Ok so I've seen a lot of excitement about House of the Dragon. Everybody seems to be enthralled with this new flame breathing hype, and I am to, to an extent. But it feels like there are several faults with the series which just seem to be overlooked. I believe many fans are blinded by their love for the original show. House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, or HotD and GoT as I will now be referring to them from here on out, have two very different ways to progress the story and plot forward. HotD feels like it has to throw in so much unnecessary filler. This is the problem with trying to adapt The Dance of the Dragons into a show format. There is way too much nothing happening until the king finally dies and the war starts. You can't spend 5 episodes getting to know Rhaenyra as a teenager, then jump forward to when she is in her 20s, and then again when she is in her 30s before you actually start the main story. It works in the books because there, it is told from a historical point of view, not something happening in real time. HotD season 1 really does feel like a 10 hour long prologue, which is crazy considering that it even started with a prologue.
GoT season 1 on the other hand slowly but surely introduced the viewer to the world through how the characters behaved and interacted with one another. While at the same time faithfully adapting the source material from the books. But the show also added fenomenal original scenes which we would never be able to get in the books. A perfect example of this is the "War Stories" scene where King Robert Baratheon (played by Mark Addy), Barristan Selmy (played by Ian McElhinney) and Jaime Lannister (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) each recount their first kill. Meanwhile in HotD we get half an episode of the king Viserys (played by Paddy Considine) hunting a white stag as new original content to fill in the blanks. Now am I saying there aren't good scenes in HotD? No, there definitely are. But there is too much filler for it to feel like anything else but filler, not the "calm before the storm" feeling they're going for.
The deer hunt also nicely transitions into my other major point. HotD always feels the need to clarify things which simply don't require clarification. When prince Aegon is celebrating his second birthday, king Viserys holds his infamous white stag hunt in the prince's honor, this is seen as a sign by many due to the white stag being seen as a symbol of the monarchy. Yet they never find the animal, so Viserys instead opts to skewer a regular brown stag. But right before everyone heads home, the white stag shows itself to princess Rhaenyra, really beating in the fact that Rhaenyra is Viserys' rightful heir like a hammer to the viewer's skull. This is simply not needed. We don't need to be told that Rhaenyra's the true successor, anyone watching could've told you that.
HotD outright tells you Rhaenyra's sons are not Laenor's instead of leaving it ambiguous. Why tell us this? It really doesn't matter if they're bastards or not, the only thing that matters is if people think they are bastards or not. Because if they are bastards but everyone thinks they're legitimate then Rhaenyra is fine, but if they are legitimate but everyone thinks they're bastards then Rhaenyra is in a terrible spot. The series also introduced the "Song of Ice and Fire" as a prophecy that Aegon the Conqueror only conquered the seven kingdoms to unify them against the coming night. This is a popular fan theory but it never needed to be confirmed. It is kind of insulting that HotD can't go a single episode without treating its viewers as 10-year olds who can't think for themselves. I'm also personally not a fan of how they made the Valyrian steel dagger that was first used in the assassination attempt on Bran in GoT and then the knife that Arya used to kill the Night King to some massive heirloom tracing all the way back to Aegon the Conqueror.
I also think the cast of HotD is really lacking. GoT had one of the most colorful and diverse cast of characters I've seen in a television series aside from something completely colossal such as One Piece. In HotD I don't really have a favorite character, not because I hate all of them, but more so because the vast majority of people in the show are so bland and basic. Daemon Targaryen (played by Matt Smith) is cool sometimes but most of the time he's just an edgelord who always does the most morally questionable thing possible to impress Rhaenyra and annoy his enemies. This however becomes very predictable after a time and he too, fades into the background. Prince Aemond "One-Eye" (played by Ewan Mitchell) is also definitely a likable asshole type character, but he just isn't around enough. I've seen some call it a Soap Opera with dragons and I'm ashamed to say I agree.
I do not hate the show. It is visually stunning at times and the dragons at least look cool, although the show majorly screwed up the scaling for the dragons. Pretty much every dragon in the show is the same size even though some are vastly older then others, aside from Vhagar who must have been fed a unique diet of whale-class growth hormones and elephant steroids.
I am fairly certain that when season 2 comes out there's going to be an even more massive wave of praise for the show now that The Dance of the Dragons has well and truly started. But I feel like a lot could've been done to improve its opening. I will watch season 2, but not with any big expectations.
GoT season 1 on the other hand slowly but surely introduced the viewer to the world through how the characters behaved and interacted with one another. While at the same time faithfully adapting the source material from the books. But the show also added fenomenal original scenes which we would never be able to get in the books. A perfect example of this is the "War Stories" scene where King Robert Baratheon (played by Mark Addy), Barristan Selmy (played by Ian McElhinney) and Jaime Lannister (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) each recount their first kill. Meanwhile in HotD we get half an episode of the king Viserys (played by Paddy Considine) hunting a white stag as new original content to fill in the blanks. Now am I saying there aren't good scenes in HotD? No, there definitely are. But there is too much filler for it to feel like anything else but filler, not the "calm before the storm" feeling they're going for.
The deer hunt also nicely transitions into my other major point. HotD always feels the need to clarify things which simply don't require clarification. When prince Aegon is celebrating his second birthday, king Viserys holds his infamous white stag hunt in the prince's honor, this is seen as a sign by many due to the white stag being seen as a symbol of the monarchy. Yet they never find the animal, so Viserys instead opts to skewer a regular brown stag. But right before everyone heads home, the white stag shows itself to princess Rhaenyra, really beating in the fact that Rhaenyra is Viserys' rightful heir like a hammer to the viewer's skull. This is simply not needed. We don't need to be told that Rhaenyra's the true successor, anyone watching could've told you that.
HotD outright tells you Rhaenyra's sons are not Laenor's instead of leaving it ambiguous. Why tell us this? It really doesn't matter if they're bastards or not, the only thing that matters is if people think they are bastards or not. Because if they are bastards but everyone thinks they're legitimate then Rhaenyra is fine, but if they are legitimate but everyone thinks they're bastards then Rhaenyra is in a terrible spot. The series also introduced the "Song of Ice and Fire" as a prophecy that Aegon the Conqueror only conquered the seven kingdoms to unify them against the coming night. This is a popular fan theory but it never needed to be confirmed. It is kind of insulting that HotD can't go a single episode without treating its viewers as 10-year olds who can't think for themselves. I'm also personally not a fan of how they made the Valyrian steel dagger that was first used in the assassination attempt on Bran in GoT and then the knife that Arya used to kill the Night King to some massive heirloom tracing all the way back to Aegon the Conqueror.
I also think the cast of HotD is really lacking. GoT had one of the most colorful and diverse cast of characters I've seen in a television series aside from something completely colossal such as One Piece. In HotD I don't really have a favorite character, not because I hate all of them, but more so because the vast majority of people in the show are so bland and basic. Daemon Targaryen (played by Matt Smith) is cool sometimes but most of the time he's just an edgelord who always does the most morally questionable thing possible to impress Rhaenyra and annoy his enemies. This however becomes very predictable after a time and he too, fades into the background. Prince Aemond "One-Eye" (played by Ewan Mitchell) is also definitely a likable asshole type character, but he just isn't around enough. I've seen some call it a Soap Opera with dragons and I'm ashamed to say I agree.
I do not hate the show. It is visually stunning at times and the dragons at least look cool, although the show majorly screwed up the scaling for the dragons. Pretty much every dragon in the show is the same size even though some are vastly older then others, aside from Vhagar who must have been fed a unique diet of whale-class growth hormones and elephant steroids.
I am fairly certain that when season 2 comes out there's going to be an even more massive wave of praise for the show now that The Dance of the Dragons has well and truly started. But I feel like a lot could've been done to improve its opening. I will watch season 2, but not with any big expectations.