HotD

Mrs Figg wrote:Anyway. I DIVED into episode one of HotD and it was pretty much like season one of GoT. Lots of set up and character reveals. There was the need for a good set up because there are so many similar and confusing names its ridiculous. It was a slow start but I quite enjoyed watching Matt Smith chew up the scenery. He was the best thing about it. Not sure about Princess Nut Nuts and her little monkey face, but she may develop a character. She has a big butch armoured minder who pops up to give her information, bit like having a sarcastic Ser wikipedia, but it can kill you.
It looks great, and we get to see Harrenhal before it goes nasty.

Smith is very entertaining, true.
But Considine is very good as the king too. He expresses a wide range, and believably too.

Yes he does make a good king. I expect bad things are going to happen to him.

Indubitably, the man is too nice. (But of course the showrunners are fucking with that by also having him be a murderer of his wife. Rather poor writing there.)

I've seen a clip or writing where it's said that they agonized over that scene, finally deciding that if they made it clear she was going to die anyway they could get away with it. Not sure if they made that clear.

I think probably historically it was pretty accurate, and not really murder in our sense. I reckon a lot of kings would choose a first born son over the wife. Women were only important as brood cattle most of the time. It didn't seem to be out of keeping in that regard.

So is everyone back to liking the Game of Thrones franchise again (for now)?

*Still haven't read or seen any of it!

By any of it do you mean the original as well?

I'm not watching it because I'd have to subscribe to HBO, so will at least wait for the episodes to pile up so I can binge it.

Mrs Figg wrote:I think probably historically it was pretty accurate, and not really murder in our sense. I reckon a lot of kings would choose a first born son over the wife. Women were only important as brood cattle most of the time. It didn't seem to be out of keeping in that regard.

Nonsense.

And Halfy, yeah I don't think they made it nearly clear enough. At least have the woman dying damnit, instead of just tired out in-between pushing attempts.

malickfan wrote:So is everyone back to liking the Game of Thrones franchise again (for now)?

*Still haven't read or seen any of it!

The first episode was promising. Hopefully the fact that Fire and Blood is a finished piece of work we won't get all the bollocks we got with GoT.

On the wife dying thing, I thought it was clear that the maester said it was a choice between killing one or probably both dying.

Sure he said that, but it's one thing to say it and another to show the wife struggling against her killers. The "show" overpowers the "tell" in that situation.

Well... she was struggling because she didn't want to die and hadn't been told herself that this was the only chance that one of them would survive. Not sure why they didn't tell her as might have gone a bit better.

The Queen tells the king that its their last shot at having a kid, as she has had enough. so the pressure is on to have a male heir. its his last chance, that's why he chooses the kid over the wife.

Its a solid first episode. Its got the usual blood and guts, but its a slow burn.

The maester clearly told him its one or both and the wife wasn't going to be the one. I think if it were one or the other he would have chosen the boy but I am sure he didn't actually have a choice. Either kill you wife or let her die anyway.... child optional.

It's done to shock the audience. It's misery-porn.

Then its in the fine tradition of GoT misery porn. Who could forget Sansa and the Boltons.

Good old Ramsey Bolton. Role model for all the boys.

That incident was a bit egregious because in the books it wasn't Sansa, it was Jeyne Poole masqueraded as Arya. But one can understand wanting a more important character front and center.

I wonder what the next theme in episode 2 will be. Episode 1 was obviously primogeniture.

They'll all sit around a table and talk things out. Might be some hot tea involved.

Introducing some other dragons and probably some political posturing.

After talking everything out, episode 3 will be devoted to a game of charades.

Hot tea in Hot D.

Just saw the opening segment on youtube.  How lazy to reuse the same music, I'd think they could at least riff off the original.  And the visuals are not nearly as cool as sweeping over Westeros.  They could have done far, far better. Is this the actual intro or a fan mock-up?  What a dud.

Yeah it's not amazing. The blood is too edgy.

I'm actually enjoying the show though, which is incredible after all these years of mediocre Game of Thrones.

The scene at Dragonstone with the confrontation on the ramp was great. The two dragons, the tension, Rhys Ifans and Matt Smith.. And monkey-girl, Milly Alcock apparently, was quite good as well.

Rhys Ifans' Otto is one of my favourite characters so far. He has excellent force of personality, and you can really see why he is the Hand of the king.

The crab-feeding thing seemed so dumb. Crabs are scavengers first and foremost, and having them eating people alive, even if those people have been beach-crucified, seems dumb.
I mean in the first episode the crabfeeder is said to be drowning people on the beach, which is what happens in the book apparently, but now in this episode we need to have people being eaten alive.

I liked the ending scene too with Corlys or whoever, mop-head I mean, plotting with Daemon. And Daemon telling him to shut it when Corlys started talking trash about the king. He clearly cares about his brother still, and it is incredibly refreshing to see some nuanced characters.
May the retarded characters of Game of Thrones (Ramsay Bolton, late-stage Danaerys, Euron Greyjoy, late-stage Cersei, etc.) have no corollaries in this new show!

It's not the edginess that bothers me, it's the sense of confinement. The GoT sequence was sweeping across a vast landscape, this is...I don't know what this is doing.

I thought Euron Greyjoy was only retarded in the second half of his incarnation.  He was pretty badass until soon after Theon jumped ship.  Actually he was really good up until season 8.