In this, or ever? Because he was fucking terrifying in Lost River.
I didn’t catch that, only know him from Dr Who. He is also not very physically imposing.
He was intense but not scary as a young Prince Philip in The Crown.
I thought he did a great job and I can see him as a psychopath, which I assume he will be.
This pilot episode was not as good as Game of Thrones, but maybe this show can narrow its focus and actually develop a nice, solid storyline.
I was puzzled by that as well. I ended up reading about medieval tournaments last night. While I knew people were often hurt in tournaments (Henry VIII, Henri II) I didn’t think the king would want his knights and retainers fighting to the death. In some cases the fighting got out of hand and there were deaths (including spectators), but usually the rules kept the bloodshed under control.
I guess I’m having trouble caring about the history of the Targaryen family 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Especially since their world doesn’t really seem to change much over the centuries.
I’m also not really sure what conflict they are setting us up for, other than your standard crisis of succession with Princess Mini-Dani and Price Doctor Who competing to take over the throne from King Steven from The World’s End (I’m not going to remember all those Targaryen names). Or should I just assume recent events are going to “shatter the Five Kingdoms” again?
And we could probably have done without 5 minutes of prolog exposition. I get it. King Garga-someone I never heard of died and stuck King Ragny-someone else I don’t know with the throne and he needs an heir. I’ve seen medieval fantasy/historical drama before.
Just for comparison, the first episode of Game of Thrones introduced us to Westeros, Essos, King’s Landing, the Starks, the Lannisters, the Baratheons, the Targaryens, the Nights Watch, the Dothraiki, the White Walkers, and the concept that “Winter is Coming” without any prior backstory.
I guess we’ll see. But so far, it feels like one of those historical drama series on Starz about the Lancasters and the Yorks (i.e “The Dragon Princess”)
ASOIF was expressly based on the War of the Roses and its aftermath.
Aegon was based on William the Conqueror. King Aegon II is based on King Stephan, Princess Rhaenyra is Empress Matilda. The whole Dance of the Dragons is inspired by the Anarchy. It shouldn’t’ be surprising that its so similar.
Did we see an actual castration and its results? As far as I recall, we never saw the actual gelding of Theon.
This show is essentially a historical drama for a fantasy world, but unlike real historical dramas where you can say “Oh, Mary Queen of Scots, I know that name but I don’t know her deal,” here you’re left with characters you’ve never met before and the only detail you know is vaguely how it all plays out. It’s like a show meant for people of that world, who would have grown up hearing about Princess Rhaenyra and King Aegon II and now get to see them portrayed by actors.
Winter is coming. Again. Or before.
I don’t know how well it tracks with the War of the Roses. I thought GRRM referred to Maurice Druon’s Accursed Kings series as his inspiration.
In my experience, The Anarchy is almost unknown, at least in the US. Probably because there are no Shakespeare plays about it.
As an aside, I recommend The Hollow Crown series by the BBC. Very well done.
I liked it enough to keep watching. I agree the first half was fairly dull but it picked up towards the end.
Not nearly as good as the GOT pilot though. I looked up a summary to refresh my memory and it did a great job of introducing a more varied and interesting group of characters as well as throwing us (literally !)into the plot.
A lot more people and storylines launched in GoT’s pilot, which was pretty good back when it aired, but I now see was brilliant.
This, it would be nice if there was something different about the look and feel of the world nearly 200 years before the events of the first series.
I think that this is such a trope, it would really be great to see a show mention it in some fun way. They could mention something they don’t have(a healing medicine or something) and we could say, “Hey, they had that in Game of Thrones…oh!!!”
Since this is a book question, I’ll spoiler it.
Was the conversation about Aegon’s dream “A Song of Ice and Fire” and how that prophecy was passed down through the Targaryen line from the book? Or did they add that to connect this story to GOT?
It was to show that historically in Westeros, women don’t sit on the Iron Thone. The Great Council from the beginning is contrasted with King Viserys making all the Lords of the Realm pledge their fealty to Princess Rhaenyra and that is why some of those Lords were making not so happy faces. And, of course, it is obvious that this is important to the story we are going to be seeing.
Apparently it was added, but Aegon’s dream seems to have come straight from GRRM himself:
The Song of Ice and Fire Dream, Explained | POPSUGAR Entertainment
I thought TV Tropes had something about the lack of technological advances over eons in fantasy worlds, but now I can’t find it.
Not having ever read the books, there was enough tension for me in the baby scenes to keep ambiguities open [son / daughter; real baby / switcheroo] until the writers decided you needed to know.
One aside - when the Hightower girl went to comfort the king in his chambers, he was to all intents and purposes whittling a model King’s Landing from a single block of stone. He really, really looked like he was waiting for steam engines to be invented so he could get some model trains into the action. If this was meant to portray a man who really had been Peter Principled into a job way above his capability, it was an excellent touch [and in case you missed his weakness and lack of direction in the Council and in every other scene he was in].