House of the Dragon (Game of Thrones) Thread

[TCO]

That tease of the TOJ was tough, I've waited too long for that moment! The writing and dialogue delivery this season has been atrocious, has a writer changed or left or something?

Other than that, the direction everything is moving towards is great. The much assumed Lyanna theory is definitely about to happen and I'm so excited!

[Adam]

2 hours ago, Little Red Srarvette said:

Should I be worried this week? I skipped the one part last week and from the sound of it I am glad I did

Aside from the last scene, and you'll know at which point you might want to turn away/it off, it's alright this week.

[JasonM]

9 hours ago, Cloudy said:

I dunno, Ned seemed kind of guy that would probably leave that whole bit out of the story. Not to mention that what Bran saw must make him have his doubts about the whole story, given that 

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he was never told about Howland Reed stabbing Arthur Dayne. It sounded like he was led to believe Dayne died in honorable combat with his father.

 

Ned has always been a honourable man, and maybe he and Howland figured that by making Dayne have died a honourable death would be the most respectful to all sides on the equation. Seeing 'dying like a bitch' would've completely tarnished Dayne's reputation as much as it would've How/Ned's.

I've never seen Ned Stark for a gloryhound, so that's what i'm going with.

[LL!]

Spoiler

Yes, "dying like a bitch" is what they were worried about and not the fact that he died thanks to a fluke stabbing in the back.

 

[Whisper]

3 hours ago, TCO said:

That tease of the TOJ was tough, I've waited too long for that moment! The writing and dialogue delivery this season has been atrocious, has a writer changed or left or something?

Other than that, the direction everything is moving towards is great. The much assumed Lyanna theory is definitely about to happen and I'm so excited!

Brann and The Sand Snakes aside, when exactly? Tyrion, Varys, Melisandre and Davos have been killing it this season and that last scene with Jon was pretty great.

The rest has been fairly par for the course as far as GoT goes - I can't honestly say I find it any different to other seasons.

[TCO]

Tyrion has been awful. His interactions with Varys et al just aren't coming off as witty when they're clearly intended to be, the Sand Snakes and Bran's scenes come off poorly writing wise too. Daenrys seems to be just repeating who she is too. It peaked in the first episode though and it's getting better as the episodes go by

Very excited moving forward though, all stories are progressing now and I have high hopes they won't mess up the Iron Born like they did Dorne!

[Benji]

Part of the problem - I'd imagine - is that they had great quoteable source dialogue to work from and adjust. Now they're all alone they don't have GRRM's voice guiding them in the same way.

[Alex.]

They had dialogue from the books for the ToJ I don't know why they changed it, it was perfectly put by GRRM. 

That being said, the dialogue has sucked. I feel at times I am watching a show written by a 15 year old boy who just discovered urbandictionary. Tyrion's lines have been terrible for the most part. Always need a Varys cock joke. And Dany has been saying the same lines since Season 2. Hence why I am just tired of her personally.

[JasonM]

Dany's arc as a whole has fizzled out completely in the past few seasons. Tyrion/Varys being there have spruced it up for a little while, but then it died down again.

In book form it's alright, because it's a novel series and there's plenty of quality stories to go around that doesn't revolve around Dany. But right now in the series it's just plodding along, with only a few bright spots to make it interesting.

I can imagine non-readers watching this season and getting seriously turned off by the fact Dany is right back where she started again, her grand master plan for world domination pushed forward four more seasons.

[Steeb]

14 hours ago, Benkid Nada said:

That ToJ fight scene was dull as dishwater. I had no idea we were going to be getting some weird Blade-like sword fight.

Nah. I mean, you're welcome to your opinion, but nah.

 

Great episode, for me. Consistency-wise, I think it's my favourite season thus far - even the Mereen/Dothraki line has some great high points - but that could just be a trick of perception due to newness.

[gunnar hendershow]

GRRM originally intended for his series to be a trilogy, so there's a reasonable argument so much of Dany's arc is just treading water because it's stretched out of necessity due to the series becoming a lot longer as a number of new stories were told in the books.

[MDK]

I love that the first thing Tormund said to Jon was basically "You've got a small dick, lol".

Mad bantz.

[Bobfoc]

I've yet to see any real evidence that Daenerys would make a good Queen of Westeros. She's already failed to keep order in three cities because she marched in and completely overhauled their admittedly barbaric traditions, and, despite several warnings from other characters, she's often quick to act impulsively and, at times, horrifically, such as when she crucified the slave masters, burned a woman to death and locked her former handmaiden in a vault to presumably starve to death.

More often than not, her main strategy to get what she wants is to haughtily bellow her family name and expect people to jump to her cause, even though the overwhelming majority of common folk don't give a monkey's which dynasty is in charge. Yes, she's got three flying, fire-breathing battle tanks and a big army of seasoned warriors without knobs, but what she'll actually do once she's sizzled her enemies to a crisp is something of a cause for concern.

[gunnar hendershow]

I've always expected her character development is learning that she has to be a pragmatist, whether it will be too late is the question I suppose.

[Alex.]

Dany isn't going to be a good ruler. She cannot even rule a city and everything she conquered has fallen back to the slavers. She sucks and Ive been saying this for awhile now lol.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Honestly I've been hoping her character would just die for a while now, I don't even want her to turn up.in Westeros any more.

[Jimmy]

10 hours ago, Bobfoc said:

I've yet to see any real evidence that Daenerys would make a good Queen of Westeros. She's already failed to keep order in three cities because she marched in and completely overhauled their admittedly barbaric traditions, and, despite several warnings from other characters, she's often quick to act impulsively and, at times, horrifically, such as when she crucified the slave masters, burned a woman to death and locked her former handmaiden in a vault to presumably starve to death.

More often than not, her main strategy to get what she wants is to haughtily bellow her family name and expect people to jump to her cause, even though the overwhelming majority of common folk don't give a monkey's which dynasty is in charge. Yes, she's got three flying, fire-breathing battle tanks and a big army of seasoned warriors without knobs, but what she'll actually do once she's sizzled her enemies to a crisp is something of a cause for concern.

Well, that's surely part of her arc, right? It might be drawn out, but there has been some pretty incredible moments, including the end to the last season. It's treading water a little, but I'm sure it'll go somewhere. 

Much like Arya. You can't just condense her arc into a few episodes -- in a show like this, timing is equally important and everything kind of needs to match up. We have to feel like Arya's gone through a monumental change if we're to buy into whatever she's about to come. It's not like it's the focus of the show, and now we're creeping close to it getting somewhere. I kinda feel like the audience needs to face the endurance test in the same way she does -- it's not like the show is lacking action. 

[JasonM]

But at least with Arya you get a sense that she's learning something, that she isn't the same girl she was in season 1, or even the same girl she was last season, really. 
First she was tomboyish and brash, learning to fight with swords, yet being overly naïve about her own abilities and the abilities of others.
Then a few seasons later she was a prisoner of Tywin, yet there she learned to 'know her place' when it mattered and most importantly the art of listening and picking her spots. Yet still retaining her tendency to make rash decisions and feeling a bit invincible.
She traveled a while, becoming a bit more vindictive and a lot more independent in her thought. But yet again, that foolish naïve 'kid side' was still there.
She abandoned Sandor (who we still dont know if he's dead or not...), showing her ability to be ruthless just when you thought she had warmed up to the guy and saw him as somewhat of a hardass cruel surrogate father...
She came to Braavos, with an arrogant desire to become faceless. Not out of a sense of duty, but more out of a sense of wanting to punish the ones who had wronged her. Which at the end, caused her to become blind when that same brash naïve side came out when she killed Meryn Trant, which went directly against the rules of the faceless (since a faceless has no grudges, or enemies, or family).
And now, albeit quite condensed (but it beats milking it out over half a season) she has learned the true meaning behind becoming a faceless, and learned to let all her grudges and whatnot go. And as a result she's regained her eyesight, and is another step closer to becoming the assassin she wants to be... Has she truly learned her lesson, maybe, maybe she's learned to be a stonefaced liar instead?

But tl;dr, Arya has changed immensely in the past six seasons and you simply cannot compare any season's Arya with the Arya we had last week, because there's a clear defined character progression going on.
 

Dany on the other hand hasn't changed much in her own personal story. First she was a scared girl who stockholm'd into loving her Khal, then that Khal died and she took control of the remaining people, her dragons got a bit bigger so she got herself some unsullied, torched slavers, and then decided to take over three cities, and now she's only got one left...

Ever since taking control of mereen, which has been quite a long time she hasn't really changed in her personality. Like the rest have said, she's stubbornly refused to learn lessons despite having arguably the wisest in the known world hanging around her. Rather she does whatever she wants to do, and spouts her lineage into the faces of anybody despite nobody giving a flying eff...

 

TL;Dr - When is Arya becoming Queen of Westeros, because she'd make a better one than Dany...

[Bobfoc]

I'd forgotten about the whole Stockholm Syndrome relationship with Drogo. The man was clearly a vile piece of work who not only pillaged and murdered innocent people, but who actually raped her, yet he was the love of her life. When Mirri, who had seen Drogo destroy her village, murder her friends and let his friends rape her three times, used blood magic to have put him in a vegetative state, despite having given Dany a clear warning that it was a bad idea, she was apparently the evil witch woman and was duly condemned to death by burning. She was a damn hero if you ask me.

[JasonM]

5 minutes ago, Bobfoc said:

I'd forgotten about the whole Stockholm Syndrome relationship with Drogo. The man was clearly a vile piece of work who not only pillaged and murdered innocent people, but who actually raped her, yet he was the love of her life. When Mirri, who had seen Drogo destroy her village, murder her friends and let his friends rape her three times, used blood magic to have put him in a vegetative state, despite having given Dany a clear warning that it was a bad idea, she was apparently the evil witch woman and was duly condemned to death by burning. She was a damn hero if you ask me.

And lets not forget that Drogo and the Dothraki have no qualms with the whole slavery aspect, and it's probably where Dany got the vain idea that she can be the breaker of chains and the saviour of slaves.

After years of seeing the shittest part of the world, she's still naïve and vain enough to think she has a grasp on the world beyond her three fire breathing flying deathmachines. She heeds zero advice, and she does whatever she does, and when it goes wrong it's up to her 'friends' to save her from said predicaments, before shrugging off what happened and dumping herself into the next quagmire she can create.

I'm sure that the dragon's will be her deus ex machina this season again when she's close to getting offed.