I've never been one to compare the show unfavorably to the book, but the assassination scene at the end is just so poorly conceived compared to that in the book, I'm at a complete loss to conjecture why they changed it.
Spoilers, kind of: in the book, the two men (called Blood and Cheese) come upon Helaena and her *three* children - older twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaerya, and younger boy, Maelor. They force Helaena to choose which boy to kill - she chooses Maelor. So they lop Jaehaerys' head off. The heir is dead, Maelor knows his mom chose him, Jaehaerys knows about all of it, and Helaena goes completely insane. It is SUCH a high-drama turning point in the book and here it's so subdued, removing the Sophie's Choice, and just leaving Helaena ... pretty upset, I guess?
It's such a weird whiff and I do not get it at all.
FWIW, as a non-book reader, I immediately thought of Sophie's Choice when Helaena was forced to decide which of her children to kill. And for all we know, she will go "insane" even if her immediate reaction was a bit more of shock and catatonia, rather than outright mental instability.
The book version is trademark GRRM nastiness for sure, but I feel it was a strong choice to have them just be a pair of panicky idiots. Adds to the whole tragedy that none of this really had to happen.
Honestly, it was keeping Helaena pointing that was weird.
I think the bigger difference seems to be that the books depict the assassins as definitely more capable and for some odd reason sadistic. I think I prefer this version, where they are simply poor scumbags and kind of mediocre. Feels more realistic to me. I am fairly sure Helaena can still go crazy.
I liked that too. It turned them from horror movie villains to something more out of a Coen Brothers movie. They’re idiots, they’re in over their heads (Cheese’s revelation that he’s never actually been on the level with the royal apartments got a cackle out of me despite my mounting dread), and they make increasingly poor decisions based solely on money. Plus, the comparative mundanity of the murder fits with the book’s “print the legend” take on this era in Westerosi history.
Indeed, the one thing I feel the series does very well is make the big moments seem less cartoonish. Aemond pretending to be some cold hardass, while he simply lost control of his pet, makes him a lot more interesting than 'one-eyed killer likes to kill'. The opposite is true of Larys, who bores me every time he appears, like a discount Littlefinger.
What also instilled some confidence is the fact that they put Cheese into several earlier scenes, showing that the nobles ignored him, and he could basically go wherever he wanted. Palace security is about to get a cruel update I assume.
Yeah doing so makes the characters more dynamic than the book's tendency to flatten them to a single trait or define them by a single action (which, given its in-world place as a history book written during the reign of the Baratheons makes sense, but doesn't necessarily make for the best drama). Aemond as a sociopathic warrior, sure, we've seen it before, but that works. But Aemond as someone who regrets his actions but is forced to live up to a reputation he never intended for himself is far more interesting.
I guess. But if they were going for realism, they should have followed their own logic through. Why not just have the guys check under the kids' PJs rather than have to discern the believability of the mute pointing lady?
Good point. Maybe it is one of those weird things where beheading a 4-year old is less creepy than touching him down there? A kind of you do it then 'thing'. I mean, it is somewhat unfortunate that Targaryens tend to be androgynous.
The problem with the “Which team will you choose?” marketing is that (within the show at least) there’s absolutely no reason anyone would be on Team Green at this point. It’s pretty cut and dry that Rhaenyra is the rightful queen and that the Hightowers committed a coup. Having not read the book, I imagine we’re heading in a direction where everyone is awful, but as of now there’s nothing to make a viewer think the Greens should win.
Yeah, I don't get it—even the way this opening aligns the Starks with Team Black is such a cut and dry case of the text making this clear. Feels like a case of marketing catching onto an idea that works exactly as long as you ignore the show itself.
They do take pains to show that Daemon is a twat and that while Aegon is an idiot fratboy, he has some decency to him. But yeah, that's about the best case I have for the Greens
While I agree that the whole teams bit is just a marketing ploy, I do think we're at least supposed to be sympathetic towards Alicent's position. She's been a pawn of her father for years, she's stuck in a largely powerless position with him on one side and two headstrong sons on the other, and she genuinely thinks that she alone heard Viserys's deathbed change of heart (although the extent to which she heard what she wanted to hear can be debated). Granted, her father was planning a coup so all that confession did was give a bit of cover to a usurpation which was already in motion, but she at least believes in her own righteousness. Now, do I think that empathy fully translates into being able to support Otto, Cole, Larys, etc...eh, not so much.
I could go either way on the theme reuse (on the one hand the original is so iconic that it would be impossible to top so there's no sense in trying, but on the other hand reusing it just seems lazy) but I will say that although I know it was just there for a cheap pop, opening the episode proper with the Winterfell theme and the camera cresting that hill like it was 2011 all over again worked on me exactly the way it was supposed to. And I do dig the new opening credits visuals much more than season 1. Turning it into a tapestry of the history of the Targaryen's matches the show's position as (essentially) an adaptation of a history book very nicely.
Late to the game here, but I agree with you. When HOTD first premiered I was kind of pissed they reused the theme. In the intervening time I actually completely forgot about it's reuse and sitting down last night to finally watch the premier I was pretty dang surprised and stoked to get to hear the total banger again
I love the theme too. But HotD really needed to establish its own footing distinct from GoT. Keeping the music felt like symptomatic of show trying to have its cake and eating it too. "See? We're Thrones too! But don't hate us for falling short on interesting characters, humor, intrigue, etc like that other show...But that banger theme, still Thrones!!"
I don't know, if HotD was going to attempt a vast departure in tone or themes from GoT, then maybe. (And we can certainly have a different discussion on the merits of doing so.) But it's emphatically not pursuing such a departure, and so I think the theme still fits.
Ryan Condol literally said in the BTS that "We want viewers to remember they're watching Game Of Thrones" (on the Blood And Cheese scene). Good or bad, they're leaning into "We're Thrones, too!"
I'm confused by the huge gap between the instructions we see Daemon give Blood & Cheese and the instructions they repeat to each other in the keep. Daemon tells them straightforwardly to kill Prince Aemond Targaryen, complete with a physical description and a warning that he's a good fighter (so not a small child). I don't think we saw him say "a son for a son," or give any context or justification for the killing, and why would he, these are just mercenaries. But in the castle, they remember that line as a very specific instruction. I guess we're supposed to believe that he said that off camera, and that Blood & Cheese just have incredibly selective memory for instructions?
It's interesting that for all the clearing up the show has done about the unreliable narration in the book that it allowed that particular lacuna to remain. The book is very clear that nobody knows exactly who Blood and Cheese were sent to kill, only that Daemon was the one behind their incursion. I wonder if they'll eventually loop back to that scene to nudge the viewer's perspective of Daemon in one direction or another (condoning infanticide versus being a hothead with bad taste in hired thugs) or keep it intentionally vague to allow us to each have our own idea of his culpability.
I am relieved that the pace and scenes are more like the final episodes of season 1. While it will never come close to those early seasons of GoT, this was a confident and good opener. Gorgeous as well, showing a lot of life in every scene. Also liked that Larys was not too much in the foreground. Wonder if Alicent will be angry at him, considering he vetted the castle's staff and did not weed out the world's dodgiest ratkiller.
I havent read the book but I know the final scene has apparently been toned-down. Still, I have to say I found it quite disturbing. Having the murder happen just off frame while the camera follows Heleana rush away with her other child felt like a horror movie. Overall, psyched to have this show back!
Honestly, I wonder if those people had their volume up high enough, because the sound effects alone were enough for me to suggest this was plenty horrific.
As a fairly casual GoT and HotD viewer, I can confirm I also did not keep up with the names of the dragons and the kids. Can’t believe it’s been two years already!
>>He’s right about how her choice to not just burn up the entire family was dumb iin retrospect, though
Heh, and in foresight, really. She could've ended the war before it started. What's a dozen or so nobles dead compared to the carnage to come?
I haven't read Fire & Blood, so I didn't know what to expect at all from the final scene. I figured it would go awry in some way-- the cast is big enough that it could have survived the loss of Aemond, though I really doubted thar would happen-- but I did not expect that at all. Brutal and about to get very ugly.
I'm not sure if "honor" is the right word for Rhaenys's decision, but I think that discussion was there to highlight the differences between her somewhat twisted sense of honor to her family above all versus Daemon's more pragmatic point of view. After all, she could have started a war over being passed over for Viserys but acquiesced instead of striking a blow at the family dynasty. And there's also the fact that to the nobles, forcing thousands of commoners and vassals to fight and die on your behalf is their duty. But a half dozen instances of kinslaying? That's a no-no.
One of the bigger questions I had at the end of season 1 was how did the Blacks find out what happened to Luke. Like obviously once he did not return from such a short flight it'd be clear something went wrong. But would they know Aemond killed him?
So if I understood this episode's small council scene correctly, Alicent sent a letter to Rhaneyra apologizing for Aemond killing Luke? No wonder why Otto is frustrated with her. If this is what happened, I wish they had emphasized it a bit more. Feels like a major blunder from Alicent.
Also, I was under the impression the White Worm was killed on the fire Larys has set. Guess not! At least, in my opinion, her accent was not as weird in this episode as in last season.
A good example of the show using its "we're based on a history book" framing as justification: it doesn't expressly matter why people know what happened, but they clearly do, either because there were eyewitnesses, or Aemond bragged about it, etc. But the actual procedure of that, while something a show COULD focus on, is not really in the show's purview. There's a lot of hand-waving there.
I've never been one to compare the show unfavorably to the book, but the assassination scene at the end is just so poorly conceived compared to that in the book, I'm at a complete loss to conjecture why they changed it.
Spoilers, kind of: in the book, the two men (called Blood and Cheese) come upon Helaena and her *three* children - older twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaerya, and younger boy, Maelor. They force Helaena to choose which boy to kill - she chooses Maelor. So they lop Jaehaerys' head off. The heir is dead, Maelor knows his mom chose him, Jaehaerys knows about all of it, and Helaena goes completely insane. It is SUCH a high-drama turning point in the book and here it's so subdued, removing the Sophie's Choice, and just leaving Helaena ... pretty upset, I guess?
It's such a weird whiff and I do not get it at all.
FWIW, as a non-book reader, I immediately thought of Sophie's Choice when Helaena was forced to decide which of her children to kill. And for all we know, she will go "insane" even if her immediate reaction was a bit more of shock and catatonia, rather than outright mental instability.
The book version is trademark GRRM nastiness for sure, but I feel it was a strong choice to have them just be a pair of panicky idiots. Adds to the whole tragedy that none of this really had to happen.
Honestly, it was keeping Helaena pointing that was weird.
I think the bigger difference seems to be that the books depict the assassins as definitely more capable and for some odd reason sadistic. I think I prefer this version, where they are simply poor scumbags and kind of mediocre. Feels more realistic to me. I am fairly sure Helaena can still go crazy.
I liked that too. It turned them from horror movie villains to something more out of a Coen Brothers movie. They’re idiots, they’re in over their heads (Cheese’s revelation that he’s never actually been on the level with the royal apartments got a cackle out of me despite my mounting dread), and they make increasingly poor decisions based solely on money. Plus, the comparative mundanity of the murder fits with the book’s “print the legend” take on this era in Westerosi history.
Indeed, the one thing I feel the series does very well is make the big moments seem less cartoonish. Aemond pretending to be some cold hardass, while he simply lost control of his pet, makes him a lot more interesting than 'one-eyed killer likes to kill'. The opposite is true of Larys, who bores me every time he appears, like a discount Littlefinger.
What also instilled some confidence is the fact that they put Cheese into several earlier scenes, showing that the nobles ignored him, and he could basically go wherever he wanted. Palace security is about to get a cruel update I assume.
“Discount Littlefinger” is funny! Seems like a cross between Littlefinger and Varys, but not as interesting as either.
Yeah doing so makes the characters more dynamic than the book's tendency to flatten them to a single trait or define them by a single action (which, given its in-world place as a history book written during the reign of the Baratheons makes sense, but doesn't necessarily make for the best drama). Aemond as a sociopathic warrior, sure, we've seen it before, but that works. But Aemond as someone who regrets his actions but is forced to live up to a reputation he never intended for himself is far more interesting.
I guess. But if they were going for realism, they should have followed their own logic through. Why not just have the guys check under the kids' PJs rather than have to discern the believability of the mute pointing lady?
Good point. Maybe it is one of those weird things where beheading a 4-year old is less creepy than touching him down there? A kind of you do it then 'thing'. I mean, it is somewhat unfortunate that Targaryens tend to be androgynous.
The problem with the “Which team will you choose?” marketing is that (within the show at least) there’s absolutely no reason anyone would be on Team Green at this point. It’s pretty cut and dry that Rhaenyra is the rightful queen and that the Hightowers committed a coup. Having not read the book, I imagine we’re heading in a direction where everyone is awful, but as of now there’s nothing to make a viewer think the Greens should win.
Yeah, I don't get it—even the way this opening aligns the Starks with Team Black is such a cut and dry case of the text making this clear. Feels like a case of marketing catching onto an idea that works exactly as long as you ignore the show itself.
They do take pains to show that Daemon is a twat and that while Aegon is an idiot fratboy, he has some decency to him. But yeah, that's about the best case I have for the Greens
While I agree that the whole teams bit is just a marketing ploy, I do think we're at least supposed to be sympathetic towards Alicent's position. She's been a pawn of her father for years, she's stuck in a largely powerless position with him on one side and two headstrong sons on the other, and she genuinely thinks that she alone heard Viserys's deathbed change of heart (although the extent to which she heard what she wanted to hear can be debated). Granted, her father was planning a coup so all that confession did was give a bit of cover to a usurpation which was already in motion, but she at least believes in her own righteousness. Now, do I think that empathy fully translates into being able to support Otto, Cole, Larys, etc...eh, not so much.
Totally disagree on the title theme reuse, I always love hearing it.
I could go either way on the theme reuse (on the one hand the original is so iconic that it would be impossible to top so there's no sense in trying, but on the other hand reusing it just seems lazy) but I will say that although I know it was just there for a cheap pop, opening the episode proper with the Winterfell theme and the camera cresting that hill like it was 2011 all over again worked on me exactly the way it was supposed to. And I do dig the new opening credits visuals much more than season 1. Turning it into a tapestry of the history of the Targaryen's matches the show's position as (essentially) an adaptation of a history book very nicely.
Late to the game here, but I agree with you. When HOTD first premiered I was kind of pissed they reused the theme. In the intervening time I actually completely forgot about it's reuse and sitting down last night to finally watch the premier I was pretty dang surprised and stoked to get to hear the total banger again
I love the theme too. But HotD really needed to establish its own footing distinct from GoT. Keeping the music felt like symptomatic of show trying to have its cake and eating it too. "See? We're Thrones too! But don't hate us for falling short on interesting characters, humor, intrigue, etc like that other show...But that banger theme, still Thrones!!"
I don't know, if HotD was going to attempt a vast departure in tone or themes from GoT, then maybe. (And we can certainly have a different discussion on the merits of doing so.) But it's emphatically not pursuing such a departure, and so I think the theme still fits.
It fits, but so too could a different theme that was also good and better communicated that this wasn't just drafting off of GoT's success.
Fair enough, I really didn't expect this to get so in the weeds. But that's why this place is great!
Maybe they could've split the difference and re-recorded the theme with a different instrument set? That might've been cool.
À la White Lotus season 2 theme song!
Ryan Condol literally said in the BTS that "We want viewers to remember they're watching Game Of Thrones" (on the Blood And Cheese scene). Good or bad, they're leaning into "We're Thrones, too!"
I'm confused by the huge gap between the instructions we see Daemon give Blood & Cheese and the instructions they repeat to each other in the keep. Daemon tells them straightforwardly to kill Prince Aemond Targaryen, complete with a physical description and a warning that he's a good fighter (so not a small child). I don't think we saw him say "a son for a son," or give any context or justification for the killing, and why would he, these are just mercenaries. But in the castle, they remember that line as a very specific instruction. I guess we're supposed to believe that he said that off camera, and that Blood & Cheese just have incredibly selective memory for instructions?
They do ask what happens if they can't find Aemond and we don't see Daemon's answer so may be inferred that he said a son for a son
It's interesting that for all the clearing up the show has done about the unreliable narration in the book that it allowed that particular lacuna to remain. The book is very clear that nobody knows exactly who Blood and Cheese were sent to kill, only that Daemon was the one behind their incursion. I wonder if they'll eventually loop back to that scene to nudge the viewer's perspective of Daemon in one direction or another (condoning infanticide versus being a hothead with bad taste in hired thugs) or keep it intentionally vague to allow us to each have our own idea of his culpability.
Ah that makes more sense, thanks
I am relieved that the pace and scenes are more like the final episodes of season 1. While it will never come close to those early seasons of GoT, this was a confident and good opener. Gorgeous as well, showing a lot of life in every scene. Also liked that Larys was not too much in the foreground. Wonder if Alicent will be angry at him, considering he vetted the castle's staff and did not weed out the world's dodgiest ratkiller.
I havent read the book but I know the final scene has apparently been toned-down. Still, I have to say I found it quite disturbing. Having the murder happen just off frame while the camera follows Heleana rush away with her other child felt like a horror movie. Overall, psyched to have this show back!
Honestly, I wonder if those people had their volume up high enough, because the sound effects alone were enough for me to suggest this was plenty horrific.
Heh, I was joking that this episode won the Zone of Interest award for "excellence in sound design of horrifying happenings off camera."
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of book readers complain that it was toned down, but… I’m good? I don’t think they needed to go any further than that.
As a fairly casual GoT and HotD viewer, I can confirm I also did not keep up with the names of the dragons and the kids. Can’t believe it’s been two years already!
>>He’s right about how her choice to not just burn up the entire family was dumb iin retrospect, though
Heh, and in foresight, really. She could've ended the war before it started. What's a dozen or so nobles dead compared to the carnage to come?
I haven't read Fire & Blood, so I didn't know what to expect at all from the final scene. I figured it would go awry in some way-- the cast is big enough that it could have survived the loss of Aemond, though I really doubted thar would happen-- but I did not expect that at all. Brutal and about to get very ugly.
I'm not sure if "honor" is the right word for Rhaenys's decision, but I think that discussion was there to highlight the differences between her somewhat twisted sense of honor to her family above all versus Daemon's more pragmatic point of view. After all, she could have started a war over being passed over for Viserys but acquiesced instead of striking a blow at the family dynasty. And there's also the fact that to the nobles, forcing thousands of commoners and vassals to fight and die on your behalf is their duty. But a half dozen instances of kinslaying? That's a no-no.
One of the bigger questions I had at the end of season 1 was how did the Blacks find out what happened to Luke. Like obviously once he did not return from such a short flight it'd be clear something went wrong. But would they know Aemond killed him?
So if I understood this episode's small council scene correctly, Alicent sent a letter to Rhaneyra apologizing for Aemond killing Luke? No wonder why Otto is frustrated with her. If this is what happened, I wish they had emphasized it a bit more. Feels like a major blunder from Alicent.
Also, I was under the impression the White Worm was killed on the fire Larys has set. Guess not! At least, in my opinion, her accent was not as weird in this episode as in last season.
A good example of the show using its "we're based on a history book" framing as justification: it doesn't expressly matter why people know what happened, but they clearly do, either because there were eyewitnesses, or Aemond bragged about it, etc. But the actual procedure of that, while something a show COULD focus on, is not really in the show's purview. There's a lot of hand-waving there.
Great point. There were definitely moments last year when it felt like we were just seeing a stretch of random scenes from a history book.
I had assumed that since the dragon didn’t return and word of the squabble at Storm’s End got out, everyone kind of just knew.
Her accent was definitely not as weird
Agreed, definitely toned down