#hotd already messed with Alicent’s characterization

[elegantwoes]

I love how Alicent and Criston fucking is considered OOC and shit writing, but somehow Alicent choosing Rhaenyra over her own children (even though motherhood is big part of her characterization and a driving force to the choices she makes) is completely fine and considered peak writing because it’s ‘tRaGiC yUrI’.

[very-straight-blog]

This might sound funny and cringey, but I feel like I lost something I cared about and now it's just sadness and depression. Like it's a TV show, I get it, but we waited 2 years and for what? To get the two worst episodes imaginable. I'm really starting to believe that Sapochnik was responsible for everything good in s1, bcz Condal and Hess ruined this show. S1 wasn't perfect and I didn't like a lot of things in it, but it still managed to keep me invested so I hoped that in s2 everything would be improved. And yet, I'm so terribly disappointed. Alicent's characterization makes no sense anymore, like they want so badly to show her as a bad mother and a hypocrite and really - after ruining bnc with Alicole sex now it had to follow with her not being able to console her son but hoping on Criston is a must do?? What sort of degenerates write this??

Aemond is also ruined for me and I would love to erase that crappy brothel scene from my memory. What was it for? To show his mommy issues, vulnerability... Idc. The dialogue was bad and they did him dirty with the angles and the pose. And now he's apparently going to be there *again* in e3 and we'll get full frontal nudity. Idk why the actor agreed to this since they are obviously making a joke and meme material of his character. Not to mention that he straight up lied in the promos about being loyal (if the RR leaks are true and I'm almost 100% sure they are). I get that they are told what to say, but a more general answer would have been much better than a lie. In brief, one of my favourite s1 characters is also destroyed.

Then Cole. My god, I only waithig for him to look at the camera and say "do you hate me enough already hahah?" He's the writers punching bag atp.

Helaena barely exists.

Otto is Viserys' fanboy and ofc, appalled by his grandson. It's not as he just has lost a son and was forced to take the crown in the first place by him and his mother, no less.

Aegon got more screentime and I love Tom's performance, but I'm not fooled. He is still depicted as weak, politically inept and rash. And he'll still be a bully, apparently. Just to justify his brother's treason. F*ck you Condal, Hess and whoever else is responsible for this mess.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I just don't get how anyone can seriously praise this shitshow anymore. It could have been great, but the creators are obviously not up to the task which is now painfully obvious. I wouldn't mind the greens as villains, but don't write them as a walking joke. I'm quitting the show and would like just to forget about it. This adaptation of the Dance was a huge mistake.

I feel you! By the way, I haven't participated in any fandom life, I think, for 10 years or more, but thanks to HOTD, I started this blog, I write some critical (well, kinda) reviews, and English isn't even my native language. I've been waiting for the second season for two years and now I just feel tired and empty. So far, the only thing I've liked about these two episodes is Aegon's storyline, that's all. Everything else is bad, very bad, and judging by the leaks, it'll be even worse.

Firstly, the series has a very strange pace of the narrative. We didn't get a bunch of important plot scenes, and even those that remained were shown in a hurry, but at the same time we have many scenes like "Rhaenyra stares at the dust for three minutes", unnecessary dialogues and PAUSES between lines.

Secondly, again, an insane amount of important plot details are left behind the scenes and this is absolutely wrong. Aemond's return home, the family's reaction to what he did. Aegon's reaction when he learned of his son's death. Aemond's reaction when he finds out what his actions have led to. And so on and so forth. Many of the characters' actions are shown without context. Alicent fucks with Criston - cool, but can I have some additional information? How long has this been going on, what feelings do they have for each other, how have they developed, like, anything? The same can be said about the scene in the brothel - no context.

Thirdly, it's unclear what's going on with the characters, as if the screenwriters decided to make the greens the most unpleasant people in the world. So far, I only like Aegon and Helaena. I can't even say anything about Aemond, because his only dialogue scene is built around Daemon and Luke, damn them. I just can't.

Everything annoys me except Aegon lol. So yes, I understand you.

[queenvhagar]

asking you specifically because it's been on my mind and i trust your opinions!!!: someone who interacted with one of my posts said that it's their belief that condal & co. are planning on doing grand reveal rhaenyra as a mad queen who gets rightfully deposed at the end of the series and we as the viewers just have to be patient and extend a little more faith. and it got me to thinking, because i enjoy questioning my saltiness every so often... do you think that kind of an ending (hypothetical as it is) would be worth it? is it a far fetched hope to have? would it make up for what what they've done to the narrative (and to rhaenyra and the greens) so far? does that kind of a twist require better writing from the outset and is it too late for them to convincingly attempt it? i have my own ideas but i would love to hear yours!!

The show seems to be at odds with itself already on this. Simultaneously it's pushing a few different but contradictory messages: women are peaceful and reasonable, while men are the violent ones who want war; Rhaenyra and the Blacks are the superior choice in this conflict based on the alternatives; Rhaenyra and Alicent have no real agency or choice except when they absolutely are responsible for their own decisions; Alicent is wrong for not supporting Rhaenyra over her sons; Rhaenyra actually and uncritically does indeed have divine right to the throne (white stag, prophecy, Viserys' words); Rhaenyra is actually maybe instead of that just so delusional and high on her own superiority complex that causing a massacre makes her feel divinely ordained.

The lack of consistency with this season and the contradictions within its own writing, along with significant, lore breaking deviations from the source material, is what is plaguing this season the most. Despite the look of wrath in 1x10, Rhaenyra has been stuck in a 1x9 space for 6/8 of the season. She regressed as a character. She does stupid things and bemoans that nobody respects her for it while not actually taking any action to earn respect. Her relationship with the prophecy and religion have gone largely unexplored until this point. The show frames all of her actions as being the morally superior choice at all times until maybe this last episode. It is devastating to the character and the season that it took 7 out of 8 episodes for her character to start being meaningfully explored, and after next week it will be years until we see the next part of her story.

For me, it is too little too late. With all the contradictions I mentioned above, their execution of any arc for her character will doubtlessly appear confused. Even if they lean into the delusional religious fanatic and later paranoid mad queen arc, they have so firmly established those other aspects of her character that it will be hard to show her shift from point A to point B over the next two seasons (and if they are as short as this one, that means likely less than 16 episodes to do the rest of her story in a convincing and meaningful way).

However their presentation of her as the new Daenerys that should have been is going to bite them in the ass if they truly attempt this arc for her. Her hardcore fans will cry misogyny like the writers themselves have cried. Her critics will be looking for a cohesive story to be told that will likely fail due to the lore and story breaking changes that have already been implemented into the show. Casual fans will think HOTD is just trying to capture the GOT hype by just redoing the Dany arc of the late seasons and make comparisons between the two.

Overall the story is a mess. I'm not sure a future mad queen arc could sufficiently redeem this adaptation given the appalling other changes made to characterization, removal of essential characters, defiance of in-universe timelines and logic, and inconsistencies. If somehow there was a new showrunner, new writing team, and GRRM stepped back in to salvage, maybe it could end decently... but it looks like after Sapochnik left the writing team will stay the same, and GRRM wants no involvement going forward with them, nor does he plan on taking part in discussions for future seasons. Basically, it's so over. And there's little hope for any other ASOIAF adaptations. They'll essentially aim for a new MCU style money maker, and that's what they'll get. Mediocrity and all.

[horizon-verizon]

Alicent leaving her disabled son and non grieving & non traumatized daughter to go to her only good son son that she can feel like she has power is so weird… makes her even more of a horrible mother. Why go mess with the only child you haven’t screwed up because he grew up away from you ? (I still pray they make him Cole’s bastard)

I'm never really going to hate Alicent for being a not so great mother in the nurturing department and outside of the very specific element of her turning said kids against Rhaenyra, of which I do and will always blame her and dislike her most for. You can be a good, nurturing mother in Westeros (Catelyn), but you're also gonna see some not so great ones in particularly unique ways fashioned under the system they are all in.

Will/would I be a little judgmental, yeah of course comes with the territory of fictional distance. But I can't despise her for this alone or lead her characterization in that. And it's bc w/o the context of the anti-Rhaenyra brigade (which turns up the already-bad parenting 10x bc the stakes gave her more motivation to be more horrible), I fear making her motherhood all that I can talk about her as if that is the only qualifier of personhood I can assess her by...and I resent that.

Not that Alicent should never be judged in how she parents and she only exists within the Dance story, thus in opposition to Rhaenyra and her actions have made her kids forever enemies of the same woman...but must I think about her motherhood towards her green kids itself all the time? Must we look at her daughter espec as only through the lens of Alicent's motherhood. It's partially HotD's fault, too. Why didn't we get her decision to close the gates to KL? Her decision /act to basically take the green council hostage until Aegon was crowned? All actions that aren't domestic parenting or exactly nurturing and has her more competent or at least politically active? Like, it's not as if we have many to think over in HotD aside form 1x06--her choice to rely more on Daemon's ridding the Triarchy people instead of going with Rhaenyra's suggestion for fortifications--but...yeah.

Allowing Aegon to rape and allowing Aemond to kill and not even bring up kinslaying or try to amke it as if its' the foils of youth as if she herself didn't try to kill the same kid? No drag her.

But again, these are not critiques of her nurturing deficiency.

[elleinmotion]

Omg I saw the new HotD trailer and immediately thought of you! I love your writing so much. What do you think of the trailer? Is the new season going to change your ideas for Graves in any way?

hello and I'm so tickled pink that you love my stuff!!!

I LOVED the new trailer. reduced me to a gibbering mess. loved seeing that B-52 flying fortress of a dragon buzz the army when Aemond and Vhagar did a low pass over. rev up the Bugatti wuheeeee

loved Rhaenyra staring out over Shipbreaker Bay all soot-stained and emotionally fucking drained. pretty sure she did exercise a little bit of Aegon I/Balerion on Harrenhal with Syrax on Storm's End (or at least the Baratheon fleet). let my girl burn it all down

had a major pacing the house moment when they showed a shot of Helaena's face upturned and looking through the black of her veil, then again when she was at knifepoint. i really can't handle it lmfao, i want to leap through the screen and protect muh queen and all of her children. they deserve the world

Aegon being peak brooding menace. Aemond pacing for the throne and looking like he's got his eye on the prize. Alicent staring out over the water (god please let it be a dream sequence or she's at Harrenhal by some plot device and she's staring out over an inlet of the Gods Eye, that would just be TOP LEVEL irony)

ALYS. FUCKING. RIVERS. I can't wait to see the Witch Queen. I can't wait to watch her dynamic with Aemond. I'm so excited for that and Gayle Rankin's overall portrayal. Ewan and her are going to kill it, I just know it (many will die...of fun :) )

regarding Season 2 impacting the story or informing changes on Graves - no, I don't expect it to. not when the goal line is to finish draft and hopefully get everything out in the world prior to or when Season 2 is airing.

the fic will stand canon divergent as all my characterizations of Daeron, Jeyne Arryn (unless she manifests with a hoard of dogs in the show, in which case I will lose my shit lmfao), Cregan Stark, and the twins are likely to differ from how the show will portray them (hell I already did that with fleshing out the twins a lot more than what we saw in season 1 ) - additionally, Cregan is married to his first wife Arra Norrey in my fic, when in canon Arra died in childbirth in the same year Graves is roughly set. already pretty divergent from book and show here, I'm off in the woods, I am deep in the weeds - canon? never heard of her

the epilogue for graves is already pretty set - this is a fic that was written backwards, essentially, with a final line and ending there before there was even a middle of the story!

also, I wonder if we might even see Daeron in season 2 with the casting yet to be finalized for him at the time of writing this reply. in which case, that makes Graves verrrry canon divergent if they eliminate him as a character in the show (I hope they don't).

thanks for the ask, anon!

[rhaenin-writing-time]

As the second season for HotD comes out, do you think you’ll want to change anything in your story to include parts of it, or are you planning to act only on the first season and F&B? And even if you don’t include any actual story parts from season two, do you intend to include themes or commentary on it in your plot?

I'm going to answer this in more detail on the next chapter. Which should be... soon I hope. But I'm definitely cutting it off at season 1 and leaning more into the book. Season 1 was heavily flawed, but season 2 is a yike and I don't want to have to account for all the CANON they're breaking and the other weird decisions most of which were made in the quest to try to frame it as a 50/50 conflict rather than letting the themes of the book shine through. Baela and Rhaena, for example, had such clear characteristization in the book that they've thrown away in part to make the Blacks look worse by making Daemon look worse by keeping him separate from his daughters (which contradicts not just the book but also his characterization in the show as someone obsessed with family. Not to mention that ot does t make sense logically how they act like driftmark and dragonstone are worlds away, or that Rhaenyra, who even made sure her grieving son saw to Baela and Rhaena's emotional needs, would EVER let Daemon get away with it even if he tried. Which is why they don't try to justify it they just... keep them a part. And because baela's characteristization is so tied to Daemon, especially later on, she's left kind of... "generic targ girl in background" and the writers try to attribute her "rogue" qualities to Laena - which also messes with Laenas characterization and reraises the question of why the hell she didn't just take her kids and her dragons and go home if she wanted to. And of course, because the book first sets up Baela's character and then contrasts the twins to further characterize them through their differences, it means that Rhaena's chacterization gets erased. And not just erased, but replaced with nonsense that was added to lend sympathy to Aemond. Because the difference between the twins in the books had nothing to do with a made-up "targ kids and teens without dragons are deprived" idea and everything to do with how they fit differently into gender roles. But of course, hotd is determined to erase the underlying themes regarding misogyny and reactionary politics whenever it can. So I stead, we get... a Rhaena who wants to be a... cardboard cutout targ girl and the only thing that makes her different is that she doesn't have a dragon even though that conflict doesn't make sense which is why not once is it addressed WHay she does t have a dragon if she wants one so bad, because in the book it was just that 1. She was young and had many years left before it would be considered noteworthy 2. It wasn't a big deal 3. The fact she had the eggs before the war started suggested that as she approached the age where a dragonless targ would start to think about claiming one, she instead made a personal decision that she'd rather raise one from a hatching. Because we're talking about a (book)Margaery-esque girl who wore her baby pink dragon like an accessory. Why would she feel "pathetic" for being entrusted with her siblings and doing diplomacy with the Vale? And if she did, why does she not simply ask to claim a dragon, or try to claim a dragon, a d why are those questions not even addressed? Because they can't answer them. So if they can't, I'm not going to bend this fic around trying, especially since so much is scoped and/or written out already.

And that's just ONE of the issues. And believe it or not, the Alicent/Cole issue is actually related to the Daemon & his daughters issue. So... the books, and we're going to pretend that hotd is a "competing, close account" that has a lot of correct information in the first volume, info that contradicts F&B like ages and dates, but grows more dubious as it continues.

Lol k maybe not "I'll answer this in more detail" and instead "I'll answer this more clearly."