It isn’t so much a Game of Thrones series for people who hated Game of Thrones, but it’s a Game of Thrones series for anybody who has ever wondered what, say, a Richard Linklater version of Game of Thrones would be. It’s a loose hangout comedy, with a tightly contained six-episode narrative arc and episodes generally running under 40 minutes. True to its source material, it’s the TV equivalent of a novella instead of an epic tome.
Very intrigued by this.
That the second half of the season becomes darker and bloodier makes it more of a drama, though if our comedic standard is still “Is it funnier than The Bear?” the answer is, “Yes, yes it is.”
So next year we'll see A Knight of the Seven Kingdom nominated as a comedy at the Golden Globes?
The three novellas are available as a single book and it's really good. Highly recommend to anyone to read (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms with some illustrations, but not the graphic novel version).
The three stories total a little over 360 pages and it goes by quickly.
I think most people would agree that their nomination is a bit of an odd ball. The same way The Martian won best musical/comedy - while there are strong comedic elements a lot of folks probably see it leaning more of a character driven drama.
Well, as a member of the developmentally challenged avifauna population I wouldn't expect you to be keyed on the finer nauances of informational etiquette.
This is why I never agreed less with people criticizing the effects in Doctor Who, because when the show is good I am really just having a good time and things like that, or some kind of continuity error, just aren’t doing anything. You can look cheap and be great.
Hot take: Star Trek TOS was infinitely more enjoyable than the period from the movies onward because they leaned entirely into it being a silly goofy show, leaving it feel more like a stage play and less like a production that's taking itself super seriously.
Not arguing that the writing wasn't better in later series, but so much of the charm and heart was lost by moving into everything having to look "good".
You say that, but people still trash on any special effects that don't cost 20 million dollars. "I can tell it's fake!" yeah no shit it's a dragon.
Oddly enough the thing that breaks immersion for me in fantasy shows is when everything is too clean. Clean clothes, clean hair, and so on. Makes it look like a school play.
People in medieval and early modern times knew how to clean things. Soap existed. So did whitewash and paint. Nobles, soldiers/knights and even many peasants should be well groomed and wearing new looking clothes in the appropriate contexts (court, tourneys, the beginning of a war, etc). It's not grim and gritty 100% of the time.
Dyes were not all expensive like purple, indigo, scarlet or deep red. Yellow, brown, blue and green dyes were cheap and relatively common.
This meme about how clothes are too clean has gone too far in the other direction IMHO. People are hating on scenes like market days, festivals, royal courts, parleys, etc where it's obvious that in-world most characters would clean up and wear their best clothes to that event.
I'm no history buff, but, in Shogun the main character, an Englishman, scoffs at the idea of taking a second bath because he'd already had one that week
So yeah, people knew about bathing, but it wasn't a super regular thing.
Bathing is not the same thing as "washing up". People would immerse themselves in a tub full of water rarely, because it was a lot of effort and time spent. But they would take a bucket of water and soap and wash the essentials (face, neck, groin, pits, feet, etc) daily or as often as they could. A reasonably wealthy character in a stable place (inn, household, etc) would likely not smell so offensive after one of these and a change of underclothes.
Europeans did this mostly because of beliefs around disease origin and spread (that hot water opened the pores and made catching "bad humours" more likely), as well as historical religious reasons (baths were usually done in bathhouses which were associated with prostitution and immorality). Also because drawing a bath was a tiresome process before indoor plumbing.
Yeah, the medieval period definitely operated on different standards of cleanliness compared to today, but the idea that everyone (and especially commoners) was walking around covered in filth is just a myth. I think the video game "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" did an excellent job introducing most people to the reality that, while baths may have been an infrequent luxury, basic cleanliness was absolutely valued by everyone. The second game even introduced soap as a commodity, and the ability to wash clothes (which would understandably get dirty after a few hours trudging through some 15th Century forest, hunting bandits).
Clean and new. The armor should look like it's been passed down through generations or worn by the last seven guards who had this job. Clothing, weapons, buildings, even the people should all have wear on them.
Season 1 is so good and so intricately written that you don’t even understand what’s so good about it until you’ve seen more of the show, learn how to speak its language, and go back and watch. And it’s just folks in a room alone half the time.
One thing I’m realizing about my own preferences is that I like an undercut of comedy in virtually everything I consume
Game of thrones had that undercut of comedy while House of the Dragon was way too straight faced. I’m just thinking about a lot of the greats: The Wire, Sopranos, Breaking Bad they all had this undercut of comedy.
I’m not sure if it’s comedy itself as much as it is writers that can write serious but still capable of implementing comedy in their work? But I do notice, most of the most quotable and memorable stuff that the internet regurgitates from this content, is - lot of the comedy
Yup fully agree, funny enough the show that made me realize that was the leftovers. It's a deadly serious show about loss and moving on, but it's also flat out hysterical in bits too.
Comedy is just a really good tool to get you on board with the characters in the story, when you're laughing with them like old friends you feel for them when shit goes down.
The Sopranos is a tremendously deep show. To call it a sitcom in any context seems like missing the point. Most of the dialogue is hilarious and it’s very obviously poking fun at the concept of Italian Americans that hang onto an Italian culture that disavows them.
As for Breaking Bad - man if you don’t think that show used comedy well, then we didn’t watch the same show. Walt and Jesse’s entire relationship for the first few seasons is comedy. Part of the reason Mike is so fun to follow is how dismissive he is and his character is definitely carried by comedy writing. Same with Saul Goodman. Even the villains have a heavy bit of comedy written into them. If Breaking Bad was a straight laced tv show with no comedy, it would be tremendously bland.
See I'm the opposite. Yes, comedy can absolutely be used well and smartly to add to an otherwise serious show but it actually bothers me how people, especially now on social media, try to make everything into a joke.
Some stuff is just meant to be serious and I hate when people represent genuinely great serious art solely through memes or quotes of the few funny moments that were in it.
Not the guy you’re replying to, but the most recent time I felt the attempt at comedy took away from a great work was when I read Project Hail Mary.
Though it’s difficult to say, it seems the upcoming Hollywood adaptation definitely kept the comedic tone so what do I know.
Usually though it’s the format forcing the creators to include jokes for children. A lot of shonen anime (and shonen inspired western animation) would be better served if they didn’t include juvenile humor. You could take the drama (and the ideas in the show) more seriously. But then it would be something else so it’s hard to say.
Even during very tense or dramatic events , people will find humor or Crack a joke. The important thing is not to undercut the drama with quips and one liners , but a series with zero humor is dry as hell.
There's definitely some not great elements in the writing in HOTD, particularly season 2. But I would like to call out it has some incredibly well written performed scenes as well. Rhaenyra and Daemon's argument on Dragonstone is incredible, felt almost Shakespearean imo. The confrontation between Aegon/Cole and Otto is also worth noting as well.
The zoned in focus on Rhaenyra and Alicent is not great but I don't think it's fair to say they can't write well at all for that plot element when there are others that are still clearing a high enough bar.
Yeah I think season 2 had some missteps but not nearly enough for me to write off the show the way most of reddit seems to have. The biggest issue was that they literally cut the season short before its appropriate climax. That's a production flaw, not a writing one.
I'm nervous for the future of the show if HBO continue not giving them the right budget but I have a decent amount of faith in the story they're trying to tell.
By far the biggest complaint I see on here and online in general about House of the Dragon season 2 is that it's all talking and not enough big things happening/not enough dragon shit.
That's not true. GoT crowd has changed significantly since the early seasons. Now the dragons + explosions are expected, especially since the series is based around a civil war. A lack of them raises questions.
Script writers should have understood these expectations going in though.
I don't think anyone is debating that here (I'd also add that Fire & Blood was never strong source material in the way ASOIAF and Dunk & Egg's novellas are either).
If the dialogue and character work sucks ass but the show cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and 2+ years to release it better be packed with spectacle. HotD season 2 had basically zero redeeming qualities
That’s because people are stupid to be fair. As the guy above you said, GOT had less action/spectacle per episode but was far better because the dialogue, characters and relationships were so much better.
I do miss that feeling in the early seasons where most of the time you forget the world even has magic, and when something supernatural happens it is actually impactful.
It was the character in the dialogue and the analysis.
Yep. Any scene with Stannis (sans child burning) was awesome, and the scenes with either Olenna or Tywin were absolute standouts. Those two in particular had so much on screen charisma.
Tell Cersei it was me, I want her to know - Such a badass line
This was definitely true at first but I think the reason the show got more mainstream was because of the dragons and big spectacles. The average viewer wants that. Even if us original fans loved the dialogue scenes.
It’s how the series go so popular, even back to the first book. The high fantasy elements were more like legends in the first book/seasons, and slowly got introduced.
Well I mean the novellas aren’t deep as GOT on that front. It’s sort of a little adventure story with seemingly small stakes and an unassuming main character.
Yeah. Sounds crazy now but I didn’t read the books and didn’t realize there was really a fantasy element the first season. It was just a really cool story.
But in my own defense I watched it week one. Never heard of the books and nobody was talking about the show. It’s been forever but If I remember right that first scene isn’t quite that obvious with what is happening. Dead frozen people and then somebody chops off a head.
Bottom line is that it was clear we were at least dabbling in some “lost” type mystery stuff, but most of season 1 avoids fantasy tropes in favor of Kingdom tropes.
All the pieces were there but my bigger point was that s1 felt more about intrigue and dialogue than spells and dragons.
Also worth noting that maybe I’m just not very good at picking up on clues.
Whilst the show was a couple of seasons in, I overheard some young lads chatting about it in a smoking area outside the bar. Turned out it was 1 lad in particular trying to convince his friends to watch it. I chimed in and it turned out that this lad genuinely believed "The North" was Scotland. I don't think he could comprehend fantasy at all.
What kind of rating? Not IMDB rating. Dragon heavy episodes, or episodes with a big dragon set piece as some examples, Battle of the Bastards got 9.8, Spoils of War got 9.7, And Now His Watch Is Ended got 9.5, The Dance of Dragons got 9.4, Beyond The Wall got 9.0 etc. The only consistent way to predict an episode's rating on IMDB is "Was it in season 8 or not?"
So you could argue it if you wanted, but you'd be provably wrong
You know, before we start mathing out medianas, we can just safely say there were not many dragons in first 4 seasons, and they were good, and there were many dragons in last 4 seasons, and those were worse.
That's the gist of it. We really don't need to do Monte Carlo simulation here.
There was plenty of dragon shit in earlier seasons, like when she had to free them from the weird bald men, when she used them to gain the Unsullied and they fucked up a city, and when she had to deal with them killing sheep and children by locking them up. And the number of dragons was the same throughout.
And you said the ratings were inverse, and they're literally not. There are shitloads of really highly rated episodes, including plenty in the top 10 and top 20 of the show's run, from seasons 5-8. Lots of those episodes were heavy on the dragons.
What you mean is you didn't like later seasons as much and there were more dragon set pieces in them generally. You're allowed that opinion of course, but what you actually said was factually incorrect
Also the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th highest rated episodes for House of the Dragon so far, including the 2 highest rated episodes of season 2, are by far the most dragon heavy episodes.
There was plenty of dragon shit in earlier seasons, like when she had to free them from the weird bald men, when she used them to gain the Unsullied and they fucked up a city, and when she had to deal with them killing sheep and children by locking them up. And the number of dragons was the same throughout.
Yeah, get rid of all this crap and it would be so much better show.
In fact, get rid of all the daenerys plot and all that sand/horde shit, and it would be even better.
I think with the show the primary reason for the last couple seasons not being as good is because they don't have the source material to draw from, but I did always think the non-fantasy elements were the best part of both the show and the books. On the surface, it feels like the white walkers, the dragons, the dire wolves, and the Bran stuff should be some of the most intriguing elements, but I feel like that stuff pales in comparison to the war of the 7 kingdoms, and the impending Dothraki invasion of Westeros.
I feel like HotD proves this to be completely false. It is only dialogue and it is so, so, so boring.
They keep building up to a big spectacle but refuse to actually do it because that would require killing off main characters, and they can’t do it in this show for some reason.
HotD was strongest with Vizzy T, and there was barely no action with him and his court drama. The highlight of the show is an elderly man slowly walking to a chair, and that scene is more baller than any action set piece of GoT.
The problem with Season 2 of HotD is not the lack of action, it's the lack of consequences. The way writers seemed to be afraid of letting shit hit the fan and every conflict is walked back several times. More dragons and battles wouldn't have fixed that
The story is already set, and we know what happens in the books, and it has major consequences to how alive popular characters are.
It just feels like they’re slow-walking to that point because they know if they kill off specific characters the show has even less draw. The last season very obviously should have ended with specific character deaths but no, maybe we’ll get that in season 3, and even then I don’t know they seem to refuse to actually advance the plot.
Good. The Dunk & Egg short stories are a lot more traditional hero fare than ASOIAF was. More about knights and tourneys and chivalry when it actually meant something.
I'm looking forward to a fantasy show that's not quite so cynical about ideas like good and bad.
It sounds like they've not added too much extra, which is good. The temptation would have been to have more Targaryens being evil and brutal, but the story absolutely doesn't need that.
Im so fucking excited. A song of ice and fire is better because it is such a large story, but there is something to say about being concise.these stories are so good. I can wait for season 2, the Sworn sword is so good.
Plus smaller stories can also lead to the stakes feeling so much bigger. When it’s a dream on the line and not the world, it feels more real/devastating if they lose
I've read the novella and so far it really seems like they've done good by it. I'm especially encouraged to hear the reviewer indicate that the best part of the show is Dunk and Egg themselves because the entire show hinges on that relationship.
Looking forward to signing up to HBO again for two months while this show is airing.
The short books are well worth the read. More charm to the characters and expressive language, as well as a more centered story following two characters instead of a dozen, doing their own things.
It's more of an adventure than GoT is. If they follow through to Season 2, then expect things to get a bit crazy.
Do you think the absence of dragons will help or hurt A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? Kinda excited to see Westeros without dragon-scale power for once
The books are short, self contained and simple, the characters are engaging the tone is lighter than game of thrones, if the show is like the books it’ll be an easy going fun watch.
I also did not watch the last few episodes of season 8 or season 2 of house of dragons and will also start watching this.
When GoT lost it's shock value and killed all the best characters off (haven't forgiven them for Barrsitan Selmy yet) that was when you knew the writers didn't understand the source material.
I pretty much swore off GoT after season 8, but gotta say, this show really intrigues me. Love the idea of a humble hedge knight trying to get by instead of grand kingdoms at war.
Gives me vibes of william marshal who's father left him hostage to another lord replying to the lord's demands to which were the condition of releasing his son with;
"I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge still more and better sons!" But his son proved his father wrong because there has never been a better more chivalrous knight. William Marshal was a special kind of steel.
Also maybe more vibes of
Bertrand du Guesclin
: A well-known story relates that at a tournament in Rennes, a young Bertrand, then a squire, secretly borrowed a defeated knight's horse and armor. Competing as an unknown, he defeated 15 adversaries in a row. When his father, who was also competing, challenged the "unknown knight," Bertrand refused to fight him and was finally persuaded to reveal his identity. This display of skill and valor earned him his father's approval and a new position in life.
Not a big fan of having a big tonal shift half way through the season. Either stick with it being light and comedic or serious and dark, don't start with one then suddenly shift to the other.
What other shows have we seen do that? I think it can be interesting if executed well. Tension can be more impactful if it follows after levity in an organic way.
Very intrigued by this.
So next year we'll see A Knight of the Seven Kingdom nominated as a comedy at the Golden Globes?
The three novellas are available as a single book and it's really good. Highly recommend to anyone to read (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms with some illustrations, but not the graphic novel version).
The three stories total a little over 360 pages and it goes by quickly.
Listened to the audiobook. It is a delightful “read.”
”Dunk the Lunk. Thick as a castle wall!”
Harry Lloyd does a fantastic job, and he actually pronounces all the names correctly and consistently.
I don’t know who you could be talking about. I love hearing about Caitlin, Petire, and Jeffrey. And who could forget Brieen of Tarth.
Aporogies prease from Missandei
I did the opposite, ive Ive only read the comics lol
The Bear writers: "why he say fuck me for?"
I think most people would agree that their nomination is a bit of an odd ball. The same way The Martian won best musical/comedy - while there are strong comedic elements a lot of folks probably see it leaning more of a character driven drama.
As they cry onto their unearned comedy awards.
If it has some A Knight's Tale vibes, I'm all for it
It does without the anachronisms and pop culture stuff. At least the books do (first book centers around a tournament)
In that case I hope someone puts together a compilation of this show with We Will Rock You.
That's exactly what I'm always telling the wife
...yeah, we had a good laugh about it,
And what were you doing with her bloodfartcollecotor?
It’s in the name, my man
Ah yes, the ol drjisftw position
Didn't think I could could make it much more obvious, that's what I was pointing out haha
Well, as a member of the developmentally challenged avifauna population I wouldn't expect you to be keyed on the finer nauances of informational etiquette.
R/usernamedoesnotcheckout
It’s the not the size of the show but how they use the actors
I mean you’re married. So you must doing something right
Ba dum tss
What made Game of Thrones so good wasn’t the dragons or the explosions or any of that. It was the character in the dialogue and the analysis.
Yeah all you need for good fantasy is good writing and costumes that don't look like they were bought at spirit Halloween.
Crazy that we almost never get those two together
This is why I never agreed less with people criticizing the effects in Doctor Who, because when the show is good I am really just having a good time and things like that, or some kind of continuity error, just aren’t doing anything. You can look cheap and be great.
Agreed, same with 90s Star Trek. The bad effects aren't really an issue because I'm here for other things.
Hot take: Star Trek TOS was infinitely more enjoyable than the period from the movies onward because they leaned entirely into it being a silly goofy show, leaving it feel more like a stage play and less like a production that's taking itself super seriously.
Not arguing that the writing wasn't better in later series, but so much of the charm and heart was lost by moving into everything having to look "good".
This is largely why TOS is my favorite.
You say that, but people still trash on any special effects that don't cost 20 million dollars. "I can tell it's fake!" yeah no shit it's a dragon.
Oddly enough the thing that breaks immersion for me in fantasy shows is when everything is too clean. Clean clothes, clean hair, and so on. Makes it look like a school play.
It’s either clean or bizarrely dark and palid
People in medieval and early modern times knew how to clean things. Soap existed. So did whitewash and paint. Nobles, soldiers/knights and even many peasants should be well groomed and wearing new looking clothes in the appropriate contexts (court, tourneys, the beginning of a war, etc). It's not grim and gritty 100% of the time.
Dyes were not all expensive like purple, indigo, scarlet or deep red. Yellow, brown, blue and green dyes were cheap and relatively common.
This meme about how clothes are too clean has gone too far in the other direction IMHO. People are hating on scenes like market days, festivals, royal courts, parleys, etc where it's obvious that in-world most characters would clean up and wear their best clothes to that event.
Brother i've seen people camping for 2 days who looked dirtier than some of these shows.
Yes soap existed back then, but they didn't take baths every day and have their dry cleaning done.
I'm no history buff, but, in Shogun the main character, an Englishman, scoffs at the idea of taking a second bath because he'd already had one that week
So yeah, people knew about bathing, but it wasn't a super regular thing.
Bathing is not the same thing as "washing up". People would immerse themselves in a tub full of water rarely, because it was a lot of effort and time spent. But they would take a bucket of water and soap and wash the essentials (face, neck, groin, pits, feet, etc) daily or as often as they could. A reasonably wealthy character in a stable place (inn, household, etc) would likely not smell so offensive after one of these and a change of underclothes.
Europeans did this mostly because of beliefs around disease origin and spread (that hot water opened the pores and made catching "bad humours" more likely), as well as historical religious reasons (baths were usually done in bathhouses which were associated with prostitution and immorality). Also because drawing a bath was a tiresome process before indoor plumbing.
Yeah, the medieval period definitely operated on different standards of cleanliness compared to today, but the idea that everyone (and especially commoners) was walking around covered in filth is just a myth. I think the video game "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" did an excellent job introducing most people to the reality that, while baths may have been an infrequent luxury, basic cleanliness was absolutely valued by everyone. The second game even introduced soap as a commodity, and the ability to wash clothes (which would understandably get dirty after a few hours trudging through some 15th Century forest, hunting bandits).
The appearance of the characters is probably deceiving- I'm sure if we had smell-o-vision that was period accurate, nobody would be complaining.
Clean and new. The armor should look like it's been passed down through generations or worn by the last seven guards who had this job. Clothing, weapons, buildings, even the people should all have wear on them.
Treat them with the sensibility of a period piece and you’re off to a good start.
💯 some of the best scenes in the show were just two people talking.
Every scene with Tywin doing Tywin things is a best scene.
I'd argue the best talking scenes easily outweigh the best action ones. The dialogue was so good when they basically copied the books wholesale.
The council meeting scenes were always my favourites from like s1-5.
Tyrion's trial is one of the best scenes in the series, and it's just Peter Dinklage chewing on the script
Season 1 is so good and so intricately written that you don’t even understand what’s so good about it until you’ve seen more of the show, learn how to speak its language, and go back and watch. And it’s just folks in a room alone half the time.
One thing I’m realizing about my own preferences is that I like an undercut of comedy in virtually everything I consume
Game of thrones had that undercut of comedy while House of the Dragon was way too straight faced. I’m just thinking about a lot of the greats: The Wire, Sopranos, Breaking Bad they all had this undercut of comedy.
I’m not sure if it’s comedy itself as much as it is writers that can write serious but still capable of implementing comedy in their work? But I do notice, most of the most quotable and memorable stuff that the internet regurgitates from this content, is - lot of the comedy
Yup fully agree, funny enough the show that made me realize that was the leftovers. It's a deadly serious show about loss and moving on, but it's also flat out hysterical in bits too.
Comedy is just a really good tool to get you on board with the characters in the story, when you're laughing with them like old friends you feel for them when shit goes down.
Levity might be the word you’re looking for.
The Sopranos is a sitcom disguised as a mob drama. Hardly a fair comparison. We’ll likely never watch a show like that again.
I don’t think breaking bad did comedy that well. I never did a rewatch maybe the comedic elements hit better on rewatch.
Completely disagree.
The Sopranos is a tremendously deep show. To call it a sitcom in any context seems like missing the point. Most of the dialogue is hilarious and it’s very obviously poking fun at the concept of Italian Americans that hang onto an Italian culture that disavows them.
As for Breaking Bad - man if you don’t think that show used comedy well, then we didn’t watch the same show. Walt and Jesse’s entire relationship for the first few seasons is comedy. Part of the reason Mike is so fun to follow is how dismissive he is and his character is definitely carried by comedy writing. Same with Saul Goodman. Even the villains have a heavy bit of comedy written into them. If Breaking Bad was a straight laced tv show with no comedy, it would be tremendously bland.
See I'm the opposite. Yes, comedy can absolutely be used well and smartly to add to an otherwise serious show but it actually bothers me how people, especially now on social media, try to make everything into a joke.
Some stuff is just meant to be serious and I hate when people represent genuinely great serious art solely through memes or quotes of the few funny moments that were in it.
I’m not talking about social media posts, I’m talking about storytelling, personally.
Do you have examples of storytelling where comedy ruined what would have been an otherwise good product?
Not the guy you’re replying to, but the most recent time I felt the attempt at comedy took away from a great work was when I read Project Hail Mary.
Though it’s difficult to say, it seems the upcoming Hollywood adaptation definitely kept the comedic tone so what do I know.
Usually though it’s the format forcing the creators to include jokes for children. A lot of shonen anime (and shonen inspired western animation) would be better served if they didn’t include juvenile humor. You could take the drama (and the ideas in the show) more seriously. But then it would be something else so it’s hard to say.
Even during very tense or dramatic events , people will find humor or Crack a joke. The important thing is not to undercut the drama with quips and one liners , but a series with zero humor is dry as hell.
If only the writers of House of the Dragon could hear you
If only the writers of House of the Dragon could write well.
There's definitely some not great elements in the writing in HOTD, particularly season 2. But I would like to call out it has some incredibly well written performed scenes as well. Rhaenyra and Daemon's argument on Dragonstone is incredible, felt almost Shakespearean imo. The confrontation between Aegon/Cole and Otto is also worth noting as well.
The zoned in focus on Rhaenyra and Alicent is not great but I don't think it's fair to say they can't write well at all for that plot element when there are others that are still clearing a high enough bar.
bizzare the level of hate HotD seems to be getting in these chats atm
S2 is still like a 6/10. Above average television. People talk about it like it's S8 of GoT.
Yeah I think season 2 had some missteps but not nearly enough for me to write off the show the way most of reddit seems to have. The biggest issue was that they literally cut the season short before its appropriate climax. That's a production flaw, not a writing one.
I'm nervous for the future of the show if HBO continue not giving them the right budget but I have a decent amount of faith in the story they're trying to tell.
You can't even comprehend the comment you replied to. I doubt you recognize good writing.
Case in point: House of the Dragon. More dragons per episode than GoT, but boring af except some selected episodes.
By far the biggest complaint I see on here and online in general about House of the Dragon season 2 is that it's all talking and not enough big things happening/not enough dragon shit.
People wouldn't complain if the dialogue was any good.
That's not true. GoT crowd has changed significantly since the early seasons. Now the dragons + explosions are expected, especially since the series is based around a civil war. A lack of them raises questions.
Script writers should have understood these expectations going in though.
It was a lot of bad dialogue and weird character development choices.
Yep. Season 2 went heavy on character work. Too much spectacle is the last thing you can accuse it of.
But that character work was trash. The show doesn't understand the basic motivations of the people its writing about.
I don't think anyone is debating that here (I'd also add that Fire & Blood was never strong source material in the way ASOIAF and Dunk & Egg's novellas are either).
IMO the talking in season 2 lacks clever wit or true development. It’s clear where we are going and then we just talk about it forever.
For me-when I’m saying let’s get to the action it is because this particular dialogue has already been said. Let’s get to it!
If the dialogue and character work sucks ass but the show cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and 2+ years to release it better be packed with spectacle. HotD season 2 had basically zero redeeming qualities
That’s because people are stupid to be fair. As the guy above you said, GOT had less action/spectacle per episode but was far better because the dialogue, characters and relationships were so much better.
I genuinely bought HotD S2 was good, albeit a bit forgettable. It's not S1-4 GoT levels of good, but still entirely enjoyable.
The talking is not good, that's kind of the problem. If it was better written it'd have been accepted better.
I think it’s funny that the best scene in that show is just an old guy slowly walking through the middle of the room while a bunch of people watch.
And all the various character developments and storylines and plots that have purpose and meaning that slowly build through the years
The first season basically had no dragons and not many big set pieces and it's still an incredibly compelling season
I do miss that feeling in the early seasons where most of the time you forget the world even has magic, and when something supernatural happens it is actually impactful.
Yep. Any scene with Stannis (sans child burning) was awesome, and the scenes with either Olenna or Tywin were absolute standouts. Those two in particular had so much on screen charisma.
Tell Cersei it was me, I want her to know - Such a badass line
This was definitely true at first but I think the reason the show got more mainstream was because of the dragons and big spectacles. The average viewer wants that. Even if us original fans loved the dialogue scenes.
There’s so many good characters and dialogue I’m pretty this will be great
It’s how the series go so popular, even back to the first book. The high fantasy elements were more like legends in the first book/seasons, and slowly got introduced.
Yeah honestly, I never really gave that much of a fuck about the dragons
Well I mean the novellas aren’t deep as GOT on that front. It’s sort of a little adventure story with seemingly small stakes and an unassuming main character.
Yeah. Sounds crazy now but I didn’t read the books and didn’t realize there was really a fantasy element the first season. It was just a really cool story.
The first scene of the first episode had frozen dead people reanimate. You didn’t see a fantasy connection?
Ok-fair.
But in my own defense I watched it week one. Never heard of the books and nobody was talking about the show. It’s been forever but If I remember right that first scene isn’t quite that obvious with what is happening. Dead frozen people and then somebody chops off a head.
Bottom line is that it was clear we were at least dabbling in some “lost” type mystery stuff, but most of season 1 avoids fantasy tropes in favor of Kingdom tropes.
All the pieces were there but my bigger point was that s1 felt more about intrigue and dialogue than spells and dragons.
Also worth noting that maybe I’m just not very good at picking up on clues.
maybe they were just cold
Whilst the show was a couple of seasons in, I overheard some young lads chatting about it in a smoking area outside the bar. Turned out it was 1 lad in particular trying to convince his friends to watch it. I chimed in and it turned out that this lad genuinely believed "The North" was Scotland. I don't think he could comprehend fantasy at all.
One can argue GoT episode rating is inverse square of the amount of dragons on the screen in the given episode.
What kind of rating? Not IMDB rating. Dragon heavy episodes, or episodes with a big dragon set piece as some examples, Battle of the Bastards got 9.8, Spoils of War got 9.7, And Now His Watch Is Ended got 9.5, The Dance of Dragons got 9.4, Beyond The Wall got 9.0 etc. The only consistent way to predict an episode's rating on IMDB is "Was it in season 8 or not?"
So you could argue it if you wanted, but you'd be provably wrong
You know, before we start mathing out medianas, we can just safely say there were not many dragons in first 4 seasons, and they were good, and there were many dragons in last 4 seasons, and those were worse.
That's the gist of it. We really don't need to do Monte Carlo simulation here.
There was plenty of dragon shit in earlier seasons, like when she had to free them from the weird bald men, when she used them to gain the Unsullied and they fucked up a city, and when she had to deal with them killing sheep and children by locking them up. And the number of dragons was the same throughout.
And you said the ratings were inverse, and they're literally not. There are shitloads of really highly rated episodes, including plenty in the top 10 and top 20 of the show's run, from seasons 5-8. Lots of those episodes were heavy on the dragons.
What you mean is you didn't like later seasons as much and there were more dragon set pieces in them generally. You're allowed that opinion of course, but what you actually said was factually incorrect
Also the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th highest rated episodes for House of the Dragon so far, including the 2 highest rated episodes of season 2, are by far the most dragon heavy episodes.
Yeah, get rid of all this crap and it would be so much better show.
In fact, get rid of all the daenerys plot and all that sand/horde shit, and it would be even better.
Sounds like you just don't like fantasy
I think with the show the primary reason for the last couple seasons not being as good is because they don't have the source material to draw from, but I did always think the non-fantasy elements were the best part of both the show and the books. On the surface, it feels like the white walkers, the dragons, the dire wolves, and the Bran stuff should be some of the most intriguing elements, but I feel like that stuff pales in comparison to the war of the 7 kingdoms, and the impending Dothraki invasion of Westeros.
The tits. You can't have a show that is "just tits and dragons" (actor Ian McShane), without the tits. Never forget about the tits.
I feel like HotD proves this to be completely false. It is only dialogue and it is so, so, so boring.
They keep building up to a big spectacle but refuse to actually do it because that would require killing off main characters, and they can’t do it in this show for some reason.
HotD was strongest with Vizzy T, and there was barely no action with him and his court drama. The highlight of the show is an elderly man slowly walking to a chair, and that scene is more baller than any action set piece of GoT.
The problem with Season 2 of HotD is not the lack of action, it's the lack of consequences. The way writers seemed to be afraid of letting shit hit the fan and every conflict is walked back several times. More dragons and battles wouldn't have fixed that
The story is already set, and we know what happens in the books, and it has major consequences to how alive popular characters are.
It just feels like they’re slow-walking to that point because they know if they kill off specific characters the show has even less draw. The last season very obviously should have ended with specific character deaths but no, maybe we’ll get that in season 3, and even then I don’t know they seem to refuse to actually advance the plot.
Good. The Dunk & Egg short stories are a lot more traditional hero fare than ASOIAF was. More about knights and tourneys and chivalry when it actually meant something.
I'm looking forward to a fantasy show that's not quite so cynical about ideas like good and bad.
It sounds like they've not added too much extra, which is good. The temptation would have been to have more Targaryens being evil and brutal, but the story absolutely doesn't need that.
I'm glad to hear that. Maybe it's because of the current times we live in, but it's nice to have a more traditional hero to root behind.
Im so fucking excited. A song of ice and fire is better because it is such a large story, but there is something to say about being concise.these stories are so good. I can wait for season 2, the Sworn sword is so good.
Plus smaller stories can also lead to the stakes feeling so much bigger. When it’s a dream on the line and not the world, it feels more real/devastating if they lose
I've read the novella and so far it really seems like they've done good by it. I'm especially encouraged to hear the reviewer indicate that the best part of the show is Dunk and Egg themselves because the entire show hinges on that relationship.
Looking forward to signing up to HBO again for two months while this show is airing.
Super pumped for this one
WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK
The short books are well worth the read. More charm to the characters and expressive language, as well as a more centered story following two characters instead of a dozen, doing their own things.
It's more of an adventure than GoT is. If they follow through to Season 2, then expect things to get a bit crazy.
S2 is already being filmed :)
Bring on Short-queen, Lady Webber!
Hopefully. The Hedge Knight is the best thing in that universe.
Do you think the absence of dragons will help or hurt A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? Kinda excited to see Westeros without dragon-scale power for once
I actually found that encouraging.
Didn't finish GoT. Didn't watch the second season of the house of dragons. Now I'm gonna start watching this show. FUCK.
The books are short, self contained and simple, the characters are engaging the tone is lighter than game of thrones, if the show is like the books it’ll be an easy going fun watch.
I also did not watch the last few episodes of season 8 or season 2 of house of dragons and will also start watching this.
When GoT lost it's shock value and killed all the best characters off (haven't forgiven them for Barrsitan Selmy yet) that was when you knew the writers didn't understand the source material.
It's a really good read too. And the audio book is read by the guy wholeplays vesryes
The book is one of my favorite all time. Way better than game of thrones in my opinion. So excited for this show
That's great, I'll watch it when it's finished thanks!
I saw the trailer and it looked to me to just a remake of “A Knight’s Tale” but set in the GoT world.
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I loved murderbot but god damn it was SHORT
This sounds and sort of looks like what I image a Ryria Chronicles show to look like
I pretty much swore off GoT after season 8, but gotta say, this show really intrigues me. Love the idea of a humble hedge knight trying to get by instead of grand kingdoms at war.
Gives me vibes of william marshal who's father left him hostage to another lord replying to the lord's demands to which were the condition of releasing his son with; "I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge still more and better sons!" But his son proved his father wrong because there has never been a better more chivalrous knight. William Marshal was a special kind of steel.
Also maybe more vibes of Bertrand du Guesclin : A well-known story relates that at a tournament in Rennes, a young Bertrand, then a squire, secretly borrowed a defeated knight's horse and armor. Competing as an unknown, he defeated 15 adversaries in a row. When his father, who was also competing, challenged the "unknown knight," Bertrand refused to fight him and was finally persuaded to reveal his identity. This display of skill and valor earned him his father's approval and a new position in life.
I think if they market it like GoT 2.0 it’ll backfire. This feels more like a character study set in Westeros.
House of the dragon is their GOT 2.0 and they even have worse than season 8 level of writing it’s impressive
i have so my expectations from AKOTSK..
Not a big fan of having a big tonal shift half way through the season. Either stick with it being light and comedic or serious and dark, don't start with one then suddenly shift to the other.
What other shows have we seen do that? I think it can be interesting if executed well. Tension can be more impactful if it follows after levity in an organic way.