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House of the Dragon - Game of Thrones prequel

JohnC

By JohnC,
in Film, TV & Radio

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Alan Stock

Alan Stock

Posted
Posted
53 minutes ago, Davros sock drawer said:
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Where's she gone then?

 

I think the "mercy" she showed was that she misled the maid into thinking it was an abortion tea but the phrase she used "We have to be sure" or whatever it was, had a double meaning. One for the maid ("We have to be sure you don't get pregnant") and one for herself/the viewer ("We have to be sure you don't spread this"). 

 

She's dead. 

 

Spoiler

I just took it as she's gone off with the money. But I don't discount the other opinion and yes maybe the choice of words is significant. I wonder if she'll pop up again dead or otherwise as part of the intrigue going on with the spy.

 

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Popo

Popo

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Alan Stock said:

I don't think she's

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killed the maid. The whole episode was redemptive for Allicent. And the point of the scene is to show that fact, to show her son is a nasty shit, and remember the girl who reports to Damon's ex fling at the end is also feeding insider info such as this. Unless I'm wrong, in which case I've inadvertently revealed my own naivety...

 

Question, who is the white haired girl who was next to the rapist son at the dinner? I have totally lost track of the kids. Whoever she is I assume she's now married or at least betrothed to him?

 


I came to raise this myself, because…

 

Spoiler

While it was his sister (they were betrothed in the last episode), she was a completely different character. The sister from last week was a semi-mystic, a bit like Bran became in GoT - this week she was more like a country bumpkin wot don’t fink too much. 


 

Confusing. 

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Gotters

Gotters

Posted
Posted

I'm loving this, it's such a nasty grown up take on this sort of thing and is really putting in the work to setup whatever is coming next, you really do understand the machinations going on between the sides and the deep seated resentments that are now multi generational.

 

Re the maid 

 

Spoiler

I'd assumed like many it was 'morning after' tea but can see on reflection how it's possibly something far more sinister and the bag of coins was just a ruse to get her to drink it.

 

I do agree that with the approach they've taken to cover a lot of elapsed time with a fair few jumps the casting and ageing has made things a bit harder to understand, especially characters names (the children in particular) but hoping things may be in place now to settle down a bit on that front and we see the havoc that spills out from the decades we've seen pass in only 8 eps.

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Delargey

Delargey

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Popo said:


I came to raise this myself, because…

 

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While it was his sister (they were betrothed in the last episode), she was a completely different character. The sister from last week was a semi-mystic, a bit like Bran became in GoT - this week she was more like a country bumpkin wot don’t fink too much. 


 

Confusing. 

 

Spoiler

She had mystic mutterings this week. She said something at the dinner table.

 

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Jammy

Jammy

Posted
Posted
40 minutes ago, scottcr said:

The recasting of Aemon and Aegon didn’t match their previous actors. Aemon looks great but looks more like David Tennents Aegon…


If the guy playing Aemond pouted any harder he might as well be making that squeeky kissing noise.

 

Did

 

Spoiler

Viserys confuse Alicent for Rhaenyra at the end ? It was Rhaenyra who had asked him whether he believed the Song of Ice and Fire earlier. So has Alicent (deliberately or mistakenly) taken his word that she, and by extension Aegon and Aemond, are the ones to unite the kingdom ?


Excellent episode. Amazing work from Paddy Considine.

 

Regarding the maid, I’m in the camp that believes

 

Spoiler

she’s been poisoned. Alicent’s face broke a bit when she started drinking, like she knew she was killing her.

 

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scottcr

scottcr

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Jammy said:


If the guy playing Aemond pouted any harder he might as well be making that squeeky kissing noise.

 

Did

 

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Viserys confuse Alicent for Rhaenyra at the end ? It was Rhaenyra who had asked him whether he believed the Song of Ice and Fire earlier. So has Alicent (deliberately or mistakenly) taken his word that she, and by extension Aegon and Aemond are the ones to unite the kingdom ?


Excellent episode. Amazing work from Paddy Considine.

 

in answer to your question - yes.

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Gotters

Gotters

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Jammy said:


Any chance of a copy/paste @Gotters? Reached my article limit for the freebie sub.

Here you go, on phone so not sure of formatting
 

Spoiler

The Iron Throne can be a cruel and uncomfortable seat. In the world of George R.R. Martin’s books, it is thought to have a mind of its own, rejecting those unfit to rule with well-placed nicks.

In “Game of Thrones,” this seat made from the blades of vanquished rivals was intimidating to behold, but it was not much of a threat to life or limb. “House of the Dragon” hews closer to Martin’s vision and adds a new twist — the cuts that Viserys (Paddy Considine) suffers not only refuse to heal, but infect him with a particularly nasty strain of leprosy. His reign eats him alive.

“I always viewed the throne as a cursed property,” Considine said on Monday morning. “It’s made of the swords that people died on, and it has this strange power about it.”

By Sunday night’s episode, the eighth of the season, Viserys no longer looks like a proud Targaryen king — he more closely resembles the Phantom of the Opera (with that metal mask obscuring half his face) or the Crypt Keeper (with those gaping holes beneath it). (The startling effect was created with a blend of prosthetic makeup, visual effects and a body double.) Viserys lives a half-life under the influence of the pain-dulling (and mind-clouding) Westerosi morphine called milk of the poppy. Until, that is, he skips the meds for one last visit to the royal court, to defend the rights of his daughter and named heir, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), and to attend a family supper, where he urges the relatives to set aside their grievances.

‘House of the Dragon’ Season 1, Episode 8 Recap: Calamitous Ambition

Considine gives a grave and poignant performance as Viserys. Because of the show’s out-of-order shooting schedule, the actor’s earliest scenes required him to depict some of the later stages of Viserys’s deterioration first — a physical transformation that was a closely guarded secret on set. (Security guards followed him around with view-blocking umbrellas.)

 

With his onscreen visage revealed to all but himself, Considine discussed the show’s latest revelations in a phone conversation from London on Monday. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Return to Westeros in ‘House of the Dragon’

HBO’s long-awaited “Game of Thrones” prequel series is here.

A Man’s Decline: By the eighth episode of the season, Viserys no longer looks like a proud Targaryen king. Paddy Considine discussed the character’s transformation and its meaning.

The New Littlefinger?: Larys Strong, a shadowy character, burns bright as a major player in the show. Here’s his back story.

The Sea Snake: Lord Corlys Velaryon, one of the most powerful people in the Seven Kingdoms, is a fearless sailor. Steve Toussaint, the actor who plays him, does better on land.

A Rogue Prince: Daemon Targaryen, portrayed by Matt Smith, is an agent of chaos. But “he’s got a strange moral compass of his own,” the actor said.

Have you seen your death episode yet?

No, I haven’t, and I’m not sure if I ever will. I haven’t seen anything beyond Episode 2, really. Some people don’t like to watch themselves, and I’m one of those people. It’s debilitating. I tend to just stay away. I’m sure somebody will show me a photograph.

At what point did you figure out what the king’s stages of deterioration would look like?

Very early on, you’re still forming the character, and I knew it was going to come to an end with some kind of transformation, so you’re always looking for references for that. I happened to be watching a documentary about one of my favorite artists, Richard Hambleton [a Canadian conceptual artist who died in 2017], and watching his physical decline through cancer, addiction and scoliosis. I said to Miguel Sapochnik [an executive producer, and a showrunner for the first season], “This would be a good idea for where Viserys ends up.” So I had somewhere in my head that I could map where I was going to get to.

Image

Considine in “House of the Dragon” on Sunday. The king made a final appearance on the throne.Credit...Ollie Upton/HBO

The extremity — Viserys looking so emaciated, how it’s so cancerous, this thing, that it eats into his face — that decision was made more than halfway into the shoot. So it went probably more extreme than I had originally imagined it would go.

I watched my dad die of cancer, and it was a very rapid demise. So it certainly made sense to me, and I think it was pretty shocking and effective. It becomes a physical manifestation of all the infighting and skulduggery, really. The mystery is why so many people crave the Iron Throne. It’s not something Viserys craved; he just had a sense of duty. He knows the weight of being king, the weight of the responsibility, and the toll it can take.

From the minute of his wife’s funeral, I think Viserys starts to die. It’s a slow death. Nowhere in the story does Viserys ask the maesters to cure him, to stop this thing from eating him alive. I think he accepts it as part of the guilt of the decision he makes to put his wife through a terrible, horrible procedure. It’s like people who surrender to illness. When they offer suggestions to cure him, he doesn’t bother with it. He lets it consume him. He surrenders. That was my thing for him, anyway.

In some ways, he let the leeches into his life — the maesters, the Hightowers. After this last moment in the throne room, do you wonder if Viserys made a mistake not giving the position of hand of the king to his brother Daemoninstead?

Absolutely not! [Laughs.] Daemon was a liability. It never would have worked. Viserys knew Daemon couldn’t sit in Small Council meetings for 12 hours straight. He doesn’t have the temperament. Even at the end, there aren’t words in that relationship. Daemon helps him up there, and he puts the crown on his head, and that said everything that he’s never said, without uttering a word. But that guy could never have been able to be Viserys’s hand.

Shouldn’t he at least have told Daemon or others about the prophecy?

No way, not at that time. That’s something that we struggled with. There was a scene that was deleted after Aemma (Sian Brooke) died, where Viserys meets with Daemon and he tries to hint at this idea of prophecies and what the gods mean to him. He was trying to get some idea where Daemon’s at with his beliefs, but the tone of the scene was never quite right. There’s no way that Daemon would even connect to that — he’d laugh Viserys out of the room. He’s not into dreamers or things like that.

On his deathbed, Viserys mistakes Alicent (Olivia Cooke) for Rhaenyra, and reaffirms the prophecy to her. When she leaves, he seems to think he’s speaking to someone else.

The only suggestion [in the script] is that he doesn’t quite know who he’s talking to. I always had an idea in my head, whether it was useful to the story or not, that the last thing Viserys sees before he dies is the person who comes to collect him from this mortal life. When he dies, he sees Aemma, and he says, “My love.”

I just kind of improvised that line, and reached out a little bit, because this to me is a tragic love story, in many ways. But I kept that private; I never actually disclosed that in the end. I just thought, “If they use it, they use it,” and I hear it’s made the cut, so I’m really grateful, because it ends that story quite beautifully. The narrative I had in my mind was that he never really gets over Aemma, that he’s devastated for the rest of his life.

Image

Considine behind the scenes of “House of the Dragon” with Milly Alcock, who played the younger version of Rhaenyra, and Miguel Sapochnik, a showrunner.Credit...Ollie Upton/HBO

Do you think Viserys’s feelings about Aemma affected how he treated his progeny with Alicent? Because he’s barely involved with them.

He gives up on them. He’s so protective of Rhaenyra, and he’s no fool — he knows that her [first three sons] are not Laenor Velaryon’s children. He’s just at a certain point in his life, with his new family, that he doesn’t take much of an interest in his other children. And the kids even sussed that out, you know, the actors playing the kids. They said they thought I hated them! I was like, “Where have you had that from? I don’t hate you.” They meant Viserys, not Paddy.

I certainly didn’t hate them, but I just had no time for them. That happens in families, doesn’t it? He’s there, but not there. Rhaenyra, she’s the link to Aemma, and as far as he’s concerned, she’s his only child.

Alicent appears to misinterpret Viserys’s deathbed talk of prophecy, taking his reference to Aegon I to refer to their son Aegon II (now played by Tom Glynn-Carney), which could lead her to reassert his claim to the throne. What did you think of that moment, and what that prophecy amounts to, 200 years down the line?

The fact that Alicent misinterprets it is horrific. What comes next would horrify Viserys. I mean, we have this knowledge of where this goes and the fact that [the prophecy] did come true. But the fact that it’s misunderstood is an absolute disaster. Viserys would be turning in his grave.

In behind-the-scenes footage on HBO Max, you were dancing in the throne room, twirling your dragon cane. You said you were “serving Targaryen realness.”

I love “Drag Race.” There was something about dressing up in these flamboyant costumes that brought out my inner drag, having that lovely blond hair. I never got to dress in anything like that before, and it might never happen again. So you’ve got to enjoy it, haven’t you?

If a later season of “House of the Dragon” were to do flashbacks to this period, would you consider coming back to play Viserys?

I love him so much. I think he’s my favorite character I’ve ever played. But I would struggle with that. His story has been told. He made his impact. He was the peaceful king that everybody thought was a bore, and he brought some love and compassion to the show. I don’t know what more you could do with that. So I think this is the end.

 

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Alan Stock

Alan Stock

Posted
Posted

Great interview.

 

Spoiler

Very interesting that even the writers wanted to leave it a bit ambiguous about who Vicerys thought he was talking to at the end. Chatting to a workmate today she convinced me that he thought he was speaking to Rheanyra and her Aegon, and obviously Allicent gets confused and thinks he's talking about her Aegon. But I had at first thought (forgetting there were 2 Aegon sons now) that he was getting muddled with the vision of the future and of the original Aegon. Now it seems it could be either. A very nice bit of ambiguity which reflects his deteriorating state of mind. I also hadn't realised his disease was from cuts from the throne, that's another nice touch.

 

Now back to the most important topic. Maid chat. In the same conversation with my work mate we were debating 'murdered by Allicent or not'. And I think there are strong arguments for each theory but the way the show portrays it probably favours the 'dead' one. But crucially the show I think deliberately doesn't explicitly show us, which would have been really easy to do, by showing Allicent or her handmaid poison the drink, or show the girl dying for example. I think this is because dead or not she'll be used as leverage by Damon's ex-whore against Allicent. Maybe the show wants you to think she's dead when in fact she's been spirited away and will be revealed later to be alive and free to accuse Allicent's son. Or if evidence is collected of her murder then that can be used against the queen too. The only problem with this take is that would anyone give much of a shit about a lowly maid. Damon suffered no punishment for outright murdering the Valaryan brother for talking out against royalty, and that guy was a senior house member. Anyway, I predict (and hope) we will see some sort of resolution to this maid business.

 

Another question my colleague had was who the council guy is who greets Damon and Rheanyra outside the gate of the castle when they arrive at King's Landing. They mentioned his name, have we seen him before or is he significant in any way? Just seemed a bit random.

 

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Stig

Stig

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Mr.Crowley said:

Excellent episode, that's why you cast Paddy Considine.

Cant we just reboot Game of Thrones after this is finished?

 

HoTD just ends with a voice over saying

 

"And eventually their descendant Daneayrs brought her Dragons to Westeros, but died and the throne was taken by oooooh....let's say Bran"

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Timmo

Timmo

Posted
Posted

My take on the maid:

 

Spoiler

I think she's alive:

 

  • I don't understand why she gave her the coins if she was killing her. She would have drank the tea anyway and so if she did kill her then giving her the coins makes the scene needlessly confusing.
  • Allicent needed some softness to line up her rekindling her friendship in the banquet scene.

 

Something I missed:

 

Spoiler

The small scene with the cloaked woman walking up the steps and reporting back to the dark haired lady. No idea who either of them were...

 

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Sabreman

Sabreman

Posted
Posted
Spoiler

The dark haired lady is Daemon's old brothel squeeze. Time-jumped into oblivion after a couple of episodes.

 

The maid:

 

Spoiler

I think is dead. At first I assumed it was the old morning after potion, but didn't she make some decidedly ominous gurgling sounds off-camera whilst Alicent teared up?

 

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Harsin

Harsin

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Sabreman said:
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The dark haired lady is Daemon's old brothel squeeze. Time-jumped into oblivion after a couple of episodes.


She ages well given that kid turned into a 30 year old anime villain in the same time period.

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Timmo

Timmo

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, SpagMasterSwift said:

I think the point of the ambiguity around the maid 

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speaks more to the power of the maesters - only they really know if she is going to have an abortion or death from that tea.

 

 

Surely Allicent made that decision.

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