#HotD 2.01

[peach-coke]

➤ House of the Dragon || 2.01 - A Son for a Son June 16, 2024

[aegoniidaily]

Tom Glynn-Carney as Aegon II Targaryen House of the Dragon S2E01 "A SON FOR A SON"

[alicenthightowerdaily]

OLIVIA COOKE as ALICENT HIGHTOWER HOUSE OF THE DRAGON — 2.01 "A Son for a Son"

[fkevin073]

HOTD 2022-?

parallels - 2.01

[mvthr]

HELAENA TARGARYEN

i'm afraid. don't be. they'd be fools to come with vhagar protecting the city. not the dragons. the rats.

HOTD 2.01 "A Son for a Son"

[humanpurposes]

I really feel like the writers of HotD could benefit from keeping in mind the phrase "don't play the ending."

At the end of season one, Alicent has Aegon crowned King and puts herself physically between him and a dragon.

And all through season two she's having a miserable time. From episode one she straight up dislikes her sons, is terrified of Aemond, is hooking up with Cole and feeling guilty about it, is feeling guilty about Rhaenyra, feeling guilty about the war, constantly being undermined... but is there actually a moment where the stakes escalate for her? Jaehearys dies while she was doing the dirty with Criston, but she already felt guilty about that. She feels sorry for Helaena, but she already struggles in her relationship with Helaena. She hates Aegon and thinks he'd be a bad King, but she already hated Aegon and thought he'd be a bad King. Then she doesn't want to start a war, but she already did that by naming her son King over Rhaenya. She gets dismissed from the Small Council by Aemond but in the first episode she's already aware that none of the men around her actually respect her. So what is she doing here? What does she want? How is she relevant to the story aside from looking sad and feeling all this guilt for a conflict that is way more complex than her misunderstanding the final words of her rotting husband?

At the end of season one, Rhaenyra learns that her son is dead after she's been hesitant to let the conflict come to all out war. In that final shot of epsiode 10 she's full of anguish and rage. I'm thinking "cool, so when the story picks up again she's going to be ready for war."

But then she's spent so much of season two stalling because she doesn't want to incite bloodshed because war is bad. And she can't justify getting revenge for her son but she can justify letting hundreds die because of some dream her ancestor had. She wants the throne but she's hesitant to fight for it.

There's such a disconnect between where we left off and where we picked up, because there's no starting point in the character arcs. Alicent will become haunted by grief and guilt, oh so lets do that from episode one. Rhaenyra wants to be Queen and was vilified by the fictional history, so lets absolve her of her wrongs and effectively remove her agency.

And my boy Aemond... I love the idea of him feeling remorseful about Luke's death but knowing that he can't appear weak, and so losing his humanity more and more to this image of a Kinslayer. But the execution leaves a lot to be desired for me. I would LOVE to have seen this through his family relationships. Let him have a conversation with Helaena, when her son was murdered as revenge for someone he killed. Let us see the distance growing between him immediately after he comes back from Storm's End. It was clearly the intention all along that Aemond was going to become "the villain" of the series and I love that, but if he's going to feel like he has no choice but to "dracarys" his brother, boot his mum off the Small Council and then leave his family undefended by flying off with Vhagar, I want that to feel earned. (also I want my fav to have more screen time obvs) but I would love for his scenes to have more room to breathe, like the only interaction he's had with Helaena was a scene that was one sentence long, I AM SUFFERING HERE.

In a season with only 8 episodes the pacing is crazy. We've skipped over what clearly was a crucial few days between 1.10 and 2.01. We've got characters stalling for no apparent reason. Simultaneously we're rushing through scenes and character interactions to move on to the next thing. It's genuinely frustrating to watch. Kudos to all the actors doing an amazing job with the script they've been given.

[lucybaird]

MOURNING DRAGONS ↳ hotd 2.01 // got 7.06

[hotcupofdragons]

"Cregan and Jacaerys took a liking to each other, for the boy prince reminded the Lord of Winterfell of his own younger brother, who had died ten years before.”

Jacaerys Velaryon and Cregan Stark in HotD 2.01

[alicentflorent]

HOTD really should pick a fucking lane when it comes to Aegon and what kind of person they want him to be. Last season they introduced adult Aegon by having the opening scene be of teenage servant coming forward as aegons rape victim and aegon himself showing no remorse when confronted. Then the following episode he’s revealed to be down right sadistic because he bit only rapes, but he watches children in fighting pits for entertainment and profit, he SA’d Aemond by forcing him into a brothel when he turned 13. The show wanted him set up as their version of joffrey. Cruel and depraved, someone capable of being a worthy opponent/villain for Rhaenyra simply because he’s capable of sick and evil things. Then comes 2.01 and they’ve (yet again) done a complete 180 with his character by reverting him back to the teenage version of aegon, clueless about politics, definitely an asshole but not quite a villain, more of a comedic character than a super dark one. Either you want a character to be a clear cut villain or a grey character that we can sympathise with and understand at first but we continue to watch them become more irredeemable. They failed in writing one nuanced character that is somewhere in between these two versions who they are building up to become more sinister and a bigger threat as the war goes on

[aegoniidaily]

Tom Glynn-Carney as Aegon II Targaryen S2E01 "A SON FOR A SON"

[alicenthightowerdaily]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON — 1x06 x 2x01

[bijuice]

wow hotd 2.01 was afwul

not even in a sense of just wild ooc stuff(specially with aegon) but like genuinely boring and annoying

[hellsbellschime]

I just gotta say from the bottom of my heart...THANK YOU SO MUCH for giving a voice to fans of the Greens. Both you and The Critical Maester are going above and beyond with your coverage of HOTD and if I can just be pathetically transparent, it's sooo disappointing, alienating, if not downright sad as somebody who genuinely likes Team Green for how fascinating they are (especially when you read between the lines), only to have an overwhelming majority of social media, YouTube, podcasts, etc. uphold Team Black. I haven't seen anyone else talk about this, so it might just be a case of oversensitivity on my part. I had to stop listening to and even looking for ASOIAF/HOTD podcasts - some that I previously loved, because the Team Black zealotry has gotten so ridiculous that I feel like I either have no place to talk about the characters I like, or that there aren't people with a platform willing to critique the show from a different perspective. There's plenty of truly magnificent Team Green tumblr blogs, and even the sub-reddit deserves a shout-out. But man, I feel like yours and TCM (mentioned above) are truthfully going to end up doing the heavy lifting this season, because while I was already tempering my expectations, I unfortunately read the b&c leak for 2.01 and literally felt my stomach plummet. So, once again, thank you for being a trooper. I really appreciate what you do.

LOL thanks for the thanks! But honestly it's not like it's even super intentional, the reality is that I just find most of the Greens more interesting than the Blacks, so the discourse surrounding the show in general makes it pretty easy to critique/look at from a different angle. Frankly, while I do like tackling different angles on things, I wouldn't be able to make the volume of content that I do about the Greens if I weren't sincerely more interested in them.