OT: House of the Dragon - Discussion
- Thread starter MadRU
- Start date
Well.. while I did not find it objectionable... merely eyebrow-raising.. I do think it speaks to wokeness in casting and in selecting which shows to air. I watched the first episode of Interview with teh Vampire (or whatever it is called) and saw the vampire would be black and gay.... again.. eyebrow raised.. lets see how they handle this... and while I found that he was from a family that owned a New Orleans plantation.. and still owned it in 1910 when his story begins... I found that rather a stretch.. I thought they handled it fairly well.
Skin color means nothing in GoT.. other than some references in the past to someone looking "Dornish".. and how the Summer Isles were dark-skinned. So, in GOT it is not a game-breaking change and if it brings in more viewers.. a reasonable fine decision. That skin color is never mentioned negatively is a positive thing, IMHO. Now.. if the black/mixed race Valyrion family discussed how they had to overcome their skin color or racism.. then I would have found it story-breaking.
In other production choices in other shows.. I find using old stories and rebooting them with minority and gay characters objectionable. WRITE NEW STORIES.. stop stealing from teh past and changing them to make largely political statements today.
The casting of this guy didn't seem to be a political statement to me. Just happen to be black. Now did RR Martin say the Sea Snake was white or fare skinned? Or just white hair? I'm asking, I don't read the books.
If the only description was for white hair, the every reader has their own mental image of the character.
well.. his description of people from Valyria were all light-skinned and sliver-haired. But I don't mind the change-up here because, here, skin color in that fictional world has never been a factor.
I get your point, I think. I played the Witcher 3 game after it go so popular.. then read the books.. well... audiobooks.. a polish author. For a character named Merigold.. Triss Merigold, she was a nicely shaped redhead. pleasant too. Then in the Netflix series I see Merigold is a black actress with "red" hair... and not nearly as pretty as I'd imagine.. or as portrayed in the video game.. though I am partial to attractive light-skinned gingers. Disappointed. She was still a nice person..s o they didn't mess up the character that badly.
They stuck to teh look of others, for the most part, rather perfectly. Maybe they needed to cast a black actor because they had to hit some quota for Netflix. maybe HBO is doing the same. I do not know.
To be fair though.. once a popular image is created of a character from any kind of popular literature... once it is adopted by the public... changing that up is a choice that should be questioned. Can you imagine some kind of future remake of Marvell's Black Panther where everyone in Wakanda is white? what about John Henery.. teh Steele Driving Man.. how about making him white next time they do something on him? If Alexander Hamilton can be a black Puerto Rican.. how about Martin Luther King being a white guy?
In Disney's original animated Lion King.. many of the voices were of white people. But the remake.. mostly all black. Now.. that makes sense, right? But what if they made the 3D CGI version first.. THEN made an old-style 2D-painted animation version. Could they have cast mostly white voice-actors then?
I am fairly certain I have seen some historical drama from Britain where they don't care about skin color at all... even people from the same historical royal family could have different skin colors. The obvious point there, I think, is that we are all human and skin color shouldn't matter. That some may object because it is a bit jarring to, say, see a dark-skinned Queen Victoria.. where her children are largely white.. or that they make Queen Elizabeth the First gay and Mediterranean olive-skinned... that's the risk the production takes.
For me, the dark-skinned expatriates from Valerya caused a moment of hesitation, and then it is.. okay... I can follow that now. As long as the acting is good and they can tell good story that I can follow.. I am good with it.
Holy crap that was a great episode. The "last supper".....LOL! You can cut the tension with a knife (or sword).
Thanks for that. I'm going to watch the recaps for the entire season to make sure I didn't miss anything.
They really played up the leprosy thing with the king. Personally I could have done without and the king could still have been a sympathetic character, with his crazy family and all. Guess they needed to make him delusional so he could drop the whole "fire and ice" thing on the queen. So the dance with dragons is all based on a misunderstanding or a mistaken identity, kind of like an episode of Threes Company? Still enjoying the show, just some minor critiques.
Some of the biggest events of world history start due to a "misunderstanding". That's humanity. Regardless, I doubt R & A really patched things up. At least enough not to have Otto and the other Greens force the issue.
Interestingly, it seems like Aegon wants absolutely nothing to do with the throne. I guess the "adults" will force it on him?
Wasn’t the original GOT issues between the Starks and The Lannisters all based on a lie/scheme hatched by Little Finger?
Yup. LF planned the death of the old hand and then blamed Tyrion for the attempted murder of Bran.
Good point. Do we even really know why WW1 started? Many factors, I would guess. Just pointing out some differences from the source material, and understand that changes are needed to make a series work.
+1
The entire Persian Gulf War/conflict was over a diplomatic misunderstanding. A poor choice of words that gave Iraq/Saddam the perception that the US would stay neutral if they rolled into Kuwait.
And just as a reminder, the differences between the book and show are well explained. As per GRRM himself, the book is a historical document of what the maesters at the time think happened. Most of the facts are true in the book, but some are not perfectly accurate. The show is the truth. As such, we see Laenor not really die, but most think he did. I love this. It keeps someone like me who knows the source materials on his toes while watching! :)
Agree, but Allicent changing her tune based on some mumblings from the King does not pass muster for me. The king was always strong with his insistence on R's succession and most of all peace at all cost. It is more likely that it is the old hatreds, ie Aemon losing an eye, R's behavior, etc. that would motivate the queen.
Everyone's name sounds alike and most of them have the same hair.
The crazy chick said something like "Fear the Beast Beneath the Boards"... cannot figure that out.. maybe it was a reference to a boner under teh dining room table that they were eating at?
I dislike close-caption but keep it in for this show so I know who's who.
Was wondering if after his death episode you still feel the same way.
If you've ever had the horrible misfortune of watching someone die slowly you know his final episode was eerily spot on.
FWIW I thought his acting was excellent throughout but this last episode was award worthy imo.
Paddy Considine is going to win an Emmy for the role. Amazing job.
I cannot believe that someone earlier in this thread pointed him out as a case of poor acting. He's been good throughout... and he was dying too. Anyone check if the actor is okay?
Yes.. I was, and may still be, a doubter of this series.. but that episode showed promise. If only they paid that kind of attention to character and relationship development in every episode. Perhaps now they will have boiled down the character list and slowed down the timeline to a point where they can make it good if we all do our homework and understand all teh characters and relationships from this point onward.
The crazy chick is married to her rapist brother.. right?
Yes, Helaena (crazy dragon dream chick) is the sister-wife of Aegon (rapist that Team Green is trying to make king).
Seriously, everyone has to be rooting for Team Black.
Agree he did a great job dying!
But overall didn't think he was a good character or actor.
You mean the team black that lies to best friends starting this whole thing and kills an innocent to use as a body in their schemes for power. Plus kills his wife in cold blood. go team.
Yes, go Team Black. Everything you mentioned was done for the best interest if the realm. :)
Just a shout out to Andor. Today's episode was awesome! The big heist of the Empire. Definitely worth a watch as we wait for the next HotD episode.
I hate to say this but HOTD is a total snooze-fest. It’s a medieval soap opera. Where the hell is the action? When both my son and I fall asleep in the middle of an episode that’s a bad sign.
Exactly…what’s odd about HOTD is that they do huge time jumps but yet nothing really happens. If not for the fact that I like GRRM and was a huge GOT fan, I wouldn’t watch another episode. But I’ll continue to give it a chance.
Funny part was when Catelyn Stark said Ned shouldn't take Bran to the beheading he responded:
"He is old enough. Winter is coming". and he walked away. LOL.
One of the best TV episodes of all-time. Anyone that doesn't appreciate it is why mindless summer movies like Transformers do so well. LOL!
