 I have a lot to talk about, have a lot of notes, and he knows exactly what's going on between all the members of his family. It was a bit cartoonish, aiming to be anagram, and I love Phantom of the Opera. House of the Dragon Episode 8 was a pretty emotional episode in my opinion. It was not perfect. There was a couple things that I did not like, but overall this was one of my absolute favorite episodes of the series so far. There's so many things that it did well, so many things that it paid off, so many things that it had been building towards that we kind of saw not necessarily resolved, but as I say pay off, or you begin to see a reason for why they did certain things in the show. So I have a lot to talk about, I have a lot of notes. I have oh jeez, I have like three and a half pages of notes. A little more than usual, so let's get right into it. As usual I've split notes into sections as best I can, so let's start with the kind of star of this episode, Viserys. First and foremost, I just want to say the actor, Patty, who played him is a fantastic actor. He deserves all the accolades, he deserves an Emmy, he deserves everything. He was an amazing Viserys, and in particular in this episode, you just really got to see from a craft standpoint, not as the story is, we'll talk about the story in a second, but just from a like acting craft standpoint, it was amazing to watch him perform the role of Viserys. So well done, well done, so good. So in this episode we got to see pretty much the worst form of Viserys, which of course I do not mean morally speaking, we're not least not necessarily, but he's he's fully decayed. He looks like a white walker basically at this point. One of my all-time favorite movies is Kingdom of Heaven, and Viserys in this episode kind of reminded me of the Leopard King of Jerusalem. In the film Kingdom of Heaven, the way they have a gold mask to hide his leprosy, that's immediately what Viserys mask made me think of. I do wonder if they took inspiration from that. It looked like halfway between Phantom of the Opera and the Leopard King of Jerusalem. And I love Phantom of the Opera, and I love Kingdom of Heaven in particular. My favorite character in Kingdom of Heaven is the Leopard King, so yeah, I'm just I guess I'm just a big fan. Maybe that's why I liked this episode so much. But it's just so much to unpack with this character in this episode. Some of it fits better in some of my sections to do with the individual scenes and other moments, but I do have a substantial Viserys section here. So we saw throughout the show, and I mentioned it several times in my episode reviews as we went, all of the times that we saw what Viserys tells Allyson being different from what he tells Reynira. So each of these young women sees a very different side of Viserys, sees a very different side of where Viserys thoughts and mind are, what his desires and opinions are. Neither of them sees a complete picture of his mental state or his thoughts on matters, that neither of them gets a complete picture basically of the series. And in this episode, not only do we see a continuation of that, we saw almost a sort of planting and payoff of this recurring trend. So this happened over and over again in the series, and we saw that begin to cause problems of course, but not like really truly fully. And here we saw the ultimate way in which this is the thing that in this version of events, which is it is different from the book, in this version of events, it is kind of the crux of the issue. What I referred to of course is the Song of Ice and Fire prophecy. And I also have in my notes just on a slightly separate note, the Song of Ice and Fire prophecy is also planted and paid off here. So both things come together in a way that feels so powerful for that reason, because we planted this prophecy, which to be completely honest, when they first introduced the prophecy of the Song of Ice and Fire in the first episode, I did roll my eyes at that a little bit, because it seemed a bit to me well fairly classily done as just a way to kind of nod at and tie into Game of Thrones, which is like, hey, hey, Game of Thrones guys, you know, Game of Thrones. It was handled decently well for being something like that, but that's what it felt to me like. And I was like, okay, okay, whatever, we know this connection to Game of Thrones, like, I don't need to do that. But so planting that prophecy, and we do hear him mention it again, or it comes up again in between also, and that was not the only time they mentioned it in the show. And so here again, this recurring trend of the series telling Allison to one thing and Rhaenyra another, and him bringing out the prophecy to Rhaenyra early on in the show. And here in this episode, we see the prophecy come back in a very real way that affects the present day plot, isn't just a tie into Game of Thrones, and is also paying off the what I tell Rhaenyra is not what I tell Allison, and what I tell Allison is not what I tell Rhaenyra. And the way that he discusses the prophecy with Rhaenyra, which she was fully aware of because of him telling it to her early on when he named her his heir, and now sharing pieces of it with Allison, and not ever having actually shared enough of it with her where she would actually know what he's talking about. Because if she knew about this prophecy, and she knew how he felt about things and why he was worried about his heir, et cetera, et cetera, then when he was rambling, she would have recognized what he was talking about possibly. But because she doesn't, she doesn't know what he's talking about. But she does hear him say Aegon, and the prince that was promised, and this gives plausible, not deniability, but it is plausible reasoning for Allison to take certain actions which she will imminently take. I don't want to say, even though I think it's pretty clear what will happen next. That being said, the fact that Rhaenyra's son is also named Aegon, it does make Allison's reasoning based on what she's just heard from Viserys a little bit thin, but it still gives her more more of a plausible reason to believe that her next actions are justified and not purely motivated by ambition. In general, the show has tried to give Allison's character and the behaviors and motivations of that character more nuance, and I have enjoyed that, which is why I was quite disappointed with how almost caricature-ish Allison seemed after the time skip, because I wasn't doing the nuance, they seemed to be adding to this character, and they did step it back a bit and kind of bring nuance back into Allison's character in this episode, which is again why I was so very very impressed with and pleased with this episode. This is the Viserys section, so back to the series. The series in this episode is just such a tragic figure, and not just because he's literally falling apart like before your eyes, I mean obviously that's tragic, but we see sort of at the 11th hour that he's kind of found the courage and the willingness to actually speak his mind and to make more concrete statements, to stand his ground on things, to make his wishes clear, but unfortunately it is too little too late and he is also personally just too ill to truly actually make clear what he's saying and what he wants, especially in that final scene, where he's sharing with Allison the song of ice and fire, or well he's sharing, he thinks he's sharing it with brain Europe, when he's giving his last gasp about the song of ice and fire, so he sort of like finally finds it in himself to take charge here, and he sort of stumbles at the last hurdle, because while he's trying to put his affairs in order, so to speak, he's actually, he ends up creating a new problem with this, again, when he's accidentally sharing with Allison, who he thinks is Ray Neera in his delirium, when he's telling her about the song of ice and fire. He thinks he's finally, you know, said his piece, said what he wants, told people how it is, and put matters to rest, and put a lid on the song of ice and fire, and by doing this, he should have been doing this all along, he should have been doing this much sooner, and if he had, we wouldn't be in this situation, and we wouldn't be in the situation we're about to be in, so he's finally doing it, but by finally doing it, he's actually creating a new problem. So it's very tragic to see, because he's finally doing the thing that you would have been wanting him to do this whole time, and like I said, it is too late, and also because it's so last minute and so incomplete, it creates more problems than it solves. And I will unpack the dinner scene by itself in a bit, but I wanted to talk about how the dinner scene, in particular as concerns Viserys himself, mirrors and contrasts with the depictions of Viserys in the wedding scene and in the funeral scene. So we're talking about how those two scenes kind of paralleled each other in the having of everybody around Viserys, politicking and having all the machinations and all of the glances and all of the stuff that's going on with everybody around Viserys and Viserys himself kind of being this island of obliviousness. When at the wedding, he's kind of sitting at the table just eating his dinner and it's kind of oblivious to the turmoil around him. Similarly at the wedding, he's kind of losing it and isn't really aware of all the politics, doesn't seem anyway to be aware of all the politicking going on around him. So we've reunited the players from those previous occasions, or at least the most important, the key players from those, from the wedding and the funeral and now, we've gathered them all for a family reunion to sit down dinner and the parties who were present at those previous occasions who were doing their thing around Viserys, they're all there. And here Viserys is at his weakest, he's at his illest, he should be the least aware and the least lucid, but it is at this point that he shows that he is not as oblivious and unaware as he seemed or as we would think he is. That it is not that he doesn't know, it's that he hoped for better, that he knows exactly what's going on between all the members of his family. He's not ignorant of it, he's not in La La Land, so to speak. It's more of a, no I know what you're all up to and have been up to and I'm really disappointed in you, I hoped that you could do better. And it is his fault, I'm not saying that that means that he was right to behave the way he did, he's the king and he shouldn't have let things get to this point. But it shows that it wasn't again obliviousness, it was more just sort of a naive optimism that things could work out but that the people that he loves best, the people he cares about, that they could care about each other as well. Why can't we make this work? So but at his weakest he appears the most commanding, at his sickest he appears the most decisive and the most lucid. There's a sense of you know time is running out and I need to put my house in order and it is again as I said too little too late but that scene really shows that like I said it's not that he doesn't know, which arguably makes things worse because knowing the situation he really should have done more about it but it comes across again as a king or a human man, he's just a man and he's a man who loves his family and hoped that they could find a common ground and commonality and a way to love each other the way that he loves them. And again that's it's too naive for a king but that's what it comes from, it doesn't come from carelessness or obliviousness or stupidity. I talked before about how camera angles were used to establish the kind of weakness of Viserys early on in the show about how Damon was presented in a much more domineering angles, the way the camera is angled upward to look at Damon whereas the camera is often positioned in a way that Viserys looks like he's at a level with other people or it's kind of looking down at him so he appears kind of small and not in control, not commanding the room early on in the show. And here for perhaps the first time we have several scenes where Viserys is framed as being very commanding when he takes the throne and I'll talk about that scene in a bit as it has its own section but just how Viserys is framed when he enters that room and how the camera is angled upward at him as he is entering the room and then when he is sitting on the throne and addressing people the camera is very kind of aggressively angled upward. It's not pulled away and zoomed in and level it's angled upward so that he appears to be above it all and commanding the room even though he's falling apart he's he's a corpse on a stick but he's finally framed as this commanding figure and the way that his illness is almost what gives him power in the room because the fact that he's shown up that day if he was a healthy man and he walked into the throne room you know whatever he's the king but that he has everyone is aware of the immense effort immense sacrifice and immense strength of will that it took for him to just physically show up to that room and so everything about the music and the camera angles gives him finally this moment of command. I thought that was beautifully done. Moving on then to the dinner scene which was a fantastic scene I really once again enjoyed the visual representation of a lot of the dynamics in this show that were at play at the dinner scene. What we have going on at the table is Viserys of the Center as he is the center of everything that's going on in this show and he is seated between Alison and Renia the two forces that are kind of tugging him each in their own directions both of whom care about him and are and untied very closely to him and derive their power from him and pull him each in opposing directions he's seated between the two of them and then Renia and Alison each has a devil on her shoulder so on Renia's side she's got Damon and on Alison's side she's got Otto Hightower each of these men encourage the darkest impulses of their respective females. Damon encourages and brings out in Renia some of her most reckless and her most ambitious and her most rash instincts and behaviors and Otto Hightower is the one that sort of pushed and goaded Alison into becoming queen and has since then pushed and whispered and goaded and manipulated so we have Alison and Renia sitting right next to the king but on each of their sides are the men who have through them sort of tried to control Viserys but beyond that the those two men do have the next closest relationship to Viserys so they have you know Alison and Renia and then Damon is his brother even so he is not that close to him he has mainly sought Viserys out for political gain rather than as a brother but he is the next closest to him and Otto Hightower served as hand at the king for many years there was a gap in between but he's been at his side for a long time so they are the next closest physically and also in terms of relationships they are the next closest to Viserys and then sitting furthest from Viserys is the next generation the kids and they also sit farthest apart from each other the kids have the least connection to Viserys and the least connection to the the origin of this turmoil they have their own distant understanding of it and how it's affected them but they're not sort of part of this this genesis point they don't have a close relationship with Viserys so they sit the furthest away and they also unlike Renia and Alison who have a close relationship with each other and are sitting quite near each other not just Viserys the kids don't have a close relationship with each other so the animosity that exists between Renia and Alison exist as you know love and hate being two sides of the same coin they both care about the realm they both care about Viserys there's a lot that Alison even says we have a lot more in common than we would even allow they have this shared history of love love and hate and the kids who sit really far apart they don't have that they didn't ever really love each other they never really got along there is no foundation of i once cared about you and how and then that's soured they are sitting very far apart from each other there is nothing between them but animosity on my video on the previous episode um i proposed a uh an observation that i had made that Alison's side kind of tends to strike first and i kind of went into what i meant by that did not necessarily always mean altercation or or fighting but that Alison and people who are on Alison's team and side are the ones to grab and reach and try and attempt things first they are the primary aggressor most often. Renia's side is the one that comes out on top so here at the dinner Renia is the one to raise her glass and put into action her father's wishes of reconciliation of peace of let's find common ground let's you know can't we all just get along she's the one that puts puts words to that and puts that into into play and the rest of the people of the table kind of follow suit and we do end up having a somewhat peaceful time for a little bit but the first person to break that down to strike first is aim and Alison's son and put a stop to that by creating animosity again and here again this this dinner and this table is a microcosm of a larger political situation because the thing that brought all these people to this table to break bread together is Viserys but the moment that Viserys leaves the room that peace fractures the only thing that brought them together and kept them together was Viserys he's like the cork on this like imminent explosion waiting to happen and this cork is rotting and it will soon be gone and there will be nothing to keep this table and these people and these factions together but during this dinner we do get a glimpse of what it could look like an alternate universe where things did work out where we could have all gotten along and found common ground and it is it's really tragic to see that in the same way that watching Viserys try to put right and put clarity on the things that he should have a long time ago in the same way it's tragic to see this dinner where you can see the how it there was a path to that he wasn't entirely crazy to think that that was possible and he's able to get them to bury the hatchet long enough for us to then see what it would look like a world in which these people did find a way to get along and again it's heartbreaking to see them all hating each other and fighting especially when you knew that Rainier and Allison were friends but seeing this moment where there is almost a rekindling of that friendship where Allison is saying it's so she doesn't want Rainier to leave yet she's only just arrived and it seems genuine it doesn't seem like a political maneuver when she's doing that in fact for after Viserys makes his declaration Otto Hightower looks very uncomfortable with how out of control things or how much out of his control things have gone how Allison does seem to want to appease Viserys and does want to make peace with Rainier and you know Otto doesn't want that so it seems like a sincere moment where Allison goes to Rainier and is like you know we were we were friends before there was we have more in common than we would allow you know she doesn't want her to leave she would like her to visit and Rainier says you know maybe I'll come back you know after my family goes back to Dragonstone I'll come back and you see this moment of you know this is not how this is going to go you know that this will not last and this little brief moment of peace that Viserys manufactured is just that and it's that much more heartbreaking to see that if they were all snouted together and hating each other at that dinner that'd be sad to see but it's not nearly as sad and not nearly as heartbreaking as seeing the almost seeing how close to possible Viserys vision was that it was not completely impossible there was enough here and if things had gone differently if a thousand little things had gone a little differently they they do not have to be enemies they did not have to be enemies but you know they're going to be you know that they've gone too far down this path too many decisions have been made too many animosities have been created but you see this glimpse of what could have been and because you know it's only a glimpse you know it's temporary you know this is not going to last it is so heartbreaking to see it but it was so well done and it did again bring back some of that nuance to Allyson's character where she's not just this caricature of this aggressive caddy hypocritical woman we had this moment of like where Allyson and Reynira we are now getting into my Allyson and Reynira section because that's my another section that I have so I guess segueing then into Allyson and Reynira we really I think this is the first time since the time skip that I felt like this feels like the older versions of young Allyson and Reynira because seeing them together I believed now that these women had this shared history that we witnessed in the early episodes when we first did this time skip I was like this is a different Allyson that shared history that we saw that's got nothing to do with this lady but now in this dinner scene I did finally feel that this is the Allyson that we saw before this is Allyson and Reynira they were friends once upon a time and they could still have been if things had gone differently but we do see in this episode Allyson's hypocrisy on full display the way that she turns a blind eye to her son well I shouldn't say a blind eye she is she's not in denial about what her son is doing but she is a hypocrite in so far as her behaviors and her unwillingness to accept any kind of um questionable behavior from other people when this is what her son is like and what she's willing to do to hash that up and to pay people off I mean credit where it's due she's not unaware she's not blind she doesn't think her her son is an angel she knows exactly what he is she even says you are no son of mine which does make you wonder why she would fight so hard to get him on the throne which she will this is why I think it is important that we did have the Song of Ice and Fire moment there where that is the reasoning then where she believes it doesn't matter it's not that she thinks that her son is a wonderful human being and that um and that she should is the best to be king but that her the visceri's dying words to her seemed to indicate that that's what he wished for and we do see her see also Rainier has continued and escalated willingness to do whatever it takes to retain her position going to her dying decrepit father and asking him to fight for her basically when you're like girl he's in no shape to fight for himself let alone you but that's why again it was beautiful and tragic and heartbreaking and and everything all prepped up into one seeing what he's willing to do to support Rainier to get out of bed and to go to that when I'll get to that scene in a second what he does to support her that final stand that he makes for her it's a lot that Rainier asked of him and to the best of his ability he showed up for her and that was I don't know if I would say a beautiful moment because it is so filled with baggage and tragedy but it was quite a moment moving on then to the kids as I say the the casting is fantastic um actually I don't think I've said that yet so because this is the first time we've seen the adult versions of the kids the casting is phenomenal um I'm less fond of the casting for agon I'm fine with it I don't have a problem with it but it's it's not very impactful like it didn't really leave a big impression on me but the casting for amond is amazing the tension between them is so palpable and every single interaction between them from when they were young to now you can just it see how much it ratchets up the tensions between them and how it's getting closer and closer to a boiling point unlike with alcantin Rainier as I already said there is no oh they used to love each other now they don't something came between them now they pretty much hated each other from go so you just feel this escalation of tension as they as the stakes are raised as we go on and then as they get older and they have more capacity to do harm to each other you just feel the escalation of that it is just so tense I mean you you can cut the tension in the air with a knife and again the tensions between them they are not purely just you know absorbed by osmosis from their parents they are not just living out the tensions between their parents by extension they have their own tensions between them so obviously it's it probably started with having this bad feeling that they absorb from the parents but there is so much animosity between them that is of their own making that if the parents were to magically make peace that would make very little difference because the second generation they hate each other for their own reasons so we have gone too far basically to make peace because they hate each other for as I say their own reasons moving on then to a brief section about Damon it's not a very Damon centric episode I was really really touching to see him helping the series to get up to the throne and he did seem to be genuinely concerned about how the series is being treated and his health and obviously he does have personal political stake in the series being healthy I mean Ian Rainier showed up there to kind of be like hey fight for us you got to speak up for us brother but it seems to me the way that Matt Smith played it that Damon was concerned for the series not simply because he's a means of political of attaining the political power that they want that as a brother as a family member as a person that cares about him that he was concerned about how he was being treated and what he was being doped up with and it seemed to be coming from a place again not just a pure self-interest I could be wrong but it seems to me that he did just care also about the series as a person and it also and then it is just really fun seeing Damon and Amond the anagram interacting I feel like that's there's going to be a lot more of that and it it is almost cartoonish you know I patch man it looks like the carbon copy 2.0 version of Damon but the two actors playing them have such presence and there's just such chemistry I guess is the only word I can think of to say to use for them on screen so I feel like it's there's going to be some amazing scenes I suspect coming up that involve Amond and Damon. Coming then to the throne room scene which I have already kind of addressed here and there in bits and bobs but Veimond and the petition for the right of succession for the driftwood throne I've seen I also thought this and but I also have seen a lot of people draw parallel between him and Ned Stark and like I said I thought that too when I first watched the episode um I I thought to myself you know it's kind of like Ned Stark but also why do I not support him like why do I not feel like the way that I did about Ned Stark being like yeah he's speaking the truth he's the good guy and I mean obviously there's the fact that unlike with the Lannisters in this show we are sort of been steered towards rooting for Reignira and he is speaking against Reignira whereas in Game of Thrones you are steered towards rooting against the Lannisters Ned Stark is speaking against the Lannisters so you would naturally root for that so there is that but I don't think it's just that because when Ned Stark speaks out against the the Lannisters there isn't really much self-interest involved in that he really has he he really only stands to lose by doing that um whereas while it's risky for Veimond to do this it is nothing ventured nothing gained kind of situation he stands to gain a great deal by speaking out so he by the end of it seems to have a death wish but initially his purpose in in coming forward and and trying to secure his claim is a self-interested uh he has it's self-interested reasons for him doing so whereas again Ned Stark is just saying speaking the truth for truth's sake more or less certainly he has loyalties to his friend Robert Baratheon I guess you could say he has a stake in Joffrey not being king because who wants that but he himself doesn't really stand to gain anything by that so yeah for for that reason this speaking out feels less noble and less virtuous in the part of Veimond that he's so aggressively not just speaking out but this too is a difference that Ned Stark tried was rather naive about how he handled things but he tried to protect Joffrey and to try to get you know Cersei and to run away and to make sure that Joffrey would be safe uh he didn't want anything to happen to Joffrey purely because he was speaking the truth about you know his lineage and obviously Cersei laughs at him about that because you know that's not how the world works but but Veimond doesn't seem bothered at all about putting these young innocent boys in in the line of fire because they themselves are not the cause of his ire it's not their fault who their parents were so what he's doing to the boys is quite cruel and Ned Stark was naive but he did try to kind of minimize harm where he could and Veimond is not doing that not at all but it does look like if you call royalty a bastard you lose your head it's what happened to Ned it's what happens to Veimond I did think the scene where the moment where Daemon cuts off his head it was a bit cartoonish uh bit silly uh it was I mean it was a cool shot like visually speaking it was a cool shot it was the it kind of made my night when he cut his head off after uh after Viserys said you know you lose your tongue for that and Daemon cuts his head off but the tongue remains and my brother and I were like he didn't even lose his tongue only to have Daemon say he can keep his tongue so like that kind of made my night I feel like they could have had a scene like this and it feels slightly less slightly less cartoonish if after Viserys said you'll lose your tongue for that if Veimond had put up a big fight had tried to resist arrest and and and you know violently lashed out and that while the guards attempted to subdue him that Daemon stepped in and just you know then it would seem a little a little bit more justified that he just cut his head off you know uh so the way they several times in the show and I have like just casually let people get away with just murdering people right in front of everybody we were like I mean they did have laws you could just just march in and just murder somebody in front of everybody like I mean I guess Daemon is the prince but you know at least give plausible reasoning for you know like he started it I was fighting back because he was resisting as opposed to just like from behind cutting his head off I heard the actor who played Veimond say that too that he's like oh he didn't he didn't face me he kept my head off from behind which again like if he had been like resisting and the Daemon stepped in to do that it would have made a little bit more sense but it's it's not a big deal it is what it is it's a shot for the show is what it is but there is something that Viserys says in this scene that I really want to kind of take a minute to talk about because this is a thing that has been really really irritating me with some of the responses I've seen to this show and I was so pleased that he said this and it's something that I I've kind of meant to bring up but it just I haven't found an opportunity to do so but when people keep talking about how of course Alice isn't is upset because Rainier's children are bastards and so the legitimacy of the succession is at stake here of course you should care about that blah blah blah blah but the thing is Rainier's children are Rainier's children and Rainier is the heir to the throne not her husband so if Alice's children were bastards that would be a big old problem because they would not be Targaryens they would not be heirs to the throne they would not be blood relations of the king but Rainier is the heir to the throne so her children are her children so their parentage on her side is what matters and while it's not ideal that her kids would be bastards it is beyond question that they are Targaryens and so her kids are just as legitimately options for the throne as Jon Snow or as Gendry later is in Game of Thrones those were bastards so if they can legitimately claim the throne so can Rainier's children so it just really irritates me that because typically speaking yes if it's a bastard it's usually the dude that's in line for the throne so if those kids are not his kids like in the case of Robert and Cersei the fact that Robert's kids were bastards they were not his children so they aren't legitimately heirs to the Iron Throne through the king and then it would matter but Rainier is the heir her kids are her kids so in terms of the Targaryen succession well not ideal it's fine the blood is is there and so when Viserys says that when he's being challenged this is about the Driftmark throne well when he tells Vaiman you know who those boys are they are Targaryens they are my grandsons and because he's that's the truth of it okay they're they're not Lenore's kids but they are Viserys grandsons they are Targaryens so this idea that like them being bastards makes them invalid or not royal heirs that simply isn't the case so my final section um I've titled book changes it's not a ton it's just kind of some things in this episode that make me wonder what they're going to do so the way this episode ends with Viserys death I was talking to my family about this I'm not going to say what because you can guess what's going to happen I think especially if you've watched the preview for the next episode but nevertheless I won't say but based on what I don't think they would change this in any substantial way what is about to happen I wonder a little bit about how they're going to manage to do that so again having read the book if I hadn't read the book I'd be like okay this is what's happened it's because I've read the book and I know what's supposed to happen next and I'm a little bit like how are you gonna pull that off we'll see I'm sure they will pull it off it's not totally impossible but the timing of things and where people are right now is kind of where I'm like this isn't quite quite I don't quite see how you're gonna pull this off so we'll see how they do it I'm sure they will manage to do it in the book it is suggested that a pot is a possibility that Allison might have poisoned Viserys on that last night that that's how he dies I think the show makes it pretty clear that in their version of events and in the show's telling of it that that is not at all an option for what has happened that Allison has not poisoned Viserys arguably she and her her team her cohort were slowly poisoning him with what they were doping him up to keep him sedated and out of it lots of milk of the poppy as you know dammit I was pretty upset about so in that sense you know a slow poisoning I suppose but the again the implication of the book is that the night that he dies he's poisoned by Allison possibly and I think again the show makes it pretty clear that she did not and I like that because again this episode did a lot to kind of bring us to walk back some of what we did with Allison and kind of show that she is a human being who did care for Reynira did care for Viserys is not a machine has empathy is is more like the younger Allison that we saw that she's still in there and if she had poisoned Viserys that would have been wildly out of character for this for this iteration of Allison yeah I like that they did away with that idea altogether in a similar vein a departure from the book that's just been ongoing overall and here is most starkly visible Viserys in the book is sickly but in a very very different way he's sort of plump and gout-ridden and there's sort of this the sense you get or at least I get is that he's kind of you know a guy that's kind of just kind of wants to like you know live and be happy and you know don't worry be happy can't we all just get along I'm gonna eat a bunch and like have gout I gotta not care then I'm definitely sitting us up for instability in their realm after I'm gone here in the show I very very much like that they made Viserys come across as somebody burdened by the responsibility of position and he may not have been the right person to be king because he's too sort of being hearted to make tough decisions and tough calls he loves the people around him and he's so concerned with wanting to please the people that he loves sort of at the expense of governing the realm in a stable way I like that they did that's more kind of the story of Viserys and the way that he's becoming more and more sickly and the idea that instead of being like this sort of like plump gout-ridden like good time king that he's he's in fact it's the literal opposite he's like shrinking as the the weight of illness and burden and responsibility is like eating him alive it's he's being consumed by the responsibility that he holds the weight of the realm and the crown and the throne so I like the idea that what makes him a poor leader ultimately is love and optimism rather than carelessness and self-interest so I very much enjoyed this portrayal overall of Viserys and I feel like this is the best time to talk about it because that's it that's all all she wrote for Viserys well done definitely brought much more depth to the character in my opinion in a way that I very very much enjoyed and as I said already at the beginning of the video the actor playing him did a phenomenal job but you know it's a combination of things the way they wrote the character and the way that he played the character they just did an amazing job with Viserys in the show so well done and yeah we are now entering the dance of the dragons it's finally happening I'm very excited slash nervous because you know it's it's gonna be dark times but that's what we all signed up for that's what this the whole the project of the show is so I am excited but it's gonna be tense so there's probably gonna be a ton to unpack I will miss Viserys but well done and we are off we go it's gonna be a wild rush so let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about episode 8 did you love it did you hate it did you think some stuff was dumb did you think it was all perfect do you agree or disagree with my takes whatever you want let me know I post videos on Saturdays other random times well but I think Saturday so like and subscribe join my patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you