Never mind that it ended five months ago: Game of Thrones rules the world. Today has been absolute chaos, with fandom discourse over the infamous Austin Film Festival interview and the news that the Naomi Watts-starring “Bloodmoon” prequel spinoff was officially dead. The internet has been on fire with discussion about the future of Westeros, the ramifications for Benioff and Weiss (and Star Wars!) and fans wondering if George RR Martin’s creation had any future left on television at all.
HBO answered that last question resoundingly with a huge announcement tonight. The spinoff announced in development in September focusing on the Targaryen Civil War (commonly called The Dance of the Dragons) is not only getting a pilot- it’s moving forward with a full-series order! The new show’s title: House of the Dragon!
Entertainment Weekly confirmed the new details. House of the Dragon will have ten episodes. As announced previously, it was co-created by author George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal, a showrunner on the new series. Beloved GoT director Miguel Sapochnik will be a co-showrunner and he’ll be directing the pilot.
As the poster notes, the series takes its cues from Martin’s Fire and Blood, his tome of Targaryen history, with events set hundreds of years before the era of Game of Thrones. EW confirms “The events in the new series will eventually lead up to The Dance of the Dragons, a massive civil war in the Seven Kingdoms held between two rival branches of House Targaryen.”
They also confirm that “the news was announced at WarnerMedia’s presentation to investors on Tuesday focused on the launch of its 2020 streaming service HBO Max.”
And here I was set to make an impassioned yet pointless plea for a Dunk & Egg series. House of the Dragon, hell yeah! Let’s get started with the fancasting!
Maegor! 🙈
Fire And Blood!!!! That poster, I must admit makes me happy!
Look how many likes and retweets this has on GoT official page.
Dead franchise my ass lol.
It’s time for haters to thank Benioff and Weiss since they blamed them for Bloodmoon cancellation.
Another great thing – the man D&D made is a showunner. Miguel Sapochnik.
The battle is over. We have won.
This may be a better development decision by HBO. I hope it works out as it will be expensive but GRRM has a lot of material for this family’s story.
Nice! Hoping we see this by the end of next year.
Ohhhhh man…if I get to see Aegon The Conqueror on Balerion The Black Dread set foot in Westeros… I shall be extremely happy!!!!
And bravo for Miguel Sapochnik! Soo happy for him! Most deservedly so!
PS Pleeeease bring back Michelle McLaren and Bryan Cogman as well! Ditto for Neil Marshall!
I think many people will thank GRRM – for the rich material that GRRM has prepared.
Thanks to him, HBO is able to pivot from the Starks’ story (GOT) to the Targ story.
Sucks for the books but good for GRRM. Lots of material for these very talented people in charge of this show to utilize, and my guess is they will utilize it.
There we go 🙂
Hopefully, nobody depressed now. Even my sorrows went with a glass of Scotch away <3
HBO knows what sells, so it’s not surprising they went with this prequel over the other. And a full series order?! That suggests they have complete faith in the script, but that comes as no surprise as this is the one George worked closely on.
It’s gonna be interesting if this is just a one season story or multiple. The Dance of the Dragons requires a lot of back story and exposition so it’ll be interesting to see how they do it.
wow emotional whiplash
Well I’ll be!
Still, does this thing even have a pilot? Never heard anything about it…
I would SO love a Dunk and Egg series! Ah well….I’m really looking forward to hearing some casting news for this one. 😊
A complete but welcome surprise. Looking forward to seeing it.
Whiplash is right!
Between PG&E not being able to communicate effectively with our Office of Emergency Services, and all of us in my California county being on edge after *already* having experienced two fire-related planned blackouts… and HBO making not one but TWO huge announcements in the same day, the first of which crushed me and the second of which has me elated…
MY CHAIN HAS BEEN YANKED TO LAST TUESDAY AND BACK, Y’ALL.
Time for some Guinness, because DAMN.
Adam,
Yeah, I’ll be hitting the Balvenie after the Guinness tonight. 😉
This is the best news we could possibly get. Bloodmoon always struck me as an “I am woman hear me roar” veiled apology for all the mean things done to women during Thrones’ eight year run. I am hoping House of the Dragon puts story and character above all else, and let the chips fall where they may.
Holy sh*t!
I just checked back in to whinge some more about HBO abruptly euthanizing “Bloodmoon” and depriving me of my beloved Naomi Watts… only to see this news that another prequel has not only been greenlit instead, but a full season ordered! And MVP director Miquel Sapochnik is on board as a co-showrunner and will direct the pilot!!!
Lemme digest this and read other reactions.
What a crazy turn of events!
(I guess though that this means I have to shut up about campaigning for an Arya sequel. 🗡👸🏻… For the time being. 😎)
Ten Bears,
It looks like the Deanerys Targ’s fans have prevailed in their rebellion against GOT8 and D&D. HBO will tell the Targ story and not the Stark story.
This will also screen a bit later as I do not think they are in production.
Well at least on this one we know where we stand with the Targs and who’s who. Here there be no heroes either.
That being said: fuck yeah. Bring on the Sea Snake!
Read the news about Bloodmoon being dead before leaving work… and a few hours later just browsing stuff in my phone I see this!!! Talk about a 180 in emotions!!
@loco
Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but the Dance of the Dragons takes place AFTER the War of Conquest.
The War of Conquest was Aegon and Balerion.
The Dance of the Dragons is Aegon II vs. Rhaenyra.
Mango,
Danerys Targaryen fans are fans of the character, not necessarily the family. In the end, Danerys still burns down King’s Landing. How have they prevailed, exactly?
”Let’s get started with the fancasting!”
————
Okay! I’m in!
Except….
As a pre-ASOIAF books reader and someone who has not read G’s “Fire & Blood” stuff, I have no idea what roles or characters would be cast. I suppose “House of the Dragon” will necessarily have some Targaryeans.
Does anyone have any educated guesses?
My early wish list (depending on the roles);
• Amber Heard (for a Targ)
• India Eisely (for a “prehistoric” Stark, if there are any)
• Essie Davis (yeah I know it’s doubtful they’d bring back Lady Crane’s actress, except… she’s so damn good!)
• Naomi Watts??? Maybe they gave her a “pay or play” deal and this way HBO would get its money’s worth?
• Linda Fiorentino. Just because.
• Also, though I have no particular actor in mind yet, I’m thinking they might have a role for the first “Faceless Man” – sort of a Spartacus- or Moses- type leader of slaves working in the subterranean volcanic mines. (I think Jaqen 2.0 told Arya this story… or maybe I picked it up from book readers’ comments.)
An anthology series covering all the main facts of those 300 years of history and leading us till the Mad King would be so great.
Mango,
Lol your ability to turn everything into some D&D failure is unprecedented.
Mango,
Oh, we should thank GRRM for this show but blame D&D for Bloodmoon? Why not blame it on GRRM, because he didn’t make enough material for that show.
”House of the Dragon will have ten episodes. As announced previously, it was co-created by author George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal, a showrunner on the new series…”
Please everyone, don’t come after me if I speculate that this news of George’s new project is tantamount to the final nail in the coffin of “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.”
I’ve figured his head’s been all wrapped up in the early history of Targville for quite some time anyway.
Oh, based on the chronology, is it possible we’ll get to see The Doom of Valyria? That’d be cool. Maybe they can even hire Ian Glen to do a voiceover of the poem he recited with Tyrion when they were sailing past the smoking ruins.
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Young Dragon,
Since response to this new show online clearly shows that GoT brand is far from dead, haters now need to build new narrative.
The fact that brand is not dead is another failure on D&D’s part somehow. When Bloodmoon was cancelled that showed that D&D ruined GoT as a brand. And when THOD is announced and creates huge hype online it again shows how D&D ruined everything.
There is no logic there. Whatever bad happenes D&D are to blame. It’s like TLJ haters blamed Rian Johnson for Fisher’s death.
Ten Bears,
P.S. Wasn’t there a Cassandra-type member of the early Targaryean family who had premonitions of the Doom of Valyria that prompted her family to get out of Dodge before the cataclysmic event – whatever that was?
A great thing about this is obviously the direct to series order. That means we’re not set back AS far from a new series starting than we probably would have been with another ‘pilot phase.’
Do you mean blame D&D for GOT8?
If that is what you mean – Yes, GRRM can be assigned some of the blame. He made it extra hard for two men that are not as talented as he is.
Her name was Daenys the Dreamer. The Targaryens were on Dragonstone for about 115 years before the Conquest though, which was a century after The Doom. So, I’m not sure if too much of that will be included.
Miguel Sapochnik & George RR Martin will make an EPIC show!!!!!!!!!!
I hope Miguel Sapochnik doesn’t do too much in style like he did at the end of the Long Night.
I hope the showrunners/HBO hire the best GOT directors…
Neil Marshall for the night episode.
Alex Graves – David Nutter and Alik Sakhorov!!!!!
Mango,
No, I mean blame D&D for cancellation of Bloodmoon like you and many other did.
And by the way, this announcement has more than 64k likes in just 2 hours. Far more than new Star Wars show in a day. So online, GoT is stronger brand than Disney Star Wars. Nice to know.
firstone,
And Djawadi!! Gotta get him!!!
I hear ya!
I was going to open that purple bag of Crown Royal whiskey to drown my sorrows over the sudden death of Bloodmoon,..
Instead I’ll pop the cork on that bottle of champagne I’ve been saving for a celebration!
(*Checks stash. Tickled to see “Dom Perignon” label. Retrieves crystal champagne flutes.* 🍾🥂)
I hope someday we’ll get the behind the scenes story of what happened today. Sounds like some heavy duty corporate intrigue a la Rhaegar Targaryean: “Annulling” the tentative union with one show one show and immediately going full throttle with another.
I wasn’t holding my breath for Bloodmoon honestly. This is great news though!! Hope they give it all the moneys! Looking forward to seeing more dragons!
Dare my defeated heart have reason to hope again????
Dragons….DRAGONS!!!
I’ll predict there will be some fans that love HOTD and hate GOT. And some that love GOT and hate HOTD. Whatever, I know I’ll be watching.
And I blamed them when regarding Bloodmoon? When the Bloodmoon news came, I am pretty sure that I asserted that HBO would make another series if not now then later. That seemed pretty clear to me.
So taking on Star Wars was a step down for D&D, taking on a weaker brand?
Ten Bears,
10 episodes isn’t enough time to go into anything deep as season 8 taught us. I dont see how they can cover anything in great detail in 10 episodes.
Ser Brocolli McBrocolliface,
We don’t know that they’re not thinking multiple seasons. I’d assume that WOULD be their preferred plan and hope that it does well enough to continue.
Clob,
YEEEEESSSSS!!!!!
This is great news!
I don’t think people quite understand the difference between TV director and show runner. The former comes onto a show with pre-established DPs, costume designers, production designers, cast, etc. and does their best to serve the vision of the producers in filming one or more episodes while the latter is responsible for every single creative decision for the entire run of the show, most importantly the writing and story creation.
It’s a hilarious joke to me that Sapochnik has been made a co-show runner. He did a good job directing some big episodes, but they probably could’ve inserted any number of directors (Graves, Taylor, Nutter, etc.) and they would’ve done just as good a job. It’s a clear indication to me that the GoT is getting away from innovative and unique storytelling and leaning more towards huge spectacle that will please mass audiences. We went from having a dynamic creative like Jane Goldman who’s done excellent past work to some nobody who ran a show that got canceled on Sci-Fi after a couple of seasons and a way over-rated TV director who has absolutely no storytelling ability.
There couldn’t have been a more terrible turn of events in the past 24 hours if I’m being honest. With HBO Max, AT & T is slowly diluting the most innovative television network of all time into just another streaming platform. It’s very sad to see.
So they cancel one show they made a pilot of, and order 10 episodes of something they haven’t seen a second of? Lol… This is by no means a sure thing.
But I guess DRAGONS is enough for HBOMAX to splurge.
Mango,
Dude, you are the most ridiculous person on this site. Are you writing so much nonsense shit on purpose? That can’t be real…..
No, that’s me.
Problem with the Targaryens is that the last 2 Targaryens were a couple of idiots, that could not be together because they were Targaryens.
I’m curious to see if the Dragons will be indestructible (book version – a flying dragon only got killed by a lucky, lucky shot…an arrow in the eye), or they will be vulnerable (show version).
Dunk ‘N Donuts,
Nah, Jane Goldman isn’t like that at all. Have you seen any of the Matthew Vaughn movies? It’s good storytelling — they’re not sexist nor do they do any cringey woke ass kissing.
Actually, much more of a chance we get that now with two liberal white guy creators who are usually the worst offenders of patting women and minority characters on the head because they feel guilty or want to win woke points.
Didn’t expect this news today but it was obviously coming. To quote myself from the other thread.
‘I think that’s exactly it.The Targ spinoff will be insanely expensive, but the show became fixated on those dragons, it’s no surprise to see them double down on it. Recognisable names, battles and lots of dragons, a sure hit’.
Add in Sapochnik, and I think I was pretty much right about their priorities. The popularity of House Targaryen can’t be underestimated, even die hard Dany stans, who were livid about S8 were happy when this was announced in September.
I’ll get excited when casting starts happening, for now, I’m pretty meh on it. Never got the Targ love.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
Your right, she absolutely isn’t, she wrote Kickass, Kingsmen, and worked on X-Men First Class and Days of Future past, you know, the good ones. She’s an excellent screen writer, and I’m really disappointed for her. Oh and she wrote Stardust which I love.
Clob,
Ok, that I am excited about.
Is Nina Gold in charge of casting?
Maybe I’m gonna sound dramatic, but hey, I’m spanish, I’m allowed to do so 😋
I CRIED SO MUCH!! I was a little bit frustrated about the “blood moon” prequel because I didn’t think it would be neither impactful nor interesting enough to explore the story of children’s of the forest and the formation of the NK, specially after how it ended in such an anticlimatic way in season 8 lol.
But this? THIS WAS THE SPINOFF THAT WAS PROMISED! It has everything that we loved about the show: Noble houses, complex and interesting characters, politics, dragons and of course, lots and lots of incest (yay?).
And we’ll FINALLY see the Hightowers (and hopefully more Florents and reach houses) in action!!!! AAAAAHHH
I just hope they have the same creative team, I don’t imagine Westeros without the extraordinary sets made by Debrah or the masterpieces that are Michele Claptons costumes or the breathtaking visual effects, I just don’t.
The presence of Miguel Sapochnik makes me hopeful that this series will contain enough breathing space for the dramatic dragon scenes to stand out. Now, bring in Nina Gold!!
I’m just hoping that if Aegon the Conqueror is in this that they cast Kivanç Tatlitug to play him! If…Anne Rice and son Christopher, have not landed him to play Lestat in their “Vampire Chronicles.”
Mango,
Star Wars online is weaker brand. Look views of E9 trailer and compare it to S8 trailer. I’m not saying brand in general, but even that can be true outside of western countries where SW is pretty weak.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
Sapochnik wasn’t only director at the end. He was producer and he had influence on creative decisions. Not major, but he did. He told that after S8.
MaxHightower,
I think cinematographer Fabian Wagner will probably come back, because he is a member of team Sapochnik.
LOL.
You haven’t won anything. D&D are still a joke to the majority of people.
Sapochnik was always popular because he’s a good director. D&D didn’t “make” him.
Hello. I haven’t posted in ages. I just finished “Fire and Blood.” I am glad they chose this series. It gave me a much better understanding of the the culture of the Targaryens, which originates in Old Valaria. Also, believe it or not, it also gave me a better understanding of Danerey’s behavior in season 8. GRRM hints that some targs, not only have a form of mental illness, but they also believe they are Gods amongst us small folk. They are conquerers yes, but good rulers, well that’s a coin toss. Just like the Starks of Winterfell don’t like the south and they don’t welcome outsiders. We see that in season 8 when Dany arrives. Good queen Alysanne was an exception. BUT she had to work so hard to win over the lord of Winterfell. GRRM writing about this again, makes me understand the behavior of the North in season 8. Also. Yes dragons can die, as they did during “the dance.” I am really looking forward to watching this series.
Young Dragon,
Trust me, they exist in great numbers, House Targ is the superior House, and `Dany is an icon. They think that this is just HBO admitting the fact, and they really don’t care about what Dany did, they don’t accept it. I saw a tweet with over 10k likes, basically saying ‘I don’t care about GOT anymore… a Targaryen prequel you say?’ They are back on board.
Jenny,
Ditto, love everything she’s done. Really would love to read the Blood Moon pilot script, hopefully it gets leaked.
mau,
Nah, he had very little creative input into the final decisions. He wanted to do some on the nose match cut for Master Aemon’s funeral and D & D smacked him down. And anyway, the seasons which he would’ve had the most creative input would’ve been the latter seasons, i.e. the weakest.
I’ve seen his directing work on other shows (True Detective S2) and it’s not that great, he was more a product of GoT than the other way around. Making a career TV director a show runner is utterly ridiculous. There’s a reason why he’s a TV director and not a film director and that’s because he’s not good with story, needs to be guided. Add to this he’s a bit of combustible, hard headed personality who could end up shifting his weight around and bullying people into making awful decisions.
Honestly, none of this even matters because the brand of GoT is so powerful, people already have a light turned on in their brain when they tune in so it could be god awful and they’d still love it (like the Marvel and Star Wars movies). I think what we’ll end up getting in this series will be a lot like the crappy later seasons in the original series, and tons of people love those seasons so I’m sure it’ll be just fine. GoT’s just a Disney property at this point with tits and violence. RIP.
What I am wondering is… are they planning on running this show as an anthology of kings? Like each season brings about the end of one and the start of another?
Jenny,
Well, this is smart move to earn from their stupidity then.
Me too, but GRRM said a while back that he doesn’t want the same happen there as with the ASOIAF story. He will finish the books first.
Broken Wolf,
You never know how the story will be told. Maybe it will be a anthology series like True Detective. With every season a part of the Targaryen History. And having every 1 or 2 seasons about 1 storyline. First about Valyria. Then the conquest. Then a season about Aegon’s reign. And 4 and 5 about Aegon II
Ten Bears,
Maybe, but maybe not. I can see him being stressed about getting or not getting the green light for the prequel.
As for the writing of the prequel: Fire and Blood is already written, and so is the world of ice and fire (Which also have some chapters about the targaryen reign).
He could just say, here make these chapters into season 1. But exclude this part, and add that part. Here are some notes (1 a4) with things that needs to be included and need to know. Come back over 3 months with the scripts.
GRRM writes 3 months his books. He gets the scripts. He will look at it for a week and he corrects it where needs to be. Another corrections by Ryan Condal. And they deliver that version to HBO.
Then he has months for writing the books while they film. And once s2 has it’s green light he once again needs to give Condal another heads up what’s needed in season 2.
Nick20,
D&D are anything but a joke. They created the biggest and most popular show in the world, a show that became a worldwide phenomenon, complete with breaking Emmy and viewership records. Despite what the vocal minority have deluded themselves into believing, studies have shown that more people were positive about season 8 than negative. They will go on and have a very successful career with their $200 million Netflix deal. That’s not what a joke looks like.
MaxHightower,
Anticlimactic? Is that what you call the largest battle in film history that contained dragon battles, ice zombies, a fire witch and a Faceless assasin?
I am very excited about this news. I haven’t been to check WOTW in a few days and come back to this. Exciting stuff.
If I hadn’t read Fire and Blood, I wouldn’t have been too thrilled by this announcement, but as I drank that book up in a matter of days, I am so excited to see it unfold on screen.
The Targaryens of 300 years before the events of GOT are not the Targaryens we see in ASOIAF. They are much more interesting. I was always hot/cold about Dany in the show. At times, I really rooted for her (not that she was ever one of my favourites), whereas at others she was too arrogant for my tastes. I didn’t like how quickly she fell to tyranny. I can’t deny it was always on the cards, but I loved her in The Long Night (she was a highlight of that episode for me – especially when she picked up that sword for the first time) and then within two episodes she was burning Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians alive. Talk about a disconnect.
Anyway, I digress. This is exciting news. I was never excited about Blood Moon. It just didn’t interest me. I also worried that a Westeros of 8-10,000 years ago would not feel like the Westeros of GOT. At least this way, it will feel more like a spin off – with the same regions/kingdoms, mostly the same great houses, some houses we only ever heard of as they had all died out by the time of GOT. We get the familiarity of GOT with the promise of new and exciting stories.
I agree with another commenter that this is bad news for the fate of the last two books in ASOIAF. George has only written part 1 of Fire and Blood. I imagine this project will feed into his desire to complete part 2 before he comes back to his first saga set in this world. It’s sad really. It tinges enjoying all this new material a bit for me, knowing we probably won’t see the other finished.
Ten Bears – for a pre-ASOIAF books reader, you sure do know a lot about obscure moments from the story. Hats off to you.
THANK GOD!! Blood Moon gave me such cringe. Bring on the Targs and Dragons!!!
Question to my friends 🙂
I have the book Fire and Blood, should I read it before the show?? 🙂
Raenarys,
I agree… I was excited because anything in this world gets me excited.. but I wasn’t super into the premise of that show
I thought if was a great read. I don’t think the book would be diminished through watching the show first though, as it will undoubtedly be much more detailed than the show.
It depends on which medium you enjoy the most: TV or books. If you’re more of a TV person, save it till after the show. If you prefer a written story, read the book.
Knowing the story is definitely building my hype for this project.
I don’t know why but it just hit me – WF, KL, Iron Throne, Starks, Lannisters, Dragons one, Eyrie,…. We will have that again. All those iconic locations and sets will be part of television future for the years to come.
“And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave,…” And we won’t leave.
Dee Stark,
It just didn’t seem all that interesting to me bc we know now how the Long Night ends… So it never fully had my attention. Glad I wasn’t alone!!
I wonder if bloodmoon depicted the Starks as evil. I hope we at least get to know what the story would be about.
Nick20,
I saw MS in fringe, and that episode was just brilliantly directed because of him.
Asoiaf fan,
I have the book in the house. I will read it after I finished the asoiaf books. Almost done with clash.
mau,
By “D&D made him”, do you mean they put his name on the map and are the reason he’s famous? If so, I agree.
Dee Stark,
I haven’t read it yet, as I made a choice to boycott all of Martin’s books until he’s finished ASOIAF. It doesn’t seem I’m missing out on much. The book hasn’t exactly been universally praised by readers, a lot of their reviews saying it reads like a Wikipedia page and is clearly just a cash grab.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
Nose match?? explain
If you go it that way you also can say that about D&D.
“GRRM made them”. They put their name on the map and is the reason they are famous.
Without GRRM D&D wouldn’t be famous. I didn’t know their other projects before I watch GoT which GRRM made possible. So if you are going to make a case that D&D are brilliant in their work and deserve the full praise, so does MS.
Che,
That’s good to know! thank you.
Well I never read ASOIAF before the show. I plan to read it eventually
Im just wondering if I should read this one 🙂
Young Dragon,
hmm I see !!!
How is picking up a sword to cut down ice zombies a disconnect from her burning civilians alive? One doesn’t exactly contradict the other.
kevin1989,
And the other way is true as well. I didn’t know about Martin or his books until after I heard about the show. From what I heard, this is true for a lot of people. The show has created so many wonderful careers. Martin and D&D helped each other out a lot.
Young Dragon,
Yes. Before Hardhome no one thought he is great director. He didn’t have that much experience.
kevin1989,
I agree that GRRM gave D&D great opportunity. Just like D&D later gave Miguel.
I’m sorry for “Bloodmoon” and especially for the people working on it, but that project never really excited me… While “House of the Dragon” is definitely something I’m eager to see! 😱
kevin1989,
I really enjoyed Fire and Blood. I learned alot more about the history of the different houses of Westeros.
Young Dragon,
Agree, but that’s just the point I had. They all benefited from it. Even D&D, they are not the ones that grand everyone else opportunities and only they work hard for it. They all work hard for it and had the opportunity to show the world their work. But you made it feel like everyone own D&D everything because D&D made them famous, without seeing that D&D wouldn’t be famous without GRRM giving them his work.
And I have to say the GRRM helped D&D more than D&D helped GRRM. GRRM already sold a lot of books, and was pretty known in the fantasy world. He wrote a lot before asoiaf. He also had a show back then that was watch by a lot of people, the twilight zone.
Look at the Wheel of time, I never read those books, but they are pretty famous in the fantasy book world. Would the filming of those books up the famousness of the books, yes. But in the end the writer of the books already is a known writer in his circle (like GoT was before 2011), but the writers of the show that is coming are not yet known and thet benefit the most from the working together, same as D&D. D&D would not be famous without GRRM, but GRRM was already pretty famous and known before and praised.
Asoiaf fan,
I think I will read that book when it’s spring.
I would agree that D&D are certainly not a joke, but studies on fan reception of season 8 have been quite mixed. I’ve read some polls that show a majority didn’t like it, whereas I’ve also seen polls where the majority liked it. It seems to depend on which study you choose to go with. Also, being a multi-millionaire doesn’t necessarily mean that someone isn’t a joke. Just look at our current president 😉
mau,
Ha, well their unwillingness to accept Dany’s turn aside, I think are they pretty much right. People know the Targaryen’s because of Dany, for many people she was the face of the show, and people who love her love her House.
This was a smart move by HBO, because it appeals to casuals, fans of the history and even those most upset by season 8. It’s the one thing they could have done to get people down on season 8 back on board without question.
Plus there is of course the added benefit of source material, when I don’t think GRRM wrote much about the age of heroes (I could be wrong). GRRM himself is attached, along with a known director associated with the franchise (not sure about him as show runner myself) It’s win win win.
kevin1989,
I was describing the match cut he wanted to do as on the nose.
Dany’s was on the road to being a ruthless dictator since at least S5, if not S4.
S3 Dany, the one that liberated Astapor and Yunkai, is the one so many point to and go “oH sEe? ShE’s An AnGeL sHe’D nEvEr KiLl InNoCeNtS”, whilst completely ignoring her character arc beyond that season. Whereupon she slowly learns that ruling through love isn’t nearly enough to keep people in line, culminating in 5×9 where her cultural appeasement strategy almost got her killed. What saved her? Drogon – the one piece of her Targaryen heritage she hadnt locked away or suppressed.
“All rulers are either butchers or meat.”
-Daario 5×7
I think she’s referring to the fact that Dany went from saving humanity to incinerating it in 2 episodes, which can be rather jarring, but I’m sure she’ll articulate her point better than I can.
I understand but I can’t see to understand what you meant with it. But who was suppose to be the other nose?
Young Dragon,
I disagree. First, GRRM certainly doesn’t need the cash, and we all know his head is bursting with ideas and storylines… hence his inability to finish a trilogy that ramified into a seven-book series that we might never see the end of. Second, the writing style of Fire and Blood is very different from that of ASoIaF—it really is written as a history, not a more standard fictional narrative or collection of first-person accounts. For fans of the latter who were easily enveloped by the characters’ own POV, I can certainly understand how jarring it might have been to feel like they were reading a textbook or straightforward historical account. Those of us who love such books enjoyed it thoroughly, though.
kevin1989,
“on the nose” is an expression that means something is too over-literal and lacking nuance.
Mr Derp,
LMAO
Show-only and I never warmed up to Dany and her conquering modus operandi, so House Targaryen does not have instant appeal for me. That being said, it’s Westeros so I’ll watch and I really hope this series gets a great cast and great writing to sustain it.
Trying to decide if I should read Fire and Blood or A World of Ice and Fire before it begins. I’ve heard some criticism of Fire and Blood that a lot of the material in that book is actually repeated from AWOIAF.
Thoughts by those who’ve read both?
LadyGoodman,
AWOIAF is not a GRRM book
So, who would like be the main characters for season 1?
Mr Derp,
You make really good points.
So HBO is stupid enough to make the same mistake twice — they are going to start another series based on a unfinished book series. They will be, again, at the mercy of GRRM’s writing speed. This will not only pressure GRRM to write F&B2, it will make that the priority over Winds of Winter. And probably this means he will never write A Dream of Spring, because if he do finish WoW first then he has to go to F&B2 next. HBO keeps GRRM away from finishing his main series again. And what if GRRM could not finish F&B2 because of the pressure like with GoT…? HBO will be forced to come up with their own ending for House of Dragon and we all know what happened when they tried that last time.
Mr Derp,
But by saving humanity, she was also saving herself. And she never expressed any desire to wipe out humanity, only those who don’t accept her rule.
Yes, we do. We know that HBO’s viewership record was broken and they earned 12 Emmy awards. HBO is not making a mistake here, as this prequel will most likely make them a ton of money. They couldn’t care less if Martin finishes his books. That’s his business and has nothing to do with them. The only one who’s making a mistake is Martin. Sure, this will make him even richer, but if this results in his book series never being finished, his reputation is going to take a serious hit.
Rizwan,
F&B is not one story like ASOIF is. ASOIF is a puzzle. F&B is not.
WoW will be out in the first half of 2020.
Oh damn, hahaha now I feel a bit stupid. English is not my native tongue so some expressions I don’t know. But what was his intentions with Aemon’s dead?
I have to believe how much ANYONE benefits comes down to how well an adaptation does. George was known but he was nowhere near as ‘famous’ pre-show, nor were his books selling at the rate they did after GoT exploded in popularity. I don’t know anyone personally that would have known ten years ago who I was talking about if I said “GRRM” or George R.R. Martin. The Wheel of Time series is in much the same situation. Jordan (and Sanderson) and the WoT series are well known to fantasy readers and fans of the genre, but chances are most random people you talk to have never heard of WoT. That’s what I’m experiencing now as I talk to people about that show being produced, just like I did before GoT premiered.
The Witcher is also in that same situation. It has a game series that has done pretty well, but there again, it’s limited to a segment of the population; fantasy gamers and high fantasy familiar individuals.
Like ASoIaF before, these other book series aren’t all that well known or a popular read outside of those that are really into the fantasy genre. If their coming adaptations can do what GoT did then ALL of those involved will benefit.
—-
Just in my opinion I think Sapkowski has the best chance to benefit from The Witcher tv series. It’s Netflix, they’re throwing money at it, they have a totally committed star in the title role, and the book series is actually an easy, manageable read for most people. Robert Jordan has passed on of course so WoT is more about legacy for him. Still, I’ve read The Wheel of Time and that book series is a very daunting task to take on. It’s almost three times as many pages as the published number of ASoIaF. In other words, I don’t know how much of a spike in book sales it could have. I’m also less certain about Amazon’s ability to create a great adaptation of the series, especially when they’re throwing so much into LotR. We shall see.
Rizwan,
The ending is Robert’s rebellion.
Honestly, I’m not so sure. LDB will have to answer that one.
The only thing I remember from Maester Aemon’s death scene was that his face looked REALLY fake on the funeral pyre in a distracting way. Still, the lucky old bugger got to die a natural death, something almost no one in Westeros gets to have. He also died before witnessing the destruction of KL by his own kin. I’d say he made out rather well in the end compared to most others.
Aemon was one of those supporting characters who didn’t have a huge role, but I missed his presence on the show immediately after he was gone. Same with Joffrey. As much as I disliked the little shit, he was fun to hate.
The details of this new series should be much more open to the showrunners’ interpretation. The broad strokes of the story should follow the stuff previously established by GRRM, but the intricacies of character development and scene placement will be far more freeform.
I suppose that will be a relief. No one bitching and whinging and whining that “Oh they cut out THAT character, they omitted that piece of dialogue and completely ruined so-and-so’s character! They ruined it all REEEEEEE”
kevin1989,
It wasn’t my intention to undercut the accomplishments of the cast and crew. D&D may have opened the door for them, but it was their talent that launched their careers.
I would much rather see something 300 years into the future instead. Why? Because whatever happens in the prequel, we already know what happens after that, so it is all in naught!
Clob,
True, but being famous as a writer and as a tv or movie producer is much different. It’s much easier to become famous when you’re on tv or with movies then with a book-series. Almost everyone watch tv, but only a few read fantasy books. GRRM was already well known in the fantasy-book circle and readers. He had already made it in his line of work. He has worked for years and years as a well established book writer, maybe not so famous with people who don’t read fantasy novels, but that’s not what GRRM was reaching for. As for D&D they were not that known when it comes to being a screen-writer. Yes GRRM benefited a lot from their deal, but if the deal wasn’t there, GRRM could live on well only writing the books. While D&D wouldn’t have got the opportunity to write in such a huge scale.
So take in account the line of work they are in. I mean a research-doctor won’t have a goal to be famous for the whole world, but just being famous in medical circles. Like GRRM with fantasy books circle, and D&D with tv in general.
According to Joanna Robinson of Vanity Fair, Disney was looking to fire D&D before they even got the Netflix deal.
Dee Stark,
It’s not really clear what the scope of this series is meant to be. A lot of people seem to be imagining that it would cover the whole of Fire & Blood, which would mean that the beginning would be Aegon’s conquest, so you’d have Aegon and his sisters plus various rivals, and so on.
However, in my opinion, it’s more likely that this is going to be focused on the generation leading to the Dance of the Dragons (which EW identifies as the the thing the show is building toward), so in that case probably the initial leads will be people like Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Alicent Hightower.
mau,
I think it’s not complicated. Due to peoblems of last season, specialy WW storyline, no one was interested in an other WW story and an other pointless Long night. Ever since they announced the bloodmoon prequel and it’s plot about age of heroes and The actual long night and origin of WW, it was obvious that people and GOT fans wouldnt be ibterested in that. But we never saw this backlash for targaryan history. People were always excited about it( conquest of aegon, dance of dragons etc, even before finishing GOT season8.
So the logic is simple: people didnot like to see another WW story.
Reason: because of what happened in GOT.
People were craving to see targaryan history.
Reason: it is fresh and untouched part of westeros history with incredible source material provided by GRRM.
Jack Bauer 24,
You forgot to thank D&D and hope to see their brilliant ideas in this prequel.
I wonder if the plan is for an anthology series where every season features a different cast covering 300 years of history. That seems like a decent idea that would keep interest. Also allows for a 10 episode arc with a beginning, middle and end perhaps eliminating some of the pitfalls of the later seasons of Game of Thrones.
mau,
And your ability to turn everything into D&D success is interesting.
You are one of the last standing men loyal to D&D’s legacy until your last breath. I aporeciate that.
Farimer123,
Yes, but that’s been the response to every adaptation ever made, even the most successful ones. If people are worried about that, they should probably stick to original material. GOT is of course unique because it had to finish the story, and that required a huge amount of artistic licence. Had the books been out, people could simply point to GRRM and blame him for everything people didn’t like, as they do with most other movies/TV shows based on books.
Jay Targ,
Let’s see… your source for all that is… Reddit. And r/StarWarsLeaks of all places, which is basically to SW as r/freefolk was to GoT.
Of course it’s a Patreon-only podcast. Of course none of that info has been verified by any credible source. Only this one person. And of course the info concerns Star Wars as well, the other hotbed of controversy that angry fanboys are drawn to like moths to a flame. Info tailor-made to knock down both D&D (the supposed ruiners of GoT) and Kathleen Kennedy (the supposed ruiner of new SW) in one swoop.
Sound a little too good to be true? Sorry if you genuinely buy into that stuff, but as for me, I’m gonna need something a little stronger.
mau,
That discussion is futile. His opinion is completely divorced from reality.
Mass,
As you said, people weren’t interested in a prequel about The Long Night the moment it was announced. The problem is that they announced the prequel in 2018, about 10 months before the final season even aired. The reason people weren’t interested had nothing to do with the final season, so the show had nothing to do with Bloodmoon getting the axe.
Mass,
So ungrateful, isn’t he 🙂
Perhaps give him a break. All that ass kissing takes its toll. Ya gotta give him at least 24 hours!
I think that’s an interesting idea, and I wouldn’t mind them going in that direction, but the more I think about it, the less realistic I think it is.
For example, as soon as you start to enjoy a character, they’re gone. Imagine if we only got one season of Arya or whomever your favorite character was. It’s one thing to kill off a major character or two each season, but to start over with a new cast every season would be a monumental challenge, IMO. I think HBO would want more consistency than that. Plus, marketing wise, I think they’d want a more sure thing rather than taking a risk each season with a new face/character.
This is also where the show might fall into the trap of negotiating with themselves to try and bring back characters from previous seasons that were popular. It happened with GoT. There were a number of characters that had a much larger role in the show simply due to their popularity among the fans.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Mass,
Yeah, nobody was interested in a Long Night prequel. That’s why HBO had people write it, establish a team, and shoot a pilot. And had its prospective stars do high-profile interviews on talk shows which got positive and enthusiastic reception. Because no one was interested.
…
Mr Derp,
From an article I read, they mentioned covering the Conquest, the Dance of Dragons and something else. I’m not sure if that’s true, but that’s a big chunk of history. All I know, is that I demand Visenya, I’m with Arya on this,
I admire your optimism after all this time. But its highly unlikely, if the book does come out next year, that it will come in the first half. But we can only hope.
Jay Targ,
And guy from Making Star Wars had different information. Joanna’s bad relationship with Benioff and Weiss is well known. She dislikes them since they refused to give interviews to VF, so I’m not sure I trust her, especially since Bob Iger made several comments about D&D’s movies after May and he never mentioned Rian Johnson for example.
I trust people from MSW more. They are less biased.
Farimer123,
Hahahahaha.
mau,
I don’t know, she was defending them this weekend after the Austin film festival. People were calling her a D&D shill. I’d believe she got bad information before I’d believe her to be that biased.
Jenny,
She really wasn’t. She even celebrated when Bloodmoon was cancelled and said it was karma. She is smart enough not to go full Free Folk mode, but she will airways push (in a subtle way) narrative that D&D are incompetent white straight dudebros.
I will check out the show but to be honest, I would have prefer to see Westeros pre insane-conquerors riding on weapons of mass destruction. From what we know about the history of the Targaryens, the show will be mostly about brutal family in-fighting and out crazying each other. Decent Targaryens were few and far between.
I really liked the idea of exploring the arrival of the First Men and how their interaction mingled with the magical beings who had lived in those lands. I wanted to learn more about the Children of the Forest and how the Old Gods came to be and the Giants and the Wargs. The First Men and their tribal beginnings was more my type of interest than the Silver-haired, entitled conquerors. But alas.
To be fair, we already know that you are biased towards D&D, so any conversation about them is going to have a bias from the get go.
I don’t follow any of the twitter drama, so I don’t know much about this, but I do know that JR mentioned that the beating D&D took from Austin was excessive. She also mentioned that Cogman taught D&D everything they know, but was never given any credit. I don’t know how true that is or isn’t. She does clearly seem to dislike D&D though, for whatever reason.
Rizwan,
It took GRRM 11 years to produce FfC & DoD, which are basically two halves of the same book. It stands to reason that it takes him another 11 years to produce another full-cast-spanning batch of chapters in the form of WoW. So… 2022. And that’s optimistic, considering GRRM is considerably busier than he was 10-15 years ago. As for ADoS… Rapture.
TormundsWoman,
Who should play Corlys Velaryon?
Jared Harris?
Farimer123,
yes, this all started about 1 year before season 8 and after disasterous ending of the show, seeing that backlash, they realized making an othe story about WW would be a total failure.
mau,
She’s just tweeted about it now,
‘HELLO! Hi! To clarify! Some rumors and conjecture I had heard and chatted about informally on one of my Patreon-supported podcasts has been wildly misrepresented on Reddit. What I said does NOT meet the standard of any actual reporting, I was not speaking for my outlet.’
‘We’re pulling the episode, if you’re planning to report on anything that was said in there I would appreciate you reaching out to me directly—as some of you already have—rather than taking the word of a Reddit post’.
She happily admits to not being a fan, but I don’t think she’s out to get them.
Mr Derp,
Well, I’m not guy from MSW who does gave sources in Lucasfilm. So my bias is irrelevant.
Joanna is simple person. She likes Cogman because he gave her a lot of interviews. And D&D won’t. She even said several months ago that D&D are antagonistic towards fans lol. And they never said anything about the fans.
What is really interesting about her hypocritical love for Cogman is that she lost her mind about Sansa’s rape in 2015. But when Cogman told her that he was the one to convince D&D to actually show that(because original plan was that the episode will end once Theon closes the door) she didn’t care that much and she still blames D&D for everything.
But she is always first to protect GRRM, Rian Johnson and Cogman from toxic fans, but never D&D. I wonder why.
And yeah, she was one of those people who blamed D&D for cancellation of Bloodmoon. But said nothing about HOTD. For such a well informed person it’s strange she didn’t know anything about this huge project even hours before it was announced. But somehow she knows the content of private conversations between Iger and D&D.
Jenny,
Ya see? Just some angry fanboys chomping at the imaginary bit.
Jenny,
So that reddit report was fake? It’s unbelievable how far people will go to create fake stories about Benioff and Weiss. It’s literal insanity. These people just made a season(s) of show you didn’t like. They didn’t kill anyone lol
Crazy.
Juan,
Ooohhhhh good choice, Juan. Always liked him but after Cernobyl I’m banking him to the death!
Now do Cregan Stark. Cause he may have missed the whole she-bang but you can bet they’ll build him up before he comes south to be Hand for a day after all has ended.
Mass,
No, people were never interested in a Long Night prequel. The show had nothing to do with Bloodmoon’s cancellation. Rumor has it that production difficulties and creative differences are the reason HBO isn’t moving forward on the project.
mau,
I don’t think it was entirely made up, she had to have said something on there, otherwise she wouldn’t have pulled the podcast. I assume that she mentioned something she had heard/casual conversations she had had, and told people to take it with a grain of salt. Someone heard it and made it seem far more concrete that it was. She says that people have reached out to her, so maybe we will get a proper report on what she said, but it’s blown up as usual.
Uh oh. TB, of the Stannis Baratheon Grammar School, isn’t going to like this one bit 😉
Jenny,
I don’t know. Her pulling the episode indicates she said something woefully inaccurate and doesn’t want to be legally liable.
Young Dragon,
Why do you think the decided to make a prequel about WW? taking into account that GOT was mainly focused on WW.
I used the sword part to explain one of the moments I loved her in The Long Night.
And to me, the disconnect came in her sacrificing her armies, potentially her dragons and even her own safety to fight for humanity, to fight for ‘her’ people. To put the people before her own goals of conquest.
Then two episodes later she’s burning them in their homes.
You may feel differently, but to me, the two are quite opposite to one another.
mass,
Because they really liked Jane Goldman’s pitch. It just didn’t translate to screen very well. Is this a serious question?
Che,
The White Walkers were a concern to her as well. They were not solely a Northern problem, so she didn’t sacrifice her army and wasn’t risking herself or her dragons to save humanity. She was doing it to save herself, so she could continue her pursuit of the Iron Throne.
Young Dragon,
Yep, that’s how I call it.
As much as I prefer the politics in GOT, the WW where the biggest threat, the big “bad guy” that our protagonista have to defeat, a battle that will cost the life’s of thousands of thousands of brave warriors….
aaaaand it lasted for an hour, then battle plans made no sense whatsoever, practically no one died (even though by logic they all should have) and the biggest threat was killed by Arya? Seriously? I love Arya but that kill belonged to Jon (and I’m not even a Jon fan) but it pisses me off that they never got a battle! Wtf?
It just felt… well, as I said, anticlimatic, at least for me.
I’m sorry they cancelled the Bloodmoon prequel but I’m hyped about this one! I can understand why they’re going with ‘dragons’ given how people responded to GOT the first time Dany rode a dragon or the second field of fire, etc.. If the writing stands up then we’re in for another great ride! All aboard the hype train 🙂
Young Dragon,
my point is that of all the stories in westeros and essos history, they decided to work on a story that was about the first long night and origins of WW. why? because they wanted to elaborate on that subject and give audience and GOT fans more in detailed and elaborated story about WW. the process started before S8 and nobody knew that what would be the faith of NK and his army. in that period, fans were merely focused on starting of S8 and any other prequel project would face the same disinterest more or less. fans didn’t care about other projects in that time, they just wanted to know when S8 starts and what will happen there). after S8xE3, the main criticism was that after years of building up for WW story-line, they were not a real threat at all. NK was not a great villain, because he was easily defeated. Long Night only lasted for one night and in general, people realized that WW are not as intimidating and interesting as they were hoping for. as a fan( not an obsessed one) my feeling was that I wouldn’t be interested in an other WW story because their magic and appeal was gone for me after that ending( here is a point that no matter how WW story would have ended, this disinterest was inevitable, this can be discussed). so the disinterest to WW prequel can be divided to 2 time periods. before S8 airing and after that, and I tried to explain why it is different.
Now. to finish my point. there plenty of reasons this show was canceled, but S8 story is one of the main reasons for that.
Mass,
I know that that is my partner, he didn’t want to watch a repeat show about the WW when he WW were not really that big of a treat. But he is very excited for Blood of the dragon, if it’s not an anthology-based series. Which I personally hope it’s more like that. I want to see multiple ages with it. Valyria, Aegon’s conquest, Dance of Dragons.
Mr Derp,
Maybe it could be a 3 season arc. 3 seasons for Valyria. 3 seasons for Aegon’s conquest and 3 or Dance of dragons. Or something like that.
Rizwan,
Well, it will not be the first GoT bet I win.
That’s exactly what Saner Half said about Joffrey on rewatch. He’s not the über-fan I am and has only watched the series twice, but he got all excited when he saw Joffrey again! And has, on more than one occasion, opined that among the young cast members Maisie Williams and Jack Gleeson are the true standouts.
Young Dragon,
MaxHightower,
and for me and any logical fan who is not trying to blindly defend writing of that battle. when I watched the second episode and saw their battle plans, I had a lot of questions and concerns about that , since it looked full of flaws. then I watched the battle and it was awful. even sam didn’t die there. imagine thousands of WW attacking only few main characters and not being able to hurt them. but hey, if we complain about this kind of problems, some people here will accuse us for being hateful, ignorant, blind and ungrateful.
MaxHightower,
People on this site always insist that people’s issues with season 8 are about the “how” and not the “what”. You are a perfect example of why that is clearly not the case.
No, it didn’t take an hour to defeat them. That’s ridiculous. There have been multiple battles fought against the Army of the Dead. For example, The Fist of the First Men, Hardhome, the Cave, Beyond the Wall, and finally Winterfell. It took the largest army Westeros has ever seen, two dragons, a fire witch, and a Faceless assassin to defeat them, and it still was barely enough. We lost 6 or 7 characters, which is the most characters ever lost in a battle episode, so you’re “nobody died” critique is nonsensical.
No, the kill did not belong to Jon. That was the whole point of Jon’s storyline. The White Walkers weren’t his enemy, they were everyone’s. Narratively speaking, it made perfect sense for Arya to kill the Night King. Death played the biggest role in her story and the Night King is the embodiment of death.
Not anticlimactic at all.
mass,
No, people were very clear they weren’t interested in a White Walker prequel since the day it was announced, and anticipation for season 8 had nothing to do with it. I would have thought considering all the fake news about D&D that has already been debunked today, you wouldn’t even bother trying to spread more.
Young Dragon,
it’s interesting because D&D mentioned that they decided arya should be the one killing night king around season 3( I don’t remember exactly after S3 or before). but arya’s connection with death and God of death gets back to first season, even before writers decided that who would be the killer of night king. i’m sure these kind of topics have been discussed here and in other platforms hundreds of time and no need to bring them up again. but for me it’s crystal clear that arya killing NK was a wrong idea and unjustifiable
I never went to see Solo because Han dies horribly – his story is tragic, it’s not enjoyable to see how life was for him before, when I already know how it ends. It is the same for me for the Targaryans. 🙁
mass,
They utilized the gardener style approach and expanded on Arya’s connection to death to set up her killing the Night King.
Young Dragon,
well no. you have just mentioned your opinions and your opinions don’t necessarily reflect facts. you mention that “No, people were very clear they weren’t interested in a White Walker prequel since the day it was announced”. this is your opinion. you haven’t conducted any pulling or provide questionnaires and ask people and provide statistical analysis for you assumptions or any other kind of proofs. you are just giving your opinions and unfortunately misinterpreting them as facts.
mass,
Were you not around when Bloodmoon was announced? No one here was excited about it, except a few, and it was the same all across the internet. That’s not my opinion. They provided reasons for why Bloodmoon didn’t move forward, and the reactions to season 8 wasn’t one of them, so you’re not basing your claim on reality.
Young Dragon,
I’m sure they did. in the first season they just thought ok, we know from the books that arya has something to do with God of death. let’s work on that. maybe 2 years later we will figure out that in has to do with killing night king( although there is no NK in the books).
Great news for sure. But pretty much confirms we ain’t getting ADOS.
Apollo,
Martin said on his blog that he wants to write more Dunk and Egg before he lets those stories go the way of HBO.
So I can only assume ADOS will eventually come out. I mean COME ON!
Mr Derp,
This one made me laugh so hard. Literally splitting my sides :X
I don’t really agree with your statement that “no one here was excited…, except a few,” at the time of announcement last year. There were some that just plain don’t like the idea of prequels so there’s rarely excitement for them, such as Mr Derp. There were some that stated a desire for a different time period like what HotD should cover. Overall though I think the majority were and continued to be behind it with interest, cautious optimism and subdued excitement, considering it was a long way off still from coming to our screens. Since it never got to the point of being greenlit for series there was never really any information being fed to us that would build excitement. We never got enough information to get a buzz going. Had it been what they wanted I’m sure we would have gotten to that point, despite it being five months from GoT’s finale and certain reddit community children still complaining about D&D.
You can read through one of the first threads from last year about it. I think most of the comments are on the positive side even though it was talking about something that would be a few years away at least:
http://watchersonthewall.com/details-first-game-thrones-spinoff-emerge/
Clob,
The first comments weren’t all that positive and a lot of them were taking a “wait and see” approach, but people get much more excited the further you scroll down. I amend my earlier assertion that no one was excited. I guess I only remembered the negative stuff. Sorry if my comments bothered you.
When Game of Thrones ended I was ecstatic. I went internet dark for the final and was hoping when I went back on everyone saw the same thing I did. That the ending for Game of Thrones set up perfectly for a sequel. The younger characters are all spread all over the map as POV characters. Dany could be resurrected and there is a dragon just flying around. The ending set up perfectly for five years from now these characters all come back for a new threat.
Now with the direction that HBO has gone scrapping the Blood Moon project for the Targaryen civil war tells me they want to keep the thrones fans engaged then hit them with the sequel 2026….
Also wanted to point out that the show runners may not have wanted to spoil the books.
Are you by chance a misogynist?
Asking for a friend..
TormundsWoman,
”This one made me laugh so hard. Literally splitting my sides :X”
I hope you’ve got surgical staples.
What in Targnation…!
Well now, ’tis hardly a surprise after S8 that they’re moving forward with the Targaryen prequel over the Stark one. ;p I’m only disappointed at being cheated, again, out of the chance to witness the LONG Night–y’know, since we barely got to see it because the Night King somehow wound up being something of a pushover…and to drive home just what the crew in 8×03 saved Westeros from. Still, I was hoping slightly more for the Targaryen idea (first, anyway), so if we can only have one…I’m pretty happy with the news. #Targs4Ever #Justice4Daenerys (sorta) Sorry for Naomi, Jamie, etc., but that’s the way the ball bounces…and perhaps Naomi could even be recast as a Targaryen. Besides, they have such fun and often beautiful names. :3
What I’d want MOST would be a prequel involving Melisandre, but you can’t ask Carice or any of the GoT actors to make another big commitment, so…maybe just a movie, or miniseries/set of episodes, or an appearance somewhere that reveals as much as GRRM knows about her? That’d be so sweet. She’s the most ancient and one of the most fascinating characters, so it just seems logical to do something like that at some point. I would also welcome a sequel involving Daenerys resurrected by Kinvara. ^w^
It’s heartening to hear that GRRM won’t be taking on any HotD scripts until WoW is out. Maybe that’ll be sufficient incentive to get it done.
Agreed again w/ Che & Max. And stinkin’ Ninjarya just taking out the entire AotD with one bloody stab after building up to this war since the first scene of the first episode of the first season years ago…him merely getting knocked off Viserion, smirking at Dany, lifting his arms at Jon, striding slowly toward worthless Bran, getting killed in the same episode he showed up instead of immediately snapping Arya’s neck or affecting her in some way with his touch…instead of getting to head further south and spread Winter across Westeros once more, forcing Cersei to face the threat…not getting to actually duel with anyone…that was the first massive let-down. I still can’t believe it wasn’t an April Fool’s prank. (But at least I can accept it, unlike what followed.)
I’m not defending him, and ultimately he can speak for himself, but what exactly did he say that you interpreted to be misogynistic? Because he preferred Jon to kill the NK over Arya?
I hate misogyny as any other sane human being, but I think it’s become a popular buzz word that gets so overused that it tends to lose all meaning in the end. You could at least flesh out that his feelings are motivated by gender before making such an accusation.
Young Dragon,
Well, thats YOUR opinion, and I respect it, even though I do not share it.
My biggest problem is not with “what” happened but “how” it happened, I was fine with Dany turning full psycho, with the NK being defeated with Bran being King (not sure about the last one lol).
The ending points where fine for me, what i strongly disliked was the journey to get there, it was rushed and made no sense whatsoever: Arya somehow passing through thousands of WW and jumping like a leopard to stab the NK, Sam or anyone at the battlefield not being death even though there were thousands of dangerous zombies around them, heck, I love Sansa but realisticaly she should have never survived down there, Daenerys going from being the hero to the “crazy tirant” in 5 seconds just because she is super super sand and lonely and wants some love and… oh, yeah, because of the bells lol.
mass,
I truly agree with you.
I am SO tired of hearing people on the internet saying “well, You didnt like it because yo didnt get what you asked for” and Im always like “What? Sansa is my fav character and she became the first QiTN, I should LOVE the last season!” but I dont, because the journey to get there made ZERO SENSE
Mr Derp,
Don’t pretend for a second that if the circumstances were flipped around (that it was “supposed” to be Arya to kill the NK, but Jon swooped in and got the kill) that we would be having this conversation.
Statements like this that suggest that Arya getting the kill on the NK undermines his threat and power, and makes the whole plot “anticlimactic” absolutely have sexist undertones. This has been discussed in several articles and publications, including Vanity Fair.
I find it deeply unsettling that some fans express such disdain that Arya got the kill on the “big bad” that “belonged” to the real hero, Jon. And fans can go on and on about how they love Arya, but what’s the subtext of that? That they love her as long as she stays out of Jon’s way? Or that she sticks to her revenge list, and leave the fight against the “real” bad to the male hero?
So while these accusations shouldn’t be thrown around willy-nilly, we also can’t be naive about the very real issues around sexism that pervades popular culture.
This is not a well thought out statement. People complain about this stuff all the time. Hell, much of the recent conversation on this very website has been complaints about too many white men in the writers room.
SO, because Vanity Fair thinks that any criticism of Arya killing the NK is automatically sexist, you just go with it without proof? Guilty until proven innocent?
Of course these issues are real, however, throwing around unfounded accusations just makes the problem worse, not better. You’re doing a disservice to actual examples of misogyny.
Maybe ask the person you labeled as a misogynist this question? There’s any number of reasons why he might’ve wanted Jon to kill the NK instead of Arya, yet you jump to the worst possible conclusion, and why? Because it’s pervasive in popular culture and Vanity Fair told you to feel this way?
As I already stated, perhaps flesh out his reasoning before jumping from A to Z like that. Even Obama has come out saying that “Woke Culture” has become way too judgmental. That should tell you something.
If nobody has mentioned it, Emilia was on with Fallon last night (clips on the show’s YouTube channel). She of course said she doesn’t know anything about HotD, but she’s so fun to watch in interviews anyway. 😀
Clob,
Pigeon did 🙂
Emilia really is a delight and seems like she’d be so much fun to be around. Same goes for Pigeon too!
The trailer for The Witcher just got put up. This is the first in the “competition” for HotD. I’m in the process of reading the books and am entertained.
This is at the very core of sexism: judging things differently based on gender roles! I thought that was obvious, but..
What, I’m not allowed to include supporting arguments? And I’m not just “going” with VF, I can think for myself thanks. Nice try though.
You said that no one would’ve complained if the roles were reversed and I gave you a specific example of why you are wrong. People complain about a myriad of issues when it comes to men’s roles in cinema all the time.
But you didn’t support anything. You made a baseless accusation and decided to support it by citing an article by Vanity Fair completely divorced from anything that the original poster said. Like I said a couple of times now, maybe flesh out what the OP meant before hurling stones.
Obama:
“If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, because, man, you see how woke I was?” he said, drawing laughter from the audience. “I called you out.”
But the act of public shaming on social media, Obama said, is “not activism.”
That’s not bringing about change,” he said. “If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
More:
Former president Barack Obama offered some advice earlier this week to young people hoping to change society: participating in cancel culture isn’t the way to do it.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” the 58-year-old said Tuesday while speaking at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
Obama’s pointed warning that social media enables “woke” people to be “as judgmental as possible” went viral Wednesday, drawing praise from both the left and right. By early Thursday, clips of Obama shared on Twitter had been viewed millions of times as many stressed that all social media users needed to hear his message.
“There is this sense sometimes of, ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people,’ and that’s enough,” he said, noting that the mind-set was only “accelerated by social media.”
“Say something wrong, tweet something people disagree with, express an opinion that is surprising or contradicts the established view people have of you, and the demands for you to be fired, de-friended or otherwise driven from the realms of men quickly follow,”
“One of the dangers of the Internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases. The truth is, is on the Internet everything is simplified, and when you meet people face to face, it turns out they’re complicated.”
MaxHightower,
But what you were complaining about was the what and not the how. You wanted Jon to be the hero who killed the Night King, you wanted the White Walkers to be the final villain, etc. Your previous post completely contradicts your claim that you only didn’t like the journey.
Arya is a trained assassin who had already proven she’s capable of sneaking past the army of the dead. Her leap was symbolic of a wolf pouncing on its prey. Those people would have died if the battle had raged any longer. People surviving battles is not plot armor. Sansa definitely could have survived down there. All she had to do was run away. Danerys was never the hero, that was the whole point. Heroes don’t crucify innocent people, they don’t feed innocent people to their dragons, they don’t threaten to burn down cities and slaughter thousands of innocent people as a punishment, they don’t burn people alive just because they refuse to pledge them loyalty, etc. Danerys burning down King’s Landing was built up perfectly over all the seasons, not just the last two episodes. It was a long time coming.
Shelle,
Did you watch The Long Night? It took the greatest army in Westeros, a mountain of dragon glass, two dragons, a fire witch, and a Faceless assassin to defeat him, and they still almost lost. The Night King was anything but a pushover.
Ok, let me spell it out. Arya is in Jon’s place, and it’s her storyline that deals with the WW. Jon swoops in and gets the kill. There would not be near the same level of controversy and outcry by some that Jon took Arya’s kill as there is now for Arya taking Jon’s kill. And if you don’t think that, you need to wake the f*&k up!
Mr Derp,
This is all good, and he makes very valid points, but I still can’t help but call out BS when I see it. I’m under no delusion that it will change things, or change someone’s mind, or have any effect really.. but doing nothing and being complacent doesn’t help anything either.
Young Dragon,
”Did you watch The Long Night? It took the greatest army in Westeros, a mountain of dragon glass, two dragons, a fire witch, and a Faceless assassin to defeat him, and they still almost lost. The Night King was anything but a pushover.”
“You let that little girl disarm you?”
[Spririt Voice of Robert to NK in S8 deleted scene]
My tuppence worth. She even said in S5E9 (just before Ser Jorah entered the arena and at the height of her breaker of chains era) that she would happily melt a city full of innocents if she deemed it was for the greater good.
Jaime’s redemption, also, being the man who raped his sister beside the corpse of their child, halfway through this alleged redemption?
Dany forgot the Iron Fleet? Well, seriously now, why would she even think about them? She’d already incinerated the slave masters fleet with far smaller dragons. After The Long Night, and the news of Jon’s lineage, I’m not surprised she didn’t have enough mental space to consider a naval ambush with scorpions (let alone much bigger scorpions). She did the right thing and flew on ahead to check for signs of danger from the island (which, in her mind, would be where any scorpion threat would come from). Cersei outsmarted her, plain and simple. If anything, it should be “Davos kinda forgot to tell Dany to ‘and watch out for that sea ginnel on your way in!'”
I do agree with people who think we needed more background on the Night King story. The single sentence “memory of the world” line was a terrible and truly insulting way to explain 8 seasons of mystery, it was as bad as anything in LOST. I also agree Bran was a weird choice and that the kingmaker council was really badly done by GoT’s standards (if only they hadn’t killed off Olenna).
Personally, I wanted Dany to execute Jon, Tyrion and Varys for betraying her, and then taken Kinds Landing without killing innocents. It would have been far truer to her character, still made her into the mad queen and questioned the viewers loyalty for standing by someone so casual about dealing out revenge and death for so long. (We could also have then enjoyed a season of Hitler Dany v Sansa and Arya.)
Oh well. I still enjoyed it overall, and felt no need to be angry about it, even if it wasn’t what I hoped for.
Lots of cunts, to quote Sandor Clegane.
I’m so tired of coming here and finding people still bitching about GoT. Even when there’s some exciting news about new productions, it’s still the sameold sameold. Can’t we please stay on topic?
I’m a strong-minded (ahem, stubborn and fiery) woman. I am raising two daughters to believe they can do anything boys can do and I make sure any language that is disparaging to women is banned from my house (Labelling something as girly for instance). I am as far from a misogynist as you can get.
I still didn’t like Arya killing the night king.
And it wasn’t because Jon was the real hero. It wasn’t because he was somehow more deserving of the kill than Arya by virtue of his being a man.
It’s because they spent 7/8 seasons building up Jon’s story to be centred around stopping the army of the dead. He died for that cause; the ultimate sacrifice. He was brought back, presumably because they LOL needed him to keep fighting for that cause. Since season 5, he also had a personal score to settle with the NK.
Arya had a very different storyline. To me, hers centred around revenge. Death was certainly prevalent in her storyline, but it was not death in the sense of the AOTD and the NK. They were not mentioned by her or to her till the episode before she killed the NK. Nor was the NK ever known as the God of Death. He was actually shown to start off as a mortal man twisted by obsidian COTF magic – whereas the gods in GOT are never seen and their origins are shrouded in mystery. Clearly they exist, but we know nothing of them. If the NK was supposed to be the God of Death, they never made that link clear. In fact, the way the FM talk about the God of Death, it is quite clear that the NK is not the deity they worship.
So to me, the fact that it was Arya who killed the NK (sidestepping the whole silly way in which they decided to execute that scene, with her running through a circle of WW and then flying out of nowhere after establishing that she only evaded the wights by having to hide behind library furniture) just didn’t make sense and felt discordant with the enormous back story they had established for her and Jon.
To me, it has nothing to do with hating on women. To me, it has everything to do with narrative sense and satisfying endings/conclusions to arcs that have sprawled the length of this epic.
We will all feel differently about this. Just because you disagree with others’ opinions (as I’m sure you disagree with my take on it), doesn’t mean that the only reason for disliking what happened was because of a hatred for women.
Che,
Jesus wept! Haven’t you anything to say about the new series?
Yes. See my first post.
Che,
No, it’s not automatically sexist to have wanted Jon kill the NK, but there’s such a thing as tone and subtext. And again, don’t pretend that sexism doesn’t exist around this issue.
It’s funny though.. because everyone’s argument for why Jon should have been the one to kill the NK is “there had to be enough foreshadowing that would make it inevitable that that person, and that person only, would be the one to strike the killing blow.” You wouldn’t have accepted any other outcome aside from the obvious one that had to be telegraphed. Some of us actually like and appreciate more interesting storytelling than that, and understand that Jon is just one major character in a wide cast of major characters that all have a part to play. Without Jon, there would have been no fight. So if the LoL didn’t bring him back, everyone would be dead. And yes, Jon’s story was built up around the AotD and stopping them, which he did! Or is the only thing that matters in this fight who strikes the killing blow? Why so narrow-minded?
Dany helped with her dragons (without them it would have been pretty much impossible), Theon stood his ground and protected Bran, Sam read about dragon glass on Dragonstone, Gendry created weapons out of dragon glass, Beric and Sandor saved Arya, Mel gave Arya purpose, Arya struck the killing blow, and none of them would even have been there to fight if it wasn’t for Jon.
I can only speak for myself with regards to the sexism issue – in that my feelings on the issue have nothing to do with Arya’s or Jon’s genders. Sexism is a prevalent part of life unfortunately, so I am sure that there are people who hated that it was a woman who killed the NK instead of Jon. However, your post that I was responding to suggested that anyone who had a problem with Arya being the one to kill the NK did so for sexist/misogynistic reasons. I wanted to point out that I don’t think this is always the case (I wouldn’t even say the majority of cases). Apologies if I read your tone incorrectly.
We are going to have to disagree on whether Arya, a character who had never heard of the AOTD or the NK till 802, was the right one to kill the NK while having Jon impotently shout at a dragon after 7/8 seasons of set up. You will not change my mind that narratively, to me, it felt jarring and clumsy. And I don’t think I will change yours that it worked well as an exciting plot twist.
As an example of what I mean with the narrative discordance, imagine if it was Arya who took out the mountain. Sandor is desperately trying to get through the crumbling Red Keep to get to his brother to take him out (maybe he could stop and shout at some bricks for a while), we cut to a shot of the Mountain and all of a sudden Arya flies in from the background to take him out. He’s a zombie after all right? He was on her list right? Her plot line has involved death right? We can make it work. Would it feel like it was narratively satisfying? No.
The Arya moment felt like such a deus ex machina. I really was wondering what the hell was going to happen as the NK stood towering over Bran. It seemed an unsolvable situation. And then Arya flew through the air after running through a circle of WW who for some reason could not see or stop her. Problem solved. Slight problem of wondering why she didn’t use her superpowers of running through a circle of watchful enemies unseen to just run past the wights in the library earlier. Never mind that. Don’t think too closely about it.
And just because someone has a different opinion to yours over whether a plot device feels narratively cohesive or not, doesn’t make them narrow minded. We can feel differently about the plot to a story without resorting to that old chestnut can’t we?
Enharmony1625,
We can debate this in perpetuity (hopefully not), but until the OP responds to your accusation, there’s not much else I can add. I just wanted to be clear that calling people out for sexism and misogyny when there’s no evidence of it is just as problematic as actual misogyny. Hopefully, you understand exactly how dangerous that is. And even if you’re right, I’m not sure what labeling him a misogynist really accomplishes other than to make yourself look good at his expense.
If he comes out and says that he specifically wanted Jon to be the one to kill the NK because women shouldn’t be allowed to have the big kill or something like that then, yes, by all means, lead the lynch mob and crucify to your heart’s content if that makes you feel better.
Please understand that Vanity Fair’s main interest, just like all media conglomerates, is making money. You think they don’t profit off sensationalizing everything to an extreme degree? Despite the sophisticated image they try to present, if you look just underneath the surface you’ll find that they don’t care about making the world a better place. They do what they need to do to make money. They follow what sells and capitalize on trends. Even if that means making the world a worse place in the end. Unfortunately, some people are naïve enough to believe the media actually cares about people.
Che,
Here’s the problem I have with the analogy of Arya killing Gregor. Even though Jon’s story is certainly focused around the AotD and the NK, it affects everyone as it threatens literally everyone. That’s one of the main thematic points behind this plot line — everyone has to come together in order to defeat this threat for the survival of humanity itself. Though Jon is the central figure in this particular story, seeing it as his story is far too simplistic. The show does a good job (and there is no reason to believe the books will be any different here) of showing and emphasizing that it takes a collection of many different characters to combat this threat. It’s not just going to be one hero running around with a sword and have a cliche 1v1 with the “bad guy”. In contrast, Gregor was singularly Sandor’s story.
Yeah, but still immensely dismaying when the final season’s Great War turns out to be a single episode/battle ended with one stab by a girl who just happens to be particularly sneaky. Dx And all the insane plot armor keeping people alive through it because they had to do something later on or be there at the end, urrgh.
I’ll always hold Daenerys as a hero regardless. Nobody in the story was flawless because it was realistic…but she was very pointedly a protector, not a killer, of innocents right up until…the absurdity about which I dare not start ranting again. B| (Wish I could quit being angry about so much S8 stuff and going into the same off-topic junk; a lesser show I’d have forgotten within days, yet here months later I’m still furious and can’t accept or make excuses…xD)
I fully agree with Max Hightower (‘cept I hate Sansa. x-p Hiding with the weapon that could have been killing wights, honestly.) But what even happened down there, the named people just ducked into a hole and all the dead stumbled past them and went up/out? It was so unbelievably simple and strange…
I didn’t need Jon to be the one (or the only one) to kill the Night King, but I wasn’t thrilled with it being Arya either…mostly due to the timing and the manner of it. The predictability factor a little too, since she would’ve been high on the “Who do you think will kill the NK?” poll following Jon & Dany. Didn’t matter whether it was a man or woman. But whatever. I can’t imagine how having the AotD last longer wouldn’t have been infinitely better. That cutoff of “Ew, three episodes just to kill Cersei–which Arya should be sent in to do quickly and easily, obviously–and work out the aftermath? Ohh, no, three episodes to manufacture another mad queen. Why did I spend a year and a half so excited for this?”
Che–YES!! Precisely.
The “god of death” thing kinda creates a link from Arya to the NK…maybe he became an incarnation of the Lord of Light’s opposing deity or something…but the ridiculousness of going from a horror-movie escape scene to just “she can fly through the Walkers themselves as if she’s invisible?” Gimme a break. If speed and lightfootedness were the only requirement to run up and stab the NK to death in one shot, I could’ve done it. I also didn’t give too much of a carp whether he killed useless Bran or not (by the end I wished he had.)
Mr Derp,
I understand your concern around this. I don’t know if you saw some of the stuff I saw in the discussion around this after it aired, but there was a lot of very disgusting comments that I found to be highly upsetting, ignorant, and downright awful. The thing is, Arya was almost never subject to this awfulness because she was off on her own, but now that she “got in Jon’s way” or “stole” Jon’s kill, out come the pitchforks. Some of this very same language and tone was used by the OP — the kill “belonged” to Jon. That raised some flags for me when I read it.
My question is, are others just ignorant of this? Do they not care? Is it apathy? ..What? It keeps happening over and over and over again in this fandom and others.
As far as VF goes, Joanna Robinson is the one who writes about GoT for them, and she’s always struck me as a reasonable journalist. I’ve seen her in interviews on GoT YouTube channels outside of writing for VF, and I don’t believe she’s writing purely sensationalist material for the publication. Yes, like any other business, they are concerned with profits, but to suggest that no article in any publication should be taken seriously because it’s “a company that only cares about profits” is a bit too cynical.
Enharmony1625,
Yes, the white walkers and the AOTD threatened everyone, but when all is said and done, Jon was the only main character to do anything about it for 7/8 seasons. He died for this cause. He gave up everything for it. In the end, he did manage to get people to pay attention and band together (with no personal credit other than Tyrion saying something along the lines of “If we survive this it’s down to Jon Snow”) – though even as recently as 801, people clearly didn’t think it was too big a deal – Sansa was very busy arguing about hosting armies and dragons, rather than too concerned about the impending doom they were facing down. For 7 seasons, the AOTD and the NK (and how to save the world from them) were Jon’s problem (along with his entourage of secondary and tertiary characters). To remove him from playing any form of crucial role in the NK’s downfall (I hardly feel knocking him off a dragon counts) is incredibly unsatisfying as a conclusion to what was his storyline for the entire show (regardless of whether it had ramifications on others, it was his story). Almost as unsatisfying as the conclusion to his secret parentage – that we didn’t get to have a single conversation from him about how he felt about it all.
I don’t wish we could have had a 1 to 1 duel that ended in Jon killing the NK. I do wish that Jon could have been a more crucial part of the battle though. All his build up, in the end, fell flat as he made basically no difference to the battle. As small change that would have made it so much better (in my eyes), would have been to have Jon and the NK fight (maybe even have more of the main characters swamp the courtyard to fight the WW and occupy them). He would have looked as though he were about to die and then have the Arya moment – when everyone is distracted (which makes more sense than the utterly unexplainable way she was able to breach that many WW who were literally staring in the direction she was supposedly running). It would also nicely mirror the Ned/Reed attack on Dayne.
I know you’re a huge Arya fan and are probably pretty happy she got to play such a crucial part in the story. I’m a huge Jon fan (as is probably clear) and it was the least satisfying conclusion to his story that I could have imagined. He was a lame duck in the AOTD battle and his secret parentage reveal had absolutely no bearing on him as a character, only serving to push Dany further over her cliff edge (I still can’t believe we didn’t get a single scene where he told someone, anyone, how he felt to find out he was a) Rhaegar Targaryen’s son, b) Not Ned’s son, c) The rightful heir to the throne – yeah Jon, we understand, you didn’t want it, but I refuse to believe that is all he thought about the matter). It was a disappointing end to his story (in my eyes).
The mountain was on Arya’s list. She wanted to kill him. Revenge was the primary purpose of most of her storyline. She was a trained assassin. She totally could have been the one to kill the mountain. The reasoning would be as tenuous as the reasoning used to have her kill the NK. But it could have worked. My point stands – it wouldn’t have been satisfying. To me, and many others, neither was having Arya kill the NK.
When people say the words “kill belonged to Jon”, why do you assume they say it belonged to him because he was a man? Could they not say it “belonged” to Jon, and that Arya “stole” it for the reasons I am arguing? Nothing to do with gender? That they feel it was his storyline and he was removed from playing any serious part in its conclusion? I don’t use language of that sort, but I see where the sentiment has come from without it being a gender issue.
“My question is, are others just ignorant of this? Do they not care? Is it apathy? ..What? It keeps happening over and over and over again in this fandom and others.”
My answer would be that others don’t see it the same way as you do. It is a difference of opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. You read a lot of sexist/misogynistic undertones into things, others don’t. Difference of opinion does not mean one side is righteous and woke while the other is apathetic and ignorant.
Shelle,
But they weren’t defeated in a single episode. There have been multiple battles with the Army of the Dead, all of which the White Walkers won until they reached Winterfell. If you wanted the White Walker threat to last longer, fair enough, but they weren’t push overs. Like I said, it took the greatest army in Westeros to defeat them. If that wasn’t enough, what would have been?
Clob,
Holy cow! I am floored by how good that looks. Yes please. Thank you for posting it.
Worse than that, they will then go on to have a ton of one-sided T&A because “liberated women love to be naked / sex-work-is-work” etc.
Work liberal dudez = worst of both worlds. Male Gaze + pandering.
I know there were prior battles with the dead, but this one was the climax, the culmination of it all that was being prepared for and supposed to be The Big One, while it wound up being more…kinda medium. The previous ones were preliminary skirmishes; this was The Great War. S7 left off with the incredible scene of the dead breaching the Wall and invading Westeros, and so of course imaginations went wild as to how devastating this was going to be. If I’d known that the dead would arrive at Winterfell at the start of one episode and be gone by the end of it without getting any further, I might’ve been able to save myself all those months of excited anticipation followed by disappointment. I was 90% sure it wouldn’t end with a victory for the NK (ya never know with GRRM, but I thought even he wouldn’t go that far…though it’s tough to imagine him ending it so early either…) Figured the living would find some way to ultimately win. I mean, there was speculation about more dragons and Night Queens and all kinds of potentially awesome stuff, some of which seemed more plausible than other ideas, but I expected to be blown away by *something*…it hadn’t even occurred to me that the plot could end up feeling so abridged. There’s still the books to HOPE for, at least. George did promise he won’t write anything for House of the Dragon until WoW is out, so there’s that. He’d probably love to write some episodes of Targaryen history; hopefully it’ll motivate him to get the book done! *fingers crossed*
Still agree w/ ya Che.
And according to the script Arya vaulted off a pile of dead wights–okay, fine, show that. It’s also not as if humanity’s survival depended on Bran, whereas destroying the Night King eliminated his whole army and cause. The Walkers should have been vigilant and not allowed such a quick, ho-hum death for their leader. I never saw Arya training to run past supernatural beings, leap down from somewhere, and kill them without getting a scratch on her. Her past hardly made her the best/only candidate for NK assassin.
I know I am a month behind but this must have been a crazy few days. To break it down, I thought the D&D interview which did the rounds on Twitter was proven to be false and was the reason this site didn’t report on it? Secondly, I actually prefer the idea of the original long night as a show concept to the Blood of the Dragon but at least here we have source material to work off and Bloodmoon could still yet be officially reprised.
I’ve only read the first Dunk & Egg book, I enjoyed it but it’s very different from Game of Thrones I think it would need a lot of work to turn it into a TV adaptation. Even the first book probably would cover 1-2 hours of TV realistically.
Come on Mango, you are trolling with this now.
The World of Ice & Fire isn’t going to spoil anything but will give you some light history into characters that get talked about in GOT and likely to appear in the HotD show. It’s not a story in any shape just a history book with a couple of pages to characters/houses/parts of the world.
Fire & Blood has sat on my windowsill for several months now, I will get around to reading it in the New Year but I lost some enthusiasm after GOT finished I must say.
Interesting! I like Joanna Robinson, she is usually on the money with many things although she can be quite forthright with her opinions. If Disney chose to remove D&D in May then you have to wonder why as it cannot be in reaction to GOT S8 but more likely their internal issues with the last few Star Wars movies being major flops (Solo and Last Jedi).
Also the comments from D&D turned out to be faked by a troll….