#giving larys this trait for fun

[motorway-south]

i wish one of the hotd characters had a complicated relationship with memory and the past. unfortunately they all have horse blinders going on forward. no one’s repressing bad memories even freaks like alicent keep thinking abt how wrong they are WHERE is my harrier du bois louis du pont de lac jaime lannister WHERE

[naggascradle]

i just finished hotd so im obviously thinking about it more but ive been really working to try to narrow down why i found hotd so much more fun to watch despite its flaws compared to my frustration throughout all of game of thrones with the character reductions and missing the point of the books.

first of all i think its down to the new showrunners understanding themes and like... what makes a story compelling in terms of characterization and what you can flesh out from a more barebones text. there's a lot to that you can have fun with & turning vague historical figures into a story to follow. i loved the alicent and rhaenyra background where we see them as children! episode one of season one is such a strong set up for the rest of the show and the themes it wants to deal with on the horror of motherhood and women being seen as vessels to carry children, which leads into the primary theme of the show and assumptions of people based on physical appearance.

which like, compared with game of thrones which seems sort of confused? about what it wants its themes to be for the show? like the books have a pretty major theme of the sins of the father sort of narrative and the cyclical nature of abuse and the way society pushes forward the abuse. the show removes most of these themes, oddly, like the biggest examples to me were tyrion's abuse by his father with tysha (this gets a mention in the show), the greyjoy family nightmare of abuse that just keeps going (the most we get on tv is theon being like my dad doesnt really like me :( and thats it but the books are pretty brutal in being like theon gets told someone's dad will beat them and he's like well my dad did that to me so idk what you want me to do about it.), arya's whole book narrative is how revenge begets revenge and in the process of revenge you will lose your own identity in pursuit of violence as a cycle, the point of the Others is to have the realms of men unite against an evil so great it will kill them if they keep doing petty squabbling, the list goes on. but the show doesnt really seem all that interested in playing with the ideas of cycles or what they mean? i honestly cant even tell you what i think the theme of game of thrones the tv show is. violence hurts people, i think?

hotd does a better job with picking a theme and running with it (the theme being what the assumption of a person means based on their physical traits; societally, politically, and personally). this is a major focus of a song of ice and fire as well, so it lends to the story of house of the dragon in a great way! we get larys who is disabled and his explicit discussion with aegon about how people will underestimate you and it will be your advantage (great parallel to doran martell in the books), the bastardy of jaecerys and his disgust with himself and following it up with him meeting the dragonseeds who have an entirely different view of being bastards (something id love to see more of in season 3, despite knowing jace's eventual end), rhaenyra & alicent obviously and the way people treat them as women. rhaenyra's conversation in episode one with aemma is suuuch a haunting one by the end of the same episode. alicent of course with her discussions about being undermined in front of her sons and how no one will be able to control them if she is continued to be shown as incapable in front of them.

anyway apart from themes hotd does also play with the concept of what adapting stories means, and how they'll play out differently on the screen, especially in a context of an adaptation along the lines of a historical fiction sort of show, as f&b isnt a chapter novel, more like an outline of how the history went. historical adaptations can be fun too in how the narrative is told, like giving nuances to characters when we just have their actions on paper. aemond unintentionally killing luke is up there for me in terms of "this is a really fun way to interpret the text" because all we know is that aemond killed luke when pursuing revenge over his lost eye, having their dragons act like actual animals with minds of their own in that moment was a strong choice! like of course vhagar will turn and try to kill a much smaller dragon for attacking her head on, she's a three ton massive sky beast. luke is a 14 year old with an adolescent dragon that's much more nimble, it makes total sense he could outjuke vhagar for a moment to get a direct fire shot on her. and it makes sense for aemond in turn to try to get control back of vhagar and fail. those are all incredibly compelling character choices to do when the accounts are so vague.

the other historical adaptation moment i really enjoyed was the dragonseed storylines (...enjoyed is a bit of an overstatement, i thought some of the dialogue for these scenes couldve been better.) where you can be like ?? who are these guys why do i care. until addam gets seasmoke and its like ohh those other two are the other two dragonriders ulf and hugh. got it.

honestly this is a very low bar in most shows but game of thrones really, really hated doing things like this except like once or twice (the only example i can think of is olenna tyrell getting a bunch of camera shots with the goblet at joffrey's wedding). game of thrones removed most of its foreshadowing in the tv show for major events that are borderline told to the reader that will happen in the books, and it makes the show a lot worse because it means it doesn't trust its audience can still be compelled by the story if they can figure out what will be happening (leading to like everything from s6 onward in terms of plot decisions lol), as well as made characters like ridiculously stupid in terms of their plans from the start because the show didnt seem to trust the audience in understanding what was happening in the story either? like the whole sansa being snuck out by dantos is... there for like one scene, but the book version makes it a whole shock twist that it was littlefinger arranging the whole thing (which was something you could pick up on beforehand, but from sansa's point of view she had no idea who was doing all this for her.), the show changes it to have petyr straight up tell sansa in the middle of the red keep "i'll sneak you out of here" and its like ?? people can say the characters got a case of the stupids in the later seasons but they definitely had the case of the stupids in early seasons too. why the fuck would littlefinger straight up tell her where everyone can hear him. this successfully lowers the stakes, makes littlefinger look like an idiot & everyone can guess who has sansa. like do varys's little birds mean something in this show or do they not.

i do think hotd leaves room to be desired with not making rhaenyra nuanced enough, but i can see where they really want the audience to root for her. regardless i dont think there's much where i was like "wow this character is ooc" its been pretty decently consistent about every character being consistent, and i do worry about if they start making rhaenyra have bad decisions itll be weirdly ooc lol. she's been shown to be prideful and wanting to be the only person making decisions & getting annoyed at others without her approval which i think is a pretty decent flaw to not make it overkill in making her an incapable ruler. idk i think rhaenyra is like. fine. as is. if she becomes bad at ruling id rather it be a slow progression over her control issues stemming from the way people treat her like she doesnt know anything and doing things without her approval. because it looks like they might lean into that and especially so after jace's and joffrey's deaths.

generally ive been reading everything hotd chooses to do as like this is a historical adaptation and some things will get changed for adaptability reasons. yes some things wont hit as hard if you loved them in the book but for the most part the changes have been in service of the themes i listed before, making the show feel like it has a purpose and wants to try and say something, so im more willing to forgive a lot of things in service of that.

anyway i wish we did have halaena's choice & nettles </3 those are the only two i dont really understand yet but im willing to wait and see how they play out

[unohanabbygirl]

One question: Why do you hate Criston Cole so much?

I mean I don’t exactly hate him, more like dislike considering he took his anger with Rhaenyra out on her children plus a few others. I understand the debate on whether or not Rhaenyra deserves to be on his bad side considering that she fucked and dumped him, but I don’t really lean either way in that convo because I can see both sides. Ofc I don’t see him on the same level as someone like Otto or Larys because that’s overdoing it a bit. However he isn’t exactly a favorite of mine.

I don’t actually think he’s evil, just an asshole who isn’t very likable so its easy to join in on the ‘fuck Criston’ jokes. Don’t get me wrong, Daemon is a straight up douche and I don’t categorize him as a good guy because he isn’t. But he has a sort of charm paired with being a family man that really draws me towards him. Plus he died for Rhaenyra which gives him extra brownie points in my book.

Its the same thing with Aegon, he doesn’t have any redeemable qualities in canon whatsoever but he’s the type of character thats given enough of a personality for you to build off of on your own. Sadly, I don’t feel I get that with Cole which I was initially excited for since Fabien is a great cast.

I would hope the next season gives him more character traits besides being anti team black. It would be fun to work with in terms of writing because i’d be able to make him a solid character rather than that dude in the background who’s mentioned from time to time.

[blue-mint-winter]

House of the Dragon s2e7

A really fun episode. I enjoyed it a lot. It was amazing to see all these new dragons and how they are claimed by the dragonseeds. But it's all thanks to Addam of Hull who declared allegiance to Rhaenyra. I think his behaviour had a role in convincing the queen to let others try to claim dragons.

Speaking of Addam, he finally got a scene with Corlys and it was so awkward. Addam was hoping for some fatherly love, but Corlys could only manage to say to him "good job" 🤣. I misjudged Corlys - I assumed he just wants a dragonrider heir, but that's not it - in his later conversation with Alyn, Corlys unsubtly suggests that Alyn should try claiming a dragon too, because it must be a trait from their mother's side. Corlys is clearly playing favourites and the dragon is a welcome bonus but its lack is not a dealbreaker. I wonder why Joffrey isn't even considered as Corlys' heir, Laenor claimed him as a son too.

I wonder why Corlys is so distant from Addam and treats him different from Alyn. Maybe he's not sure if Addam is really his son?

Congratulations to Mysaria for masterfully executing her secret plot and convincing the queen to give dragons to the proletariat by using cold hard logic and wartime necessity of getting more expendable dragonrider soldiers. Not only that, Rhaenyra gave away the biggest and strongest weapons in her arsenal. Certainly more dangerous than her own Syrax and her children's young dragons. Now if only Mysaria can convince the dragonseeds to rebel against monarchy and lords, the flames of revolution would be unstoppable. And well, it seems likely because the previous episodes show that smallfolk change their sympathies quickly. Alternatively - dragonseeds will kill both Greens and Blacks and become the new rulers of Westeros. Alternatively - Rhaenyra isn't so stupid and any dragonseed who survives battle against Aemond will be eliminated as a threat to her own regime.

Jace's scene was so emotional and raw. He's against giving away dragons for a different, but also very good and personal reason - because it would tear away his only shield against the accusation that he's a bastard. It threatens his own legitimacy as the heir. The idea that he has a dragon, therefore he can't be a bastard, would be disproven as false if dragonseeds can claim dragons too. Alas, Rhaenyra chooses winning the war first without losing any family and after that worrying about legitimacy. Finally, a personal conflict in which both sides have a good point.

On the other hand, dragonkeepers are against the plan with dragonseeds because "dragons are sacred". This argument is ridiculous. Let Rhaenyra laugh at them.

I guess Baela is pro "operation dragonseeds" because she's there with Rhaenyra when it commences. I wonder if she's going to be the one to train them up.

It seems that lady Arryn expelled Rhaena and her brothers from her castle. Rhaena goes off alone to try and claim the mysterious wild dragon in the Vale. Good for her, I guess.

On the Green side, secret operation "get Aegon back on his feet" is progressing. Maester Orwyle is giving Aegon rehabilitation and Larys gives him peptalks. Aemond terrorized everyone so badly (he's even sending Aegon's Kingsguard to the Wall, why? Probably because they were there in the brothel and witnessed his humiliation) that now they want Aegon back ASAP. Even lord Wylde joins Larys and they decide not to tell Aemond about the rumours of claimed dragons. They want him gone, possibly ambushed and killed in battle. It seems the only small council members who aren't part of this are Tyland (maybe he just spends more time in the docks due to his job), Criston who's marching with the army, and funnily - Alicent, who goes to the Kingswood on the first vacation in her whole life.

I have to say, Daemon's arc in s2 is one of the best written and most coherent. In this episode Daemon achieves his objective and finally gets an army, however in a very ironic way. Instead of bringing the Riverlords to heel by the means of the heinous crimes committed by his lapdog Blackwood, the situation is completely turned around and it's the Riverlords with young Oscar Tully at their helm who honour their oaths to Rhaenyra and bring Daemon to the heel. Daemon was unable to earn their trust and loyalty on his own, instead his actions and words caused their enmity and hatred. They are willing to cooperate with him only because he's Rheanyra's husband. He has no power otherwise. He's forced by them to kill the only man loyal to him, the psycho war criminal Blackwood in order to be accepted.

Daemon's actions and methods in Riverlands are the repeat of what got him into this mess - the murder of an innocent child, prince Jaehaerys. But he's forced to realize that it's not just Rhaenyra and Viserys before her who found his deeds unacceptable, everyone does and their opinions matter very much. His belief that their subjects are sheep and their thoughts don't matter was completely crushed. His ambition was curbed. He'll never be a king because no one decent and honourable would follow him. What a nice reality check.

Daemon's arc bears some similarity to Otto's fall from grace as both of them pay for their bad decisions and lose the power they wanted so desperately to obtain. Otto's pursuit of his ambition at all costs led to his dismissal as Hand. Daemon's ruthless pursuit of his ambition of kingship also led to him losing any chance of obtaining it. Ultimately, he had to renounce his ambition and seal this choice with Blackwood's blood.

[whatever-souls-are-made-of]

Tbh HotD is serving me courses I didn't even really get with GoT at it's peak (ofc there are irreplaceably amazing moments in s1-4)

Like I really enjoy the gameplan of giving *everybody* sympathetic or enjoyable qualities

Daemon is a *scumbag* bro this man is a violent shitweasel who gets a violent shitweasel ending (god's eye HIGHLY anticipated) but he's fun to watch, he's fun to listen to, he's villainous and charismatic and he's not always *wrong*

Rhaenyra is our protag still and yeah the show is kind of portraying her as In The Right but it doesn't really downplay her when she's being shitty or when her own choices lead to consequences she suffers

Alicent is either the direct or indirect cause of SO many of the problems in the show but you feel for her so hard (I love her) because they don't pull punches showing what she's been through

Viserys...like man do I even have to say it, he's immensely sympathetic while also *fucking up everything for his whole family for all the final years of his life*

I think only Otto and Larys don't have explicitly sympathetic or particularly enjoyable traits *but* I think they service the show so well as detestable Bad Guys they don't especially need to

And never in a million years did I think I'd have so much investment in fucking Aegon II (I still thinking making him a full blown r*pist was the only bad writing choice in like the whole previous season)

[koi333]

If you completely ignore that blacks really loved each other, then consider everything from the practical side.

Corlys is not a fool but a tactician like Otto with the difference that while Otto is trying to get power in other people's houses, Corlys is trying to bring the same power to his own house. We have already seen how the presence of dragons helped Corlys win the war and this is the real power that they want from the Targaryens. He married Rhaenys and got riders and dragons for his children's generation but not his grandchildren. The children of the lane are not velaryon they will inherit the inheritance and titles of the other male regardless of gender. laenor, on the other hand, proved unsuitable for the appearance of her own children. But Rhaenyra's children still have what the Corlys need - their own dragons. And you can always get "true" blood back by marrying Luke or his children to other velaryon members. When I watched the show for the first time, I thought that the one who really had the right to express his displeasure was the Corlys, not the Greens. It was his legacy, his ambitions and his plans that were completely ignored by his brother. "corlys in 1x10 was damn fun" Corlys had unfriendly relations with Otto even before Black and Green. The boy knows that he will gain nothing from the victory of green and lose a lot from the loss of black.

About Daemon. "do you honestly think he would allow his wife's bastards to inherit before his children with her?" YES, because in addition to sons, he has daughters who receive everything these boys inherit. They are engaged both in the books and in the series if you remember. He literally has a chance to raise ideal obedient men for his daughters who will not dare to hurt them as most asoiaf men did.

"The show has stripped away all of Rhaenyra's negative traits and made her this tragic, righteous angel that everyone should root for no matter what." What about the fact that all the deaths brought by the greens are screened as a coincidence? laris misunderstood Alicent and did what he wanted, Aemond lost control of the dragon, Kriston loses control and the lord who opposed Aegon dies on impact, Alicent accidentally hears Viserys say her son's name and now she is credited with a noble motivation as if she had not didn't want to give the crown to Aegon, she says that "the one who becomes king will be you Aegon" and then we are to believe that she is surprised by the preparations for the usurpation? Alicent of the book at least had her own ambitions and desires and was an active figure in her own life. There were such glimpses in the middle of the show, but in the 10th series, everything was again reduced to a victim and a puppet.

the fact ryan condal keeps hitting with the villain bat anyone who has a problem with rhaenyra and daemon's absolutely destructive behavior is beyond me

he turned corlys and rhaenys into simps who don't give a fuck that rhaenyra and daemon conspired to murder their son & daemon executed corlys's brother in the middle of the throne room for standing up for his family's blood right to driftmark to not pass to bastards who were being passed off as trueborn(a literal crime in westeros)

he removed all of rhaenyra's negative traits and made her out to be this tragic righteous angel who everyone should cheer for no matter what

no one cares about the random person daemon murdered to use as laenor's body double but we get 50 scenes of the serving girl aegon SA'd and she's coming back for season 2 - a character who does not exist in the books

vaemond is portrayed as a greedy and grasping fool instead of a man desperate to keep his family's seat in his family - westeros's world means blood is everything

daemon's crimes of murdering his first wife, grooming his niece/wife, being the westerosi equivalent of a neo nazi(except with valyria, a eugenicist oligarchy built on slavery and slaughter) are all brushed under the rug for "YAS MALEWIFE" (do you honestly think he would allow his wife's bastards to inherit ahead of his kids with her? nope)

meanwhile criston cole has his honor violated by rhaenyra who uses him like a glorified dildo - a sacred vow of the kingsguard that means death or castration for any who break it - and calls her a cunt one time and he's the worst man alive

corlys pimped out his 12 year old daughter to viserys and no one cares, but otto does it with alicent and he's somehow the most evil man alive next to criston cole

corlys in 1x10 was fucking hilarious

"rhaenyra was complicit in our son's death. that girl destroys everything she touches."

-minutes later-

"you have the full support of my fleet and house"

condal says the show isn't biased. and i'm the empress of austria.

[croduo]

Some thoughts on Alicent (spoilers)

Ok, she is the damsel, that pissed a lot of fans, me included but part of me feels sympathy for her regardless. And yes, I will throw the "lack of unconditional love" card, on the table. Viseris loves Rhaenyra unconditionally and that is the main thing that led Alicent to despise Rhaenyra. There are no people around her to give her that love. To everyone she must comply to certain set of standarts. Her father's condition - is for her to be a tool for his ambitions. He is not interested in her as a child, her needs are inferior, as her only function to him, is to nourish his way to a greater power. He is the second person in the kingdome but it is not enough for him. That is why, he only provides sympathy to her, when she showed the traits, that are beneficial in getting more power (ep. 7, dagger encounter). Viseris condition - is her youth. He marries her for personal pleasure. We see later, that he does not really love her even. She is a combination of mistress and caretaker for him. He loves his deceased wife, and the older he gets, the more often this fact slips. A lot of people mention, that her function is to produce heirs, but I think it is even more depressing than that. As motherhood is not bad in itself and a lot of people find accomplishment in it. Childbirth is only the byproduct of the her function as mistress. She is religious but that does not bring her relief. She performs her "duties" but there is no reward for that too. Person psych works in a way, that we think, that there should be a reward for our hard work and suffering she gets nothing for hers. She feels resentment that translates in her chit-chats with Ser Crispi, who also feels the same but his feelings are targeted towards Rhaenyra, where as Alicents are more general. Yes, they act nasty with Crispy but their nastiness is limited to passive- aggressive behaviour and gossip. They are like school bullies, who nag you constantly. But when Laris kills his family, that is when, the shit gets real and Alicent is terrified of that. At one point, fun and games transformed into becoming a conspiracy accomplice, because she got used to gossip so much.

End of pt.1

[junker-town]

How to design a perfect Tour de France route

What makes a successful Tour de France route? Let’s take a ride.

What are the ingredients in a good Tour de France route? Some say high-altitude finishes in majestic alpine scenes, or a balance of decisive stages that keep the suspense tight through the final week. Others want to see relatively unexplored areas of the France in addition to the classic locales. Foreign fans want to feel like they are experiencing all of the delights that France has to offer.

Ask a rider and you might get the same answers, along with some new ones — safe routes, reasonable stage distances, decent hotels, and as few bus transfers between stages as possible. Team managers, media members, race officials, and everyone else who makes up the some 4,500 people who show up to work at the Tour each day will chime in with requests for space to maneuver before, during, and after stages, as they shepherd people and equipment across a country.

Photo by Tim de Waele/Corbis via Getty Images

Tour de France directors Christian Prudhomme, left, and Thierry Gouvenou

For the chefs who try to mix these ingredients into a delicious Tour de France every year — Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France, and Thierry Gouvenou, race director — creating the route is a year-long effort to achieve their own soaring objectives while satisfying the minute details of financial security and physical space. At stake are people’s well-being, careers, vacation plans, and cultural pride, to say nothing of millions and millions of dollars. To make the best course they can, Prudhomme and Gouvenou travel the roads of France and visit potential host towns along the way, scouting out the details of each stage to package them coherently. Every highway and scenic route, stage finish and geographic feature, strange place and well-worn spot was chosen with deliberate care.

Prudhomme and Gouvenou are famous in cycling circles for having breathed fresh air into a race that had been treading water for a decade or so. The Tour has (nearly) always been, and will surely continue to be, cycling’s Super Bowl, but fans get bored of long, endless stages with predictable conclusions. Lately, the Tour hasn’t been afraid to spice things up.

Let’s take a look at the basic elements of a Tour course, how they’re evolving, and what happens when things go wrong.

The roads ... I mean, really, the roads!

The practical reality of putting a Tour together starts with linking more than 2,000 miles of road together.

On one level, it might seem like a simple task. France is full of roads! But roads can go wrong. They can be loaded with obstacles (see: the Netherlands’ notorious “road furniture,” such as concrete islands and grooves for moving traffic) that will send unsuspecting riders over their bars in an instant. Sharp turns right before a sprint finish are an old favorite, if you’re into unnecessary pileups with hundreds of livelihoods at stake.

But tame the roads too much and you have the worst of the Vuelta a España, whose straightforward highway slogs look boring even in Spain. Gouvenou and Prudhomme have heeded the riders’ calls for safety in route planning, but not without putting the occasional cobblestone section in the mix, or using cool, narrow roads when the peloton can handle them. Unique riding terrain works well when it is used judiciously — the peloton can handle all sorts of quirky roads, just not all day for three weeks, and not without some warning.

First and second impressions

The Tour always tries to start the race in front of a dramatic canvas for its Grand Départ, sometimes going to foreign soil to do so. For decades, though, once the opening euphoria died down, the Tour would settle into a week or more of doldrums, grinding its way around France with a succession of lackluster sprint stages.

As 21st century media started bringing video of more races to more places, fans began to notice that the Giro d’Italia, cycling’s No. 2 event, seemed to find ways to enliven these early stages. For every plain sprint or two, you would get a funky finish that brought out different riders, or a picturesque climb to a famous hilltop monastery.

Prudhomme and Gouvenou took notice, and they now speak openly about making the race more fun and less predictable from start to finish. Tours starting up north have incorporated roads from the Belgian classics, like the first-week finish atop the Mur de Huy in 2015, or the Mur de Bretagne in 2011 and 2018. In 2019, the finish on the Planche des Belles Filles was reprised from 2012, 2014, and 2017.

The recent flourishes to the course have been a test of the directors’ vision. How much excitement can they bake in right away? Will livening up a few early stages put the overall favorites under too much pressure? The answer so far is no, and now it’s almost heresy not to have a little fun in Week 1.

Starts and finishes

The selection of host towns, where stages will start and end, are where Prudhomme and Gouvenou leave their biggest marks on a Tour. Barring a major climb in the middle of the stage, host towns get the lion’s share of media attention and give each stage its character. Roughly 35 to 40 French cities and towns will start and/or finish a stage of the Tour de France. Some 250 candidates apply each year for the available slots, each with a story it’d like to tell.

That story can be banal. Plenty of places are willing to pay the Tour’s parent company — Amaury Sport Organisation, or ASO — between $60,000 and $120,000 to advertise themselves to the world and potentially bring in millions, places like the Futuroscope theme park south of Paris, or any number of ski resorts in the Alps and Pyrenees. Most towns, however, just want to show off some part of themselves, whether it’s their culture, history, wine, food, or deep connection to cycling.

Some of the towns are chosen because they’ll be first-time hosts — places like Binche and Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, both on the 2019 route. They are old towns with singular traits. Binche annually hosts a UNESCO-recognized carnival ripped straight out of the 14th century, while Saint-Dié was built around an old monastery named for a quirky monk.

Others towns are chosen simply because they’ve almost always been on the Tour. Pau, in the shadow of the Pyrenees, is practically a required stop on every good Tour course, sometimes for multiple days. In 2019, it will make its 71st appearance, for no other good reason than it’s a large town in an area that doesn’t have many. Parking 200 riders and all their support staff in Bagnères-de-Bigorre or Saint-Lary-Soulain would be a stretch. And Pau, the capital of the Pyrenees, is close to the Tour’s favorite major climbs.

AFP/Getty Images

Stage start in Pau, 1934

Another of the Tour’s favorite stops, also on the 2019 route, is Saint-Etienne. It’s not just another of France’s nearly 9,000 places named for a saint: Saint-Etienne breathes cycling. Situated in the middle of several categorized climbs, it is also the home to several prominent bike and component makers — like Mavic, Motobécane, and Vitus. A local club, Espoire Cyclisme Saint-Etienne Loire, develops French and international youths who are on track for professional careers, particularly eastern Europeans looking for a footing. Roger Rivière, best known for disappearing off the road and into a deep ravine during the 1960 Tour, was a local product.

For the town’s 26th appearance in the Tour, Saint-Etienne will get two stages — one finish, and one start. Both are “medium-mountain stages,” littered with moderate, punchy climbs. Saint-Etienne is often an hors-d’oeuvre on the eve of the Tour entering the Alps, but it also works well as a stopover in the other direction, heading away from the Alps toward the Pyrenees.

The Tour is easier to manage for riders and organizers when it comes back to the same host towns over and over, but for fans, yet another stop in Saint-Etienne or Pau can get old. As always, the challenge for Prudhomme and Gouvenou is to strike a balance.

And Yeah, the mountains

The competitive side of the Tour, the thing we all ostensibly came to see, is defined by how Prudhomme and Gouvenou choose the mountain stages. The names of the climbs — Alpe d’Huez, Col du Tourmalet, Mont Ventoux, etc. — grab the biggest headlines when the route is announced every October. The details of those climbs shape the outcome of the race in critical ways. The directors know this, and when they emphasize high-mountain finishes over time trials, or vice versa, they are in effect calling out the Tour’s early favorites and throwing obstacles in their way that they will create suspense around the battle for the yellow jersey.

With that, every Tour inspires a new set of probably-unprovable conspiracy theories. Lately, the Tour has been dominated by Team Sky (now Ineos) and its time-trialling aces. In 2019? The Tour features just 27 kilometers of time trialling. Even before Chris Froome was injured, the message was loud and clear that the Tour would like the pure climbers to shine.

The fact that a couple of French riders are among the top climbers in the world, and among the most forgettable time trialists, is worth pointing out. But fact is, this supposed scheming rarely works. More often than not, strongest guy ends up winning no matter what the design. It’s fun to imagine Prudhomme trying to pick a winner nine months ahead of the Grand Départ, but he probably knows better by now.

The details of the climbs do a lot to distinguish a Tour route. Every year includes phases in Alps and Pyrénées, and which comes first in the course alternates, giving a bit more drama to the finishing phase. Then it’s time to design the stages. Fans insist on mountain-top finishes, for the drama and beauty, but too many of them can lead to someone dominating the standings ... or worse, riders avoiding going on the attack, saving their energy for the last, decisive day. The occasional downhill finish can be a thrill, or feel like a lot of climbing for a group to ultimately finish all together. And packing too much into a single day is less likely to launch new heroes as it is to simply wear out everyone. Nowadays, you’ll find the most dramatic climbs coming after 140 kilometers instead of 200.

The Tour has had its share of dud mountain stages, even with Prudhomme and Gouvenou at the helm. The 2015 and 2016 final Alps phases seemed a bit too cute and didn’t give Froome’s rivals all that much to work with, either because the gradients were so slack that Team Sky was able to grind everyone to dust, or because downhill finishes blunted the impact of the climbs. Froome deserves his due as the champion of the era, but the Tour has been at its best when he can be challenged mano-a-mano without his team doing so much of the work for him.

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Col de l’Iseran

The 2019 Tour added a special dimension to the mountain stages: high altitude. The last three stages before Paris spend more time than anyone can remember above 2,000 meters, including a crossing of the Col de l’Iseran that, at 2,770 meters, is the highest paved mountain pass in the Alps. The climbs are not tricky or dangerous — just long, high, hard brutes that will punish anyone who doesn’t deliver oxygen as efficiently as your average Nepalese sherpa.

Adding it up...

There is nothing not to like about a route like the 2019 Tour. Starting with its tribute in Brussels to the great Eddy Merckx, it is a Tour of Soaring Ambition, ending with a challenge to the modern riders to rise higher than they have ever dared to. It has a charming start in Belgium, some entertaining terrain early on, and a welcomed (for now) emphasis on major mountain climbs over time trialling that seems like the best bet to create an explosive race. The uphill finishes are severe, but with the three most imposing stages all under 130km, there’s not much fat on the bone.

I wouldn’t call the 2019 route classically balanced — not with the time trials practically removed — but in a more subtle way, it is an outstanding mix of all of the other elements a solid Tour route requires. From the first course to the main dish, Prudhomme and Gouvenou may have cooked up their best Tour yet.