It definitely sets the stage for Otto to return as Hand. They showed this episode that the Queen has a lot of pull, so even if Viserys objected I think she can strong arm him into it.
Plus, the Strong brother even said to make sure to tell Otto it was him that cleared the board for his return.
I will be surprised if the hand is anyone other than Otto.
They had the darkness problem with video games for a while, too. I ended up deciding that it was a combination of 'art' trumping practicality, combined with people who are experts in the tech testing content on the highest end equipment under ideal conditions.
In other words, the don't ever see it in 'real world' where people don't have $5000 TVs in dedicated, darkened viewing rooms.
I have the same problem with sound in a lot of shows. They get the best possible sound on the highest end hardware, but don't make sure that it works with 'normal' hardware. A lot of Disney+ shows, for instance, are almost impossible to hear when I watch in the bedroom without a dedicated center channel speaker. They seem to route all of the voices to the center channel whether you have one or not.
Creators are often just disconnected from the reality of how their content is experienced.
El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:36 am
Alicent at least cares about honor and decency in a way that Rhaenyra doesn't.
Does she? She seems to be a bit ruthless and almost cruel. I would say she cared about honor and decency pre-jump but now she's giving me Cersei vibes.
How did the bandits get into the castle to burn it down? I suppose the brother/son probably knew some secret way in but what was his motivation? There seemed to be no remorse there at all. It was a bit jarring. I'm not sure how it advanced the queen's agenda or even the brother's unless he wanted to inherit the castle he burned. Just a bit odd overall.
Spoiler:
The bandits were clearly acting at the direction of the Strong brother (they were the ones that he had the tongues removed from earlier in the episode). So presumably the brother gave them guidance on and access to the castle.
It advanced the brother's agenda pretty clearly, in that: (1) He will now inherit Herrenhal; and (2) the Queen owes him (even if she is simultaneously horrified).
It aids the Queen a little more indirectly, but the main thing is that it removes Lyonel Strong as Hand of the King. As the Queen noted to the Strong brother in the episode Lyonel was not biased in her favor (she mostly de facto supported Rhaenyra). So the King will have to find a new Hand, who will hopefully be at least not biased against Alicent. One implication is that Alicent will probably try to bring back Otto as Hand again.
Spoiler:
I get that he inherits Herrenhal and the queen "owes" him but it's still a bit jarring since we were given no clues about him prior to the time jump (though he was only on screen a short time). It's not a big issue just something I think could have been done better. But maybe I missed something in the previous episode.
That sound of the spoon scraping over the can ribbing as you corral the last ravioli or two is the signal that a great treat is coming. It's the washboard solo in God's own
bluegrass band of comfort food. - LawBeefaroni
My favorite character so far is Ray Donov....Lyonel Strong. But I fear he's just a carbon copy of Littlefinger. Hopefully they do something that sets him apart from that soon.
hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:32 pm
My favorite character so far is Ray Donov....Lyonel Strong. But I fear he's just a carbon copy of Littlefinger. Hopefully they do something that sets him apart from that soon.
To be clear Lyonel Strong was the father. The Littlefinger type was Larys Strong.
El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:36 am
Alicent at least cares about honor and decency in a way that Rhaenyra doesn't.
Does she? She seems to be a bit ruthless and almost cruel. I would say she cared about honor and decency pre-jump but now she's giving me Cersei vibes.
I mean that she at least gives lip service to honor and decency. To start, as far as we know she doesn't freely and semi-openly have sex outside of her marriage, which is a good start as far as Cole is concerned. I suspect that Alicent's arc over the course of the show will be someone who is a decent person at start but who commits steadily more egregious acts over the show as part of the, well, game of thrones.
Also to the extent that Alicent does stuff that's inconsistent with her Stark-y vibes, that's almost certainly going to happen outside of Cole's sight.
hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:32 pm
My favorite character so far is Ray Donov....Lyonel Strong. But I fear he's just a carbon copy of Littlefinger. Hopefully they do something that sets him apart from that soon.
To be clear Lyonel Strong was the father. The Littlefinger type was Larys Strong.
A friend of mine described Larys as the worst parts of Varys and Littlefinger put together.
Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:28 pmI have the same problem with sound in a lot of shows. They get the best possible sound on the highest end hardware, but don't make sure that it works with 'normal' hardware. A lot of Disney+ shows, for instance, are almost impossible to hear when I watch in the bedroom without a dedicated center channel speaker. They seem to route all of the voices to the center channel whether you have one or not.
Creators are often just disconnected from the reality of how their content is experienced.
I don't know if you can blame creators for the TV manufacturers opting to put increasingly crappy speakers into their systems.
Plus, shouldn't your audio settings reflect that you don't have a surround sound setup? You can usually go in and tell the system what type of audio capabilities you have.
FWIW I have an older 1080p TV, streaming the show from HBO Max through a discontinued Roku sick. I haven't been bothered by the darkness levels yet. I've been able to see everything I needed to see, or at least I feel like I've seen everything the creators wanted me to see.
hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:32 pm
My favorite character so far is Ray Donov....Lyonel Strong. But I fear he's just a carbon copy of Littlefinger. Hopefully they do something that sets him apart from that soon.
To be clear Lyonel Strong was the father. The Littlefinger type was Larys Strong.
Whoops, got my names mixed up. I even used the correct name earlier in this thread.
hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:32 pm
My favorite character so far is Ray Donov....Lyonel Strong. But I fear he's just a carbon copy of Littlefinger. Hopefully they do something that sets him apart from that soon.
To be clear Lyonel Strong was the father. The Littlefinger type was Larys Strong.
Whoops, got my names mixed up. I even used the correct name earlier in this thread.
Yeah, it's not easy. And yeah, Larys was definitely giving Littlefinger-esque vibes. Though it can't be easy to write for the show, because you figure you have to have some type of schemer, but anyone they write is going to inevitably get compared to Littlefinger no matter what they do. Though I don't think they helped things by giving Larys a seemingly self-devised symbol like Littlefinger had (a firefly vs. Littlefinger's bird).
I though Varys was a great character, to be honest. He was duplicitous and scheming...but for mostly noble reasons. I really hope they give Larys that kind of depth.
El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:36 am
Alicent at least cares about honor and decency in a way that Rhaenyra doesn't.
Does she? She seems to be a bit ruthless and almost cruel. I would say she cared about honor and decency pre-jump but now she's giving me Cersei vibes.
I mean that she at least gives lip service to honor and decency. To start, as far as we know she doesn't freely and semi-openly have sex outside of her marriage, which is a good start as far as Cole is concerned. I suspect that Alicent's arc over the course of the show will be someone who is a decent person at start but who commits steadily more egregious acts over the show as part of the, well, game of thrones.
Also to the extent that Alicent does stuff that's inconsistent with her Stark-y vibes, that's almost certainly going to happen outside of Cole's sight.
Rhaenyrra seems to be the better person to me. She entered into her marriage with the understanding of her husband that they both could have relations outside of their marriage. In the reality of the show, men have outside relations (often publicly) though we do get the sense that it's frowned upon for women Daemon had outside relations during his marriage and no one batted an eye. That is until it was with a 15 year old niece who was also the princess (whom he got drunk). Even then it seemed to be almost a boys will be boys thing. By contrast, Alicent has already conspired to have people murdered. I have never seen Rhaenyrra do anything that could be construed as evil in the show. In fact she seems to be the one trying to make nice with Alicent. I would agree that Alicent is going to do increasingly worse and worse things which is where the Cersei vibes come in for me (by Cersei vibes I mean she'll do crazy evil shit for her kids). It will increase if her father is reinstated as hand (which is my assumption - have not read any of the books).
That sound of the spoon scraping over the can ribbing as you corral the last ravioli or two is the signal that a great treat is coming. It's the washboard solo in God's own
bluegrass band of comfort food. - LawBeefaroni
Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:28 pmI have the same problem with sound in a lot of shows. They get the best possible sound on the highest end hardware, but don't make sure that it works with 'normal' hardware. A lot of Disney+ shows, for instance, are almost impossible to hear when I watch in the bedroom without a dedicated center channel speaker. They seem to route all of the voices to the center channel whether you have one or not.
Creators are often just disconnected from the reality of how their content is experienced.
I don't know if you can blame creators for the TV manufacturers opting to put increasingly crappy speakers into their systems.
As to the first point - yes, I can. If a huge number of TVs have stereo speakers built in, don't make your streams incompatible with stereo speakers. I can't blame them for not making the speakers sound better, but I can blame them for not pushing dialogue to stereo speakers when there is no center channel (as seems to be happening.)
And, FWIW, it isn't an isolated issue. When I tried looking for a solution, I found thread after thread of discussions from people with the same issue, all of whom - like me - used the same hardware with no issues on multiple other services.
EvilHomer3k wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 2:47 pm
By contrast, Alicent has already conspired to have people murdered. I have never seen Rhaenyrra do anything that could be construed as evil in the show. In fact she seems to be the one trying to make nice with Alicent. I would agree that Alicent is going to do increasingly worse and worse things which is where the Cersei vibes come in for me (by Cersei vibes I mean she'll do crazy evil shit for her kids). It will increase if her father is reinstated as hand (which is my assumption - have not read any of the books).
Well, she conspired which resulted in murder, at least. But she also doesn't strike me as all that competent at it - she's blundering along with the shallowest of motives.
El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:36 am
Alicent at least cares about honor and decency in a way that Rhaenyra doesn't.
Does she? She seems to be a bit ruthless and almost cruel. I would say she cared about honor and decency pre-jump but now she's giving me Cersei vibes.
I mean that she at least gives lip service to honor and decency. To start, as far as we know she doesn't freely and semi-openly have sex outside of her marriage, which is a good start as far as Cole is concerned. I suspect that Alicent's arc over the course of the show will be someone who is a decent person at start but who commits steadily more egregious acts over the show as part of the, well, game of thrones.
Also to the extent that Alicent does stuff that's inconsistent with her Stark-y vibes, that's almost certainly going to happen outside of Cole's sight.
Rhaenyrra seems to be the better person to me. She entered into her marriage with the understanding of her husband that they both could have relations outside of their marriage. In the reality of the show, men have outside relations (often publicly) though we do get the sense that it's frowned upon for women Daemon had outside relations during his marriage and no one batted an eye. That is until it was with a 15 year old niece who was also the princess (whom he got drunk). Even then it seemed to be almost a boys will be boys thing. By contrast, Alicent has already conspired to have people murdered. I have never seen Rhaenyrra do anything that could be construed as evil in the show. In fact she seems to be the one trying to make nice with Alicent. I would agree that Alicent is going to do increasingly worse and worse things which is where the Cersei vibes come in for me (by Cersei vibes I mean she'll do crazy evil shit for her kids). It will increase if her father is reinstated as hand (which is my assumption - have not read any of the books).
Well, from Alicent's conversation with Larys it seems pretty clear that she did not anticipate Larys doing what he did, and was pretty horrified about it. So she didn't conspire to have people murdered. That said, I very much doubt that she's going to punish Larys for what he did, or even say anything to anyone about it, so she'll wind up being complicit after the fact.
But to be clear for Cole this is wrapped up in his code of honor. Rhaenyra's arrangement with Laenor and having side pieces makes sense. BUT it does involve her making public vows to Laenor that she never intended to abide by (problem for Cole), made worse by the fact that she wrapped up Cole in her breaches of vows. Alicent, even when she's done shitty things, doesn't appear to have broken any vows or done anything that would violate Cole's code of honor. Plus Alicent speaks Cole's language when they talk in this episode ("we just have to trust that honor and decenty will win out" or whatever that exact quote was).
Also, how is Viserys still alive? Feels like he's been on death's door since before the time jump. Is it possible that Larys is doing some Weekend at Bernies shit?
El Guapo wrote:Also, how is Viserys still alive? Feels like he's been on death's door since before the time jump. Is it possible that Larys is doing some Weekend at Bernies shit?
There’s a new Grand Maester now. This is the guy who wanted to give some herbal remedies versus endless leeches. Maybe his medicine is actually working a bit.
"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit their views." - The 4th Doctor
hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:57 pm
So, there’s a question I forgot to ask after this latest episode. I was under the impression Targaryens were fireproof. Is that not the case?
I think some but not all? IIRC Danaerys's asshole brother gets burned, right?
If you're asking about Laena, she's not a Targaryan (by blood, anyway). But Daemon may be fireproof, in that he flew through dragonfire early in the episode.
hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:57 pm
So, there’s a question I forgot to ask after this latest episode. I was under the impression Targaryens were fireproof. Is that not the case?
I think some but not all? IIRC Danaerys's asshole brother gets burned, right?
If you're asking about Laena, she's not a Targaryan (by blood, anyway). But Daemon may be fireproof, in that he flew through dragonfire early in the episode.
Laena's mom is a Targaryen, isn't she (the Queen Who Never Was)?
hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:57 pm
So, there’s a question I forgot to ask after this latest episode. I was under the impression Targaryens were fireproof. Is that not the case?
I think some but not all? IIRC Danaerys's asshole brother gets burned, right?
If you're asking about Laena, she's not a Targaryan (by blood, anyway). But Daemon may be fireproof, in that he flew through dragonfire early in the episode.
Laena's mom is a Targaryen, isn't she (the Queen Who Never Was)?
Good point.
I think the easy way to square what's in this show and GoT is that there's essentially a 'fireproof' gene common in the Targaryan family, but that marriages between Targaryan and non-Targaryans means that any given Targaryan may or may not inherit the fireproof gene.
Clearly it's not the case that any Targaryan ancestry means that you are fireproof (if that were so, there would presumably be a non-trivial number of people among the general population who would be fireproof).
Martin has repeatedly answered that they are not fireproof. Dany was an exception.
Black Lives Matter
"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit their views." - The 4th Doctor
In reading a few articles on this (what can I say, it's a slow day today), it appears the GoT show hinting that they were was what prompted Martin to say that. Apparently the show took some liberties with this and HotD is trying to clear it up now.
hepcat wrote:In reading a few articles on this (what can I say, it's a slow day today), it appears the GoT show hinting that they were was what prompted Martin to say that. Apparently the show took some liberties with this and HotD is trying to clear it up now.
By sending mixed messages?
Spoiler:
Daemon has a burn scar from taking a fire arrow to the shoulder, yet flew through dragon fire without issue. The same dragon fire that killed his wife later in the episode.
You see that in action films quite a bit though. People drive their convertibles through the flames of a recent explosion, they swing through fires on a rope in a burning building, etc.. It's probably very unrealistic, but it happens nonetheless.
hepcat wrote:You see that in action films quite a bit though. People drive their convertibles through the flames of a recent explosion, they swing through fires on a rope in a burning building, etc.. It's probably very unrealistic, but it happens nonetheless.
That’s true, but if you’re actively trying to convey that someone is NOT immune to fire, maybe don’t have them constantly playing with flames.
You're preaching to the choir. That's why I asked if they were supposed to be immune as an incest perk. They're certainly not making it clear enough, in my opinion.
I think Dany surviving Drogo's funeral pyre is the most spectacular example of fire resistance we've seen so far. Daemon flying through that fire cloud was notable, but it was disappating and I assumed his Dragon shielded him from a lot of it.
Having said all that, there's fire resistance, and there's taking a full blast of sustained Dragon breath up close. I wouldnt have expected anyone on the show to survive that.
El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:36 am
Re: the Cole stuff
Spoiler:
Yeah the Cole stuff I'm honestly confused about what's so confusing about that. Last episode it was really clear that Cole was done with Rhaenyra and moving towards Alicent. Cole was and is a man of honor who takes his vows seriously. He could live with what he did with Rhaenyra if it was for love (hence the marriage proposal), but when Rhaenyra both rebuffs that and makes clear that she's fine with continuing to bang him on the side, he *really* doesn't like that ("you want me to be your whore???").
The stuff with Alicent is almost all off-screen during the 10 year time jump. But we do (last episode) see her stop Cole from killing himself, so he owes her his life to start. And more than that, if Cole hates Rhaenyra then Alicent is a natural ally, since: (1) Alicent and Rhaenyra hate each other; (2) Alicent, unlike Rhaenyra, is, you know, not a whore; (3) Alicent at least cares about honor and decency in a way that Rhaenyra doesn't.
That said, with both the Cole stuff and the Daemon stuff, and a few other different ways, the show is limited to some degree by the time jumps. They may have been necessary given the time frames involved (I guess the only alternative would be to start where this episode is and then include a lot of expository back story) but it has limited the show's ability to give full depth to a lot of the show's events.
Are we done with time jumps, by the way? Hopefully so.
Aside from the fact that Ser Criston Cole seems not have aged a day during the 10-year time jump...
Spoiler:
How is he still a member of the Kingsguard after brutally murdering a friend/courtier of Laenor--consort to the heir to the throne--at the wedding in front of everyone and with *absolutely no apparent justification*?
Surely this is the sort of thing that can't be overlooked. If not execution, at least exile to the Night's Watch?
It was made very clear that Cole has no powerful family behind him, so his only patron was the Queen, but she never even expressed any interest in him until his attempted hari-kari.
So far there has not been any mention that all this cost anyone anything.
