House of the Dragon Season 1, Episode 6: "The Princess and the Queen"

Shots of dragons throughout are really cool and they always look good.

Alicent is losing it, guess being trapped in the Game of Thrones all this time will do that when you have children to worry about. The new actress for her has enough similarity to the younger one for it to work well.

If Matt Smith ever need a few more pennies I’m sure he could get a role in The Witcher too lol.

 

I hear you. People keep saying this show is so much better than Rings of Power and I honestly don’t see it. It just feels so static even though like 15 years have passed. Everyone is still waiting for the king to die, the Stepstones are still a problem, Daemon is still getting his wives killed directly or indirectly, and Rhaenyra is still worried about what will happen if she takes the throne. Nothing much happens on this show aside from characters who we barely get to know get killed off. I get that it’s all building toward something but it better damn well be worth sitting through episode after episode of this.

 

Viserys the Naive! Even Ned Stark has more of a clue what is going on around him.

 

They've got strengths and weaknesses in quite different areas. This show grabs you quicker IMO but it needs to move things on soon.

 

Yeah, I'm good with that myself. As a mother I cringed the whole time, knowing exactly what that feels like.

 

I loved last night's episode. I was worried that the transition to the older Rhaenyra and Alicent would have been too jarring but Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke are killing it right out the gate.

I'm enjoying this show a lot more than I thought I would, it's the first time I've made it a point to tune into a show right when it airs since the GOT finale.

 

I'm the same. With GoT I had Tyrion and Jon Snow. Not so much here.

 

Out of all the characters, King Viserys seems okay to me. No one in this show is perfect but he's the one who I have the most sympathy for. I guess Laenor and Laena Velaryon seem to be generally good people for the most part.

Spoiler

Or at least was, in Laena's case. Even though we barely knew her I was still sad when she begged her dragon to kill her and it was really hesitant about it. That's been the most powerful moment on the show so far IMO.

 

It is ridiculous but besides for the hair, I could see both Targaryen and Alicent in the kids, especially Aegon. They were well cast.

 

Yeah. My first reaction was disappointment about the recast (esp Rhaenyra), but that dissipated quickly. The writers are doing such a good job on this show. The characters are tough to figure out, but they've managed to blend that with keeping them interesting. None of them are particularly likable, but most of them seem redeemable and, again, that keeps the show really, really interesting.

This is far and away my favorite new show.

 

I'm about halfway through 6. It's pretty meh so far.
I loved 1-5 tho.

 

Interesting to see everyone's takes here. Amusingly I'd say tonight's episode was one of my favorites. I was worried about the time jump, but I found it to be incredibly smooth. We made a lot of progress in the story, without getting whiplash. I'm doubly excited for next week now.

 

I had a hard time liking Viserys after that birth scene in the premiere; I know there wasn’t really anything he could have done to save his wife but it still felt like his primary concern was securing an heir rather than her life. But even if that wasn’t that bad (I suppose it’s debatable since, again, he really couldn’t have saved her) you still have the gross, borderline rape scene with him and Alicent. Maybe if that hadn’t happened I wouldn’t find him so repulsive.

 

Yes! Exactly. Two characters who you can immediately warm to because of their situations and personalities. I would also add Arya, (pre-Three Eyed Raven) Bran, Daenerys (prior to the final season), and some others.

 

As disturbing and gross as that sequence was I honestly thought it was super well done. From the way it was shot which felt like a one take to Emma Darcey's facial expressions and her sense of exhaustion.

As repulsive as it was the first 10 minutes of this episode had me absolutely hooked.

 

I really warmed to Arya when it was clear she was going to be a badass. Loved the sword training.

 

I liked her from the get go because it was clear she was something of a rebel when it came to fitting the female stereotype of a princess and stood in stark (so to speak) contrast to Sansa.

Still, I don't quite see why people need to have a fully likable (ie predictable) character in the mix. That may or may not come, but it's not necessary for a good story.

 

Yeah, I forgot about the moment with Alicent since that sort of thing is common in Westeros.

 

Admittedly I might've gone in with different expectations. The showrunners went as far as to say in interviews beforehand this show doesn't have characters like that, so that's the mindset I went in with. The fact that all these people are incredibly flawed, rather than have an easy character to root for, is exactly why this show is so interesting to me. They're all doing wrong things, but I understand where they are coming from. I also would say that almost all of them have redeeming qualities from a certain perspective.

 

Yeah. I didn't know the showrunners said that, but that is basically what I was getting at. I wouldn't even say they are "flawed". I would say that this is how survival and socialization works in that world and I don't expect people to be like people I would want to associate with.

 

I really enjoyed this episode and I'm especially glad that the actor switch worked very well for me. Things have gotten to the point where it no longer seems possible to bridge the gap between Rhaenyra and Alicent but I was glad to see that while the latter is starting to get unreasonable (partially due to great help from Rhaenyra) they are still showing that she's not one to do whatever it takes and still has her limits. Larys Strong is a great character to have on her side to make things worse.

The character writing just keeps being spot on and, to get into the protagonist discussion, I like that the characters are properly flawed so even the ones we're to root for don't just have the kind of flaws that are endearing. Not that endearing flaws are bad but I like how everything feels very human and it fits with the more historical approach that the original novel has compared to the ASOIAF series.

 

Of course I'm having trouble finding the quote, but it was something akin to there not being a Tyrion and .... (???) type character in this show. So no obvious "good and bad guys", even early in the story. I tried google, but there are just too many articles about this show right now.

 

They won't be getting into the Mad King story unless this turns out to be the kind of show that keeps going after it concludes this major story and then moves on with new stories with completely different characters because that Aerys is still well over a century away from being born. Even then I'd say that we're more likely to get into something like the Blackfyre rebellion before they take on the Mad King and Robert Baratheon's rebellion.

 

Anyone? Anyone?