The way they did Vhagar’s look saying: “I can’t do this to you. You’re my master/my rider... my best company” in her reluctance in burning her alive. But, at the same time when they both looked at each other, I think she realized: “Ok. For as painful as it can be to me, you’re going through so much pain. If this shall end your suffering, so let it be. Your wish is my command. I’ll always remember you ❤”
As hard as it was for vhagar she didn't have a choice a command is a command if they are truly loyal they will follow it no matter how painful it is for them
@@ViserysTargaryen_78 Still, dragons in this universe form a bond with the rider they chose similar to an elephant’s bond with one of its herd or a killer whale’s bond to a member of the pod. The dragon and the rider are one and the emotional bond is powerful so Vhagar (in her mind at least) hearing her final rider begging Vhagar to be the one to kill her is quite cruel. Of course she gains another rider but the reason she chooses Aemond is probably because he is suicidal to try and claim her and wants to be gone of the world too
@@CatotheEputting an unborn child you can have more of over the person who’s supposed to be your other half is insane. also viserys didn’t do that out of care for his children. he’s literally a deadbeat to all of his kids but rhaenyra. he did it for an heir. granted his wife would’ve died anyways, but he killed his wife without consulting her for an heir… “good on viserys”
I've watched this scene multiple times and never noticed this before. Normally when Dragons burn to kill out of agression they have this angry death roar when they blow their fire, but her dragon winced like a sad dog when it burned her and the flame wasn't as harsh. What we saw would have been the equivalent of a human being asking their dog to kill them out of mercy, and the dog, man's best friend somehow complying. (shout out to Kara R who originally pointed this out in the comments below)
You JUST understand this? It was super obvious that the dragon did it only to obey her command and out of mercy and that he/she didn't actually want to do it so of course he/she wouldn't be roaring angrily. Most people noticed that, that's not something deep or hidden.
@@yevgeniyaleshchenko849 Isn't that what I JUST wrote ??? I realized it was a mercy killing from the begining I was commenting on another commenter's post about the difference in the type of burn. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has theirs, thanks for being one about yours.
My favorite comment…. I had been talking about how the flame that Vhagar let out was so small and tame, almost like a dog lets out that soft bark/cry. So much beautiful detail
I think Laena looked at Vhagar and said ,Please look at me, You are not doing anything wrong. you are ending my suffering . Vhagar then instantly nodded her approval with her eyes..
In some ways this is stronger then the book's version- it gives so much more agency to Laena and creates a contrast between Viserys and Daemon. However, in the books Daemon was desperately looking for better doctors to help her. I think that the show could have done more to clearly depict the great dedication, love, friendship, and respect between these two. Even just a line from Daemon could show that he hadn't given up on saving her life.
True. But from what we have seen in the first season, the showrunners want the characters to be grey, not black or white, hence why Daemon didnt look for doctors here. Same goes for Alicent, in the book, she is evil as fuck. Not so much in the show. They don't want people to take side for either the Blacks or the Greens it seems.
@@kendallroyclips to me, Daemon is generally a villian but an interesting and arguably likable villian. Like for example what happens with Blood and Cheese after Luke is killed. Rather than making him more grey and neutral, I wish they would embrace the more extreme sides of his nature- strong love, but also strong hate, strong ruthlessness, fury, mercilessness at times. I would have liked to see that played up more rather than muted. The Targaryens are extremes and that is what makes them interesting in my perspective.
Agreed totally with this. I loved the shows version of her death compared to the book. She went out like a badass in the show and it was so bittersweet. A beautiful death to end her suffering and her dragon helped free her from that suffering.
I kept wondering why Laena would walk out into the desert to ask Vhaegar to kill her. But, now I understand. She was suffering trying to give birth, and there was no guarantee that either she nor the baby would survive, even if the Maester cut into her to remove the child. So, rather than sacrifice one over the other, or potentially kill both, Laena made the choice for Daemon. She chose to die in the ways of Old Valyria, by Dragon fire. I have to give her props for having that kind of bravery. But I also have to acknowledge the irony of the situation, because it was the same situation that Viserys was in when he had to choose either his wife or his son, and instead lost both. And Rhaenyra made the choice to cremate her mother and dead baby brother.
Exactly. Its a mirror to the first episode. When the king was presented the choice to let "the gods decide her fate" or cut her open and try to save the child. Just a different outcome. For all his malicious acts prior, he couldn't command them to cut into her alive like his brother did. And she escaped and chose the quickest way out she could.
@@polishherowitoldpilecki5521 I think the chuckle was also partly Daemon being like 'Seriously?' at Vaemond using the eulogy to be passive aggressive about Rhaenyra's kids
Poor Vhagar...that dragon wanted no part in killing Laena. That sad, deep growl had so much punch. You could tell it pained that poor creature to even be asked to end her. I think at the end the dragon realized it was the only mercy Laena could be given. I don't know the emotional intelligence of dragons. But it doesn't take much to realize when someone you care about is hurting and you can stop it.
It takes a bit for a dragon to form an emotional bond, but their emotional intelligence cannot be overstated. They are creatures ruled by emotion, a representation of the human shadow, our deepest and most primal impulses, and the things we don’t like to acknowledge about our deeper nature. In a way, they understand their riders better than their riders understand themselves.
“Va-hay-gar!” This moved me. The actress did this so well. iirc she had been laboring for several DAYS at this point & in her agony she wanted a dragon riders death. She tells Daemon exactly that earlier on in the series.
I understand that the producers felt they couldn’t afford Laena the death she had in the book due to time constraints but it really missed out on showing how true the love was between her and Daemon. Like that whole bit where Daemon is frantically trying all he can and looking for anyone he can to save his wife and unborn child was really important for Daemon’s development. I do like this change though.
@MusMasi Her baby was breached. It was pretty much a zero percent chance of survival. It was an Aemma situation all over again and she just took matters into her own hand and chose to die with her child in a traditional way, rather than die separately.
OMG YOU ARE RIGHT!!! I never noticed that before GREAT OBSSERVATION!!! Normally when they burn to kill out of agression they have this angry death roar, but her dragon winced like a sad dog. And what we saw would have been the equivalent of a human being asking their dog to kill them out of mercy, and the dog, man's best friend somehow complying.
My goodness what a wife and partner leana must have been, strong & fiercely loyal, uncompromising in her faith I would have been proud to have been her husband
Not sure if it’s just the emotional swell of the music or the memory of the demise of my own relationship, but this scene had me welling up with tears.
i like to think that Vhagar, as a mother, recognized the pain Laena was in and while she was so against what Laena was asking, she gave her one final mercy.
Laena is desiring to die because she knows that neither her nor child will survive. And her dragon doesn't want to kill her, yet her dragon loves her enough to end the suffering she is in. that is why this is moving.
Djawadi's music in this scene is just giving me goosebumps. What a genius composer and what a scene. The series just like the book are both very imperfect but in that show, there were some fragments like this scene that are beautiful parts of something so huge and wonderful it just couldn't be done in any form of art.
Can’t lie, this is the first time I noticed the slight “no” from Daemon. I thought it was implied he agreed to save the baby and that’s why Laena chose to sacrifice herself instead.
The Green's wouldn't attempt this. They'd be crazy to do so. If Laena lived then so does Laenor, both experienced dragon riders and one of which has participated in war. Dreamfyre, Sunfyre and Tessarion couldn't stop them.
"my brave girl.." and youre telling me daemon didnt love laena? in the books, however, he was in love with laena, not just rhaenyra, he loved both of them of course, but laena was someone he deeply loved as she is not only the mother of baela and rhaena (his only girls + visenya) but he fought for her hand, killing some man from the free cities to have her to himself. that's true love y'all (well i think)
So somehow a hemorrhaging woman in labor is leaving her birthing bed waddling down to a massive dragon and no one is just stopping her from doing that 🤣🤣
The show writers didn't consult any OBs or midwives. As with Aemma, Laena had a pretty good chance of living (definitely over 50%), although probably with some future fertility issues. Even for breech births, the birthing person is very likely going to live and heal (though, it wpuld be very painful). Most of the risk is to the baby, who is most likely going to die (and for sure would with a crude c-section). Even medieval people IRL knew women lived more often than babies during complicated deliveries. They also knew that women and babies always died from cutting, but women often lived without it, even after delivering a dead baby. Her and Aemma were not at all medievally logical; no maester or husband would have thrown a woman under the bus because they knew that the baby would die anyway, c-section or not.
when I read the books it seems pretty clear that whenever a Maester is involved with a Targaryen childbirth, things can go sideways very quickly. Since they're controlled by the Citadel/House Hightower, I would not be surprised if they were actively complicating these childbirths. The maesters fought the doctrine of Valyrian incest the hardest.
You assume ALL medieval people know this or that, but also it seems you forget how high the mortality used to be for mothers or that the show even applies the same logic/knowledge that we have. Or maybe even with their experience, they thought she was beying saving. Or she owuld have died of sepsis. Also, why using a weirds turn of phrase 'birthing person', it's called a woman :P
Ya know this to me is still one of the best Sequences in the show in how it is shot and everything. I, as many others, wish they had shown Daemon desperately looking for other maesters to save Laena and carried her body to bed in the end. And I as well wish Rhaenyra was shown to have been close with Laena and there with her during the labor. But this still showed a lot. It showed Daemon unable to even watch Laena in bed, asking for options, not making the decision of whether to just sacrifice Laena… And when Laena left, he went to talk to her I would imagine, went to help, and shocked to have lost her that way. But Laena made the choice herself. She died a dragonriders death, on her own terms - but also making the decision for her and Daemon. Didn’t leave a need for speculation or blame or guilt. Just went out her own way, in dragon fire. She didn’t want to leave her kids or her husband, but she made the choice for them.
I actually preferred her death in the TV show than the books, I believe in the books she just dies on the stairs trying to go to Vhagar to ride her one last time. This is way better to me.
She’s trying to give birth and the baby is just not coming out. The doctor said this is beyond him and that they should cut out the baby which would kill her. She wanted to die a dragon rider’s death so she died on her own terms by having Vaghar burn her alive.
@@windcyclone2 Kind of selfish that she would sacrifice the baby as well. If she was going to die regardless it would make more sense to save the child
@@josephstalin2606 The doctor said he wasn't sure whether it would save the child. This scene is also a mirror to Aemma's death in episode one --- Viserys made the call to do that, and the baby died immediately anyway. The scene unfolding this way gave Laena much more agency, and again highlights a pretty brutal reality for women in this time and world.
@@Feyinbetween If there was a chance to save the child then they should’ve taken it. Who’s to say the child would’ve died the same way Aemmas did? The child may have survived
@@josephstalin2606 it might have. I'm not going to debate the medicine of it because we don't know at this point. I'm saying I get where she is coming from, as far as how they wrote this character. Earlier in the episode, she says that when it is her time, she wants to die like a dragon rider. Aemma died in one of the most horrific ways on the show -- fully conscious, fully cognizant of being cut apart by the man who said he loves her. Laena didn't want something like that for herself.
How did daemon not catch up with her. He was there when she left the room and she wasn't even running .She was crawling there and she still managed to cover some distance. Tell Vagah to kill her repeatedly. Then daemon finally arrives just to watch her die. He should have been able to stop her
He knew that she wasn't going to live much longer one way or another. And he didn't want to make the same mistake Viserys did; essentially killing the wife to save the child only for the child to die anyway. Daemon did genuinely care for Leana and wanted to let her go on her terms.
Yes you can still see her baby bump when she walked outside. But laena was no fool. The baby was probably already dead due to the complications. We don’t know how long exactly she had been trying to birth the child but the maester implied it had been awhile and that they tried several different methods to help the child be born with no success. She is not selfish whatsoever for taking her fate into her own hands rather than allowing them to slice her open to expel a child that was already doomed to thrive.
The child was stuck and the only way to get the baby out was to cut her open and daemon didnt want to do that and they also didn’t know if the baby was still alive so she figured if she was dying anyway she wanted a dragon rider death
Non elle a pas eu son bebe . Le bebe n’arrivait à sortir et il y avait aucune garentie de sauvée l’un des deux . Alors elle a demander à son dragon d’abréger ces souffrances
Why is everyone cool with Laena killing herself and the baby by immolation when there was the chance at a Caesarean but angry at Viserys for trying to save the baby in the same way? Is it simply because in one instance Laena had the choice whereas Aemma didn't?
@@CatotheE Well people weren’t the same back then they didn’t really care much for their children, they were just an item, an heir and nothing more. She wanted to have a legacy of dying by fire and not dying the same way as Aemma.
Options -Die and try to make the baby survive -Die and te baby also dies Are you guys really pretending this is in any way a moral choice she took? She killed the baby out of spite and took the easy way out. She died, but made sure to kill someone else in the process. Good fucking job, you go girlboss
@CatotheE depending on what the doctors say of course and the survival chances of the unborn child after birth but I would agree that in certain crimumstances like if the child had a good chance of survival the mother should sacrifice herself yeah... Agreed! It's as you said the male version of this would be a man taking a knife in the heart for his child or drowning to save his child or etc. Ignore the idiots replying to you, you have a perfectly valid point. The double standards are crazy. These are the same kinds of people who would demand the man sacrifice himself for his children...🤣🤦♂️ I'm glad at least someone's intelligent, thanks for your thoughts
