House of the Dragon (S01E01): A Very Late Review

It's not that bad but the beard was too short and Viserys' actor too talented

I never actually bothered watching House of the Dragon when it first came out in 1986. I didn’t read Fire and Blood, I just read the wiki, I refuse to give George a single dollar for anything other than A Windy Winter. That said, if he’d released Winter is Coming, a history of House Stark, I would have picked that up and read it five times by now, so I guess I’m a hypocrite. I’m just not that interested in the Targs pre-Aegon IV, like Jaehaerys I is cool, Maegor I is fun in a fucked up way, but things really kick off when we start getting the Blackfyres and Bloodravens and Bittersteels. Rhaenyra and Aegon II never struck me as that interesting, nor Daemon who has always given me anime antagonist vibes, nor the Dance itself, just more examples of why Robert Baratheon did nothing wrong.

Anyway, I got back into A Song of Ice and Fire recently so I watched it, and now I’m going to write about it, and you better believe I’ll be copy-pasting all these stupid Valyrian names.

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It opens with this narration by an older Rhaenyra about a succession crisis towards the end of Jaehaerys the Conciliator’s reign. Will they pick the girl or the boy? Turns out Westeros is sexist, but that’s not my biggest problem with this scene. For one Jaehaerys’ beard is far, far too short. This is the Old King, and the silly white wigs that anyone with a Y in their name wears make him look barely older than anyone else. Jaehaerys had a long beard, he was the old king, he had the time and the money and the inclination to grow a really long beard. Terrible filmmaking.

One cool little touch though is when it skips to Viserys as king, he’s wearing the same crown as Jaehaerys. This is true. A lot of the Targaryen kings wore the crowns of their predecessors, and Viserys did wear his grandfather’s crown. In a sense they created like psychic links between the monarchs. Aerys II wore Aegon IV’s crown, and they both sucked. Aenys (Ay-knees, although apparently, Ay-niss is acceptable) wore this big gaudy crown, and he sucked so much that no one ever wore it again. Daeron I, the Young Dragon, wore the crown of Aegon the Conqueror, then lost it in Dorne after losing to Dorne because with or without dragons Targaryens can’t defeat Dorne.

Anyway, it skips ahead and we get more Viserys. He’s holding council. The actor is absolutely outstanding. The canon is that Viserys was sort of a jolly fat man figure, a guy who came into office with things already perfect, and proceeded to do more of the same. He’s not a super complicated character, but Paddy Considine just brings this wonderful depth to the character that’s readily apparent from just a subtle glance, or a slight pause. The way this man can convey a thousand shades of ambiguity with just an expression is truly impressive. However, he doesn’t have a mustache, and he’s not fat enough. Terrible filmmaking.

The rest of the council is there, too. Otto Hightower who always struck me as one of the most bizarrely consequential figures in Westerosi history, Rhys Ifans gives a performance that is halfway between Tywin and Stannis. He’s pretty good, and I’m interested to see where he goes next; I hope there isn’t problems between House Hightower and House Targaryen going forward... Probably the most controversial person on the council is the Sea Snake. Personally, I don’t think the dreadlocks work, but that’s not really the actor’s fault the wigs generally look subpar for whatever reason. They must have blown all their money on Rhys Ifans.

Then Rhaenyra shows up. Yay! She’s the king’s cupbearer and also daughter. She’s his only living offspring, but she hasn’t been named heir to the throne because of the economy. Everyone’s like, “Name an heir, Viserys,” and he’s like, “I will as soon as my son is born later in the episode.” Luckily, his wife is pregnant. Now, I really like the actress who plays Aemma, she brings a lot to a pretty short role (Spoilers: She moves to Meereen to take up pit fighting) but I really don’t know what the producers were going for with this look. She’s wearing the same white wig as every other Targ, but she’s not a Targ, she’s an Arryn. Aemma had blonde hair, so maybe it was so blonde that it was near white, or maybe she’s just old? If so why not make her wig grey, y’know, the colour people’s hair usually turns when they get old? But Aemma was only around twenty-three when she died in the books, so why would her hair turn grey? Sure, everyone’s clearly been aged up because GRRM is super fucking weird about characters’ ages. But if she’s so old why is she able to get consistently pregnant five times in the past ten years? The only explanation I have is that the producers just wanted to hint at all the incest ASAP because the Targaryens are disgusting. That or they think the audience is stupid.

Speaking of disgusting, one of the major reasons people want Viserys to name an heir is that without a firstborn son, the next in line for the throne is his brother Daemon. Now, personally, I consider Daemon Targaryen quite possibly the most overrated character by the fandom (and the creator) in ASOIAF history. Imagine if Jaime wasn’t funny, if the Bastard of Bolton wasn’t that bad, if Rhaegar wasn’t that ambitious. Well, you don’t have to, because you have Daemon Targaryen, the Seven Kingdom’s answer to Shadow the Hedgehog. This is no diss to Matt Smith, he’s actually really good in the role, but honest to God the best part of this entire episode was when Ser Criston Cole beat the shit out of him in the joust and then the melee afterwards. Daemon is introduced being an incestuous creep to his teenage niece Rhaenyra. Don’t worry though, Rhaenyra doesn’t mind, because Targaryens are disgusting. He also hangs out in brothels so we can smear tits and ass across the screen in true Game of Thrones fashion.

So yeah, the best part of this episode is the tourney. Unfortunately, it’s inter-spliced with the worst part of the episode, Aemma giving birth. There’s a lot of ham-fisted symbolism and foreshadowing going on with what sigils are flown and bested in the joust, a lot of the Baratheons are hanging about (a descendant of which would later do nothing wrong), but honestly the cool tourney is just ruined by the harrowing birth scene. The Maester tells Viserys he has to choose between his wife and his child, he chooses the child, Aemma begs him not to, and then they both die in the caesarean. It’s not that it’s that gruesome, it’s just such a brutal decision that immediately lowered my opinion of Viserys. Both actors are stellar in the scene. Aemma’s screams were haunting.

They have the funeral for Aemma, and cremate her with a dragon, and Rhaenyra says ‘dracarys.’ I got literal chills when she said that, she’s just like Khalessi! With a dead son and a dead wife and an alive daughter and edgy brother, Viserys is now left with the difficult choice of whether to play with his model city or not. Otto Stannistower treats his daughter rather poorly, essentially beginning the grooming process by sending Alicent to comfort the king by relating the story of how her own mother died. Meanwhile, xxDaemonxxBloodvampxx hangs out in the boob department and boasts about how he’ll be king now. Viserys is having none of it and decides to name the competent, and not-at-all-fat, Rhaenyra as his heir. He then banishes Daemon to the Vale, and hopefully from the show entirely.

The episode ends with Viserys taking oaths of fealty to his new crown princess. We see more Baratheons, finally see a Stark, and a bunch of other seething Targs who wish that they were the heir to the throne instead. Honestly, the show is pretty good with keeping the houses that show up as actual houses from the books, I think I saw a Connington banner during the joust.

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I watched this mainly because I heard Viserys is awesome (he is) and I saw a casting announcement that some guy is going to be playing Cregan Stark in season 2, who was apparently the only swordsman who was a decent match for Aemon the Dragonknight. Apparently, the next episode skips ahead and now the cast sucks? I’m not sure. I’ll write another one whenever I watch it.