House of the Dragon spoiler thread

[Dire Bare]

I hope Martin is in therapy, given that being a woman in his novels so consistently means exposing them to violence and death.

And no, it's not "realistic." His books have zombies, dragons and magic abortion tea. It's an authorial choice.

I don't know . . . horrible things happen to just about everybody in this franchise. Women, men, children . . .

 

[Dire Bare]

She was an excellent character. I'd love to have seen at least one POV episode with her adult self before having her removed from the stage like this. To be fair, I felt the same way about Daemon's last wife. Dude's got his issues, but he has good wives.

Yeah, his first wife seemed like an amazing character we got to enjoy for ONE SCENE.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know . . . horrible things happen to just about everybody in this franchise. Women, men, children . . .

I don't know how to find it now, but I remember, late in the original show's run, someone had a graph of how every character ended up, and female characters were proportionally much, much more likely to have been harshly treated.

I have a hard time even imagining a male Stark being raped, whereas it happened to Sansa on screen and it was a looming threat for both her mother and Arya at other points.

 

[Mercurius]

I hope Martin is in therapy, given that being a woman in his novels so consistently means exposing them to violence and death.

And no, it's not "realistic." His books have zombies, dragons and magic abortion tea. It's an authorial choice.

Not at all - it is probably pennyroyal, or something similar. Sort of "herbal plan b." It exists in the real world.

 

[Mercurius]

I don't know how to find it now, but I remember, late in the original show's run, someone had a graph of how every character ended up, and female characters were proportionally much, much more likely to have been harshly treated.

I have a hard time even imagining a male Stark being raped, whereas it happened to Sansa on screen and it was a looming threat for both her mother and Arya at other points.

I'm not sure why this is shocking, considering the "dark Medieval" aesthetic that Martin was going for.

If Martin has a fetish for torture, it isn't necessarily woman-centric, but just towards people in general. Lots of bad things happened to everyone. I mean, probably the most unrelenting torture porn arc in any of the shows was gifted to Theon "Reek" Greyjoy.

I only read the first book, but I remember someone saying that the show was actually far darker with more torture and sex. Not sure if that is true, though.

 

[Mercurius]

As for episode 6, I'm still enjoying it but skipped a beat with the time jump and new actors. I found myself missing Milly Alcock, the actress who played young Rhaenyra. Everyone else felt disposable, but I had kind of grown attached to her.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure why this is shocking, considering the "dark Medieval" aesthetic that Martin was going for.

It's the exact opposite of shocking. If anything, it's enervating and incredibly predictable. GRRM is 74 years old and still writes like a teenage edgelord.

The basic premise of this series is tragic enough -- it's King Lear if Lear was trying to make everyone happy, rather than being a raging narcissist. We don't need to keep killing women in childbirth to make it dark or a tragedy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As for episode 6, I'm still enjoying it but skipped a beat with the time jump and new actors. I found myself missing Milly Alcock, the actress who played young Rhaenyra. Everyone else felt disposable, but I had kind of grown attached to her.

Daemon's second wife apparently tamed the oldest living dragon in the world, which I'm told gets played up in the books. It seems a huge shame to show us the adult version of the character and then shuffle her off stage so quickly. I'd love to have spent more time with many of the characters who've flitted on and off stage in this show.

 

[Stalker0]

I have a hard time even imagining a male Stark being raped, whereas it happened to Sansa on screen and it was a looming threat for both her mother and Arya at other points.

Well we haven't seen a female stark that was pushed out of a window and crippled for life, than taken to some ancient mystic that for all intensive purposes destroyed his personality and replaced it with the "3 eyed raven". As Bran noted many times, "I'm not Bran Stark, not anymore".

Yeah its sucked for the stark women, but its been no damn picnic for some of their men either.

 

[Stalker0]

So I like a lot about the timeskip. Brings in an interesting new group with the kids, sets some interesting new plots in motion, I personally like the new Rheneryes (the younger actress never really did it for me) but I will miss the younger Alicent.

That said, it does feel like some of the early stuff is now "wasted". For example, the end of the last scene where the king fainted with blood coming out of his head....yet he lives 10 more years. Damon had the whole stepstones victory....but it didn't amount to a damn thing, now we are back at it again. It seems like the whole Rheneryes vs Damon thing the show set up early was a total red herring, ultimately it may be more Rheneryes vs Alicent (or at least their kids) in the final showdown.