House of the Dragon - Game of Thrones prequel

[MrCarrot]

6 hours ago, Davros sock drawer said:

Yeah, I’m done with this. The “tactics” in that battle were just laughable. Wave a white flag, this immediately tricks Crabby Nutter into sending his entire army out for no reason whatsoever after seeing Matt Smith go “Psych!”. At this point he could have just gone inside and drawn the curtains, but no, send out the whole squad. His troops then stand around Matt Smith in a neat circle, hesitating just long enough to get toasted.

 

Absolute dogshit.

 

Spoiler

It's kinda hilarious that we're supposed to believe took them TWO YEARS to beat these chumps. What were they doing!? Given that crab dude's archers apparently don't see multiple dragons flying around above them (while they stand out in the open, nicely lined up!) as a threat

 

[Popo]

That battle didn’t make any sense!

 

Spoiler

You’ve got an enemy hiding in caves in an island who retreat inside every time you attack with dragons. So attack, force them back, then roll in smoke, fire, rats, bombs or any of a hundred other things - or just sit back and wait for their food and fresh water to run out. You’ve got complete air and sea superiority - you’ve got them licked already! Bottle them up and get back to trading, you don’t even need to kill then. 
 

Why would they be so stupid as to fall for such an awful ploy? They wouldn’t, it doesn’t make sense. 

 

[Delargey]

You can tell they come from a kingdom that's had a generation of peace - they don't know squat about fighting.

 

I'm loving Paddy Considine in this - he is fantastic as the put upon cuck-king. I like his little flashes of anger.

 

Alicent's room murals are extremely saucey- it's like only fans on her wall

 

[Spoiler]

[/Spoiler]

 

 

[Stig]

22 minutes ago, MrCarrot said:

 

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It's kinda hilarious that we're supposed to believe took them TWO YEARS to beat these chumps. What were they doing!? Given that crab dude's archers apparently don't see multiple dragons flying around above them (while they stand out in the open, nicely lined up!) as a threat

 

 

And apparently shoot like Storm Troopers.

[Hanzo the Razor]

This is far better than it has any right to be. Really enjoyed that episode. Re: The Crab Feeder

 

Spoiler

Was that a Sons of the Harpy type mask that was half melted to his face?

 

[Hanzo the Razor]

The internet. Sucking the fun out of everything since 1999.

[drmick]

There seemed to be the same conversation about succession had in at least three different scenes, and I'm not sure why they didn't edit those out.

[Stig]

14 minutes ago, Hanzo the Razor said:

The internet. Sucking the fun out of everything since 1999.

 

I still enoyed it, it was just a little silly

[Waggo]

The last 5 minutes were daft, but up until that point I thought it was another great episode.

 

I would far rather they revert back to season 1 GOT, and have them show the aftermath of battles fought off screen than serve up the nonsense we got to finish off the episode though.

[hauk]

This is starting to get really good. It’s more of a slow burn that GOT at this stage, but some of the performances are great.

[scottcr]

Kinda mixed about that episode… the succession chat has pretty much run it’s course. Needs more proper political intrigue.

 

enjoyed the spectacle of the battle but 

 

Spoiler

Matt outrunning all the arrows and them being unable to break such an obviously shitey army in 2 years was a bit daft

 

I’m assuming it was because only Matt was strong enough so, he could either ride a dragon or go radge on land, but not both… so needed the other dragon rider to show up

 

[Paulando]

Really enjoyed the first two episodes but yep, this one was pretty shitty. Wasn’t keen on that sudden jump forward three years, I felt quite distanced from the story as a result. The battle at the end was stupid so I didn’t feel any attachment to it.

[Gotters]

I quite enjoyed it but my other half got fidgety.

 

It feels to me like they are attempting to do the legwork to justify whatever is to come for the the poor put upon king as showing him bottling things up for years.

 

Easy parallels to see with old crab boy taking to the caves like the Afghans with the superior firepower of the US/Russia unable to shock & awe them out.

[Waggo]

5 hours ago, hauk said:

This is starting to get really good. It’s more of a slow burn that GOT at this stage, but some of the performances are great.

 

Not early season GOT’s it isn’t, where the entire season would slowly build to a spectacular penultimate episode.  
 

The really big stuff in GOT’s season 3 and 4 paid off so well, because of plot/character building episodes such as last night’s in that series.

 

That is why I felt it was a shame they threw in the finale which stank of late era GOT, while the rest was reminding me very much of what made me fall hard for that show in the first place.

[Girth Certificate]

more club-footed biscuit guy please.

 

Otto is a sick fuck.

[SpagMasterSwift]

I'm really enjoying how bloody stubborn people are in this show.

[Girth Certificate]

The stupidity of the battle didn't bother me because Damon is a stupid fanny throwing a tantrum against his big brother (he's probably like 14 or something in the books  ). I didn't like whatever shit saving private ryan shutter speed effect that they tried to pull off. Looked crap.

 

I really liked King Paddy and his Daughter's heart to heart. I LOVED the boar blood in her white hair. She looked like Ric Flair.

 

The best bit was the guy getting eaten by crabs calling people cunts and celebrating his rescue and then getting stomped to paste. That's good slapstick.

 

Was the sea-snake's (Sea-horse going by his banner) son riding Damo's dragon?

[Popo]

10 minutes ago, Girth Certificate said:

 

Was the sea-snake's (Sea-horse going by his banner) son riding Damo's dragon?

It looked different - Daemon’s dragon has a weirdly long neck and body. 
 

Having said that I’m not sure who’s dragon it was. 

[Delargey]

1 hour ago, Girth Certificate said:

The stupidity of the battle didn't bother me because Damon is a stupid fanny throwing a tantrum against his big brother (he's probably like 14 or something in the books  ). I didn't like whatever shit saving private ryan shutter speed effect that they tried to pull off. Looked crap.

 

 

If Rickon Stark was into his history he could have learnt some arrow avoiding tips from Deamon's antics.

[Masterbeef]

I suppose that, for me, they are easy to compare because they both started at the same time, are both fantasy tv shows, are both based on popular book series and are both mega hyped.

[Delargey]

Yeah, just saying budget wise though HotD is no where near RoP so it's never going to be able to compete. 

 

 

[scottcr]

I was really impressed with HotD - then I saw RoP and it's just blasted absolutely everything else into space (Foundation still stands up well I think).

 

The shitey 1080 stream from NowTV doesn't do it any favours tbh.

[Number 28]

Yeah, a bit of a weird episode. I'm constantly impressed by Paddy's acting, but also there wasn't that much happening and the episode felt really long. But maybe I was just having one of those days.

 

And yeah, the battle is just so much wtf and it's irritating that it always seems to go this way in films/TV. Minus the fantasy elements the rest of the show is relatively grounded and I had always thought that's what people appreciated about it. It's especially disappointing if GRRM has the input they claim, he's supposed to be a history buff. I can just about overlook people doing those daft spins with their swords, etc, but everything else... And always the fire arrows! It's like they don't have the confidence that the rest of the show isn't boring and feel the need to go full Michael Bay to compensate. And yeah, how did this greyscale twat, presumably with compromised mental faculties, manage to command and feed a small army and evade a much larger, far better resourced army with fucking dragons for three years??

 

As an aside, dragon(s) literally melted Harrenhal? They seem a bit nerfed here. They could surely melt the cave entrances shut if they wanted? Someone on reddit said George is notoriously bad with precisely pinning things down, like numbers, distances, sizes, so I guess it's natural that the capabilities of dragons are all over the place.

[Girth Certificate]

I think that was the big fuckoff super-dragon who's skull shows up every so often. I get the impression that all the dragons we see on the TV shows are its poor relations. Much like King Paddy and Damon are the rather shitty descendants of whatever similarly named dude was riding it. subtext

[Number 28]

*googles* Ah right, Balerion the dread, Aegon the Conquerer's dragon. Crazy huge and powerful. I guess that makes fantasy-sense.

 

I actually like Daemon's freakish Blood Wyrm and the way it is animated in a haphazard way (slightly wobbly CGI aside).

[Festoon]

ouch.

 

 

[scottcr]

1 hour ago, Number 28 said:

Yeah, a bit of a weird episode. I'm constantly impressed by Paddy's acting, but also there wasn't that much happening and the episode felt really long. But maybe I was just having one of those days.

 

And yeah, the battle is just so much wtf and it's irritating that it always seems to go this way in films/TV. Minus the fantasy elements the rest of the show is relatively grounded and I had always thought that's what people appreciated about it. It's especially disappointing if GRRM has the input they claim, he's supposed to be a history buff. I can just about overlook people doing those daft spins with their swords, etc, but everything else... And always the fire arrows! It's like they don't have the confidence that the rest of the show isn't boring and feel the need to go full Michael Bay to compensate. And yeah, how did this greyscale twat, presumably with compromised mental faculties, manage to command and feed a small army and evade a much larger, far better resourced army with fucking dragons for three years??

 

As an aside, dragon(s) literally melted Harrenhal? They seem a bit nerfed here. They could surely melt the cave entrances shut if they wanted? Someone on reddit said George is notoriously bad with precisely pinning things down, like numbers, distances, sizes, so I guess it's natural that the capabilities of dragons are all over the place.

 

tbf - the dragons are starting to reduce in size and power at this stage... Balerion the dread was the biggest ever dragon... they ones you see now aren't capable of melting Harrenhall.

[SpagMasterSwift]

Regarding the comments about how long the battle for the Stepstones has been going on, wasn't that the point though?  I thought Prince Daemon was using his dragon to keep the Triarchy trapped in the caves, since House Velaryon seem too scared to go in and deal with the Crab Feeder on his own turf. Daemon's men are starting to lose faith in him, but by allowing the Triarchy's presence to remain in the region it maintains the threat to the trade route and therefore puts pressure on King Viserys to act -something he is unwilling to do, ultimately making him look weak. I guess the problem is that we don't really see the impact of this plan since Viserys has been having a pretty sweet 3 years and it all backfires anyway as he sends some men to end it. Unless that act is going to have some sort of damaging effect in the coming episodes.  This only really makes sense if we accept that Daemon is that stubborn and petty and happy to spend three years flying about burning up beaches - which I kind of do...

[Delargey]

2 hours ago, SpagMasterSwift said:

Regarding the comments about how long the battle for the Stepstones has been going on, wasn't that the point though?  I thought Prince Daemon was using his dragon to keep the Triarchy trapped in the caves, since House Velaryon seem too scared to go in and deal with the Crab Feeder on his own turf. Daemon's men are starting to lose faith in him, but by allowing the Triarchy's presence to remain in the region it maintains the threat to the trade route and therefore puts pressure on King Viserys to act -something he is unwilling to do, ultimately making him look weak. I guess the problem is that we don't really see the impact of this plan since Viserys has been having a pretty sweet 3 years and it all backfires anyway as he sends some men to end it. Unless that act is going to have some sort of damaging effect in the coming episodes.  This only really makes sense if we accept that Daemon is that stubborn and petty and happy to spend three years flying about burning up beaches - which I kind of do...

 

I didn't get the impression that was their plan. I thought their plan was to fuck up the crab people in a stunning victory to show the rest of the kingdom what "second sons" are made of.

 

But they weren't prepared for the crab man's sneaky tactics so spent three years faffing about - while crabby could still pick off ships.

 

I suppose this is because they've had 50 years of peace so none of them have been an a proper battle and aren't great at tactics.

 

I think people are critical because it feels like are lots of easy ways to defeat an enemy army that are hiding in Caves. Laying seige to the entrances, blocking in cave opening to create choke points, um, digging massive spike holes all along the beach.

Though history has shown that small forces can hold out against greater armies.

 

Character wise - it tells us about Daemon. When he hears that big bro is coming to help. He puts himself as bait to lure out the crab men because (I'm guessing) that he would rather die in vain glory than be helped by Viserys. He's bold, arrogant, reckless and petty.

 

I'd have preferred it if he had a bit more of a plan than "run straight at them and hope the arrows don't hit me" 

[Number 28]

I'm no expert*, but you would think with an army trapped in caves on a small island the most obvious tactic would be a seige? That's probably the go-to in most situations, at least to begin. Don't let anyone in or out for six months and unless there's a magic tunnel to the mainland or they're sitting on a lot of supplies they're a bit screwed (save for an Onion Knight). It's possible that's what has been happening for most of those three years, maybe I missed something.

 

*I do quite enjoy those YouTube videos of sword/armour/survival/medieval experts picking apart films and TV shows...