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bogusavathepit · 2 years

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House of the Dragon: Episode 8 “They Were Supposed to Be Adults?! Was Anyone Even a Person?”

*CW: SA*

Ryan Condal, one of the showrunners, mentions in the post-episode interview on HBO that this episode was supposed to showcase Rhaenyra and Alicent’s children as grown adults now....

But this is basically why I think this is the bottom-ranked, dullest episode so far for me:

There is little nuance or complexity to our characters if it doesn’t serve Viserys’ Jesus-savior character development. Where is more of the political backstabbing aside from the Driftmark claim?

The tension and dread that the writers, directors, etc. created for us from the last episodes’ has disappeared and become a standard, almost impersonal presentation of the character’s emotions so that we only focus on Viserys’ death....when this is supposed to be a dramatic portrayal of several characters’ development.

And overall, the entire show appears to try to show how patriarchy degrades and victimizes queer people, women, the poor, etc. Basically those marginalized in a feudal, patriarchal society.

But most of the women in episode 8, more than before, are oversimplified, or they aren’t presented as impressive as they are described in Martin’s own lore and compared to the men around them. And even then, the men who aren’t Viserys seemed held back to make room for Viserys; “Last Supper”, as Condal calls it.

Pacing and Tone

as if someone were reading aloud either dispassionately or wanting to get to a certain point of the story

the episode that is the most explanatory than a display of action, i.e. exposition

very business-like: “here is what’s happening and what’s happened” for the first 20 minutes (1/5th of the entire episode)

compared to episode 6 and 4 which placed us in the place of having to figure out what is happening and piecing moments together

despite what Condal says at the end of the episode, it is 30 minutes in, where we finally get any hint of tension ramped up when we witness Rhaenyra and Rhaenys’ conversation, but they still shoot the scene with that uber-objective way (static torso-up, full body shots) rather than the past episode’s emotionally dynamic ones

Character Development

*Everyone feels more like pieces in a game rather than actors with agency in a game against each other, again compared to all the last episodes.*

Viserys

After listening to Jessi Gender’s points about the character’s screentime and comparative portrayals, it’s more obvious than ever to me that a lot of our empathy is screened towards Viserys.

that huge entrance with the half-mask to interrupt Rhaenyra

him making that walk unhelped (at first) in either an show of strength or with everyone supposedly too taken aback by his appearance--maybe both--

the same scene really showing versus telling us with how decayed he is compared to literally everyone else

camera moving with and in front of Viserys as if in his own perspective view (and no other characters received this kind of shot, so we are meant to empathize most/only with Viserys)

(same view) Rhaenyra & the two sides anticipating his approach--he comes in as her metaphorical savior

everyone conspiring against Lucerys/Rhaenyra looking extra-shocked: Vaemond swerving to Otto, who slowly gets up from his seat, both with their mouths open

at dinner, removes his mask and uses the hole in cheek/eye to discomfort and pull more focus to his words about how they should be more united in the face of his imminent death

camera staying on him as everyone else talks together after his speech with no suspision...as if his speech really could have solved years of conflict and hostility and distrust when all the others couldn’t?!

very last scene is of him struggling to breathe; Alicent leaving him alone, him reaching up saying, “No More” twice; a close up of a single tear rolling down the side of his face; a disturbing quiet; the cut to black as he whispers, “My Love”.

all shot either above his body/face or the left side parallel to him--centering him and his pain to lead up to that supper and his death

Instead of the many public and suggestive political clashes that would have occurred between Rhaenyra and Alicent and others inbetween the time Alicent and Rhaenyra fought and now when Rhaenyra returns. The issues between Alicent and Rhaenyra and their kids now that they are so emotionally distant do not feel substantial at all.

We get a Viserys that is hero-painted into being like a messiah character that Rhaenyra pleads to for intervention. The showrunners even said the words, “This is Viserys’ last supper”.

The actor, Paddy Considine, says of Viserys:

actor for him: all this fighting, this is what it does; this is what being a king does

AND

he was doing his duty...was too human to be king...kept his belief in the prophecy until the day he died....and that was ll he could do....so in some respects he want the right man for the job, but in history, 200 years later he was kinda the right man for the job. So he has a legacy.

Saying that Viserys has given a lot of himself to broker harmony between his relatives for the realm’s own peace, thus performing his own duty. But unfortunately this simplifies Viserys into being an all-suffering, near allegorical figure in a higher moral position than everyone else...when he himslef made the problems that sets the stage for the coming war.

Then there is the fact that his speech is supposed to make Alicent and Rhaenyra put aside their feud and let bygone be bygones, as if the feudal political ramifications depend entirely on modern familial re-bonding and agreeing on how much they love this one dying old man who they never really interact with on account of his being too sick to even leave his room all by himself for the past (at least) 3 years.

For the sake of Viserys’ Jesus status, we’ve also simplified Rhanyra, Alicent, Daemon, Vaemond and every child-young adult who the showrunners say are supposed to come into their own before the civil war....but really don’t.

Ryan Condal (paraphrase): The time jump supposed to introduce the kids as now adults (young adults) of the “17-21 age range”.

Jaecerys

Of all the time he lived, for the past 6 years in Dragonstone even....he now is trying to learn High Valyrian?!

His lack of knowing how to speak it seemed like an excuse to have him express his earnest desire to fight in the suggested conflicts against the greens and prove his strenght in the face of the countless illegitimacy rumors. It also seems let us know that he wants to prove himself to be as “Valyrian” as his parents and prove his legitimacy through his actions.

But we really only feel the emotional weight through our seeing the past episodes and that was even more focused on Aemond’s struggles than Jaecerys.

Though we can logically ascertain that this desire has come from Aemond calling him and his brothers bastards, the fact that he is one, and that incident with Alicent trying to take Lucerys’ eye/Rhaenyra getting hurt, the point is that because we don’t really see him alone with a very close shot maybe, struggling internally. We don’t get hit with that emotional impact that could accompany that logic, like how we saw Rhaenyra switch up when she was talking to Alicent in episode 4.

Rhaena/Baela

Baela is the more vocal, assertive and active than Rhaena, taking on that masculinized trait in contrast. However, they still are more devices of Rhaenyra-Viserys-Lucerys-Daemon than acting more for themselves or at least displaying the affection and ties they have with anyone other than Rhaenys. Their interactions with Rhaenys and anyone else doesn’t really last more than a few seconds in real time, and they both appear less emotionally close with Jaecerys and Lucerys and more in quiet agreement.

Rhaena is used to soften up Rhaenys for Rhaenyra (at least 40 mins in). Baela, stands beside Rhaenys against Vaemond in the first scene of the episode and doesn’t reallya chieve anything there. Her biggest act is a contribution to Rhanyra and Daemon when she writes them what Vaemond intends to do.

And in the dinner, Rhaena is smiling, silent, and pleading while her sister, while ready to fight Aegon, was seen more in the background being hel back than anything. It reminded me of when she was a child before Laena’s death and she said that single line over her possible marriage to the Pentoshi man. She doesn’t act maturer than then because the character isn’t allowed to other than emphasize the wrongs of Aegon’s actions.

Haelana

The woman who has been whispering prophetic sentences to herself and has only displayed something apart from that prophetic role interrupted Alicent’s confrontation with Aegon asking specifically about where her nanny/maid was. Motherhood again.

After another prophetic sentence, “Beware the beast beneath the boards”, she finally displays some personality by implying Aegon only pays attention to her when he’s drunk and wants a lay.....in a toast to her female cousins’ arranged marriages....after they themselves showed little to no real personality other than conciliatory vs flaccid antagonism.

In a dinner set up entirely with shots and acting meant for us to empathize with Viserys more than with anyone else at that table.

Aemond

The episode shows us his fighting skills and how the Velaryon boys (JAce) are intimidated by him and other then him calling them “stong” and fighting them, there’s not much else to Aemond. Just looking cool, observing with his admittedly cool eyepatch.

He also ignores Alicent’s rebuke, which is fine as it shows some sort of autonomy, but we’re not really given enough to feel his personhood. His and the other boys’ altercation is shown more to be an opposition to Viserys, our suffering man’s desires and makes them to be more...disobedient than pushed by political stakes.

Rhaenyra

We can’t really believe in Rhaenyra’s political power when we’re told to believe that she’s completely helpless without Viserys.

Rhaenyra’s authority or autonomy up until this point has been wrapped up entirely in her motherhood instead of being a part of it. The problem is that the writers, directors, etc have shown us Rhaenyra-as-mother far more than Rhaenyra-as-heir since episode 6. And now she feels both like she’s too helpless and too privileged, that she doesn’t do enough action on her own apart from her father backing her up like how she did when she confronted Daemon in episode 2. What we see as her independent attempts at power-consolidation is always followed by Viserys’ backing her in the moment, instead of just sometimes.

We don’t really get to see her apart from her children or their prospects and displaying more of the ambition that could have been hinted at in episode 5. There, Rhanyra tried to suggest to Cristin that she won’t go with him because of Aegon’s prophetic dream besides the disgrace it would bring to her father, her house, and its legacy. She doesn’t show some sort of pleasure in becoming the first female ruler of a patriarchal society so that this TV Rhaenyra would be connected more to the canon/Martin Rhaenyra who actively and willingly competed against the the canon/Martin Alicent.

We could have gotten so many more incidents after Alicent lost control and before Rhaenyra goes back to King’s Landing where she’s actively competing against Alicent, Otto, Cole, even Alicent’s kids in micro-situations. While Cersei also was obviously out to further her children’s prospects, she also canonically tried to gather alliances for herself as opposed to for her father or son, to instill others’ confidence in her decison-making and authority.

We get another moment where Rhaenyra extends an olive branches out to Rhaenys and Alicent in different ways, mirroring how she tried in episode 6 to Alicent. With which is to show her declined influence and control over her children’s prospects. It is a reflection of the public decline in her authority as the future ruler and heir.

Rhaneyra’s shown motivation for moving to Dragonstone came from that moment where her breasts leaked in the council of mainly men as she stuck out that marriage proposal that Alicent unsubtly refused. Which implies that her already fragile authority will be always be compromised by her motherhood when she struggles to be taken seriously in a room of men culturally unfamiliar with child-rearing and childcare and who also do not see masculinized “strength” in those things and their consequences (since death is not involved as a risk).

And when she goes to visit Viserys again, alone in the night, she brings up Aegon I’s dragon dream and how she thought she wanted that responsibility to lead the realm against a “common foe”. So we are meant to see her as overburdened from a constant stress of keeping her position against the greens

but it is also too easy to look at how she lives apart in Dragonstone with Daemon and her kids (before Baela’s message) and think that she hasn’t really hasn’t had to face the greens head on. They seem too settled and there isn’t an indication she has been fighting.

And the reason why is because we aren’t given any scenes apart from the nipple leak situation and then this Driftmark event where she would have not won anything and been subject to the farce (unlike how Tyrion took some control when he was put on trial) if Viserys hadn’t stumbled into court.

It’s tiring to see the imbalance when we’re told that Rhaenyra is supposed to be a baddie. Her personhood gets pulled back, always, to Viserys and his suffering apart from it being tied to her motherhood.

Alicent

Condal said that Alicent basically works to atone for that one incident of losing her composure by devoting herself to the religion of the Seven and being more repressive while also having less control over her children’s violent and predatory actions.

The problem here aside from the children being, again, an element that interruots than adds, is that all that tension is lost and we move into Alicent-as-Viserys’ caretaker. Instead of her as her own political manipulator, like how she’s displayed in her new clothes before the supper and how Martin writes her in the canon lore.

What makes Alicent interesting is not her willful actions, but how she is so feeble against other’s intentions. It doesn’t change into her adulthood.

It’s to be expected that she could again despite her clear attempt to restrain herself, or the attempt to exude more force while also showing “appropriate” restraint....a futile, self-effacing task. Following the showrunner’s comments about how they developed Alicent’s character as being like a “Trumper” who only follows both her father’s suggestive and vocalized instructions in perpetual fear, she’s more lukewarm because. An oversimplification of her motivation at the very beginning which also make her too modern...this is a medieval, fuedal state here!

It also makes her too supectible to Otto’s influence, yet when we see Otto again, he’s not doing much, which makes it too easy for us to think that Alicent’s actions are coming only from her as an alternative to the idea that Otto’s influence is total and inescapable.

Alicent does seem to have the most autonomous development of the women presented to us in this episode. When she talks to Dyana, the raped servant girl, she appears to see Dyana’s lack of bodily autonomy and her ability to seek out proper justice for it in herself. We also see that element where Alicent considers how this may reflect on her son’s prospects of becoming king and even having a good public reputation and how this quickly becomes Alicent intimidating the girl with the possibility of the court blaming and going after Dyana.

Some of us might remember Cersei and how she definitely would have killed Dyana or somehow mutilated her for a cover up and wondered if Alicent would be as authoritarian. There is tension here. there is also tension when she confronts Aegon, displaying a struggle to restrain her anger (not violence) while trying to get Aegon to see the danger he provoked not only on himself but her and her daughter/his sister-wife, Halaena. The episode compels us to compare her even more to Cersei, but now even to Daenerys by her outfit changes and the portrayal of how she deals with her unruly son: will she kill the girl like Cersei would? How close is she really to losing her shit again?

But when Halaena, her daughter/daughter-in-law, comes in and interrupts her confrontation with Aegon asking about her own kids and their nanny-maid, we don’t get anything more from that moment as it seems Alicent lets her anger against Aegon’s predation go.

Despite her looking like Cersei with that thickly fitted, modest A-line-ish gown up to her neck/chin, her hair up and not framing her shoulders as before with the sharp epaulettes out, like Daenerys of GoT’s last seasons.

Daemon

(I like this) He is still a bitch, as we see his sarcastic self with Alicent.

What is more contentious for me is this: his new and more open emotional vulnerability in this episode is more tied to Viserys’ suffering than personal ambition. The nuance of his desires is lost.

He displays more open concern and gentleness towards his family than he ever did before even before he goes to King’s Landing as we see him gather the eggs Syrax lays presumably for Rhaenyra and Joffrey, lay a hand on her pregnant belly as they consider going back, and helping Viserys on the throne in his big moment.

But we’re cut to a shot of Daemon’s face and only Daemon’s...when before we literally were about to hear Rhaenyra speak. Couldn’t we have gotten more people since that scene showed all the players in one place? And before Vaemond really gets into his uproar against Viserys, we shoot to Daemon’s face (instead of Lucerys, or better Rhaenyra) as he talks about how Viserys can’t be allowed to decide the succession/future of the Velaryon house after having flouted tradition by installing Rhaenyra as heir. That act allowed us to contrast Vaemond’s flaccid attempt at rebellion to Daemon’s more “charming” ones in the past.

And why exactly is Daemon coming across as more charming? One, because he’s safe in his position as a prince and Visery’s favored brother, but here in this episode it’s because Vaemond is the one-dimensional device to make way for Viserys’ supper scene. As Viserys is the one the epsiode ahs us empathesize with the most, Vaemond comes across as more his powerless antagonist than a person with complicated, substantial struggles against a specific political setting. We are asked to pity Viserys more than pity Vaemond, and we don’t have any pity for Vaemind aho also comes across as clueless.

Daemon is Viserys’ protector in that scene, and thus we sympathesize more with him than we do Vaemond. And we do so easier because we didn’t get to see Vaemind’s struggles with Rhaenyra’s sons being allowed be called Velayrons over the past few years until this one explosive moment.

Why should we feel more for Daemon as opposed to Vaemond when they both suffer from this second-son syndrome?

Vaemond

Vaemond brings up how Corlys only ever cared about the house’s legacy instead of its current material prosperity/survival and this is his assumed motivation. Besides upholding the tradition allowing him to take the Driftmark throne/seat.

One problem is that, canonically, it’s not just that Vaemond dies but his own wife and kids were “punished” by Viserys for Vaemond’s protest. Viserys not hurting Vaemond’s family after his death removes that layer to Viserys’ image because it narrows down his character to being the put-upon sufferer and sacrificer for everyone else.

The unequivocal “good guy” vs this new threat that is actually shown to be more of a nuisance than a real threat at the end. And it’s fine to have a static character, but the issue is that his purpose in being an obstacle is without enough empathy versus the drama we receive.

There are two different ways the people working in this show feel about Vaemond (paraphrasing):

Miguel Sapocnik, a showrunner: he’s one of those guys that’s not particularly likeable but always tells the truth, so it’s never gotten him far in life....yet he finds himself close to inherit and finds himself in the middle of the strife b/t the two sides...because of his attitude about upholding tradition, he doesn’t perceive how just how “much” everyone “cares” about this issue of the boys’ parentage...“he becomes a sympathetic character, he dies with a little bit of honor”

Wil Johnson, actor for Vaemond: Vaemond is no-nonsense. He will speak out about the boys’ illegitimacy in spite of how everyone else won’t. He is a truthteller who’s been resentful of Viserys, Corlys, and the Targaryens for almost 20 years, so whsn he sees that he won’t become the new head of his house, he decides that he will die on his own terms.

But I think he comes across more as a fool than a hero. We keep shooting between him, Viserys, Daemon and Lucerys, and moments before his death in the throne room, we see Daemon leering at him to take that final step towards him killing him.

He hasn’t had that complex a characterization apart from: questioning Corlys in episode 3 and now Rhaenyra/Rhaenys/Lucerys’ right to have Driftmark.

The audience also doesn’t expect Vaemond (as opposed to Daemon) to succeed in his attempt to gain power or respect because plus he seems to stand alone in the middle of the two closely-standing sides while being so antagonistic to a sick man and a child. It implies that Vaemond has no true allies, and no one really agrees or tolerates him and with his very simple role, why should we?

Actually, I can reference 3 different times: he stood alone against Baela and Rhaenys; in the conference room; even though there was agreement, Otto and Alicent are family and allies against his lonesome; when he walked surrounded by the Kingsguard, strutting past past Jace and Luke

When he’s with Otto and Alicent before the throne scene, he comes across as slimy, as he keenly plots alongside Otto, our resident boogeyman. We don’t get much in terms of his possible confliction, so we feel less empathy or confliction over his removal.

So he ends up looking more like he is throwing tantrums that the audience, in the last few episodes, tolerate more in Daemon than Vaemond. Daemon acts more affectionately to his family members, especially his rotting brother-king, Viserys.

Again, why should we feel more for Daemon as opposed to Vaemond when they both suffer from this second-son syndrome? Vaemond acting out of line is more him acting tyrannically against the Targaryens than that plus other issues that Daemon himself had faced at one point.

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