#also hotd book spoilers i guess idk

[agentsmiths]

the pacing in hotd is as bad as got s8

[kristinakyidyl]

S1e7 Trailer

Hey, it's that time again where I amuse myself by going through the next HotD episode in great detail and see how much I can correctly guess.

As always *THIS POST HAS SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK*.

We open on Laena's funeral, and I really like that they added some more cultural detail here by showing us the funeral traditions of house Velaryon. I also think that it is interesting that Laena was first cremated in the way of House Targaryen and then buried in the way of House Velaryon. It makes me think that Daemon must have cared to go through the trouble of arranging that for her.

Next we have the funeral group, and they're again leaning into the color coding. Interesting to me that Viserys never wears green during these kinds of things.

When we saw the funeral in the series trailers before the season started, a lot of people were looking at that overhead shot of the coffin and saying that the water looked too shallow and you couldn't see any previous coffins, but here we get a shot of the coffin sinking and there are others in the background, which I thought was neat:

The next interesting thing to me was Vhagar. Now, I'm pretty sure the claiming by Aemond happens at night, so this isn't from that. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm glad we'll get more than one shot of Granny Vhagar.

Vhagar again, a shot down her mouth as she's about to breathe fire. I think this is during Aemond's claiming of her:

Ok, this is hard to see bc of the size, but what we're looking at is Baela and Rhaena looking out a window at Driftmark, with a dragon walking through the scene at night. It's *probably* them seeing Vhagar when Aemond claims her. During the claiming there's an altercation between Aemond and Rhaenyra's kids wherein Aemond loses his eye (shoutout to Dreamer Helaena.). If it's happening at night, then someone has to wake the boys up so they go down there and see what's going on. So I think what happens is that the twins see or hear a disturbance and wake up the boys.

I especially think that because the next shot is of the girls waking up another child with dark hair, likely Jace:

Next there is this scene of Daemon, still at Driftmark (maybe Dragonstone? But I think most of this episode happens on Driftmark.), breaking someones' neck. I have no *idea* who this is, but I'm going to add a closer up pic we get from later in a trailer and maybe you guys can tell me who you think it is. My only guess is Laenor's boyfriend Qarl Correy, and this is Daemon covering his tracks after paying Qarl to kill Laenor. Qarl DOES kill Laenor in the books, and it's portrayed as a lovers' quarrel by Gyldayn, but Mushroom says that Daemon paid Qarl to kill Laenor and then murdered Qarl. So...I'm thinking that Mushroom might be right here. It's hard to tell in the second screenie, but that's Daemon grabbing him from behind.

That first screenie there is followed by this one of Laenor fighting with someone, presumably Qarl. It's also an interesting mirror of their play fight in e6, and his play fight with Joffrey. This is likely Laenor's death scene.

There's this scene at a dock, and IDK what dock and who that is in the foreground. Typically it's Daemon that we see skulking around in a cloak, but now that we have Larys to account for there could be more spy-type stuff, or more people creeping around wanting to be unnoticed.

I'm only going to put one screenie from this scene, but there are a lot in the trailer. It's the aftermath of Aemond losing his eye, where Alicent takes the catspaw dagger from Viserys and tries to stab Rhaenyra. Baela and Rhaena are there, and Corlys and Rhaenys are coming down the stairs. It's at Driftmark. The one thing that has always struck me as odd about this scene was that Rhaenyra is crying in the close ups of her face. Now...in the book, Laenor dies 6 months after Laena does, and this scene is happening during the aftermath of Laena's funeral (as it does in the book.). But...for the sake of brevity and time jumps, I'm wondering if Laenor does concurrently or shortly before this end up dying and *that's* why Rhaenyra is crying. So Laenor dies while Vhagar is being claimed, Rhaenyra is told he was killed, and then they find out about Aemond in quick succession so she hasn't even had time to stop crying about Laenor's death before learning that Alicent wants to poke her kid's eye out.

These next two shots are from the altercation itself. The first is Jace and Luc, one in the foreground and one injured in the background. The second is Baela and Rhaena looking on. It tracks with the idea that they see Aemond stealing Vhagar, wake the boys, and the 4 of them go to investigate. The boys try to stop Aemond and then the fight happens.

Otto the Asshole is back, and is made hand again. I was really hoping we'd get more of a reprieve from him, but no. He's back.

Alicent and Larys exchanging a look...and I think Rhaenyra standing next to Otto? IDK she's the only one with hair that color and texture at the moment. I'm assuming this is him being like "you're welcome for bringing your dad back".

Vhagar being stolen by Aemond. There are a lot of scenes of this.

This is Otto hauling one of his grandkids up by his shirt front. I can't tell which one, but I suspect it's Aemond. I wonder if maybe it's Otto that puts the idea in his head to steal the dragon in the first place. In which case....wow, fuck you, Otto. You gave not a single fuck if your grandkid got burned alive.

And that's it for this week's trailer. Basically there's not a TON about it that's a mystery. Seems like they go to Driftmark, Vhagar gets stolen, the fight happens, and Laenor dies. That makes me think that if that's the case, then 7 to 8 will be the last major time jump. I think the thing I'm most likely to be wrong about is Laenor's death. Because next episode is called "Lord of the Tides", and Laenor's death/Daemon and Rhaenyra being married is the last thing to happen before Viserys dies and the Dance really starts. So it could be that Laenor dies in ep 8, but IDK.

What did you guys think of this week's episode?

[gotgifsandmusings]

On the podcast you mentioned already being spoiled on the dance to a degree by the other books/comments made on the show. I'm curious how Unsullied you are and if you want to read the book now that you're watching?

Uh, *SUPER VAGUE SPOILERS FOR HOTD BELOW THE CUT* I guess. But yeah, this is what I know through osmosis:

Rhaenyra gets dicked over by her bro

Prior to the pilot I actually didn't know anything about Alicent's role in this, or that there was a character called Alicent Hightower at all, but it seems pretty clear where it's headed (mom of the bro)

Dragons fight each other

Criston Cole is an incel

Criston Cole hates Dornish

There's greens and blacks and also a princess and a queen. Rhaenyra is definitely one of those

Apparently it's the choosing sides that's awful, even though there needs to be a line of succession so idk what your solution is Shireen

Dorne was still not under Targ rule during the kerfuffle

I sort of vaguely want to read the book now, but since Caroline says the book's one trick is the PoV thing, and the show doesn't really skip anything, I probably will feel less like it as the show goes on. I don't love not knowing what's going to happen, but I do like the idea of staying mostly Unsullied throughout it for the benefit of the podcast.

[cityjacket]

spoilers for hotd s2

why…. Did they make it so that Halaena only has 2 kids and not 3????

Am I tripping? In the books she had two boys and a girl. Not one boy and one girl.

The scene feels so much less impactful, especially with the children sleeping. Like the whole point in the books was supposed to be the Sophie’s Choice situation but between her two sons and the betrayal felt by the son who was forced to live after being chosen as a sacrifice by his mother. “Pick which son will live,” not, “hey which one is your son so we can kill him easier?” It feels so much cheaper this way. And the fact she just does it????? Like no struggle, no begging, no threats? Idk I guess they were going for the “quiet kind” of tension and yes it was tense but it wasn’t a hold-your-breath moment for me at least. It could’ve been executed better.

edit adding to this:

another layer of why the tension felt so weak is because it was so contrived

“oh no! How can we tell which twin a boy so we can murder him? Oh, wait, the mother will know!”

Instead of the totally logically option of just checking which toddler has what parts, which would have been actually logical and realistic to do even if it was fucked up and would’ve been done in the early seasons GoT era asoiaf adaptations (back when we weren’t scared of protagonists with moral complexity). But no, that makes too much sense. We’ll just hold the mother at knife point and make her identify the boy. And we’ll just take her word for it. It’s simply the only way!

like dude. What killer who is specifically looking for the boy to murder wouldn’t get actual evidence that he did in fact kill the boy.

it’s contrived tension. Like in order for the tension to work we have to ignore all logic and reasoning and common sense.

so THAT makes it fall flat too

and it also falls flat because, again, the entire tragedy of Haelena was being forced to choose which son to live, and they kill the opposite one she chooses just to fuck with her and ruin her with guilt. And it’s not contrived by “oh we can’t which one is the heir, identify him,” it’s, “we don’t give a fuck which one is which - pick your favorite.” Maybe it would’ve landed better if instead of B&C being all “a son for a son” they were on some “blood for blood” type shit and pulled a “we don’t give a fuck which is which, pick your favorite to live,” and then did the double cross thing again just to be cruel.

and seriously, blood and cheese was an accident???? I think it would’ve landed better if we had a moment of Daemon seriously underestimating their capacity for cruelty or being more overtly purposeful. Giving them vague orders but leaving it open ended — which he kinda did but they still left him with that deniability. I don’t want Daemon to get deniability. He ordered this, he should relish it and almost brag about it to Rhae.

Or, if it truly was an accident, I want Daemon to have a moment of shock like everyone else. A private moment of “oh shit. I did not think they would take it this far. Well damn, I guess this is who I am now. Let’s roll with it and try our best to leverage this.” Also it would’ve added complexity to Rhaenyra I think to have people accuse Daemon, she defends Daemon in public, but then in private their fight goes the same way. It would show a level of rationalization on her part of the sins of her camp and looking over other people’s actions that they take on her behalf so long as she is not the one who did it. I think it would be a nice juxtaposition to her vs Alicent’s sense of moral superiority. A parallel. The girls are each other’s foils and mirrors.

I just can’t deny at this point that in this season Team Green is far more compelling and better written. Everyone is complaining that Team Black is being sanitized (because the writers want everyone to root for them and like them) and that they’re clearly the favorite because they “can do no wrong” BUT I think that by robbing Team Black of their complexity from the books and watering down things like B&C, what the writers are actually demonstrating is a bit of boredom and dislike towards Team Black.

Writers will pour so much into the complexity and the drama of their favorite characters. You can FEEL the thought that has been behind every Team Green scene in this show. Those scenes hit DEEP these last two episodes. Their dynamics and family are captivating on screen. The intricate web of their personal relationships and the way they act and react as people is a pleasure to watch and HOOKS me. Team Black’s writing has been just so… bland. Dull. Boring. At least for these last two episodes.

I think the writers may be technically on Team Black but that they LOVE Team Green’s characters and are very invested in their stories way more than Team Black’s. It’s just crazy the way they knock it out of the park every Team Green scene with all of these deep character moments and how it propels these characters’ narratives so much and these last two episodes Team Black has just fallen kinda flat.

but I do think that by changing B&C, both teams were robbed of the biggest highlight of their stories (from the books)

ok rant over.

[mummer]

One more think, since they'll almost certainly choose which theory of what happened at Harrenhal was true, which one do you think they will go with and which one would you want? I would guess they'll have Larys Strong being behind it.

i gave this some thought and i def believe it was daemon who set the fire. He is perfectly and incredibly willing to just fucking murder people to get what he wants (rhaenyra). he kills rhea to free himself up for marriage and almost certainly orders the hit on laenor to free rhaenyra up imo. it's completely in line with his actions and intentions for him to remove harwin, a rival for her affections. In contrast i don't really see what larys materially gains by going full kinslayer here. he wouldn't need to be lord of harrenhal to be named master of whisperers; plenty of second sons get court appointments of that level. ik larys' motivations are really inscrutable and he is a torturer who is willing to do murders but he just doesnt benefit from pulling this whereas daemon definitely does!