hello, everyone! yes, i know what month this comes out and how many months it has been since the release of season 2, but i do have reasons on why it's taking so long (even longer than george rr martin's blog post about his thoughts on season 2). first, i have been struggling with anxiety for the past few months but i think i'm getting better in maintaining it. second, i have been swamped by my master's thesis it's kind of insane. and also last but definitely not least, i've been confused at how i'm going to approach writing this tv show talk. there are so many issues that i have with this season that had i written it in the usual template or structure of tv show talk, it would have been longer than my wip master's thesis. so i'm just gonna cut to the chase and list down things that i dislike about house of the dragon season 2.
disclaimer : i don't support incest, war crimes, fratricide, and many of the dark themes in the show in real life. spoilers for house of the dragon and fire and blood
i'm going to write them in sections so it will help my jumbled mind on writing this
- the number of the episodes
so before we go into the actual storyline, i'm gonna tell about something that seems trivial but it's actually very crucial to why everything went awry with season 2, which was the number of episodes. season 1 had 10 episodes which was cool but it felt like the pacing was too fast, because trying to almost 20 years worth of storyline in 10 episodes was pretty hard especially with a story like house of the dragon that has many characters with interesting characteristics and complicated sub plots. but they did an amazing job with the stuff they were given to work with, especially the first 5 episodes of season 1. when it was announced that season 2 would only have 8 episodes, i had a bad feeling and a bit of war flashbacks because the last time game of thrones franchise pulled this kind of move, it didn't end well for them, yes i'm talking about season 7 and 8 of game of thrones. i was also very pessimistic on how much of a storyline that they could fit in 8 episodes, spoiler alert : there wasn't much, almost nonexistent. instead they put in stuffs that i feel like wasn't necessary and you'll see it in detail later down the line. i've heard that there was some issue with the budget hence why they decided to cut it, but i think they should remember how it went the last time they cut the number of episodes.
- the whole blood & cheese ordeal
this is one of my major issues with the season but i'm putting it first because the b&c event happened in episode 1 and it's one of the safest ones of my issues to talk about. so, i gotta make a disclaimer that i'm 100% team black, anything that rhaenyra and/or daemon does and/or any other team black members does, i'm supporting. but i'm also a kind of adapted media enjoyer that prefers when a book or any other thing being adapted to other form of media to stay true to the original source. yes, fire and blood which is the source material for house of the dragon was written as a history book so there are going to be some inaccuracies and bias depends on which account you're reading, but there are some stuffs that you can't change just because it doesn't fit the showrunners' idea of their perfect iteration of the dance of the dragons era. as most of you may know, b&c was the event of the murder of aegon the elder's oldest son which is jaehaerys and it was really tragically written in f&b, also was dubbed as the dance era's red wedding by many people, which i know was not going to happen because many people already know what happened and spoiled it for the rest of the class which was fine by me. but my main issue is that, why was a whole child missing in the event? so in f&b, by the time rhaenyra was usurped from her throne, aegon the elder and his sister-wife, helaena, already had 3 children, jaehaerys & jaehaera (the twins), and maelor the youngest. when b&c happened in the book, there was this part in which cheese asked helaena which son did she want to sacrifice to be killed, and it was an insane inner turmoil from helaena's side to basically pick which son she would careless to be murdered. she picked maelor to be murdered by blood and cheese, which makes sense because maelor was the spare in this situation and helaena wouldn't risk the safety of the heir and then cheese spoke to maelor something along the line of, "your mom doesn't want you, boy" and to hear that, even though he was like 3, would ruin you for the future. but the twist was that, although helaena picked maelor to be murdered, jaehaerys was the one who was actually murdered in the end and helaena lived with the guilt of picking maelor but maelor was still alive. also i did imagine that b&c would be more "loud" and "messier" because alicent was also there and you know that woman likes to yell and cry and be mad a lot. but what actually happened in the show was soooo much different, it was comical almost. first, maelor was MIA, nowhere to be seen. that made the whole inner turmoil of picking which son to be murdered was less painful. don't get me wrong, losing a son is still painful but jaehaerys being the obvious target was much less thrilling and maelor being missing or non-existent will be a domino effect/butterfly effect for the upcoming events which i'm not gonna spoil, but the event that is going to happen is pretty major. and alicent not being in the room when b&c happened was weird, i guess, but expected. she wasn't in the room because she was with criston cole. and honestly, since two of the f&b accounts were written by team green sympathizers, i kinda get it why they changed it. you wouldn't want your "holier than thou" dowager queen to be depicted as someone who neglected her family to be having an affair with her sworn protector. the whole thing also happened so....quick and quiet? when it was done, i was like, "oh? that's it?" don't get me wrong, i think phia saban's performance as helaena was phenomenal but it took me a while to accept that it was done, just like that. for an event dubbed as "the dance's red wedding" although it was already spoiled by the internet, you gotta up the ante to keep the most awaited (well, i guess, second most awaited) moment of the story you're adapting so that the viewers won't be left disappointed by it.
- daemon's adventure in luigi's haunted mansion aka daemon's harrenhal arc
i guess you see this coming a hundred miles away, huh? because i feel like this is what most of the viewers was complaining about, the killing of daemon's character. in season 2, after daemon was confronted by rhaenyra because of his involvement with the blood & cheese ordeal, he went to harrenhal to rally an army for rhaenyra in the riverlands area. i actually really like the horror and fantasy touch in harrenhal. the first of many of his episodes was the best one, because it touched the guilt that he had over leaving rhaenyra and making her clean up his mess over and over again. the aemond/daemon crossover was weird but alright, i guess. but what came after that was the grossest, weirdest, most fucked up thing i've seen in the game of thrones verse, which was daemon and his mom, alyssa targaryen. i'm not gonna tell you what was actually happening but i am really sorry for my girl alyssa because she's one of the coolest targaryen that has ever lived and then they tainted her reputation just like that. if you want to show the viewers that daemon has mommy issues which could also tie in to the reason why he always felt useless every time his wife gave birth, you can just show alyssa dying in childbirth, giving birth to his brother (if you want to use her character). it felt like, daemon who is loved by the viewers because he was a true targaryen with his morally ambiguous views and literally doesn't give a single crap about anyone except his own family, was being nerved by the showrunners because apparently they don't like that daemon is popular with the viewers. i think what the showrunners need to realize is that, us, the viewers of house of the dragon who mostly were the viewers of game of thrones, like it when a character is ruthless and morally ambiguous. like, we didn't want them to be overly good, fuck that, it's not fun. and daemon was supposed to be the face of that. i've already seen this pattern with how they adapt daemon since season 1. in season 1, they made him overly bad and erased all of his good characteristics, such as being a loving dad towards his daughters, actually loving laena, mourning the death of his brother and his daughter. but the general public still actually root for daemon, so they did the next worse thing for his character, which was making him "lame" and nerving him this whole season. even matt smith, daemon's actor, has shown some disappointment on his character's arc this season by just saying that "daemon is not daemon this season". i do think it's quite unprofessional on the showrunners' end. just because you don't like that a character, and not even a character that you created, that you probably dislike is famous with the viewers for valid reasons, doesn't make it okay for you to just killing his characterizations. my final word for this arc is, it's good but don't stretch it out and execute it better for daemon's journey as a character.
- the erasing of important characters and giving less important characters more screentime
this is probably gonna be the longest part because this is my biggest issue with the season. there are so many important storylines and characters that are fundamental to the plot that were scrapped in the writers' room. let's start with the opening of season 2, the winterfell storyline. what actually happened in f&b for the winterfell storyline was jace flew on his dragon, vermax, to winterfell in order to get the north's support for rhaenyra as the rightful queen and got an army of winterwolves. in the end, jace managed to do that and secured the future position of his mother on the throne and her descendants as well. in f&b, it was mentioned that jace was in winterfell for 2 weeks, he did all sorts of things up there, including, a blood pact he did with the warden of the north, cregan stark, named "pact of ice and fire". what happened in the show was, they didn't even show winterfell, they only showed the wall, and the whole winterfell storyline which i kinda predicted was gonna run for at least the half of the first episode was only running for 5 minutes tops. which was not in my taste because, as i said, jace securing the north was important to the plot because it secured rhaenyra's posthumous win in the dance of dragons and it also shows how capable jace was as the heir compared to aegon the elder. but i'll just say it was a biased opinion for that storyline because i love rhaenyra and jace.
but for this second storyline for a character with an actual representation for the people of color. this character was just scrapped and her whole arc was seemingly given to another character who already had an amazing arc in her own way. this is about a character named nettles, who was one of the last remaining dragonseeds (targaryen bastards who were given the chance to ride a dragon and fought for rhaenyra, at first). in f&b, nettles rode a wild dragon with no rider called sheepstealer due to his habit of eating people's sheep and it was said that he was one of the biggest dragons that was alive during the dance era. she was canonically black, and her storyline with being able to claim sheepstealer and being one of the faces of dragonseeds was already an amazing representation for the black community (though her ending was a bit distasteful, but we're not gonna talk about that). the arc for nettles is seemingly given to rhaena who was, oh my god, she's been having the shorter end of the stick this whole season. in f&b, rhaena was having a good time in the vale. a lot of lords of the vale were trying to get her attention romantically and she was treated like the princess of realm. while in hotd, she was having such a shitty time in the vale, being the babysitters for her brothers, not welcomed in the eyrie by jeyne arryn, whose character was also butchered in the show, also literally running around the vale to find sheepstealer to claim him and no one was looking for her, a princess of the realm, for day and night. only for it to end with a cliffhanger just because the showrunner wanted it to be a "wait and see" moment, just say that you're incapable in writing powerful and important female characters that is not your favorite and move on.
talking about favorite character, it's obvious that the showrunners are very fond of alicent hightower, or at least their version of alicent anyway. i feel like in this season, it has been promoted as a "rhaenyra vs alicent, but no, they're also confused with each other's position in the war" when it should've been clear that the whole narrative of the dance should be about rhaenyra and aegon the elder fighting for the throne. what i'm saying is that, even aegon the elder (and i'm not his biggest fan) is being thrown to the side to give alicent a stage that doesn't even exist. there are a number of alicent scenes that i feel like unncecessary to the plot and should be given to other characters and subplots (seem like subplots have been missing this season). one of them is the many bathing scenes that alicent had. like, okay, she's taking a bath in her chambers, and also went for a swim in a lake, like what do you want us to do about it? it didn't add anything to the plot, it didn't serve anything to her character other than her being sad, angry, and sadangry. my advice to the showrunners, if you guys loooveeee alicent that much and want to give her the spotlight, contiune with the stepmother arc that you did in season 1. make her an actual hypocrite that is not afraid to be nasty while having the faith and the realm as her shield and justification for her wrongdoings. make her a victim turn perpretator.
i also don't like how the showrunners gave sort of back story for hugh hammer and ulf the white. okay, maybe for hugh, i can see how it's a good arc of him being saera targaryen's bastard and riding jaehaerys I's dragon vermithor. this is kinda good because during her life in westeros, saera was known to be a problem child due to her sexual escapades, and her father, jaehaerys I's didn't allow her a dragon. so it's kind of a full circle moment for saera's bastard son to ride jaehaerys' dragon. but for ulf, well, yeah i see the intention of creating an annoying character, but please, don't make baelon the fucking brave his father. it's an insult for baelon himself. the showrunners are not only tainting daemon's name, but also his parents' name. baelon and alyssa are fan favorites, they don't deserve to be treated like that. anyway, giving both hugh and ulf a back story only for them to be turncloaks? doesn't sit right with me.
- the shift in the storyline (from gender equality and sexism to trying to save the world)
george rr martin has made it clear since the beginning that the essence of the dance of dragons is how rhaenyra was not given her rights that is the throne due to her being a woman. which at its core, is sexism. not regicide, not the apocalypse, not the chosen one prophecy. the chosen one prophecy was more talked about in the main series which is a song of ice and fire with the azor ahai prophecy. what i feel like hotd writers is trying to do is undo the "mistakes" in game of thrones. for example, in the last episode of season 2 which is episode 8, daemon was given a one last vision by alys rivers in harrenhal, and it was the vision of the long night and how it will all end with daenerys being the hero (which i think it's kinda a confirmation on her being the azor ahai), when we all know, it didn't end like that. daenerys didn't kill the night king that brought the end of the long night (which was honestly pretty short in my opinion). just like, stop trying to undo what already happened, it just makes you look stupid. also hearing daemon said "winter is coming" in high valyrian was a trip because i can tell you, that man did not give a single fuck about the end of the world, he is probably the bringer of the end of the world himself if it means he can secure rhaenyra's position on the iron throne.
yes, i did save the most controversial of them all at the very end. oh, rhaenicent, where do i begin with you? i guess i should start with explaining what is rhaenicent. so rhaenicent is a ship for rhaenyra and alicent, that didn't exist in f&b due to their age gap, in f&b when alicent married viserys, she was 18 years old while rhaenyra was 9. so they weren't friends at all. rhaenyra had many friends and ladies-in-waiting that are just gone in house of the dragon so that i think they could force the all-hail doomed toxic yuri that rhaenicent is with them being the same age in house of the dragon. in the first. i have no problem with lgbtq+ characters, couples, and storyline. i do believe that rhaenyra is bisexual due to the description in f&b on how fond she was of laena velaryon and how close they were. i was also delighted that the bisexual side of rhaenyra by her showing interest in mysaria and their kissing scene because it made sense for them, character wise. but what i don't like is forcing something that doesn't make sense to the storyline down our throats, the viewers' throat, which is the theme of the downfall of house of the dragon season 2. season 1 rhaenicent was perfectly fine in my opinion, the development was also made sense. if rhaenicent existed in the house of the dragon storyline, i'd like to think that, yes, there were something when they were younger. but i feel like it all should've vanished a long time ago the moment alicent married rhaenyra's father, the moment alicent felt rhaenyra "betrayed" her by not telling alicent whether or not rhaenyra slept with daemon, the moment alicent tormented, alienated, and spread rumors about rhaenyra for 10 years in her own home, the moment luke took out aemond's eye, the moment aegon usurped rhaenyra's throne, the moment rhaenyra heard that luke was murdered by vhagar on a chase. there were so many instances that would made so much sense for the feelings to be ceased from existence becase so many things were at stakes that all those memories and love turned into weapon and bitterness toward one another. but nope, the showrunners decided to make them seeing each other secretly, for the sake of their past. you've lost two of your children, rhaenyra! get a grip, girl.
they forced the rhaenicent storyline so much that they kinda forgot (pun intended, iykyk) that alicent lost her stance and relevance in the arc of dance of the dragons after aegon the elder usurped rhaenyra's throne. she kind of went into the background until aegon the younger assumed the throne and told her granddaughter to kill him. they were like scrambling on how to make alicent still relevant to the storyline while having no base on what she's actually doing, hence the sex, bath, and wandering around scenes. it's okay, guys, to just let go of her for a minute or you can take my advice on making her an evil stepmother who uses the realm as her shield and reasoning for her wrongdoings, it's fine. that way she still can be the relevant just as you guys wanted while not undermining her character and olivia cooke's acting skills.
people said that the showrunners created season 2 so that it could be used for tiktok edits for rhaenicent, and i agree. there were many scenes in which i felt had no importance to the storyline but it was visually pleasing. for example, the very last scenes in season 2 with the parallels between rhaenyra and alicent. rhaenyra was under her bookshelves containing of her family history and alicent was out in the open and free. like, i get it guys, cinematography is cool and all but y'all need to fix the storyline first. you're making a tv show not fan edts.
so those are definitely not the only thing that i felt gone wrong with house of the dragon season 2. there are many more issues such as the ego that the showrunners have to just erase any of george rr martin's touch in the story and made a whole fanfiction that they could attach their names to it. also the problem with everyone being outfit repeaters. but i feel this is where i'd like to leave my rant. also, i'm so happy that the only nomination that house of the dragon received in golden globes was best leading actress for emma d'arcy when house of the dragon won best drama series the last time it was nominated. like of course, they were the best thing that happened in season 2. i know the showrunners and hbo felt dumb when they found out after saying all fans but one (being grrm) were happy with season 2. anyways, that's all for this tv show talk. i'll see you on another post where i'm happier.
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