I do not think anyone loved GoT for the epic battles. Quite the opposite - when the show started to focus more on the battles and dragons instead of the plot and the dialogs it marked its decline.
Literally the best seasons are the first 1-4. Which start with little to no battles, or only showed a bit. Beginning with the battle of the bastards, at the end of season 5. Which had really good battle episodes, they just focused to much on them, maybe they had too because they had no clue what to write.
Yeah I was gonna say! My experience with HOTD so far is that the intriguing political plots and bonds within families is what makes it so good. It's reminiscent of the earlier seasons of GOT. The end of GOT failed because seemingly "epic" scenes were prioritized over actually doing the characters justice. If anyone started watching only because they wanted action-packed huge battles, they NEVER would have managed to sit through season one.
Exactly! GOT felt like a political show set in medieval time. The fantasy only made it more interesting, but the script was gold. House of Dragon hasn't achieve the same level of quality imho. Some scenes and dialogue feel super cringy and unnecessary to advance the story.
There are dragons and battles, BUT more politics and consequences for actions. These is what made GOT be amazing. A choice made, regardless the intent, always had consequences.
And in this case basically the same consquences, because they are just reusing the same homophobic plot line from the original show but making it worse.
@@Oxbloodmage in what way? Laenor got to leave his families expectations behind and live out his life with his partner. To me, that is the happiest end he could get. Free from his marriage.
Same dude, it was the crying and begging Viserys to stop. The "please, no I don't to, I'm scared!!" That makes that scene literally unwatchable for me on second viewings of that episode. It's so well done and and written masterfully but it just destroys me,I'm too weak lmao.
if you listen to the interviews by Paddy it wasent a question of ordering the death of his wife to try and save the child, if he hadnt ordered the c section both would die.. and even the choice of saving the child hounted him ever since and never made him hole again.
The interesting fact about this female characters is that despite the sofference and and contradictions caused by their society they end up condemning their own children to the same miserable fate, generating the same contradictions through the next generation. Alicent and Raenyra are conscious of their conditions but in the end they reinforce the same conditions. I adore in this series that the characters are themselves without any external judgments, no one is good or evil per se and their weaknesses lead them in these situations.
GOT was definitely more gorey and sexualized than HOTD. I’m glad they reduced that because it takes away from the plot and I feel like the last few seasons of GOT also reduced that as well.
It takes away from the plot??? Lol, that IS part of the plot. The show toned down the sex and violence in comparison with thr origonal books 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
Im glad that you pointed that out.I also really liked that they focused on the Targaryen's/Hightowers and their feelings of longing and loneliness as it makes them very relatable and sympathetic characters.
@@greyLeicester I’d heartily disagree with that. GRRM gives very little time or energy to any of the sex or violence in the books. All of the drama and tension has to do with the characters and the dramatic irony of what we the readers know that the characters don’t.
@@majormononoke8958 that was because they had actual stories to copy. HOTD requires more talented writers since it is a history and so far its surprisingly impressive despite some problems.
Talking about the female perspective: That's what I love The Take for. Over the years, I've been following and unfollowing so many film channels. With you, I've never been disappointed.
I was disappointed when they released that video saying Harry Potter was not a hero… but luckily MovieFlame made an amazing video responding to them and they were wise enough to take it down.
It's very disturbing (& perhaps telling,) how the show writers rewrote consensual sex, or no sex at all, into sexual violence & don't even get me started on how Sansa's rape focused on the reaction of a FREAKING MAN! Changing source material was a choice. WHY?!? The final girl trope & making women suffer is no longer limited to the horror genre. Perhaps you can provide a take on content that needlessly exploits & hurts women & what it says about the men who create/watch it.
That was when I (one of those annoying people who read and loved the books before the show) stopped watching for good. I was already near my quitting point over... other issues, but that pushed me over the edge. There was no need, except to gratify a certain, frightening portion of the audience, and the showrunners themselves.
That rape scene (although it wasn't Sansa in the books) was from the perspective of Theon. It was a Theon chapter. He was forced to perform oral s*x the girl that was supposed to be Arya in the books, for the pleasure of Ramsey. Ramsey basically abused both the girl and theon in this situation. In the show, they focused on his reaction because that's how it was in the books.
There will be no (big) time skipping in future seasons. The war is here. We needed that foundation, and creators decided to start earlier than many book fans expected... what is important is that now, other houses will enter the game, the world will open... and we will see, what happens when Targaryens are torn apart. Dance of Dragons has begun.
They are trying tho to connect these series and the future Snow series to the main plot of GOT. I'm very sceptical about it tbh, but the signs are there: the valyrian dagger, Dany's dragon eggs, the song of ice of fire 🙄
I take issue with the declaration GOT wasn’t a family drama. Beginning to end it followed the Starks and their evolving relationship with Westeros and with each other.
From my perspective GoT HAD family drama mixed with the bigger conflict but it wasn't A family drama. It wasn't Sansa Vs Bran for the control of Winterfel, like it is Rhaernyra vs Aegon II for the iron throne.
I love this show and all it’s trapping. It’s not perfect but it’s carefully crafted and very well done. However I don’t think it’s fair for some people to already be comparing season 1 of this to GoT’s 5 (4?) amazing seasons. Let’s give the show time to breathe maybe? I get that the shows are in the world and it’s very hard not to compare the two but can we wait a little. Let the shit stretch it’s legs? We see that the scope and focus of the two series is wildly different.
Let's be honest: GoT went downhill after season 5, though it still had impressive scenes and great substories. The last season was just the nail to the coffin.
@@mina_en_suiza I dont remember season 6, so it probally was average. But 7 already was a disaster in some episodes. 8 was just = Shit/ not watchable. I actually liked season 5, but as some people point out there were already problems there.
Wait why? We hoped Danny starts a war that ends up killing all dragons? We hoped Danny to get eaten by dragon and not end up on the throne? Nah. I don't want that for Danny. Danny had a chance of being a better Queen.
I think saying it fixes Thrones is a very generous thing to say. The only way Thrones can be truly fixed is when Martin actually shows us what happened in a better executed way than Season 8. But that said, it's nice to see a return to formula for this franchise and to see people actually excited about something within it again.
I LOVE how the world and history is built. The symbolism of House Tagaeryen (idk how to spell it) is wonderful. From the differing accents of Rhaenyra and Daenerys to the differences in the look of Kingslanding. We get to see the fall of a dynasty and the effects on its people. In Rhaenyra’s time, she was privileged, the dragons had a stable and saddles and armour used. She had been taught like a true princess and had a perfect knowledge of her mother tongue. With Dany, she has an English accent, hasn’t had the proper education and had to figure out her own history on her own. Even the differences regarding the dragons are strong. They seem like horses in HOTD, tame and understood, almost like a pet. Dany however had a unique bond with them, not requiring a saddle or armour to ride them. That primal bond she had with the dragons not only comes across as endearing but also we feel pity for her now that we have a comparison between her and Rhaenyra who had been handed all of her knowledge and understanding. I find that fascinating.
I think the comparison to horses kinda understates how powerful the dragons are - and I don't think there is a good analogue for what the dragons are. However, I think it does indicate how dragons are treated - and maybe that's where the interesting part lies. You end up treating this living nuke like a horse, with no appreciation of its power, because the realm has been at peace for years.
I really like the HoD, but I find it more simple and linear than GoT, on GoT there were a lot o concurrent plots developing at the same time plus we took the point of view of many different people that had their own adventures separated from one another, Here the story very focuses only on rhaenyra and his quest for the iron throne, It's different but not in a bad way overall I had enjoyed it very much
I disagree, I don't think Rhaenyra manipulated the 'naive', duty bound Criston Cole. Even though she is the princess, if he had rejected her advances, she would not have said anything because her position would have been compromised. He had enough time to think about his honor, but he decided to accept her advances. The fact that he want her to marry and escape with him is not because he loves her, but because he wants to redeem his honor, which he lost the moment he accepted her. Anyways, loved the video and the overall analysis.
Because guys are never pressured or cole wasn’t worried about refusing a literal princess. 🙄 Imagine genders reversed in the scene. ‘Oh she could of said no more’
Rhaenyra is Criston Cole's princess, if he doesn't do what she wants, she can say anything and Cole loses his job (as much as we know she wouldn't). But if he gives in to her, he loses his honor and his ONLY ACHIEVEMENT. Something that Rhaenyra doesn't relate to because she never saw the urge to work hard from a lower social class. And Cole doesn't relate to the fact that Rhaenyra has a duty to inherit the throne because he thinks she can step down at any time without thinking of the political consequences. Rhaenyra was in a position of power with respect to Criston. And he DID ask her MORE THAN ONCE to stop and she didn't. She didn't manipulate him but she put a lot of pressure on him that night.
No, episode 9 has actually ruined GOT even more. Jon Snow killed Danaerys because she killed a bunch of civilians. But Rhaenys also killed a bunch of civilians but we're supposed to act like its not big deal. But if killing KL civilians is no big deal, then that means Danaerys did nothing wrong and the true villain is Jon Snow for killing her. Maybe a stretch, but it is a lingering implication that is a result of poor writing, designed for shock.
Are we really going to compare that awful final season? Season 8 had no creative writing at all, so why even bother. But when Alicent had the previous hand and his son killed to get her father back, nobody said anything. People always pick and choose. And didn't even see any dead bodies when Rhaenys's dragon appeared when we literally saw Dany burned people.
@@soradanam8160 This has all the same deficiencies of season 8. Mass murder is mass murder. Both did an evil thing for there own benefit, but danny was at least at war with KL. Rhaenys killed them all just to save her own life. There is no moral consistency. Like Jamie and cersie fucking is wrong, but its ok for Jon and Danny. And now they want us to be empathetic towards these characters and turn a blind eye to the fact that theyre all related. I dont get why theyre trying to portray targs as good people with causes and claims that we should give a shit about.
@@jdogsful Where does it show where Rhaenys killing people. Did you see any dead bodied after the dragon left? No, and it was known for Targaryens to have relationship with their relatives. Why you shock now? But they often did to have stronger holds upon the throne, Aegon the conquer married both of his sisters to have a strong claim. Not saying it's right or wrong, but it would be weird for anyone else. However, if your going to point that out, there people marrying their cousin, like Tywin was married to his cousin. But some people did that in medieval period. And game of thrones points out that not everyone in the series is completely good. So why you surprise? And if you're having such a problem of it, then don't watch it. No one is asking you to. Especially wasting time of comparing that awful season 8.
@@soradanam8160 lol. you dont think rhaenys action would have killed anyone? Sound like youre not interested in actually questioning whether the show makes sense, and youd rather come up with stupid justifications like "i didnt see no dead bodies" or "incest was common in medieval times", despite the fact that show itself established that incest is bad with jamie and cersei, and mass murder is bad. This is equally as shit as s8, with all the same rushed, contrived, poorly conceived execution.
@@jdogsful Then don't watch the show. And like your not coming up with justifications, when there wasn't evidence shown of Rhenys killing people. If someone or people were being killed off it was always shown. In the last episode no was was shown being killed. Are you even watching the show or did you just watch a clip on youtude? And as I stated it was more known to the Targaryens, even the Cersei said it herself. And I didn't say it was good, I'm just saying it was known. Reasons why I also said in the game of thrones there's no always good and bad, it fine line in between. But if you're having such an issue, if maybe the show isn't for you. No one is really forcing you to watch it.
I feel like The Take hasn't actually watch Got, or read the books. The whole point is to show things from the underdogs perspective. Sansa (a woman in the hands of phsyco boy king), Arya (a little girl seperated from her family and alone in the world), Catelyn (a mother trying to do what is best for her children and yet from her pov watching countless tragedies befall them), Tyrion (a disabled by medieval standards man who is made fun of and hated by everyone around him), Dany (A woman sold by her brother who must take up the reigns of being queen at fourteen while dealing with the loss of her entire family and husband whom she loved). Not all the perspectives are women and thats ok. They don't need to be. But to say that the issues women face aren't told from those women's perspectives is completely false.
Honestly, there needs to be a disconnect between books, earlier seasons and later seasons. The points you bring up are a reality for the earlier ones but as they go away from the books that becomes more and more of a half truth, at best. I mean, they kill Dany and it's kind of framed from Jon's perspective. While it's true that at that point Dany was the villain (let's not open that can of worms, the showrunners made a decision and run (heh) with it. George is a man of his age and it's noticeable at times but he's always tried to frame everything as well as he could. Sometimes his toyboy preferences come through... but sometimes he hits jackpot and gets everything just right
I agree a thousand percent, (in the books) with Sansa, a girl raised under the false idea of chivalry, find out how unjust the world is. But later find power in being the ideal "lady" to her advantage. With Arya we see a poor girl with a sword scrape by and see the unholy truth of war and suffering, that turns her apathetic, leading her to become a member of a cult of assassins killing people without remorse. With Dany we see a girl sold as a broodmare, pushing through with what little power she can, gain an army free slaves and take a city. But even that has consequences for her, showing that ruling is a lot harder than one thinks and being good won't solve everything. Grrm's books are pretty tragic and REALLY dark, but it does have a realistic take to it.
As someone who's read the books I never really vibed with GoT, not even the first seasons. It messed up the timeline and made a lot of changes that didn't make any sense. Also, it ruined a lot of characters. HoD, on the other hand, has to make a lot more creative choices since it's based on a sort of historical account. And still, it feels (maybe because of the higher budget) a lot more similar to the Westeros of the books. It actually feels like a visual representation of Westeros; I love it.
I don't get why Raenyra "has to fix" Dani or is everything we hoped her to be, when the book (and if you read them you know what I'm talking about) specifically tells you that Dany isn't going to be a positive character. I am really tired of Dany being pushed as this amazing woman, when for gods sake, she wasn't written to be a positive, good character. The show wrongly elevated her to be one and then rushed her downfall in two episodes of the last season, when it should have been developed more, and that I agree with. But Dany wasn't anything but a crazed lunatic/villain to be. And that is fine. I don't feel personally attacked as a woman. It's actually nice to see a proper female villain not holier than thou character, nor a poor victim. There are plenty of good female characters in fiction that I can positively identify with. Dani was never one of them.
That may have been what Dany was in the books but that is not the way she was portrayed in the show, and that is why people hated what they did to her character at the end, and they had every right to feel that way.
@@haselbasil2488. I get that, and in fact I added "The show wrongly elevated her to be "perceived as a good character "and then rushed her downfall in two episodes of the last season". Frankly, just because they put epic music when showing scenes of murder and torture, we should still be able to see these acts for what they actually are. I really don't think that if this happened in the real world people would be celebrating her as a good commander or a good person to be honest. And it doesn't matter how shitty the civilisation she conquered was, you just don't do that. Because if you do... well you are an imperialist. I think that you have to be smart if you want to change a way a society works, not through blood shed and massacres. Because that ends up being ineffective. But this is my opinion. I always compare her to Stannis' treatment: he too did a horrible thing, breaking a taboo. But let's try and understand his action: he sacrificed his daughter (sad, but it's one person compared to thousands Dany killed), but he did it for the good of Westeros, where everything is moved by prophecies. To us this is insane, but suspencion of disbelief I guess. I hope I made my position clear. I'm not attacking people, I too have the right to (politely) express my opinion. I agree with you though, ultimately it's the writers' fault.
@@Oxbloodmage Lmao, the hell. Allision and Rhaenera and the king were attachable. The problem is they changed actors, for Allision it is ok because the 2nd actress looks very similar and plays similar aswell just like the younger one. But for Rharnera it is hard, the actress looks nothing like the younger one and also plays to different...
I like the intimacy of House of the Dragon. Instead of following multiple weaving plotlines of palace intrigue and the various houses of Westeros, this one exclusively delves into the Targaryens. That really allowed for deeper familial relationships to be explored, and it covered a 20 year time lapse that didn't confuse the viewers, because it built on the character growth and development of the generations born into King Viserys's bloodline. There's no external force pushing on them to react the way they do, no threat that is pulling them apart, it's just normal family dynamics within a privileged family, and the convictions of the household bound to uphold prophecy and destiny. For a show set in a mythical land with lore come to life, dragons, and magic, it makes the setting more believable and the characters relateable. I love that the complications of powerful women are being examined more thoroughly, in ways that Game of Thrones didn't. Don't get me wrong - Cersei Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, and Catelyn Stark are prime examples of well-crafted fictional women, but I am really digging the dynamics between Rhaenyra and Alicent, and the morally ambiguous character of Mysaria who seems to be this series version of Lord Varys, pulling strings and perpetuating a network of spies within and outside the castle.
HotD isn’t perfect, I had some issues with the way they handled some of the middle part of the season - Harwin Strong, Laena Velaryon - and certain cliche elements (Daemon’s unecessary superhero moment vs Crabfeeder, anyone?). However, particularly Episodes 7, 8 and 10 really kicked it up a notch, makes me very excited for Season 2!
In the book "Game of Thrones" Khal Drogo did not rape Danerys Targaryen on their wedding night. The act was consensual. The rape scene in the GoT pilot was gratuitous and unnecessary.
Well, I might not be alone on this, I am honestly surprised about HotD, exceeded all expectations, but, It doesnt compare to GoT, hopefully "yet". Amazing serie though
I don't understand why gender is an issue in this middle aged inspired series, and sexualilty also seems to be, but not race? I appreciate diversity in movies and TV - why I follow The Take - but to me the whole Valaryons-are-black-and-everyone-else-white-basically-without-dealing-with-race seems like tokenism.
I actually enjoyed GOT far more than HOTD. In GOT we got lots of storylines and we could see not only the perspective of one overprivileged family, but of many diverse characters: children, bastards, slaves, fanatics, people with disabilities, strong women and gentle women, warriors and victims of abuse. Yeah we didn't get much childbirth, but we got so much else instead. And I know people hate last seasons, they were not good written, but the arcs of characters and the messages were brilliant. Fight for throne was never really important. What mattered was the roots of corruption and tyrany, questions of loyalty, poison of revenge, possibilities of changing your path and redemption, the influence of smallest thing on the future events, the dangers of a great force (like nature and climate in our world, which I believe, the White Walkers represented) and an immense sacrifice people would make to fight it. In comparison to this, in HOTD we have a fight for the throne, based on quarrels, ambition and offences, where practically no one except for the royal family matters. It definitely didn't fix GOT in any way, I just hope HOTD will fix itself in later seasons and provide more meaningful plotlines.
i kinda agree, GOT's scale of themes, genres, characters, world and the story itself definitely feels bigger and makes the show more exciting in many ways. So i also prefer GOT season 1 over HOTD season 1, but i still enjoyed HOTD as i went into the show expecting a much more narrow and personal story which also needs a lot of time to set things up
GOT and HOTD are very different in the core conflict. It's not House Lannister trying to keep the throne against the Starks who just want justice/revenge or the Baratheons who also want power. HOTD is literally family drama, how a family can implode so expectacularly bc of the decisions made by one party. There aren't more plot lines to follow bc it's only one family fighting with each other instead of 5 kings a Queen and a zombie apocalypse. GOT S1 showed how the choice of one man to be honorable and the choice of one child to kill said man can destroy a country. HOTD S1 shows the snowball effect decisions taken wo the consent of the entire familial group have on it and how one unrelated agent can worm it's way in causing so much chaos it drives the family to murdering each other.
GOT had the advantage that its source material is much richer; but it's also much more dense, making more difficult to adapt for TV, moreover, the books have not been finished up to today. I understand that this is a feminist channel and they will consider those aspect mentioned in the video to be an improvement, but I don't think that is the case.
You make great points.....but the show being called house of the dragon means the story is based around a royal family it doesn't need to emulate GOT's themes......both shows are different in their own right and that's a good thing
just as an fyi, don't assume that rhaenyra will have a happy ending. I'm honestly a little surprised they picked this story of the dance of the dragons for a spin-off given Rhaenyra's ending and how much backlash Dany's season 8 arc got. I do not see them changing her ending to a large extent, I think it will fundamentally be similar to how it is in Fire and Blood. also, this is the story of a Targaryen civil war/beginning of the decline of the Targaryen dynasty (not a spoiler, this is part of HBO marketing). fans building up the Targaryens/stanning them so hard are missing the point tbh. no need to justify things they do cause they're your faves, they all suck and are war criminals essentially.
Yeah, The Take doesn't like that Jon killed Dany for instance, even though he was right to do it. I like this channel most of the time but they can be biased about stuff.
@@graffity_x6624 I'm not crying! I was shocked at the scene because its not mentioned in fire and blood. .. Each to there own I guess. I just didn't expect Larys to handle himself over the Alicents feet. I personally hate seeing people's feet! 😒 Anyway it was damn good writing to introduce that about the character, since he has a club foot!
Lol the only reason why Raenyra challenges the expectations is that she knows that she will avoid any consequences if she fails. She neglects rules she doesn't challenge them. Unpopular opinion: Raenyra had a good potential to be an amazing queen, but she grew up being entitled and hypocrite and considers her heritage as given. I do hope that they would NOT sugarcoat her queendom. And I also dont think that Aegon deserves the throne. Only person who really deserved to be Queen is Raenys. Period. Not team Black or Green, there are no heroes or villans
Finally somebody said it! It's not a story about girl power, it's a story about royal privilege. Rhaenyra is likeable to some extent because she is badass and fiery, but she is also a liar and takes advantage of people. Alicent had suffered much more throughout the years than Rhaenyra but still managed to maintain her humanity, which is something I admire her for. Still not Iron Throne material though. Rhaenys should be queen, she's the most emotionally intelligent, experienced and strongest of all the other candidates.
@@mina_en_suiza aha cant blame you as her rule was very brief. also aegon the second had her rule removed from the history books so many in westeros arent even aware
Honestly i have no complaint about Hotd ,before i didn't like the change about Aemond "accidentally" murdering Luke but now it makes sense with the whole dragons bond. The only thing i don't like is the chatachterization ofAlicent. It's great that they made her more grey and not evil stepmother but what i liked in the books it was the fact the she was like the boss of the green. Even though she was a victim she still had her agencies and was a great complex female characters. In the show Alicent just seem she has no agency
I wonder since GRRM is fully involved in this series and approved of these retcons I wonder if he gave the book some thought and would have gone back to make these changes and is expressing them through the adaptation instead.
Very well done. The last one or two GoT videos from this channel had me raising my eyebrows, but I really appreciate the balanced approach here, plus the acknowledgement that there is still plenty more to come.
I really hate the idea that what drew people to GOT originally was dragons, tits, and sword fights. In the same way that people loved The Sopranos because it brought deep character study to the genre of gangsters, GOT did the same for fantasy. Characters were complex, felt like they had contradictions and rich inner lives. The problem with HOTD is it feels like instead of focusing on putting character back at the foreground - recapturing the early magic of GOT - it went in with a list of themes and big ideas and then just slotted a load of empty stereotypes around it. They want to discuss female power, but all the women feel like they were created just in relation to this, with nothing else to add to the story. This one is here to represent this, that one represents that. The end result, for me, feels incredibly flat.
Another thing I like is how every little decision had an impact on the story, while in GOT the first seasons were like than but then for characters like Dany they went with whole "Oh it's genetics...she is mad" without depht analysis on why she became they way she was
Really to me this entire first season could be cut and you'd lose nothing. It's less story telling and more just a series of events to which the motivations for are incredibly contrived.
@@Oxbloodmage Yet it brings in millions of viewers and is keeping a high view count every episode and most likely will next season to and as long as they make money by getting people to watch they will keep making more no matter what you thing of it.
Isn't house of the dragon based in the novel universe and not necessarily the tv show adaptation? That's what I tell myself whenever they talk about the long night.
House of the dragon is not as great as the first few season of GoT. Just a fundamental misunderstanding of what made it great. It’s not about dragons and battles it’s about the game.
So basically HoTD is perfect and GoT was utter trash? Sorry, HoTD stands on the shoulders of what GoT built. Period. I will never understand the trend of recency bias. The same people who are saying HoTD is the greatest thing ever now are the same people who said GoT was the greatest thing back then. A more nuanced take is that both are great adaptions of the source material that make for entertaining viewership. Stop throwing around hyperbole. It denigrates both shows.
The main criticisms with Game of Thrones were not mainly about representation or violence against women (though the Sansa getting R-word purely for shock value was rightfully criticized). The reason most people absolutely hated Season 8 (in particular) was because the showrunners took Martin's Lore and characters, poured gasoline on them and threw them in a trash fire. Then they doodled their own characters and scribbled their own story, and tried to convince us that they were better then the originals.
Yet Sansa being R-word was not purely shock value, it was part of her arc and progressed the story forwards. Season 8 was rushed, but nothing was ruined to the point of it being a dumpster fire. HOTD is proof GOT was never beyond being forgotten. D&D never convinced anyone that they were better than the originals, but at least they gave us an ending on time and didn't break their promises. Credit where it due, GOT remains the best fantasy tv show of all time.
@@ianvera4299 If you read the books you'll realize just how terrible (downright disrespectful to the lore and author even) the last seasons were. Doesn't matter if the last book is not out, they went well above and beyond to screw everything up, in ways that only someone who had never read a single book (yet was making a whole adaptation of it) could. Season 8 was beyond rushed... and yet they filled it with boring filler scenes with dialogue that made the characters dumber then ever. Sansa doesn't get R-worded by Ramsey in the books... but every character from the show certainly gets R-worded by the show's story-line! Examples: Masterminds Varys, Tyrion and Little Finger become incredibly dumb. Jon Snow (the actual hero of the books... around whom all the major prophecies circle) is tossed aside and completely forgotten. Danny spends an hour burning women and children in the streets because... bells? Jaimie?? The poor guy suddenly regresses so fast and so much that he finds himself a few squares before the one where he started!! The Long Night? THE major threat prophecized for which Targaryens have been preparing since before HOTD? You know... WINTER IS COMING? Turns out t'was more like a quick evening! The Night King (portrayed as Martin's ''absolute favorite'' trope of ''one-dimensional villain existing solely to be evil'') turned out pretty easy to tackle! Danny? God don't get me started on what they did to her. These are ONLY the very tiny tip of the iceberg of what D & D phenomenally screwed btw!! There's probably millions of hours worth of videos on TH-cam trying to list them all... and I'm not talking about lore fanatic nitpicking.
@@kated3165 I did read the UNFINISHED books. And let me guess, your the type of person to write an entire essay that one asked for, huh. Unlike you, I will keep this short and to the point. D&D did NOT ruin anything and they are the reason GRRM is household name and made the best fantasy tv show. They actually held up their side of the bargain and actually gave us an ending on time. Period.
@@ianvera4299 No, they did not. D & D wrote the first pilot that was so bad and embarrassing that it was deleted so the public could never see it. The show almost never got made because of that. HBO then gave it another shot and sent them actual writers to do it for them. Their pilot was a huge hit, as were their episodes. The series went increasingly downhill again when they took back the reins. Millions of fans now wish the show had remained UNFINISHED.
@@kated3165 Yes they did. Yet GOT ended up being the best anyways lol. D&D are actual writers, Beniof even won a pulitzer award. The show was and still is a huge hit. They always had the reins, and by downfill you mean increase of ratings and emmys. And Millions of fans still love GOT REAGRDLESS. Keep coping
HOTD does indeed highlight the harsh Nature of Childbirth. It’s a patriarchal world, but at least the females are not half naked and treated as sexual objects as much as GOT every did. I agree with your assessment, but I’m sure what was truly fixed
What’s so great about the early season’s of thrones is it’s all political intrigue with battle lightly peppered in. People like the story and characters- the last three series lost all sight of this and did a bunch of things that didn’t make sense for characters or story. THATS WHY WE HATE IT. HOT D is all story, and waaay more of a gray area when it comes to right and wrong. It makes you think, and launches great discussion. Me and my wife take 2 hours to watch an episode because we pause and talk about it
I quit the video around the 30-second mark. That's when I realized that the video had nothing to do with to quality of the show, or actual filmmaking. It's just woke-propaganda that has no relation to reality and the real world. At least, I am grateful, that the video showed their colours early on, so I didn't have to sit through the whole ordeal.
Don't get me wrong. I loved Season One of "House of the Dragon". But it's too damn early to make this assumption that the series has "fixed" "Game of Thrones".
It's not boring it's just dumb, the conflicts are contrived, the writing is obvious and bad. It's this nasty stupid show filled with unlikable people making nonsensical dumb choices.
I strongly disagree at 2:16 that "Viserys ultimately only see his wife as a vehicle to get a male heir". That does him a great disservice and a blatant lie. He was presented with 2 terrible choices by the maesters. Either they remove the baby; killing her in the process or both mother and child die. In either case she's not leaving that room alive.
I highly disagree. This show is not even close to be as good and intelligent as GOT. The only chance they have to nail it is with a worthy ending. And all the time skipping parts are _far_ from being a bonus.
i was finally actually excited in watching the show, not for battle but for choices and decisions characters would make in response to each other like a chain reaction, that's what made GOT intriguing for me in the first place
I disagree that the women's struggle weren't put in perspective. Sansa had to accept she was a girl surrounded by enemies who would kill her if she rebelled. No other Stark would have survived being that position. She later learns how to play the game by watching these enemies. Daenerys was sold then r***** by her husband. She couldn't just leave an abusive relationship like most women in that situation. She learns to pleasure then love Khal Drogo, then become a respected Khaleesi and later Queen. Arya, though strong-willed, realizes she cannot protect her family. She goes on a journey to get revenge on those who have taken her family away from her. They're development and growth from trauma is slow-burning yet so satisfying, moreso than HOTD where there are more than a few time jumps. A lot of the abuse in GoT is gratuitous, but this analysis appears to be virtue-signaling for feminism and actually minimizes the complexity of other female characters. Raise other female characters up, dont tear them down
Hmm... I am not sure if I entirely agree. I can see where you feel like a woman's perspective is in GOT through individual characters: Sansa the girly girl, Dany the "Girl-Boss" and Arya the tough girl. But, I felt that women as a whole are much more three dimensional than the female tropes conveyed on GOT. Some of the critiques of Sansa, Dany and Arya were pretty fair IMO. Sansa represented women who were born and remained in the upper-classes; yes, all of the main characters were noble, but with Sansa she never really left the noble world like Dany or Arya. Dany was a noble too, but she never got to experience that privilege from the beginning; her story has a lot of problematic representation regarding her relationships to BIPOC. Dany was r*** by her husband in their first scene which didn't happen in the books initially. Plus, the BIPOC characters we see with her on the show aren't depicted as being loyal to her purely out of choice; they are loyal to her as freed slaves---which is a played out white-savior narrative. Then, you have Arya's scenes where she appears to look down on traditional femininity through the eyes of someone who thinks being feminine is inherently weaker than taking on traditionally masculine roles like fighting and swordplay. Finally, they did not show the aftermath of trauma in a way that was empowering; GOT had moments where sex and sexual violence were either gratuitous i.e. not from the books themselves, or that traumatic experiences were like a phenix rising from the ashes moment. Instead of relaying that characters like Sansa and Dany were strong already without the added trauma, Dan and Dave decided to add lines like: "Without Joffrey and Ramsey, and all the rest..." TL;DR I get that you love these characters, I do too, but I did not always like their lines and how they were portrayed on screen.
@@amy675fly I don't think these characters were intended to be written as "strong already". Sansa and Arya were girls. I believe there was alot more to them than just the girly-girl and tough girl. Sansa realized her dreams of living the stories she read about of princes and princesses were fairytales. Her meekness was actually a positive that allowed her to survive and learn from Cersei which she states. I agree that she should not have said Ramsey and Joffrey made her who she is, but I would attribute that to D&D crap writing. Her years in King's Landing provided her with valuable political savvy she would not have learned that made her a stronger leader. Arya was portrayed as a tomboy. Her strong willed attitude did not make her invincible. It also did not protect her family. She had to rely on a member of the Night's Watch, Jaqen Hagar, and the Hound to keep her alive before she started to learn the skills to fight for herself. The Stark sisters' journeys led them down dark, lonely paths that made them grow and cherish their family more. Daenerys white savior storyline is definitely problematic and her girl bossing can get annoying. However she was a pawn used by her brother who hoped to get power and armies through trading her off. She realized she is strong and capable of earning respect from her husband, the Dothraki, and other people and cities. These characters are in the midst of a shifting political landscape where a hand, and king have died which lead to more deaths affecting the peace of Westeros causing lines to be drawn and alliances made making every move a step toward life or death. It is not about loving the characters. They are all complex and well-written(up to a certain point). The critiques are choosing to focus on plot points, which are sometimes admittedly gratuitous and poorly execute, that aren't completely favorable toward the female characters while failing to highlight crucial arcs. HOTD is good. But it's characters exist in a time where their family has been ruling in a time of 100 years of peace whilst having dragons. They will not have half of the experiences the characters existing around the war of the 5 kings would have. I agree the representation in HOTD is a lot better. The characters seem to only operate throught the lens of desire vs. duty. Which is a good duality. However GoT had more nuanced character motivations and I'm hoping we'll see that in future seasons of HOTD
nope, thats the worst way of representation like Sansa says - "That rape made me stronger and better than who I was that time", and is thankful it happened Duuude...
@@Gabreyes093 thank you for taking the time to respond to me! Tl; dr, I'm sorry, but we just have to agree to disagree. There was a point on the show when George RR Martin was in the writer's room with D&D. That's why in seasons 1-4, and the books, the female characters were more three-dimensional versus in later seasons where their characterization is pretty flat IMO. In HOTD, GRRM is joined in the writer's room with female writers. To me, this was a much needed improvement. HOTD has more nuanced characters than GOT, but also than Fire and Blood. GRRM said himself that he liked the additions, particularly regarding King Viseyrs**(sp?), a male character. I just think that the last seasons of GOT had a more complex plot with flat characters all around. Another plus, the motivations of Alicent and Rhaenera (agian sp?) are much easier to understand than Arya, Sansa and Dany in seasons 5-8. I cannot count the times I had to come on here, or on quora, to understand why characters moved from point 1 to point 89. That isn't complexity, it's poor writing. Which ties into my last point: bad writing lends itself to poor characterization and bad representation. If women's stories are going to be told, either pay women to write/produce it or find pay authors, like GRRM, a stipend to supervise it. Thanks again for reading!
House of the Dragon is an adaptation of the Dance Of The Dragons, a Westerosi civil war about Targaryen dragonlords that is more grounded in medieval political drama than even Game Of Throne's first four mild magic-ish seasons ( I am comparing it to the show, not the book version of GOT). When the Dragons start dancing, they will make even the Battle Of The Bastards feel like a Playmobil battle...
My only issue with that is that Joffrey Baratheon already gave away the ending to that in season 3 of GoT when he was taking Margery Tyrell on a tour of the Sept of Baelor.
Agreed! It's especially striking to go back and rewatch GoT episodes after House of the Dragon. They are quite different shows. I think this one season has had more solid, consistently engaging episodes than any single season of GoT did, personally.
Originally the pilot episode of both series was a complete disaster and almost had to be completely reshot multiple times. The reason why this is, is because George RR Martin's writing can be a little uncohesive and chaotic. They have said multiple times, and interviews, if they had shot the pilot exactly how the story went, it would not have had nearly as high of an audience as it did. Also, originally, George r.r. Martin was never even going to have a dragon in the books. Danny was originally supposed to find out that the "dragon" in myth was symbolic of her pyrokinetic (yes, originally, George RR Martin intended on her having this power, which is not that unusual because a lot of people in her ancestry practiced magic of some sort). But his editor, many years ago, told him that if he did not put at least one dragon in the book, no one would read it. And now we have game of thrones and House of dragon as you know it today. George also felt that pyrokinesis would be too "fantastical" and they settled on Melisandre with her shadow binding magic, which is actually an old occult practice from ancient India and Sumeria (binding shadow energy to a spirit and using it for a task). And instead of pyrokinesis, she was given 3 dragons and fire immunity to level the story a bit. If your main character is too powerful, you don't really have a show. 😂
I LOVED the exploration of Rhaenyra’s sexual awakening and sexual agency. She pursues pleasure and she’s not sorry about it and I love it. And frankly I find Ser Cristen annoying. She doesn’t want to renounce her title and he doesn’t want to keep sleeping with her in secret. That’s fine. But then he outright hates her and constantly conspires with Alicent and I find him insufferable.
Finally! This is what I have been saying! We shouldn't shame someone, especially a women, for having a sexual awakening and wanting to explore that. But then we praise men for doing the exact same thing It's just wrong.
One big difference is also the lack of magical stuff. Beyond the political and personal intrigues, magic is a big part of the universe of GOT, and i feel like it's missing (for now, at least) quite a lot, even though there is a lot of dragons...
Dragons are inherently magical, most of the magical elements in GoT were tied into their existence. GRRM was always more interested in political and family drama over magical elements, especially in the early books.
The fist book of asoiaf has almost zero magic. The focus of Fire and Blood (the book) is not the magic. So, house of the dragon showed a very faithful Westeros of Martin.
HOTD isn't intriguing or mysterious. It's frustrating as it focuses on courtly matters. I probably just need to get over GOT and give HOTD a real shot.
I'll tell you how HOTD fixed Game of Thrones - IT DOESN'T. I have commented on this before on YT and I know there are people who are going to hate me for saying so. Game of Thrones had its problems especially at the end of the series, but at least we liked some of the characters! NONE of the characters in HOTD are likeable, the storyline is also unlikable. What amazes me is that people actually like this crap.
I thoroughly enjoyed seasons 6 up to the first half of season 8. The entire series was amazing but the action scenes and battles were awesome until DD ruined everything the final 3 episodes
I dislike that the show seems to tell that there is a good reason for why women shouldn't rule - and it's because of birthing & child rearing. If anything birthing improves a woman's status, not impedes her to rule. I dislike that Rhaenyra is shown to regret being named heir as if naming women heirs is a bad idea in the first place. I dislike that there's so much emphasis on women not being accepted as rulers, when in the books more than half the kingdom supports Rhaenyra, including that famous traditional house.
how funny. irritated by all the spoilers out there, just before the season finale of HotD, i craved for a safe, yet meaningful discussion regarding the world of Westeros and Dragons and thought to myself "i wonder if The Take has done another HotD video yet". so i check YT and here it is. just dropped 5 hours ago! 😍 hope they keep making more!! 🐉
also... i was literally just talking about this yesterday over lunch with a friend.. how HotD learned (somewhat) from the mistakes of GOT...such as offering a female perspective and including POC into the Westerosi great houses and nobles.
A show isn't prejudiced for not having every single race represented. I wouldn't consider GoT's lack of diversity "a problem to solve" It's clearly set in a European setting. Slavic people. We can't expect places like that to be teeming with black people. We already had darker skinned people to the south like Dorne, Summer Ilse and Astapor. Geographically, that makes sense. Many of these ruling families are people who originated from these regions. I find it hard to believe the Targareyans and Velaryans originated from the exact same place. There's nowhere on earth right now where white and blackpeople originated from and evolved alongside each other. Putting black people on par with the Targaryans was them tossing us a bone of validation we never needed. Why not throw some Asians and Latinos in the mix huh?
But what they did not do right: the fucking wigs. Have they never seen a black person with dreads? Or a white person with properly bleached hair for that matter? Still shocked over the hair situation.
Daemon & Viserys both murder their wives (Daemon for hate, no less) and they never suffer any consequence, nor do they ever shed a second thought to their wives, or repent. I see rich women dying in child birth but I don't see their rich husbands dedicating a fund for developing a a safe C section technique. In 10 episodes I see 4 traumatic births. One might think that all that women ever do is birth traumatically, which is not the case - even if a woman births 7 times, that's just 7 days in 10000 days for a 30 year old woman. Rhaenyra is shown to wet her dress with breast milk, but she is a rich woman, at her third birth with a score of birth attendants. Surely some breast pads are available to her. Not to mention, bold as she is, she might have as well have answered, that this is a normal accurence, not something to be ashamed of.
Ok yes that Got ending was garbage but it's like people forgot all past season and how everywhere in the world it was hyped. I can see the the positive change that they made in hotd by learning the mistake they did on got but it's still too soo to say the fixed it
I do not think anyone loved GoT for the epic battles. Quite the opposite - when the show started to focus more on the battles and dragons instead of the plot and the dialogs it marked its decline.
Literally the best seasons are the first 1-4. Which start with little to no battles, or only showed a bit. Beginning with the battle of the bastards, at the end of season 5. Which had really good battle episodes, they just focused to much on them, maybe they had too because they had no clue what to write.
Wrong miss.
The dialogue are the best scenes
Yeah I was gonna say! My experience with HOTD so far is that the intriguing political plots and bonds within families is what makes it so good. It's reminiscent of the earlier seasons of GOT. The end of GOT failed because seemingly "epic" scenes were prioritized over actually doing the characters justice. If anyone started watching only because they wanted action-packed huge battles, they NEVER would have managed to sit through season one.
Exactly! GOT felt like a political show set in medieval time. The fantasy only made it more interesting, but the script was gold. House of Dragon hasn't achieve the same level of quality imho. Some scenes and dialogue feel super cringy and unnecessary to advance the story.
I do like that they changed Rhaenyra and Alicent to childhood friends. The evil stepmother trope in the books is so tiring
she's an evil stepmother regardless
@@cooki3th1ef she is far from evil.
@@alfonsovallejo2665 green’s propaganda
There are dragons and battles, BUT more politics and consequences for actions. These is what made GOT be amazing. A choice made, regardless the intent, always had consequences.
And in this case basically the same consquences, because they are just reusing the same homophobic plot line from the original show but making it worse.
@@Oxbloodmage boo hoo. Get a grip. Homophobic?? How do you ever deal with the real world?
@@Oxbloodmage lol you seem to be a snowflake who cant handle anything harsh,
@@Oxbloodmage in what way? Laenor got to leave his families expectations behind and live out his life with his partner. To me, that is the happiest end he could get. Free from his marriage.
@@Oxbloodmage how are they making it worse?
Aemma's birthing scene was so disturbing that I had to turn my head and close my eyes. I never do that when I watch shows like this. Bravo!
Same dude, it was the crying and begging Viserys to stop. The "please, no I don't to, I'm scared!!" That makes that scene literally unwatchable for me on second viewings of that episode. It's so well done and and written masterfully but it just destroys me,I'm too weak lmao.
Bravo vince
In this case it was more of a murder than a birth but yeah.
if you listen to the interviews by Paddy it wasent a question of ordering the death of his wife to try and save the child, if he hadnt ordered the c section both would die.. and even the choice of saving the child hounted him ever since and never made him hole again.
@@strange144 No, Aemma would have died regardless. It wouldn't have been a pretty death the other way, just slower.
The interesting fact about this female characters is that despite the sofference and and contradictions caused by their society they end up condemning their own children to the same miserable fate, generating the same contradictions through the next generation. Alicent and Raenyra are conscious of their conditions but in the end they reinforce the same conditions. I adore in this series that the characters are themselves without any external judgments, no one is good or evil per se and their weaknesses lead them in these situations.
Alicent and Rhaenyra's confrontation is a piece of art ngl
what do u mean with ' ngl'
I wanna see a painting.
@@tommo9176 Not gonna lie.
GOT was definitely more gorey and sexualized than HOTD. I’m glad they reduced that because it takes away from the plot and I feel like the last few seasons of GOT also reduced that as well.
It takes away from the plot??? Lol, that IS part of the plot. The show toned down the sex and violence in comparison with thr origonal books 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
the last few seasons took away much of its original sexualisation and much of its brain
@@greyLeicester totally agree
Im glad that you pointed that out.I also really liked that they focused on the Targaryen's/Hightowers and their feelings of longing and loneliness as it makes them very relatable and sympathetic characters.
@@greyLeicester I’d heartily disagree with that. GRRM gives very little time or energy to any of the sex or violence in the books. All of the drama and tension has to do with the characters and the dramatic irony of what we the readers know that the characters don’t.
How is HotD better than GoT??? David and Dan arent there to ruin it.
Boom. Video done.
I know right... It is by far better than season 8-6, but not sure about the earlier Game of thrones seasons.
😂😂😂
@@majormononoke8958 that was because they had actual stories to copy. HOTD requires more talented writers since it is a history and so far its surprisingly impressive despite some problems.
@@majormononoke8958 between 5-8 imo, 1-4 definitely a masterpiece even "less battle"
Imagine if they adapted the WHOLE book, that would make the Dance start later
GRMM apparently wanted to start with the reign of Jahaerys.
@@alejandromartinezmontes6700 oh my God that would have been amazing. His reign was my favourite part of the book
@@alejandromartinezmontes6700 Unfortunately HBO wanted to start shortly before the Dance- basically episode 6 would be the pilot.
@@TheCowardRobertFord I'm pretty happy with the compromise.
I’d be cool if they adapted more of the book in future series. I would watch tf out of an Aegon’s Conquest series.
Talking about the female perspective: That's what I love The Take for. Over the years, I've been following and unfollowing so many film channels. With you, I've never been disappointed.
The female perspective that gay men are like children they take care of. This blows so much smoke up their ass no wonder they like it.
Yeah I love their videos
I was disappointed when they released that video saying Harry Potter was not a hero… but luckily MovieFlame made an amazing video responding to them and they were wise enough to take it down.
Their videos on Gone Girl and the 'Cool Girl' trope are damn near perfect.
@@ConstanzaRigazio Their analysis of Ron Swanson is also not the best work they have done. I think this video isn't that good either.
It's very disturbing (& perhaps telling,) how the show writers rewrote consensual sex, or no sex at all, into sexual violence & don't even get me started on how Sansa's rape focused on the reaction of a FREAKING MAN! Changing source material was a choice. WHY?!? The final girl trope & making women suffer is no longer limited to the horror genre. Perhaps you can provide a take on content that needlessly exploits & hurts women & what it says about the men who create/watch it.
I can understand why Sophie Turner says that acting on that show was traumatizing now
Sansa told Theon how she feels every night when Bolton rapes her every time.
Yes it's abhorrent, it's absolutely disgusting.
That was when I (one of those annoying people who read and loved the books before the show) stopped watching for good. I was already near my quitting point over... other issues, but that pushed me over the edge. There was no need, except to gratify a certain, frightening portion of the audience, and the showrunners themselves.
That rape scene (although it wasn't Sansa in the books) was from the perspective of Theon. It was a Theon chapter. He was forced to perform oral s*x the girl that was supposed to be Arya in the books, for the pleasure of Ramsey. Ramsey basically abused both the girl and theon in this situation. In the show, they focused on his reaction because that's how it was in the books.
There will be no (big) time skipping in future seasons. The war is here. We needed that foundation, and creators decided to start earlier than many book fans expected... what is important is that now, other houses will enter the game, the world will open... and we will see, what happens when Targaryens are torn apart.
Dance of Dragons has begun.
After only season one 😂 calm down. GoT was a masterpiece for at least 5 seasons. Give HotD some time after jumping the shark.
It's already done that with the time jump and the whole Leanor storyline being deeply homophobic.
@@Oxbloodmage what homophobia are you referring to?
@@Oxbloodmage homophobic? They literally avoided his unnecessary death from the books...
@@Oxbloodmage Oh so gay people can't be murdered? I thought gay people were, you know, people. Just like everybody else?
With this one at least they won't have to improvise the end
No, it didn't fix Game of Thrones. That ship's sailed, and I don't think anything they release can mend the last season.
They are trying tho to connect these series and the future Snow series to the main plot of GOT. I'm very sceptical about it tbh, but the signs are there: the valyrian dagger, Dany's dragon eggs, the song of ice of fire 🙄
Wouldn’t you like to know you are hilarious let’s be positive about it 😅
I take issue with the declaration GOT wasn’t a family drama. Beginning to end it followed the Starks and their evolving relationship with Westeros and with each other.
From my perspective GoT HAD family drama mixed with the bigger conflict but it wasn't A family drama. It wasn't Sansa Vs Bran for the control of Winterfel, like it is Rhaernyra vs Aegon II for the iron throne.
I love this show and all it’s trapping. It’s not perfect but it’s carefully crafted and very well done. However I don’t think it’s fair for some people to already be comparing season 1 of this to GoT’s 5 (4?) amazing seasons. Let’s give the show time to breathe maybe? I get that the shows are in the world and it’s very hard not to compare the two but can we wait a little. Let the shit stretch it’s legs? We see that the scope and focus of the two series is wildly different.
Now i need The Take to take on AMC's Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire. Need both of my favorite shows this season covered.
YES
The only thing that can fix GoT is either the final book or a remake in the future
Let's be honest: GoT went downhill after season 5, though it still had impressive scenes and great substories. The last season was just the nail to the coffin.
@@mina_en_suiza I dont remember season 6, so it probally was average. But 7 already was a disaster in some episodes. 8 was just = Shit/ not watchable. I actually liked season 5, but as some people point out there were already problems there.
Rhaenyra’s entire story is everything we hoped Dany’s would be
Who is she freeing?
Wait why? We hoped Danny starts a war that ends up killing all dragons? We hoped Danny to get eaten by dragon and not end up on the throne? Nah. I don't want that for Danny. Danny had a chance of being a better Queen.
Both dragon bitches are psychopaths
@@x25violator Rhaenyra didn’t start the war though. The Greens did when they usurped her throne.
Okay, but at least as far as the show goes, we haven't had the entire story yet. Maybe hold that thought until then??
That last episode was AMAZING!!! Its sooooo good yet so devastating. Definitely will be patiently waiting for season 2
I think saying it fixes Thrones is a very generous thing to say. The only way Thrones can be truly fixed is when Martin actually shows us what happened in a better executed way than Season 8.
But that said, it's nice to see a return to formula for this franchise and to see people actually excited about something within it again.
Well there is nothing to be fixed really, GOT remains one of the most popular tv shows on HBO. GRRM will never finish.
@@ianvera4299 Yeah popular with a majority of the fanbase still up in arms over how bad the last season was.
That's not good.
@@sophieamandaleitontoomey9343 Every popular fandom has toxic fans that complain all the time, that's the norm.
GOT is still HBO gold, That is good.
I LOVE how the world and history is built. The symbolism of House Tagaeryen (idk how to spell it) is wonderful. From the differing accents of Rhaenyra and Daenerys to the differences in the look of Kingslanding. We get to see the fall of a dynasty and the effects on its people. In Rhaenyra’s time, she was privileged, the dragons had a stable and saddles and armour used. She had been taught like a true princess and had a perfect knowledge of her mother tongue. With Dany, she has an English accent, hasn’t had the proper education and had to figure out her own history on her own. Even the differences regarding the dragons are strong. They seem like horses in HOTD, tame and understood, almost like a pet. Dany however had a unique bond with them, not requiring a saddle or armour to ride them. That primal bond she had with the dragons not only comes across as endearing but also we feel pity for her now that we have a comparison between her and Rhaenyra who had been handed all of her knowledge and understanding. I find that fascinating.
*Targaryen
@@Butterflieslove2 thank you!
I think the comparison to horses kinda understates how powerful the dragons are - and I don't think there is a good analogue for what the dragons are. However, I think it does indicate how dragons are treated - and maybe that's where the interesting part lies. You end up treating this living nuke like a horse, with no appreciation of its power, because the realm has been at peace for years.
Dany 's dragons ate children. All she could do to stop them was to chain them underground
I really like the HoD, but I find it more simple and linear than GoT, on GoT there were a lot o concurrent plots developing at the same time plus we took the point of view of many different people that had their own adventures separated from one another, Here the story very focuses only on rhaenyra and his quest for the iron throne, It's different but not in a bad way overall I had enjoyed it very much
I disagree, I don't think Rhaenyra manipulated the 'naive', duty bound Criston Cole. Even though she is the princess, if he had rejected her advances, she would not have said anything because her position would have been compromised. He had enough time to think about his honor, but he decided to accept her advances. The fact that he want her to marry and escape with him is not because he loves her, but because he wants to redeem his honor, which he lost the moment he accepted her. Anyways, loved the video and the overall analysis.
Because guys are never pressured or cole wasn’t worried about refusing a literal princess. 🙄
Imagine genders reversed in the scene.
‘Oh she could of said no more’
If the genders were changed, many people will him a rapist .
Rhaenyra is Criston Cole's princess, if he doesn't do what she wants, she can say anything and Cole loses his job (as much as we know she wouldn't). But if he gives in to her, he loses his honor and his ONLY ACHIEVEMENT. Something that Rhaenyra doesn't relate to because she never saw the urge to work hard from a lower social class. And Cole doesn't relate to the fact that Rhaenyra has a duty to inherit the throne because he thinks she can step down at any time without thinking of the political consequences.
Rhaenyra was in a position of power with respect to Criston. And he DID ask her MORE THAN ONCE to stop and she didn't. She didn't manipulate him but she put a lot of pressure on him that night.
@@AngieSweet well said! 👌👌👌
It’s definitely worth mentioning that Rhaenyra is also technically a child when this happens
No, episode 9 has actually ruined GOT even more. Jon Snow killed Danaerys because she killed a bunch of civilians. But Rhaenys also killed a bunch of civilians but we're supposed to act like its not big deal. But if killing KL civilians is no big deal, then that means Danaerys did nothing wrong and the true villain is Jon Snow for killing her.
Maybe a stretch, but it is a lingering implication that is a result of poor writing, designed for shock.
Are we really going to compare that awful final season? Season 8 had no creative writing at all, so why even bother. But when Alicent had the previous hand and his son killed to get her father back, nobody said anything. People always pick and choose. And didn't even see any dead bodies when Rhaenys's dragon appeared when we literally saw Dany burned people.
@@soradanam8160 This has all the same deficiencies of season 8.
Mass murder is mass murder. Both did an evil thing for there own benefit, but danny was at least at war with KL. Rhaenys killed them all just to save her own life. There is no moral consistency.
Like Jamie and cersie fucking is wrong, but its ok for Jon and Danny. And now they want us to be empathetic towards these characters and turn a blind eye to the fact that theyre all related.
I dont get why theyre trying to portray targs as good people with causes and claims that we should give a shit about.
@@jdogsful Where does it show where Rhaenys killing people. Did you see any dead bodied after the dragon left? No, and it was known for Targaryens to have relationship with their relatives. Why you shock now? But they often did to have stronger holds upon the throne, Aegon the conquer married both of his sisters to have a strong claim. Not saying it's right or wrong, but it would be weird for anyone else. However, if your going to point that out, there people marrying their cousin, like Tywin was married to his cousin. But some people did that in medieval period. And game of thrones points out that not everyone in the series is completely good. So why you surprise? And if you're having such a problem of it, then don't watch it. No one is asking you to. Especially wasting time of comparing that awful season 8.
@@soradanam8160 lol. you dont think rhaenys action would have killed anyone? Sound like youre not interested in actually questioning whether the show makes sense, and youd rather come up with stupid justifications like "i didnt see no dead bodies" or "incest was common in medieval times", despite the fact that show itself established that incest is bad with jamie and cersei, and mass murder is bad.
This is equally as shit as s8, with all the same rushed, contrived, poorly conceived execution.
@@jdogsful Then don't watch the show. And like your not coming up with justifications, when there wasn't evidence shown of Rhenys killing people. If someone or people were being killed off it was always shown. In the last episode no was was shown being killed. Are you even watching the show or did you just watch a clip on youtude? And as I stated it was more known to the Targaryens, even the Cersei said it herself. And I didn't say it was good, I'm just saying it was known. Reasons why I also said in the game of thrones there's no always good and bad, it fine line in between.
But if you're having such an issue, if maybe the show isn't for you. No one is really forcing you to watch it.
I feel like The Take hasn't actually watch Got, or read the books. The whole point is to show things from the underdogs perspective. Sansa (a woman in the hands of phsyco boy king), Arya (a little girl seperated from her family and alone in the world), Catelyn (a mother trying to do what is best for her children and yet from her pov watching countless tragedies befall them), Tyrion (a disabled by medieval standards man who is made fun of and hated by everyone around him), Dany (A woman sold by her brother who must take up the reigns of being queen at fourteen while dealing with the loss of her entire family and husband whom she loved). Not all the perspectives are women and thats ok. They don't need to be. But to say that the issues women face aren't told from those women's perspectives is completely false.
Agreed 100%
Honestly, there needs to be a disconnect between books, earlier seasons and later seasons. The points you bring up are a reality for the earlier ones but as they go away from the books that becomes more and more of a half truth, at best.
I mean, they kill Dany and it's kind of framed from Jon's perspective. While it's true that at that point Dany was the villain (let's not open that can of worms, the showrunners made a decision and run (heh) with it.
George is a man of his age and it's noticeable at times but he's always tried to frame everything as well as he could. Sometimes his toyboy preferences come through... but sometimes he hits jackpot and gets everything just right
I agree a thousand percent, (in the books) with Sansa, a girl raised under the false idea of chivalry, find out how unjust the world is. But later find power in being the ideal "lady" to her advantage. With Arya we see a poor girl with a sword scrape by and see the unholy truth of war and suffering, that turns her apathetic, leading her to become a member of a cult of assassins killing people without remorse. With Dany we see a girl sold as a broodmare, pushing through with what little power she can, gain an army free slaves and take a city. But even that has consequences for her, showing that ruling is a lot harder than one thinks and being good won't solve everything. Grrm's books are pretty tragic and REALLY dark, but it does have a realistic take to it.
sorry but showing the underdogs stories doesn't mean we are seeing the events from their perspective just because we are seeing them suffer 🤷♀️
The Take had so many brilliant videos about GOT, you have to be joking.
It is all because GRRM is involved in every bit of HOTD. That’s pretty much it
As someone who's read the books I never really vibed with GoT, not even the first seasons. It messed up the timeline and made a lot of changes that didn't make any sense. Also, it ruined a lot of characters.
HoD, on the other hand, has to make a lot more creative choices since it's based on a sort of historical account. And still, it feels (maybe because of the higher budget) a lot more similar to the Westeros of the books. It actually feels like a visual representation of Westeros; I love it.
I don't get why Raenyra "has to fix" Dani or is everything we hoped her to be, when the book (and if you read them you know what I'm talking about) specifically tells you that Dany isn't going to be a positive character. I am really tired of Dany being pushed as this amazing woman, when for gods sake, she wasn't written to be a positive, good character. The show wrongly elevated her to be one and then rushed her downfall in two episodes of the last season, when it should have been developed more, and that I agree with. But Dany wasn't anything but a crazed lunatic/villain to be. And that is fine. I don't feel personally attacked as a woman. It's actually nice to see a proper female villain not holier than thou character, nor a poor victim. There are plenty of good female characters in fiction that I can positively identify with. Dani was never one of them.
preach
That may have been what Dany was in the books but that is not the way she was portrayed in the show, and that is why people hated what they did to her character at the end, and they had every right to feel that way.
@@haselbasil2488. I get that, and in fact I added "The show wrongly elevated her to be "perceived as a good character "and then rushed her downfall in two episodes of the last season".
Frankly, just because they put epic music when showing scenes of murder and torture, we should still be able to see these acts for what they actually are. I really don't think that if this happened in the real world people would be celebrating her as a good commander or a good person to be honest. And it doesn't matter how shitty the civilisation she conquered was, you just don't do that. Because if you do... well you are an imperialist. I think that you have to be smart if you want to change a way a society works, not through blood shed and massacres. Because that ends up being ineffective. But this is my opinion.
I always compare her to Stannis' treatment: he too did a horrible thing, breaking a taboo. But let's try and understand his action: he sacrificed his daughter (sad, but it's one person compared to thousands Dany killed), but he did it for the good of Westeros, where everything is moved by prophecies. To us this is insane, but suspencion of disbelief I guess.
I hope I made my position clear. I'm not attacking people, I too have the right to (politely) express my opinion. I agree with you though, ultimately it's the writers' fault.
@@cz2766 Except Dany was showing signs since season 1. It was not rushed in two episodes
Season 8 was an abomination. No fixing it.
Yep so true
House of the Dragon is honestly worse. Because there's no attachment to these awful characters
@@Oxbloodmage worse than season 8 you mean? No way you are saying that
@@Oxbloodmage Lmao, the hell. Allision and Rhaenera and the king were attachable. The problem is they changed actors, for Allision it is ok because the 2nd actress looks very similar and plays similar aswell just like the younger one. But for Rharnera it is hard, the actress looks nothing like the younger one and also plays to different...
@@majormononoke8958 The older actors were actually cast first. The younger ones were cast later. Emma D'Arcy has done a good job.
I like the intimacy of House of the Dragon. Instead of following multiple weaving plotlines of palace intrigue and the various houses of Westeros, this one exclusively delves into the Targaryens. That really allowed for deeper familial relationships to be explored, and it covered a 20 year time lapse that didn't confuse the viewers, because it built on the character growth and development of the generations born into King Viserys's bloodline. There's no external force pushing on them to react the way they do, no threat that is pulling them apart, it's just normal family dynamics within a privileged family, and the convictions of the household bound to uphold prophecy and destiny. For a show set in a mythical land with lore come to life, dragons, and magic, it makes the setting more believable and the characters relateable. I love that the complications of powerful women are being examined more thoroughly, in ways that Game of Thrones didn't. Don't get me wrong - Cersei Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, and Catelyn Stark are prime examples of well-crafted fictional women, but I am really digging the dynamics between Rhaenyra and Alicent, and the morally ambiguous character of Mysaria who seems to be this series version of Lord Varys, pulling strings and perpetuating a network of spies within and outside the castle.
HotD isn’t perfect, I had some issues with the way they handled some of the middle part of the season - Harwin Strong, Laena Velaryon - and certain cliche elements (Daemon’s unecessary superhero moment vs Crabfeeder, anyone?). However, particularly Episodes 7, 8 and 10 really kicked it up a notch, makes me very excited for Season 2!
In the book "Game of Thrones" Khal Drogo did not rape Danerys Targaryen on their wedding night. The act was consensual. The rape scene in the GoT pilot was gratuitous and unnecessary.
Nothing about that relationship was consensual. Stop being a rapist apologist.
@@universe.factory Exactly also in the book Dany is 13 so that's way, way worse.
The bitter anti woke crowd thought that making one character black would derail the series and no one would watch….boy were they wrong.
Yeah! And it made them even better characters when their race meant absolutely nothing.
Well, I might not be alone on this, I am honestly surprised about HotD, exceeded all expectations, but, It doesnt compare to GoT, hopefully "yet". Amazing serie though
Your not alone on this
I don't understand why gender is an issue in this middle aged inspired series, and sexualilty also seems to be, but not race? I appreciate diversity in movies and TV - why I follow The Take - but to me the whole Valaryons-are-black-and-everyone-else-white-basically-without-dealing-with-race seems like tokenism.
We already know how the dance of the dragons end. It is solidified lore...
I actually enjoyed GOT far more than HOTD. In GOT we got lots of storylines and we could see not only the perspective of one overprivileged family, but of many diverse characters: children, bastards, slaves, fanatics, people with disabilities, strong women and gentle women, warriors and victims of abuse. Yeah we didn't get much childbirth, but we got so much else instead. And I know people hate last seasons, they were not good written, but the arcs of characters and the messages were brilliant. Fight for throne was never really important. What mattered was the roots of corruption and tyrany, questions of loyalty, poison of revenge, possibilities of changing your path and redemption, the influence of smallest thing on the future events, the dangers of a great force (like nature and climate in our world, which I believe, the White Walkers represented) and an immense sacrifice people would make to fight it. In comparison to this, in HOTD we have a fight for the throne, based on quarrels, ambition and offences, where practically no one except for the royal family matters. It definitely didn't fix GOT in any way, I just hope HOTD will fix itself in later seasons and provide more meaningful plotlines.
i kinda agree, GOT's scale of themes, genres, characters, world and the story itself definitely feels bigger and makes the show more exciting in many ways. So i also prefer GOT season 1 over HOTD season 1, but i still enjoyed HOTD as i went into the show expecting a much more narrow and personal story which also needs a lot of time to set things up
GOT and HOTD are very different in the core conflict. It's not House Lannister trying to keep the throne against the Starks who just want justice/revenge or the Baratheons who also want power. HOTD is literally family drama, how a family can implode so expectacularly bc of the decisions made by one party. There aren't more plot lines to follow bc it's only one family fighting with each other instead of 5 kings a Queen and a zombie apocalypse.
GOT S1 showed how the choice of one man to be honorable and the choice of one child to kill said man can destroy a country.
HOTD S1 shows the snowball effect decisions taken wo the consent of the entire familial group have on it and how one unrelated agent can worm it's way in causing so much chaos it drives the family to murdering each other.
GOT had the advantage that its source material is much richer; but it's also much more dense, making more difficult to adapt for TV, moreover, the books have not been finished up to today.
I understand that this is a feminist channel and they will consider those aspect mentioned in the video to be an improvement, but I don't think that is the case.
You make great points.....but the show being called house of the dragon means the story is based around a royal family it doesn't need to emulate GOT's themes......both shows are different in their own right and that's a good thing
We got a scene where hotd showed the perspective of the average citizens when Rhaenyra watched the theatrical play with Daemon.
just as an fyi, don't assume that rhaenyra will have a happy ending. I'm honestly a little surprised they picked this story of the dance of the dragons for a spin-off given Rhaenyra's ending and how much backlash Dany's season 8 arc got. I do not see them changing her ending to a large extent, I think it will fundamentally be similar to how it is in Fire and Blood. also, this is the story of a Targaryen civil war/beginning of the decline of the Targaryen dynasty (not a spoiler, this is part of HBO marketing). fans building up the Targaryens/stanning them so hard are missing the point tbh. no need to justify things they do cause they're your faves, they all suck and are war criminals essentially.
Yeah, The Take doesn't like that Jon killed Dany for instance, even though he was right to do it. I like this channel most of the time but they can be biased about stuff.
Still cant get over the feet thing lol 🐾🤮
onlywesteros haha
incest and rape isn't a problem for you though...
@@graffity_x6624 oo get off your high horse, it's a fantasy drama!! Buzz off please!!
@@skydigtal why do you cry cause of some naked feet then?
@@graffity_x6624 I'm not crying! I was shocked at the scene because its not mentioned in fire and blood. .. Each to there own I guess. I just didn't expect Larys to handle himself over the Alicents feet. I personally hate seeing people's feet! 😒 Anyway it was damn good writing to introduce that about the character, since he has a club foot!
Lol the only reason why Raenyra challenges the expectations is that she knows that she will avoid any consequences if she fails. She neglects rules she doesn't challenge them.
Unpopular opinion: Raenyra had a good potential to be an amazing queen, but she grew up being entitled and hypocrite and considers her heritage as given. I do hope that they would NOT sugarcoat her queendom. And I also dont think that Aegon deserves the throne. Only person who really deserved to be Queen is Raenys. Period.
Not team Black or Green, there are no heroes or villans
At least in the book, Rhaenyra never becomes queen.
Finally somebody said it! It's not a story about girl power, it's a story about royal privilege. Rhaenyra is likeable to some extent because she is badass and fiery, but she is also a liar and takes advantage of people. Alicent had suffered much more throughout the years than Rhaenyra but still managed to maintain her humanity, which is something I admire her for. Still not Iron Throne material though. Rhaenys should be queen, she's the most emotionally intelligent, experienced and strongest of all the other candidates.
@@mina_en_suiza she does. although it only lasts 6 months and she's given the name "half year queen"
@@KingKongHitDaBong You're right. I completely forgot. Just skimmed through the book and yes: I have to take my statement back.
@@mina_en_suiza aha cant blame you as her rule was very brief. also aegon the second had her rule removed from the history books so many in westeros arent even aware
Honestly i have no complaint about Hotd ,before i didn't like the change about Aemond "accidentally" murdering Luke but now it makes sense with the whole dragons bond. The only thing i don't like is the chatachterization ofAlicent. It's great that they made her more grey and not evil stepmother but what i liked in the books it was the fact the she was like the boss of the green. Even though she was a victim she still had her agencies and was a great complex female characters. In the show Alicent just seem she has no agency
I wonder since GRRM is fully involved in this series and approved of these retcons I wonder if he gave the book some thought and would have gone back to make these changes and is expressing them through the adaptation instead.
After one season?
Laena going out like a badass and refusing to allow a man to use he was a highlight!!
Very well done. The last one or two GoT videos from this channel had me raising my eyebrows, but I really appreciate the balanced approach here, plus the acknowledgement that there is still plenty more to come.
I also really still love and appreciate the representation of autism that we see in Helaena. I’m very grateful for it
than you realize bran is gonna take the iron throne anyway
Better Bran than Dany
@@ianvera4299 me when I lie cause Im bored
@@neaton_1948 what lie
I really hate the idea that what drew people to GOT originally was dragons, tits, and sword fights. In the same way that people loved The Sopranos because it brought deep character study to the genre of gangsters, GOT did the same for fantasy. Characters were complex, felt like they had contradictions and rich inner lives.
The problem with HOTD is it feels like instead of focusing on putting character back at the foreground - recapturing the early magic of GOT - it went in with a list of themes and big ideas and then just slotted a load of empty stereotypes around it. They want to discuss female power, but all the women feel like they were created just in relation to this, with nothing else to add to the story. This one is here to represent this, that one represents that. The end result, for me, feels incredibly flat.
The end result = SHIT. Worst of all, all people knew it...
Another thing I like is how every little decision had an impact on the story, while in GOT the first seasons were like than but then for characters like Dany they went with whole "Oh it's genetics...she is mad" without depht analysis on why she became they way she was
I think we'll see more battles in the next 2 seasons of HOTD. I would assume and hope more of a focus on the dragons.
To be honest house of dragons is better than GOT to me because they learned to get straight to the point and make every scene count.
Really to me this entire first season could be cut and you'd lose nothing. It's less story telling and more just a series of events to which the motivations for are incredibly contrived.
@@Oxbloodmage Yet it brings in millions of viewers and is keeping a high view count every episode and most likely will next season to and as long as they make money by getting people to watch they will keep making more no matter what you thing of it.
still a bit too rush for me. I need the last episode delivered in 2 hours at least 🥲
@@Oxbloodmage exactly how I feel.
@@universe.factory How the hell am I offended I j8ust pointed out facts
Isn't house of the dragon based in the novel universe and not necessarily the tv show adaptation? That's what I tell myself whenever they talk about the long night.
House of the dragon is not as great as the first few season of GoT. Just a fundamental misunderstanding of what made it great. It’s not about dragons and battles it’s about the game.
So basically HoTD is perfect and GoT was utter trash?
Sorry, HoTD stands on the shoulders of what GoT built. Period.
I will never understand the trend of recency bias. The same people who are saying HoTD is the greatest thing ever now are the same people who said GoT was the greatest thing back then.
A more nuanced take is that both are great adaptions of the source material that make for entertaining viewership. Stop throwing around hyperbole. It denigrates both shows.
You understand english? You come to your trash conclusion. It never says its trash, it says how it improved upon it.
@@frankreynolds9930 Chill
Now comes the Game of Waiting for the next season!!! This should be atleast 15 episodes per season...
Don’t worry, the time jumps are mostly over. It was just a lot of context to set up
The main criticisms with Game of Thrones were not mainly about representation or violence against women (though the Sansa getting R-word purely for shock value was rightfully criticized). The reason most people absolutely hated Season 8 (in particular) was because the showrunners took Martin's Lore and characters, poured gasoline on them and threw them in a trash fire. Then they doodled their own characters and scribbled their own story, and tried to convince us that they were better then the originals.
Yet Sansa being R-word was not purely shock value, it was part of her arc and progressed the story forwards. Season 8 was rushed, but nothing was ruined to the point of it being a dumpster fire. HOTD is proof GOT was never beyond being forgotten. D&D never convinced anyone that they were better than the originals, but at least they gave us an ending on time and didn't break their promises. Credit where it due, GOT remains the best fantasy tv show of all time.
@@ianvera4299 If you read the books you'll realize just how terrible (downright disrespectful to the lore and author even) the last seasons were. Doesn't matter if the last book is not out, they went well above and beyond to screw everything up, in ways that only someone who had never read a single book (yet was making a whole adaptation of it) could.
Season 8 was beyond rushed... and yet they filled it with boring filler scenes with dialogue that made the characters dumber then ever.
Sansa doesn't get R-worded by Ramsey in the books... but every character from the show certainly gets R-worded by the show's story-line!
Examples: Masterminds Varys, Tyrion and Little Finger become incredibly dumb.
Jon Snow (the actual hero of the books... around whom all the major prophecies circle) is tossed aside and completely forgotten. Danny spends an hour burning women and children in the streets because... bells?
Jaimie?? The poor guy suddenly regresses so fast and so much that he finds himself a few squares before the one where he started!!
The Long Night? THE major threat prophecized for which Targaryens have been preparing since before HOTD? You know... WINTER IS COMING?
Turns out t'was more like a quick evening! The Night King (portrayed as Martin's ''absolute favorite'' trope of ''one-dimensional villain existing solely to be evil'') turned out pretty easy to tackle!
Danny? God don't get me started on what they did to her.
These are ONLY the very tiny tip of the iceberg of what D & D phenomenally screwed btw!! There's probably millions of hours worth of videos on TH-cam trying to list them all... and I'm not talking about lore fanatic nitpicking.
@@kated3165 I did read the UNFINISHED books. And let me guess, your the type of person to write an entire essay that one asked for, huh.
Unlike you, I will keep this short and to the point. D&D did NOT ruin anything and they are the reason GRRM is household name and made the best fantasy tv show. They actually held up their side of the bargain and actually gave us an ending on time. Period.
@@ianvera4299
No, they did not.
D & D wrote the first pilot that was so bad and embarrassing that it was deleted so the public could never see it. The show almost never got made because of that.
HBO then gave it another shot and sent them actual writers to do it for them. Their pilot was a huge hit, as were their episodes.
The series went increasingly downhill again when they took back the reins.
Millions of fans now wish the show had remained UNFINISHED.
@@kated3165 Yes they did.
Yet GOT ended up being the best anyways lol.
D&D are actual writers, Beniof even won a pulitzer award. The show was and still is a huge hit.
They always had the reins, and by downfill you mean increase of ratings and emmys.
And Millions of fans still love GOT REAGRDLESS.
Keep coping
HOTD does indeed highlight the harsh Nature of Childbirth. It’s a patriarchal world, but at least the females are not half naked and treated as sexual objects as much as GOT every did.
I agree with your assessment, but I’m sure what was truly fixed
You do realize it’s a tv show it’s fake
@@keonjackson9767 of course they are comparing one TV show to another TV show- you seem so proud of yourself
What’s so great about the early season’s of thrones is it’s all political intrigue with battle lightly peppered in.
People like the story and characters- the last three series lost all sight of this and did a bunch of things that didn’t make sense for characters or story.
THATS WHY WE HATE IT.
HOT D is all story, and waaay more of a gray area when it comes to right and wrong. It makes you think, and launches great discussion. Me and my wife take 2 hours to watch an episode because we pause and talk about it
"giving birth is just as risky as going to war". holding true to the name of the channel. that is a Take
I thought i was the only one who heard that line, the massive eye roll i did required me to go and fetch my eyes at the back of my brain
I quit the video around the 30-second mark. That's when I realized that the video had nothing to do with to quality of the show, or actual filmmaking. It's just woke-propaganda that has no relation to reality and the real world.
At least, I am grateful, that the video showed their colours early on, so I didn't have to sit through the whole ordeal.
Rhaenyra and Criston's dynamic seems inspired by Arianne and Arys Oakheart in the books, not Dany and Jon.
I wanna know how Mysaria stopped herself from ever getting pregnant
You're really trying to say that being groomed by her cousin is positive in comparison to alicent?
Do a take on the series finale of Better Call Saul.
THANK YOU! We've been waiting since forever!
One of my fave shows❤️🔥💪🏻
@@Butterflieslove2 Mine too.
Don't get me wrong. I loved Season One of "House of the Dragon". But it's too damn early to make this assumption that the series has "fixed" "Game of Thrones".
We need a video analysis of Daemon and Rhaenyra's relationship and how they are actually toxic 💀
I do think there is one thing lacking: humor. Man, how we miss a character like Tyrion on the first 4 seasons. Everything else, I am liking a lot.
The ones that say HOD is boring are the same one that think the fast and the furious franchise is the best!
Those are the same people who later seasons of game of thrones catered to.
It's not boring it's just dumb, the conflicts are contrived, the writing is obvious and bad. It's this nasty stupid show filled with unlikable people making nonsensical dumb choices.
@@Oxbloodmage ok mister expert, so tell me, what show has all the qualities you just described?
I strongly disagree at 2:16 that "Viserys ultimately only see his wife as a vehicle to get a male heir". That does him a great disservice and a blatant lie. He was presented with 2 terrible choices by the maesters. Either they remove the baby; killing her in the process or both mother and child die. In either case she's not leaving that room alive.
It didn’t. Y’all should be called trash takes instead
I highly disagree. This show is not even close to be as good and intelligent as GOT. The only chance they have to nail it is with a worthy ending. And all the time skipping parts are _far_ from being a bonus.
i was finally actually excited in watching the show, not for battle but for choices and decisions characters would make in response to each other like a chain reaction, that's what made GOT intriguing for me in the first place
I disagree that the women's struggle weren't put in perspective.
Sansa had to accept she was a girl surrounded by enemies who would kill her if she rebelled. No other Stark would have survived being that position. She later learns how to play the game by watching these enemies.
Daenerys was sold then r***** by her husband. She couldn't just leave an abusive relationship like most women in that situation. She learns to pleasure then love Khal Drogo, then become a respected Khaleesi and later Queen.
Arya, though strong-willed, realizes she cannot protect her family. She goes on a journey to get revenge on those who have taken her family away from her.
They're development and growth from trauma is slow-burning yet so satisfying, moreso than HOTD where there are more than a few time jumps.
A lot of the abuse in GoT is gratuitous, but this analysis appears to be virtue-signaling for feminism and actually minimizes the complexity of other female characters.
Raise other female characters up, dont tear them down
Hmm... I am not sure if I entirely agree. I can see where you feel like a woman's perspective is in GOT through individual characters: Sansa the girly girl, Dany the "Girl-Boss" and Arya the tough girl. But, I felt that women as a whole are much more three dimensional than the female tropes conveyed on GOT. Some of the critiques of Sansa, Dany and Arya were pretty fair IMO. Sansa represented women who were born and remained in the upper-classes; yes, all of the main characters were noble, but with Sansa she never really left the noble world like Dany or Arya. Dany was a noble too, but she never got to experience that privilege from the beginning; her story has a lot of problematic representation regarding her relationships to BIPOC. Dany was r*** by her husband in their first scene which didn't happen in the books initially. Plus, the BIPOC characters we see with her on the show aren't depicted as being loyal to her purely out of choice; they are loyal to her as freed slaves---which is a played out white-savior narrative. Then, you have Arya's scenes where she appears to look down on traditional femininity through the eyes of someone who thinks being feminine is inherently weaker than taking on traditionally masculine roles like fighting and swordplay. Finally, they did not show the aftermath of trauma in a way that was empowering; GOT had moments where sex and sexual violence were either gratuitous i.e. not from the books themselves, or that traumatic experiences were like a phenix rising from the ashes moment. Instead of relaying that characters like Sansa and Dany were strong already without the added trauma, Dan and Dave decided to add lines like: "Without Joffrey and Ramsey, and all the rest..." TL;DR I get that you love these characters, I do too, but I did not always like their lines and how they were portrayed on screen.
@@amy675fly I don't think these characters were intended to be written as "strong already". Sansa and Arya were girls. I believe there was alot more to them than just the girly-girl and tough girl.
Sansa realized her dreams of living the stories she read about of princes and princesses were fairytales. Her meekness was actually a positive that allowed her to survive and learn from Cersei which she states. I agree that she should not have said Ramsey and Joffrey made her who she is, but I would attribute that to D&D crap writing. Her years in King's Landing provided her with valuable political savvy she would not have learned that made her a stronger leader.
Arya was portrayed as a tomboy. Her strong willed attitude did not make her invincible. It also did not protect her family. She had to rely on a member of the Night's Watch, Jaqen Hagar, and the Hound to keep her alive before she started to learn the skills to fight for herself. The Stark sisters' journeys led them down dark, lonely paths that made them grow and cherish their family more.
Daenerys white savior storyline is definitely problematic and her girl bossing can get annoying. However she was a pawn used by her brother who hoped to get power and armies through trading her off. She realized she is strong and capable of earning respect from her husband, the Dothraki, and other people and cities.
These characters are in the midst of a shifting political landscape where a hand, and king have died which lead to more deaths affecting the peace of Westeros causing lines to be drawn and alliances made making every move a step toward life or death.
It is not about loving the characters. They are all complex and well-written(up to a certain point). The critiques are choosing to focus on plot points, which are sometimes admittedly gratuitous and poorly execute, that aren't completely favorable toward the female characters while failing to highlight crucial arcs.
HOTD is good. But it's characters exist in a time where their family has been ruling in a time of 100 years of peace whilst having dragons. They will not have half of the experiences the characters existing around the war of the 5 kings would have. I agree the representation in HOTD is a lot better. The characters seem to only operate throught the lens of desire vs. duty. Which is a good duality. However GoT had more nuanced character motivations and I'm hoping we'll see that in future seasons of HOTD
nope, thats the worst way of representation
like Sansa says - "That rape made me stronger and better than who I was that time", and is thankful it happened
Duuude...
@@Gabreyes093 thank you for taking the time to respond to me! Tl; dr, I'm sorry, but we just have to agree to disagree. There was a point on the show when George RR Martin was in the writer's room with D&D. That's why in seasons 1-4, and the books, the female characters were more three-dimensional versus in later seasons where their characterization is pretty flat IMO. In HOTD, GRRM is joined in the writer's room with female writers. To me, this was a much needed improvement. HOTD has more nuanced characters than GOT, but also than Fire and Blood. GRRM said himself that he liked the additions, particularly regarding King Viseyrs**(sp?), a male character. I just think that the last seasons of GOT had a more complex plot with flat characters all around. Another plus, the motivations of Alicent and Rhaenera (agian sp?) are much easier to understand than Arya, Sansa and Dany in seasons 5-8. I cannot count the times I had to come on here, or on quora, to understand why characters moved from point 1 to point 89. That isn't complexity, it's poor writing. Which ties into my last point: bad writing lends itself to poor characterization and bad representation. If women's stories are going to be told, either pay women to write/produce it or find pay authors, like GRRM, a stipend to supervise it. Thanks again for reading!
House of the Dragon is an adaptation of the Dance Of The Dragons, a Westerosi civil war about Targaryen dragonlords that is more grounded in medieval political drama than even Game Of Throne's first four mild magic-ish seasons ( I am comparing it to the show, not the book version of GOT). When the Dragons start dancing, they will make even the Battle Of The Bastards feel like a Playmobil battle...
It's a lame gross Soap Opera that reuses the same plot lines from the original show but makes them worse and more noticably contrived.
@@Oxbloodmage I am not arguing with ignorants that state an opinion without having an objective knowledge of the subject.
cant wait, i didnt want to get spoiled but ut sounds exciting
My only issue with that is that Joffrey Baratheon already gave away the ending to that in season 3 of GoT when he was taking Margery Tyrell on a tour of the Sept of Baelor.
Yay. All spectacle over substance...again. Y'all. 🙄
Whoa whoa whoa…we’re only one season in. Let’s not jump the gun here lol
And that season has been a train wreck.
Have you read Fire & Blood? Do you think that Rhaenyra's destiny in the book is an improvement from GoT bad represantagion of women?
"I'm a princess."
Agreed! It's especially striking to go back and rewatch GoT episodes after House of the Dragon. They are quite different shows. I think this one season has had more solid, consistently engaging episodes than any single season of GoT did, personally.
As enjoyable as the first season was, I was hoping for sharper colours in general, something akin to the earliest seasons of Game of Thrones.
Rhaenys and Daemon are both radiating Black Air Force activity
Originally the pilot episode of both series was a complete disaster and almost had to be completely reshot multiple times. The reason why this is, is because George RR Martin's writing can be a little uncohesive and chaotic. They have said multiple times, and interviews, if they had shot the pilot exactly how the story went, it would not have had nearly as high of an audience as it did. Also, originally, George r.r. Martin was never even going to have a dragon in the books. Danny was originally supposed to find out that the "dragon" in myth was symbolic of her pyrokinetic (yes, originally, George RR Martin intended on her having this power, which is not that unusual because a lot of people in her ancestry practiced magic of some sort). But his editor, many years ago, told him that if he did not put at least one dragon in the book, no one would read it. And now we have game of thrones and House of dragon as you know it today. George also felt that pyrokinesis would be too "fantastical" and they settled on Melisandre with her shadow binding magic, which is actually an old occult practice from ancient India and Sumeria (binding shadow energy to a spirit and using it for a task). And instead of pyrokinesis, she was given 3 dragons and fire immunity to level the story a bit. If your main character is too powerful, you don't really have a show. 😂
I LOVED the exploration of Rhaenyra’s sexual awakening and sexual agency. She pursues pleasure and she’s not sorry about it and I love it. And frankly I find Ser Cristen annoying. She doesn’t want to renounce her title and he doesn’t want to keep sleeping with her in secret. That’s fine. But then he outright hates her and constantly conspires with Alicent and I find him insufferable.
Finally! This is what I have been saying! We shouldn't shame someone, especially a women, for having a sexual awakening and wanting to explore that. But then we praise men for doing the exact same thing It's just wrong.
One big difference is also the lack of magical stuff. Beyond the political and personal intrigues, magic is a big part of the universe of GOT, and i feel like it's missing (for now, at least) quite a lot, even though there is a lot of dragons...
Dragons are inherently magical, most of the magical elements in GoT were tied into their existence. GRRM was always more interested in political and family drama over magical elements, especially in the early books.
The fist book of asoiaf has almost zero magic. The focus of Fire and Blood (the book) is not the magic. So, house of the dragon showed a very faithful Westeros of Martin.
Excellent video, you touched on so many points and I couldn’t agree more!
HOTD isn't intriguing or mysterious. It's frustrating as it focuses on courtly matters. I probably just need to get over GOT and give HOTD a real shot.
I'll tell you how HOTD fixed Game of Thrones - IT DOESN'T. I have commented on this before on YT and I know there are people who are going to hate me for saying so. Game of Thrones had its problems especially at the end of the series, but at least we liked some of the characters! NONE of the characters in HOTD are likeable, the storyline is also unlikable. What amazes me is that people actually like this crap.
I thoroughly enjoyed seasons 6 up to the first half of season 8. The entire series was amazing but the action scenes and battles were awesome until DD ruined everything the final 3 episodes
So they fixed game of thrones by making incest less taboo? Shouldn’t it be taboo? 😮
I dislike that the show seems to tell that there is a good reason for why women shouldn't rule - and it's because of birthing & child rearing. If anything birthing improves a woman's status, not impedes her to rule. I dislike that Rhaenyra is shown to regret being named heir as if naming women heirs is a bad idea in the first place. I dislike that there's so much emphasis on women not being accepted as rulers, when in the books more than half the kingdom supports Rhaenyra, including that famous traditional house.
The incest in GOT and HOTD is insane but historically correct 😭😭
HOTD is average at best, but in comparison to GoT seasons 7+8, it's a masterpiece.
Aemma wasn't sacrificed. This isn't the only video that makes that mistake. The maester said to take the baby or lose them both.
It’s fairly likely that the Maester lied and even if he didn’t, he was established to not be very competent.
Aemma was killed. She was given no saying, nor informed of the 'only options' regarding her body.
how funny. irritated by all the spoilers out there, just before the season finale of HotD, i craved for a safe, yet meaningful discussion regarding the world of Westeros and Dragons and thought to myself "i wonder if The Take has done another HotD video yet". so i check YT and here it is. just dropped 5 hours ago! 😍 hope they keep making more!! 🐉
also... i was literally just talking about this yesterday over lunch with a friend.. how HotD learned (somewhat) from the mistakes of GOT...such as offering a female perspective and including POC into the Westerosi great houses and nobles.
A show isn't prejudiced for not having every single race represented. I wouldn't consider GoT's lack of diversity "a problem to solve" It's clearly set in a European setting. Slavic people. We can't expect places like that to be teeming with black people. We already had darker skinned people to the south like Dorne, Summer Ilse and Astapor. Geographically, that makes sense. Many of these ruling families are people who originated from these regions. I find it hard to believe the Targareyans and Velaryans originated from the exact same place. There's nowhere on earth right now where white and blackpeople originated from and evolved alongside each other. Putting black people on par with the Targaryans was them tossing us a bone of validation we never needed. Why not throw some Asians and Latinos in the mix huh?
The script is great. The ones of the last four season of Game of Thrones where embarassing to watch.
But what they did not do right: the fucking wigs. Have they never seen a black person with dreads? Or a white person with properly bleached hair for that matter? Still shocked over the hair situation.
Daemon & Viserys both murder their wives (Daemon for hate, no less) and they never suffer any consequence, nor do they ever shed a second thought to their wives, or repent. I see rich women dying in child birth but I don't see their rich husbands dedicating a fund for developing a a safe C section technique. In 10 episodes I see 4 traumatic births. One might think that all that women ever do is birth traumatically, which is not the case - even if a woman births 7 times, that's just 7 days in 10000 days for a 30 year old woman. Rhaenyra is shown to wet her dress with breast milk, but she is a rich woman, at her third birth with a score of birth attendants. Surely some breast pads are available to her. Not to mention, bold as she is, she might have as well have answered, that this is a normal accurence, not something to be ashamed of.
While I feel game of thrones is better as a whole, there’s a lot more content to choose from.
Ok yes that Got ending was garbage but it's like people forgot all past season and how everywhere in the world it was hyped. I can see the the positive change that they made in hotd by learning the mistake they did on got but it's still too soo to say the fixed it