House of the Dragon S1E02 Explained
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Images and video from Game of Thrones used under fair use.
Images from The World of Ice and Fire used with permission from Random House.
Valyria art by Ted Nasmith: https://www.tednasmith.com/
Aegon I, Alysanne by Magali Villeneuve: www.magali-villeneuve.com
Visenya and Rhaenys by Amok: https://www.facebook.com/amokanet
Aemon, Baelon, Alyssa by riotarttherite: https://riotarttherite.tumblr.com/
Maegelle, Daella by Sofia Golovanova: https://www.artstation.com/jdwis
Vaegon, Saera, Viserra, Gael by warp-speed: https://warp-speed.tumblr.com/
Vhagar by John McCambridge: https://www.artstation.com/john_mccambridge
Maegor with wives by chillyravenart: https://www.deviantart.com/chillyravenart
Mushroom by Rossy Does Drawings: https://twitter.com/rossysculpts
References & further reading:
Joanna Lannister on child brides in Westeros: https://joannalannister.tumblr.com/post/146746586986/child-brides-and-historical-accuracy
Special thanks to Patrons Cameron Weiss, Michael Appell, Ryan Steele, Harry, Shane Veglia, Jason Rattray, NotGac, Tim Cunniff, T. Ledoux, Tessa Campbell-Kelly, Ilhuilkamina Urdiana, Ord X.
0:00 Opening sequence
3:06 Crabfeeder
4:36 Rhaenyra
6:34 Valyria
8:29 Alicent
11:31 The Hand
13:06 Laena
16:00 Daemon
20:20 Decisions
23:01 Second sons
#HotD
Get a free audiobook with an Audible trial: http://www.audible.com/asx
Weekly House of the Dragon livestreams every Sunday at ~10:15pm Eastern Time — then an Explained video later in the week!
@SuperJonteman It’s all relevant tho. I know D&D completely ruined it for so many of us, but I’m doing my best to forget seasons 6 and up, and wait for the books to do it justice. This show seems closer to what George actually had in mind for this time, and it can only help, not hurt the GOT series.
tell ur pal gliduszt to get his rhapsodies on!
They could definitely forge an alliance by marrying Rhaenyra into house Velaryon via Corlys son
Wonderful analysis of the opening. Thank you.
I love how Martin and the showrunners weave the real world history into their works – that second son thing was a big deal in medieval Europe and impacted many interesting events.
@Kings and Generals Your channel is the bomb! Much love from Australia.
@Dan Franco And the simple fact of “if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re bound to repeat them.”
Not judging our past would mean not learning from it, automatically.
@cy-one Thank you for putting it so eloquently. I was just about to say that, like what’s the point of viewing history objectively then, if not to reflect on the differences and understand those differences so we, as a whole have a better understanding of our origins.
@Jacob “*Judging medieval practices from our 21st Century points of view is not only a waste of time, but really kind of pointless.*”
Judging _any_ practice from our 21st century points of view is _never_ a waste of time or pointless (btw., that’s mostly synonymous in meaning anyway), because we need to judge _any_ act by our modern standards.
The fact that marrying young girls was done at some point is irrelevant to us _having_ to judge the act for modern society. Going “oh, it was done back then so we shouldn’t have on opinion now” (which would be the result of your logic) would lead to that thing happening nowadays again. Germany didn’t have a law for a minimum age for marriage for a long time, because we didn’t need to. Since 2017 we have a law for that in place, because that practice is _still_ being used. For _us_ it might be something that’s “long, long ago and a medieval practice,” but it’s still a present issue.
The same goes for slavery and fiefdom. We could (wrongfully) assume that’s all crap of the past and judging that medieval (fiefdom) or centuries old (slavery) practice by modern standards is just a waste of time.
Go look up the _Kafala_ system.
Those topics are still present in our modern world, continuing to judge them (which essentially just means having an opinion on them) is important. Otherwise we’re at least in idle approvement of such practices.
I think Otto was planning to fail at bringing the egg and blame Daemon more. It’s the same with “the heir for a day” event. Daemon did say those words but not in the way Otto described it. In Dragonstone, if Daemon did attack Otto and his crew, it will put more strain between Daemon and Viserys.
I thought the same thing. Otto knows that Daemon wants the throne and he also sees Daemon as a rival
@Von Lol No. Caraxes is deformed and way older. Syrax is young and “almost as big”. One snap at that throat (which WILL happen, they chose that design for a reason) and its over. He can barley even blow fire in this series because of his deformed throat.
@Nicholas Ford the Targaryen civil war kind of pans everything out, since most of the dragons fight one another
@Von 2 smaller dragons and all the scorpions in King’s Landing would obliterate Caraxes
Laena asking about Vhagar before her memorized marriage proposal is 10/10
@Nikhil Aditya No. You are absolutely wrong. Vhagar came from the same cluster of eggs. They were the exact same age, Balarion died a bit younger here, but same Balerion. Died at about 180. Now she is about 210. She’s older and bigger than he was as they never stop growing, and she dragons usually grow faster either way. Balerion was NOT 200 years old in this series, but 180. Just consider cannon slightly off by a couple of decades. They never get Vhargars body so it makes sense everyone in GOT tl thinks Balerion is the biggest. Hell, Drogon is almost Balrions size in season 8, and in some scenes is BIGGER than the skull size comparison (in that scene hes hidden under ash and John walks up, his skull at scale is almost double Balerions size.)
@Nikhil Aditya he did live in the Dragon Pit, but it was explained that dragons keep growing until the day they die, so he out-grew the pit and clearly went off to nest somewhere else.
@kaustralis hamal He didn’t even want to fly to Dragonstone after a couple of years of eating and sleeping and putting on weight. No, I don’t blame him at all. I went through something similar during Covid. But people who write ‘Viserys is a badass king who flew Balerion!’ just need the context. There’s a reason why Viserys never took a new dragon. He’s afraid of them.
She likes dragons and he builds castles. Not a good match ;(
I don’t look at it as Damon thinking about killing her, I think it was more about him thinking “damn good for her, she got me”. I don’t think Damon was anticipating her arrival
@Jack Bauer What is it about this post that makes you think he wants to know about unrelated spoilers?
You know that they’re going to hook up later when she’s already mature, right?
There’s also a very practical reason to not send Rhaenyra on dragonback, since the last time a dragon was sent to solve a military issue without infantry support it resulted in the death of the dragon and it’s rider, Queen Rhaenys.
Edit: I’m talking about the conflict in the stepstones, not the issue with Daemon stealing the egg.
That’s why Corlys likes the idea. Should Rhaenyra and Daemon die, his wife and son are in line for the throne.
Yeah, but since she is the heir and sooner or later needs to understand why and how decisions are made, there was a fire need to explain that reasoning, instead of just shutting her down and shooshing her away
@Глеб Сальманов yea but since Aegon’s conquest, they developed ways to combat dragon attacks. Like the giant ballista.
@Глеб Сальманов Viserys’ grandfather*
Notice how after the altercation in Dragonstone Rhaenyra stops using the Valyrian necklace that Daemon gave her
@callmecatalyst it is curious though, given viserys obcession with old valyria
@FullMetal B what? Yea ide say in this situation ide avoid the marriage lol
Nice catch. I didn’t noticed it.
@Everything batman collector lol are you still mad at everyone you have ever been mad at?
Crabfeeder looks like he’s staging a production called the Phantom of the Seashore.
Now I have to imagine a Duet between Corlys Valerion and Crabfeeder.
lol
I thought that Otto’s chain is the maester links he earned at the Citadel. We must remember that he was one of the smartest men of his time and being a second son could totally of had the time to get some studying done in his youth and earned some links.
Could be he studied at the Citadel. I hope they’d clarify it if that *were* the case, otherwise him rolling around with a Maesters chain would be a bit confusing.
I think you’re thinking of Lyonel strong. Master of laws. He earned six links.✌️🇺🇸
Dragonstone shots were so amazing. At first I was like, why is it so misty all of the sudden it didn’t look like this in GoT? Than I realized it’s an active volcanic island and this is how volcanic area should’ve looked in the first place. it also gave it eerie mystical vibe and cinematography was stunning! And I really love dragon design in this show It looks like each has more unique design and personality and more vibrant colors! And what about that sound effect when Caraxes roars 👀 It was so fantastic! I’ve heard many people say it was too squeaky but I think it fits dragon perfect. Most times in the past the roar they used for dragon was more generic like it could come form any mammal predator..but I think this sound would fit lizard like creature much more.
To me the roar sounded twisted, just like Daemon is, and I loved it! 😁