House of the Dragon - Discussion

Aria

@Arkandel said in House of the Dragon - Discussion:

I gotta say, and it pains me to do so… House of the Dragon is easily the better show compared to Rings of Power. It outclassed it so far in just about every aspect with the possible exception of special effects, and even there HotD kept its own.

The characters are so much deeper and nuanced. There are relatively few characters who’re just unapologetic villains; others act absolutely brutally on occasion but have redeeming qualities, some act through fear and others out of ambition or love. The politics especially are simply on a different level, and the stage they’re on is considerably more volatile - in that regard the two shows aren’t even comparable.

I’m happy we do have at least two major triple-A fantasy shows around these days. Hopefully when their second seasons hit we’ll see them both picking up and getting even better.

I agree with your assessment here, but I also feel like that’s because of one single, simple thing:

House of the Dragon was written about the characters themselves. The whole point of the story is that it’s basically a family drama-slash soap opera, but with fantastical costumes and also here, have some dragons. Relationships, motivations, decisions, consequences… that’s the entire point of the show. They spend very little time on having to explain to us how the world works because you don’t really need a whole lot of that information to ground a viewer in setting that amounts to “Here is this spectacularly fucked up family and how they manage to spectacularly fuck each other up, even when they mean well, because power and the pursuit of it are inherently corrosive.”

Meanwhile, Rings of Power is taking what was supposed to be the original foundational mythology of Middle Earth–what’s essentially the backdrop to the story in LotR and The Hobbit–and making it the central story. It’s much harder for them to spend time delving deep into a character’s emotional state, what motivates them, how they’re connected to other people in the story, etc. because they have to spend so much time explaining to us what the fuck is going on, who that dude even is, what the thing they’re chasing is, why that’s important, how that relates to this other thing from a thousand years ago… and worst of all, it’s hard to do that well.

If you’re intimately familiar with the material that they’re reviewing for the audience, this feels like a giant waste of time that detracts from the interpersonal interactions. If you aren’t familiar with the story, all of that is useful for grounding you in the world, but definitely feels like the very extended version of the Star Wars opening crawl. Which is fine for the first few minutes of the movie, but not so much when it’s pretty much the entire first episode of the show.

I was ready to drop after how much time was spent explaining Valinor, because I was wondering if the entire series was just going to be them giving Imaginary History 102 lessons at my eyeballs and this being very boring. Especially because my understanding of it pre-episode was basically "The mythical West where elves came from and were immortal. Elf heaven, or whatever. " After the end of the episode, my understanding of it was “The mythical West where elves came from and were immortal. Elf heaven, or whatever. There is lots and lots of light and apparently a magical tree.” Not really a great use of time.

I figured I’d give it one more episode to see if it got better, and I’m glad that it did, but I still spent way more time going onto fan wikis essentially looking up “What is a Valar and why the fuck do I care?” than I should’ve with the amount of exposition dumping they did.

Arkandel

@Aria said in House of the Dragon - Discussion:

Meanwhile, Rings of Power is taking what was supposed to be the original foundational mythology of Middle Earth–what’s essentially the backdrop to the story in LotR and The Hobbit–and making it the central story. It’s much harder for them to spend time delving deep into a character’s emotional state, what motivates them, how they’re connected to other people in the story, etc. because they have to spend so much time explaining to us what the fuck is going on

As a caveat, I don’t want to sound negative about Rings of Power. I liked it, I think it was better than it could have been. It holds promise, and I’ll definitely watch season two when it’s out.

But frankly I think they tried to please both types of viewers and failed to do so. As a hardcore fan I didn’t really like the ‘fanfic’ aspects they introduced, and some of the major characters from the Second Age either came off a bit off or their roles were steamrolled over to make the plot’s ends meet. The immense respect someone like Elrond (he’s the freakin’ son of freakin’ Earendil) or Galadriel were owed didn’t come off well. The decline of the Elves was replaced by some weird mithril-curing ailment out of left field. Sauron’s manipulations came off… well we didn’t really see them happen; a lot of it (to me) seemed like massive coincidences rather than meticulously laid plans.

In comparison House of the Dragon invested big time in its characters’ arcs, and it paid off. Paddy Considine alone… damn, that guy turned a walk from one end of a room to the other into a chills-inducing scene. He was so good. The villains, from its merciless brutes to the increasingly paranoid mother trying to keep her kids alive during a succession set a hell of a stage for what’s obviously going to end in a whole lot of slaughter. In proud Westeros tradition there is at least one theoretically unredeemable dude - who literally murdered his wife on camera - turned into a fan favorite because of the performance.

And the most dubious aspect of the first season (again, for me), the introduction of time-shifts which required actors to be switched, some child actors to be used which is always risky, etc, worked to a good extent - and now it’s over. From this point I don’t believe there are more timeshifts planned before the Dance of Dragons officially begins.

Again, not to sound negative about RoP… I think it’s Amazon’s fault. They didn’t pick Tolkien because they cared for it, they picked the property as a big name that they needed to showcase Amazon Prime, poured money into the special effects and tried to make it a spectacle. And it is one. But it could have been so much better.

… At least it wasn’t an abomination like Wheel of Time.

Smile

Was WoT bad?

dvoraen

@Smile said in House of the Dragon - Discussion:

Was WoT bad?

It diverged so much from the source material that I was wondering what I was watching. Don’t get me wrong, they did some things well as far as adapting to a TV series was concerned (I rather liked the Aes Sedai costuming, in the end), but several things were… I’m going to say butchered for the sake of being dramatic. I can’t really give concrete examples without spoiling things, though.

Third Eye

The WoT finale was a mess, though I’m one of those people who thinks the finale for the book Eye of the World was also a mess, so I guess for me it was a wash. I’m curious where it goes in the second season with a more straightforward book to adapt plus in theory less COVID restrictions on shooting (and in theory no more recasts).

Arkandel

I’m trying to not talk about WoT too much because

I’ll get pissed off.
I don’t want to be the guy who tells people who liked it anyway that they are wrong to do so.

… But it was pretty bad.

SpaceKhomeini

@Third-Eye

No Bayle Domon though

what the fuck

Also, I’m sorry to say this, but this show really fucked up when it didn’t bring back Billy Zane.

DRAAAAAAAAAAGONNNNN!

Tori

I didn’t read the book(s?) about this history and omg the finale ending cut me hard. I should have expected it, given his writing, but didn’t.

Arkandel

@Tori Getting attached or having favorite characters in Martin’s stories rarely ends well.

I haven’t read Fire and Blood (and I’m trying not to, although there are so many spoilers and videos out there) just to keep the inevitable cries of anguish nice and raw when the inevitable happens.

Coin

@Arkandel said in House of the Dragon - Discussion:

@Tori Getting attached or having favorite characters in Martin’s stories rarely ends well.

I haven’t read Fire and Blood (and I’m trying not to, although there are so many spoilers and videos out there) just to keep the inevitable cries of anguish nice and raw when the inevitable happens.

I mean, Joffrey spoils the end of House of the Dragon in Game of Thrones. There’s a whole scene about it. XD

Smile

@Tori It actually had an element that surprised even book readers. It certainly took me aback. (In a good way).

The general gist was the same though.

Edit: Also yes Joffrey does spoil it. Thankfully most viewers won’t remember.

crawfish

@Smile there’s what history records and then there is the truth.
Spoilers

Arkandel

@Coin said in House of the Dragon - Discussion:

I mean, Joffrey spoils the end of House of the Dragon in Game of Thrones.

Will that fucker’s evil never end?