Guard, Jaime dies with Cersei, the Lannisters are slaughtered, Gendry is made a lord, Theon redeems himself and is forgiven.

I personally found the ending of GoT a lil TOO happy relatively speaking. Ironically making the ending more sickening sweet then "bittersweet". It also got to a point where everyone was basically safe during the last 2 or 3 seasons. Kinda like where The Walking Dead is now.

 

[godisawesome]

A fun little reaction shot thing from the last episode that I missed but that might mean a lot going forward…

Lord Commander Westerling is present in the Small Council when Otto talks Viserys down from going to Daemon himself… then he’s also there when Otto promptly lies to Daemon’s face that Viserys didn’t want to come. Graham MacTavish gets this brief, tense little scowl when they cut away to him…

So Westerling *knows* that Otto is acting dishonestly and aggravating tensions between the brothers, and we know he’s Rhaenyra’s oldest bodyguard and a real friend… so I think Westerling’s probably going to move into Rhaenyra’s orbit in a firm way.

 

[Man in the Suit]