Looking Back at House of the Dragon 1 Year Later 

Two more things they needed to establish, 1) the closeness between Daemon, Laena, Rhaenyra and Laenor- because killing Laenor might have served Daemon better than the fakeout. 2) Why would Larys want to kill his family, especially Harwin, the Jaime to Larys''s Tyrion? Additionally I wished Rhaenys's hair was dark and the Strong boys's parentage a little bit mysterious. That's my main problem with HotD is there is so little mystery in the story.

To add on to Carmine's hypothetical post-Rhaenyra's wedding episode, would've been fun to see the duel between Daemon and Laena's Braavosi betrothed? I'm kinda shocked that they passed on the opportunity to have a scene where Matt Smith lands a bunch of stinging quips on the poor guy to rile him up enough to demand a duel.

Olivia Cooke (alicent) is acting so well. Shes a stand out

I need just one scene with Aegon and Sunfyre together. At the very least have Aegon mention his beloved dragon. People are amped to see this relationship and their arcs so hopefully they do it right. Sunfyre is the only source of unconditional love for Aegon,I hope they at least acknowledge it!

Well, GRRM openly said they wanted 13 episodes for season one, but it was considered a dead franchise at the time and they didn’t have enough clout yet with HBO

has it really been a year? time flies

What to do with Daemon and Laena in your hypothetical episode 5.5? The book stuff. Have them fall in love (or lust, whatever) but have her betrothal stand in the way of a marriage. Daemon dueling the son of the former Sealord would provide the action set piece for the episode. They even already set up the betrothal in episode 4 I think, so this plot is not coming completely out of nowhere. Perhaps the episode could end with Daemon flying Laena to Vhagar, hinting to her claiming the dragon and hopefully making her riding Vhagar in the next episode more impactful.

Easy thing to do with Laena and Daemon in the hypothetical 5.5: Laena Claiming Vhagar! It would be an exciting thing and a great way to introduce Vhagar, would have shown their developing relationship and would have fleshed out how/why Laena claimed Vhagar. Have it so that she needed a dragon rider to help her get to Vhagar - her new nesting point is too dangerous to access by ship or horseback, but her mother’s forbidden her from trying because again, this is Vhagar. She needed someone who wouldn’t be afraid of pissing off Rhaenys, which rules out the only other two dragon riders at this point. This would show off Laena’s defiant nature, her kindness towards Vhagar (‘she shouldn’t be so alone’) and also her cunning in goading Daemon into helping her. All of these little things that would get us attached to this character so that 10 years later with a different actress, we still miss and mourn her. And if they didn’t want to repeat Aemond’s scene in episode 6, just cut the episode off before her flying Vhagar, just leave it on her marvelling at their new connection.

Imo it was a great success. They achieved what was realisticakky possible and far exceeded my personal expectations of this show... I'm excited for season2!!!

I've heard a rumor that 'blood & cheese' is going to be an accident, and honestly if that's the case then this show is revisionist history, Rhaenerya was called 'Maegor with tits' for a reason and its not simply because of the unreliable narrators but her direct actions that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands. This show is already biased towards the black faction (even some in the fandom are excusing/justifying the horrible things Rhaenerya and Daemon has done so far) and I honestly think they'll give certain actions/ideas that Rhaenerya orders in the source material to other characters as a way to absolve her of any wrongdoing. For example they'll have Corlys propose the blockade of Kings Landing which causes a famine.

They missed opportunities with sending letters back and forth for the grand maester conspiracies. Like, start a scene with one queen dictating a letter that is all polite and nice, and cut halfway through to the other queen with a maester dictating the other half of the message with a different tone

In the extra episode leading up to the Vaemon petition, it’d be cool to show Rhaenys capably running Driftmark while Corlys is away.

One small thing that I'm surprised they didn't do is add a bit more lore to the egg that Daemon takes in episode 2... They added the idea that it was the cradle egg picked out for Rhaenyra's dead baby brother Baelon, which I thought was quite clever, because then you can have that egg be the one that hatches into Sunfyre, so that its still Rhaenyra's brother's egg. The egg looked kinda dark gold so it does kinda fit. Considering the fate of Rhaenyra and Sunfyre, I figured by series' end this would increase the rewatch-value of S1E2 by a lot, to see Rhaenyra pluck that particular dragon egg from Daemon and give it to Otto. But I don't think they ever made the connection between Sunfyre and that egg?

Shitposting about Aemond as a weeb edgelord was honestly more fun than the show itself

Hotd is more biased where characters should be more grey

Wait a minute. Is Preston's little sweet Robin dude trying to catch Carmines Haunter? They've had those things for years and I just now realized.

Aemond is my fav 💚 💚 💚

I think season 1 should've been 8 episodes focused solely on the early years with the younger cast. Season 2 jumps ahead 10 years, being 8 episodes, ending with the Blood and Cheese event in the finale. Seasons 3 & 4 are 10 episodes each diving full into the Dance of the Dragons. I know the pacing would probably have been too long winded and taken too much time to build up to the main conflict, but honestly I think it would've served the characters better. We wouldn't have got so rushed with everything and had some odd events happen like Cole just murdering Joffrey at the wedding, which I find the most jarring and really think it doesn't work in the show at all. We could've had the tension mounting between those two at the ceremony and then had Cole kill him in the tourney where it makes sense, if there were more episodes to flesh it all out. But otherwise yeah, I think 12 episodes for season 1 with an extra in the early years and later years may have worked well enough too.

Have a hard time taking anything someone says about the accuracy of the show vs. the book material, who can't even get the sex right of the dragon they're talking about. I mean, if everything has to be exactly as it is in the source material, then people discussing the topic should not be making such simple mistakes. Tsk tsk.

Idk if I can give Ryan Condal more credit than GRRM lol. I thought F&B events were better

Why is your profile picture a haunter giving the bird?

The deleted scenes were really great, they should make an edit and add those scenes they are really great.

I do desperately wish they’d had another one or two episodes, as much as I like what we got.

I would have liked to find out in what way Baela and Rhaena are different.

I still think they softened Rhaenyra and Allicent far too much. They are meant to be the two most hardened bitch queens in Westerosi history. I’m looking forward to more Aemond though. And I’m desperate to know who’s playing Daeron and Cregan!!!

To be honest, I'm surprised that they chose to adapt the Dance of the Dragons at all. The story from the source material isn't that great (the ways dragons and armies do and don't matter, the character arcs that don't feel complete - it kinda feels like S8, tbh) and the confusing character names and family trees make it really hard for the audience to keep everyone straight. I think just about every other era of Targaryen history would've been more compelling TV.

Yea I agree the pacing was too fast they should’ve had 12 episodes or ended the season with Viserys’s death so that Harwin, Laena, & the kids of alicent & rhaenyra were more fleshed out especially Heleana & at least 1 scene with her Dreamfyre & Aegon & Sunfyre

12 is really common base number. Look at how you tell time.

Time jumps and weird casting choices stopped this show from being epc

I feel like it was a shame that they didn't use the different seasons to show the passage of time

Really like that episode idea.

When you realize that Ryan Condel was supposed to do Rings of power, I don't know if we should be happy that we got good house of the dragon season or bad for getting a shit lord of the rings show.

I felt this show was really missing the comedic relief that tyrion brought to got

0:30 - At the time when season 1 was airing I actually said that "House of the Dragon" needed 13 episodes. I think three more episodes would've been best. 6 in the past, 7 in the present.

It's a good show in comparison to trash, but put it beside early GoT and it's bad, really bad. Ryans boyish and simplified take on this story is depressing.

The main issue with house of the dragon imo is that it doesn't give you a reason to care about any of the factions. There was no fan tribalism like with that you saw in G0T. A few extra episodes might have helped but they wasted the first couple of episodes by not giving us a reason to believe Rhaenyra would be a good or interesting ruler/is capable of playing the game

I'm already missing the show, honestly. How about you?

RedTeamReview knows how to make a catchy thumbnail😅😅 #teamaemond

I think a lot of the issues with the show were due to source-material constraints. Like, episode 2 ends with this moment of "oh sh*t, Viserys chose the wrong child bride and now his actions have consequences. Daemon and Corlys are teaming up." But... this doesn't ever lead to consequences for Viserys? Daemon and Corlys attack the Stepstones, which is a war that Viserys supports. I guess the victory makes Daemon feel entitled to marry Rhaenyra, which makes Viserys rush to marry her off, so the move has consequences for Rhaenyra? Plus the bonds between Daemon and the Velaryons are strengthened as they become battle brothers, which is a consequence felt by Otto and the Greens?

The lack of developed relationships highlighted in the books was a real miss, Rhaenyra and Laena, Daemon and Corelys (we saw some of it) Rhaena and Rhaenyra etc. the bonds the dragons had as well

Daemon and Laena on a Grand Tour of the Free Cities. I’ve thought much about this.

George R.R. Martin did not write the book Fire and Blood badly, the book is supposed to be written by a Maester, so we will never know if the events in the book are real written by a 3rd person.

I hope you guys are planning on covering wheel of time season 2. I thought season 1 was pretty mid but season 2 has been much better so far now that the characters are established.

My biggest concern is episode 9 and how every episode has a weird scene in it that feels kind of wrong. My only big problem I can think of is how Rhaenys appeared in the coronation, I think that goes against how well she remembered by the people as the Queen who never was. I think a theme constantly was how she would have been a great queen, but at the same time what she said to Alicent was perfect in my opinion and even better comming from her. Also wish they never removed her scene with Baela in the last episode that was another great scene for both characters.

Vahgarrr is a her!!!!

"Tweleve isn't an even number" "Ten's a prime number" Carmine you need to go back to do maths at school bro

I always wondered how Lena got Vegar!

Adaptations are called "adaptations" for a reason lol. The changes made from page to screen don't have to be 1:1 and a completely recreation, *as long as the changes do justice to the lore and make sense.* This is why it's important to have showrunners, writers and a director that truly understand the content that they are adapting. Those in charge don't necessarily have to be fans of the novels, but as long as they understand the story, the characters, where the story is heading, how they get there and the impact of events and characters in the story. It's fine if they change something in a way that makes sense and is plausible to the world they're in, as well as cuts the fat of the novel so we get the visual impact of those changes, it's fine. With everything happening, HOTD was actually an amazing show and they really put in effort to bring ASOIAF back to the pedigree early GOT once had. Unless you're Joe Rogan and wanted more dragons, HOTD was pretty great. The only issue I had was the constant little timeskips throughout every couple of episodes, as they were essentially speedrunning the story. The first 5 episodes practically act like a prolonged prologue, and I understand from a storytelling aspect as to why we needed to know these little nuance and moments in the story that will further develop in the story. The pacing of each episode was great, the directors for each episode knew how to pace their episodes, yet the time between each episode could be jarring for someone who wasn't familiar with Fire and Blood. Overall, House of the Dragon was great and it was amazing to revisit ASOIAF. You guys already mentioned some of my personal pet peeves, like Daemon taking Felix Felicis and basically fighting off Craghas Drahar' army by himself and surviving. Harwin Strong being shortchanged in the story and not showing us the relationship and development between Harwin and Rhaenyra. He was essentially a shadow husband to Rhaenyra for quite a long time and they grew a special bond, yet we never seen it happen and Rhaenyra immediately got over Harwin' death. I sincerely hope that we get flashbacks and explanations as the show goes on to things that the showrunners failed to deliver in the first season. I'm guessing that was their intention, cut the fat and give us what we need for now so that they can delve further and revisit those little character developments. They had a single chance to hook a major audience into the show, with a wider narrative at stake, they most likely decided to focus on the main plot points first and feed us those subplots later, which I don't mind at all. Either way, HOTD wasn't Game of Thrones in it's prime, yet it was still an amazing ASOIAF show. It was a return to form for high caliber content when compared to the latter seasons of Thrones and I am excited for more! 8.5/10 IMO.

Whoa!!! The wheel of time has CAUSED PLOT HOLES!!! A lot of them. It’s basically season 8 of GoT without the production value… please don’t hype up that garbage pile. It’s absolutely an abomination!

Is there a comprehensive Preston video on the plotholes and badness of _Fire & Blood?_

I see Aemond, i click

The time jumps were too disorienting, especially with some characters being swapped out for different actors and some not. If they needed to do time jumps they should have been BETWEEN seasons not in the middle of the season, that was stupid and lame.

I wonder if the season would’ve been better if there were two parallel timelines throughout the season instead of time jumps all the time. The scenes from the past would work more as flashbacks and the younger actors could’ve been around for all 10 episodes.

Will Preston ever stop misgendering -or rather, incorrectly sexing- Vhagar? Find out mext time on House of the Dragon!

It just him me that's the kid from the last kingdom

Leonor death is silly. What about his dragon?

Hey nothing to do with the video but when i click on your channel it redirects me to your secondary channel. I don't know if its just me

I'm interested for everyone's opinion if Ryan Condal and friends should cut daeron the daring?

It’s a 6 out of 10, at best. There’s not a single one great character in the entire series. Viserys was the closest to it thanks to the actor perfomances, but there wasn’t a good enough script except for his last episode. If it wasn’t for the lore fanservice and the dragons, I don’t think I would continue to watch it.

People will look back at HOTD the same way they see GOT seasons 4-7. Loved by all but a few at the time, hated by all in retrospect. I'm guessing the rose tinted glasses will start coming off for most around season 3.

a year??

You couldn’t pay me to care about Fire and Blood or that show.

House of the dragon is cool but its not game of thrones.

14:00 More time given to the worst accent/delivery on the entire show?

some of your ideas are kinda shitty and fillery . Thank god you are not the show runners

It's a good thing you guys both wanted MORE instead of being bored by it dragging out.

Yo the wheel of ti e writers are not doing this lol. The Witcher is more faithful to the source material

I still haven't watched house of dragon , got got ruined in the end I was a faithful watcher every year and every week. That ending ruined the show for me