#this isn't anti hotd i just wish things had been done differently

[lucky13cat]

Honestly the one thing I wish HOTD hadn't done above all else (and I wish they hadn't done a lot) are the multiple times jumps in season 1.

I wish we had kept the younger actors and the story going after Rhaenyra's wedding until at least episode 8 or 9 of the first season. Rather then jumping 10 years and then 6 years the show could have built up what was to come and shown characters and stories that were missed. They could have done many, many things to fill in the time to build up the later plotlines. Have the writers show us how inevitable the Dance would be without skipping ahead.

Show us Rhaenyra's reaction to Criston becoming Alicent's sworn shield. Show us Aemond and Daeron's births (or at least Alicent's wedding to the king well before rhat). Show us how Daemon and Laena were wed and him killing her original betrothed.

Show us Rhaenyra facing the whispers of the court as she and Laenor remain childless. Show us Rhaenyra deciding to go to Dragonstone with her husband, her retinue, and Harwin Strong (who in the book is her sworn shield). Show us how Rhaenyra sees traces of Daemon all over Dragonstone as well as her learning to rule and manage a castle. Show us Rhaenyra and Laenor discussing how they will have kids and scenes with her and Harwin. Show us her first pregnancy as she thinks about Aemma's many pregnancies, especially the last one.

Show us Jace's birth and the court coming to celebrate on Dragonstone. Show us Daemon's reaction to such an event even as Laena announces she is pregnant. Show us the first seeds of the bastard rumors as Rhaenyra and Laenor claim Jace has inherited the Baratheon looks from his grandmother Rhaenys, a defense that is quickly destroyed later on with two more sons bearing the traits of Harwin Strong rather than Laenor Velaryon. Show us the king acknowledging his grandson in a way he never does his own sons.

Show us Aegon bonding with Sunfyre. The deep bond between them and Alicent's worry about dragons and her continued rejection of the "queer customs" of the Targaryens until Otto forces her to realize that these are weapons to help Aegon when he becomes king. Show us Helaena bonding with Dreamfyre and more of her dragon dreams. Show how Aemond remains dragonless as all his other siblings bond with dragons. Then turn and show how indifferent, potentially even hostile, Rhaenyra is towards her younger half siblings, particularly the boys who have a claim to the throne as the whole court whispers.

Show us Rhaenyra's return to court with her gaining a seat on the Small Council and how much Laenor hates it in Kings Landing. Show Viserys announcing that his grandsons will all take lessons with his sons and Alicent's reaction to that and then Daeron being sent away to Oldtown. Show how Aegon grows up under the pressure of being the unnamed heir and unloved son. Show us the wedding between Aegon and Helaena. Show the plotting of Otto behind the scenes rather than just telling us the Small Council has been plotting for years.

Just show the audience something.

The season can end on a time jump to show the older actors and can even continue as it did from Joffrey's birth. The parallels from Jace's own would be quite interesting as it would show how Rhaenyra has faced what her mother called their battlefield before. Then let the season end with Rhaenyra going back to Dragonstone as more than the girl she was the first time. Let season 2 start with the funeral at Driftmark and show the actual aftermath of that event. Then show us Daemon and Rhaenyra's wedding and the aftermath of that with Viserys enraged and telling both of them not to come to court until he sends for them. Corlys can be shown once more going to war in the Stepstones instead of facing his grief as Rhaenys waits on Driftmark where she decides to foster Baela but ignores Rhaenyra's children. Show the twins and Maelor as a parallel to Rhaenyra's young children and how the Greens are a family just as much as the Blacks. Give us Helaena and Aegon interacting and how Aemond tries to be everything an heir should be even when he's a second son. Viserys' failing health can be shown as well as Otto's own time presiding over the court and tasting the power of the king, the thing he has spent years desperate for. Then jump to the succession of Driftmark crisis and Rhaenyra's return to court. Show more of Jace and Luke's struggles with their heritage as their younger half brothers inherit the Valyrian traits that highlight their own different features.

Give us more scenes of Aegon, Aemond, and Helaena among the court and interacting with the Blacks. There could even be a few scenes of Daeron mixed throughout the season though they'd less important, but still season 2 could build a base for who every Green child is as they build up to war. Give equal time to both sides of the war to come.

Let season 2 be built on these added scenes and plots from season 1 to truly show how the Dance was inevitable. This will then in turn fuel season 3 where the Dance truly hits as characters and dragons begin to die in this conflict. The deaths will hit harder and actually haunt the narrative the way they should because they've been given depth and built up in the previous seasons.

The show could have done so much to add depth to each of the characters and each of the different plots, but it didn't. The time jumps of season 1, in my opinion, weakened the story and left us with fairly shallow characters. There were so many things that could have added to the show and sowed the seeds of the Dance, but we saw none of it.