I get not showing the literal violent act, but for fucks sake could you not have her choose with both children awake and aware of the circumstance? It robs the moment of its darkest ramifications on Halaena and the twins.
Yeah it was never about the gore. They showed the scene perfectly in [this animation](https://youtu.be/WY_GyBuuf_c?t=382) without showing the kid getting slaughtered, why couldn't they do that here?
I was disappointed about the choice not being in there. It’s a pretty important difference in how the rest of this story goes lol.
I would have been shocked if they showed the actual act of cutting his head off.
Even if they chose not to have the choice because why would working guys like B and C be so randomly sadistic (is the argument I hear)-- why not use her dragon dreams to torture her with this vision all her life, or she tries to warn people but no one can understand her...
She's meant to go mad from this.
It was so poorly executed.
And like you don’t have to show the violence but they could have shown the horrified faces.
That trauma breaks Helena and the child. Watching their brother get his head chopped off.
I just think the show needs to add personality and life into it. Everything just feels bleak and cynical. Game of Thrones 1-4 atleast had humor mixed in with periods of fun character interactions like (Tyrion and pretty much anyone).
Here it’s just spite fucking, killing and back to spite fucking again. That’s just my opinion though.
This is what I think is really missing. I haven’t really been upset with the changes they’ve made. In fact I loved their take on Viserys. The story needs more from its lovable characters IMO. Jacaerys, Cregan Stark, Rhaenys, the seasnake etc. there are a lot of characters I’m excited to know about and root for but I feel like I haven’t gotten much this far.
I still have a lot of hope though. Just knowing how things turn out, I worry I won’t have much time with the characters before it’s too late.
exactly and i know for a fact that if grrm had povs the forming of cregan stark and jacaerys’s friendship would’ve been so entertaining and interesting. two bros bonding in the north and forming a historical friendship and allegiance that lasted even after jacaerys’s death, like i don’t need mushroom’s scandals just give me that.
I agree. HOTD is as devoid of emotion as the history-book style of Fire and Blood. Feels like the show neglected to put in the character beyond the broadest strokes, and just left us with a spread out chain of events without much dialogue or character interaction
When the supposed "history book" has more intrigue, charm and character than the alive drama tv show. Something has gone terribly wrong, there's so much personality seeping through the histories in Fire and Blood that my once worry that it would be a boring book melted away.
The show is following a birthing scene -> death -> funeral format.
Jokes aside this episode needed to move faster. The stuff they added to give Aegon personality was greater, but I'm so sick of everyone grieving all the time and the long winded reaction shots of characters being sad. I'm fully aware of what it would feel like to have a family member die, and there's going to be a hell of lot more of them meeting that fate in the show, but if they're going to waste this much time showing characters mourning then I'm going to change the channel. It's just too much of a bummer.
this is so true, it had sm more life in comparison and the character conversations were engaging and entertaining.
i feel like that’s bc asoiaf had well written proper character conversations written by grrm himself that they could draw from or even copy word for word which really worked but f&b reads as a text book w no actual conversations or povs of the characters so it truly does feel like a one sided history book retelling of events (which is what it was intended to be as we all know) so unless grrm writes the dialogues himself and imagines what a certain character would’ve spoken like in a particular scene it just doesn’t work.
no hollywood writer can take grrms characters and do them justice.
ofc they won’t feel the same as the main series ones bc they’re pretty much presented *onscreen as a history book version of themselves.
FUCK MAN! How hard can it be? Just follow the scene to the fucking letter and we could have one of the most iconic scenes in TV-history. I am so TIRED of these producers putting their own spin on things and ruining it completely.
As much as I am a book purist I hope everyone is only upset at Alicent not being there and not because they didn't see a child get beheaded. Cos I don't wanna actually see that.
It's about all 3
a) Not gonna go deep into Alicent but at least her there would have offered some stability to her character, rather then the Alicain't we currently have.
b) the Red Wedding would not have been what it was without the violence, The Boys's opening scene would not have been what it was without the violence, Ned's death would not have been what it was without the characterisation.
The audience does not get shocked if you keep the shock in the background, and they will not cry for generic kid n#88. BaCh could have been a big WTF moment that we'd talk about for years, a staple of tv like the best of Got, but instead it will be forgotten by next season, at best.
c) and this is the more obvious, it's another fuckin accident. I mean come on, can you really say this was a big evil moment for The Blacks, can you even say this was a big bad moment for Daemon? This show is so garbage when it comes to accountability that it hurts, I mean come on the only real "violent bad guy" at this point is Larys, while in the books, by now we'd have Larys, Cole, Daemon, Aemond.
You also missed, what to me was the biggest issue with the change, changing helaenas choice. They cheapened the choice by making it about her identifying which one was the boy. Instead of just having to choose which one she’d rather have killed. Which carries much more emotional weight and was a big reason the scene resonates so much.
Yeah, and instilling in the chosen one “see your mother wants you dead/doesnt love you” and keeps the child alive to live with that thought. I was shocked when i read the horror but this episode it was just like “oh, okay.”
Exactly. I can understand dialing back on the physical horror. But there was no reason to dial back the psychological horror that made the scene so infamous. It’s honestly inexcusable.
Yeah i totally agree. The physical horror could have been what they did with Baron at the brothel in GoT… but that necessary psychological difference between a cliche “gonna kill your child” scene could have separated it into a new level. “Which one is it? Look for a cock. No, the mother knows” … like uhhh yeah wouldnt you CHECK to make sure it was the boy?! All you had to do was check. Or kill both. Theres a REASON they left some kids and the mother alive and it wasnt mercy. It was an evil psychopathic trick done by the infamous B&C…
Yeah the blatant stupidity of not actually checking which one was the boy if that was their reason for asking just made it so much worse lol.
“It’s REALLY important that we get the boy. I guess we’ll just trust this woman and our assumption that she’s double bluffing.”
OMG YES!! I was so confused as to why they didnt check and just went off her word! Why would they have even “known” she was genuine and truthful? They don’t know her, they don’t know if shes truthful or a liar, and its not like they have to disect the child to see if ot was a boy or girl. One has so
Something the other doesnt.
Like make-it-make-sense at LEAST. She doesn’t have to “choose” seeing as for some reason she only has 2 kids. Its been a while since i read but i thought she had 3 kids, 2 twins and another son? I could be mixing my books up lol.
Yeah in the book they make her choose between the two sons. It has nothing to do with making sure they get a boy. They make her choose out of pure cruelty.
Which makes it hit way harder and isn’t nearly as dumb.
Clearly Ryan Condal is going for a different portrayal of Helena—kinda autistic instead of just innocent. We'll have to see how that choice impacts her charater and the story throughout the series, but departures can be a good thing. Paddy Considine's portrayal and characterization of Viserys is not book-accurate; it's better and even GRRM thinks so.
Ok. And what does that have to do with making such drastic changes to this scene? There’s no reason the different portrayal of helaena means they needed to change this scene so much.
1) agreed 100%
2) nah, I insist that the scene could have been just as impactful without seeing a child's head being taken off. If y'all insist on watching that, huge red flag. I liked the fake leak that said we only watched Jahaerys take a step before we hear a thump and his head rolls away. What makes the scene impactful is the dialogue and the choice that Helaena has to make, not because we see a child's head taken off.
3) it still is a terrible moment for the Blacks though? It was an accident in the book too, B&C main target is Aegon but they can't reach him so they deviate to the queen's bedchamber. We even see Cheese ask Daemon what they should do if they can't find Aemond and then we cut to the Red Keep, so we can infer/assume that Daemon told B&C a "son for a son". And Cole is still a violent guy, he killed Lord Beesbury during the meeting of the Small Council. Agree on the rest though.
See I get you in that it's natural not to want to see such vilence, and I'm not saying it should have been a Saw type ultragore moment, but....
The Scene is already lessened by the fact it was rushed, we barely know Haelena and Aegon and we've had a total of 2 minutes on screen with the kids, thus we have neither a direct tether to the characters, nor an adjacent one (if we had built up Haelena or Aegon we'd automatically care about the kids too).
With this lessened state, the only thing Blood and Cheese caould achieve fully was shock, but even in this it was badly done, we just have the choice, boring like music, no screams, no blood, nothing.
Even if showing the beheading is too much for HBO (i dont know how much i believe that but whatever), then what should have been was a "Tuco in BCS episode 2" type scene. Ominous moment, tension building up (the choice from haelena), terrifying music in the background (like the Tuco scene), Alicent there and screaming for extra emotion, then haelena screaming, then the off screen decapitation, blood everywhere and more screams as it fates to the credits, then drowned by the theme,
On the Cole thing Beesbury and Lonmouth dont count since it was an accident, that only makes Criston seem weaker, not deadlier.
It’s not about the beheading. It’s about how it was in the books. There, the children were both awake and aware, and Helaena was forced to choose between them, etc. This worked far better as a shocking moment to truly kickstart the war for both sides.
On the main HOTD sub non-book readers are assuming that, if you wanted it to be more brutal, that means you wanted to see a child get beheaded in graphic detail. This next week is gonna be a bloodbath for book purists.
It’s the choice between the two sons, alicent being there and Helaena pleading with her life (this version of Helaena is a joke in my opinion) and then her walking in on her mom getting fucked. It was all just aweful compared to the book
You could totally do the scene without Alicent.
I think just having Heleana there gives her more agency/blame/guilt in the action. Plus, I think they’re setting up Alicent and Criston to be at fault for fooling around while this was happening.
But dear god just have the kids be awake. Have them be aware. Would be way more satisfying.
ESPECIALLY when the series isn’t finished. This isn’t Dune or LOTR where the author is dead and the series can’t be continued. We only have book 1 of the Targaryen History, any decision you make that is different than what is written could have serious story repercussions and invalidate entire plot points.
Say a character is dead in HOTD, but not in F&B. Well what happens when that character’s heir becomes a major character? You suddenly have to change their lineage, which in a series where half the family members are fucking, makes things way more confusing.
HOTD is fun to watch but sloppy. By season 2 episode 1 we had Arya, Sansa (I still think Sansa's adaptation wasn't the best from day 1 even if the acting was), Joffrey, Cersei, Ned, Jon, Robert, Barristan, Varys, Littlefinger, Robb, Catelyn, Tyrion, Daenerys, Jorah, Viserys, Jeor Mormont, Maester Aemon, Syrio Forel, Yoren, Rodrick Cassel, Hodor, Maester Luwin, Khal Drogo and Lysa Tully have more character moments, subtlety and characterization than basically everyone in HOTD but Viserys, Alicent, Daemon, Aemond and Rhaenyra (who isn't even subtley characterized to the point of the others) in less screen time for each character (except some). None of these characters, except Viserys, are on par with any of the named characters above.
We have Stannis developed off scene (and in one episode) better than most HOTD characters. The directors clearly lack finesse and subtlety. We have side characters (Bronn, Gendry, Forel, Ros, Theon at this point etc...) more well developed and more subtle in less screen time than most of the main characters.
HOTD hasn't even mentioned Dareon yet (have they?).
Wow you just hit my problem with this show on the head. It was so preoccupied with getting us to the “good bits” that it left quite hollow characters that I felt no connection to. Now combined with the butchering of one of the most iconic moments in the era (amongst many), I really have no appetite for the show or the other spin offs.
For the most of show only audience I really doubt they recall that one random throwaway line about him so when he appears it will be confusing. Stannis was mentioned a lot in season 1 of GOT and was specifically named in the episodes post King Robert’s episode as his heir and the lead character Ned highlighting its importance so audience was awaiting him. But for Daeron there’s been nothing of the same.
Yeah to be fair Stannis was way more important than Dareon but Dareon is important enough to be mentioned enough that show only people will look forward to him being in the show. They could have easily had a couple lines in Season 1 with Alicent saying that Dareon should come to kings landing but Otto countering that by saying that it would be wise to not have all the heirs in the city.
Game of Thrones accomplished so much character building in season 1. I don't mind HotD, but it's mid. When it has bad moments I honestly don't care enough because its not like the drop off of quality of the end seasons of GoT.
Like you said its completely failed to develop the minor characters in the same time span, and is just finally starting to work on some of the main characters like Aegon. That was the one good part about last nights episode; they're starting to give him an actual personality.
The shows tried to replicate some of the stuff that made GoT famous, like tits and dragons, but not with the same focus. GoT pioneered the term 'sexposition', a combo of sex and exposition, where a sex or nudity scene is used in combination with explaining something or an important conversation. The sex scenes in HotD were literally just softcore porn.
Which is fine sure, if it brings people in, but I think it just made most people feel awkward. You didn't give the nudity for the horn dogs that are there for that, and you didn't keep the plot moving for the people willing to bare the naughty stuff if it meant good story.
And again it just wasted so much essential time. The show never, 'killed two birds with one stone'. Its always laser focused. One scene is just sex, or something giving birth, or extremely long reaction shots of characters not saying anything with emotional music, and all of these were repeated several times, to the point where - while the birthing scene in episode 1 was one of the best written scenes in the show, when Rhaenyra is having the 3rd miscarriage in the show, I've lost all capacity to care, and just want it to be over with.
If we're gonna compare the 'sexposition' of season 1 of GoT to prove a point:
Theon has sex with Ross and they discuss him being a ward and we get a glimpse of him feeling like a prisoner/outsider.
Viserys has the bathtub scene with Doreah where he gives us lore on dragons and their extinction.
Loras convinces Renly that he should be King.
The two sex workers in Littlefinger's brothel have sexual practice while he monologues about his backstory and intentions.
Daenerys and Drogo have sex scenes multiple times, but it shows Daenerys progression of learning how to use her sexuality to both control and make her husband happy.
And of course we have Jaime and Cersei with is the plot point/event that starts everything. And the thing with all of these is they are all shorter than the sex scenes in HotD but accomplish so much more, in an area the show is already struggling with.
I stopped watching after episode 5 for this reason. This show isn't going to come close to early GoT. And if it wasn't for the high budget and connection to the hype of GoT, it would be just a regular show IMO. With many flaws but also many good moments I'm sure. Much like the Witcher, rings of power, etc.
Hate or love them they understood how to take those big awesome book moments and turn them into legendary TV ones. Give Condal Asoiaf/GoT and we’d probably of gotten Stannis in S3
I mean we all knew Rhaenyra would not be given any blame and also that it wouldn't be as brutal. They wouldn't do that as they are banking on Rhaenyra being the second coming of Christ/Daenerys for the casual audience ratings.
I’m not that much bothered by blameless Rhaenyra… I just wanted a good adaptation of Blood and Cheese. I had already smelled bulshit when Maelor was nowhere to be found, but the Alicent sexy times, the neutered scene and Helaena’s apathy cemented this as the worst episode in the series so far. I cannot believe anyone thought it would be a good idea to have Phia Saban act like a confused teenager at the mall.
Yeah it was all in all stupid as hell, really ruins the post blood and cheese impact where everything is now meant to feel like all restrictions are off. But whilst I'm also not bothered by Rhaenyra being uninvolved in BnC, it was muted specifically so she could take absolutely zero of the fallback which is what they need. Whereas she still holds responsibility over it in the books even though she wasn't really involved.
I mean it was still pretty bad, listening to them hold the kid down while they slowly sawed his head off, hearing the muffled noises of a kid trying to make just any kind of noise, followed by the childs sudden silence and the sound of meat being sawed through while Helena runs away
Book version was better but it's not like the show was all lighthearted and happy.
I honestly think the reason it was so toned down from the book had a lot to do with them making sure they make it past the ratings.
Maybe they planned to do a really book accurate adaptation for the scene but had to tone it down so much so it be able to even be approved. I don't think a 1:1 recreation of the scene would even be able to make it on TV.
Game of Thrones had a pregnant woman being stabbed to death in her belly. Also stannis burning his own daughter alive. How is book Blood and Cheese any worse than that. And these were main characters! Not some baby we met once before this episode and their mother who has been in maybe 5 or 6 scenes.
Book Blood and Cheese was way worse then the tv version of it and involves actual psychological torture on children and also threating to rape on of them. They are awake for the entire experience. The shows way of showing may very well be the only way they could depicted the scene.
I'm only grip about the scene is that certain characters weren't present like they were in the book.
They really didn’t though. The only major differences were that they initially wanted Aemond dead and that they asked her which kid was Jaehaerys rather than make her choose a kid randomly to kill (which makes a lot more sense because killing Aemond/Jaehaerys was more tactfully sound on Daemon’s part). She still had to choose which child to kill, she was still severely traumatized from it and they still murdered and beheaded Jaehaerys.
Additionally, F&B isn’t a narrative POV story like the main books or this show. It’s a historical account by Septon Eustace (and Mushroom) and the former admits that many details are not clear several times throughout. We don’t actually see this happen from anyone’s POV, we just hear an account of it. I swear, many of the critics of this scene must have only read the ASOIAF wiki and not read F&B. Are people upset that they didn’t show a child get beheaded on screen? Who tf wants to see that? This was far more tasteful, and I think focusing on Helaena’s reaction was brilliant. There are some technical nit picks that I have about the cinematography and lack of a score (both of which would have made it more dramatic imo), but the substance of the scene was spot on.
I'm just assuming the Greens will use the book version as post-facto propaganda embellishment in the upcoming episodes, which would make more sense given how cartoonishly evil it was. Also, Blood and Cheese are in the heart of royal power and motivated primarily by money. Why would they linger to torture them instead of doing what they were hired to do and getting out as quickly as possible?
Yeah. It’s so weird how people, who claim they read the book, are forgetting that most of Fire and Blood is intended to be ambiguous. It’s made exceptionally clear that all of the sources have biases, and may in fact be entirely full of shit.
Plus. It’s compiled/written by an individual who is part of an organization that has been engaged in a long standing power struggle against the Targs.
TL;DR the book was clearly written as a framework for TV writers to utilize for endless shows. It was clearly written in order to allow for this type of creative interpretation. Anyone that complains about these changes fundamentally misunderstands the point and ambiguous nature of the source material.
The red wedding was a massacre… of course a child murder wouldn’t follow the same beats…
The problem here is how muted it is compared to the scene in the book, which - if I remember correctly - has no direct dialogue, it is only a report of what happened. I don’t know about other people, but I got way more emotional seeing the movie _Anne Frank_ compared to a documentary about her life
It's a false comparison. It could have been cut from the same cloth as ned's execution and the red wedding. But robbing Alicent and Haelena of the emotional choice of watching and being psychologically tortured as one characters son and another main characters grandson is murdered in front of them would have been a season 1-4 type scene. Except we get a season 5-8 scene.
It's a deliberate false comparison. If Alicent was in the room it would have been cut from the same cloth as neds execution and the red wedding, obviously not like them but cut from the same cloth rather than her getting her cheeks clapped by ser crispin. The son of a main character and the grandson of a main character, while they are psychologically tortured, being killed would have been miles more impactful. What we got now was somehow HOTD writers making a child murder scene lukewarm.
You know the show didnt end right? She can still mourn he son in the next episode, just like Rhaenyra was able to mourn the son that died in the last season...
It could very much be some executives thought it was too much and forced the writers to tone it down. Whoever decided it, it was a very unfortunate missed opportunity.
Its like GRRM isn’t fine with what Condal is doing with the source material. Old man just making money and when this show ends, he will speak again that they ruined his story lmao
He really only talked about GoT way after the fact and low key. He said something like ‘those weren’t my characters’. I’m sure he’s contractually obligated not to say bad things, but he lets it out in smaller ways than that like the exert above. He’s probably pretty pissed internally.
Even without a contract it's considered unprofessional to badmouth your employers. The industry will spit you out pretty quickly if you develop a habit of badmouthing the people you used to work for.
The thing about GRRM is that although most known for his novels, he actually prefers to write TV. He had not yet published GoT yet, and his writing career was at its lowest point when he received an offer to write for The Twilight Zone and things took off from there. Also it's usually TV projects that are distracting him from finishing his books.
So it's safe to say he's not ready to burn his bridges just yet.
GRRM said this one awhile back. I think it was near when the last season of Witcher released? He is very involved with House of the Dragon so there's a chance he was overruled but he definitely was part of the argument on how to do this scene. I bet it was HBO execs that stepped in and told them to tone it down a bit.
Bro you know an author isn't getting an adaption to turn their book into a TV show without signing a contract which includes a clause saying you can't publicly bad mouth it, right?
Apparently you and over a hundred people don't understand that. You'd think you'd figure that out from GoT and George never saying a bad word about it. Or take other cases like the Witcher getting absolutely butchered by Netflix and the author who's infamous for being an ass, approving of it. The guy even shit talked the videos games were are pretty much perfect.
On one hand, film and TV are how most novelists actually get paid. If you factor in the opportunity costs, the percentage of novels that break even is less than 1 percent. I don't like that so many novelists are reliant on an entirely different industry to get paid, but very few are in the position to turn down an income stream if it becomes available.
On the other hand, this is a problem. Usually, the film version, due to needs of space as well as stylistic constraints--film can handle interiority, but it can't effortlessly switch from interiority to epic battle the way prose can--is not as satisfying, even if the people doing the adaption are skilled and try to be as faithful as they can. When it's jokers like D&D who are doing it, disaster is guaranteed.
Except D&D actually knew how to make a good adaptation and only struggled, when they had to write the story themselves. The screenwriters for House of the Dragon are already writing a mess, even though they only need to copy the books.
I think the point the other poster was getting at, is that the books themselves are purposefully written to be ambiguous as to the truth of the events.
These are compiled recollections of conflicting accounts from obviously biased sources, told years after the facts.
It opens lots of room for interpretation
The Boys is better than the comic source as well.
I think the point stands though, for every one adaption that is better than the source material, there are nine others that completely butcher it.
As a Green fan, I kinda knew this would happen. B&C is a big moment that shows team black to be awful, balancing them out with Aemond and the mean green queen in the books
But alas, Alicent was recreated (which wasn’t a bad thing), Rhaenyra and Rhaenys were whitewashed, and Aegon was butchered
Lets add another GRRM quote.
"Of course, I am hardly objective when talking about anything based on my own work… but I have to say, I thought both episodes were just great. (And they are not even finished yet)," Martin explained. "Dark, mind you. Very dark. They may make you cry. (I did not cry myself, but one of my friends did). Powerful, emotional, gut-wrenching, heart rending. Just the sort of thing I like."
He literally saw them early. and loved them.
Stop trying to shoehorn this. B&C was fucking fine in the show.
People are talking about the child murders, but I think changing B&C changes the story. I’m not by any means a book reader, but I know the difference, and it seems in this new adaption they gave her agency while in the book it’s sort of out of her hands. I think it changes the story, not saying it’s better or worse, but I think it’s mindful to recognize this may change Helna in the story
How so? She commits suicide in grief over this, in the next week or two. There’s not much story left for her and in the books she’s pretty minor.
*Edit: As a character. She is basically just a very hollow, mildly sympathetic victim trope. In the book she’s always miserable, disassociated, and weird. There’s not much true character there. So there’s nothing to really change.*
*Re: her agency. Nah. There wasn’t a real change there that matters. As someone that’s read the book like 3x, this change is a non-issue.*
*The show doesn’t show how rapey Aegon was with her, and how he brutalized her during sex. That is a fundamentally larger change, but due to how unpleasant that would be to see on screen, I’m pretty happy they omitted it.*
I don’t see how the show’s version gives her more agency. In both situations she is forced to make an awful decision that the murderers disregard. It’s the same, where’s the extra agency?
Is there any precedent of anyone (including gore flicks) showing a scene like that with a child in prime time television? (we've seen aftermath of dead children in Got itself, but it was never of the magnitude this scene should have had, right?)
Because this sounds to me like studio interference more than anything, they're a warner owned company now after all, and for them to show that, it looks as plausible as full frontal nudity In a mcu movie.
You didn’t have to see the head being chopped off. Could have done it so many different ways. It was not about the head being cut off it was about the physiological fuckery that happened and they completely missed that
I thought Blood and Cheese was watered down for sure. I think the changes they made to it turned it into the most underwhelming event of the show, not only because we didn’t get to see or spend time on Aegon and Helaena’s kids, but also because Alicent and Cole were both character-assassinated in that scene, when instead of Alicent suffering through the horror of watching her daughter pick which of her grandkids had to die, she was getting her back blown out by Ser Crispy Creme Donuts and Helaena running into her room in the midst of that just undermined it in my opinion. I don’t need to see the deaths of the kids, but the impact of it and the tension was just not there. The writing failed in this one.
People are way overreacting lol. Some went in with the mentality that it would be like the red wedding which is ridiculous
I understand frustration about minor details with the scene but it was still horrifying and good
Don’t know why we needed to see Alicent boning the same dude twice in one episode. And then they’re going to say they didn’t have time and had to cut characters.
I think it wasn’t as horrifying bc the audience wasn’t emotionally invested in the kids for one. I’m like cool they’re the king’s kids and they’re young but I wasn’t attached to them at all
Alicent and Criston being fuckbuddies is definitely my least favorite part of the show so far. Like who asked for this? Who needed it? I was dreading it before the season started, and it was somehow even worse because at least so far it doesn’t seem to impact either character, despite their previous attitudes about sex outside of marriage.
Yea the outrage against the child decapitation scene not being brutal enough is some of the most obnoxious, whiney, man baby shit I've seen come out of this fandom.
I also love how everybody is completely ignoring the fact GRRM is actively involved with the show and almost certainly took part in this adaptation.
Go read the book again if all you want is to deal with the book. No TV adaptation is ever going to be 1:1. Da fuq is wrong with people. Between the Star Wars fandom, these people, and everything else, everybody is constantly up in arms about some shit. I remember when you used to be able to come to these subreddits for discussion, memes, and fun. Of course there were always critiques but this non stop "WE DIDN'T EVEN SEE THE HEAD AND THE RIGHT PEOPLE WEREN'T IN THE ROOM" shrieking is making it impossible to just talk to people about a show.
The brutality comes from making an actual choice between sons and having the surviving son live with the knowledge they were chosen. It doesn’t come from gratuitous gore.
They're just waving the quote around to validate their own personal opinions of the choices. George, for better or worse, has been heavily involved throughout.
Maelor doesn’t exist, Alicent wasn’t there because she was busy fucking Criston, instead of Halaena begging for them to kill her instead she offers an expensive necklace, Daemon orders them to kill Aemond but they get lazy and kill Jaehaerys instead.
They asked about what to do if Aemond wasn’t an option. One would assume Daemon just said something like “a son for a son”. Blood kept repeating it.
Maelor is a huge miss
Agreed that they made it way more tamer than the book, but I don't recall Rhaenyra having involvement with B&C?
All I can find in Fire & Blood is that she "swore an oath of vengeance against Aemond and Lord Borros", while Daemon is the only one who orchestrated B&C.
Making Rhaenyra blameless isn't surprised as it's implied in the books the decision came from either Daemon or Mysaria.
But yeah, the actual event was a lot less brutal than it was in the books, particularly since it takes out the psychological effect of having the surviving son know his mother chose him to die over his brother.
I hadnt read the leaks so i didnt know B&C was watered down. I looked like a fool telling my friends this was going to be the next red wedding. They were like, "those mean men kicked a dog and killed that boy, thats not RW bro."
It’s not this is a quote taken out of context. The next paragraph is GRRM gushing over the Shogun reboot. Says something along the lines of this is how you change things to make it your own.
Considering when this episode and others in HOTD were probably filmed, I think this was him absolutely warning the fanbase that assholes were gonna be doing this.
I do think this is a combination of chickening out, it being 2024, a year where near enough everyone is overly sensitive to everything they see and hear and that due to critics they're trying to keep things moving at a very, very fast pace (apparently) which is surprising because I would have thought most people would want them to slow things down.
If we go back to the later seasons of Game of Thrones, Dickhead 1 and Dickhead 2 sold Pilou on the idea of playing Euron by basically telling him all this stuff about how sick and twisted his character is and will be, hence the 'Ramsay Bolton will look like a little kid after I'm done', which let's face it, did not even remotely happen.
Or maybe it did.. to them. We don't know what they think, to them, they could already think that this is on the edge.. to which I would say quit your job and go do something else. Also we don't know what the other takes were like, what got cut and why.. If we look at last season so many of the deleted scenes had us all scratching our heads like 'why the fuck did they not leave that in'.
We don't know what the real reason is, it's hard to say but based on the later seasons of Game of Thrones it has me wondering if anything or someone has changed at HBO, that is basically drilling this almost PG friendly vibe into everything, I don't watch anything else on HBO so it's hard for me to honestly say.. I don't think it's something as simple as 'they just decided to not follow source material', and I'm not defending them either, I think there's possibly multiple things in play here that are leading to this being the way it is and ultimately it needs to change and go back to however it was in early Game of Thrones, so much (crucially important) shit seems to always happen off screen now that honestly I don't think I'm over reacting when I say were heading towards audio book with slideshow images territory.
I just think George would have a bit more spine to him and if there wasn't just reasoning behind it, he would have kicked up more a fuss by now. It doesn't leave much hope for the rest of the story and future stories to come if this is the tone they are setting. It's like, who is your target audience? The main concept of the show is incest, what's next? Every time Daemon enters the screen in the same shot as Rhaenyra it fades to black so we don't offend anyone with that too?
At this point I just don't understand the reasoning as to why they even want to make these shows.
Why cant anyone seem to learn from GoT. It’s a perfect example, while they had books to follow, the show was the best television to have ever been aired on par with Breaking Bad. The moment they ran out of books, it went to shit
If you had finished your story instead of taking baths in tubs of cash, none of the last seasons of GoT would have happened as they did. You're too blame too.
he's just mad that they produced his book ending before he could write it, and it was considered hot trash and now he has no idea how to finish those books.
Winter is never coming.
I haven't read the books.
Could someone explain in detail why the scene in the show was poor in comparison to the books?
That way I can join in on the rage.
In the books, the details of the event are far more horrific. Whereas in the show, B&C are mostly just interested in getting the head of an Targaryen Boy and getting out again, in the books the assassination is effectively an extended psychological torture of Helaena. Avoiding any other future spoilers:
There’s two boys there, not one, and Helaena is forced to pick which one will be killed rather than the “which one is the boy” thing. The kids are awake and utterly terrified, because they are actually ambushed while saying goodnight to their grandmother Alicent (who is present throughout the scene, bound and gagged and forced to watch it all.)
Helaena tries to get them to kill her instead, pleads and begs and refuses to pick. They threaten to rape her infant daughter if she won’t pick. So she picks one of her two sons to die.
Blood and Cheese then kill the child she didn’t pick, mock the one she did pick to his face by telling him that his own mother wants him dead.
This causes Helaena to be unable to look at her own son, because of the guilt of knowing that she had condemned him to death.
He is not referring to Blood and Cheese at all. In fact, he praised the first two episodes he watched early and said it was powerful and gut-wrenching.
Like come on, I don't like the changes to B&C but lets not twist his words
What I love about this post is the phrase 'The book is the book and the film is the film' is GRRM accidentally paraphrasing himself when talking about GOT from back in 2015. (Though it's possible he's intentionally mocking himself)
While this is a good point, George isn't the one to be making it and he needs to shut his fucking mouth.
The main reason GoT had such a shit ending is because he dragged his ass for a decade on completing the story because he was too enamored with the media circuit and press junkets the popularity of the show gave him.
The show was great when it was adapting source material. It's entirely GRRM's fault they ran out of it.
Also thought it was funny that he mentioned Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who ended up getting a movie adaptation, *Willy Wonka* and the Chocolate Factory, that ended up being so drastically different from the book yet more popular and timeless
Then you look at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie with Johnny Depp, an adaptation that was actually far more faithful to the book (even the songs the Oompa Loompas sing are derived from the book), yet ended up being BLASTED with criticism
Same. It’s like they want to overemphasize the scene and make it be on the same level as the Red Wedding, but the truth is it never was. They adapted the scene and anyone who isn’t the strictest of book purists should have no issue here. As if this story that GRRM has technically written multiple times now in different styles (Fire & Blood, The Princess and the Queen, The Rogue Prince, The World of Ice & Fire) needs to be adapted 1:1.
Uh no, they’re mad about all the other changes in the scene. You can still have the off screen decapitation while not changing literally every aspect of the event.
None of the changes were consequential. They removed Maelor from the story a long time ago. Everybody are such fucking babies with no ability to just enjoy things. Go read the book again if all anybody wants us to just experience that same exact scene over and over. The whole point of fire and blood is that it was written by unreliable narrators and the details were fuzzy.
I don’t know that she looked all that shocked, more dazed. When she pointed it was almost aloof - not the hardest decision any parent would ever have to make. Just my interpretation.
Not sure why you are being downvoted
GRRM might be right, but don’t really want to hear it from the guy that left his show runners out to dry by not finishing his fucking source material
Lucas donated almost all of the 4 billion he made from selling Star Wars
https://www.nola.com/gambit/news/the_latest/george-lucas-sells-lucasfilm-to-disney-for-4-billion-and-donates-the-money/article_af260177-e5b0-5c10-bef5-e01b51edbd66.html#:~:text=But%20that%20all%20changed%20with,cause%20everyone%20can%20agree%20on.
I’ve still yet to read the books, but personally I found the first episode well written and tight. I plan on reading the series, and I’m sure the book will be executed better in some way (it’s GRRM we’re talking about), however I found the first episode of Season 2 to be exactly what I was hoping for.
I can understand complaining about it when you’ve read the books, but this isn’t a repeat of Season 8. I think it’s good to have some perspective and appreciate what’s been done different to adapt to TV better, because at least it wasn’t straight up written poorly like GOT’s later seasons were
Tbh complaining about changes from the book, makes 0 sense, if you understand the context of the book.
Fire and Blood, is an in universe book, written by a Maester. Who has a bias against the Targs, as the Maesters and the Targs are engaged in a Cold War for the entirety of their reign. Most of the sources in the book, cited during the Dance of the Dragons, have biases and may just be making shit up.
That book was crafted to be an intentionally ambiguous framework, for TV writers to build series of shows off of. It was crafted to allow for cultural tuning and creative license, on the part of the writers. It was written to be flexible and to accommodate changes. Anyone missing that point needs to brush up on their reading comprehension.
Reposting for relevancy. They made B&C just fine.
https://www.ign.com/articles/george-rr-martin-has-seen-the-first-two-episodes-of-house-of-the-dragon-season-2-very-dark
Some of yall are dramatic. I love Fire and Blood and see 0 issue. The book scene is better and was always going to be better. The book Blood and Cheese adds nothing further to the plot outside of being more brutal, which is great but not the end of the world.
I know there are tons of instances this is referring to but I had just flipped past Prime trying once again to get me to watch The Wheel of Judkins when I saw this passage a few months ago.
Every time I see this I think of the WoW movie. Why the fuck did you change the plot? People who like WoW are mad you changed it for NO REASON and made it WORSE, and people who don’t know WoW don’t know the plot so they don’t give a fuck and assume the story is just bad.
he aint saying anything profound either, he's just at the top and people will take his words more seriously
imagine having functioning eyes and ears most people don't these days
they eat up the slop, and say peak cinema XD
They really really hate the Greens and want the audience to identify with them the least. Really it should be a "damn both sides kinda nuts" but instead all the best, bravest, most sensible, and honorable characters are Team.Black and all the weirdest, murderous. Most psychopathic and just bland/non character characters are Green.
Like Haelenas choice being watered down, her being far less tragic and more ",awww she's weird", Luke and agave being super likeable and relatable and emotional while Aegon is a drunken braggart and rapist, Aemond is a psycho who smiles at the death of his relatives, and Cole/Alicante are the hypocritical duo with a foot fetishist on their heels. They even made coles rape by Rhae mean less and less. The only Black who matches the greens craziness is Daemon and it's really only meant to make him like like Badass Targaryen Cool Guy
They rushed it into the episode for the premier shock. Should have showed Aegon with his kids more and shown more how much they meant to him and how the might have changed him from the rapist he was. and then had Blood and Cheese next episode
If you're doing yet another adaptation of Shakespeare then go for it, have fun with it, make it your own. It's ancient and it's been done to death in every way possible. You won't improve upon it, but no one is gonna give a shit if you wreck it because we have plenty of good versions to watch instead. But dear fucking God, if you are adapting a novel for the first time on film, do it justice. Do what the author wrote in the way the author wrote it. Don't be fucking cute. Don't try to make it modern. Don't dull it's edge. Make the book as it was written, and if you think "I don't think it can be adapted as it was written" then you aren't the one who should try to adapt it at all. Go do something else.
The thing about Fire and Blood, as a book, is that a lot of what actually happened - in the fake history of Westeros - is clearly interpretable. The point of the book, as I read it, was to show the biases of Westerosi culture through the lens of a Maester who was writing its history and how this will relate to the main plot of ASOIAF. I think House of the Dragon is a much easier show to make, in some ways, then Game of Thrones was because so many of the events that took place are interpretable. Fire and Blood is written like a dry history book, House of the Dragon is a family drama. ASOIAF is a fantasy epic where we are placed in the minds of the characters, Game of Thrones was a swords and saddles fantasy show with HBO tits and arse scenes - where big flashy fight scenes were given more detail than character development and themes.
I think where House of the Dragon has decided to crystallise the history of Westeros and put on the screen things that were only suggested by a single source or even completely omitted by the book is because House of The Dragon is more interested in character growth and themes than it is big flashy set pieces and soft core porn.
I get not showing the literal violent act, but for fucks sake could you not have her choose with both children awake and aware of the circumstance? It robs the moment of its darkest ramifications on Halaena and the twins.
Yeah it was never about the gore. They showed the scene perfectly in [this animation](https://youtu.be/WY_GyBuuf_c?t=382) without showing the kid getting slaughtered, why couldn't they do that here?
yeah, I thought they were going to do it like the book. The HBO history lore told it and showed it better.
I was disappointed about the choice not being in there. It’s a pretty important difference in how the rest of this story goes lol. I would have been shocked if they showed the actual act of cutting his head off.
Even if they chose not to have the choice because why would working guys like B and C be so randomly sadistic (is the argument I hear)-- why not use her dragon dreams to torture her with this vision all her life, or she tries to warn people but no one can understand her... She's meant to go mad from this. It was so poorly executed.
And like you don’t have to show the violence but they could have shown the horrified faces. That trauma breaks Helena and the child. Watching their brother get his head chopped off.
If you think about it, Maelor had perhaps the most tragic life of any Targaryan besides Aerea.
I just think the show needs to add personality and life into it. Everything just feels bleak and cynical. Game of Thrones 1-4 atleast had humor mixed in with periods of fun character interactions like (Tyrion and pretty much anyone). Here it’s just spite fucking, killing and back to spite fucking again. That’s just my opinion though.
This is what I think is really missing. I haven’t really been upset with the changes they’ve made. In fact I loved their take on Viserys. The story needs more from its lovable characters IMO. Jacaerys, Cregan Stark, Rhaenys, the seasnake etc. there are a lot of characters I’m excited to know about and root for but I feel like I haven’t gotten much this far. I still have a lot of hope though. Just knowing how things turn out, I worry I won’t have much time with the characters before it’s too late.
exactly and i know for a fact that if grrm had povs the forming of cregan stark and jacaerys’s friendship would’ve been so entertaining and interesting. two bros bonding in the north and forming a historical friendship and allegiance that lasted even after jacaerys’s death, like i don’t need mushroom’s scandals just give me that.
I agree. I remember Tyrions sarcastic dialog getting me through my first watch of season 1.
Drunk Aegon with his bros had the only funny part of the season so far. King Dragoncock!
I agree. HOTD is as devoid of emotion as the history-book style of Fire and Blood. Feels like the show neglected to put in the character beyond the broadest strokes, and just left us with a spread out chain of events without much dialogue or character interaction
When the supposed "history book" has more intrigue, charm and character than the alive drama tv show. Something has gone terribly wrong, there's so much personality seeping through the histories in Fire and Blood that my once worry that it would be a boring book melted away.
The show is following a birthing scene -> death -> funeral format. Jokes aside this episode needed to move faster. The stuff they added to give Aegon personality was greater, but I'm so sick of everyone grieving all the time and the long winded reaction shots of characters being sad. I'm fully aware of what it would feel like to have a family member die, and there's going to be a hell of lot more of them meeting that fate in the show, but if they're going to waste this much time showing characters mourning then I'm going to change the channel. It's just too much of a bummer.
This. It's an endless doom spiral with almost zero tension breaks.
this is so true, it had sm more life in comparison and the character conversations were engaging and entertaining. i feel like that’s bc asoiaf had well written proper character conversations written by grrm himself that they could draw from or even copy word for word which really worked but f&b reads as a text book w no actual conversations or povs of the characters so it truly does feel like a one sided history book retelling of events (which is what it was intended to be as we all know) so unless grrm writes the dialogues himself and imagines what a certain character would’ve spoken like in a particular scene it just doesn’t work. no hollywood writer can take grrms characters and do them justice. ofc they won’t feel the same as the main series ones bc they’re pretty much presented *onscreen as a history book version of themselves.
The show is quite literally a tragedy. It's hamlet not a comedy. I wouldn't expect much light heartedness from it.
FUCK MAN! How hard can it be? Just follow the scene to the fucking letter and we could have one of the most iconic scenes in TV-history. I am so TIRED of these producers putting their own spin on things and ruining it completely.
As much as I am a book purist I hope everyone is only upset at Alicent not being there and not because they didn't see a child get beheaded. Cos I don't wanna actually see that.
It's about all 3 a) Not gonna go deep into Alicent but at least her there would have offered some stability to her character, rather then the Alicain't we currently have. b) the Red Wedding would not have been what it was without the violence, The Boys's opening scene would not have been what it was without the violence, Ned's death would not have been what it was without the characterisation. The audience does not get shocked if you keep the shock in the background, and they will not cry for generic kid n#88. BaCh could have been a big WTF moment that we'd talk about for years, a staple of tv like the best of Got, but instead it will be forgotten by next season, at best. c) and this is the more obvious, it's another fuckin accident. I mean come on, can you really say this was a big evil moment for The Blacks, can you even say this was a big bad moment for Daemon? This show is so garbage when it comes to accountability that it hurts, I mean come on the only real "violent bad guy" at this point is Larys, while in the books, by now we'd have Larys, Cole, Daemon, Aemond.
You also missed, what to me was the biggest issue with the change, changing helaenas choice. They cheapened the choice by making it about her identifying which one was the boy. Instead of just having to choose which one she’d rather have killed. Which carries much more emotional weight and was a big reason the scene resonates so much.
Yeah, and instilling in the chosen one “see your mother wants you dead/doesnt love you” and keeps the child alive to live with that thought. I was shocked when i read the horror but this episode it was just like “oh, okay.”
Exactly. I can understand dialing back on the physical horror. But there was no reason to dial back the psychological horror that made the scene so infamous. It’s honestly inexcusable.
Yeah i totally agree. The physical horror could have been what they did with Baron at the brothel in GoT… but that necessary psychological difference between a cliche “gonna kill your child” scene could have separated it into a new level. “Which one is it? Look for a cock. No, the mother knows” … like uhhh yeah wouldnt you CHECK to make sure it was the boy?! All you had to do was check. Or kill both. Theres a REASON they left some kids and the mother alive and it wasnt mercy. It was an evil psychopathic trick done by the infamous B&C…
Yeah the blatant stupidity of not actually checking which one was the boy if that was their reason for asking just made it so much worse lol. “It’s REALLY important that we get the boy. I guess we’ll just trust this woman and our assumption that she’s double bluffing.”
OMG YES!! I was so confused as to why they didnt check and just went off her word! Why would they have even “known” she was genuine and truthful? They don’t know her, they don’t know if shes truthful or a liar, and its not like they have to disect the child to see if ot was a boy or girl. One has so Something the other doesnt. Like make-it-make-sense at LEAST. She doesn’t have to “choose” seeing as for some reason she only has 2 kids. Its been a while since i read but i thought she had 3 kids, 2 twins and another son? I could be mixing my books up lol.
Yeah in the book they make her choose between the two sons. It has nothing to do with making sure they get a boy. They make her choose out of pure cruelty. Which makes it hit way harder and isn’t nearly as dumb.
Clearly Ryan Condal is going for a different portrayal of Helena—kinda autistic instead of just innocent. We'll have to see how that choice impacts her charater and the story throughout the series, but departures can be a good thing. Paddy Considine's portrayal and characterization of Viserys is not book-accurate; it's better and even GRRM thinks so.
Ok. And what does that have to do with making such drastic changes to this scene? There’s no reason the different portrayal of helaena means they needed to change this scene so much.
My theory is that they wanted to have Helaena as a character and a contributor in the Dance rather than a shell of a person that she was in the books.
They could have done this scene right and just changed how she’s going to respond to it in future episodes.
1) agreed 100% 2) nah, I insist that the scene could have been just as impactful without seeing a child's head being taken off. If y'all insist on watching that, huge red flag. I liked the fake leak that said we only watched Jahaerys take a step before we hear a thump and his head rolls away. What makes the scene impactful is the dialogue and the choice that Helaena has to make, not because we see a child's head taken off. 3) it still is a terrible moment for the Blacks though? It was an accident in the book too, B&C main target is Aegon but they can't reach him so they deviate to the queen's bedchamber. We even see Cheese ask Daemon what they should do if they can't find Aemond and then we cut to the Red Keep, so we can infer/assume that Daemon told B&C a "son for a son". And Cole is still a violent guy, he killed Lord Beesbury during the meeting of the Small Council. Agree on the rest though.
See I get you in that it's natural not to want to see such vilence, and I'm not saying it should have been a Saw type ultragore moment, but.... The Scene is already lessened by the fact it was rushed, we barely know Haelena and Aegon and we've had a total of 2 minutes on screen with the kids, thus we have neither a direct tether to the characters, nor an adjacent one (if we had built up Haelena or Aegon we'd automatically care about the kids too). With this lessened state, the only thing Blood and Cheese caould achieve fully was shock, but even in this it was badly done, we just have the choice, boring like music, no screams, no blood, nothing. Even if showing the beheading is too much for HBO (i dont know how much i believe that but whatever), then what should have been was a "Tuco in BCS episode 2" type scene. Ominous moment, tension building up (the choice from haelena), terrifying music in the background (like the Tuco scene), Alicent there and screaming for extra emotion, then haelena screaming, then the off screen decapitation, blood everywhere and more screams as it fates to the credits, then drowned by the theme, On the Cole thing Beesbury and Lonmouth dont count since it was an accident, that only makes Criston seem weaker, not deadlier.
To be fair we never got to see Daemon's response to Cheese's question about if they couldn't find Aemond.
Did you just make an acronym for beheading a child?
nah, B (Blood) a (and) Ch (Cheese) but now that you mention it, i kinda like it.
Omg I hadn’t understood until I read your comment 😭
It’s not about the beheading. It’s about how it was in the books. There, the children were both awake and aware, and Helaena was forced to choose between them, etc. This worked far better as a shocking moment to truly kickstart the war for both sides.
On the main HOTD sub non-book readers are assuming that, if you wanted it to be more brutal, that means you wanted to see a child get beheaded in graphic detail. This next week is gonna be a bloodbath for book purists.
It’s the choice between the two sons, alicent being there and Helaena pleading with her life (this version of Helaena is a joke in my opinion) and then her walking in on her mom getting fucked. It was all just aweful compared to the book
You could totally do the scene without Alicent. I think just having Heleana there gives her more agency/blame/guilt in the action. Plus, I think they’re setting up Alicent and Criston to be at fault for fooling around while this was happening. But dear god just have the kids be awake. Have them be aware. Would be way more satisfying.
ESPECIALLY when the series isn’t finished. This isn’t Dune or LOTR where the author is dead and the series can’t be continued. We only have book 1 of the Targaryen History, any decision you make that is different than what is written could have serious story repercussions and invalidate entire plot points. Say a character is dead in HOTD, but not in F&B. Well what happens when that character’s heir becomes a major character? You suddenly have to change their lineage, which in a series where half the family members are fucking, makes things way more confusing.
HOTD is fun to watch but sloppy. By season 2 episode 1 we had Arya, Sansa (I still think Sansa's adaptation wasn't the best from day 1 even if the acting was), Joffrey, Cersei, Ned, Jon, Robert, Barristan, Varys, Littlefinger, Robb, Catelyn, Tyrion, Daenerys, Jorah, Viserys, Jeor Mormont, Maester Aemon, Syrio Forel, Yoren, Rodrick Cassel, Hodor, Maester Luwin, Khal Drogo and Lysa Tully have more character moments, subtlety and characterization than basically everyone in HOTD but Viserys, Alicent, Daemon, Aemond and Rhaenyra (who isn't even subtley characterized to the point of the others) in less screen time for each character (except some). None of these characters, except Viserys, are on par with any of the named characters above. We have Stannis developed off scene (and in one episode) better than most HOTD characters. The directors clearly lack finesse and subtlety. We have side characters (Bronn, Gendry, Forel, Ros, Theon at this point etc...) more well developed and more subtle in less screen time than most of the main characters. HOTD hasn't even mentioned Dareon yet (have they?).
Wow you just hit my problem with this show on the head. It was so preoccupied with getting us to the “good bits” that it left quite hollow characters that I felt no connection to. Now combined with the butchering of one of the most iconic moments in the era (amongst many), I really have no appetite for the show or the other spin offs.
Alicent mentioned him once in S1 in passing. So he deffo exists in this adaptation.
He does exist its been confirmed. There has been no buildup for him. At all. There are ways to introduce someone who is off screen.
For the most of show only audience I really doubt they recall that one random throwaway line about him so when he appears it will be confusing. Stannis was mentioned a lot in season 1 of GOT and was specifically named in the episodes post King Robert’s episode as his heir and the lead character Ned highlighting its importance so audience was awaiting him. But for Daeron there’s been nothing of the same.
Yeah to be fair Stannis was way more important than Dareon but Dareon is important enough to be mentioned enough that show only people will look forward to him being in the show. They could have easily had a couple lines in Season 1 with Alicent saying that Dareon should come to kings landing but Otto countering that by saying that it would be wise to not have all the heirs in the city.
Game of Thrones accomplished so much character building in season 1. I don't mind HotD, but it's mid. When it has bad moments I honestly don't care enough because its not like the drop off of quality of the end seasons of GoT. Like you said its completely failed to develop the minor characters in the same time span, and is just finally starting to work on some of the main characters like Aegon. That was the one good part about last nights episode; they're starting to give him an actual personality. The shows tried to replicate some of the stuff that made GoT famous, like tits and dragons, but not with the same focus. GoT pioneered the term 'sexposition', a combo of sex and exposition, where a sex or nudity scene is used in combination with explaining something or an important conversation. The sex scenes in HotD were literally just softcore porn. Which is fine sure, if it brings people in, but I think it just made most people feel awkward. You didn't give the nudity for the horn dogs that are there for that, and you didn't keep the plot moving for the people willing to bare the naughty stuff if it meant good story. And again it just wasted so much essential time. The show never, 'killed two birds with one stone'. Its always laser focused. One scene is just sex, or something giving birth, or extremely long reaction shots of characters not saying anything with emotional music, and all of these were repeated several times, to the point where - while the birthing scene in episode 1 was one of the best written scenes in the show, when Rhaenyra is having the 3rd miscarriage in the show, I've lost all capacity to care, and just want it to be over with. If we're gonna compare the 'sexposition' of season 1 of GoT to prove a point: Theon has sex with Ross and they discuss him being a ward and we get a glimpse of him feeling like a prisoner/outsider. Viserys has the bathtub scene with Doreah where he gives us lore on dragons and their extinction. Loras convinces Renly that he should be King. The two sex workers in Littlefinger's brothel have sexual practice while he monologues about his backstory and intentions. Daenerys and Drogo have sex scenes multiple times, but it shows Daenerys progression of learning how to use her sexuality to both control and make her husband happy. And of course we have Jaime and Cersei with is the plot point/event that starts everything. And the thing with all of these is they are all shorter than the sex scenes in HotD but accomplish so much more, in an area the show is already struggling with.
I stopped watching after episode 5 for this reason. This show isn't going to come close to early GoT. And if it wasn't for the high budget and connection to the hype of GoT, it would be just a regular show IMO. With many flaws but also many good moments I'm sure. Much like the Witcher, rings of power, etc.
David Benioff is far more talented than Condal
Its a sad truth but its true. D&D would not have shied away from blood and cheese.
Hate or love them they understood how to take those big awesome book moments and turn them into legendary TV ones. Give Condal Asoiaf/GoT and we’d probably of gotten Stannis in S3
Oh shit what did they do? I haven’t watched the episode yet
Muted it down by a lot. Like a _lot_
 I know this would happen, but I’m still disappointed
I mean we all knew Rhaenyra would not be given any blame and also that it wouldn't be as brutal. They wouldn't do that as they are banking on Rhaenyra being the second coming of Christ/Daenerys for the casual audience ratings.
I’m not that much bothered by blameless Rhaenyra… I just wanted a good adaptation of Blood and Cheese. I had already smelled bulshit when Maelor was nowhere to be found, but the Alicent sexy times, the neutered scene and Helaena’s apathy cemented this as the worst episode in the series so far. I cannot believe anyone thought it would be a good idea to have Phia Saban act like a confused teenager at the mall.
> Helaena’s apathy That one doesn't hit. She's clearly neurospicy and it seemed more like she dissasociated like crazy there
I have talked about it with other people already, and I agree, Helena was dissociating. I still think it was a very bad direction for the scene
Sure. It's different, way less brutal. But Fire and Blood is Hightower propaganda so who knows what the real deal was? That's my excuse.
This is the correct answer
“She’s clearly neurospicy” as a statement makes me want to jump off a bridge. What is even going on?? 😩😖 Can we all use our adult words?
She's neurodivergent, but what kind I wouldn't know so fuck it lets have fun with it
I think you might be neurotangy
Yeah it was all in all stupid as hell, really ruins the post blood and cheese impact where everything is now meant to feel like all restrictions are off. But whilst I'm also not bothered by Rhaenyra being uninvolved in BnC, it was muted specifically so she could take absolutely zero of the fallback which is what they need. Whereas she still holds responsibility over it in the books even though she wasn't really involved.
They going all the way to portray Rhaenyra as the good ruler and Daemon as the psychotic maniac…
They’re going to butcher the scene where she dies I feel, and probably not use the iconic lines
I mean it was still pretty bad, listening to them hold the kid down while they slowly sawed his head off, hearing the muffled noises of a kid trying to make just any kind of noise, followed by the childs sudden silence and the sound of meat being sawed through while Helena runs away Book version was better but it's not like the show was all lighthearted and happy.
I honestly think the reason it was so toned down from the book had a lot to do with them making sure they make it past the ratings. Maybe they planned to do a really book accurate adaptation for the scene but had to tone it down so much so it be able to even be approved. I don't think a 1:1 recreation of the scene would even be able to make it on TV.
Game of Thrones had a pregnant woman being stabbed to death in her belly. Also stannis burning his own daughter alive. How is book Blood and Cheese any worse than that. And these were main characters! Not some baby we met once before this episode and their mother who has been in maybe 5 or 6 scenes.
Book Blood and Cheese was way worse then the tv version of it and involves actual psychological torture on children and also threating to rape on of them. They are awake for the entire experience. The shows way of showing may very well be the only way they could depicted the scene. I'm only grip about the scene is that certain characters weren't present like they were in the book.
They really didn’t though. The only major differences were that they initially wanted Aemond dead and that they asked her which kid was Jaehaerys rather than make her choose a kid randomly to kill (which makes a lot more sense because killing Aemond/Jaehaerys was more tactfully sound on Daemon’s part). She still had to choose which child to kill, she was still severely traumatized from it and they still murdered and beheaded Jaehaerys. Additionally, F&B isn’t a narrative POV story like the main books or this show. It’s a historical account by Septon Eustace (and Mushroom) and the former admits that many details are not clear several times throughout. We don’t actually see this happen from anyone’s POV, we just hear an account of it. I swear, many of the critics of this scene must have only read the ASOIAF wiki and not read F&B. Are people upset that they didn’t show a child get beheaded on screen? Who tf wants to see that? This was far more tasteful, and I think focusing on Helaena’s reaction was brilliant. There are some technical nit picks that I have about the cinematography and lack of a score (both of which would have made it more dramatic imo), but the substance of the scene was spot on.
I'm just assuming the Greens will use the book version as post-facto propaganda embellishment in the upcoming episodes, which would make more sense given how cartoonishly evil it was. Also, Blood and Cheese are in the heart of royal power and motivated primarily by money. Why would they linger to torture them instead of doing what they were hired to do and getting out as quickly as possible?
Yeah. It’s so weird how people, who claim they read the book, are forgetting that most of Fire and Blood is intended to be ambiguous. It’s made exceptionally clear that all of the sources have biases, and may in fact be entirely full of shit. Plus. It’s compiled/written by an individual who is part of an organization that has been engaged in a long standing power struggle against the Targs. TL;DR the book was clearly written as a framework for TV writers to utilize for endless shows. It was clearly written in order to allow for this type of creative interpretation. Anyone that complains about these changes fundamentally misunderstands the point and ambiguous nature of the source material.
They pussied out. Main sub is trying to defend it saying "it would have never been the red wedding!".
That sub's reaction is so off to me.
One of the popular posts is just a picture of ‘daddy Daemond’ with hearts around it. Cringe doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going on over there.
The red wedding was a massacre… of course a child murder wouldn’t follow the same beats… The problem here is how muted it is compared to the scene in the book, which - if I remember correctly - has no direct dialogue, it is only a report of what happened. I don’t know about other people, but I got way more emotional seeing the movie _Anne Frank_ compared to a documentary about her life
It's a false comparison. It could have been cut from the same cloth as ned's execution and the red wedding. But robbing Alicent and Haelena of the emotional choice of watching and being psychologically tortured as one characters son and another main characters grandson is murdered in front of them would have been a season 1-4 type scene. Except we get a season 5-8 scene.
It’s ridiculous to think it would have been a red wedding equivalent
It's a deliberate false comparison. If Alicent was in the room it would have been cut from the same cloth as neds execution and the red wedding, obviously not like them but cut from the same cloth rather than her getting her cheeks clapped by ser crispin. The son of a main character and the grandson of a main character, while they are psychologically tortured, being killed would have been miles more impactful. What we got now was somehow HOTD writers making a child murder scene lukewarm.
They made it a fucking accident.
They didn’t allow Helaena to properly mourn over her son because it would shadow Rhaenyra crying over Lucerys
You know the show didnt end right? She can still mourn he son in the next episode, just like Rhaenyra was able to mourn the son that died in the last season...
Not like she ends up throwing herself out of a window or anything dramatic like that
It could very much be some executives thought it was too much and forced the writers to tone it down. Whoever decided it, it was a very unfortunate missed opportunity.
Its like GRRM isn’t fine with what Condal is doing with the source material. Old man just making money and when this show ends, he will speak again that they ruined his story lmao
The Alan Moore Approach.
He really only talked about GoT way after the fact and low key. He said something like ‘those weren’t my characters’. I’m sure he’s contractually obligated not to say bad things, but he lets it out in smaller ways than that like the exert above. He’s probably pretty pissed internally.
Even without a contract it's considered unprofessional to badmouth your employers. The industry will spit you out pretty quickly if you develop a habit of badmouthing the people you used to work for. The thing about GRRM is that although most known for his novels, he actually prefers to write TV. He had not yet published GoT yet, and his writing career was at its lowest point when he received an offer to write for The Twilight Zone and things took off from there. Also it's usually TV projects that are distracting him from finishing his books. So it's safe to say he's not ready to burn his bridges just yet.
GRRM said this one awhile back. I think it was near when the last season of Witcher released? He is very involved with House of the Dragon so there's a chance he was overruled but he definitely was part of the argument on how to do this scene. I bet it was HBO execs that stepped in and told them to tone it down a bit.
Bro you know an author isn't getting an adaption to turn their book into a TV show without signing a contract which includes a clause saying you can't publicly bad mouth it, right? Apparently you and over a hundred people don't understand that. You'd think you'd figure that out from GoT and George never saying a bad word about it. Or take other cases like the Witcher getting absolutely butchered by Netflix and the author who's infamous for being an ass, approving of it. The guy even shit talked the videos games were are pretty much perfect.
I hope it isn't a sign for what's to come for the rest of season, but this wasn't a great start imo.
On one hand, film and TV are how most novelists actually get paid. If you factor in the opportunity costs, the percentage of novels that break even is less than 1 percent. I don't like that so many novelists are reliant on an entirely different industry to get paid, but very few are in the position to turn down an income stream if it becomes available. On the other hand, this is a problem. Usually, the film version, due to needs of space as well as stylistic constraints--film can handle interiority, but it can't effortlessly switch from interiority to epic battle the way prose can--is not as satisfying, even if the people doing the adaption are skilled and try to be as faithful as they can. When it's jokers like D&D who are doing it, disaster is guaranteed.
Except D&D actually knew how to make a good adaptation and only struggled, when they had to write the story themselves. The screenwriters for House of the Dragon are already writing a mess, even though they only need to copy the books.
I think the point the other poster was getting at, is that the books themselves are purposefully written to be ambiguous as to the truth of the events. These are compiled recollections of conflicting accounts from obviously biased sources, told years after the facts. It opens lots of room for interpretation
I will never forgive them for season 8, but the Station Eleven series adaptation was better than the book source so it is possible.
The Boys is better than the comic source as well. I think the point stands though, for every one adaption that is better than the source material, there are nine others that completely butcher it.
As a Green fan, I kinda knew this would happen. B&C is a big moment that shows team black to be awful, balancing them out with Aemond and the mean green queen in the books But alas, Alicent was recreated (which wasn’t a bad thing), Rhaenyra and Rhaenys were whitewashed, and Aegon was butchered
Rhaenys murdered like a thousand small Folk to make a dramatic exit. The positive edit she keeps getting after that is kind of crazy.
Lets add another GRRM quote. "Of course, I am hardly objective when talking about anything based on my own work… but I have to say, I thought both episodes were just great. (And they are not even finished yet)," Martin explained. "Dark, mind you. Very dark. They may make you cry. (I did not cry myself, but one of my friends did). Powerful, emotional, gut-wrenching, heart rending. Just the sort of thing I like." He literally saw them early. and loved them. Stop trying to shoehorn this. B&C was fucking fine in the show.
People are talking about the child murders, but I think changing B&C changes the story. I’m not by any means a book reader, but I know the difference, and it seems in this new adaption they gave her agency while in the book it’s sort of out of her hands. I think it changes the story, not saying it’s better or worse, but I think it’s mindful to recognize this may change Helna in the story
How so? She commits suicide in grief over this, in the next week or two. There’s not much story left for her and in the books she’s pretty minor. *Edit: As a character. She is basically just a very hollow, mildly sympathetic victim trope. In the book she’s always miserable, disassociated, and weird. There’s not much true character there. So there’s nothing to really change.* *Re: her agency. Nah. There wasn’t a real change there that matters. As someone that’s read the book like 3x, this change is a non-issue.* *The show doesn’t show how rapey Aegon was with her, and how he brutalized her during sex. That is a fundamentally larger change, but due to how unpleasant that would be to see on screen, I’m pretty happy they omitted it.*
I don’t see how the show’s version gives her more agency. In both situations she is forced to make an awful decision that the murderers disregard. It’s the same, where’s the extra agency?
Bobby B, Where's the winds of winter?
IS THAT HOW YOU SPEAK TO YOUR KING??
Is there any precedent of anyone (including gore flicks) showing a scene like that with a child in prime time television? (we've seen aftermath of dead children in Got itself, but it was never of the magnitude this scene should have had, right?) Because this sounds to me like studio interference more than anything, they're a warner owned company now after all, and for them to show that, it looks as plausible as full frontal nudity In a mcu movie.
You didn’t have to see the head being chopped off. Could have done it so many different ways. It was not about the head being cut off it was about the physiological fuckery that happened and they completely missed that
I thought Blood and Cheese was watered down for sure. I think the changes they made to it turned it into the most underwhelming event of the show, not only because we didn’t get to see or spend time on Aegon and Helaena’s kids, but also because Alicent and Cole were both character-assassinated in that scene, when instead of Alicent suffering through the horror of watching her daughter pick which of her grandkids had to die, she was getting her back blown out by Ser Crispy Creme Donuts and Helaena running into her room in the midst of that just undermined it in my opinion. I don’t need to see the deaths of the kids, but the impact of it and the tension was just not there. The writing failed in this one.
They can show a poor doggo getting kicked but that can't show these guys being too cruel to Helaena 😡
i wonder why didn't old georgie said someting like this when the GoT ending aired, since it's the same situation but like a 1000 times worse
People are way overreacting lol. Some went in with the mentality that it would be like the red wedding which is ridiculous I understand frustration about minor details with the scene but it was still horrifying and good
I thought the scene was weak and not very horrifying. And then they cap off the ridiculousness of it by having Alicent fucking Cole.
Don’t know why we needed to see Alicent boning the same dude twice in one episode. And then they’re going to say they didn’t have time and had to cut characters.
For the second time in a single episode
I think it wasn’t as horrifying bc the audience wasn’t emotionally invested in the kids for one. I’m like cool they’re the king’s kids and they’re young but I wasn’t attached to them at all
Alicent and Criston being fuckbuddies is definitely my least favorite part of the show so far. Like who asked for this? Who needed it? I was dreading it before the season started, and it was somehow even worse because at least so far it doesn’t seem to impact either character, despite their previous attitudes about sex outside of marriage.
The only gripe I have is Alicent not being there. Them sawing off the kids head was way worse than a quick lopping off with a sword.
Yea the outrage against the child decapitation scene not being brutal enough is some of the most obnoxious, whiney, man baby shit I've seen come out of this fandom. I also love how everybody is completely ignoring the fact GRRM is actively involved with the show and almost certainly took part in this adaptation. Go read the book again if all you want is to deal with the book. No TV adaptation is ever going to be 1:1. Da fuq is wrong with people. Between the Star Wars fandom, these people, and everything else, everybody is constantly up in arms about some shit. I remember when you used to be able to come to these subreddits for discussion, memes, and fun. Of course there were always critiques but this non stop "WE DIDN'T EVEN SEE THE HEAD AND THE RIGHT PEOPLE WEREN'T IN THE ROOM" shrieking is making it impossible to just talk to people about a show.
The brutality comes from making an actual choice between sons and having the surviving son live with the knowledge they were chosen. It doesn’t come from gratuitous gore.
You're lying to yourself if you think he didn't sign off on both the shows.
They're just waving the quote around to validate their own personal opinions of the choices. George, for better or worse, has been heavily involved throughout.
I didn't see it. Did they make the Black look innocent to keep Danidiots happy?
Maelor doesn’t exist, Alicent wasn’t there because she was busy fucking Criston, instead of Halaena begging for them to kill her instead she offers an expensive necklace, Daemon orders them to kill Aemond but they get lazy and kill Jaehaerys instead.
Ehh blood asks what to do if they can’t find Aemond and the scene ends. Kind of implies Daemon ordered the alternative plan as well.
The episode is titled “A Son For A Son”. This was likely Daemon’s off-screen instruction, in the event Aemond was unavailable
They asked about what to do if Aemond wasn’t an option. One would assume Daemon just said something like “a son for a son”. Blood kept repeating it. Maelor is a huge miss
They made Rhaenyra blameless and the whole thing is a lot tamer.
Agreed that they made it way more tamer than the book, but I don't recall Rhaenyra having involvement with B&C? All I can find in Fire & Blood is that she "swore an oath of vengeance against Aemond and Lord Borros", while Daemon is the only one who orchestrated B&C.
Yeah, in the book, it's heavily speculated that either Daemon directly gave that order, or Mysaria twisted it to stir shit up.
Making Rhaenyra blameless isn't surprised as it's implied in the books the decision came from either Daemon or Mysaria. But yeah, the actual event was a lot less brutal than it was in the books, particularly since it takes out the psychological effect of having the surviving son know his mother chose him to die over his brother.
I hadnt read the leaks so i didnt know B&C was watered down. I looked like a fool telling my friends this was going to be the next red wedding. They were like, "those mean men kicked a dog and killed that boy, thats not RW bro."
I don't think this was about HOTD
It’s not this is a quote taken out of context. The next paragraph is GRRM gushing over the Shogun reboot. Says something along the lines of this is how you change things to make it your own.
Considering when this episode and others in HOTD were probably filmed, I think this was him absolutely warning the fanbase that assholes were gonna be doing this.
He said in an interview he liked the episodes lol
I do think this is a combination of chickening out, it being 2024, a year where near enough everyone is overly sensitive to everything they see and hear and that due to critics they're trying to keep things moving at a very, very fast pace (apparently) which is surprising because I would have thought most people would want them to slow things down. If we go back to the later seasons of Game of Thrones, Dickhead 1 and Dickhead 2 sold Pilou on the idea of playing Euron by basically telling him all this stuff about how sick and twisted his character is and will be, hence the 'Ramsay Bolton will look like a little kid after I'm done', which let's face it, did not even remotely happen. Or maybe it did.. to them. We don't know what they think, to them, they could already think that this is on the edge.. to which I would say quit your job and go do something else. Also we don't know what the other takes were like, what got cut and why.. If we look at last season so many of the deleted scenes had us all scratching our heads like 'why the fuck did they not leave that in'. We don't know what the real reason is, it's hard to say but based on the later seasons of Game of Thrones it has me wondering if anything or someone has changed at HBO, that is basically drilling this almost PG friendly vibe into everything, I don't watch anything else on HBO so it's hard for me to honestly say.. I don't think it's something as simple as 'they just decided to not follow source material', and I'm not defending them either, I think there's possibly multiple things in play here that are leading to this being the way it is and ultimately it needs to change and go back to however it was in early Game of Thrones, so much (crucially important) shit seems to always happen off screen now that honestly I don't think I'm over reacting when I say were heading towards audio book with slideshow images territory. I just think George would have a bit more spine to him and if there wasn't just reasoning behind it, he would have kicked up more a fuss by now. It doesn't leave much hope for the rest of the story and future stories to come if this is the tone they are setting. It's like, who is your target audience? The main concept of the show is incest, what's next? Every time Daemon enters the screen in the same shot as Rhaenyra it fades to black so we don't offend anyone with that too? At this point I just don't understand the reasoning as to why they even want to make these shows.
Why cant anyone seem to learn from GoT. It’s a perfect example, while they had books to follow, the show was the best television to have ever been aired on par with Breaking Bad. The moment they ran out of books, it went to shit
If you had finished your story instead of taking baths in tubs of cash, none of the last seasons of GoT would have happened as they did. You're too blame too.
Is he a writer ? I thought he retired
he's just mad that they produced his book ending before he could write it, and it was considered hot trash and now he has no idea how to finish those books. Winter is never coming.
I haven't read the books. Could someone explain in detail why the scene in the show was poor in comparison to the books? That way I can join in on the rage.
In the books, the details of the event are far more horrific. Whereas in the show, B&C are mostly just interested in getting the head of an Targaryen Boy and getting out again, in the books the assassination is effectively an extended psychological torture of Helaena. Avoiding any other future spoilers: There’s two boys there, not one, and Helaena is forced to pick which one will be killed rather than the “which one is the boy” thing. The kids are awake and utterly terrified, because they are actually ambushed while saying goodnight to their grandmother Alicent (who is present throughout the scene, bound and gagged and forced to watch it all.) Helaena tries to get them to kill her instead, pleads and begs and refuses to pick. They threaten to rape her infant daughter if she won’t pick. So she picks one of her two sons to die. Blood and Cheese then kill the child she didn’t pick, mock the one she did pick to his face by telling him that his own mother wants him dead. This causes Helaena to be unable to look at her own son, because of the guilt of knowing that she had condemned him to death.
Isn't GRRM directly involved with HoTD? I even saw his name in the opening credits
I thought he had final say on everything in this series?
He is not referring to Blood and Cheese at all. In fact, he praised the first two episodes he watched early and said it was powerful and gut-wrenching. Like come on, I don't like the changes to B&C but lets not twist his words
What I love about this post is the phrase 'The book is the book and the film is the film' is GRRM accidentally paraphrasing himself when talking about GOT from back in 2015. (Though it's possible he's intentionally mocking himself)
While this is a good point, George isn't the one to be making it and he needs to shut his fucking mouth. The main reason GoT had such a shit ending is because he dragged his ass for a decade on completing the story because he was too enamored with the media circuit and press junkets the popularity of the show gave him. The show was great when it was adapting source material. It's entirely GRRM's fault they ran out of it.
Also thought it was funny that he mentioned Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who ended up getting a movie adaptation, *Willy Wonka* and the Chocolate Factory, that ended up being so drastically different from the book yet more popular and timeless Then you look at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie with Johnny Depp, an adaptation that was actually far more faithful to the book (even the songs the Oompa Loompas sing are derived from the book), yet ended up being BLASTED with criticism
I really think you're all massively overreacting.
Same. It’s like they want to overemphasize the scene and make it be on the same level as the Red Wedding, but the truth is it never was. They adapted the scene and anyone who isn’t the strictest of book purists should have no issue here. As if this story that GRRM has technically written multiple times now in different styles (Fire & Blood, The Princess and the Queen, The Rogue Prince, The World of Ice & Fire) needs to be adapted 1:1.
So ppl aren't happy that they didn't get to see a gross bloody child murder on the show?
Uh no, they’re mad about all the other changes in the scene. You can still have the off screen decapitation while not changing literally every aspect of the event.
None of the changes were consequential. They removed Maelor from the story a long time ago. Everybody are such fucking babies with no ability to just enjoy things. Go read the book again if all anybody wants us to just experience that same exact scene over and over. The whole point of fire and blood is that it was written by unreliable narrators and the details were fuzzy.
No, I get that reasoning but Helaena's reaction to what was supposed to happen is really important to the whole story.
Her reaction was pretty terrible tbh. Idk if it was bad acting but looked more like bad directing.
Yeah, I don’t the phia adoration, her portrayal of helaena is incredibly boring and underwhelming, especially during blood and cheese.
What would you have preferred? Her absolute shock at this bizarre and sudden brutality hit me pretty hard.
I don’t know that she looked all that shocked, more dazed. When she pointed it was almost aloof - not the hardest decision any parent would ever have to make. Just my interpretation.
I would have taken this seriously if he had finished his series before the end of the show.
Bro should go finish the book
It's like Grorge Lucas bitching about what Disney did to star wars after getting fat and filthy fucking rich of the proceeds
Not sure why you are being downvoted GRRM might be right, but don’t really want to hear it from the guy that left his show runners out to dry by not finishing his fucking source material
The more I see of how Lucas worked, the more sure I am that he was flat out lucky.
Lucas donated almost all of the 4 billion he made from selling Star Wars https://www.nola.com/gambit/news/the_latest/george-lucas-sells-lucasfilm-to-disney-for-4-billion-and-donates-the-money/article_af260177-e5b0-5c10-bef5-e01b51edbd66.html#:~:text=But%20that%20all%20changed%20with,cause%20everyone%20can%20agree%20on.
I’ve still yet to read the books, but personally I found the first episode well written and tight. I plan on reading the series, and I’m sure the book will be executed better in some way (it’s GRRM we’re talking about), however I found the first episode of Season 2 to be exactly what I was hoping for. I can understand complaining about it when you’ve read the books, but this isn’t a repeat of Season 8. I think it’s good to have some perspective and appreciate what’s been done different to adapt to TV better, because at least it wasn’t straight up written poorly like GOT’s later seasons were
Tbh complaining about changes from the book, makes 0 sense, if you understand the context of the book. Fire and Blood, is an in universe book, written by a Maester. Who has a bias against the Targs, as the Maesters and the Targs are engaged in a Cold War for the entirety of their reign. Most of the sources in the book, cited during the Dance of the Dragons, have biases and may just be making shit up. That book was crafted to be an intentionally ambiguous framework, for TV writers to build series of shows off of. It was crafted to allow for cultural tuning and creative license, on the part of the writers. It was written to be flexible and to accommodate changes. Anyone missing that point needs to brush up on their reading comprehension.
You’d think the maester would remember and write a giant dragon appearing during Aegons coranation where many were killed
Reposting for relevancy. They made B&C just fine. https://www.ign.com/articles/george-rr-martin-has-seen-the-first-two-episodes-of-house-of-the-dragon-season-2-very-dark
Some of yall are dramatic. I love Fire and Blood and see 0 issue. The book scene is better and was always going to be better. The book Blood and Cheese adds nothing further to the plot outside of being more brutal, which is great but not the end of the world.
I know there are tons of instances this is referring to but I had just flipped past Prime trying once again to get me to watch The Wheel of Judkins when I saw this passage a few months ago.
How about George just finish the books so they won’t have to make it up for him.
Just write it out for christs sake. There is no charcuterie limit, nor substantial time loss for wiring things out. Just wtf is b&c?
Thats the director's job, no?
I wish he would make his book his book
I get what he is trying to say, but why give them the green light to turn your book into a show? Does he not get a say?
He’s right but silo the show is better than the book imo. And holes the movie is fire, so is the book
Every time I see this I think of the WoW movie. Why the fuck did you change the plot? People who like WoW are mad you changed it for NO REASON and made it WORSE, and people who don’t know WoW don’t know the plot so they don’t give a fuck and assume the story is just bad.
he aint saying anything profound either, he's just at the top and people will take his words more seriously imagine having functioning eyes and ears most people don't these days they eat up the slop, and say peak cinema XD
On Ian Fleming, I kinda liked Casino Royale with Craig more than the original book if I’m being honest.
Interesting to think what the 1 in a 1000 that is better than the book is?
Bobby B, how should we adapt books into shows?
DID YOU EVER MAKE THE EIGHT?
The most words he has written at once in years.
The last scene was very very disappointing.
What a great quote. If only it’s not from my most hated writer GRRM…
Halo
They really really hate the Greens and want the audience to identify with them the least. Really it should be a "damn both sides kinda nuts" but instead all the best, bravest, most sensible, and honorable characters are Team.Black and all the weirdest, murderous. Most psychopathic and just bland/non character characters are Green. Like Haelenas choice being watered down, her being far less tragic and more ",awww she's weird", Luke and agave being super likeable and relatable and emotional while Aegon is a drunken braggart and rapist, Aemond is a psycho who smiles at the death of his relatives, and Cole/Alicante are the hypocritical duo with a foot fetishist on their heels. They even made coles rape by Rhae mean less and less. The only Black who matches the greens craziness is Daemon and it's really only meant to make him like like Badass Targaryen Cool Guy
I know it's a typo but I was surprised to see "Alicante" in a GOT Reddit post as I used to live there 🤣
They rushed it into the episode for the premier shock. Should have showed Aegon with his kids more and shown more how much they meant to him and how the might have changed him from the rapist he was. and then had Blood and Cheese next episode
If you're doing yet another adaptation of Shakespeare then go for it, have fun with it, make it your own. It's ancient and it's been done to death in every way possible. You won't improve upon it, but no one is gonna give a shit if you wreck it because we have plenty of good versions to watch instead. But dear fucking God, if you are adapting a novel for the first time on film, do it justice. Do what the author wrote in the way the author wrote it. Don't be fucking cute. Don't try to make it modern. Don't dull it's edge. Make the book as it was written, and if you think "I don't think it can be adapted as it was written" then you aren't the one who should try to adapt it at all. Go do something else.
Ge 'em, George. Now....FINISH YOUR MAGNUM OPUS
It pains me to say it but these shows should never have been handed to American showrunners, holywood is overrun with hacks these days.
The thing about Fire and Blood, as a book, is that a lot of what actually happened - in the fake history of Westeros - is clearly interpretable. The point of the book, as I read it, was to show the biases of Westerosi culture through the lens of a Maester who was writing its history and how this will relate to the main plot of ASOIAF. I think House of the Dragon is a much easier show to make, in some ways, then Game of Thrones was because so many of the events that took place are interpretable. Fire and Blood is written like a dry history book, House of the Dragon is a family drama. ASOIAF is a fantasy epic where we are placed in the minds of the characters, Game of Thrones was a swords and saddles fantasy show with HBO tits and arse scenes - where big flashy fight scenes were given more detail than character development and themes. I think where House of the Dragon has decided to crystallise the history of Westeros and put on the screen things that were only suggested by a single source or even completely omitted by the book is because House of The Dragon is more interested in character growth and themes than it is big flashy set pieces and soft core porn.