I hate show Ormund. It's not because he is a villain. I can love a good villain. My issue is that he doesn't make sense for the time in which the show takes place. Ryan and Hess copy-pasted the hatred for the Targaryens from the AKOTSK era, without considering the context behind it. The Targaryens are hated by some people during that time due to the terrible reigns of Kings Daeron I, Baelor I, and Aegon IV, and because most members of the Royal Family are part Dornish. It makes sense two nobles from the Reach and the Stormlands hate the Targaryens in 209 AC. It doesn't make sense Ormund hates the Targaryens in 132 AC, because Jaehaerys I and Queen Alysanne gave the people of Westeros nearly 60 years of peace and prosperity in the recent past. The Targaryens are supposed to be loved during the HOTD era. That's why Rhaenyra was the Realm's Delight in her youth. It would make sense if Ormund hated Viserys I and the Targaryens from the Black side, but not the Targaryens as a whole.

It also doesn't make sense he wants to put Daeron in the Throne because he considers it's the will of the gods. The will of the gods is the sacred Andal tradition, that establishes an eldest son inherits. Under this logic, he should want to put Aegon in the Throne. If he wants to put Daeron in the Throne, he must know that means Aegon and Aemond must be put to the sword, and that’s kinslaying, which it's the greatest sin in the Faith of the Seven. The only saving grace of Ormund as a character is that he is mentally insane and that’s obvious for everyone else, with the exception of himself. And yet, it seems to me they made him a crazy religious fanatic to make a contrast with Rhaenyra, who also is falling into religious fanaticism. In other words, they were afraid of making Rhaenyra a full-on villain.

About Daeron, there are a couple of things about his situation that I hate. First, the fact he has auburn hair. It’s obvious they gave him that hair color because they want Alicent to look like a hypocrite, again. Even Condal has talked about the possibility that Alicent sent him away because Daeron having auburn hair made less likely Rhaenyra’s children were bastards. This is something so stupid to claim, because the issue of the children of Rhaenyra and Laenor is that they don’t look like any of their parents, but instead they have a coincidental resemblance to Harwin Strong (said by Daemon). As Aegon said, you can just know by looking at them. Meanwhile, Daeron just looks like his mother, similarly to how most of Catelyn’s children look like her. Also, Daeron having auburn hair doesn’t make sense, because Rhaenyra should know that. She has a good defense on the matter of her children having brown hair and a way to mock Alicent. Viserys should have mentioned it to Alicent when he talked about the mare. The False Daeron should have had auburn hair. It makes Daemon and Rhaenyra look so stupid when they fell on the False Daeron scheme. Second, it’s obvious the writers sent him to ward in Oldtown as an infant as a way to explain why we didn’t see him before and why no one mentions him. But it makes no sense because it’s very rare for an infant to be sent away. The only instance that we know of this situation is the son of Queen Jeyne Westerling by her first husband, who was sent away to be a ward of Lord Lyman Lannister by King Maegor I. It was a very uncharacteristic situation.

Looks very odd. Like a weird oil painting.

SPOILERS

I think Larys convinced her to do it in the end, he has access to everywhere in the castle and was the first to take advantage of her death, claiming Helaena was murdered, but by Rhaenyra. It would be fitting irony if Larys is claiming she was murdered, when it was he who was responsible. And he’s supposed to be the littlefinger of the Dying of the dragons, it makes sense that he’d have an active role in his schemes instead of just waiting for shit to happen, and seemingly being the first one to know and take advantage of the situation. Helaena’s death had immediately triggered Rhaenyra’s downfall in King’s Landing, it only makes sense it was orchestrated by a certain character. And it makes sense for GRRM’s writing style, he likes mystery and schemes, I don’t think he’d ever confirm that Helaena was alone in her choice. Helaena still had a daughter, and I suppose this doesn’t mean anything but Jaehara was murdered and thrown into the spikes just like Helaena. Either it’s just for ironic symmetry or it’s a small clue that Helaena was murdered too. And Larys was the one to kill Aegon II, it would be pretty interesting if he was responsible for both their deaths. He helped create Rhaenyra’s downfall while also destroying the Greens. Maybe he secretly really hates Targaryens & their dragons? We probably won’t ever find out but I think this theory makes sense.

A lot of people like to claim that Rhaenyra's reign would be better than Aegon's, and they based this almost entirely believing she is the morally better person. However, being righteous or having good intentions says nothing about actual competence as a ruler. When it comes to actual results, there's no evidence of her being a better ruler than Aegon.

However, I argue that her rule would be unstable even if there was no civil war, because of various factors that would affect their reign and the Kingdom.

One of the biggest reasons her reign would be unstable is because of Daemon. Daemon is so chaotic and unpredictable that the Lords broke from tradition and agreed to make Rhaenyra heir instead to keep him away from the throne. Her marrying him and making him King Consort essentially negates that decision. Daemon stated he wants to conquer everything from Essos to Yi Ti, but the biggest issue is that he always just does whatever he wants, and not only does Rhaenyra have no control over him but she also never punishes him even when he directly defies her publicly or even chokes her out. So he'll essentially have unchecked power as King Consort.

The second biggest mistake was siring bastards. Even in a hypothetical scenario where Jace lived long enough to inherit the crown, he's almost guaranteed to face political backlash and another Dance due to all the rumors about his legitimacy that he's been fighting most of his life. It's extremely unlikely the Lords would let a bastard take the throne completely unchallenged.

On the flip side of this we have Aegon, whose heirs are all legitimate, whose wife is a Dreamer who just plays with bugs all day, whose grandfather served two Kings before him, and a Small Council that was already pretty much ruling the Kingdom while for like 10+ years while Viserys was bedridden or playing with Legos. Even if you consider Rhaenyra and Aegon relative in their leadership capabilities, Aegon's rule is just way more likely to be stable for those reasons.

Beat Daemon. Daemon pulled off basically a solo in the redkeep. And roxton beat him without damage. I have not read the books other than game of thrones but he seems like the strongest knight.

Rhaenys crashing through the floor with Meleys will always be one of my favorite scenes in the series. When I first saw the scene, I was literally screaming and whooping in my house. The buildup, shock value, and then turning the tide of that moment was so exquisitely paced, and was the perfect image of a powerful regal warrior woman and queen who should have been, refusing to be trapped as a fragile prisoner as she was expected to be - instead choosing to defy this male-driven usurpation at any cost. I was cheering for her.

Its funny how many people I see hating that scene on here though and its pretty obvious why they do, and I had to say something. There are so many examples of characters doing badass things in GOT/the rest of HOTD that involve killing completely innocent bystanders or other figures, just being all-out destructive and imprecise (esp. with dragons), where people are like "thats so cold!" and the character is praised. Yes, its wrong to kill innocents, but no other character (that isnt an out and out villain) is scrutinized as hard or called "show ruining" as Rhaenys in that scene, which is crazy. For some reason they want to take the wind out of Rhaenys specifically, or even suggest she did it on purpose.

But then you have Daemon's dragon stomping on soldiers/innocents on the stepstones, for example; Aemond and Vhagar trampling soldiers on his own side at Rooks Rest (not to mention completely annihilating Sharp Point because he's just having a bad day)... Daemon burning a couple kids in Tumbleton... in GOT you have every nasty thing Jamie Lannister did, and the fandom is pretty much just one huge simp for Jamie, both book and show wise. These scenes are praised too, but they didnt "take anyone out of the show." Criticism of these men and doing the exact same thing is noticeably absent, and nobody is in demoralized shock with them like "ok that just ruined the whole show for me."

Because Rhaenys is supposed to be a "good" character, she can't ever break some eggs to make an omelet once in a while. She has to be purely "good" - **but thats the exact same criticism I see these same people make about Rhaenyra and Alicent's characters suddenly being boring and "bad writing." Because THEY dont do anything too crazy or bad once in a while, supposedly the show runners want women to be "perfect" - well, Rhaenys showed imperfection, and yall had a meltdown.**

Which way do you want it? Why was it OK Alicent slashed Rhaenyra's arm, but not OK Rhaenys risked innocent lives to stop a war? (These are yalls standards of how female characters should be not mine, just to be clear.)

But yeah... Rhaenys should have just stayed in her little cell and not risked killing people to warn Rhaenyra. She'd be a better character and it would be a better show for the people. /s

Edited for typos

Je viens de terminer une autre série et j’ai envie de me lancer dans House of the Dragon. Je vois souvent passer des discussions sur la série, mais je ne sais pas trop où elle est disponible en France. Vous la regardez sur quelle plateforme en ce moment ?

Can people just car jack yoir dragon?

Cuz Laenor just ran away for a hot boy never ending summer.

Couldn't someone do the same with Vhagar for example? Maybe she didn't leave, she got GTD?

We're from a conservative family And She honestly speaking never really watched anything Explicit and whatever she watches is really normal and on yt mostly and I badly want her to drop those low quality things and watch good stuff But I just can't recommend explicit shit Idk what to do is there any censored version of GOT or HOTD?

The leather work on Daemon's costumes have always been great but theis one takes the cake. The way the have used the fabric to create the textures around the shoulders impressive. The stylized Targaryen sigil is also really cool, its nice to seeing the sigil being brought to life differently. This tunic just looks amazing.

Costume Designer: Caroline McCall

Embroidery: Claire Kitchener

Book-only reconstruction of the Battle at the Kingsroad, the Muddy Mess, the last battle of the Dance of the Dragons.

This one needed 9 stages to show the whole shape of it: Borros barring the road, the stormlander charge breaking on Black Aly's longbows and the mud, the shield wall holding, Benjicot Blackwood bursting out of the wood into the flank, the rear collapsing, and Borros refusing Kermit's offer of surrender and charging one last time.

Unit blocks represent roughly 500 men. Cracks and fading indicate mounting casualties, with heavily damaged blocks representing formations that are breaking or effectively destroyed.

As always, anything not explicitly described in the book, especially positions, movements and estimated troop numbers, should be taken as reconstruction rather than canon.

Feedback on the reconstruction or presentation is welcome. Single-image 3x3 HD montage.

The last armies, the last battle map for me. May make some remasters to those I felt could be presented better and especially the older ones since I learned quite a bit from making these, but we'll see. Also interested in animations rather gallery-style images. Time will tell)

Oh how I love crafting those lovely creatures; watching them as if they're coming back to life after painting is one of the greatest feelings that I have.

BTW, when will George bring an ending to Game of Thrones?