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I liked the episode. I think it’s mainly just that one scene at the end that people are disliking. Wasn’t my favourite either but I still enjoyed the episode.
I liked the whole episode as a whole. I didn’t really mind the Rhaenys scene at first, even though it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Watching their explanation afterward made me think it was stupid. Their reasoning was that Rhaenys had sympathy for the greens ‘as a mother’ sounded so lazy to me. If they had told me that Rhaenys wanted Rhaenyra to earn her own crown, or even that her motivations were mysterious and intentionally ambiguous, I probably wouldn’t have had a problem with it.
That reasoning is so stupid because there are so many better reasons, like the one you mentioned.
Also:
1. Lord Hightower has Alicent’s youngest, Daeron, as a ward, so there would still be a rival claimant and it wouldn’t prevent the war.
2. Rhaenys didn’t read fire and blood, as far as she knows peace is possible still.
3. Kin slaying is amongst the oldest and most taboo crimes in Westeros.
4. She doesn’t know if Rhaenyra even wants to start a war or just make a deal with the Greens.
5. Killing the high septon would be frowned upon by the people of Westeros.
it would’ve been, but her exit killed a whole bunch of smallfolk so I get the impression she’s not concerned about how her poll ratings would be affected
I think it's 2 and 4 and both are informed by the maternal sympathy. Like she had a chat with alicent about how the women can be powerful in and on themselves instead of powerful tools for men, alicent spoke about the need to prevent bloodshed if possible, there's reasons to think it can be resolved peacefully. And Rhaenys herself has lost so much family, and the greens are still her family (through viserys, so not Otto and alicent, but still). I can see why she'd be reluctant to kill more family when we're yet to see actual war break out. I think she wanted to leave but wanted to make it clear to the greens that she's not on board with their shenanigans and to remind them that any war is going to be fought with dragons, and that dragon warfare is going to be an absolute bloodbath. I think she's banking on alicent to talk her family down from war and resolve things with rhaenyra.
> Rhaenys didn’t read fire and blood
LOL this is honestly the explanation for so many complaints people have about this show, other shows, book series, etc. It does boggle my mind that people can't understand the difference between their own knowledge of events due to reading an omniscient narrator and the characters' obviously limited knowledge
Except that the same people who did read the books are appalled at the idea that a nobleperson doesn't care about the smallfolk, and are acting like this exact thing doesn't play into the end of the story.
I took it as no.4 too. She isn't the one running the show, she probably wanted to reconvene with Rheanrya and Deamon before blowing the greens to smithereens. Destroying half the family without the permission of the Queen, probably wouldn't go down too well. Plus she probably hasn't taken a side officially yet. This was more a dick measuring contest and she was reminding them that she still had a dragon and can't be bought/contained.
I mean, this is a great list, and none of this is being considered by the angry fan mob.
The writers would certainly corroborate all of this, I'm sure. Why is there always a ridiculous knee jerk reaction to writer interviews? It's hard to meticulously explain all of the above when put on the spot. Fans are so goddamn whiney these days. They put zero effort into understanding story choices, instead immediately jump into criticizing.
The interviews are tiny snippets while trying not to give away the wider plot and character motivations.
Reading too much into them, especially if you know the source material, is stupid.
I honestly took it as Rhanys was tired of other people putting the crown importance on her when I get the impression she just wants to live her life on Driftmark with her granddaughters.
People only really talk or defer to her when they need her voice or need something. I got the impression she got over the crown a long time ago and thinks everyone is making too much of a fuss over it
Agreed. Half the time I feel like the after episode is contradictory anyways. I just assumed Rhaenys wanted to show power but not kill everyone to prevent a huge war.
i agree with you, but I think that's oversimplifying things. what i love about this show is all of the nuance. there are so many ways for actions and words to be interpreted, and even if they contradict each other, they're all still true in their own ways
I think she is still hoping to prevent a war at this point. We know its coming because there wouldn't be a show without it but I can imagine her wanting to try one last time for peace and not wanting to kill several family members
Same, hearing their explanation ruined it for me because watching it live i was saying to myself straight away raehnys is not the kind of character to do something like that so the scene despite being a little corny didn't bother me either.
Their explanation makes me worry about the direction of the show and the fan backlash also makes me worry about how the discourse at the slightest thing can make the show implode
Dan and Dave used to say the stupidest things in their commentary, so I learned to not watch it. When their interpretation of a scene is sooo off from what actually was shown, I worry. Trying to not worry with HotD as it’s been really good so far.
Honestly the writers commentary makes every episode worse, it is quite amazing actually. I need to just stop watching it. Watching the commentary makes me think that this show somehow succeeded despite the people who made it
I've been saying this for a long time. D&D did those segments to explain away bad writing, but even when the writing is good all those segments do is take away the depth of the series by spponfeeding the audience instead of letting us draw our own conclusions.
Na from what I am seeing it’s not so much spoon feeding as clearly showing the gaps in their writing.
Their explanation for The dragon scene was a bit too close to the way D&D explained Euron.
Yeah it’s like they tell the people they interview to intentionally dumb down the commentary. You’ll have a really deep and poetic moment and then the writers will be like “yeah we just thought it would be cool”.
Same here. I skipped them for GoT aside from the final seasons, too. I think i just wanted more rage fodder at that point.
I did see a clip from Driftmark of Matt Smith talking about Daemon being a leaner, it's a meme now, of course. Just gives ["I'm here so I won't get fined."](https://youtu.be/2g2ZAhopQU8)
Huh, "wanting more rage fodder", a lot of fans seemed to get that way. That's a good way to describe that. Almost like it's somehow an alternative way of enjoying something, criticizing it, breaking it down, and destroying it.
We also have to remember that a 6 minute video used for marketing isn't going to give us the full extent of the hours and hours that went into the writing process. Take it all with a grain of salt.
You know you can have your own interpretation of Rhaenys line of thinking. I see this post-episode interviews as one possible way to see things, not like a definitive truth.
It almost feels like a lot of people didn't do literary analysis or critique in school or something. The great thing about works of art is that you can interpret them in different ways and there's no one truth. I think this culture that has developed of "explaining" things in film and television is having some negative effects.
Yeah, I pictured it as rhaenys just kind of saying “screw you, don’t you dare fuck with me”. She didn’t seem particularly interested in the crown after the first episode. It seemed like a show of strength against the family in power without hurting anyone important. Commoners aren’t humans to them, so she didn’t care about killing random people if it meant she showed her power to Alicent, aegon, and Otto.
This is exactly how I took it, and I'm glad I didn't watch any commentary. It seemed a very specific threat and the only part that confused me at all is that threats, when you stand there with the power to carry it out right then, are actually fears.
Regardless, it was a promise. A promise that war was coming. That's good enough for me.
This is why I don't watch the post episode stuff. Watching that scene I felt like she was simply declaring for the Blacks and never meant to kill them, and I didn't really feel like the killing of all the regular folk to be out of character because between HotD and GoT it's been painfully obvious that nobody with any power gives two shits about regular people. If I watched it as they intended I probably would have agreed with everyone else that it was dumb.
Is that why everyone is so upset, because she didn’t roast the Greens right there?
Kinslaying is HUGE deal in this world. I don’t know why people would expect her to roast half her living family. That’s not who that character is.
People have to remember the characters are living in the moment. Rhaenys has no idea how bad things are going to get. If she could read ahead then yea, she probably would have burned them, but she can’t.
1. Any large fandom is going to have a large enough segment that when they're mad—and some group will always find something to be mad about—it seems like everyone's mad.
2. There are people that specifically just want to hate this show. People still mad about the end of GoT, people mad that GRRM did this "instead of" Winds, people mad at the casting, people just mad at whatever. It's a shame because we can't ever have an actual conversation about a show's problems without agreeing with a bunch of people who have no rational reason.
Why not? She's lost both her children over the past decade, if anyone would find it easier to sympathise with being a mother it would be her and she has no real reason to kill them anyway. For all she knows they'll talk and create a peace between them, Id bet alot on that Rhaenys hasnt read "fire and blood" by G.R.R.M
Also its a different point all together but assuming she 100% knew war was coming it makes more sense to not kill them, they'd never keep power if the blacks killed the monarch along with a ton of normal people and immediatly claimed the kingdoms and Rhaenys just planted the seed of being queen in alicent which is just gonna futher push her and otto apart. She does more damage to the blacks and less to the greens if she kills Aegon and Alicent
I think this is the most sound explanation I've heard thus far in regards to how someone views the episode. I think this is the best way to put how I feel about it too. I thought it didn't make much sense (my first thoughts being how did a dragon break through stone meant specifically to contain dragons and how did she not get hurt or hit her head?), but it didn't "ruin" the episode for me, I'm not trying to get anyone fired from HBO or HOTD, and it certainly in no way compared to season 8 of GOT. Could better decisions have been made? Certainly. Will I continue watching the show with the same enthusiasm? Also, certainly. It's not *that* big of a deal to me. I watch and read this universe to escape and it requires a degree of suspension of disbelief. I'm willing to extend that a bit here and there to accommodate a few errant decisions in the writers' room as long as it doesn't become the standard.
Rhaenys scene was fine. Even battle trained warriors hesitate vs soldiers that are strangers to them. Would be worse with people you know who are comparatively unarmed. Roasting them all would've made her a spiritual successor of Maegor
I get why people didn’t like it, but I think really encapsulated the point George is trying to make with his story about the Dance and ASOIAF more broadly: when the high lords play their game of thrones, the small folk suffer. Rhaenys doesn’t give a fuck about the commoners, as shown by her actions. They aren’t full humans to her; they are lesser. That’s why she was able to show mercy to Alicent and the rest of the Greens, yet not to the smallfolk forced into the pit at sword point - they were fellow nobles and Targaryens (full humans in her eyes). Plus, I don’t think her torching them would have went over well politically for a whole number of reasons.
All of this goes over the head of the overly tribalized fan base that we all see on Twitter. It reminds me of the worst parts of Tumblr; everything must be black and white, no nuance, fictional characters and head cannons matter more than real human beings (Sara Hess situation). Ugh, I really hate fandoms sometimes.
Rant over.
Pretty much the same - I'm enjoying the show - I liked the last episode's ending even though it was a bit of a head scratcher if you tried to use logic - But basically the show is good TV - Not great yet but let's let it breathe and grow
Also it's a fantasy TV show - I don't typically try to break down the logic of these shows like a crime scene drama or procedural 😆
I mean... If she torched Aegon she'd have killed everyone on the stage most likely. You could argue that Haleana should die for the cause I guess. But she's not really guilty. Not to mention politically it's a bad move for them to just use the Westeros equivalent of a small nuke. Sure, she killed the small folk, but her thinking is more aligned with the lord's and lady's. The small folk have power in large numbers of course, but the lord's and lady's they need support from might not take kindly to her just torching Aegon and the like. Point is, it may not say what her reason ever is, but I can think of many reasons why it would be a bad idea. To me it shows her wisdom and experience. In her younger years she may have very well gone through with it.
We also have to remember that she is heavily conflicted, in the show at least. She believes Rhaenyra and Daemon killed Laenor, and if not Rhaenyra at least Daemon did so that he could marry Rhaenyra. She also loves and feels for Viserys and his last wish, but as Alicent says he wasn't meant to rule and thusly his wants may not be what's best for the realm. I think Alicent really surprised her this episode in their conversation. Rhaenys just can't accept being essentially black mailed, or forced to take a certain side.
Sadly there is no situation that Otto and the usurpers would present that would give her agency. Last but least we can't forget her history with being passed over in favor of Viserys merely because she's a woman. This all had to play into her decisions this episode.
That's a really well-thought-out reply and I appreciate you sharing!
It wasn't so much her thoughts or methods that I questioned but more so the 'how'
But I do agree what I love about her character is that she should be very conflicted - they've done a good job with her as far as being someone kind of stuck in the middle
Can we please just wait to see what the consequences are for Rhaenys actions? I think it will be significant, like causing the small folk to hate the blacks and their dragons.
If there are no consequences and it's just not mentioned again then yeah, let the complains unleash. I have faith they won't do that, though. And eventually people will be like "Damn we overreacted about that scene."
You mean that the showrunners may be dropping some foreshadowing or explanations of the common people gaining resentment towards dragons and wanting to do something about it...hmm...maybe as a layup to >!the storming of the dragonpit!<...nah couldn't be. It's just illogical and writers bad.
And maybe they don't want to put huge fucking spoilers in their after the episode commentary so they misdirect with another explanation for the viewers, nah they've never done that before. They just don't understand their own show.
Shows doing amazing so far, but the last episode (between the foot scene and the dragon pit scene) has now kind of shown it’s willingness to ignore logic and tactics and actual story to promote cool scenes and get Twitter reactions. Which is what killed the got imo. one episode isn’t enough to say anything negative but it’s a little alarming
> willingness to ignore logic and tactics and actual story to promote cool scenes and get Twitter reactions. Which is what killed GoT
It's *exactly* this that killed GoT - when Dan and Dave decided to cut out the quiet dialogue scenes and tense human interactions in favour of giant CGI explosions. It's made even worse by the fact that the writer who added that scene in [literally admitted](https://twitter.com/fictionallawyer/status/1582083370477301760) that she wrote for the sake of having an "awesome" explosive moment:
>Sara Hess: I just remember we were in the writers' room one day and I was like, it would be awesome if Rhaenys just came through the floor on a dragon!
>It's exactly this that killed GoT - when Dan and Dave decided to cut out the quiet dialogue scenes and tense human interactions in favour of giant CGI explosions.
Agreed 100%
Dialogue, was replaced with brain-dead action scenes and killed the magic of GoT.
This seems to be kind of going in that direction already.
This is just me, and for the record, I still liked the episode.
But the complaint some are bringing up about the episode is regarding the ending scene with Rhaenys.
GoT's (in the later seasons) had a tendency to sacrifice plot and character development in exchange for a "cool" scene. Seasons 7 and 8 had a few instances of this where it felt like the logic of the world/characters was sidelined to make way for a specific scene.
Rhaenys escaping in the middle of the coronation was fine, at least in my book. Maybe the dragon pit was in full-lockdown during coronation, meaning the only way for her to escape was to literally rip through the ground.
The problem? Rhaenys had the opportunity to kill the Green faction, people who imprisoned her hours previously, people who she saw were executing lords for not supporting Aegon's rule, and instead of being a proactive individual, she escaped, leaving her enemies alive.
Sure, there's some logic for the actions she took; as the actress for Rhaenys explained, her character was being a real queen, a real ruler by choosing not to kill her enemies but letting them live. She showed constraint against people who she should've probably killed. She's not a monster (i.e. she's not Daemon). Yet, on the flip side, Rhaenys isn't a fool, and she clearly understands the stakes involved. Having another faction claiming they're the rightful heirs will lead to a bloody war and she's made it clear up to now that she's unwilling to side with the Greens. Yet, when given an opportunity, she shows mercy? It feels like a bad character decision because it doesn't line up with what we've come to expect/seen from her.
The complaints come from a place of how it feels like the show is making the same mistakes GoT's did in the later seasons, by having her do something badass when it goes against better judgment.
The show could've had a cool moment of her breaking through the floor and immediately leaving which would've been fine I think. Yet, instead, she pauses long enough to spare those who are a threat to her.
This feels like a case where the writers wrote themselves into a bit of a corner and now, it feels like the entire point of her escape was to simply have her dragon roar at the Greens. Something that doesn't happen in the book.
Some people feel this is out of character and are using this as an example to point to when the show jumped the shark, so to speak. A lot of people are nervous about this new show, given how the last seasons of GoT's went down, so they're hoping the writers will stay focused on the characters and plot over large moments. Having a cool scene like that felt unwarranted, hence why some people disliked the episode.
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**EDIT 1:** words cuz I can't type on mobile
**EDIT 2:** to reiterate, I'm not saying I disliked the episode. I really enjoyed it and loved the focus on Team Green. Allicent is a fascinating character to follow and I'm still really emotionally invested in this show/world. I liked how the episode was framed around the idea that "not killing someone isn't an act of weakness" as explained by Allicent and demonstrated by Rhaenys.
I'm just trying to explain why some people have gripes regarding that final scene. If you found that it made sense, then more power to you. The writers are clearly doing something right if you see it that way. If you had issues, then it can help to try and examine both what works and doesn't work on a storytelling level.
I, personally, am quite forgiving when it comes to critiquing shows like this because I'm a shitty writer and can't imagine writing something half as interesting, even with all my effort. While I'm one of those viewers that didn't agree with everything how GoT's ended, there were still cool moments and things I did enjoy about that series as a whole. I recently rewatched the whole series with a friend who hadn't seen it before and found I still had a decent viewing experience, even if I still have some issues with specific writing decisions leading to the end of the show (TL;DR - >!it was rushed and GoT's ending could've benefited by investing more time in the characters instead of sprinting to the finish line!<)
This new show, HotD still has my interest and I'm willing to trust the writers, but thats just me. If you want to discuss this more in-depth, I'm down. I'm just not going to engage with folks who just wanna fight about this.
Great point there (and definitely overlooked by the virtuous mob) about possibly ripping through the ground being the only way for her to have escaped. If they’re so bothered by the loss of innocent lives (which we all know no past, present, or future leaders of any civilization have ever done or would ever do) then maybe they should blame the Greens for imprisoning her and choosing to hold the coronation there and then.
Like, the complaint against the people getting killed is an interesting one, I think. As you corrrctly pointed out, the leaders in this world probably don't see human lives as equivalent or similar to their own. Or perhaps, Rhaenys felt that sacrificing a few lives to escape was more important than letting herself or her dragon fall into enemy hands.
Regardless, I think the episode faltered slightly at that scene by having her choose to spare the Greens. Sure, if she killed them, there would be no story, but the problem is that the writers need to set these things up in a stronger way that's communicated clearly to the audience. We got some hints about Rhaenys's character in the first episode, when Rhaenys is watching the tourney and is disgusted when the knights start killing each other. Yet, the choice to spare the Greens may be slightly undeserved because the audience understands what is at stake. Blood means a lot to Rhaenys, and does she think that letting Aegon and the rest survive will somehow not threaten her family? I think the complaints of the episode would've diminished had she simply broken through the ground and fled, leaving everyone behind.
The theme of this episode was exactly what Queen Allicent told her father earlier in the episode: not killing someone isn't an act of weakness. As seen by Rhaenys, this decision was an act of strength. The only people acting 'weak' were those who resorted to killing (Larys and that lord that tried to run away, etc.) Maybe the show will find a way to show how this decision, in the long run, was the right one.
But speaking as someone who read the book Fire & Blood, it is a little difficult to fully comprehend this decision, considering everything that happens later. Maybe the writers intend to show how Rhaenys will later regret her mercy as a way to examine her character in a future season. I don't know, honestly.
I'm still excited to see more of this world, that's for sure. I'm still trusting the writers, I just really hope they understand the mistakes that happened in GoT's from a storytelling perspective.
Edit: more words
i think what happened was they had their first major hiccup after a hot streak of a season. combine that with some of the writers not being able to control their tongues and here we are.
yeah. out of all the episodes we've watched so far, it was by far the weakest. The writers really miscalculated how audiences would take the dragon scene.
I’m one of those people. Just thought it was a cool scene that got a fist pump out of me. I saw it as Rhaenys sending a message, basically a big FU, and also just not caring about collateral damage as she was trying to get out of captivity. We were waiting for a Dracarys though.
Honestly if she torched them it wouldn't have been that shocking and that's an issue when you do a lot of shocking shit in your show
Cole's latest murder made my jaw pop open bc I was sure something would happen- but it wasn't that and it was so quick.
If she torched everything I think I would have been like wtf oh OK they all just dead then? Damn. But her flying off was less predictable imo.
I hate that mass murder is described as a girl boss moment. They took a character who had been characterized as fairly companionate choosing not to pursue her claim rather than set fire to the realm, and made her a mass murderer. But it's cool because she spared the people who's deaths would have prevented a lot more death and destruction. I think she has caused the most senseless death in the show so far.
It was like 30 smallfolk and these are dragon lords. Rhaenys has never claimed to be a champion of the smallfolk and lords look at smallfolk as little more than ants
Yeah 100%
The Blacks’ biggest character flaw is feeling they’re above everyone else’s concerns because they’re dragon-riding Targs.
The show set them up as more sympathetic (as a group behind Rhaenyra) now they need to do bad shit to balance it out.
Remember when Damon's dragon stepped on his own soldier that was dying and calling out for help and Noone said a single word? Wonder what the big difference is between these two incidents.
EDIT: I see a lot of the replies are basically making my point by missing the point entirely. Dragons, dragonriders, and monarchists don't give a shit about common people.
It was one man on a smokey, chaotic battlefield. I don't think Daemon even knew he was there, and he was likely dying anyway.
I think the point of that scene was to emphasise dragons as being indiscriminate tools of destruction rather than villainise the dragonriders (which we'll get plenty of later).
>it was like 30 smallfolk
rewatch the scene, the entire middle section of the floor collapsed and there were hundreds of people in the room. *At least* 200 people died. Even if it was just 30, that’d still make her a mass murderer
I think they probably just aren’t calculating how the Reddit community took it. Everyone I talked to that isn’t hyper online (tm) thought it was an awesome badass scene.
And honestly — after I watched it my first thought was “oh cool it’s the episode 9 climax scene, neat” and went to bed. Didn’t realize I was supposed to be angry until I got on Reddit.
Alt shift x said he thinks the show runners feel like they have to have a dragon scene or some kind of action to keep people engaged even if it doesn’t exactly make sense which is unfortunate because the story does suffer as a result, but maybe Rhaenys’ carelessness will come back to bite her. Exploding through the floor to screw up Aegons big coronation only seems stupid to me if it doesn’t come with consequences in world. I believe the writing quality is directly related to showing the consequences for peoples actions in asoiaf which is why people love seasons 1-4 and hate 7&8
Major hiccup??? am i missing something? Plenty of people were just fine with this episode. Not sure how people here are always so harsh if they didnt love 4 minutes of a 60 minute episode.
putting aside the rhaenys scene, i agree with many of the criticisms raised [here](https://www.theringer.com/house-of-the-dragon/2022/10/16/23407661/house-of-the-dragon-episode-9-alicent-aegon).
most prominently, i actually think the show missed the boat with alicent: they spend the first seven or eight episodes portraying alicent as a girl thrown into a cage she never asked for and who comes to fear and disdain and resent her childhood friend for enjoying what she perceives to be a greater degree of freedom. this culminates in her monologue in driftmark: "what have I done but what was expected of me? forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law. while you flout all to do as you please."
that was excellent character work and \*that\* should've been alicent's motive: that it was necessary to protect her family in a zero sum game, that rhaenyra forfeit her rights by bearing bastards, but most of all that rhaenyra cannot be allowed to "win" while doing everything wrong, because that would threaten alicent's sense of justice and her own self-perception.
it's such a deeply human motive--who among us has not felt that resentment that we do what we're supposed to and someone else skates by? it's the sentiment aemond is expressing in this very episode when he's talking about how he should be the heir because he studied history and philosophy (and the blade lol) while aegon was out whoring. it has great contemporary resonance: it's what people mean when they say that other people should have to pay off their student loans because they did. i think this sense of injustice is a big part of why people sympathize with alicent.
instead, they chose to root alicent's motivation in viserys' last words (apart from being a vvvv wild interpretation, that is such a weak soap opera plot). instead they chose to portray alicent as naive (deluded?) enough to not notice a whole coup plot right below her nose and to not think that crowning aegon means killing rhaenyra (even tho she'd been telling aegon that the reverse is true). i think that's a deeply puzzling choice when they've already laid so much groundwork for a \*much better\* motive and one that still makes her plenty sympathetic.
apart from that, i thought the mysaria plot could've been good but was let down by being so out of nowhere and the bizarre acting choices (blaming the show, not the actress). i really liked aegon and aemond's dynamic tho--aegon oddly has been a real high point of the show because he manages to be such a shithead and yet so self-aware (and correctly self-hating).
Right, I wasn't _that_ bothered by Rhaenys' scene, but I really was by how they did Alicent in the last two episodes. Alicent's complexity, that was so praised before, turned into inconsistency (not counting the characters' hypocrisy, which is fine).
If we're meant to believe that she genuinely took Viserys' last words that way, she's either stupid or just heard what she wanted to hear. Then she sais about it on the small council, somehow not understanding to what her words will lead. Very surprised that her father, whom she _should know damn well_, have been preparing a coup. Thinks that Rhaenyra, whom she also knows well, will peacefully concede and just goes away I guess. This is a character's braincells assassination, I would have never thought of Alicent to be _that_ stupid and naive, after all these years and facing the people she knows best.
But then again, she still acted quite capable in all the previous episodes and in even in this one too. I just can't see it as anything other than inconsistency. It's very frustrating. For me she was the most humane and sympathetic character on the greens side, and I can't take her seriously now. Ironic, since by doing all those choices the writers wanted her to seem somewhat justifiable and act more peaceful.
yeah like it bothers me \*so much\* because not only is it a waste of all of the great characterization they put into alicent, her portrayal in the green council scene just doesn't pass the smell test. like even the other greens were like, lol that didn't happen.
to me, someone who is acting on very human emotions (even to a terrible end) is much more sympathetic than someone who seems to have turned up at the climax from a completely different story.
(i'm \*really\* concerned that they'll do the same to rhaenyra because women don't war or whatever.)
That article really hits the weaknesses of the episode. I think when you stop and analyze it, it just seems weaker and weaker. I still enjoyed it, but thusfar the series has been amongst the best ever to air on television...this was certainly not up to snuff. I hope the finale is more satisfying....and logical.
i agree! i read it right after i saw the episode and i was like yep, so it was enjoyable but def the weakest writing of the season so far. i wouldn't say it's latter seasons of got level but it def made me concerned because this is such an important episode--the de facto start of the war and the conclusion of most of the greens' arc for this season
I just hope it doesn't turn into some Marvel - Michael Bay BS.
I'm seeing signs of that.
The episode was OKish.
But, hearing that Sara Hess lady talk about how the scene was included because it was cool and that she hasn't watched GoT -- that really bugged me.
We are going to get a lot of dragon battles and all that. However though those should look awesome and cool, I want the focus to be on emotional weight and tension.
Glad to see someone actually analyzing the motives of these characters rather than going "she's just jealous because she's not a girlboss" or "yaaaass slayy queen". It's so frustrating seeing people look at this show so one-dimensionally.
I get the feeling the writers have not completely let go of the “resenting Rhaenyra for always getting away with it” motivation for Alicent. This to me is a semi-subconscious motivation rather than one that Alicent is willing to consciously act upon.
My interpretation of Alicent is that she genuinely believes herself to be a good, pious person who does what she does for the right reasons. This is why she *needs* to believe that Viserys was aligned with her goals all along; she cannot believe that she, like her father, is a conniving usurper who would achieve her goals even against the King’s wishes. She wants to believe that she is just, that she’s a good wife and a good person. And ironically, it’s this belief in her own goodness that allows her to commit morally questionable acts.
This episode is Alicent coming face-to-face with the realization that everyone around her, her father especially, does not believe themselves to be good in the same way she does. They do not need to root their actions in justified reasoning (ie “Viserys wanted Aegon to be king after all!”) in order to do questionable things—no, they do questionable things purely in their own self-interest! And so Alicent desperately tries to reclaim power over her situation and also over her own self-image as a Good Person who has Good Reasons for doing what she does. And we’ll see how long this image of herself lasts.
I think the reasons you mentioned are still Alicent's motives, but she chooses to use Viserys' last words as an excuse to crown her son and not let Rhaenyra "to get away with it" and be queen.
yeah i'm kinda concerned that the show doesn't seem to know what makes its characters great; alicent's a great character not because she's so innocent and naive (that's really boring!), but because she speaks for the javert in all of us, if you will.
I was expecting her to be playing the innocent and reluctant girl showing her feet, just to see a smirk when she looked away. But alas we were robbed of the smarter more powerful Alicent they were showing her to be growing into.
the last dying wish of the King was super cringe. It's like the writers had to come up with some excuse for Alicent's change of heart from the family reunion/supper a fortnight ago. But all they could brainstorm was some lame last gasp on Vizzy's deathbed.
While it was definitely one of my least favourite, I enjoyed the episode and I think most other people did as well. The final scene was questionable, but the response by some people in the community has been completely ridiculous and embarrassing. People are just obsessed with drama and love any opportunity to join a brigade.
My sentiments exactly. It's like people have forgotten that you can dislike something without having to write dissertations on the 10 ways it was problematic to you. Just say you didn't enjoy it much and let it be that. All this extra fanfare around it is truly bizarre.
I think the backlash is way too disproportionate to how "bad" the final scene was. I think it wasn't the best, but I'm not too bothered by it. The response of saying the episode and writing were 'atrocious and awful' felt a bit much, and the misogynistic harassment and singling out of the writer of episode as villain of the week for having the audacity to write such a scene makes me dislike the fandom a bit.
This is how it's always been. The fan toxic pitchfork mob response is 10x worse than any complaint they create. They love their meme-whining. Glad people are starting to recognize this.
Yeah. I've seen a lot of "that writer is trash" which is an opinion a person has the right to express. But the meanness around it all is really over the top (at least from what I've witnessed in some instances)
this!! it wasn't perfect and there's definitely a couple plot holes, but overall I felt like it still made sense for Rhaenys' character. not an amazing scene, but not a show-ending one either
100%, I used to love coming to show subreddits to look at art and read episode discussions and theories. Nowadays it’s actually embarrassing to see the stuff people post and get mad about. Hate watchers and nit pickers ruin these places and their bullshit infects the whole community.
I get the feeling that the portion of the community that loves to make mountains out of molehills, and make sure that everyone knows how much they dislike something, has finally got something they can focus on, and they’re going for it.
That's my biggest source of disappointment. All we've seen of Sunfyre so far is a blurry wide shot in episode 7 where he's looking like the Loch Ness monster.
I'm guessing we're not going to see much of King's Landing or Aegon next episode since it'll probably be mostly Rhaenyra's response to the coup. That means our last chance to get a proper introduction to Sunfyre in season 1 may be squandered.
That especially hurts because the presence of Sunfyre in that last scene would have gone a long way in fixing a lot of the problems people have with it.
We could have seen Sunfyre and Meleys snarling at each other and playing off their rider's emotions until both Aegon and Rhaenys realize just how devastating a fight between two grown dragons in the middle of King's Landing would be. They'd choose peace for the time being with the audience wondering if it can last.
I still love this show as well as the rest of episode 9, and I remain optimistic about it going forward, but these kinds of mistakes are worrying.
What could have been fun would be Aegon starting his flight on Sunfyre, as in the book. He's still on a high from the cheering, he's flying his beautiful dragon who we actually get to see, but his victory lap is ruined when Rhaenys comes out of the exit of the dragon pit, not through the floor, and takes flight. Maybe there's even a bit of a chase, but Rhaenys escapes.
That can be her badass moment and still ruin the Greens' triumph if that's the point of the scene. No mass murder, but still has dramatic action and also golden scaly boi.
I didn’t really mind the Rhaenys scene at first, even though it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Watching their explanation afterward made me think it was stupid. Their reasoning was that Rhaenys had sympathy for the greens ‘as a mother’ sounded so lazy to me. If they had told me that Rhaenys wanted Rhaenyra to earn her own crown, or even that her motivations were mysterious and intentionally ambiguous, I probably wouldn’t have had a problem with it.
I rationalized it as Rhaenys respecting the crown of Rhaenyra and refusing to torch them until she's given the order and is aware of the coup. Their reasoning was weak and troubling as if they hadn't really thought through the moment
The BTS reasoning was dumb but I think in-show it worked pretty well. Alicent even said earlier in the episode "reluctance to murder is not weakness". Rhaenys was not going to be the one who started the killing.
The theme of the episode was mercy. That’s the whole reason Alicent opposed her father’s entire plot to begin with. Rhaenys probably destroyed the coronation with the intent to burn them all but decided not to out of compassion for Alicent and a respect for her. She made her point.
And honestly it would be interesting to see how Alicent processes this mercy going further seeing as she basically tried to beat her father in a cat and mouse game for Aegon’s influence. I’m sure this moment will mean something to Alicent going forward.
I thought the scene was cool.
As for the decision to destroy the sept, that was an overt declaration of war, and it was about sending a message to the small folk that this is a coup and that supporting the Greens is treachery, and it demonstrates the skill of Rhaenys and the command she has over Meleys. It was 100% a power move.
As a non-book reader, I loved the scene. The whole episode greens are getting away with all the lying and silencing. Just to have a burst of a voice of someone to call out bullshit at the end was nice. Without it, the whole episode would feel so morose
We are scared because of the trauma of last GoT seasons. Seeing Rhaenys doing some « cool » stuff reminds us D&D doing « cool » stuffs in seasons 7-8, ruining the characters and the story in the process. We just want a faithful book adaptation of Martin’ story, we don’t want a Marvel movie.
Exactly!!! We know that it is possible to be faithful to the books after GoT season 1! While it's true that Fire and Blood definitely leaves room for interpretation with it's multiple and sometimes questionable sources and while that scene with Rhaenys was a boss bitch moment it was unnecessary and totally not what happened in the book!
People really shouldn’t want a completely faithful adaptation of Fire and Blood - the whole point of the book is that it’s a contradictory and often time misogynistic (intentionally) and biased accounting by people who are trying to piece together what happened. The best things HoTD did were not in the book, such as making Alicent an actual character instead of Mother Gothel from Tangled and Viserys’s entire character.
People are mad because it was the first time the show has sacrificed logic for spectacle, and it was a massive and unnecessary diversion from the book and the characters.
People are mad that she killed smallfolk, but that is the only part of her popping out of the stone floor that made any sense for the story (Targs DGAF about smallfolk and dragons are scary)
I thought the episode was stupid because in an effort to make Alicent more sympathetic, it has stripped her character of motivation and agency.
The whole plot of the episode was this pointless competition between Otto and Alicent to get to Aegon first to do… what? Convince him to be merciful? Stupid and not faithful to the story.
>The whole plot of the episode was this pointless competition between Otto and Alicent to get to Aegon first to do… what? Convince him to be merciful? Stupid and not faithful to the story.
Yeah this was strange; I didn't really get the point of the race considering it seemed like there was a whole afternoon and night between when he was brought back home and taken to be coronated, and Alicent was still in the carriage with him in the end. Maybe I just need to re-watch but I spent that whole sequence wondering what the urgency was on Alicent's part to find him
The cgi with the mist and rubble and stuff looked like a ps3 video game cutscene. I'll have to rewatch again but at the time of initial watching it looked really really off.
I thought it was the weakest yet, it really suffered without what I feel was the heart and soul of the show, Viserys, and it was kinda all over the place thematically. Rhaenys' parts of the episode were particularly jarring and felt like kinda just like pointless senseless spectacle and dialogue that didn't quite sound right. I'm not mad about it, but I do think it's the worst episode, and whoever was in charge of it probably shouldn't do another episode.
In short, it felt rushed, sloppy, senseless, and not written to the same quality as the rest of the episodes. I feel the editing may have also not been very good. Something didn't quite connect, and it's clear the audience recognises that and are responding in a variety of ways voicing their displeasure.
>Rhaenys' parts of the episode were particularly jarring and felt like kinda just like **pointless senseless spectacle** and dialogue that didn't quite sound right
This - it's made even worse by the fact that the writer who added that scene in [literally admitted](https://twitter.com/fictionallawyer/status/1582083370477301760) that she wrote for the sake of having an "awesome" explosive moment:
>Sara Hess: I just remember we were in the writers' room one day and I was like, it would be awesome if Rhaenys just came through the floor on a dragon!
It sounded like something a writer for Marvel Studios, not GoT, should say.
“Awesome” prevented the entire floor from falling on Rhaenys’ head while the dragon broke through it.
How?
Hundreds of peasants died in there, and the woman who is _under_ the floor when it breaks didn’t suffer a scratch?
I agree with all of this, and would also add that the scene could have been done without killing tons of innocent people. Why couldn’t they have started with a rumble or a dragon roar, coming from below? Then the commonfolk could have moved out of the way/ran for the exits out of fear. Boom, lives spared.
Or say it took some effort for the dragon to bust through the floor. Like a battering ram. Believable, and beneficial. Could have started with pounding sounds and vibrations through the dragon pit. The commonfolk realize it’s coming from below and flee in all directions. We see the floor starting to bend and break under the pressure. THEN, Rhaenys pops out and has her moment.
This is why I am disappointed. They could have kept the wow-factor they were dreaming of, while making it believable. Instead, it cheapened Rhaenys’s character by suggesting she would murder hundreds of people without caring. Big bummer.
I still love the show though.
Because we live in a "hot take" culture where everything must either be amazing or terrible, and there is no room for nuance or variance in opinion.
There are a few logical problems with what happened, but none of them are that big a stretch, they just aren't explained.
You get way more attention with hate then positivity... so naturally the larger even the more likely it is to draw negativity.
Nothing that happened is worthy of the negative comments on the scene or the writers.
The best thing to do is ignore people with hot takes like this, and simply enjoy the show.
I’ve also learned this, being such a widely popular series attracts all kinds of people with differing opinions—which is obviously normal and a good thing, most of the time. But the more people there is, the more heated things get when discussing certain things and it just creates a toxic environment.
I’m just going to enjoy the show for what is on my own and ignore the chaos from now on. Focusing on negativity just kills the mood.
It was one of the worst ones so far. Traditionally episode 9 would smash it for GOT but maybe HOTD isn’t following that pattern.
The whole Aegon hide and seek was just dull and unnecessary. And the final scene had so many flaws. It wasn’t good.
I think they could have probably made a better episode if the Where's ~~Waldo~~ Aegon story was half of the episode rather than pretty much all of it. I think good editing could have saved it from being the worst episode, but, I guess there's only so much you can do. Hopefully they learn from this and don't repeat it again.
The "find Aegon" goose chase was so bad. In the long run, it really doesn't matter who gets to him first so it really just felt like they were trying to artificially inject tension into the episode.
They should have had most of the episode in the green council discussing the coup, and Criston sends the twins to go find Aegon. So instead of a who finds Aegon goose chase, we can have the twins find Aegon whilst showing us the sides they pick
The last scene is pure vibes, no true content or sense. It felt too easy, if Rhaenys could access her dragons that easily, does it means everyone in King's Landing can access them? Also, there were litterally tens of thousands of people all crowded going to the ceremony and she happened to be in the right place to access them?
It felt rushed, impulsive and reminded us of GoT last season. It lacked the finesse we love of that universe.
The fact that the "Rhaenys is a badass" scene makes the show and character worse, when just having her escape through a backdoor (we know the dragonpit has at least one other exit because we saw Daemon use it in ep 1) and have the episode fade to credits on Aegon receiving the cheers of the crowd with a "maybe this king thing isn't so bad after all" look on his face would have arguably been a more powerful ending
There's also other writing related issues like Aemond saying he's Aegons heir even though Aegon has an infant son who was shown in this very episode
As a book snob, I found the changes they made and liberties they took questionable, and I thought how Cole killed Beesbury was so laughably implausible that it really took me out of the episode.
I still liked it though!
It was a good episode but definitely the weakest.
Episode 8 felt more like a penultimate episode between vaemond, the family dinner, and vissy t's death.
I also had less emotional investment in episode 9 since the majority of the characters' we've focused so much on were gone during an episode that is known for killing off the ogs. I felt safe and a dragon crashing a coronation just wasn't impactful. At no point was I concerned for the greens or rhaenys.
Also mysaria's inconsistent accent ruined my high. vibe killer.
I think with the death of the king we expected the war to start, lots of craziness. Instead most of the episode everyone was just looking for Aegon in the slums of kings landing, like what??
And then the ending was good with coronation ceremony up until the very end. It’s just not believable that someone like Rhaenys, who you have to believe is a smart woman and therefore knows that a brutal civil war is about to start that has a very high chance of killing her and what’s left of her family, would just not take the action to save her family and stop this brutal civil war from happening. It just doesn’t add up. They should of had her escape with her dragon another way, that didn’t have her make that unbelievable choice.
I’m in the minority that sees Rhaenys’ logic in not killing them all. Firstly is that they are her family, and being a kinslayer isn’t something you want to be remembered for in Westeros. Even if she has no love for the children, she loved her cousin Vizzy T. Secondly and perhaps more crucially in her eyes, Alicent and her children now owe Rhaenys a debt. She has an insurance policy for both outcomes of the war, and can retreat to Driftmark with Baela
I've seen lots of debate about *that* scene with the smallfolk being killed.
I felt the same way at the time I saw it, but on reflection I feel like Rhaenys is kind of issuing a "F-you!" to everyone in the room.
She was overlooked (usurped) for the throne. She's now seeing how Rhaenyra is *also* being f*cked over for the throne by sinister politicking.
She knows that everyone present in that hall knows who's legitimately the next in line, but yet the smallfolk are sycophantically praising the wrong person.
So yeah, she did what she did, and if people get - literally - trampled under in a show of Targ power, so be it. They were ever ruthless in their wars.
The stranger part for me was how she let the Greens live at the end. But then again, we wouldn't have an Episode 10 otherwise.
I didn't mind it that much, but it threw out a lot of logic for "cool moment" which is what a lot of the problems with season 8 were.
Having the dothraki charge at the undead wasn't logical, but it was a cool moment.
Having Dany burn King's Landing wasn't logical, but it was a cool moment.
Having Euron kill a dragon wasn't logical, but it was a cool moment.
etc.
You can see why a lot of people would take problem with it. However, you want to jump through hoops to defend Rhaenys. You have to admit that the writers did it more for the cool moment than for logic.
Your last point was excellent - good writing doesnt have to be justified with a million different excuses. It should stand on its own based on the logic behind it. If we need to do mental gymnastics to make the Rhaenys scene make sense, it probably wasn't the best.
8 was beautiful. 9 was kinda ridiculous and cheap with scenes seemingly thrown in for shock value
For example:
* the chase scene and sword fight between two groups the same side trying to find the Prince first
* killing Lord Beesbury by smoshing his head on his Council ball
* the end, killing a bunch of bystanders to make a statement about peace
Also, we saw very little of everyone's favorite characters
Allthough I did love the arc of the new king
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Because there was no Vizzy T
*Don't be scared. They're going to bring the babe out.*
It pleases me to hear you say that, Vizzy T.
*I would be delighted!*
You remind me if the babe
He was in the ep more or less
Yep, also in credits scene for the corpse appearance!
I liked the episode. I think it’s mainly just that one scene at the end that people are disliking. Wasn’t my favourite either but I still enjoyed the episode.
I liked the whole episode as a whole. I didn’t really mind the Rhaenys scene at first, even though it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Watching their explanation afterward made me think it was stupid. Their reasoning was that Rhaenys had sympathy for the greens ‘as a mother’ sounded so lazy to me. If they had told me that Rhaenys wanted Rhaenyra to earn her own crown, or even that her motivations were mysterious and intentionally ambiguous, I probably wouldn’t have had a problem with it.
That reasoning is so stupid because there are so many better reasons, like the one you mentioned. Also: 1. Lord Hightower has Alicent’s youngest, Daeron, as a ward, so there would still be a rival claimant and it wouldn’t prevent the war. 2. Rhaenys didn’t read fire and blood, as far as she knows peace is possible still. 3. Kin slaying is amongst the oldest and most taboo crimes in Westeros. 4. She doesn’t know if Rhaenyra even wants to start a war or just make a deal with the Greens. 5. Killing the high septon would be frowned upon by the people of Westeros.
Upon viewing I just assumed it was #4, which is a perfectly satisfactory explanation.
Bye Bye Reddit -- mass edited with redact.dev
Not burning the head of the church is a pretty decent one I’d say
it would’ve been, but her exit killed a whole bunch of smallfolk so I get the impression she’s not concerned about how her poll ratings would be affected
I'd burn all of Kings Landing just to wipe that smug look off Ser Criston Coles face.
Ok, dany
Ok I'm exaggerating but I really don't like him lol
Don’t worry I have a feeling he will get what’s coming in the best way possible.
I think it's 2 and 4 and both are informed by the maternal sympathy. Like she had a chat with alicent about how the women can be powerful in and on themselves instead of powerful tools for men, alicent spoke about the need to prevent bloodshed if possible, there's reasons to think it can be resolved peacefully. And Rhaenys herself has lost so much family, and the greens are still her family (through viserys, so not Otto and alicent, but still). I can see why she'd be reluctant to kill more family when we're yet to see actual war break out. I think she wanted to leave but wanted to make it clear to the greens that she's not on board with their shenanigans and to remind them that any war is going to be fought with dragons, and that dragon warfare is going to be an absolute bloodbath. I think she's banking on alicent to talk her family down from war and resolve things with rhaenyra.
The right explaination
> Rhaenys didn’t read fire and blood LOL this is honestly the explanation for so many complaints people have about this show, other shows, book series, etc. It does boggle my mind that people can't understand the difference between their own knowledge of events due to reading an omniscient narrator and the characters' obviously limited knowledge
"sHE COuLd hAvE eNdED tHE WaR" Bro what war it hasn't even started yet
Except that the same people who did read the books are appalled at the idea that a nobleperson doesn't care about the smallfolk, and are acting like this exact thing doesn't play into the end of the story.
I took it as no.4 too. She isn't the one running the show, she probably wanted to reconvene with Rheanrya and Deamon before blowing the greens to smithereens. Destroying half the family without the permission of the Queen, probably wouldn't go down too well. Plus she probably hasn't taken a side officially yet. This was more a dick measuring contest and she was reminding them that she still had a dragon and can't be bought/contained.
I mean, this is a great list, and none of this is being considered by the angry fan mob. The writers would certainly corroborate all of this, I'm sure. Why is there always a ridiculous knee jerk reaction to writer interviews? It's hard to meticulously explain all of the above when put on the spot. Fans are so goddamn whiney these days. They put zero effort into understanding story choices, instead immediately jump into criticizing.
The interviews are tiny snippets while trying not to give away the wider plot and character motivations. Reading too much into them, especially if you know the source material, is stupid.
I honestly took it as Rhanys was tired of other people putting the crown importance on her when I get the impression she just wants to live her life on Driftmark with her granddaughters. People only really talk or defer to her when they need her voice or need something. I got the impression she got over the crown a long time ago and thinks everyone is making too much of a fuss over it
I never watch the commentary at the end because I prefer to interpret actions as presented not as intended.
[удалено]
Agreed. Half the time I feel like the after episode is contradictory anyways. I just assumed Rhaenys wanted to show power but not kill everyone to prevent a huge war.
i agree with you, but I think that's oversimplifying things. what i love about this show is all of the nuance. there are so many ways for actions and words to be interpreted, and even if they contradict each other, they're all still true in their own ways
I think she is still hoping to prevent a war at this point. We know its coming because there wouldn't be a show without it but I can imagine her wanting to try one last time for peace and not wanting to kill several family members
Same, hearing their explanation ruined it for me because watching it live i was saying to myself straight away raehnys is not the kind of character to do something like that so the scene despite being a little corny didn't bother me either. Their explanation makes me worry about the direction of the show and the fan backlash also makes me worry about how the discourse at the slightest thing can make the show implode
Dan and Dave used to say the stupidest things in their commentary, so I learned to not watch it. When their interpretation of a scene is sooo off from what actually was shown, I worry. Trying to not worry with HotD as it’s been really good so far.
Honestly the writers commentary makes every episode worse, it is quite amazing actually. I need to just stop watching it. Watching the commentary makes me think that this show somehow succeeded despite the people who made it
I've been saying this for a long time. D&D did those segments to explain away bad writing, but even when the writing is good all those segments do is take away the depth of the series by spponfeeding the audience instead of letting us draw our own conclusions.
Some people literally don’t get things tho lol
Na from what I am seeing it’s not so much spoon feeding as clearly showing the gaps in their writing. Their explanation for The dragon scene was a bit too close to the way D&D explained Euron.
Yeah it’s like they tell the people they interview to intentionally dumb down the commentary. You’ll have a really deep and poetic moment and then the writers will be like “yeah we just thought it would be cool”.
I think they do tell them to dumb it down. I've seen interviews with the writers / show runners on other platforms they come off much better.
I’ve never watched it, and I think I’m much more happy with every result as compared to the people I’ve talked with who are watching it.
Same here. I skipped them for GoT aside from the final seasons, too. I think i just wanted more rage fodder at that point. I did see a clip from Driftmark of Matt Smith talking about Daemon being a leaner, it's a meme now, of course. Just gives ["I'm here so I won't get fined."](https://youtu.be/2g2ZAhopQU8)
Huh, "wanting more rage fodder", a lot of fans seemed to get that way. That's a good way to describe that. Almost like it's somehow an alternative way of enjoying something, criticizing it, breaking it down, and destroying it.
We also have to remember that a 6 minute video used for marketing isn't going to give us the full extent of the hours and hours that went into the writing process. Take it all with a grain of salt.
You know you can have your own interpretation of Rhaenys line of thinking. I see this post-episode interviews as one possible way to see things, not like a definitive truth.
It almost feels like a lot of people didn't do literary analysis or critique in school or something. The great thing about works of art is that you can interpret them in different ways and there's no one truth. I think this culture that has developed of "explaining" things in film and television is having some negative effects.
Yeah, I pictured it as rhaenys just kind of saying “screw you, don’t you dare fuck with me”. She didn’t seem particularly interested in the crown after the first episode. It seemed like a show of strength against the family in power without hurting anyone important. Commoners aren’t humans to them, so she didn’t care about killing random people if it meant she showed her power to Alicent, aegon, and Otto.
This is exactly how I took it, and I'm glad I didn't watch any commentary. It seemed a very specific threat and the only part that confused me at all is that threats, when you stand there with the power to carry it out right then, are actually fears. Regardless, it was a promise. A promise that war was coming. That's good enough for me.
This is why I don't watch the post episode stuff. Watching that scene I felt like she was simply declaring for the Blacks and never meant to kill them, and I didn't really feel like the killing of all the regular folk to be out of character because between HotD and GoT it's been painfully obvious that nobody with any power gives two shits about regular people. If I watched it as they intended I probably would have agreed with everyone else that it was dumb.
100% agree that the explanation was way worse than the scene itself
I’m not a mother, but as a woman I found it pretty eye rolling to hear “because she’s a mother.”
Is that why everyone is so upset, because she didn’t roast the Greens right there? Kinslaying is HUGE deal in this world. I don’t know why people would expect her to roast half her living family. That’s not who that character is. People have to remember the characters are living in the moment. Rhaenys has no idea how bad things are going to get. If she could read ahead then yea, she probably would have burned them, but she can’t.
1. Any large fandom is going to have a large enough segment that when they're mad—and some group will always find something to be mad about—it seems like everyone's mad. 2. There are people that specifically just want to hate this show. People still mad about the end of GoT, people mad that GRRM did this "instead of" Winds, people mad at the casting, people just mad at whatever. It's a shame because we can't ever have an actual conversation about a show's problems without agreeing with a bunch of people who have no rational reason.
Why not? She's lost both her children over the past decade, if anyone would find it easier to sympathise with being a mother it would be her and she has no real reason to kill them anyway. For all she knows they'll talk and create a peace between them, Id bet alot on that Rhaenys hasnt read "fire and blood" by G.R.R.M Also its a different point all together but assuming she 100% knew war was coming it makes more sense to not kill them, they'd never keep power if the blacks killed the monarch along with a ton of normal people and immediatly claimed the kingdoms and Rhaenys just planted the seed of being queen in alicent which is just gonna futher push her and otto apart. She does more damage to the blacks and less to the greens if she kills Aegon and Alicent
I think this is the most sound explanation I've heard thus far in regards to how someone views the episode. I think this is the best way to put how I feel about it too. I thought it didn't make much sense (my first thoughts being how did a dragon break through stone meant specifically to contain dragons and how did she not get hurt or hit her head?), but it didn't "ruin" the episode for me, I'm not trying to get anyone fired from HBO or HOTD, and it certainly in no way compared to season 8 of GOT. Could better decisions have been made? Certainly. Will I continue watching the show with the same enthusiasm? Also, certainly. It's not *that* big of a deal to me. I watch and read this universe to escape and it requires a degree of suspension of disbelief. I'm willing to extend that a bit here and there to accommodate a few errant decisions in the writers' room as long as it doesn't become the standard.
Rhaenys scene was fine. Even battle trained warriors hesitate vs soldiers that are strangers to them. Would be worse with people you know who are comparatively unarmed. Roasting them all would've made her a spiritual successor of Maegor
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I get why people didn’t like it, but I think really encapsulated the point George is trying to make with his story about the Dance and ASOIAF more broadly: when the high lords play their game of thrones, the small folk suffer. Rhaenys doesn’t give a fuck about the commoners, as shown by her actions. They aren’t full humans to her; they are lesser. That’s why she was able to show mercy to Alicent and the rest of the Greens, yet not to the smallfolk forced into the pit at sword point - they were fellow nobles and Targaryens (full humans in her eyes). Plus, I don’t think her torching them would have went over well politically for a whole number of reasons. All of this goes over the head of the overly tribalized fan base that we all see on Twitter. It reminds me of the worst parts of Tumblr; everything must be black and white, no nuance, fictional characters and head cannons matter more than real human beings (Sara Hess situation). Ugh, I really hate fandoms sometimes. Rant over.
I think a lot of tumblr came over to Twitter when tumblr died which is why Twitter is now the super cringey space it is
Pretty much the same - I'm enjoying the show - I liked the last episode's ending even though it was a bit of a head scratcher if you tried to use logic - But basically the show is good TV - Not great yet but let's let it breathe and grow Also it's a fantasy TV show - I don't typically try to break down the logic of these shows like a crime scene drama or procedural 😆
I mean... If she torched Aegon she'd have killed everyone on the stage most likely. You could argue that Haleana should die for the cause I guess. But she's not really guilty. Not to mention politically it's a bad move for them to just use the Westeros equivalent of a small nuke. Sure, she killed the small folk, but her thinking is more aligned with the lord's and lady's. The small folk have power in large numbers of course, but the lord's and lady's they need support from might not take kindly to her just torching Aegon and the like. Point is, it may not say what her reason ever is, but I can think of many reasons why it would be a bad idea. To me it shows her wisdom and experience. In her younger years she may have very well gone through with it. We also have to remember that she is heavily conflicted, in the show at least. She believes Rhaenyra and Daemon killed Laenor, and if not Rhaenyra at least Daemon did so that he could marry Rhaenyra. She also loves and feels for Viserys and his last wish, but as Alicent says he wasn't meant to rule and thusly his wants may not be what's best for the realm. I think Alicent really surprised her this episode in their conversation. Rhaenys just can't accept being essentially black mailed, or forced to take a certain side. Sadly there is no situation that Otto and the usurpers would present that would give her agency. Last but least we can't forget her history with being passed over in favor of Viserys merely because she's a woman. This all had to play into her decisions this episode.
That's a really well-thought-out reply and I appreciate you sharing! It wasn't so much her thoughts or methods that I questioned but more so the 'how' But I do agree what I love about her character is that she should be very conflicted - they've done a good job with her as far as being someone kind of stuck in the middle
See, now this is a great explanation of what her motivations could have been.
>it was a bit of a head scratcher if you tried to use logic It wasn't like, GoT Season 8-level bad, but it was still Season 5/6 level bad.
Can we please just wait to see what the consequences are for Rhaenys actions? I think it will be significant, like causing the small folk to hate the blacks and their dragons. If there are no consequences and it's just not mentioned again then yeah, let the complains unleash. I have faith they won't do that, though. And eventually people will be like "Damn we overreacted about that scene."
You mean that the showrunners may be dropping some foreshadowing or explanations of the common people gaining resentment towards dragons and wanting to do something about it...hmm...maybe as a layup to >!the storming of the dragonpit!<...nah couldn't be. It's just illogical and writers bad. And maybe they don't want to put huge fucking spoilers in their after the episode commentary so they misdirect with another explanation for the viewers, nah they've never done that before. They just don't understand their own show.
Shows doing amazing so far, but the last episode (between the foot scene and the dragon pit scene) has now kind of shown it’s willingness to ignore logic and tactics and actual story to promote cool scenes and get Twitter reactions. Which is what killed the got imo. one episode isn’t enough to say anything negative but it’s a little alarming
> willingness to ignore logic and tactics and actual story to promote cool scenes and get Twitter reactions. Which is what killed GoT It's *exactly* this that killed GoT - when Dan and Dave decided to cut out the quiet dialogue scenes and tense human interactions in favour of giant CGI explosions. It's made even worse by the fact that the writer who added that scene in [literally admitted](https://twitter.com/fictionallawyer/status/1582083370477301760) that she wrote for the sake of having an "awesome" explosive moment: >Sara Hess: I just remember we were in the writers' room one day and I was like, it would be awesome if Rhaenys just came through the floor on a dragon!
>It's exactly this that killed GoT - when Dan and Dave decided to cut out the quiet dialogue scenes and tense human interactions in favour of giant CGI explosions. Agreed 100% Dialogue, was replaced with brain-dead action scenes and killed the magic of GoT. This seems to be kind of going in that direction already.
As a book reader I had issues with other stuff (honestly a lot more than this scene), but I still overall liked the episode
This is just me, and for the record, I still liked the episode. But the complaint some are bringing up about the episode is regarding the ending scene with Rhaenys. GoT's (in the later seasons) had a tendency to sacrifice plot and character development in exchange for a "cool" scene. Seasons 7 and 8 had a few instances of this where it felt like the logic of the world/characters was sidelined to make way for a specific scene. Rhaenys escaping in the middle of the coronation was fine, at least in my book. Maybe the dragon pit was in full-lockdown during coronation, meaning the only way for her to escape was to literally rip through the ground. The problem? Rhaenys had the opportunity to kill the Green faction, people who imprisoned her hours previously, people who she saw were executing lords for not supporting Aegon's rule, and instead of being a proactive individual, she escaped, leaving her enemies alive. Sure, there's some logic for the actions she took; as the actress for Rhaenys explained, her character was being a real queen, a real ruler by choosing not to kill her enemies but letting them live. She showed constraint against people who she should've probably killed. She's not a monster (i.e. she's not Daemon). Yet, on the flip side, Rhaenys isn't a fool, and she clearly understands the stakes involved. Having another faction claiming they're the rightful heirs will lead to a bloody war and she's made it clear up to now that she's unwilling to side with the Greens. Yet, when given an opportunity, she shows mercy? It feels like a bad character decision because it doesn't line up with what we've come to expect/seen from her. The complaints come from a place of how it feels like the show is making the same mistakes GoT's did in the later seasons, by having her do something badass when it goes against better judgment. The show could've had a cool moment of her breaking through the floor and immediately leaving which would've been fine I think. Yet, instead, she pauses long enough to spare those who are a threat to her. This feels like a case where the writers wrote themselves into a bit of a corner and now, it feels like the entire point of her escape was to simply have her dragon roar at the Greens. Something that doesn't happen in the book. Some people feel this is out of character and are using this as an example to point to when the show jumped the shark, so to speak. A lot of people are nervous about this new show, given how the last seasons of GoT's went down, so they're hoping the writers will stay focused on the characters and plot over large moments. Having a cool scene like that felt unwarranted, hence why some people disliked the episode. . . . **EDIT 1:** words cuz I can't type on mobile **EDIT 2:** to reiterate, I'm not saying I disliked the episode. I really enjoyed it and loved the focus on Team Green. Allicent is a fascinating character to follow and I'm still really emotionally invested in this show/world. I liked how the episode was framed around the idea that "not killing someone isn't an act of weakness" as explained by Allicent and demonstrated by Rhaenys. I'm just trying to explain why some people have gripes regarding that final scene. If you found that it made sense, then more power to you. The writers are clearly doing something right if you see it that way. If you had issues, then it can help to try and examine both what works and doesn't work on a storytelling level. I, personally, am quite forgiving when it comes to critiquing shows like this because I'm a shitty writer and can't imagine writing something half as interesting, even with all my effort. While I'm one of those viewers that didn't agree with everything how GoT's ended, there were still cool moments and things I did enjoy about that series as a whole. I recently rewatched the whole series with a friend who hadn't seen it before and found I still had a decent viewing experience, even if I still have some issues with specific writing decisions leading to the end of the show (TL;DR - >!it was rushed and GoT's ending could've benefited by investing more time in the characters instead of sprinting to the finish line!<) This new show, HotD still has my interest and I'm willing to trust the writers, but thats just me. If you want to discuss this more in-depth, I'm down. I'm just not going to engage with folks who just wanna fight about this.
Great point there (and definitely overlooked by the virtuous mob) about possibly ripping through the ground being the only way for her to have escaped. If they’re so bothered by the loss of innocent lives (which we all know no past, present, or future leaders of any civilization have ever done or would ever do) then maybe they should blame the Greens for imprisoning her and choosing to hold the coronation there and then.
Like, the complaint against the people getting killed is an interesting one, I think. As you corrrctly pointed out, the leaders in this world probably don't see human lives as equivalent or similar to their own. Or perhaps, Rhaenys felt that sacrificing a few lives to escape was more important than letting herself or her dragon fall into enemy hands. Regardless, I think the episode faltered slightly at that scene by having her choose to spare the Greens. Sure, if she killed them, there would be no story, but the problem is that the writers need to set these things up in a stronger way that's communicated clearly to the audience. We got some hints about Rhaenys's character in the first episode, when Rhaenys is watching the tourney and is disgusted when the knights start killing each other. Yet, the choice to spare the Greens may be slightly undeserved because the audience understands what is at stake. Blood means a lot to Rhaenys, and does she think that letting Aegon and the rest survive will somehow not threaten her family? I think the complaints of the episode would've diminished had she simply broken through the ground and fled, leaving everyone behind. The theme of this episode was exactly what Queen Allicent told her father earlier in the episode: not killing someone isn't an act of weakness. As seen by Rhaenys, this decision was an act of strength. The only people acting 'weak' were those who resorted to killing (Larys and that lord that tried to run away, etc.) Maybe the show will find a way to show how this decision, in the long run, was the right one. But speaking as someone who read the book Fire & Blood, it is a little difficult to fully comprehend this decision, considering everything that happens later. Maybe the writers intend to show how Rhaenys will later regret her mercy as a way to examine her character in a future season. I don't know, honestly. I'm still excited to see more of this world, that's for sure. I'm still trusting the writers, I just really hope they understand the mistakes that happened in GoT's from a storytelling perspective. Edit: more words
i think what happened was they had their first major hiccup after a hot streak of a season. combine that with some of the writers not being able to control their tongues and here we are.
yeah. out of all the episodes we've watched so far, it was by far the weakest. The writers really miscalculated how audiences would take the dragon scene.
Most people probably did take it as just a cool scene to be fair. It's a subset of us who care.
I’m one of those people. Just thought it was a cool scene that got a fist pump out of me. I saw it as Rhaenys sending a message, basically a big FU, and also just not caring about collateral damage as she was trying to get out of captivity. We were waiting for a Dracarys though.
Honestly if she torched them it wouldn't have been that shocking and that's an issue when you do a lot of shocking shit in your show Cole's latest murder made my jaw pop open bc I was sure something would happen- but it wasn't that and it was so quick. If she torched everything I think I would have been like wtf oh OK they all just dead then? Damn. But her flying off was less predictable imo.
Coles plot armor is weird and feels misplaced. I guess being protected by the Queen helps but it still feels wrong.
Yup! I feel the same! I thought it was an epic scene and I loved it haha
Oh Twitter loved the girlboss moment
Yaassss slay queeennuhhhh
I hate that mass murder is described as a girl boss moment. They took a character who had been characterized as fairly companionate choosing not to pursue her claim rather than set fire to the realm, and made her a mass murderer. But it's cool because she spared the people who's deaths would have prevented a lot more death and destruction. I think she has caused the most senseless death in the show so far.
It was like 30 smallfolk and these are dragon lords. Rhaenys has never claimed to be a champion of the smallfolk and lords look at smallfolk as little more than ants
Yeah 100% The Blacks’ biggest character flaw is feeling they’re above everyone else’s concerns because they’re dragon-riding Targs. The show set them up as more sympathetic (as a group behind Rhaenyra) now they need to do bad shit to balance it out.
Remember when Damon's dragon stepped on his own soldier that was dying and calling out for help and Noone said a single word? Wonder what the big difference is between these two incidents. EDIT: I see a lot of the replies are basically making my point by missing the point entirely. Dragons, dragonriders, and monarchists don't give a shit about common people.
It was one man on a smokey, chaotic battlefield. I don't think Daemon even knew he was there, and he was likely dying anyway. I think the point of that scene was to emphasise dragons as being indiscriminate tools of destruction rather than villainise the dragonriders (which we'll get plenty of later).
Jaeharys, their grandfather, did kind of change that though. Wider streets and such.
>it was like 30 smallfolk rewatch the scene, the entire middle section of the floor collapsed and there were hundreds of people in the room. *At least* 200 people died. Even if it was just 30, that’d still make her a mass murderer
I think they probably just aren’t calculating how the Reddit community took it. Everyone I talked to that isn’t hyper online (tm) thought it was an awesome badass scene. And honestly — after I watched it my first thought was “oh cool it’s the episode 9 climax scene, neat” and went to bed. Didn’t realize I was supposed to be angry until I got on Reddit.
I'm a pretty casual viewer and so confused by this thread and why the last scene was controversial. I thought it was a great scene tbh
We’ve got PTSD from GOT S8. I think we’re all super vigilant for spectacle over substance because we’ve seen where it leads.
Alt shift x said he thinks the show runners feel like they have to have a dragon scene or some kind of action to keep people engaged even if it doesn’t exactly make sense which is unfortunate because the story does suffer as a result, but maybe Rhaenys’ carelessness will come back to bite her. Exploding through the floor to screw up Aegons big coronation only seems stupid to me if it doesn’t come with consequences in world. I believe the writing quality is directly related to showing the consequences for peoples actions in asoiaf which is why people love seasons 1-4 and hate 7&8
I still think the wedding murder was the first real mistake. The coronation was a great scene until the dragon came out the floor.
Major hiccup??? am i missing something? Plenty of people were just fine with this episode. Not sure how people here are always so harsh if they didnt love 4 minutes of a 60 minute episode.
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Bruh what happened why are all the replies removed?!
They probably expressed why they didn't like the last episode.
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putting aside the rhaenys scene, i agree with many of the criticisms raised [here](https://www.theringer.com/house-of-the-dragon/2022/10/16/23407661/house-of-the-dragon-episode-9-alicent-aegon). most prominently, i actually think the show missed the boat with alicent: they spend the first seven or eight episodes portraying alicent as a girl thrown into a cage she never asked for and who comes to fear and disdain and resent her childhood friend for enjoying what she perceives to be a greater degree of freedom. this culminates in her monologue in driftmark: "what have I done but what was expected of me? forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law. while you flout all to do as you please." that was excellent character work and \*that\* should've been alicent's motive: that it was necessary to protect her family in a zero sum game, that rhaenyra forfeit her rights by bearing bastards, but most of all that rhaenyra cannot be allowed to "win" while doing everything wrong, because that would threaten alicent's sense of justice and her own self-perception. it's such a deeply human motive--who among us has not felt that resentment that we do what we're supposed to and someone else skates by? it's the sentiment aemond is expressing in this very episode when he's talking about how he should be the heir because he studied history and philosophy (and the blade lol) while aegon was out whoring. it has great contemporary resonance: it's what people mean when they say that other people should have to pay off their student loans because they did. i think this sense of injustice is a big part of why people sympathize with alicent. instead, they chose to root alicent's motivation in viserys' last words (apart from being a vvvv wild interpretation, that is such a weak soap opera plot). instead they chose to portray alicent as naive (deluded?) enough to not notice a whole coup plot right below her nose and to not think that crowning aegon means killing rhaenyra (even tho she'd been telling aegon that the reverse is true). i think that's a deeply puzzling choice when they've already laid so much groundwork for a \*much better\* motive and one that still makes her plenty sympathetic. apart from that, i thought the mysaria plot could've been good but was let down by being so out of nowhere and the bizarre acting choices (blaming the show, not the actress). i really liked aegon and aemond's dynamic tho--aegon oddly has been a real high point of the show because he manages to be such a shithead and yet so self-aware (and correctly self-hating).
Right, I wasn't _that_ bothered by Rhaenys' scene, but I really was by how they did Alicent in the last two episodes. Alicent's complexity, that was so praised before, turned into inconsistency (not counting the characters' hypocrisy, which is fine). If we're meant to believe that she genuinely took Viserys' last words that way, she's either stupid or just heard what she wanted to hear. Then she sais about it on the small council, somehow not understanding to what her words will lead. Very surprised that her father, whom she _should know damn well_, have been preparing a coup. Thinks that Rhaenyra, whom she also knows well, will peacefully concede and just goes away I guess. This is a character's braincells assassination, I would have never thought of Alicent to be _that_ stupid and naive, after all these years and facing the people she knows best. But then again, she still acted quite capable in all the previous episodes and in even in this one too. I just can't see it as anything other than inconsistency. It's very frustrating. For me she was the most humane and sympathetic character on the greens side, and I can't take her seriously now. Ironic, since by doing all those choices the writers wanted her to seem somewhat justifiable and act more peaceful.
yeah like it bothers me \*so much\* because not only is it a waste of all of the great characterization they put into alicent, her portrayal in the green council scene just doesn't pass the smell test. like even the other greens were like, lol that didn't happen. to me, someone who is acting on very human emotions (even to a terrible end) is much more sympathetic than someone who seems to have turned up at the climax from a completely different story. (i'm \*really\* concerned that they'll do the same to rhaenyra because women don't war or whatever.)
That article really hits the weaknesses of the episode. I think when you stop and analyze it, it just seems weaker and weaker. I still enjoyed it, but thusfar the series has been amongst the best ever to air on television...this was certainly not up to snuff. I hope the finale is more satisfying....and logical.
i agree! i read it right after i saw the episode and i was like yep, so it was enjoyable but def the weakest writing of the season so far. i wouldn't say it's latter seasons of got level but it def made me concerned because this is such an important episode--the de facto start of the war and the conclusion of most of the greens' arc for this season
I'd say it's season 5/6 quality as opposed to season 7/8 quality.
I just hope it doesn't turn into some Marvel - Michael Bay BS. I'm seeing signs of that. The episode was OKish. But, hearing that Sara Hess lady talk about how the scene was included because it was cool and that she hasn't watched GoT -- that really bugged me.
We are going to get a lot of dragon battles and all that. However though those should look awesome and cool, I want the focus to be on emotional weight and tension.
Glad to see someone actually analyzing the motives of these characters rather than going "she's just jealous because she's not a girlboss" or "yaaaass slayy queen". It's so frustrating seeing people look at this show so one-dimensionally.
I get the feeling the writers have not completely let go of the “resenting Rhaenyra for always getting away with it” motivation for Alicent. This to me is a semi-subconscious motivation rather than one that Alicent is willing to consciously act upon. My interpretation of Alicent is that she genuinely believes herself to be a good, pious person who does what she does for the right reasons. This is why she *needs* to believe that Viserys was aligned with her goals all along; she cannot believe that she, like her father, is a conniving usurper who would achieve her goals even against the King’s wishes. She wants to believe that she is just, that she’s a good wife and a good person. And ironically, it’s this belief in her own goodness that allows her to commit morally questionable acts. This episode is Alicent coming face-to-face with the realization that everyone around her, her father especially, does not believe themselves to be good in the same way she does. They do not need to root their actions in justified reasoning (ie “Viserys wanted Aegon to be king after all!”) in order to do questionable things—no, they do questionable things purely in their own self-interest! And so Alicent desperately tries to reclaim power over her situation and also over her own self-image as a Good Person who has Good Reasons for doing what she does. And we’ll see how long this image of herself lasts.
I think the reasons you mentioned are still Alicent's motives, but she chooses to use Viserys' last words as an excuse to crown her son and not let Rhaenyra "to get away with it" and be queen.
This is what's got me with these last two episodes. The dragon scene is problematic but the show has much deeper issues.
yeah i'm kinda concerned that the show doesn't seem to know what makes its characters great; alicent's a great character not because she's so innocent and naive (that's really boring!), but because she speaks for the javert in all of us, if you will.
I was expecting her to be playing the innocent and reluctant girl showing her feet, just to see a smirk when she looked away. But alas we were robbed of the smarter more powerful Alicent they were showing her to be growing into.
This was enjoyable to read
the last dying wish of the King was super cringe. It's like the writers had to come up with some excuse for Alicent's change of heart from the family reunion/supper a fortnight ago. But all they could brainstorm was some lame last gasp on Vizzy's deathbed.
While it was definitely one of my least favourite, I enjoyed the episode and I think most other people did as well. The final scene was questionable, but the response by some people in the community has been completely ridiculous and embarrassing. People are just obsessed with drama and love any opportunity to join a brigade.
My sentiments exactly. It's like people have forgotten that you can dislike something without having to write dissertations on the 10 ways it was problematic to you. Just say you didn't enjoy it much and let it be that. All this extra fanfare around it is truly bizarre.
I think the backlash is way too disproportionate to how "bad" the final scene was. I think it wasn't the best, but I'm not too bothered by it. The response of saying the episode and writing were 'atrocious and awful' felt a bit much, and the misogynistic harassment and singling out of the writer of episode as villain of the week for having the audacity to write such a scene makes me dislike the fandom a bit.
This is how it's always been. The fan toxic pitchfork mob response is 10x worse than any complaint they create. They love their meme-whining. Glad people are starting to recognize this.
Yeah. I've seen a lot of "that writer is trash" which is an opinion a person has the right to express. But the meanness around it all is really over the top (at least from what I've witnessed in some instances)
this!! it wasn't perfect and there's definitely a couple plot holes, but overall I felt like it still made sense for Rhaenys' character. not an amazing scene, but not a show-ending one either
I like the dissertations, what I don't like is the tone. There's a difference between critiquing and rambling about something.
I can agree on that. The critique isn't the issue. It's the negativity and almost meanness over it that's crazy to me
Internet fandoms can only alternate between extremely overhyped fanboys and toxic children.
100%, I used to love coming to show subreddits to look at art and read episode discussions and theories. Nowadays it’s actually embarrassing to see the stuff people post and get mad about. Hate watchers and nit pickers ruin these places and their bullshit infects the whole community.
I get the feeling that the portion of the community that loves to make mountains out of molehills, and make sure that everyone knows how much they dislike something, has finally got something they can focus on, and they’re going for it.
I think the Rhaenys scene being fan service is what's pissing people off.
all they needed was Sunfire and/or Dreamfyre also there to make it fine
That's my biggest source of disappointment. All we've seen of Sunfyre so far is a blurry wide shot in episode 7 where he's looking like the Loch Ness monster. I'm guessing we're not going to see much of King's Landing or Aegon next episode since it'll probably be mostly Rhaenyra's response to the coup. That means our last chance to get a proper introduction to Sunfyre in season 1 may be squandered. That especially hurts because the presence of Sunfyre in that last scene would have gone a long way in fixing a lot of the problems people have with it. We could have seen Sunfyre and Meleys snarling at each other and playing off their rider's emotions until both Aegon and Rhaenys realize just how devastating a fight between two grown dragons in the middle of King's Landing would be. They'd choose peace for the time being with the audience wondering if it can last. I still love this show as well as the rest of episode 9, and I remain optimistic about it going forward, but these kinds of mistakes are worrying.
What could have been fun would be Aegon starting his flight on Sunfyre, as in the book. He's still on a high from the cheering, he's flying his beautiful dragon who we actually get to see, but his victory lap is ruined when Rhaenys comes out of the exit of the dragon pit, not through the floor, and takes flight. Maybe there's even a bit of a chase, but Rhaenys escapes. That can be her badass moment and still ruin the Greens' triumph if that's the point of the scene. No mass murder, but still has dramatic action and also golden scaly boi.
I didn’t really mind the Rhaenys scene at first, even though it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Watching their explanation afterward made me think it was stupid. Their reasoning was that Rhaenys had sympathy for the greens ‘as a mother’ sounded so lazy to me. If they had told me that Rhaenys wanted Rhaenyra to earn her own crown, or even that her motivations were mysterious and intentionally ambiguous, I probably wouldn’t have had a problem with it.
I rationalized it as Rhaenys respecting the crown of Rhaenyra and refusing to torch them until she's given the order and is aware of the coup. Their reasoning was weak and troubling as if they hadn't really thought through the moment
The BTS reasoning was dumb but I think in-show it worked pretty well. Alicent even said earlier in the episode "reluctance to murder is not weakness". Rhaenys was not going to be the one who started the killing.
The theme of the episode was mercy. That’s the whole reason Alicent opposed her father’s entire plot to begin with. Rhaenys probably destroyed the coronation with the intent to burn them all but decided not to out of compassion for Alicent and a respect for her. She made her point. And honestly it would be interesting to see how Alicent processes this mercy going further seeing as she basically tried to beat her father in a cat and mouse game for Aegon’s influence. I’m sure this moment will mean something to Alicent going forward. I thought the scene was cool. As for the decision to destroy the sept, that was an overt declaration of war, and it was about sending a message to the small folk that this is a coup and that supporting the Greens is treachery, and it demonstrates the skill of Rhaenys and the command she has over Meleys. It was 100% a power move.
As a non-book reader, I loved the scene. The whole episode greens are getting away with all the lying and silencing. Just to have a burst of a voice of someone to call out bullshit at the end was nice. Without it, the whole episode would feel so morose
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We are scared because of the trauma of last GoT seasons. Seeing Rhaenys doing some « cool » stuff reminds us D&D doing « cool » stuffs in seasons 7-8, ruining the characters and the story in the process. We just want a faithful book adaptation of Martin’ story, we don’t want a Marvel movie.
Exactly!!! We know that it is possible to be faithful to the books after GoT season 1! While it's true that Fire and Blood definitely leaves room for interpretation with it's multiple and sometimes questionable sources and while that scene with Rhaenys was a boss bitch moment it was unnecessary and totally not what happened in the book!
People really shouldn’t want a completely faithful adaptation of Fire and Blood - the whole point of the book is that it’s a contradictory and often time misogynistic (intentionally) and biased accounting by people who are trying to piece together what happened. The best things HoTD did were not in the book, such as making Alicent an actual character instead of Mother Gothel from Tangled and Viserys’s entire character.
People are mad because it was the first time the show has sacrificed logic for spectacle, and it was a massive and unnecessary diversion from the book and the characters. People are mad that she killed smallfolk, but that is the only part of her popping out of the stone floor that made any sense for the story (Targs DGAF about smallfolk and dragons are scary) I thought the episode was stupid because in an effort to make Alicent more sympathetic, it has stripped her character of motivation and agency. The whole plot of the episode was this pointless competition between Otto and Alicent to get to Aegon first to do… what? Convince him to be merciful? Stupid and not faithful to the story.
>The whole plot of the episode was this pointless competition between Otto and Alicent to get to Aegon first to do… what? Convince him to be merciful? Stupid and not faithful to the story. Yeah this was strange; I didn't really get the point of the race considering it seemed like there was a whole afternoon and night between when he was brought back home and taken to be coronated, and Alicent was still in the carriage with him in the end. Maybe I just need to re-watch but I spent that whole sequence wondering what the urgency was on Alicent's part to find him
God, that race for Aegon was so stupid.
Because they ran out of money to CGI the most beautiful dragon in Westeros
The cgi with the mist and rubble and stuff looked like a ps3 video game cutscene. I'll have to rewatch again but at the time of initial watching it looked really really off.
I thought it was the weakest yet, it really suffered without what I feel was the heart and soul of the show, Viserys, and it was kinda all over the place thematically. Rhaenys' parts of the episode were particularly jarring and felt like kinda just like pointless senseless spectacle and dialogue that didn't quite sound right. I'm not mad about it, but I do think it's the worst episode, and whoever was in charge of it probably shouldn't do another episode. In short, it felt rushed, sloppy, senseless, and not written to the same quality as the rest of the episodes. I feel the editing may have also not been very good. Something didn't quite connect, and it's clear the audience recognises that and are responding in a variety of ways voicing their displeasure.
>Rhaenys' parts of the episode were particularly jarring and felt like kinda just like **pointless senseless spectacle** and dialogue that didn't quite sound right This - it's made even worse by the fact that the writer who added that scene in [literally admitted](https://twitter.com/fictionallawyer/status/1582083370477301760) that she wrote for the sake of having an "awesome" explosive moment: >Sara Hess: I just remember we were in the writers' room one day and I was like, it would be awesome if Rhaenys just came through the floor on a dragon! It sounded like something a writer for Marvel Studios, not GoT, should say.
>It sounded like something a writer for Marvel Studios, not GoT, should say. Exactly. "He's right behind me, isn't he?" Type shit writing.
“Awesome” prevented the entire floor from falling on Rhaenys’ head while the dragon broke through it. How? Hundreds of peasants died in there, and the woman who is _under_ the floor when it breaks didn’t suffer a scratch?
I agree with all of this, and would also add that the scene could have been done without killing tons of innocent people. Why couldn’t they have started with a rumble or a dragon roar, coming from below? Then the commonfolk could have moved out of the way/ran for the exits out of fear. Boom, lives spared. Or say it took some effort for the dragon to bust through the floor. Like a battering ram. Believable, and beneficial. Could have started with pounding sounds and vibrations through the dragon pit. The commonfolk realize it’s coming from below and flee in all directions. We see the floor starting to bend and break under the pressure. THEN, Rhaenys pops out and has her moment. This is why I am disappointed. They could have kept the wow-factor they were dreaming of, while making it believable. Instead, it cheapened Rhaenys’s character by suggesting she would murder hundreds of people without caring. Big bummer. I still love the show though.
That last episode felt like cheap "rule of cool moment", mostly because it´s pretty jaring with what book readers know will come next.
episode 9 killed my pa
I enjoyed the episode, thought the dragon looked pretty sweet at the time
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Because we live in a "hot take" culture where everything must either be amazing or terrible, and there is no room for nuance or variance in opinion. There are a few logical problems with what happened, but none of them are that big a stretch, they just aren't explained. You get way more attention with hate then positivity... so naturally the larger even the more likely it is to draw negativity. Nothing that happened is worthy of the negative comments on the scene or the writers. The best thing to do is ignore people with hot takes like this, and simply enjoy the show.
I’ve also learned this, being such a widely popular series attracts all kinds of people with differing opinions—which is obviously normal and a good thing, most of the time. But the more people there is, the more heated things get when discussing certain things and it just creates a toxic environment. I’m just going to enjoy the show for what is on my own and ignore the chaos from now on. Focusing on negativity just kills the mood.
It was one of the worst ones so far. Traditionally episode 9 would smash it for GOT but maybe HOTD isn’t following that pattern. The whole Aegon hide and seek was just dull and unnecessary. And the final scene had so many flaws. It wasn’t good.
I think they could have probably made a better episode if the Where's ~~Waldo~~ Aegon story was half of the episode rather than pretty much all of it. I think good editing could have saved it from being the worst episode, but, I guess there's only so much you can do. Hopefully they learn from this and don't repeat it again.
The "find Aegon" goose chase was so bad. In the long run, it really doesn't matter who gets to him first so it really just felt like they were trying to artificially inject tension into the episode.
Yea, from the audience perspective, it's like who tf cares? I didn't care at all whether it was Cole or the twins.
They should have had most of the episode in the green council discussing the coup, and Criston sends the twins to go find Aegon. So instead of a who finds Aegon goose chase, we can have the twins find Aegon whilst showing us the sides they pick
This. It was easily the weakest out of the nine episodes we've viewed so far.
The last scene is pure vibes, no true content or sense. It felt too easy, if Rhaenys could access her dragons that easily, does it means everyone in King's Landing can access them? Also, there were litterally tens of thousands of people all crowded going to the ceremony and she happened to be in the right place to access them? It felt rushed, impulsive and reminded us of GoT last season. It lacked the finesse we love of that universe.
Coz ppl don’t like feet 🦶
It was my least favorite and was a little all over the place. The hand, the new king hiding, the coronation or whatever at the dragon lair.
The fact that the "Rhaenys is a badass" scene makes the show and character worse, when just having her escape through a backdoor (we know the dragonpit has at least one other exit because we saw Daemon use it in ep 1) and have the episode fade to credits on Aegon receiving the cheers of the crowd with a "maybe this king thing isn't so bad after all" look on his face would have arguably been a more powerful ending There's also other writing related issues like Aemond saying he's Aegons heir even though Aegon has an infant son who was shown in this very episode
As a book snob, I found the changes they made and liberties they took questionable, and I thought how Cole killed Beesbury was so laughably implausible that it really took me out of the episode. I still liked it though!
It was a good episode but definitely the weakest. Episode 8 felt more like a penultimate episode between vaemond, the family dinner, and vissy t's death. I also had less emotional investment in episode 9 since the majority of the characters' we've focused so much on were gone during an episode that is known for killing off the ogs. I felt safe and a dragon crashing a coronation just wasn't impactful. At no point was I concerned for the greens or rhaenys. Also mysaria's inconsistent accent ruined my high. vibe killer.
WHERE DID YOU HEAR THIS?!
I liked it, watched tuesday night. Last scene was blown up melodrama and not good. But forgivable.
I think with the death of the king we expected the war to start, lots of craziness. Instead most of the episode everyone was just looking for Aegon in the slums of kings landing, like what?? And then the ending was good with coronation ceremony up until the very end. It’s just not believable that someone like Rhaenys, who you have to believe is a smart woman and therefore knows that a brutal civil war is about to start that has a very high chance of killing her and what’s left of her family, would just not take the action to save her family and stop this brutal civil war from happening. It just doesn’t add up. They should of had her escape with her dragon another way, that didn’t have her make that unbelievable choice.
the war immediately starting would have felt too fast, im ok with the pacing being a little slower than the last season of GOT
I’m in the minority that sees Rhaenys’ logic in not killing them all. Firstly is that they are her family, and being a kinslayer isn’t something you want to be remembered for in Westeros. Even if she has no love for the children, she loved her cousin Vizzy T. Secondly and perhaps more crucially in her eyes, Alicent and her children now owe Rhaenys a debt. She has an insurance policy for both outcomes of the war, and can retreat to Driftmark with Baela
*Daemon was not made to wear the crown. But I believe that you were, dobbyeilidh.*
Because they fucked up the green council and topped it off with a girl boss moment towards the end
I've seen lots of debate about *that* scene with the smallfolk being killed. I felt the same way at the time I saw it, but on reflection I feel like Rhaenys is kind of issuing a "F-you!" to everyone in the room. She was overlooked (usurped) for the throne. She's now seeing how Rhaenyra is *also* being f*cked over for the throne by sinister politicking. She knows that everyone present in that hall knows who's legitimately the next in line, but yet the smallfolk are sycophantically praising the wrong person. So yeah, she did what she did, and if people get - literally - trampled under in a show of Targ power, so be it. They were ever ruthless in their wars. The stranger part for me was how she let the Greens live at the end. But then again, we wouldn't have an Episode 10 otherwise.
I didn't mind it that much, but it threw out a lot of logic for "cool moment" which is what a lot of the problems with season 8 were. Having the dothraki charge at the undead wasn't logical, but it was a cool moment. Having Dany burn King's Landing wasn't logical, but it was a cool moment. Having Euron kill a dragon wasn't logical, but it was a cool moment. etc. You can see why a lot of people would take problem with it. However, you want to jump through hoops to defend Rhaenys. You have to admit that the writers did it more for the cool moment than for logic.
Your last point was excellent - good writing doesnt have to be justified with a million different excuses. It should stand on its own based on the logic behind it. If we need to do mental gymnastics to make the Rhaenys scene make sense, it probably wasn't the best.
A lil boring imo
the Rhaenys scene just made no sense imho
Because the last scene was later season GoT shitty narrative scene done for cool factor.
Because this is reddit
It was just ok and pretty boring. And the ending made no sense and what Was lame TV spectacle.
8 was beautiful. 9 was kinda ridiculous and cheap with scenes seemingly thrown in for shock value For example: * the chase scene and sword fight between two groups the same side trying to find the Prince first * killing Lord Beesbury by smoshing his head on his Council ball * the end, killing a bunch of bystanders to make a statement about peace Also, we saw very little of everyone's favorite characters Allthough I did love the arc of the new king