thebardyspoon posted:

It's the opposite of fan service really though isn't it. I was like "oh yeah I had been enjoying this episode but then you reminded me that good/alright things can poo poo the bed, did you really want to do that?".

PostNouveau posted:

Just wait until spinoff #8 where we learn Arya was a Targaryen all along.

CapnAndy posted:

I choose to believe that HotD is a prequel to the books, not the TV show. It makes the prophecy make sense again. (It helps that since GRRM told them to put that bit in, it's clearly referring to the White Walker invasion happening the way it does in his head.)

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Rhaegar was somehow the father of all the Stark children.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Yeah, definitely fan disservice. At least the beginning of the show reminding everyone about one of the most controversial parts of a lovely ending kind of made sense, just to really make people understand this is happening way earlier. Still, they could probably have written something about "xxx years before Jon Snow joined the Night's Watch" instead, since he's tied into the Targaryen stuff anyway, and it'd reference an event in early GoT so people aren't invited to think about the ending of GoT.

Rhaegar was somehow the father of all the Stark children.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Still, they could probably have written something about "xxx years before Jon Snow joined the Night's Watch" instead, since he's tied into the Targaryen stuff anyway, and it'd reference an event in early GoT so people aren't invited to think about the ending of GoT.

BWV posted:

I disliked how overt the reference was to the White Walkers but maybe it's all an example of the Targaryen's retroactively absorbing Westeros myth into their own history. They must have heard about all of this from the locals/northerners and then after the fact used it to explain/understand/justify why they conquered it in the first place.

Jerusalem posted:

This was a comedy of errors at the fantasy hospital and Ned Stark and Rhaegar got switched at birth, and in the end Jon Snow was the only actual true Stark left.

That DICK! posted:

it was to show the viewer that this is a time where the average peasant won't even look up from their daily bullshit to stare in awe at the passing of a wondrous dragon because they do not give a poo poo and that happens every day. it was fine

CapnAndy posted:

Given that they faded the words out until it just said "172 years before Danerys Targaryen" and that the entire episode was centered on Rhaenerya and if she's going to inherit the throne or not, I think they chose their reference point quite deliberately. Dating it based on the first reigning Targaryen queen is a reminder that things are not going to go the way Rhaenerya wants.

CapnAndy posted:

Targaryens do in fact have prophetic dreams. Not many of them, and it's hard to tell because they know that and thus everyone kind of wants to believe they're one of the chosen few and believes in their own dreams, plus any given Targ may or may not be insane, plus even if they're sane and their dreams are not just regular dreams, prophecy is notoriously hard to interpret. But they can do it.

CapnAndy posted:

Targaryens do in fact have prophetic dreams. Not many of them, and it's hard to tell because they know that and thus everyone kind of wants to believe they're one of the chosen few and believes in their own dreams, plus any given Targ may or may not be insane, plus even if they're sane and their dreams are not just regular dreams, prophecy is notoriously hard to interpret. But they can do it.

DJ_Mindboggler posted:

Prophetic dreams aren't really the problem, it was the placement/delivery of the information about them that was kinda cringey. Like, for all of their flaws, even the Disney Star Wars films knew not to have a bunch of prequel stuff in them. The latter seasons of GoT should be as toxic as Attack of the Clones to the writing staff. My understanding is that White Walkers will play little/no role in this narrative, a generic speech about the burden of leadership and the importance of a strong, unified 7 Kingdoms would have worked better imo.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Spoilers??

That DICK! posted:

lol hes been doing it for like 11 years now, can't tell the sun not to shine

LinkesAuge posted:

DJ_Mindboggler posted:

1) Mandalorian/Clone Wars are good, no bones being made here about that. I was specifically referring to the 3 sequel films, and even more specifically to The Force Awakens, as the first major release in a franchise following a poorly received installment. I like what they've done with the prequel elements in the TV shows, but a scene gushing over Rey's midichlorian count would have been a mistake.

2) The White Walkers are a huge part of the narrative...of a Song of Ice and Fire. I'd be with your point about embracing good and bad if the topic was dragons (obviously necessary to this narrative) as opposed to the ice zombies (which don't influence this story as far as I know).

CapnAndy posted:

I did not think "poo poo goes bad for the Targaryens" was a spoiler and am sorry if I was wrong.

Fuligin posted:

'poo poo goes bad for the Targaryens' is not what you said- you implied something a bit more specific

Mameluke posted:

Well technically this show's events don't actually depict the end of the dragons, because GRRM can't finish a story to save his legacy. The dragons die after (and ugh I guess I should spoil it now that the show has begun) Rhaenyra's sullen son presumably kills them all in the unwritten Fire and Blood sequel as a way to exorcise his trauma from watching one eat his mother

CapnAndy posted:

They make a very big deal when Cersei takes the throne that there’s never been a ruling queen before, though. It was known information!

I’m sorry, though, I really am. I’ll edit it.

CapnAndy posted:

They make a very big deal when Cersei takes the throne that there’s never been a ruling queen before, though. It was known information!

I’m sorry, though, I really am. I’ll edit it.

DJ_Mindboggler posted:

I've only read the first 3 or 4 SOIAF books, does Cersei actually take the throne in later books, or was that an invention of the show?

DJ_Mindboggler posted:

I've only read the first 3 or 4 SOIAF books, does Cersei actually take the throne in later books, or was that an invention of the show?

TeaJay posted:

Well if you read Feast you'll know what Cersei is up to in King's Landing.

Cranappleberry posted:

some of the dragons survive because they gently caress off on their own or else they get non-Targaryen riders because there are more dragons than family members so they offer them to volunteers and the riders just take the dragons and leave

DJ_Mindboggler posted:

I've only read the first 3 or 4 SOIAF books, does Cersei actually take the throne in later books, or was that an invention of the show?

MrMojok posted:

The last line in the show was about the Gurm wanting to remain relevant and telling the showrunners AKSHULLY the Targs knew way back when, from a vision and the showrunners going “Oh, YEAH! Cool!”

That will be all today, plebs. I grow weary of your tiresome complaints.


*triumphantly stands up from sword chair and begins to walk regally down the steps*

*robes catch on sword-chair, jerks me back like a dog on the end of a leash, very embarrassing fabric-tearing sound*

CapnAndy posted:

The maesters framed it as "let us kill your wife and save the baby or do nothing and pray for a miracle, because right now as far as we can tell, they're both gonna die". He made a horrible but prrrrrrobably correct call, even if he did it in the weakest way possible by, y'know, not giving his wife any input on the decision or even a heads-up before they cut her to death.

GREAT BIG SPOILERS FOR PROBABLY THE WHOLE SHOW

Viserys is gonna marry Alicent and they have sons, so uh-oh, succession crisis. Viserys doesn't want to hear it because as far as he's concerned it's a settled matter, which helps nothing. Alicent's kids are of disputed parentage -- they look an awful lot like Lord Strong, the (Tarly-looking, but they're unrelated) guy on the Small Council, who Alicent is quite friendly with (or maybe his son, I'm not looking it up, whatever). Rhaenyra and Alicent become bitter, bitter rivals. Rhaenyra gets married and has sons of her own. Her sons and Alicent's sons hate each other. Their two factions are eventually named the Greens (Alicent) and the Blacks (Rhaenyra), after gowns they wore to one particular ball. Daemon is a repeated rake and gently caress-arounder, but Viserys loves him and they always make up. Rhaenyra and Criston Cole, the Dornish knight who won that tourney, become very close. Viserys keeps the peace in his own weak, not-quite-enough way.

Then he dies of old age.

Bloody civil war breaks out literally before his body is even cold.

Something happens between Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Cole. We don't know exactly what, except that from that day forth, Criston Cole is Rhaenyra's most devoted enemy and Daemon and Rhaenyra are sleeping together.

The Greens and Blacks gather up their respective loyal vassals and dragons and loving massacre each other, through open battle, secrecy, and treachery. Houses switch sides. Possession of King's Landing itself shifts multiple times. Near the very end, as King's Landing riots and is gripped by we're-all-gonna-die madness, an unknown mad preacher rises up out of nowhere, inciting a mob to storm the Dragonpit (the big round building where all the dragons live). They do and kill every dragon housed there, wiping out almost every surviving dragon that the civil war didn't already do for (and a lot of dragons are gonna die in this thing).

At the end of it, Rhaenyra's side "wins", as it's her son on the Iron Throne, but this is mostly because both sides are out of loving options -- he's the last known male Targaryen alive. He's wed to one of Alicent's descendants to seal the schism. The reigning Stark, having finally gotten his forces down from the North, rolls into town with a completely fresh army and is like "well, clearly none of you incompetent fuckers can be trusted, I'm in charge", makes himself Hand of the King, executes anyone who's still alive who was at all responsible for the war... then fucks off and goes home. Because he is smart and Starks shouldn't stay in King's Landing.

Both the new king and his wife are horribly psychologically broken by the war. Later on, she kills herself (probably) by jumping out of a window before they can even consumate the marriage. He lives a decently long time but is known as The Broken, The Unlucky, and The Dragonbane, because the few dragons who survived the war all die during his reign. (He's likely not very fond of them, having been forced to watch while Rhaenyra was fed alive to one.)

The Targaryens never really pull out of the doom spiral, although Aegon V does his best to arrest the decline and Rhaegar might've been able to do it, but Robert's warhammer never gave him a chance.