#i think the change from the main audience of got and hotd have made an awful difference of how they portray the characters

[sunnysideaeggs]

We spent 8 seasons watching how everybody south and north of the wall scorned Jon for being a bastard and how even the doubt of the future king being illegitimate (while having the very plausible excuse of looking like his mother) burst a giant war where almost everybody dies and now we are supposed to believe Rhaenyra putting bastards (that don’t even look like her) on the throne has no political repercussions whatsoever?

[lemonhemlock]

How would you have written the hotd story or maybe changed it?

GRRM, is that you??

I've had this ask sitting in my inbox since forever!! I'm sorry it took this long, but this question stumped me. 😅

I tried to do a little write-up re-imagining one of the more problematic scenes of the season here.

I will begin by saying that I really did enjoy this first season! Although sometimes it feels like I'm in the minority. :) But there were a lot of things that I loved, like the atmosphere, a lot of the storytelling, the humanized characterizations, the editing, the MUSIC, the costumes, it felt very, very recognisably Game-of-Thrones and such a relief to be going back to Westeros after these accursed last few years!

One of the things I really loved was how each episode gravitated around a specific event and corresponding concept & allowed the narrative to flow in relation to this one shared thread that kept the characters purposeful. Not many completely unrelated or superfluous scenes that I can recall.

I understand the need to keep to the tried-and-tested 10-episode structure, but considering all the time jumps, I would have made them longer. Streamlining is great, but even a few additional scenes would have helped a lot, I think.

The main issue I have relates to framing and audience manipulation. Let's be serious, they HAD to soften the characters up, because they have to captivate the audience moving forward. No one wants to watch a show where people are just irredeemable arseholes, as much as fans love to boast about it declaratively. Book purists are never going to be enough to sustain a big financial investment like GOT/HOTD. Casual viewers are the ones who have to keep coming back to the show, not us nerds dissecting it on tumblr, twitter & reddit.

So, in that sense, girlbossing Rhaenyra up makes complete sense. It's an easy framing that every Tom, Dick & Harry can follow along with. They did a good job with humanizing Alicent & Aemond as well. The problem is with Aegon. He is the only character in the show to have received Mushroom's worst interpretation. As Rhaenyra's direct rival, you cannot do that to him and still expect the audience to side with the greens. Even show!Daemon is sanitized from his book!self. If you're going to whitewash Rhaenyra, you have to present Aegon more indulgently as well. I'm inserting the answer I gave to a disgruntled anon a while ago. It's literally the only way you can play the "both sides have a point" angle to the audience.

I would have made Aegon the village idiot and drunkard and given him comic relief moments. I would have kept him bullying Aemond and taking him to a brothel, but I would have also shown him reaching out to his family members more as an adult. Maybe given him an OK relationship with Helaena, like they had in the books. Make him interact with his children a bit. This doesn't have to take up a lot of screen time, a few extra scenes could do the trick. Keep his characterization as incompetent and irresponsible, but refrain from making him completely reprehensible. Take away the distressing rape scene and the child-fighting rink, because that is just ridiculous when you're also giving RHAENYRA the white hart symbolism. Actually, make it even more ambiguous - Rhaenyra comes back with Ser Criston & the boar at the end of episode 3 and sees how a white hart has approached Alicent holding baby!Aegon. Who's the true heir now??

Secondly, I would have emphasized how the greens actually do have the legal high ground here and the better claim. I'm sorry, but including debates on medieval common law and inheritance rights are a must. The viewers were convinced at the end of the show that Rhaenyra should be Queen just because Viserys said so. And, I'm sorry to say, but that is just not the case. A lot of political elements from the Dance were taken straight from The Anarchy - Matilda's pregnancy, her not being in the country, her father making the lords swear an oath, him "retracting" his decision on his deathbed and naming Stephen instead. I'm begging everybody to go watch a few short primers on this succession crisis because this is just beyond. Just like Rhaenyra, Matilda is not acknowledged as a Queen of England, but as a claimant. Furthermore, Stephen was only Matilda's cousin through Henry I's sister. Aegon is Rhaenyra's brother. GRRM made her claim comically weak. The medievals are laughing at you. Please.

Thirdly, I would have highlighted how Rhaenyra's public perception actually is. I've spoken at length on this topic already, but she oscillates between appearing downright rude to unhinged (middle section of this rant here). There is no reason so many noble houses would support her. You have no way of telling that from the show, though, because there aren't any frames or lines of dialogue given to disgruntled nobles. Even young!Rhaenyra's behaviour in Storm's End as the heir to the throne is downright appalling. Therefore, I would include shots that make it apparent she is not well-regarded, despite her obliviousness.

Fourthly, I would emphasize how placing bastards in the line of succession to the Iron Throne is a crime and that crime actually has the cute name of "high treason". I feel like I've already exhausted this topic in my bastardposting tag. This is an issue of property rights, not of puritanical morals or slut-shaming.

And, lastly, I would make a point of showing dissent within the black faction as a result of the unfair treatment of House Velaryon. I would present Vaemond's murder as the extrajudicial execution it is. I would not have Baela & Rhaena so happy-go-lucky at losing their inheritance and exchanging it for status as Jace's and Luke's wives.

I tried to keep the changes as minimal as possible so as to not disrupt the flow of the show too much. I think you could have fit all of this in quite reasonably with an extra 10-20 minutes per episode. I know that what all of us really crave is full extra episodes, but I'm afraid that's not entirely possible all of the time. Show-runners do have their own constraints that we are not privy to. 🤷‍♀️

[lightningandfireinmybones]

Οkay listen i know i may be a delusional gworl for this one and I may have also seen the tiktoks posted from the official GoT and maybe even HotD accounts that have the split screen edits of Helaena giving her prophecy and Meleys annihilating the dragonpit but nobody can convince me otherwise : the prophecy was about Blood and Cheese.

Why would she warn people twice over about such an anti climactic thing? Meleys didn't do anything to them she only killed the small folk.

Why would she use the word beast to refer to a Deagon? To the Red Queen no less. Targs are particular about their scaley bois.

Why would she try repeatedly (and fail) to impose on everyone how Important and Urgent and Alarming that Beast Beneath the Boards was only for it to end up being narratively something quite inconsiquential? That scene could be relatively easily removed and nothing fundamental would change. So why the insistence of the writers to bring attention to it supposedly twice over with Helaena's prophecy?

(it's not like they could or can so openly tease Blood and Cheese. It would border on Spoily territory and the vast majority of their audience i think aren't aware of what's coming)

Also why Boards in the dragonpit? Isn't it all made of stone? (legit question btw) it seems to be.

The wording is very specific (also bless whoever wrote this idk if it was ever a line in the book. The whole phonetical repetition of the /B/ sound in every main word, the stress falling on the second syllable everytime uughh i just adore it it's so effective it scratches my brain so good)

But if she were indeed warning people of this beast hiding beneath her boards..it fits.. especially in the context of the Dinner scene and also while she speaks to Alicent. She looks very alarmed and almost helpless everytime... Idk...

Maybe canon is there but it wont stop me because i can't read it.

NO LETS TALK ABOUT THIS BC I WAS WONDERING ALONG THE SAME LINES!!

I don’t think helaena was confirmed to ever have actual dreams in fire and blood, so all of her prophesying is show!canon only

in the book, blood and cheese are ratcatchers which very much leans more into both the “beast” part (either them or the rats) and the “beneath the boards” part

And phia plays is so wonderfully, dread curls down my spine every time she says it, between the alliteration and the hopelessness of the delivery, why would that depth of emotion be for an ineffectual show of power that ultimately comes to nothing???

I’d like to think it wasn’t just lazy storytelling and they were really foreshadowing bc it’d be such a sick twist to have blood and cheese happen and helaena just be like “why didn’t you listen to me??”

In conclusion I have my tin foil hat on and am 10000% on board with your analysis, as usual you are an intellectual ICON

[darylandbethfanforever9]

If Jacaerys had ascended the throne, I have no doubt his younger brother Aegon III would try to take the throne.

We spent 8 seasons watching how everybody south and north of the wall scorned Jon for being a bastard and how even the doubt of the future king being illegitimate (while having the very plausible excuse of looking like his mother) burst a giant war where almost everybody dies and now we are supposed to believe Rhaenyra putting bastards (that don’t even look like her) on the throne has no political repercussions whatsoever?