#hotd criticism

[maglors-grief]

Since House of the Dragon is supposedly a "feminist" show, I still find it wild that they excluded all of Rhaenyra's friendships with other women and made the woman who was her evil stepmother in the book be her only friend in the show. They didn't include her very close relationship with Laena, they only included one of her ladies-in-waiting, they made Rhaenys vaguely dislike her since season 1 before Rhaenyra even married Laenor, Jeyne Arryn acts like she's forced to be on the Black's side and is passive aggressive towards Rhaena for no reason.

They robbed Rhaenyra of all her genuine relationships with women in the book in favor of pushing the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent, a woman who was abusive towards her and Rhaenyra's sons in the first season.

I really hate the narrative they got going on in the show that Rhaenyra is extremely unpopular. She had half the country on her side. She was likable to a lot of people, why is the show afraid to portray that? Isn't it enough to have Rhaenyra's enemies hate her? Why do they have to make even her allies dislike her?

[lilliyoona]

lmao so GRRM's notablog post criticizing Ryan Condal's writing choices has apparently now been deleted. 💀 the girls are fightinggg

"I have no idea what Ryan has planned, if indeed he has planned anything." 💅

[spacerockfloater]

Ryan Condal choosing the necessary plotlines that HOTD must include:

Nettles ✗

Maelor ✗

The Greens loving one another ✗

Rhaenyra being cruel ✗

A whole bunch of other important shit ✗

Tyland Lannister being a sperm donor for a polygamous woman and her concubines (which slay, but priorities?) ✓

[radicalsansa]

Oh my Lord Commander, how they've ruined you

[danyyytarggg]

one of my gripes about house of the dragon is the lack of a true royal court. in game of thrones, we were shown a red keep bustling with people, both servants and nobility alike. we were shown ladies-in-waiting and noble men and women at court attempting to seek favor from the royal family like cersei, margaery, etc. there were always people around and spectators to be careful of when conducting your business in the castle. we really are not gifted this in house of the dragon. sure, we’ve seen some small glimpses of the royal court and castle life but nothing significant enough to even be close to comparable to that of game of thrones, which is such a shame because it adds so much to the idea of nobility/royal life. in a way, it makes hotd sort of dull, lifeless, and empty in the red keep, dragonstone, driftmark, etc. as well as making the world small and sort of isolating around the targaryens/velaryons/royalty/small council, and not even in an “untouchable” sort of way, just sort of in a “there’s just nobody around” way. not to mention, depicting the royal court/nobility more would be significant in a show centered around a power struggle for the throne. and seeing team green and team black truly navigate court prior to viserys’ death as well as during this war would have added so much more to the story such as depth, significance, etc. even in appearance, the red keep seems dull whereas in game of thrones, the castle was vibrant, decorated, bustling.

this also plays a role in that i’m personally not a fan of how the show depicts royalty/nobility. from the lack of extravagant clothing (though i feel like the show has done just a tad bit better this season), lack of court/castle life, to the way people tend to blatantly disrespect the royal family without punishment (with the exception of vaemond), even the way they sometimes speak, the show lacks in giving me the sense of “THESE are the TARGARYENS. THIS is how ROYALTY are like. THIS is how the HIGHEST NOBILITY live.”

personally, the show just isn’t depicting royalty/royal court/castle life/nobility to the extent it should and can even come across as sloppy at some points.

[chemicalreal]

It's funny how the hotd opening has a better grasp on the story than the show itself.

Alicent gets her focus in the opening as the one who officially started green Vs black but then it focuses on Aegon and Rhaenyra, sitting on their respective thrones, as the war is between them. Looks like whoever designed it didn't get Sara Hess' memos.

[whateverthought]

If House of the Dragon was a feminist show they would have fully fledged out all their Female characters instead of picking just one woman and never letting her be Wrong or Angry or Morally Ambiguous

[youraverageaemondsimp]

Book!Helaena that was so lost into the madness of grief because of her child's death to the point she unalived herself.

VS

Show!Helaena helping the very person who orchestrated the death of her child.

[sirpinnington]

When you stop to think about it, Condal's justification is quite weak. They could have easily used one of the children actor who plays Rhaenyra's child in season two, no one would have complained and, as a technique, it has worked in the past with adult actors -which are easier to distinguish than children with platinum blonde wigs-, both in GOT (Dean-Charles Chapman in S3 played Martyn Lannister and then Tommen in S4 and foward) and in House of the Dragon (Jefferson Hall played Hugh of the Vale in GOT and Tyland and Jason Lannister in HotD). Condal simply wanted to do things his way.

[maglors-grief]

I was reading through the book House of the Dragon: Inside the Creation of a Targaryen Dynasty and Ryan Condal says on page 194:

"There's a line in Fire & Blood that just says, 'And in the year whatever, Lady Rhea died after falling off her horse and breaking her neck. I remember reading that and thinking, That's such a weird detail to include with no color around it. I was, like, Daemon murdered her, and nobody saw it. So then it became a question of, how do you service this one line from the book and build this whole story around it to show what actually happened to her?"

Ryan did you actually read the entirety of that page because what do you mean you found her death suspicious and that Daemon must have been behind it?? When it's stated that Rhea died in year 115 AC it then says:

"She lingered for nine days before finally feeling well enough to leave her bed... only to collapse and die within an hour of rising. A raven was sent to Storm's End, and Lord Baratheon dispatched a messenger by ship to Bloodstone, where Prince Daemon was still struggling to defend his meagre kingdom against the men of the Triarchy and their Dornish allies. Daemon flew at once to the Vale."

It's one thing if Ryan decided to add in Daemon murdering Rhea to spice things up but it's the fact that he said he read that page and instantly thought Daemon was responsible even though it's clearly stated that he was in the Stepstones at the time 😭 "what actually happened to her" is that she had a horse riding accident and broke her neck while Daemon was in a different country. There's not just one line about Rhea's death like Ryan stated, he just straight up ignored the entire paragraph after that one line. He didn't need to build a whole story around that one line because the whole story was already provided and he pretended it didn't exist.

I swear Ryan reads Fire & Blood and he's like "okay but if the exact opposite happened?".

[f-e-r-o-n-i-a]

Writers: "We think this might be better."

HOTD Fandom: "Just keep to the damn books...THEY'RE FINISHED. Use the book material."

Writers: *continue to change the story in the most non-book-possible way*

HOTD Fandom: *RIOTING*

Writers:

[spacerockfloater]

“A son for a son”? After her faction killed a baby in its crib?

Otto was right from the start, Rhaenyra always intended to murder her brothers if it meant she’d get her hands on the throne.

Looking forward to this horrendous woman and her pathetic whelps getting annihilated.

[radicalsansa]

The problem with having stupid writers is that every character they try to make smart ends up being an utter idiot, and when they want to portray a character as stupid they actually accidentally end up making them smart in less conventional/obvious ways.

But that "smart" one will always be an idiot caged in the writer's box of stupidity and nonsensical political one liners

[midnightstar16]

I am done with this show.

I came into season 2 with hope and excitement. Season 1 ended so shockingly, and I was curious how it would play out in the next season with all these complex characters. Would Rhaenyra finally become the book Rhaenyra who fought her brother and kin for the throne? Would Aegon finally embrace his role as king? Would Aemond work with his brother to plot and defeat the blacks?

It is safe to say I was disappointed. As the show progressed, I felt my enthusiasm falter and destroy. From the top of my head, I can only remember episodes 2 and 7 living up to their expectations. Why is this? If they couldn't make a book-accurate show, they should never have thought to make one in the first place.

They've omitted characters (nettles) and ruined others. Somehow sheepstealer is in the vale?

The above picture is from Martin's blog posted this month. It is obvious that the writers think that they can do whatever they want.

Rhaenyra who was supposed to be ready for war, is suddenly against war again. Alicent, who wanted her son on the throne and hated Rhaenyra, is suddenly yearning for her. Daemon is in his "haunting of Harrenhal" era. Criston Cole, who was named Kingmaker is such a useless shit in the show. He sits around, has s*x with alicent and then sulks.

I will not say that they butchered everyone. Aemond and Aegon's writing was done nicely. Leaving the rook's rest part. That didn't make sense in many ways.

This show has just become men bad, women good. It is obvious. Aemond, Aegon, Cole, Daemon, heck- even Jace; they're all portrayed as insecure, abusive and bad.

It was jace who came up with the idea to get Targaryen bastards to claim Dragons but they made him insecure and gave his plot to Mysaria. Oh and talking about Mysaria... She was talking about her abusive father and how he r*****d her and Rhaenyra became horny and kissed her? That scene was actually suggested by Emma Darcy, Rhaenyra's actor and it shows. But the fact that the writers actually allowed it shows their naivety.

Criston was a GOATed character in the book, he was a father figure to Aegon and Aemond but he acts and looks younger than them.

Daemon is in his haunted movies era. After laena showing up in s2, I predicted we'd get Viserys all rotten up and we did.

The set is amazing, the dragons are amazing, the characters are supposed to be amazing and so is the writing, but it is not. Season 8's cinematography, music, set, everything was groundbreaking but its writing was bad. This is exactly the same.

From what I've seen so far, episodes 2 and 7 were amazing, I can't lie, episodes 1, 3 and 4 were on the average side. For episode 4, many might criticise me because it was rook's rest, but this was a huge battle that shook the ground. It was downplayed to what? 10-15 minutes? As for episodes 5 and 6, I don't even remember what happened in them, because there was nothing to remember.

Episode 7 was good indeed. I thought they finally redeemed themselves. Until episode 8 leaked. Indeed. Last time, about 2-3 episodes leaked and this time was no different. The finale leaked.

While I will not talk about it until Monday, I will say this: I, who watched season 8 twice, who is a huge a song of ice and fire fan, will most probably not watch this show from now onward.

[prideprejudce]

im genuinely curious since i keep seeing this opinion, but i rly dont think hotd writing was bad? nothing is perfect but idk, unless someone points to me the times they had shitty writing im having a hard time seeing it. unless i dont actually know what "writing" means here. english is not my first language, i COULD be misinterpreting things lmao. i rly liked how they did things this season, i think it made sense with the last one, this one was just Tenser because at any second the war will reallyyy break out n we dont know when cuz we have two driving forces from opposite sides not wanting that to happen, thats the entire point of s2 i think: establishing that in war there is no clear winner ("strange victory" n all that), that everyone is going to die, that there is no point to any of it theres no point to war at all, that every character is "heroic" and "villainous" in their own right in the right pov. i think it was a fun season to flesh out the characters, have us not feel entirely happy to be fighting for one side cuz theres innocents in both sides but ultimately we all know they will all die and its all for nothing. thats the tragedy of it all imo. i loved it to pieces. i guess id say im sad some characters didnt interact but also i dont see how they would considering how this season went. n also i wanted more rhaena (i do hope she'll have a cool ass role next season, idc idc)

i personally think this season was truly a transition season to full out war. people are pissed because they wanted war to instantly happen after lucerys died last season, but in reality things arent that black and white and i think it would have cheapened the plot to fast forward through the political negotiations and underhanded scheming to try and win without fighting, to just full on nuclear dragon war.

I actually like the idea that this season was like standing on a cliffs edge where one wrong move led to oblivion with millions of people dying and the practical annihilation of half of house targaryen. I'm glad that the writers took the time to emphasize how dire this war could become before barreling us into it. the political battles and moral dilemmas are just as fun to watch as the actual battles

that being said, there are still valid criticisms of the show being brought up too: like the weird pacing and absolute dragging on of daemons harrenhal ghost adventures. on one hand I get it, because in the books daemon just disappears for weeks at a time, and the writers had to do SOMETHING with him this season instead of having him peace out for 7 episodes. but I agree that the harrenhal visions became repetitive, and I'm also not a huge fan of the back to the future magic being shoved in our faces instead of more subtle clues to it

overall, it was a transition season, not the absolute best season of television history, but it's definitely not the worst (and not even CLOSE to being as bad as got s8). I think in modern age media consumption, people now equate "i personally don't like this" to "this is all horrible and the whole show is trash now"

[youraverageaemondsimp]

One thing I've noticed is how all the women that are supposed to be team green (alicent, helaena, alys) are somehow catering to team black? what's the point of teams then, might as well call it a day and just kill off Aemond and Aegon early on to write whatever rhaenicent fic they're planning