So...
Here's the major problem with the writing of HotD so far: the constant time jumps. Don't get me wrong, I get it. I get that the ultimate story we're being told is the Dance of Dragons and we need to move through the backstory to the actual events of the conflict. But if seasons 7&8 of GoT taught us anything, it's that building up to how you get to the story is just as important as hitting all the major plot beats. That's the magic of GoT season 1. Ned Stark dies before the last episode, his conflict isn't actually the main plot of this story, but his role in the conflicts that lead up to the plot are so pivotal that the story never skimps on his development as a character. This is also where season 8 failed. How many people said they didn't necessarily mind what happened but just felt like it was all too rushed and we needed more time to get there realistically?
That's what's happening with HotD. We're moving through the events that build to the Dance of Dragons rapidly, but it's rushing the pace too much by jumping through time so quickly. The payoff of the actual Dance in later seasons isn't going to be as good because season 1's buildup to it was so rushed that none of it is truly going to feel earned.
This isn't even just my problem with this episode and the swap to the older actors playing Rhaenyra and Alicent. This has been my biggest qualm with the show since the first time they did it, when Viserys announced at the end of episode 2 that he's marrying Alicent, and then by episode 3 it's already two years later. There was so much character development that needed to happen in between those episodes, in showing the immediate chance to Alicent and Rhaenyra's friendship, in showing what the early dynamic in Alicent and Viserys' marriage was/how Alicent felt about the match? Was she onboard with being queen or was she nothing more than her father's pawn? Did she make any attempts to salvage her friendship with Rhaenyra in those two years? We don't know, because of the time jumps, we don't get to see any of this, and that cheapens the animosity that we're seeing between Rhaenyra and Alicent now.
It's also cheapening the character deaths. Harwin Strong was introduced essentially as a plot device character in this episode to be promptly killed off by the end. There's no build up to his relationship with Rhaenyra because of the time jump between episodes 5 and 6, so the revelation that he is the father of her children doesn't feel earned, and his death is largely unemotional as a climax. The same was true of Joffrey Lonmouth's death in the previous episode. He's introduced as Laenor's episode to be promptly disposed of by the end, with little time to actually build up Laenor's attachment to him, or the audience's for that matter, to truly make his death at the wedding feel tragic. Even Laena, who had a few previous appearances in the show, had a rather emotionally unimpactful death in this episode. It's definitely a tragic way to die, but there was so very little build up to her character and her relationship with Daemon and her children to really make you feel the weight of her death.
The plot changes to the circumstances of both Joffrey and Laena's deaths also aren't doing the story any favors. In Fire and Blood, Joffrey's death was mostly a violent accident at Criston Cole's hand during a tourney fight, not a violent and targeted attack. The change is jarring because the show made it so he blatantly targeted and intended to harm Joffrey, but in this episode, Criston doesn't seem like he's faced any consequences for his actions. If they had stayed true to the books, this would actually make sense because it was more or less an accident, but here? He gets away with committing murder at the crown Princess' wedding and apparently that's okay. In fact, Criston's entire character development is a testament to how much the time jumps are hurting this story. He goes from being a pretty chill guy, to being head over heals in love with Rhaenyra after sleeping with her once, to being homicidal, and now he's Alicent's confidant and hates Rhaenyra, and it all happens in 3 episodes flat. I just feels like the same rushed development as s8 of GoT.
Same problems with Laena's death in this Ep. In the novel, she did die in childbirth and they found her body near her dragon, with the understanding that she just wanted to take one last dragon ride before she died. There was no fiery dramatic suicide. The show clearly wanted to give her a more impactful death, but it leaves her characterization a bit puzzling. They were clearly drawing a parallel between Viserys and Aemma and Daemon/Laena here with the nature of the childbirth. But we don't ever get any direct indication that Laena knows her life is forfeit when she chooses to take herself out, and it's a bit off-putting that if she does realize this, she doesn't seem to care whether or not they even try to save the unborn child, she just lets the dragon burn it with her. Very strange characterization and they probably should have just stayed true to GRRM's version of this story to stop it from being such a head scratcher.
Then there's the matter of the recasting of the principal character roles halfway through the season.
We all knew this was going to happen when we went into it, but that doesn't make the sudden change any less jarring from a viewer's perspective. It's not that Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke are bad actors or that they aren't playing the roles well. They're doing fine, and in a slightly better adaptation they probably would have made great Rhaenyra and Alicents. The problem is that Milly Alcock and Emily Carey were also great Rhaenyra and Alicents, but they had the advantage of getting to play the roles first and therefore establishing these characters. The audience was so used to Alcock and Carey in the roles that it makes it difficult to suspend disbelief and accept that D'Arcy and Cooke are playing the same characters because it feels like they're brand new characters. Part of this is the recast and part is the time jumping, the combination of both just isn't doing the story any favors. Especially when only some characters were recast to make them older. While the show did a good job making Viserys look older to go along with this drastic time jump, Daemon and Criston Cole look exactly the same, and that makes it even more jarring because it seems like only some characters have aged.
D'Arcy and Cooke are going to have a hard road ahead of them to reestablish their characters with their interpretations and redefining the dynamics of the relationships they have with other principal characters. While I completely understand that the adult portrayals of Rhaenyra and Alicent should characterize them differently-they've aged out of adolescence into adulthood, change is expected-the hard part is that it's meant to be understood that all this essential character development happened off screen, so the viewer has absolutely no real context to attach to their changes in personality.
HotD could have maybe avoided all the problems the time jumps are causing by either having more episodes per season or longer run times or even maybe planning for one more season of the show, so that the recast could happen after the show's hiatus between seasons 1&2, and the audience then would have an easier time accepting the major time jump when a real one had passed for them to. But with the way they've handled, the story feels like it's being rushed.
I read someone's idea that the transition from younger to older actors might have been more seamless if the pilot had actually shown scenes from this episode with D'Arcy and Cooke, then flashed back to the backstory with Alcock and Carey playing them, so that the audience's first impression of the characters would have been that of the actors who will be going on to play them for the rest of the series, instead of getting us used to the temporary actors in the role first. Then this episode would have felt like we just finally caught up to the present, and the change of cast wouldn't have been as sudden because we would have already seen them as these characters.
As far as the episode's quality goes without regards to the time jump, it's a mixed bag. We do get some good scenes, but the pacing is very slow and it feels largely uneventful despite the events that did happen. It's a lot of talking and setting up dynamics and pushing pieces around for where they need to be in future episodes. So not bad, but definitely less exciting to the previous few episodes.
Here's the major problem with the writing of HotD so far: the constant time jumps. Don't get me wrong, I get it. I get that the ultimate story we're being told is the Dance of Dragons and we need to move through the backstory to the actual events of the conflict. But if seasons 7&8 of GoT taught us anything, it's that building up to how you get to the story is just as important as hitting all the major plot beats. That's the magic of GoT season 1. Ned Stark dies before the last episode, his conflict isn't actually the main plot of this story, but his role in the conflicts that lead up to the plot are so pivotal that the story never skimps on his development as a character. This is also where season 8 failed. How many people said they didn't necessarily mind what happened but just felt like it was all too rushed and we needed more time to get there realistically?
That's what's happening with HotD. We're moving through the events that build to the Dance of Dragons rapidly, but it's rushing the pace too much by jumping through time so quickly. The payoff of the actual Dance in later seasons isn't going to be as good because season 1's buildup to it was so rushed that none of it is truly going to feel earned.
This isn't even just my problem with this episode and the swap to the older actors playing Rhaenyra and Alicent. This has been my biggest qualm with the show since the first time they did it, when Viserys announced at the end of episode 2 that he's marrying Alicent, and then by episode 3 it's already two years later. There was so much character development that needed to happen in between those episodes, in showing the immediate chance to Alicent and Rhaenyra's friendship, in showing what the early dynamic in Alicent and Viserys' marriage was/how Alicent felt about the match? Was she onboard with being queen or was she nothing more than her father's pawn? Did she make any attempts to salvage her friendship with Rhaenyra in those two years? We don't know, because of the time jumps, we don't get to see any of this, and that cheapens the animosity that we're seeing between Rhaenyra and Alicent now.
It's also cheapening the character deaths. Harwin Strong was introduced essentially as a plot device character in this episode to be promptly killed off by the end. There's no build up to his relationship with Rhaenyra because of the time jump between episodes 5 and 6, so the revelation that he is the father of her children doesn't feel earned, and his death is largely unemotional as a climax. The same was true of Joffrey Lonmouth's death in the previous episode. He's introduced as Laenor's episode to be promptly disposed of by the end, with little time to actually build up Laenor's attachment to him, or the audience's for that matter, to truly make his death at the wedding feel tragic. Even Laena, who had a few previous appearances in the show, had a rather emotionally unimpactful death in this episode. It's definitely a tragic way to die, but there was so very little build up to her character and her relationship with Daemon and her children to really make you feel the weight of her death.
The plot changes to the circumstances of both Joffrey and Laena's deaths also aren't doing the story any favors. In Fire and Blood, Joffrey's death was mostly a violent accident at Criston Cole's hand during a tourney fight, not a violent and targeted attack. The change is jarring because the show made it so he blatantly targeted and intended to harm Joffrey, but in this episode, Criston doesn't seem like he's faced any consequences for his actions. If they had stayed true to the books, this would actually make sense because it was more or less an accident, but here? He gets away with committing murder at the crown Princess' wedding and apparently that's okay. In fact, Criston's entire character development is a testament to how much the time jumps are hurting this story. He goes from being a pretty chill guy, to being head over heals in love with Rhaenyra after sleeping with her once, to being homicidal, and now he's Alicent's confidant and hates Rhaenyra, and it all happens in 3 episodes flat. I just feels like the same rushed development as s8 of GoT.
Same problems with Laena's death in this Ep. In the novel, she did die in childbirth and they found her body near her dragon, with the understanding that she just wanted to take one last dragon ride before she died. There was no fiery dramatic suicide. The show clearly wanted to give her a more impactful death, but it leaves her characterization a bit puzzling. They were clearly drawing a parallel between Viserys and Aemma and Daemon/Laena here with the nature of the childbirth. But we don't ever get any direct indication that Laena knows her life is forfeit when she chooses to take herself out, and it's a bit off-putting that if she does realize this, she doesn't seem to care whether or not they even try to save the unborn child, she just lets the dragon burn it with her. Very strange characterization and they probably should have just stayed true to GRRM's version of this story to stop it from being such a head scratcher.
Then there's the matter of the recasting of the principal character roles halfway through the season.
We all knew this was going to happen when we went into it, but that doesn't make the sudden change any less jarring from a viewer's perspective. It's not that Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke are bad actors or that they aren't playing the roles well. They're doing fine, and in a slightly better adaptation they probably would have made great Rhaenyra and Alicents. The problem is that Milly Alcock and Emily Carey were also great Rhaenyra and Alicents, but they had the advantage of getting to play the roles first and therefore establishing these characters. The audience was so used to Alcock and Carey in the roles that it makes it difficult to suspend disbelief and accept that D'Arcy and Cooke are playing the same characters because it feels like they're brand new characters. Part of this is the recast and part is the time jumping, the combination of both just isn't doing the story any favors. Especially when only some characters were recast to make them older. While the show did a good job making Viserys look older to go along with this drastic time jump, Daemon and Criston Cole look exactly the same, and that makes it even more jarring because it seems like only some characters have aged.
D'Arcy and Cooke are going to have a hard road ahead of them to reestablish their characters with their interpretations and redefining the dynamics of the relationships they have with other principal characters. While I completely understand that the adult portrayals of Rhaenyra and Alicent should characterize them differently-they've aged out of adolescence into adulthood, change is expected-the hard part is that it's meant to be understood that all this essential character development happened off screen, so the viewer has absolutely no real context to attach to their changes in personality.
HotD could have maybe avoided all the problems the time jumps are causing by either having more episodes per season or longer run times or even maybe planning for one more season of the show, so that the recast could happen after the show's hiatus between seasons 1&2, and the audience then would have an easier time accepting the major time jump when a real one had passed for them to. But with the way they've handled, the story feels like it's being rushed.
I read someone's idea that the transition from younger to older actors might have been more seamless if the pilot had actually shown scenes from this episode with D'Arcy and Cooke, then flashed back to the backstory with Alcock and Carey playing them, so that the audience's first impression of the characters would have been that of the actors who will be going on to play them for the rest of the series, instead of getting us used to the temporary actors in the role first. Then this episode would have felt like we just finally caught up to the present, and the change of cast wouldn't have been as sudden because we would have already seen them as these characters.
As far as the episode's quality goes without regards to the time jump, it's a mixed bag. We do get some good scenes, but the pacing is very slow and it feels largely uneventful despite the events that did happen. It's a lot of talking and setting up dynamics and pushing pieces around for where they need to be in future episodes. So not bad, but definitely less exciting to the previous few episodes.
