JAJAJAJA PERFECT DESCRIPTION

Daemon is definitely the troublemaking child in this and nobody can change my mind.

@@edoardoprevelato6577 why would we try to change your mind?

@@edoardoprevelato6577 Well no one can despute daemon had not had peak scolded boy vibes after Rhaenyra showed u on dragonstone to get the egg back ^^

“Rhaenyra, I want Kings Landing in my half of the divorce.” “Alicent, we aren’t even married” “Not anymore we aren’t”

I 100% agree with. I understand people’s critique, but at the same time I really do think it was used well and was gruesome but in a way that made sense with the story/themes

Yes! I also feel it's a testament to R. R. Martin's historical knowledge because it happened all the time. It's only very recently that, at least, most of the developed world has got access to the combination of reliable contraception and clinical sanitation, so people were having children all the time, so it was almost inevitable that it would go wrong extremely often.

I liked them because they are realistic people view pregnancy, birth and child rearing as a trivial thing and it really isn't

I think childbirth definitely gets really sanitized in media as this painful, but still mostly joyous occasion where everything is very clean and easy to watch. In most births on tv you’ll see a slightly sweaty woman scream in pain for a few seconds and then she’ll be handed a magically cleaned baby straight out of the womb and everyone will smile and laugh as if a creature the size of a cantaloupe hadn’t just ripped it’s way out of her after hours of agony (and that’s if things go WELL). As awful as it is to watch scenes like Aemma’s, I can appreciate the novelty and honesty of it compared to literally every other birth I’ve seen on screen. It didn’t flinch away from the ugly parts and try to sugarcoat anything.

@@rasmusn.e.m1064 god the history of childbirth is so interesting. Not to say it has always been super safe but you can see a dramatical uptick in maternal mortality every time midwives and other women with expertise and experience are actively removed from their role and replaces with cis male doctors.

I have to agree, excellent acting. I love it when non verbal acting "delivers the lines" perfectly, like here. Completely different example, but in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, John (Brad Pitt) happily puts a bit of his dinner in his mouth, then realises it might be poisoned by his wife who is sitting there and watches him eat, and has to quickly think of a way to dispose of it in a way that doesn't raise her suspicion. No words, just bout 20 seconds of excellent acting that tells you everything. I love it.

And no one did. History never cares lol.

I also think it genuinely terrified him how he lost control over Vhagar and ended up killing his Nephew because of it. It shows that at the end of the day dragons are just animals, and while they can follow orders, if their angered, there’s nothing their supposed masters can do to stop their wraths. The Targaryen relationship with dragons is like kids playing with a loaded gun, or more accurately, playing with fire.

@@seanmcloughlin5983 i think it also shows that the bond between dragon and rider is more primal and less controlled than expected. ie arrax senses lucerys' fear and responds by trying to defend them from vhagar. its not that human controls dragon or dragon controls human but instead they are bound together with no one fully in control

@@seanmcloughlin5983 oh I thought it was 100% intentional he killed luceryes

I hope they bump him up to co star in the next season

​@@Cal6009 Top billing in season 2

He would not abandon Helaena. And of course he sees himself as "the dutiful son" in contrast to the ne'er-do-well Aegon.

@@alanpennie8013, Aemond does indeed care for Halaena. Ironically, his actions cause her irreparable grief and eventually, her life.

Yeah he went back to face the music. That was brave ain't gonna lie I'd have been far far away by the time the news reached my mother. He couldn't have known his brother would welcome the news of igniting a war with a celebration. I do think because Aegon had been sheltered his entire life he didn't truly understand how badly a war could hurt him and his. Like he knew about war but he didn't KNOW war. He probably thought they'll just crush their enemies in one swoop and everything will be alright. Aemond's 'easy victory' probably also lured him into a false sense of security. That or he thought his grandfather and mother will deal with his problems like they always did. Not making excuses for Aegon but up until this point there weren't many consequences for actions beyond a slap or two from his mother and a scolding. Also Rhaenyra had never actually attempted to hurt her brothers. Maybe he thought ruthlessness wasn't in her nature? Or maybe he just forgot about Daemon...

He loves his mum

@@livelovelife32 Daemon was the only one they feared. They presumed if they could kill Daemon Rhaenyra would bend the knee. They truly thought of her as just Daemon's whore wife. Til Daemon was dead and she was still going to war. Hell even after her death they where stunned that her side kept fighting. Aegon really did think himself beloved right up until the moment he died.

To be fair, Dragon Dreams are magic and the Maesters frown upon that

"The sea is always right."😂

@@contextTBD And nobody actually listens to anything Helaena says, so her ability being overlooked by history seems inevitable

Who knows V is a dreamer besides Rhaenyra and maybe Daemon? And nobody at this point knows H is a dreamer except us the audience.

@@ischeele7203 Helassandra. I'd like to think that Aemond listens.

I thought it was well highlighted that it was the king's choice. just because it was the smart thing to do does not mean it was the right thing to do. much like Rob stark marrying jeyne westerling even though th knew the consequences and this is a king who can do almost anything he likes

Importantly, Grand Maester Runciter wanted Viserys to marry Laena. Later, Grand Maester Mellos would successfully convince Viserys to betroth Rhaenyra to Laenor rather than Aegon II (as the Greens wanted) despite Laenor's preference for men being known. This is relevant to people who think the maesters were in a conspiratorial alliance with the Greens because the Citadel is in Oldtown.

That’s a point, they skipped that Otto was hand of the king entirely. But in the overall sense, I don’t think it matters for season one. Maybe they’ll talk about it in season 2?

Speaking of Ashara Dayne I think Jon is her son with bran. That was the other secret Ned kept. Cause he would of lost the river land like Robb lost the freyas. The lemon tree gate.

@@Skabanis It feels weird seeing Brandon's name as "Bran", particularly in this context. Makes it feel a little gross haha

The Fandom Remembers! 😉

Oh yes! 😏

We laugh till this day lol 😆

Interesting thing is that Tales of the Jedi and Andor are doing very well... without D&D's help.

Well, D&D kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet that is Disney's fear of losing potential profit by hiring show runners who were very unpopular with the age group they were trying to target with Star Wars

Please, he's mostly Mushroom!

@@clownpendotfart I thought that Mushroom was a stand in for HBO execs or something like that😂

Every draft is canon while being lies

@@Daemonussy GRRM liked the SNL skit that had a boy played by Andy Samberg who helped GRRM on the show by adding more nudity. He criticized the South Park sketch which depicted him as fixated on weiners... because he says everybody knows he's actually obsessed with boobies.

@@Daemonussy 😂

Why would Gerardys by trustworthy if he is also a maester?

very Preston jacobs

@Alex Pokrandt Marwyn is full of it. He claims that Maester Aemon was sent to the Wall rather than made an archmaester but we know the actual reason: people wanted him to set aside his maester's vow to take the throne instead of Aegon V, and he shut that down by joining the Night's Watch. In discussing that he says it was because the maesters couldn't trust Aemon any more than they trust Marwyn... but Marwyn WAS made into an archmaester, and appears to have been given free reign to do whatever he wants even if others ignore him (a lot like academic tenure). Marwyn tells Sam he's at risk of getting poisoned, but Aemon certainly never gave any such indication when he agreed with Jon's plan for him to go back to Oldtown. We do know of some divided loyalties among maesters. Pycelle is a lackey for Tywin Lannister, and as far as we can tell this is because his experience as Grand Maester under Aerys convinced him Tywin was the most competent to rule. When Tyrion imprisons him the Citadel selects Archmaester Gormon Tyrell as his replacement, so Tywin reversed the order. Tywin could be wrong about Gormon retaining loyalty to his family, but he does indeed have no reason to think any replacement the Citadel might select would be similarly loyal to him personally.

You can totally tell the Maester's are in the Hightower pocket in the book. The biggest tell is how it goes out of it's way to be like "Alicent grew more and more beautiful with age. She never looked a day over 19. Rhaenyra got fat and ugly with every kid. She's just a miserable, jealous woman. Oh, and even though she was in full armor at the time the iron throne TOTALLY cut her! BIG wound, she was in the wrong and the throne KNEW!" Like this is supposed to be a historical war account but we gotta get those jabs in there.

@@KoiPuff Elio Garcia has said the line about the throne cutting her was supposed to be indicative of the bias of Septon Eustace (called out as a Green partisan in F&B), not a maester. As for Alicent being beautiful despite having four children... Cersei is as well in A Game of Thrones. She only starts getting fat later. The way her story ends where she's essentially a madwoman urging her daughter to to murder the king she's married is not something the Hightowers were likely to have been behind.

You’re not wrong - GRRM has gone on record saying that the dance was inspired by the anarchy and you can see what the inspirations were for the various characters/events

Speaking of that conflict here's hoping Dom does Cadfael one day. Great book series and decent series

Yes. A lot of things in both series are taken from history. Scottish, French, English etc, royalist history inspired a lot of stuff. Like Red Wedding is inspired by Scottish history. There is a historial novel series based on certain time of French royalty. And GRRM does an introduction of the series and speaks on how this series influenced him.

@@sexydoorframes 'The Accursed Kings' by Maurice Druon based on the reigns of the last four Capetian Kings of France. I read the series many years ago and liked it.

@@perplexedbystander6203 Yes! That's the series I was talking about but couldn't think of the name off the top of my head and was too lazy to search. It's an excellent series, though I never read the 7th book because of how it is completely different style from the others. Did you read the 7th book? If so, did you like it?

Considering high born girls/women relationships we see in asoiaf I would say the age gap is actually not an issue in regards to them being friends. Seeing as they are both unmarried daughters of highborns at court, they were very likely to spend time together doing activities such as reading, hawking, sewing etc.

Yh I heard this she was app 18 when Rhaenyra was named heir at 9 also she cared for the king before Viserys while he was dying

I’ve always just looked at the live-action show and the books as alternate universes. I don’t bother with “the show is the real events we didn’t see in Fire and Blood” when Game of Thrones has already diverted so much from A Song of Ice and Fire that it is already massively non-canon

@@TheJadedJames well in this case gorug sayed that hotd is canon. The book is just a very badly made history book

@@yuvalgabay1023 nah he literally said it's different canon

What does cannon even mean with this author if you read closely? George doesn’t even let you feel sure that things narrated through a first person pov really happen, and he’s changed his mind more than a handful of times about character details he confirmed or denied.

There is no dragon escape in Ba Sing Se!

@@ischeele7203 I think theirs a difference between riding a dragon around the bit vs something bursting out of the pit and killing many innocent people

Daemon clearly just want's Targaryen supremacy, he loved Laena because she was a Targaryen.... He could not give two shits about Rhaenyras sons being bastards, since they're still Rhaenyra's children, thus Targaryens. The only reason he feel animosity towards Viserys other children, is because he knows they've been brought up with the Hightower worldview. That's atleast my take on him.

He’s still lovable because Matt Smith.

Some of his more negative qualities got left out too so it’s only fair ig

@@slayerr3086 which ones? The only thing he wasn't responsible on the show for that he may have been in the books was Harwin and Lyonel's deaths.

@@kingjonstarkgeryan8573 that plus he was implied to have caused Laenor’s death too. Not to mention his fondness for young girls

Another one: in the book Laena Velaryon was BFF with Rhaenyra, and Laena died on Driftmark, Rhaenyra even fly her own measter to Driftmark on dragon back when Leana was having problem with labor.

and the atmosphere of Kingslanding and what i would imagine Constantinople would feel like

Same here i shouted “YES!”

What do you think of the show?

*clicked

The most inaccurate thing about Fire and Blood is that Glydayn actually cites his sources. If only Suetonius was so thorough.

I was pretty ambivalent about watching HOTD but after watching this video, I can't wait to see it.

I liked the changes other than Aegon and Criston Cole. They were terrible.

It makes you realise the time during A Game of Thrones is the most boring part of westeros history.

Right. Just like how in the book, you are getting information by multiple people all over westeros, all of which belonging to different allegiances and adding fan fiction in Mushroom's case lol

Where IS Mushroom though, has he even been cast?

As disappointing GOT Season 8 was, D&D at least proved they can do well with the first 4 seasons, and unlike The Song of Ice and Fire, the good thing about prequels is that the story already incorporated into the lore. HBO probably offered out of courtesy (and also thought that there was no way they could muck up a prequel.)

"George rah rah Martin" and "George R & R Martin" where some of my favorites.

Interesting. I do agree. But I can also see how now it shows the lengths they would be willing to go to be willfully ignorant. If it was subtle with alot of excuses. Then sure anycould write it off as a rumor. But to make it so blatantly obvious it shows the irrational thought behind it

There are plenty of real life people with one mixed raced and one white parent with very white children to make the skin plausable, although I would have kept Rhaenys hair dark, at least in the scene in the first episode when she was still young, so people could have forgotten that her hair was dark and simply got white in age, as opposed to the other Targaryens around her.

@@TemariNaraannaschatz Yes, changimg Rhaenys' hair was a bit of a misstep. In the book, even in middle age, her hair was Baratheon black with streaks of silver weaving in it.

@@RyLHatch1989 idk the more and more i think about it, its the right call for the medium. Like sure in Westeros over the years people could have forgotten her hair was black. But us the audience see these events in chunks of time, would have just had to accept "oh people must have simply forgot that so them kids maybe are plausible". But that could be alot for the simple casual fan to remember from a glimpse in an episode. or if they kept it black her whole life, then the audience would really question the queens motive because then they'd have to give her a new reason why she was so mad at the situation. But when you make it so blatantly obvious it just makes all the motivations of the queen, the willful blindness of the king, all the rumors and doubt just that much easier to swallow for a more casual watcher.

@@TemariNaraannaschatz Don't be obtuse. It wasn't just a single child that had pale skin and dark hair; which neither parents had. It was ALL THREE. And all with dark hair. Even if Rhaenys had dark hair, it's absurd to think that none of Laenor's features reflected in the children and all obtained their grandmother's hair coloring. Seriously, these conversations would be a lot less cringe if people didn't try and make excuses for this. It's obvious. Period. End of story.

And American Gods lol

Rhaenyra* Ffs

You make a good point.

@@browniebear sorry for having Dyslexia and having to rely on spell check. Unfortunately her name isn't corrected in my phone.

Agreed, and especially since "accidental" in this situation was still kiiiiiinda ambiguous. Like, Aemond was definitely playing more dangerously than he should have and it IS his fault, but there's also a plausible deniability. I wonder how they're going to show him reacting to it in later seasons when he has to tell his mother/brother that he kicked off a civil war.

Except in the books he decapitates Lucerys' corpse and presents the head as a gift to his betrothed.

I also like this scene, but he is still a genuine psychopath. They are human, and have complicated thoughts and feelings. Jeffrey Dahmer was also surprised by the deaths of some of his victims.

@@thecoolestfaisal The book states that Mushrooms claims (who was at Dragonstone, not in KL at the time) that Aemond took Lucerys' eyes, maybe even balls and brouth them to Alicent. And even in the chapter the author is like: yeah that probably didn't happen. Mushroom is extremly biased for the blacks, he was not present to see any of this happen and he is the only source who claims it was that bad.

@@TemariNaraannaschatz Mushroom wasn't biased, he was just gross. He claimed he had sex with Rhaenyra to give her practice to seduce Criston Cole.

also Idk what they’re gonna do about Seasmoke, since no one can claim him and that might make people suspicious but if they do have Laenor come back as Addam of Hull, that might be interesting.

I didn't really read that scene as ambiguous because of the dialogue between Rhaenyra and Daemon when they discuss "setting Laenor free". So yeah, I think they were all in on it, not just Laenor and his lover :)

@@omolisa3783 oh yeah absolutely! but I totally think Laenor and Qarl were in on it. at least, I hope so, otherwise that presents problems for Rhaenyra if the writers decide to bring Laenor back and he tells people what happened.

of course, people already think she did it and she did say it would make people wonder what she and Daemon are capable of so I guess it wouldn’t change much lmao

@@kristenfaith Oh yeah, I totally agree!

On top of that, there's the scene where Daemon kills some random guy alone in the halls. It was Daemon that provided the decoy body.

BenMedia It's really quite surprising Rhaenys ultimately sided with Daenyra if she still believes they murdered her son.

@@alanpennie8013 I think Rhaenys ultimately decided to side with Rhaenyra because she understood that her grandchildren would be at risk if Aegon won.

also a lot of people say that rhaenys would have ended the war by killing the greens at the coronation but actually she would be starting one. aegon and helaena had two sons and grrm confirmed that daeron, alicnet and viserys's youngest son will be included in the show. there would still be green-aligned male claimants to challenge rhaenyra and the hightowers would absolutely have cause to do so. the war definitely wouldn't have lasted six months without aemond and vhagar, but there still would have been a war.

@@BenMedia7 Really quite surprising that The Greens didn't make more of an effort to recruit Rhaenys. Too much else to think about maybe.

Also alongside his sister's death changing makes less of the character fates the same.

Keep in mind that Georges RR Martin loves unreliable characters And remember also that he enjoy rome antic history and inspired him to write this book Not exacly the most acurate historians was around at that time period

...Was Daemon *truly loyal* to Viserys? Sure, he loved his brother, and that doesn't even slightly mean that he couldn't be deeply cruel to him.

I mean...if that wasn't true wouldn't Daemon just say it. Like, I'm pretty sure myself that it did happen.

@@Scott-ql2kx He was loyal to Viserys but frustrated by his lack of strength at the same time. Daemon saw people openly plotting at his desk and Viserys did nothing about it.

Long story short: Otto can pound sand

I'm more of the opinion that Dæmon didn't mean it the way it came out, myself, 100%. Too many accounts are that he said it, so it's *probably* got some truth to it. But. It *sounds* really bad *if* you put the worst possible spin on it which Otto has every incentive to do, but try to think on what he's said to have said neutrally. It *could* be a insult, the "only" being heavily implied, but he didn't say actually say only. He toasted the heir. Heir for a day, or a year, or a decade, maybe that part wasn't the focus. Maybe the point was even if it was only a day, he was still heir. He still had value. Maybe the point was to verbally acknowledge them peers, even if just for a day, him and I were the same, I mourn him as I'd have you mourn me. I love the whole concept of the heir of a day toast, because it's so deliciously context-dependant for how little context we get. It could be mocking. It could be respectful. It could be grief-stricken or cynical about the cost paid for a mere day, it could be honouring or dismissive. It could be multiple conflicting tones and motivations at once even, and we only know how other people decided to interpret it. It's great.

Considering high born girls/women relationships we see in asoiaf I would say the age gap is actually not an issue in regards to them being friends. Seeing as they are both unmarried daughters of highborns at court, they were very likely to spend time together doing activities such as reading, hawking, sewing etc. And it was stated in the books that they had a good relationship before the wedding. Maybe not as close as the show portrays, but a friendship was absolutly possible.

@@TemariNaraannaschatz oh definitely. Not saying they couldn’t be friends, just childhood friends. But yeah I always got a feeling of caretaking Alicent before the wedding to lil Rhae. Which is a bit awkward with the show now hah

If you're interested in that, I highly recommend DJ Peach Cobbler's video "The Stupid Reason I Love House of the Dragon" . The book Fire and Blood can be considered the biased historian's accounting of the events that happened while the show is basically the "how it mostly actually happened" accounting of the events. You only really appreciate what House of the Dragon does when you compare and contrast it to what it's adapting, Fire and Blood. If you're a history geek, you'll really love this video. Check it out and tell me what you think.

You should! Generally when the in-universe author comes across conflicting accounts, he reports on all versions but either dismisses one as less likely/having an unreliable source, or decides that the truth was somewhere between all stories. Like with poor Lord Beesbury, there were conflicting accounts of his death and the maester didn't know which was more reliable so just wrote that no matter how, it was true that he died around that time

It doesn't read at all like medieval history by medieval writers and reads an awful lot like a particularly hamfisted attempt to engage with disagreeable sources... which I suppose happens all the time, but is rarely published to a wider audience.

To be fair, the first season of GoT didn't have nearly the same budget as HotD. HotD had about four times the budget to work with lol

I do like how they worked the smaller throne into the story with Varys and Littlefinger having their little romance of wits and it like all legends being an illusion

I kind of figured that the reason (outside of out-of-universe budget reasons) Robert's tourney, as well as Robert's hunt, was so comparably... well, shit, was that the kingdom was in severe decline under his rule. The early Targaryen's were the glory-days, and then it kept declining after the Dance, until the dynasty finally fell, and King Robert, first of his name, killed by a pig, took over and did absolutely nothing to keep it from slipping any further. It's kind of a meme in fantasy overall, but it seems everything was always bigger and more glorious in the past.

@@shikuthetempest See also, The Royal Hunt (episode 3).

😂

Well in DnD all Targaryens are all Sorcerers with the draconic bloodline because yeah they have legit dragon blood in them. Its why miscarriages and stillbirths come out looking like dragons. Honestly I wish they had shown Viserys becoming more draconic as he got sicker to highlight this.

I mean tbf that's kind of a point that the show adaptations have made that whilst the dragons are animals, a part of the natural order that are willing to be commanded they are also these highly intelligent magical fire lizards and a power that is only really allowing itself to be commanded. Aemond loosing control of Vhagar (because he was never really the one in control) at a critical moment that could send the realm from extreme tensions to outright war because and killing Lucerys and Arrax is an important part of that understanding. Especially seeing as the house of the dragon is about to unleash these monsters upon each other and the wider would of westeros

I think it's horrifying that a mother would choose to burn both herself and her child alive rather than chance that the baby could be saved by c-section

@@jessicawurm23 I mean, she was in King's Landing when Aemma had her C-section and the baby died, she probably assumed the same would happen to them. She knew she was dead either way with no guarantee that the baby would live, and she wanted to go out on her own terms rather than being held down and cut open against her will. She had no reason to sacrifice herself for the pregnancy, she had a brother with sons and stood little chance of inheriting anything. Dying in childbed in Pentos was the antithesis of everything Laena wanted in life.

Keep in mind that Georges RR Martin loves unreliable characters And remember also that he enjoy rome antic history and inspired him to write this book Not exacly the most acurate historians was around at that time period

​@@jessicawurm23 I think your comment is kinda horrifying tbh. It implies a woman can't choose to die by her own choices. It's her body. It's her decision. And she didn't wanna die like Aemma did. Why is that horrifying? Aemma death was horrifying. Laena chose to go out on her own terms.

Women are their own people. They are not slaves to their wombs.

I'm really not sure why people attach so much importance to that speech. The Small Council, which Otto had stuffed with people loyal to himself, would have declared for Aegon regardless of what he or Alicent said or did.

@@alanpennie8013 because it gives agency to Cole and larys. Coles reasons in the books are somewhat valid if you take it from a legal view. Rhayneras children were bastards objectively and though Cole is an unsavory character but he thought his motivations were just not the petty scorned nature they probably were. Larys by declaring a blood oath puts weight on everyone who declares for the greens even though he probably has no real loyalty to anyone

@@tenkenroo Fair enough. Re-reading the account of The Green Council I was quite startled by how much everyone (except Lord Beesbury) showed no hesitation at all about immediately usurping the throne.

@@tenkenroo Larys especially has no loyalty to anyone but himself. I can't understand why he even wanted to be head of his house since he truly doesn't give one fig for it.

@@livelovelife32 probably for access to his houses wealth but even that is tenuous. I think larys motivations are for pure nihilism, cause as much suffering as he can in his life. It’s why at the end of the conflict he doesn’t give a justification to the wolf.

We see Mushroom in the show, though, albeit only briefly. He's the dwarf playing a drum during Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding.

@@DominionSorcererMaybe Daemon based his cover story off this jester

He is at the wedding with Laenor. I'd also add that Mushroom sounds like someone that makes himself look way more important than he actually was.

I think it's an excellent primer in the truth that no one will care about your intentions. People, and history, will only remember your actions and their effects. Were you kind? Tormented by duty? Struggling to balance your own life with your family's and society's expectations? It doesn't matter when you also start a war that kills hundreds of thousands. That will overshadow nearly everything else. Our traumas and our lives are explanations, but never an excuse.

Did u not find it watchable? Season 1 had less action and way more politics which I know for some people can be a bit boring. I loved it quite a bit but if someone said they need more action I can understand. Season 2 promises to be more inline with GOT level of action so hoping it's more palatable for those that need that aspect.

Me too! I might actually give it a watch now.

It also highlighted Rhaenyra's point: none of their dragons are trained for war. They'd be better off getting the wild dragons that are used to fighting or freed dragons that fought in past wars on their side. Right now the only dragon on their side with real war training is Caraxes.

@@livelovelife32 Meleys has some training in combat but not as much

Whilst this is true, Vhagar is strong, She is also very slow, which is her weakness, as seen by the books (two times). It's said that Arrax would have gotten away from Storm's end if it wasn't for the Storm