 Anything that reminds me of season eight of Game of Thrones is immediately a red flag. Did nobody wonder why she's here today? It looks like it's the elephant in the room between them. I was like, well, I like it, let's know. House of the Dragon, episode two. Before I get into details, I just wanna say I still am enjoying the show and I still think that this is going to be a good show and a good adaptation overall. Over episode two, I had a lot more problems than with episode one. I say a problems and I mean, there are problems, but I still, this one wanna be clear up front. I still think it's a good show. I still think overall it was a pretty good episode, but there were specific things about what they've chosen to do that are not ideal in my opinion. So let's get into it. I'll start with some positives. The visual storytelling is still really, really, really good. That's one of the high points of the show is the continued greatness of the visual storytelling. So again, with a few examples. So Damon is much less the focal point of this episode. He's in it, but barely. But we continue to see Viserys framed as a weaker person compared to other people in this episode. In this episode, well, it was frankly everybody, but what's specifically come to mind are Otto Hightower and Coralus Velaryan. In a lot of scenes, Viserys is framed as being lower than looking up at. They are framed in much more dominating camera angles. And in particular, I noticed throughout the episode and a ongoing trend with how they depict Viserys in general in not every scene, of course, cause that would be weird. But more often than not, he is depicted as sitting down while other people may also be sitting but are often also standing up. So instead of showing him getting up or like being the person to walk around or being the person in a more dominating position, he's often the one sitting down and having people who are standing talk down at him, which forces him to always look up, which always frames him in a downward, lower position in the framing of the shot. Again, he does walk around, but then even then, specifically so for example, where someone like Coralus Velaryan, the actor playing him is considerably taller than the actor playing Viserys. And so if you wanted to depict him as on an equal sort of playing field, equal power dynamic, you might choose to have them stand farther apart or have them be sitting down to like level that out a bit or even to have Coralus be sitting and have Viserys standing, but they don't do that. They show them standing together, quite close together. So it's very, very clear that Coralus is taller and Viserys is shorter. And again, height itself by itself isn't a thing that determines power dynamics in a scene, but because you have the choice of how different, I mean, in real life, you happen to be walking and talking and that's when this happens. But in the show, you can control when this happens. You can control where this happens. And so because they constantly choose to have people be in a line of sight that it makes Viserys look up. So we standing quite close to Coralus that just that whole scene, it very much looks like the two of them, Rhaenys and Coralus, are talking down and controlling the dynamic with Viserys who's kind of like weaker and shrugging and shorter. But in general, there are a ton of scenes, for example, later on when Viserys is talking to Otto Hightower and one of the maesters, he is sitting down and of course he's getting, you know, he's a king, he's getting treatment for wounds, et cetera. But he, again, they choose when the scene happens, they can choose what he's doing in that scene. And the fact that he's sitting down the whole time and having the two of them kind of look down at him, it's almost the dynamic of like parents talking to their child and be like, let's have a talk, you know, like that's the framing of the shot. It shows how much he sort of like yields to the opinions of people around him, which I will say is one of the problems with what happens later or problems that I have with the consistency in storytelling and in the character and what happens later. But they are, again, constantly showing him as weaker, as looking up to or giving way to other people around him. Another bit of visual storytelling is the comparison between how they frame the shots between Alison and Viserys and Rayneera and Viserys. Alison and Viserys often are physically either standing or sitting much, much closer together. Whereas Rayneera and her father, whether it be in the council chamber, whether it be by themselves, they are always much, much farther apart. But not only are they farther apart, in particular, there is the comparison between two scenes. One where there's a, I believe it's the same dining table, but it's the daytime and Viserys is sitting like basically right next to Alison. They're very close together. Versus the scene where Viserys is having dinner with Rayneera and they're sitting at that table but the table, the entire table is between them. So she's much, much farther away from him. But not only is she farther away from him than Alison, but the thing that Viserys and Alison spend all their time with is this model of the city that Viserys is tinkering with all the time. It's like his train set. And when they show the wide angle, the panned out wide angle shot of Viserys and Rayneera having dinner together, not only, again, are they farther apart at that same table, but looming in between them, the shape of that city model that he's always spending his time with Alison with. This looks like it's dividing them. It looks like it's looming over them. It looks like it's the elephant in the room between them in the framing of this shot. So they're far apart and the thing that's between them is Alison, or representation of Alison. So a lot of my problems with this episode are actually to do though with Alison and Viserys. So in the book Fire and Blood, Viserys does marry Alison Hightower. That's absolutely true. And the fact that they've aged up the characters and that they might somewhat condense the timeline, okay, that's somewhat to be expected. But they have crunched the timeline so much that it really makes it feel out of character for Viserys to do this. Since I already knew going in that they had cast two actresses to play Alison and two actresses to play Rayneera, a younger and an older actress. So I assume we are going to get a time skip at some point. So I assumed that either in the middle of the second episode or by the end of the second episode or going into the third episode, we would get that time skip at which point Viserys would actually then choose Alison Hightower at which point she's being played by the older actress. And the implication is that this bonding that started when she was quite young and it started sort of quite banal and innocent. And it was just kind of like chatting over this train set that's the vibe that it kind of starts there and that by the time, you know, two years past, three years past, however many years they wanna make it in the show version by the time those years passed, this has grown and developed to the point where against the better judgment of himself and his counsel, Viserys is like not marrying her. But for him to choose her against his own better judgment against the judgment of his counsel, when there doesn't seem like there's been enough of a connection between them. Like sure, he seems to like her company but for him to choose her over everything and everyone else and over logic, over better options, over simply waiting, his wife is barely cold in her grave and he's putting aside everybody and pissing everybody off by choosing Alison. It just doesn't ring true for what we've shown as Viserys to be. He's more kind of like Mamzy Pamsy. He's more like, I don't wanna ruffle feathers. I don't wanna make any decisions that might like cause a rift with anybody. He's always an appeaser. He's always kowtowing. He's always getting a bunch of different advice. And I did like that they showed him kind of being asking different people at different times like, who should I marry? Should I marry? Do you really think this is a good match? Is this a good idea? What should I do? Like him clearly struggling with that question. I did like that. But again, he mentions, in case you were wondering, it's been half a year since his wife died, six months. In the book, it takes years between Viserys wife dying and him marrying Alison Hightower. And that it just, you can make it slightly shorter and you can make her already older when they meet Rayneera at this point should be a lot younger based on the book but it's fine. Like everybody is older but you still need that passage of time for this to make sense for us to buy the fact that Viserys would choose to do this knowing how much this would piss people off. He's also kind of a lot sicklier or more infirm in the book. And so again, it feels more, it flows better makes more sense that this like guy who's like always laid up with the gout and that's why she'd be reading to him because he's in bed because he can't get up. Then he would develop an attachment to somebody who has been kind of a caretaker for him for an extended period of time to which point he would feel so comfortable and so beholden to and so affectionate towards this person that he'd be like screw it, screw all y'all, I'm marrying her but it's been six months and she's like read to him a couple of times when he's like not laid up in bed. He's just like tinkering with his toys. It just doesn't, it doesn't bring true. And I also, there's doesn't seem to be any romance between them yet. You can see that that's where this is going and that that's what Otto wants to happen and that that's what he's sort of pushing Allison towards. But so far it's been a very father daughter vibe which doesn't make it extra creepy which is why again I thought that they'd started out there and that time skip then older Allison, they would start to show how what was once a sort of like I'll read to you, not dad that that would blossom over time as she got older as he got more comfortable as this just became more natural between them that they would show older Allison now, sitting given closer to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, him holding her hand, things like that where you'd be like, okay, so this has become more than just someone who's shown him kindness after his wife died. It's just, it is too short and you don't have to make things follow the timeline of the book. Again, the fact that they're all older now than they are in the book, I have no problem with that but especially because I know that they have other actresses already cast and they're going to be in the show as the older versions of these characters, I don't get why you had to have baby Allison's within six months of wife dying be his choice as bride. So it just, it felt, it felt a little bit like the end of Game of Thrones where we're just kind of like rushing people into the ending places that we need them to be rather than taking the time that it would naturally take to get there. So anything that reminds me of season eight of Game of Thrones is immediately a red flag. Now I don't think that that's indicative of this season overall. I appreciate that there's a lot of time that passes in fire and blood and that even within this period of history that they've chosen to focus on in fire and blood, you have a lot of years past. And so condensing that timeline a bit, I get it. But there's a big difference between years and six months. Like they could have made it a year or two years, like something, but this is too fast. It doesn't ring true or the choices made, the behaviors, the, I mean, the kingdom clamoring for him to remarry like, sure. But six months later, like I don't, I don't think so. Especially because they have shown us so many scenes where again, Viserys is concerned as to not ruffle feathers. He's concerned about what Reynira will think. He's concerned about what his realm will think. Again, about not causing a fuss, about getting counsel about what would be the wisest choice because it's clear that he's still grieving his wife. So he's going to marry. The only reason to marry would be because his duty demands it, not because he really wants to. So at that point, if he's remarrying for duty alone, then I don't buy that he would suddenly follow his heart when that has not shown to be something that he's prioritizing or even something that right now is a reality for him. Like he doesn't seem to be infatuated with Alison in any way. He seems, if anything, suspicious of her. Every time she talks to him, he's like, what are you doing here? Why are you in my playroom? And lastly, just a little thing, the opening credits. I think they're cool, like they look cool, but I think it was a missed opportunity because when they first started going, I was like, it's going to be a map again. And I was like, hang on, it's not a map. And I was like, what is it? And my brother was like, I think it's going to be a family tree because it's like blood that's like branching. And I was like, oh, I bet you're right. I think it is. I think it is forming a family tree and then it wasn't forming a family tree. It was just like the gears and walls of presumably the city. So I just, I feel like blood branching into a family tree would make so much sense for House of the Dragon, which is like about a familial civil war. But they didn't do that. So I just feel like it looks cool of the music, you know, whatever, but I just feel like it's such a missed opportunity because it's like almost what they did. It's very nearly what they did. And then they did it. And I was like, well, I like it less now. But again, I'm hopeful for the rest of the show. I think there's a little bit of a, you know, kind of like rushing people into their places so we can get to the freaking civil war, but they've taken their time a little bit with this. So I wish they'd at least, like it wouldn't take much more screen time. Just use the time skip and make that when he marries Allison. It doesn't take more time. And then a quick note too about when they announced this in the, in the small council. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Allison has been in the small council room before when they're having a meeting. So the fact that Rayneera is there, cause she's normally there as the cup bearer, she's surprised when her dad is like, I'm choosing Allison. And everyone else in the room is also surprised that he's choosing Allison. When she's literally in the room right now for no conceivable reason other than to have dramatic tension so that Rayneera can look from her father over to Allison and be like, how could you? I feel like her being in the room would be a dead giveaway. So like I feel like don't have her in the room if you want this to be a surprise or have her being in the room be the dead giveaway that makes everybody already suspicious and be like, what's she doing here? You know? Like it's weird that she's there. And then when everyone's like, you're picking her. You're like, why do you think she's in the room right now? Did nobody wonder why she's here today? So anyway, those are my thoughts on episode two. Overall, I do think it's still really good. High quality production. Overall, they're doing a pretty good job of translating a dense and complicated Targaryen history into a digestible TV show. They're continuing to do great with like delivering world building and politics and et cetera through dialogue that feels organic to what's going on for the most part. So I still think it's going to be good but episode two was weaker than episode one in my opinion for the aforementioned reasons. But let me know your thoughts if you watched it how you felt about it. If you agree or disagree if you've read Fire and Blood if you haven't read Fire and Blood whatever you want me to know I post videos on Saturdays or the random house well definitely Saturdays so like and subscribe join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.