I think Raenyra is the only female character who is allowed to have some agency but thats only because her father legitimizes it by being the king and tolerating her actions. Even the daughters of the most powerful houses cant decide anything for themselves like Emma, Laena or Alicant. None of them would have been allowed to reject even half the marriages requests Rhaenyra denied.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds so much of the stuff in the show so discomforting and really good. Game of Thrones tows the line of being just enough discomforting without going overboard quite well.

Personally I feel that the biggest pitfall with decentralized conflict isn't narrative endorsement, but rather the opposite: If all the characters are morally-questionable assholes, why bother rooting for anyone? House of the Dragon did a fantastic job making the cast flawed but likable, but it's dangerous ground to tread.

Aemma didn't deserve that, especially when she's the daughter of daella targaryen which makes it Even sadder.

The true villain is the system that pits characters against each other and forces them to make awful decisions.

This video was fantastic at putting to words the themes of HOTD beyond gender. Yes, gender is important, but it's well communicated to the audience why that is. All the while, it's all about power you don't want, and power you don't have. Reading into Rhaenyra's character, you almost wonder why she wants the throne at all. She lies on Alicent's lap in episode 1 wishing instead to fly on dragonback to Essos and eat cake, live a carefree life, and these wants seem to continue well into the most recent episode. But ever since Alicent was betrothed to her father, she's been forced to play the position of righteous ambition in order to stay consistent with her beliefs- that a woman should be able to inherit the Iron Throne. If she doesn't pursue, what does that say about those beliefs?

Great scenes, great writing can definitely make you uncomfortable and still be amazing

The concept you is describing is what I call life. We are all both protagonists and antagonists. We are both on proactive and reactive. We like to think we are the good guys but many times, we really aren't.

The birthing scene had me curling up like a shrimp, that stuff loooksss wayyy too painful especially when it was said that the queen can no longer push so she’d to be sacrificed.

Never clicked on a video this fast in my life

Thank you! A decentralized conflict is exactly what I'm trying to achieve in my current work and I can agree, it is really hard to pull off. I want to write a "Choose your hero" kind of story, where the reader has to pick which character he or she wants to see prevail. Basically the same character has to function as the protagonist in his/her own story line and an antagonist or supporting character in others.

Great analysis as usual. I somehow missed the parallels between Viserys ordering the C-section and then being forced to kill the deer---partly because I was distracted by how good the score was for that scene; I didn't much like how GoT ended, but Ramin Djawadi never lost his touch. Anyway I love being excited about a story set in this universe again, and I hope they can keep up the quality.

This channel alone has respawned my love in literature, I could not be more thankful

I’m gonna go on a ledge and say there definitely is an antagonist in HOD. It just doesn’t have a physical form, but in listening to Viserys and Corlys speak about their children’s marriage and the names their offspring will take, I think it’s clear as day that the tradition of Monarchy or “ the crown “ and all that comes with it are the definite antagonists of the show.

I want to point out that Viserys' choice wasn't between "killing Aemma" and "letting her die." The Maester says when Viserys enters the room that there was no way to save Aemma... without endangering the life of the child. They COULD have saved Aemma's life, it just would've involved killing the infant. So Viserys' choice was between saving his wife, and saving his child, who was not guaranteed to be a son - and, clearly, was not guaranteed to survive childhood. I think it's interesting how Daemon's life philosophy, while shocking and pot-stirring, actually would have been the solution to many of Viserys' problems. Daemon believes that House Targaryen should live as they once did in Old Valyria, doing what they want, marrying who they want, sleeping with who they want, naming who they want to be monarch. The only reason that Viserys reviles the way Daemon thinks is because House Targaryen has been slowly but surely absorbing the values of the rest of Westeros, cleaving to the Faith of the Seven, etc. Viserys excludes himself from having the blood of the dragon - unlike Rhaenyra, and unlike Daemon. And the throne rejects him. Almost like he's not a true king, and not even a true dragon. But if House Targaryen were to let kings take multiple wives, if like the Dornish they let bastards and women rise in power and even sit thrones, if if if, Viserys could have avoided forcing Aemma to keep trying to bear children, could have avoided killing her, could have avoided all these crows coming to feast on House Targyen, could have avoided the original Rhaenys succession crisis, and could have avoided the Rhaenyra succession crisis. Like, Daemon is chaotic and is not a good person, but his philosophy about gaining the respect and the ear of the common people, and wanting to restore House Targaryen to its former glory, could have solved the entire plot many years ago. If the ruling Targaryen monarchs had just been strong and not let themselves be absorbed into Westeros, until by the time ASOIAF begins, dragons have ceased to exist entirely.

This is honest to God one of the best advertisements I’ve seen for a product in a KZfaq video.

I find it somewhat funny that this was written without including the events of Episode 4, where all this gets turned up two notches.

"it will just be our characters in escalating conflict... and I guarantee there's a bunch more discomfort for us in store"... yeah, you have no idea how true that is... I'm not even sure how they're going to film some of the stuff due to how discomforting it gets.... B&C, Bitterbridge, the business with the spikes x2, any time dragons are involved...

Enjoyying the show much more than I thought I would

As always, SO well said!!!

This episode was very good. Thanks Savage.

Great analysis! You manage to verbalise my thoughts

Thank you so much for an impressive analysis on the show! I would even go as far as to Say that HOTD uses "Better Call Saulization" . A great enlightening watch! Congrats again!

This video made the series get a lot better!

Before I even watch the video as a writer if I’m writing a scene to make the audience uncomfortable and they say yes it’s uncomfortable then I win. I achieved my goal. If some of the audience doesn’t think it was necessary then that’s a different question outside of my aims in writing the scene

Your videos are thoughtful, entertaining, and helpful to me as a writer! Thank you for making this content

I was waiting for you to talk about House of the Dragon. Great video.

This gotta be the best video easy channel on yt

Fantastic analysis.

Excellent analysis

I love this show, and it's rekindled my love of the ASOIAF universe (and led me to this channel, which is excellent). HOTD feels like the perfect show for the current era, as it's doing a masterful job of showing how the patriarchal system hurts both men and women by making it so constraining. It's also, essentially, a family drama, showing how ultimate power and family can clash and lead to death and destruction. The writing style is also excellent, and I love how it's avoiding the pitfalls later GOT got into with the messy timeline by treating each episode as a vignette, a snapshot into their lives. People are complaining that it's going too quickly, but this is the backstory for the conflict, just as season 1 was essentially backstory into the conflict for the original series. I can't wait to see how it goes and and cautiously optimistic it stays this strong.

One thing I failed to understand was that, given Aemma was going to die anyway, aren’t the stakes of that decision completely nullified? I get that the point was Viserys making the choice to have Aemma killed shows how overwhelming patriarchal Westeros is, but shouldn’t it have been set up as “Aemma or the child” instead of “the child or neither?”

I wanna watch this show now

Bro been following you for some years. Super excited to know u look like me. Love ya work. Great vid 😁

The first episode was just JARRING and I knew that without that aspect they wouldn’t be able to tell this story, so I’ve resolved to just endure it 🙏🏽

I love how so many GoT “fans” tried justifying the Night King being killed so early on by claiming Cersei/Dany were both always the main villains. Perhaps Dany if they gave her character turn more time, but Cersei was absolutely no threat whatsoever. One dragon took King’s Landing after seasons of Dany’s council begging her not to use them. There weren’t any casualties like they said there would be until she snapped ! I guess in short, GoT’s last few seasons were awful and the people defending/justifying how things ended up were forced to eat their words when literally no one liked the ending. Also HOTD is amazing so far 🔥🐉

Oh my . . . you don't normally be showing your face on camera right!?!? Or have I been missing it? You are (in the most respectful way) a beautiful human, and I didn't have expectation about what you looked like, but I was slightly surprised. I love your content and breakdowns. I have been a subscriber and fan for years. I appreciate your art and your work. You should be very proud of your work. Love and blessings.

Great video!!

I feel like you can say the same about the Sopranos. I haven't been this into a show in a long time. Honestly think it's better than the first game of thrones and I loved that too.

Great work! Thanks for the video. Btw, I didin´t expect that you be this handsome!

This is a totally unrelated question, but if you're a new writer seeking to professionally publish. How does one do that? Also say you want an editor (context I have dysgraphia and just miss things sometimes) how do you go about getting one? Or do you go to a publisher first and if they like your manuscript will they provide an editor? If you do seek an editor first, how do you vet them to be sure they are actually good at their jobs? Further context I am Canadian but I don't know if that makes any difference in this age of the internet.

It makes relative sense to, given the world of westeros has never been forgiving

I feel like in general a lot of the scenes are more uncomfortable to watch in this show. I didnt have too many issues before besides like... a couple very gruesome moments like whats his name having his eyes crushed in by the Mountain, but those were at the height of the conflict. This feels so much more... constant. Like there's an undertone of gross behavior and violence even when it isnt explicit, so there's never a moment to really enjoy besides when a character speaks out against it. In GoT, there were a lot of moments of peace where characters were able to snatch small moments of joy, humor, introspection, etc in between the anticipation of the conflict and the conflict itself. I feel like I could find characters to like if they had more of these moments and the show let us relax with them. It's like it's too scared to give us a chance to breathe. In episode 4 we had the festival where the two snuck out but while we saw they had moments of joy, we didnt get to experience it with them. Instead we saw them mocked by a theater troupe, play at being a thief, and go into a whorehouse for a very uncomfortable moment.

How did I get here,I was looking for new chicken recipes and now I’m here?

Yeeee yeee yee been waiting for this with BAITED breath

Hopefully helpful tip: you might want to spell check character's names with the source material for the content you're covering. eg) John Snow, and Cersie. Good effort in your vids; helps that you cover the content that we're all scurrying to absorb.

Awesome video as always! In House of the Dragon even though we disagree with a lot of the characters' choices, we can understand from their point of view why they made certain decisions. That is good writing. One thing I feel House of the Dragon doing very differently from GOT is that a lot of its characters are so "grey" that it made impossible for the audience to label them as a largely "good" or "bad" person - King Viserys would be an easily sympathetic character had he not made that decision in Ep1. And that was not in the original book. I really enjoy with these small changes, writers are able to present us characters that are more rounded and layered.

I had a general question, great video by the way as always, but my question centers around the premise and subject matter of the antagonist and protagonist in a story. Can your protagonist always serve to be the antagonist of your story? I'm developing a story down this line and wanted your thoughts if you don't mind. Thanks

I looked away from this birth scene. When your life's trauma gives you "discomfort" you don't want to fucking see it in your fantasy show about dragons.

Please do a discussion on how rings of power does the opposite of what was covered in this video. This was very good!

Idk if you'll actually do it but I would love to see a video about the anime demon slayer. It could be all the things it did wrong or how it could have been improved but whichever it is I would greatly appreciate it.

Nice video

If any of yall like this kind of stuff you would absolutely LOVE made in abyss

HotD is absolutely fantastic in this respect.

It's more gray characters in HOTD

Love it

I'm surprised you didn't mention the way this franchise consistently bucks the trend of exclusively proactive antagonists and reactive protagonists, for instance Game of Thrones has a number of proactive protagonists like Robb, Cat, Arya, and Tyrion, and one of the all-time great reactive antagonists in Littlefinger. It's proof positive that swapping those roles can work wonders in making a story more interesting, as it leads to whole new kinds of dynamics not normally seen otherwise

More house of the dragon videos please

Amazing, can you do a video about cyberpunk: edgerunners? it recently came out and is amazing, also the Harly Queen series, as i'm sure she's an unreliable narrator and i think you just see the show through her acid eyes, but is really cool

Why do you have 2 different shortcuts to league of legends on your desktop?

there a4e always some scene in every episode of HOTD, and it always when i was eating so i love how it made me almost vomit, but i couldnt look away

Savage Books Friday

Still not over Viserys literally butchering Aemma for his dream baby boy then claiming he loved her. I will never ever root for him after that.

I regard The Lannisters as conflicted and self - destructive rather than positively villainous. Of course they destroyed a lot of other people, most notably the people of The Riverlands.

Personally, I think there is a villain in the story currently and that it's Otto Hightower. He's not as captivating a villain as we had in Game of Thrones, but narratively, he kind of represents everything wrong with the power struggle we're witnessing going on within the Targaryen family. He has a goal and he's willing to sacrifice others to achieve it. I really enjoy the show so far. My only real gripe as been how lame the Battle for the Stepstones was. Sure, Daemon struggled, but the way they won the battle didn't actually feel earned. It felt very quick and unsatisfying when in conjunction with how much build-up the Crab King and the war as a whole got. We only got one battle scene that honestly wasn't all that clever. There was no mention of Dorne and the Triarchy, while mentioned, was not in evidence. As far as we knew, they war was already one because it was just one small group of pirates trapped onto one island that doesn't have any resources to support them. They literally could have just starved them out (or waited for greyscale to take them all). There really was no urgency and or reason to think they were "losing" the war. I would have much preferred if the parallels between Rhaenyra and Daemon's journey were far more frequent and happened throughout the entire show. We really only needed one or two scenes spent with Viserys drinking and struggling. We didn't need to spend half the episode with him when I think the show really should have used that time instead to establish Daemon as a great war hero and leader, because that's part of why (SPOILERS) it's so shocking that he and Rhaenyra lose the war, especially given all the symbolism each were given. I just think it was a missed opportunity, but maybe the budget wasn't there considering the war waged on the sea with twenty dragons is coming up soon.

Wait, you've actually been gorgeous this whole time? Edit: Great analysis :)

I was just saying how the original 1 would be the gray part between antiheros and antivillians, then he says the prequel is the middle between them. I know about it,I don't watch it. that's why I guessed the gray part.

Surprising how a George RR adaptation is better than a Tolkien one. WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY

Yes exactly how I feel everyone in the show is flawed

Me at 9 months pregnant watching the third graphic birth scene in this show 😆

Gorgeous guy golden voice great video

So far, HoTD only has hatable characters, and that makes the sense, given what the show focuses on.

The white background is killing me, I know probably it’s for copyright reason or something, but I can’t watch the screen

Yep. Viserys, at the absolute least, should have told Aemma, and let her have her say. As I was watching the scene, I said that Viserys was a b*stard.

I’m glad I realized from the get-go that Aemma was going to die. Especially when they started preparing for the cesarean. You cannot preform one at home. The woman will almost certainly bleed out. And yes, I know they did that on a medical show. But that show, according to actual doctors is 90%* drama, and 10%* medical. (*Not accurate statistics)

I think this is both the strength and weakness of House of the Dragon. Some people find it slow because who’s good and evil keeps swapping, so they don’t see progress towards good triumphing over evil. On the flip side, it returns this universe to the character driven tension and drama that exemplified the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones. I hope the runners avoid the trap of falling back on well worn tropes or big spectacle. Because if they’re able to keep this up, I think it will surpass Game of Thrones in overall quality and enjoyment.

You talk about characters being understandable and their actions not necessarily sympathetic, and I thinknthats my problem with Allicent. I just don't see why she is so moved as to takes the steps she does, especially the ones stemming after the first time skip but before the first. And I'm not interested in hashing it out again, but the reason Allicent is so appealing early on is because she's quiet kind and doesn't seem to be looking for power. I never once thought she wanted to be queen. So to see her mad at Rheaneya being spoiled seems... really out of place. I just don't think HOD's characters are as well written as the ones in GOT

I had never seen your face before. You're really handsome 🤭

I wasn’t going to watch, but my brother has HBOmax so I gave it a shot, and I gotta say, (fuck D&D) it’s really really good

I asked my mom what she would do in that situation she said save the wife I disagree with her I would have got the baby out without killing my wife using blood magic whatever it takes to not sacrifice my lover

Hey folks, I wasn't exactly sure how to go about this but here goes. Savage Books, I love your videos and I ended up watching this one despite it being about HotD which is a hilarious abbreviation. I was hesitant to get on the game of thrones hype train again because of the later seasons, then Mother's Basement (on his second channel) posted "The Great HBO Max Purge" detailing how HBO removed a bunch of shows (even original animations) in order to stop paying the artists and voice actors their cuts and generally fuck people over to make money short term. I have not done any independent research (dangerous I know) but I trust Mother's Basement and decided not to watch HotD at least through the end of the year. I encourage others to do the same/cancel their max subscriptions or use free trials if possible. Have a good one folks!

A lot of people find House of the Dragon boring, but I love it for all the reasons mentioned in the video. Paddy Considine is so great as Viserys. I have to say the last episode was a quite a letdown with all the long non-sexy brother scenes, seemingly lifted straight from some 70s softcore. I hope that was a blip.

You should review Made In Abyss and Berserk

The White Borders on your videos Really Distracts me. Anyone else have the same issue ?

2:44 if you're going to say food is healthy it'd be helpful to know how healthy exactly, as a lot of food marketed as "healthy" is a lot of the time not as healthy as people think, like a lot of food may contain E-numbers or/and is highly processed.

The crab-feeder though was a lazy classical antagonist, poorly written. They could've given him more screen time, to make him either a complexe antagonist/protagonist or just a scary compelling purely evil vilain. What a weird waste.

Paddy Considine is the only saving grace of this series for me. I don't give a fuck about any of the other characters.

What makes me uncomfortable about this is the clear intention to make women scared of having children…

Glad to see someone that can actually articulate thoughts agrees that this show is amazing. Tired of hearing about "woke" nonsense

I think some of this you’re off on. We as an audience have been still given no reason to think the maester was acting out of malice. So with that being said, the king was given the decision to lose them both or to maybe save his child. Were we as audience supposed to think he shouldn’t have said yes and let them both die? Yes the baby dies, but they had no way of knowing. That’s just what doctors used to be like. It would make more sense that it shows a moment where the king who is looked at as weak, makes a tough call. This show really isn’t that good and is just riding off of GOT.

I just just watch the last episode (4) and gone to throw up!!! This show is so far from GoT, a Rambo mission, a teen on a hore house !!!! C'mon shit show ban from watch list for live

I find it borring really

As a big fan of GoT...HoTD is horrible and a real struggle to watch😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨