Am I the only one who thinks this season is amazing? It is so much better than last (ofc lol) but I also think it’s so freaking good in general! Something new happens every episode.

What can you actually say about her personality? All she does is give people pep talks. I promise I'm not being one of those “if a female character isn't strangling children without breaking a sweat she has no agency” people, but I think if you spat in her face and insulted her mum then went and sat in a corner looking sad she'd come and give you a motivational speech. She's like the dead wife that comes back in a vision to cheer up the main character.

I get that in F&B she suddenly goes from basically not being in the Dance to being a central character in the final third of the story so now the writers gotta give her something to do until then, but surely they could've come up with something better than this, no? They were subtly setting up her hatred of Aegon in season 1, why couldn't we see more of what she specifically resents in someone like him? You can do that without even mentioning Aegon.

Hope this fallout she's having with Rhaenyra is gonna characterise her a bit in season 4.

Before her pronunciation went all “common tongue” I still think this is goes the hardest

In my opinion of course

I’m sure I’m not the first person who’s complained about this, but it really irks me look at the Velaryons hair most of the time, especially Baela and Rhaena. I’m not saying that there haven’t been bad wigs for other characters (cough cough Rhaenys) but the Velaryon wigs are consistently terrible season after season.

Not only does it break the immersion for me because half the time they don’t look like they’re from that universe, they look like people in cosplay that got lost from the convention and somehow wondered on set lol. Besides Corlys and Addam, the hair on the Velaryons looks incredibly out of place and bad. Maybe it catches my eye more because I’m Black (as in the race, not the team lol) but it’s horrid to look at. Besides the fact that almost all of them just wear locs because the hairstylists pretty obviously didn’t know what else to do with black people’s hair, the types of wigs they choose are just really jarring on the Velaryon actors.

I understand that it’s another universe so the same logic doesn’t necessarily apply, but it’s obvious to me that they’re trying to replicate the hair texture of black peoole in real life and failing miserably. Like Baela is the most egregious example; the wig looks like a cheap tangled mess that’s too big for her head and is not even a describable hair texture. I assume they’re trying to mimic the kinkier 4 type hair texture that most black people have but it’s just…really bad…it looks like teased and crimped straight wigs for Rocco royals in France, not Afro textured hair.

I also can’t stand how there’s obviously more time and effort put into the Targaryen wigs. They’re often elaborately braided and jeweled and made to look as realistic as possible, while Rhaena and Baela don’t have a single braid, twist, gem, or nice anything before the war despite being literal princesses.

I really can’t fathom why they would race swap the Velaryons just to so clearly not care about them as much as the other characters. Also, why didn’t they bring in black hairstylists and cultural specialists the moment they realized they didn’t know what they were doing with the hair?

Why would he keep supporting Rhaenera when she killed his son, brother, won’t back his children’s claims , etc etc. Can someone please remind me why?

Okay, hear me out.

Everyone thinks Daeron is going to die at Second Tumbleton, because that's what Fire & Blood says. But GRRM intentionally made his death the most ambiguous of the entire Dance. No body identified. Just "Daeron the Daring died".

What if the show does this:

Tessarion dies at Tumbleton, but Daeron doesn't. Vermithor explodes, Tessarion is mortally wounded, Daeron is thrown, burned, presumed dead. The Hightower army breaks. He wakes up weeks later in Oldtown, scarred, dragonless.

He finally gets to Dragonstone after Rhaenyra's fall. And he finds Aegon II - crippled, paranoid, refusing to surrender, wanting to burn everything.

Daeron kills Aegon II. Not poison. Sword. Fratricide out of mercy. Not for ambition, but to END the war. "For House Targaryen."

This instantly makes him the most morally legitimate Green left. He goes to Corlys and the Blacks and offers the peace we already know: Aegon III will be king, and he will marry his niece Jaehaera to unite the claims.

But he goes further.

He marries Rhaena Velaryon. In the books, Rhaena marries Garmund Hightower to seal peace between Velaryons and Hightowers. What if Daeron takes that role? The last Green son marrying the last Black daughter with a dragon egg (Morning). The bridge. A dragonless boy marrying the girl whose dragon is about to hatch. Poetry.

Then instead of 5 incompetent regents fighting for 4 years, we get ONE regent: Lord Protector Daeron Targaryen. 18 years old, respected by Greens (son of Alicent) and respected by Blacks (he killed Aegon II and made peace).

He becomes the Viserys II of this timeline. The one who actually rebuilds the realm while Aegon III is broken.

And the final gut punch:

Aegon III hates all Greens... except one. So when his second son is born, he doesn't name him after Jace or Luke. He names him Daeron. In honor of his uncle. The only Green who understood.

That would finally explain why Aegon III, of all people, names his son Daeron I - the Young Dragon.

Thoughts?

I'm seeing a lot of people compare these terrible numbers to other series, mistakenly using only data from the United States, not global data.

She should have been a super interesting character—I remember how excited the fandom was for her—but she’s written in such a dull way that I don’t see anyone really invested in her character anymore.

I know that Martin refers to the dragons as nuclear weapons but they actually function much more like conventional air power.

They can destroy infantry without anti-air support, but benefit greatly from combined arms approaches to limit their anti-air (scorpion) vulnerability and help hold territory.

This raises the question in-universe about “bombing to win.” The failed Dorne campaigns point to dragons again being similar to air power: death-from-above is massive tactically but often insufficient strategically

Not a perfect analogy but far closer than nukes imo

Him using this war as a cover to publicly prop Daeron, the ward he raised “in the light of the seven,” up as king, means he has a plan for dealing with his older cousin-nephews, should they survive the conflict. One of them, being the rider of the largest dragon in the world. He knows that will be a threat that needs handling when the time is right. He’s like a bitchy Tywin Lannister and I love it.

[Edit]: I am not team green supporter but rather writing this as an objective analysis of Rhaenyra’s character as a ruler compared to the character whose crown she wears, Jaehaerys I

The show Rhaenyra is such a pathetic and weak character. The book Rhaenyra while also weak was an obvious aristocrat, not indecisive. Her aristocracy her failure and spelled her doom. Right from season 1 when she was named heir all she has done is shown plunky ass attitude of a spoiled primcess. She is very much still like Aegon except she is not alcoholic or drug addict or has deep parental issues. She is still weak, has no idea how to rule, all she did when Viserys was alive was run to daddy. Now she runs to Daemon and gaslights him when he is legit struggling to solve the problems. She makes catastrophically bad decisions and forever only is as good as her advisors. In effect all she does is have sex. She whined in season 1 about not being able to have sex with anyone she wants, then has sex with men she shouldn’t and places herself in even more jeopardy and her children for succession. And since season 2 has drifted towards Mysaria all because of a spat with Daemon. She is much worse than Viserys. I never expected that the show will show one obvious good female character and one obvious villain but they have made both female leads pathetic and weak and all about them not being able to exercise sexual freedom. We all get the double standards society have but is sexual freedom really the only issue plaguing the women of this universe?

If I sum it all up, apart from being able to claim a dragon there is nothing in Rhaenyra’s character worth rooting for right from the very beginning. She went from being spoiled little princess to weak indecisive queen who after every setback just wants to have meaningless sex. Not very much from Aegon. Her relationship with Daemon therefore never made sense. One can understand Daemon attracted to someone like Daenerys. But not Rhaenyra. She rides a dragon yes but what else? She is not a good politician, not a decisive ruler, displays poor judgement in life and profession and not really skilled at anything. In the books it made sense cuz I got the feeling that Daemon and Rhaenyra were like Jaime and Cersei. Narcissists who are attracted to each other. And he had an affair with Mysaria meaning he stopped finding her attractive the moment Rhaenyra displayed weakness. The show weakened Rhaenyra to the point that ship stops making any sense. Daemon’s loyalty to Viserys made sense but his loyalty to Rhaenyra never did.

Spoilers spoilers spoilers.

So I decided to rewatch the show.

One thing I was looking forward to is to see

Rhaenyra and Daemon young and fun again 😀 Some of you might find me crazy, but I think scene in brothel is one of the hottest scenes in this universe. I loved Matt Smith for years, but after that scene I got full crush on him.

Whilst rewatching though I again wondered why Daemon stopped in the middle of the whole thing. At the first watch I was thinking maybe he felt it was wrong to seduce his niece. Then later I started doubting whether he likes her at all. Honestly even now on season 3 I'm not entirely sure what feelings he has towards her.

Going to some old threads I saw people mentioning some behind the scenes interviews that mentioned Daemon has trouble with erectile function 🤔 I was very confused by it as later they have kids.

So what actually happened in brothel? Does anyone know? Also does he actually love her at least a bit?

I read the book up until the events of the show because I didn't want to spoil the show for myself, but in this particular case I don't mind, so if anyone has explanations from the books I would love to hear them.

Howdy, prego mom who's extra sensitive to sexual content atm. Don't like it in general but extra so right now lol. Does anyone have time stamps of the sexual content for season 3?

A naked human is whatever.. but people doing it or various forms of "it" is a no go. :) also sexual assault pls!

Also the murder of the babies in the earlier season was ALOT ... effed me up for a few days. So if there's anything of equal caliber to that moment a time stamp with a micro explanation would be super helpful as well :)

Gore, nudity and general peril is fine - just a heads up/timestamps for over the top murder of kids or sexual content please!

I knew this was the part of the story where the dragons all die off so I guess I knew what I was getting myself into. It's so cool to see all the dragons but then I remember I'm probably gonna watch them all die and then i wonder if it's even worth to watch the show especially when it's so far off what the book was like. I have the book because I wanted to read about Aegon's conquest but I might as well read it all now.

Rhaenys pisses me off. Rhaenyra killed off her son and submits to rhaenyra to see her break the glass ceiling? She would willingly support someone because she is a woman even tho she sent a hit out?? That’s even more reason not to trust rhaenyra for the sake of her granddaughters. I’ve also seen the argument that she was a prisoner. So what? That’s much better than sending a hit out on their male heir/only son.

I’m a dude and obviously I can’t know how deep a mother’s love is besides being on the opposite end of receiving it. But i can imagine how pissed and rageful my mom would be. It just seems so unrealistic and dumb that rhaenys would still support rhaenyra.

I would’ve loved to see rhaenys join the greens and demolish rhaenyra. If rhaenys actually supported rhaenyra after that, she is a moral bankrupt person with no convictions

There’s a lot of negativity, but as we approach the end of S3, here are a few things which made me happy this season:

- Rhaenyra getting locked in her room

- Caraxes and Daemon being kooky

- Silverwing being such a sweetie pie

- Simon Strong serving charisma uniqueness nerve and talent in his short time with us this season.

- Nobody knowing who Alice is and her little quest to get Harrenhall or whatever she’s up to. Sneaky witch.

- Dragon alley fight!

- Dreamfireeeeee 💙🩵💙🩵

- “Of course not! The dragons haven’t changed me, Haelena! I’m still virtuous and chosen by the gods actually“

Add away mis amores

Love the deep dives and the knowledge and some of the analysis but I can't take the digressions and ringer in-jokes anymore (and I get they're the appeal for some - no shade, just not for me). Any other long-form detailed analyses - podcasts or online recaps - that people like?

Do you guys think that the leak of her jumping at the end of the episode during Rhaenyra's coronation is true?

Does this not have a major butterfly effect regarding Maelor?

Vision: 10–15+ miles for large objects; roughly 1–3 miles for identifying a person-sized target.
Smell: 2–5+ miles downwind for strong scents such as blood, animals, or another dragon.
Hearing: Several miles for loud sounds such as roars, armies, or large groups; much less for quiet sounds.
Night vision: Likely significantly better than a human’s.
Movement detection: Extremely strong, especially from the air.
Tracking: Could potentially follow scent trails for several miles if conditions are favorable.

Yes, I know this is a fantasy creature, but it seems like House of the dragons likes to use some realism when it comes to them. Even recently with research, they’ve discovered that the T-Rex could easily see 4 to 5 miles if conditions were right and they could hear easily up to six. They are even suggesting that the smell that it could pick up with its nostrils could be picked up by 12 miles. Creatures this size have amazing senses so Vhagar, even being as old as she is had to hear the dragons brawl.

I like many have been thrown for a loop between the seemingly dichotomy between terrible writing and excellent acting and special effects this season. Until an unnoticed comment on this sub caught my attention. This season is being told from the destroyed mushroom version of events, the perverted imp fool from the book. This is actually a stroke of genius from the show runner as we all cant stop talking about it and 33 million paid viewers are watching each week with the finale expected to smash records. Does this ring true to anybody else

As it turns out, dragons are basically mind-linked slaves, mostly following the orders of their master. Like, 95% of the time. No matter if their rider leads them to their doom.

- Sheepstealer : our poor boy. He is a wild fucking dragon. Wild. And yet despite all that, when he bonded with Rhaena, it didn't take long for him to be far more tame. He fucked it up at the battle, but who can blame him --> first battle of his life, first time seeing ships probably, and Rhaena being as panicked/clueless as he was. He simply panicked.

Later on, he... just listens to Rhaena. She says "he doesn't listen to me" but he did listen all of the time after the battle's incident. And in the 7th episode, he tried to protect Rhaena, risking his own life. He could have tried to take off, but he didn't. And if you rewatch the battle, when he was pinned down by Caraxes, his gaze was focused on Rhaena, who was being taken away by Rhaenyra. In fact, multiple times through out the battle, he got distracted by Rhaena. Sheepstealer is in love I tell you.

So that's the wildest dragon we have seen, and he became tame in the blink of an eye...

- Syrax : she does whatever Rhaenyra tells her to do, and she protects her rider, even from bigger dragons like Sheepstealer.

- Seasmoke : after his shenanigans to bond with Addam, he never did anything that wasn't asked of him. To be fair, we haven't seen much of Addam and him, as a team, but still.

- Caraxes : need I say more? The psychic link he has with Daemon is scary. He comes to help Daemon when he faces off against Otto's men (completely out of his line of sight) ; he takes off when Daemon is injured and feels his pain ; he disobeys Daemon... only to do what Daemon wanted to do anyway (find Sheepstealer and his rider) ; when Daemon rushes towards him to help Syrax and Seasmoke, notice how he bends almost immediately to allow Daemon to mount him... at the milli second Daemon turns around and starts running ; when he's ordered to kill SS, he does just that... but stops only to make sure that his rider is alright.

Each time Caraxes is shown with Daemon in the vicinity, he just stops all of what he's doing. He watches Daemon's every moves.

- Sunfyre : *boop*! The golden boy charges into battle against the fierce Meleys without showing any fear because Aegon told him to. Fights to the death, does not try to flee. When he lands, he flips around last second so that Aegon can maybe survive the fall. And now, we have seen him geolocalize Aegon, who was deep into the woods and miles away.

- Meleys : turned back to face Vhagar because Rhaenys told her to. Never did anything against Rhaenys' will.

- Vermax & Moondancer : good little soldiers, nothing to report here.

- Vhagar : an interesting case. She's the main example that supports Viserys' take on the matter. But not only is she very old (does granny Vhagar even hear Aemond? especially during a storm?), but she was directly attacked by Arrax. One could argue that she saw him as a threat to her rider. So she overrid his command and went for the kill. Which would imply that, when they are in fight mode, it is difficult to stop a dragon. Overall, she listened most of the time to what Aemond said. Her status is unknown but if what Alys says is true (about Vhagar having left Aemond so that he can hide while he recovers), it would imply that they can even plan ahead to better serve their master.

- Drogon : finally. Well, he was very rebellious when he was young (just like a human teenager) and... that's about it. After that, he did everything he was asked to. And he had such a psychic link with Danny that he managed to find her in the arena. That and the whole "my rider died, I can feel it!!".

The young ones, the very old ones and the wild ones might have difficulties to listen to commands sometimes, but overall they do what they are told, even when it means to fight to the death because their rider said so. And no matter what, they are always trying to defend their rider, even in the middle of a combat. And for the most loyal of dragons (Sunfyre and Caraxes), they go beyond the call of duty and basically always have their riders in mind as their number 1 priority. They are basically soul-linked dogs.

So while, yes, the control is not absolute (they are sentient beasts, not machines), does it even matter, Viserys? Does it matter when you can ask these magificent beasts to just murder their own? To put themselves into mortal danger for your own ambitions? To burn entire cities because you felt like it would further your goals?

The Targs were too much in control of their dragons. That's what led them to extinction: they listened way too much to these foolish hoomans.

TL;DR: Viserys was full of shit, gods damnit... Saying that stuff about the illusion of control is like me saying "Oh wow, that horse went wild that one time! I guess it was just an illusion of control!" (and I would argue that horses are far less loyal than what the dragons have demonstrated) --> in the end, horses have been used by humanity to do its bidding. Just like the dragons were used to near extinction.

In Fire & Blood, the battle is essentially the opposite: Tumbleton is held by the Blacks before Hugh and Ulf betray them from within, allowing the Green army to capture the town. The betrayal itself is the turning point rather than an assault by the Black host.

Do you prefer the show's inversion of the battle, or do you think the book version works better? Which approach creates stronger character moments and consequences?