#idk how to tag it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yappathon · 3 months ago

Text

My honest gripe with HOTD as an adaption of one of my favourite books:

(disclaimer, I am team black and this is my opinion so dont like dont engage, just block and move on i'm not interested in convincing anyone or debating about it xoxo)

This is going to be a long post, I'm just making a list of everything at once so I dont have to make multiple posts about it, its going to be a long one with lot of over explaining so just strap in:

1. HOTD fumbled the Laenor/Rhaenyra/Harwin triangle

I dislike how the show takes the route of erasing ambiguity out of Rhaenyra's children's parentage out of it and makes it obvious. For me when I read f&b, the discussion of it especially since Book!Rhaenys had dark hair, was intentionally done in bad faith to find any reason to discredit Rhaenyra's claim as the Heir and to sully her reputation. It wouldn't have mattered to them if Laenor was father or not, her enemies simply weaponised it to use against her (misogyny).

HOTD should have kept Dark Haired Rhaenys especially since her season 1 wig was egregious and should have not casted a caucasian man as Harwin Strong since they changed the race of Velaryon's to adapt to the ambiguity. I think they should have changed Harwin's race as well 🤷‍♀️.

They purposefully erased the ambiguity by making Rhaenys silver haired woman and I could not think of why other than the fact that this change made Rhaenyra looked stupid and incompetent like ?

2. Book Rhaenys would spit on Show Rhaenys

They did her so dirty, adapted her so poorly I have no words like I'm flabbergasted, you could not even call them the same character.

B!Rhaenys was literally Rhaenyra's closest and arguably one of her biggest supporters. Show Rhaenys on the other hand, oh boy. From the moment of their first conversation you could tell that she was out to get Rhaenyra like idk the actress who plays her, plays her with a very haughty smug demeanor.

Show Rhaenys treats Rhaenyra's sons (J+L+J) coldly, having being offended on her son's behalf while her son is perfectly happy with this arrangement and treats those boys as her son. But during S2, she happily accepts her husband's bastards 😭😭 bro where is your sense of self. I wish I could say that this was the only stupid decision she made this season but I literally cannot believe that she advised Rhaenyra to find peace and sneak into Kings Landing.

She feels more like a mouthpiece for someone rather than her own character (like remember when at the end of Season 1, she gave Alicent grand speech about how Alicent toils in service of men in her life blah blah... literally pot calling kettle black) and I blame the writers team for that completely.

tldr; Rhaenys in the book seems like the kind of character who had been robbed of their birthright so she died to make sure Rhaenyra got hers. Rhaenys in the show is the kind of character that is bitter about her stolen birthright and internalises it and takes it out on Rhaenyra rather than the system in the sense that instead of a leaning support she feels like an obstacle of sorts in regards to Rhaenyra

3. The Alicent dilemma

Oh boy where to even start with this can of worms. First things first, I have to say I was a tentative fan of Season 1 Alicent but I am not the fan of the route her character is taking in Season 2.

I thought de-ageing Alicent and ageing up Rhaenyra was a choice. I have a love-hate relationship with it. As a sapphic woman myself I thought young RhaenyraxAlicent was cute but the writers are dragging it and both the characters are suffering for it.

So I know the majority of book fans and show fans agree on the point that Book!Alicent is a one dimensional character of an evil stepmother trope but I have an unpopular opinion about it. I agree that B!Alicent can come across as one dimensional and it was intentional because F&B is a history book written by misogynistic men and all the women would suffer from it.

I think Book!Alicent's motives of crowning her son as the King is a perfectly sensible in universe motivation where male primogeniture is commonplace (considering that was the only reason Viserys became king) and felt slighted that her son was denied the right. The motivation does not condone her actions but at least it makes sense in the context of the world.

Show!Alicent on the other hand feels like nothing but a perpetual victim. She is a chess piece and not particularly powerful either. All her agency and ambition is stripped off of her.

When we see Adult Show Alicent for the first time, her and Rhaenyra are hostile hostile and I was happy with the doomed yuri we got and that we are somewhat on the track but then.... sigh

In the same episode we see Adult Rhaenyra offering to betroth Jace and Haelaena as a while flag but Alicent rejects it without considering it at all. Alicent undermines Rhaenyra constantly but then in S2 when her allies turned on her because surprise surprise misogyny... she had her soul searching journey like gtfo i hated the storyline

Comparing it to the Book, where the Green Council was originally called The Queen's Party. Book Alicent was an active player who made decisions.

Like oh my god, remember how they butchered Show Alicent during Blood and Cheese like omg I'm convinced the showrunner actually hates woman like first Rhaenys then Alicent... (not to mention Helaena like, the show tried to make Helaena dragon dreamer and fumbled it, didnt even have her crowned alongside Aegon)

The Green Council plotting in the show versus the book tells you everything about this adaptation of Alicent.

4. How ageing up and down undermines the book canon negatively

Ok but HOTD failed as an adaptation when the victim in the books is villainized and while her abusers are victimised.

The amt of Rhaenyra coerced Cole into having sex with her takes that came out during S1 was so mind boggling. Especially in the books when Alicent herself says "Ser Criston Cole protects the princess from her enemies but who protects the princess from Ser Criston Cole" (I am paraphrasing), like this is egregious.

Book!Aemma being a child-bride forced to marry Viserys when she was only eleven and she dies at just twenty three (!), the show aged her up to be in her early thirties at least by casting a much older actress (Sian Brooke who plays Aemma was born in 1980) while Book!Alicent was eighteen when she married Viserys while the show aged her down to 14-16 (I am unsure).

5. Erasure of female characters and medieval politics

Rhaenyra's Ladies in Waiting were all not adapted to the screen. Except for Elinda Massey who they turned into a maid-midwife-wetnurse and had her dressed as literally servant rather than a noble woman. Rhaenyra has no other friends or loyal companions in the show, Harwin's sisters are also erased with no mention at all.

And now from what I've read Nettles has also been erased like fuck off

5. Suffering from the eight episodes per season problem

So this doesnt have anything to do with the way they've been adapted Fire & Blood but I don't think eight episodes per season was the right medium to adapt this story. Because of this format the children of Rhaenyra and Alicent arent given enough screentime to develop and for general people to care about them, S2 felt like most happened during that and still nothing happened at all. The general audience are only emotionally connected to Rhaenyra and Alicent as they both are the only characters in the show to appear to have an arc or journey.

I really miss that we did not get a filler episode during time skip of Rhaenyra and Daemon on Dragonstone with their children so we can gauge their family dynamics like what is adult Daemyra's normal relationship like? how is their relationship with their children or stepchildren? Atleast something so when at the end of S1 Daemon chokes Rhaenyra (jesus christ) we atleast feel something other than shock and disgust like I hope you understand what I am trying to say here.

I think HOTD would have benefitted with a 26 episodes, hell even a 13 episodes season. The Episodes were needed to flesh out the cast of ensemble of characters

6. Laena and the disrespect to her and Rhaena

Laena and Rhaenyra might only have a single line in the books about their implied relationship but that was the excellent opening to flesh it out, instead Laena was de-aged (Laena was in her early twenties when Daemon pursues her rather than late teens). In the most blunt way, Laena was treated as a disposable black girlfriend trope whose was dishonored at her own funeral.

Laena is not fleshed out, forget implied relationship Rhaenyra is not even with her in the birthing chambers, they're not shown as nothing more than acquainted strangers and i hate it, i hate it so much

The show also attempts to other Rhaena because she doesn't have a dragon (Season 2) which makes no sense at all, it's attempting something and failing at it, it's not interesting, it's not working, it's not good. They're changing her story too and all it does is cause her misery, oh my god Let Rhaena be accepted and Loved.

Why was Rhaenyra mourning Luke scene cut with a scene with Alicent lighting a candle for him but we did not get Rhaena or any of Luke's siblings mourning for him.

7. What are they doing with Daemon?

Like seriously what are they doing with him? Daemon did nothing this season at all. The writers knew Daemon would never allow for the fuckass sneaking into KL, but they wanted it so badly so they had him hallucinate the entire reason. What a waste of Matt Smith.

8. Adding meaningless characters while erasing existing ones (why tf is Ormund Hightower needed)

Yesterday Ryan Condal reported that Ormund Hightower is going to have a big role in Season 3 and I just have one question, why? who needs more irrelevant characters when they should flesh out the ensemble of already existing ones.

Ok so Nettles was erased from HOTD plotline (an important character who is a black woman btw), along with Sabitha Frey and Black Aly but they added khia #13 to the main rooster.

(Spoiler for Season 3) Jace is going to die during Season 3 and the general audience wont even care that much because the writing team is fucking ass !

9. What is the show timeline again and casting decisions?

Seriously what is the show timeline, because every interview the writers did during Season 2, the ages of children of R & A is ambiguous as fuck like, fucking up ages has actually fucked the timeline.

And before I talk about casting decisions, disclaimer I am not hating on actors or I think they are bad actors, I think all the actors are phenomenal who did a phenomenal job with what they were given.

With that out of the way, I think Aemond is miscast because his actor looks older than he is and when placed alongside Luke's actor, it does not look like a squabble between 17-19 year old and a 13-14 yr old, it looks like a man in his late twenties harassing a child 😭 especially in regards to the actor they cast as Aegon and he looks much younger than Aemond's actor

And while I am not against the decision to make the Velaryon's black, I can't help but feel like it was done thoughtlessly and without much care because Jaeherys I's mother is a Velaryon yet he is depicted as a white man in the show instead of mixed. Both Jaeherys and Alyssane would be half black, making all the future Targaryen's to be of mixed race.

10. Who stole whose nachos?

In the books, it was actually Viserys and Alicents wedding anniversary tourney feast (squint im not 100% sure about the occasion) that Alicent wore a green gown and it was Rhaenyra who upstaged it by arriving in a bold black and red gown, rather than the other way around as seen in the show.

Instead of Jace, Luke and Aegon teaming up against and bullying Aemond as seen in the show, in the books it was Aegon, Aemond and Daeron teaming up against Rhaenyra's children because they felt like Rhaenyra + children stole their birthright, the iron throne

Instead of Daemon commanding the Council in Rhaenyra's absence (S1), it was actually Rhaenys who did that in the books

Rhaenicents got Laenyra's nachos plain and simple

and I'm only giving this from the top of my head, there's probably a few more that I am not remembering.

11. Saintly peace loving women

HOTD pretends to be a 'feminist' adaptation by changing the one dimensional female characters of books (intentionally done so by misogynistic maesters) but it fails at it. In trying to develop the female characters and making them more real, they are stripped of their agency and ambitions. They are not allowed to be petty and ambitious and morally gray ie Alicent Rhaenyra Rhaenys Helaena while other female characters are erased completely and its very frustrating because regardless what twitter says The Dance of Dragons was always about misogyny and how Green Council gathered alliances to try to strip Rhaenyra of her birthright just because of her gender.

Oh they can try to disguise it as gender not mattering and doing only whats good for realm as Rhaenyra would not be a good ruler but the guy they want on the throne is so infinitely worse in every way that their propaganda fails.

In the end, while making big changes in S1 (age) the writers have cornered themselves where they can do nothing but dig the hole deeper. They had a biased history book and all they had to do was expand some parts of it that was sensible but no.....

It might stand well as a show if S2 was a better season and I can only hope they can redeem themselves in S3, because they've already failed as an adaptation of a book but it can still be a good entertaining show and that's literally our best bet.

50 notes · View notes