House of the Dragon Season 1, Episode 9: "The Green Council"

Tom and Olivia killed it this ep.

I want to erase that Larys scene from my brain.

 

As soon as I heard the comparison of Alicent to a Trump supporting woman, the writing was on the way. They are in no way being subtle about this. Whatever the Blacks have done, does not matter one bit. They are the new "Starks". You know, until we get the actual Starks.

 

Very tense episode; great performances all around. Was surprised to see Otto jump straight to plotting assassinations. That seemed a little out-of-character from the book, but I suppose his logic of "sacrifice them now to avoid a war" is consistent. Glad that they made it clear Aegon didn't want the throne, though that would have been more compelling if he wasn't such an evil little ****.

And yeah, that final scene was incredible. Rhaenys unveiled as the bad*** she is, even if her mercy here isn't the best choice in the long run. And the design for Meleys is amazing, up-close. Bummed that we probably have to wait til next season to get good looks at Sunfyre and Dreamfyre, but the designs they've fully revealed so far have been epic.

 

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More than likely the Blackwoods are the Starks of HOTD. Cregan is more of a "True Stark" than Ned and his kids, so it will be interesting to see how fans react to that.

 

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With his name, they probably won't be subtle with the changes there either.

 

I mean, they definitely sucked in the books too, but Aegon went from a Robert Baratheon style philanderer with a mean streak to…well, Westerosi Weinstein. Now I wish

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his death was more gruesome in the books

I could see her pitying Alicent more so than respecting her.

 

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I do find it hilarious that Cregan has the most bad*** warrior name possible and then his half-sister is just... Sara.

 

Definitely. I just feel like there are no shades of grey here outside of Alicent, and those are very, very shallow at best imo. Which is going to be hilarious for non-book readers on this one. Because I get the feeling we are going to get a nice bit of:

 

They might try and fix that a little when they introduce Daeron next season as another sympathetic Targ (though how the hell they pull off another Targaryen out of nowhere is going to be a struggle in itself.)

 

Oh crap, where is he?

 

Supposedly in Oldtown right about now, but for the life of me I can’t remember if they’ve even namedropped him this season.

 

I couldn't find a fan wiki for him from the show, so that probably means they haven't actually mentioned him.

 

Yeah I’m just going off GRRM’s comments that they plan to bring him into the second season, but it’s very weird…

 

I agree on the age thing. I thought eyepatch kid was the oldest by far.

 

Saw the same. Along with his complaints on a lack of exploration of Rhaenyra/Strong.

 

Seriously!

 

They haven't even mentioned him, which is really weird. I kind of expected him not to be introduced until Season 2 once we saw how the timeline was playing out - Once the core storyline is established we can branch off into subplots - Blackwoods in Riverlands, Daeron in Oldtown, Jace on his missions, etc... But they really needed to at least MENTION that Alicent has a third son warded off in Oldtown. All you'd need was a line or two to establish is, and it would have furthered the portrayal of Alicent as so overwhelmed she has to send a kid off to be raised by her uncle.

But I can't wait to see him. He's my favorite Targ in the war AND he rides my favorite dragon. Also excited to see how Ormund is portrayed. And what Vigilance looks like. And get a better look at Oldtown. And see inside the Hightower. And to meet our favorite POS Unwin Peake. (Yeah, I'm hyped for just about everything in that plotlne)

 

It made me laugh when he called Olivia Cooke his mother. Dude looks older than her

 

He's younger, but like, three years younger.

 

My exact thought! WTF! As a non-book-reader this time around, that was...extremely frustrating to watch lol.

Also, it's taken me ages to figure out who Aemond reminds me of. I know others have said Crispin Glover, but that's not it for me. It's this guy:

 

Oh crap, I think you found the one I've been thinking about this entire time as well.

 

Episode 8 was really good so this one was a bit of a disappointment for me. Felt to me like the weakest story of the season when it should have been one of the strongest. Maybe it's because Aegon has been nothing but a brat so it's hard to watch an episode mostly about finding him and then giving him the crown. Even then I was scratching my head trying to understand a lot of the character decisions and interactions in this one. Probably my own fault.

Olivia Cooke is great but I feel like the writers are struggling a bit trying to make her ruthless (like in the source material) yet kind-hearted (so you don't straight up hate her in the show) at the same time. Great scene with Rhaenys, though, easily my favorite part of the episode.

The final scene was weak to me. I was too distracted by all the collateral death and bad FX shots. Then the whole not gonna kill you but let my dragon roar at you thing... lame. And also why not kill them? You had no qualms about smashing a ton of relatively innocent people to death a few seconds ago, but you're gonna let these dangerous tyrants live? I am probably just missing something there as to the why behind all that.

 

Smallfolk aren't people

But in all seriousness, it's an effective display of how the nobles are completely dismissive of the collateral damage of their actions. Rhaenys isn't going to massacre the Greens - firstly, she's spent all the season trying to stop the family from getting itself killed and clearly has sympathy for Alicent. Secondly, kin-slaying is the ultimate taboo in this society. But she doesn't even stop to think about the dozens of peasants presumably killed in her escape.

Eventually, though, that bill is gonna come due.

 

In this case I think they were going to silence the Master of Coin regardless since he was very vocal about not accepting Aegon as the new king, hence Ser Criston getting away with murder again. We saw what happened to the others who were still for Rhaenyra. The one who was most outraged at Criston killing him was Ser Harold and that only prompted his Barristan Selmy "I quit" moment.

Yeah I don't think she wanted that much blood on her hands, though had she given the order to burn them she'd probably have ended up saving more lives in the long run.

 

Thanks for the insight. I don't know the show did enough within itself to convince me that she'd hold back, but I will acknowledge that I don't know a ton about this world and all its workings.

It bothers me that the show treats these peasant people like they don't matter, either, but I get that's part of the thematic point. It really immerses itself in all the selfishness of the royals and their carelessness towards the people they rule.