So I've been watching House of the Dragon. I never thought I would willingly give a penny to HBO, but then Rings on Prime came out, and I decided I was interested enough to try out its rival. And... I have some thoughts.
Obviously it's a superior show to Rings, which I barely have the patience to designate an actual show, but I'm genuinely worried by all the excess praise it's been getting. HotD is not an ideal show; it is not a standard by which to measure up to. That was Lord of the Rings, not a show, I know, but superior storytelling and gold standard media. I'm a little worried that people will forget that. I'm worried that HotD is going to become the view of a "good" show, of the best there can possibly be.
It isn't. It's undeniably the best show in production right now, but it has some serious problems.
So I bring my complaints, not with the intention of making anyone dislike the show (I don't), but with the intention of reminding people that we have had better. Just... nothing to be excited for right now.
The biggest issue I have with the show--and maybe this is the point, but it doesn't quite feel that way--is its portrayal of protagonists. I am well aware that, in the standard of Martin's stories, there aren't really any heroes, but some of the characters that are portrayed as "epic" go way past "not hero" into "selfish, callous, evil villain". Daemon murdering his first wife and grooming his niece comes to mind strongly, I won't lie.
But I think the best example of this was the last scene in the last episode. At Aegon's coronation, Rhaenys was stuck in the crowd at the Sept, but she managed to slip downstairs to get to Meleys, her dragon. Then, as the crowd--who, by the way, were all forced to be there--start changing to Aegon, the floor suddenly collapses and Meleys and Rhaenys emerge from the rubble.
As Rhaenys destroys the floor, she kills dozens of--possibly a hundred--innocent common people who were forced into that place. She kills them because... why? It's not because she had no other escape. Meleys had to have gotten in somehow, so there had to be a door for them to leave through. She chose breaking through that floor instead of going out a door--knowing there were people there, knowing she would kill them.
But girl boss! Yaas!
The scene gets worse. The people run toward the door, fighting to get out and away from the dragon. Otto Hightower--you know, the villain--shouts for the City Watch to open the doors, so that the people can get away and Rhaenys and Meleys can leave (instead of killing everyone). (For whatever reason--maybe they can't hear him, maybe they're waiting for Aegon's order--the City Watch doesn't open the doors, so the people are stuck there.) Rhaenys turns Meleys to Aegon, but Alicent--the other villain--runs in front of Aegon to try to save him from the dragon. Then Rhaenys, who had no problem whatsoever killing innocent people, decides she won't kill Alicent, so she won't kill Aegon or Otto either. She just turns Meleys around and leaves.
Now, pray tell me, what was the point of that? What was the purpose of her erupting through the stone floor and killing all those people? You can't even make the argument that she was trying to avoid a civil war that would have killed more of them. Apparently, her purpose was just to scare the Hightowers and emphasize that she's ruthless. Or was she completely willing to kill all the innocent people, but Alicent was just one too far?
That, or the screenwriters came down with whatever disease is infecting the Rings on Prime writers, because there is no rhyme or reason for that scene otherwise.
And she's supposed to be someone we're sympathetic to. She's the Queen Who Never Was, the sad, pitiable, tough, wise, "correct" character. Ugh.
In the third episode, something similar happens with Daemon. He is fighting the Triarchy, who have kidnapped a bunch of Velaryon sailors. The episode opens with the perspective of one captured Velaryon sailor who is being crucified on the beach to be eaten by crabs. He screams in pain, he yells that House Velaryon will avenge them all, and begs for his life. Then we see Caraxes, with Daemon riding, and the poor sailor yells to Daemon, first words of encouragement and pride and then begging Daemon to save him. At first it looks like Daemon will save him, but then Caraxes lands on that sailor, killing him. It's the same situation--in the fight between the Targaryens and their enemies, they have no problem stepping on the innocent people they're supposed to defend.
The sharp difference between Daemon and Rhaenys is that, in Daemon's case, we have a lot of time with the perspective of that one poor sailor, so that we have an opportunity to become connected to him and therefore truly understand his pain; we feel that Daemon is indifferent. That doesn't happen with Rhaenys. In all the scenes when we had a chance to become connected to one of her victims, when she's being hurried along with the crowd, we always see the crowd from her perspective. We're never given a chance to connect to the people who die, so their deaths and their loss doesn't feel as strongly to us. Instead, we get the epic shots of Rhaenys' emerging from the dust and smoke and then staring down the Hightowers. The focus is instantly on Rhaenys' power.
In a story where a central theme is women fighting for their rights against sexism, it bothers me tremendously that one of these women is so callous about innocent lives.
It's made even worse by an earlier scene: Alicent told Rhaenys deliberately that a good queen must always think of the cost to her people, at which Rhaenys scolded her for always serving the men in her life. Alicent, who has been repeatedly described as refusing to throw of the patriarchal system in which she is trapped, had the kindness and sacrifice to think of the innocent people she needed to protect. The "put yourself on the Iron Throne" woman deliberately killed them.
Am I really supposed to be rooting for that kind of female empowerment? Did no one stop and consider how bad that makes the message look?
Maybe--just maybe--that's the showrunners' point? That women being able to be rulers like men isn't the same thing as honoring the innate rights of all people? But I haven't noticed a lot of reviewers pointing that out, and I strongly think it needs to be noticed.
