Granted if the nobles of Medieval Europe had dragons they could call upon, it is likely the Church in that period would have been pretty neutered as well.
In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, the Faith actually seemed to be a good deal more powerful before Aegon the Conqueror showed up. The Faith Militant organized an uprising against Aenys I (Aegon’s son) and seemed to have support of the smallfolk and then Maegor the Cruel brutally suppressed them with dragonfire (and burned down the Sept of Rememberance, which is why Targaryens can threaten burning Septs afterwards) and then Jaehaerys I offered amnesty if the Faith Militant were disbanded. This Faith Militant were the group that Cersei decided to reinstate for her own goals… which backfired on her spectacularly.
So from the history of House Targaryen it seemed that pissing off the Faith was a really big deal… until the folks who are pissing them off have dragons and are willing to use them against the Faith. And by the time the last dragon seemed to have died, the armies of the Faith had been completely decimated and precedence made the Targaryen rule sacrosanct.
Feel free to point out where Martin’s work portrays something that would not be historically accurate, were it meant to be taken as historical. That’s something that people do all the time.
However, to speak of responsibility on Martin’s part or that he has committed some kind of error or has failed because of comparisons to actual history, that’s not something I personally can take seriously.
Well this would be more like some nobles from Russia come with dragons to Western Europe and the Church has no fucking idea how to counter that or capture and breed them before they get neutered. Not to mention they’d probably just ingratiate themselves to get close to power instead of trying to fight the dragon lords.
Man I could not disagree more. Daemon is an amazing character, and so is Aemond, and so is Rhaenyra. Alicent is very interesting as well as she is leaning towards a Cersei type role, but still trying to be kind and decent at heart.
I’m taking this series on its own. It’s certainly a lot less ambitious than Game of Thrones, but, you know what, ultimately, it failed. Martin failed by never finishing it, and HBO failed by not maintaining the standard of story telling to the end. I don’t love it the way I loved the books or first few seasons of Game of Thrones, but there’s enough in it to keep me interested and invested. The last two or three episodes have been especially good. I’m invested in these characters at least to some extent (certainly more than I’m invested in anything happening in Rings of Power).
Agreed, I have a lot more confidence that this show will end well as they’ve known the end before ever starting. Also I don’t see how it can last more than three seasons or so, and the next two should be full of action. I didn’t like the new Aegon and Aemond kids. Aegon looks like they just replaced one teenager for another who doesn’t look any older, just completely different, and Aemond grew a massive jaw out of nowhere, not to mention looking way older than he should be and than his older brother.
Agree. I think the characters, their intentions and reasons why, are so much more complex in HOTD. You could pretty easily assign a “good” and “bad” rating for almost every GOT character, with the bad ones almost always with purely self-serving reason for their actions. Sure, some of them like Theon, Varys and Daenerys do switch sides from good-to-bad and vice versa, but we generally knew where they stood at each point in time.
If you think of an HOTD character, and put yourself I their position, you can understand and can sympathize with their viewpoint, and conclude that their actions are completely justified. To me, they are far “more human” than GOT characters.
I actually think the series will surpass GOT in terms of critical acclaim, even though it may not quite become the same culture phenomenon.
Both that, and Alicent’s reaction when Helaena asks for Dyanna add to the ambiguity.
I re-watched the “moon tea” scene. At the end there’s a definite gurgling or choking sound as the camera closes in on Alicent’s face. And the we get a “J-cut” edit (“L-cut”? I can never remember which) in which we still see the video of Alicent’s face reacting to Dyanna, but we hear the audio of Alicent yelling at Aegon to “get up.”
I really don’t know what they want us to think here.
Didn’t Alicent give Helaena is hug when she asked where Dyana was? To me, that made it even more ambiguous, which I think was also intentional. I predict it’s a play on us GOT fans who expect for Alicent to become the Cersei of this series, but that we’ll see Dyana again at some point.
I wonder if Mysaria will somehow lure Aegon into fathering some little princes, knowing his carelessness and lack of control. Aemond is clearly being set up as the true contender from the Green side.
By the way, one character that is likely almost universally hated is Larys. He was suspiciously absent from this episode. I know he rules Harrenhall now, but I’m sure he still has a big part to play.
I’m thinking that might be her plan with Dyana. That she made sure Dyana didn’t get the Plan B tea. But, wouldn’t it be hard to hide a Targaryen bastard? Are all Targaryens part of the nobility? We’ve never seen any among the commonfolk.
If Alicent wanted to kill Dyanna, why did she give her a payment to ease her inconvenience? That seems like an unnecessary thing to do if you’re just going to kill the poor girl anyway. Maybe I’m just thinking of Darlene from Ozark. If she wanted you dead, she just blew a hole through your chest, then went back to finish her cigarette. There was no pretending to be nice first.
I don’t think she was killed at all, but it would be to get her trust to get her to drink the poison. I don’t think that happened though, casual murder would be a way bigger deal than the crown prince banging a rando.
