#hotd actors

[horizon-verizon]

I’m not sure if you’ve seen the latest controversy from some trivia interview that the cast did in which the question “which dragon is the mother of Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal” or something along the lines and the answer was Syrax— it has of course caused outrage amongst TG because ‘HeLaEnAs dRaGOn iS tHEiR mOm’ (which honestly I think one of the biggest injustices that has emerged from hotd is Dreamfyre being significantly known as Helaena’s dragon and not Rhaena’s when Helaena canonically had nothing to really do with Dreamfyre) anyways, I had always thought that Dreamfyre being their mother was at this point just theory because of the dragon eggs being stolen by Elissa Farman and taken to Pentos. Is it confirmed that Dreamfyre is the mother?

*EDITED POST* (8/1/24)

Oh I've seen it, weirdly enough. I was starving for some Emma and Matt stuff bc they're both so good (my appreciation for Emma as an observer and actor has recently skyrocketed).

Not in the specific sense that no character has SAID "Dany's eggs are Dreamfyre's". But yes it's pretty damn obvious if you pay attention, thus it is canon. Not everything should be spelled out for people.

There is so much more reason, logical reason, to believe that Dreamfyre is the mother and not Syrax bc no special attention is given to any of Syrax's eggs besides she had many of them and Rhaena of Pentos (Laena's daughter)'s dragon, Morning, was of one of her clutches. While in F&B, Elissa Farman stole 3 eggs, took them to Essos, and they were never recovered...Essos-lived Dany has 3 eggs, Illyrio Mopatis gets these eggs somehow. Occam's razor, it's not a mere coincidence. this is still a fictional story with its own as well as using tried and true narrative conventions, not real history.

Morning is the last Dance-generation dragon and Rhaena hatched the dragon herself similarly to how Dany does (not by method, just by the fact that she did at all), so this Rhaena is the last dragonrider before Daenerys.

which honestly I think one of the biggest injustices that has emerged from hotd is Dreamfyre being significantly known as Helaena’s dragon and not Rhaena’s when Helaena canonically had nothing to really do with Dreamfyre

Absofucking lutely. If you have been with me long enough, anyone reading this, you'd know I don't play with Rhaena the Black Bride nor do I do with Daenerys Stormborn Mhysa Azor Ahai.

[ride-thedragon]

The way everyone in the comments is supporting him.

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Phoebe Campbell saying about Baela and Rhaena “There’s a little bit of tension because of their separate upbringings, Baela was raised with grandma & grandpa, Rhaena by stepmom and half siblings. Rhaena feels quite a lot of resentment there.”

So... that garbage fanfic wants to put the dragon twins against each other ?? They aren’t Arya and Sansa, Baela and Rhaena actually love each other, and unlike Sansa, Baela never bullied her sister. And why would Rhaena resent the fact that she had to live with her stepmom and half siblings ??

This is if--and only IF--Phoebe is correct in how the show will decide to characterize Rhaena, and since they literally acted the character, shot all the scenes, and haven't gone on record with bad takes, I think we don't have much a reason to suspect otherwise.

Link to the article that came out today and what anon refers to:

House of the Dragon: Exclusive First Look at the Big Battles and Family Drama of Season 2

Exclusive: The next generation of Targaryens in Team Black and Team Green break down the war to come in House of the Dragon season 2.

BranwynHlfwitch over at Twitter has a whole thread pointing out other stuff how Ryan Condal has never had a great grasp on the plot or really of history & historians.

I think that part of it is they are trying to develop these characters for their larger roles they're planning during the Dance & the way they decided to go about that is to create conflict b/t the fan fav sisters. And I think they might try to to argue or imply that she is resentful bc of not just second-son syndrome, but basically Baela was picked by their grandparents to be closer and let Rhaena be. Why not both of them, if they are already seeming to break tradition? It will likely folow the theme of silent rejection the show allows the audience to quickly assume from episode 6, where Rhaena bemoans Daemon ignoring her bc of her not hatching an egg...which I already talked about.

Baela--for a very dumb reason--becomes the "ward" of the Velaryons & Rhaenys wants Corlys to name Baela as his heir...presumably without consulting Daemon, the girl's father or Viserys, the head of the house Baela is actually a part of and who would determine how his house's possible heirs inherit what over other candidates...bc Baela & Rhaena are both technically still in line for the throne though they aren't titled as princesses. Just way down and the claims would get stronger the more people before them die...which we already see in the bk.

Anyway, Baela is seemingly older than Rhaena instead of being her twin as by canon; she has a dragon where Rhaena does not; she is, bc she is older, taken to Driftmark to learn the ways of a leader as if she might become the head of a house or whatever even though we also know that Corlys has definitely not named her his heir by his & Rhaenys' conversation in the last episode (so for 6 years why is Baela there without being named when they could just visit each other--her and Rhaenys--by ship and dragonback [pic below] idk, the spectacle of it?).

And while Rhaena loved her dad, loved her stepsiblings/1st cousins-once-removed & I believe that Rhaenyra was a great stepmother to her, because the show did not show us their lives, they will take advantage of that and present us with a lot of stuff like this--breaking lore and going along with the breakage to build their own tale but also sometimes not showing a logical progression from that point of breakage [again, lok to the link abt cradle-bonding].

Yes, there's the argument that Daemon is merely worried over Rhaena's being singled put and left out or belittled, sidelined, for not having a dragon as he felt being a second son/child even with his dragon...but again, look to my post about cradle-bonds and the history of dragon bonds he supposedly knows and it becomes still dumb when he still ends up doing the very thing he's supposed to have feared for his daughter, to her.

Would it have helped if the writers actually developed these people's lives before the Dance and actually think through their plot decisions if they planned to make Rhaena-Daemon's deal this, absolutely! But we have what we have.

Show!Rhaena could come to just resent her sister for all this perceived favoritism.

I may be wrong, who knows.

[horizon-verizon]

Lucemond is honestly one of the worst ships that came out from HoTD, mainly because they use the likeness of underage actor (at the time) & ship him with Aemond (who's actor was over 25). Other that most fan ships make no sense.

Spending more time online, I have come to the conclusion that I prefer ships that do, could or have a good argument for how it could happen within the original story's lore, circumstances, and structure. That might sound either boring or narrowminded and harsh, but I just don't have the tolerance for some ships when they revamp the orig character(s) entirely or even oppositional to what they would/could do in canon. Plausibility, basically, is everything to me. Hence another reason why I dislike HotD. Lucemond is not a ship I've ever explored, so I am indifferent towards it other than not seeing how I could like it bc these two could never like each other, much less be intimate.

Not that you are weird for not wanting to ship a character that has the likeness of a child with another character witht eh likeness of an adult, but (unfortunately) ASoIaF fandom is not made up of only adults, either, anon. Again, I am ignorant of Lucemond and its shippers, but is it possible that a fraction of its shippers are also underage? I suppose the likenesses of the actors is enough for people, but another air-cleaning moment. At the same time, I think Lucemond shippers mostly take the show at face value when they ship them and thus they ship a canonical teen with another canonical teen--Luke (not the actor, though he is too, but I am talking abt the character) is 14 and Aemond is 16 as Condal/the writers aged them by the time of S1E8-10 (again, face value!). However, it can be tough to see the casting choices impose a near 30 yr old actor to play a 16-19 yr old in a show/film. I think this is an effect from weird Hollywood practices, too.

I also never really got using actor's likenesses or ages as if said actors were those characters, or really make as if the actor's actual ages and appearances equaled their HotD universe/in-world likenesses instead of incidences of casting and makeup decisions. Once you see the HotD producers didn't want to at least add purple eyes post-production and in the editing--but they will add unnecessary and nonsensical scenes--you have to level the actor's appearances as likely more incidental than show!"canon" are an important part of the story itself. Of course you can like said likenesses and use them for art and stuff or imagine such as having their actors' likenesses bc these actors' likenesses are how you get any likeness for a character in the show, but the reason why you have different eye colors amongst a set of siblings when the orig story itself writes against such (example, Rhaenys' black hair is gone bc they didn't give Targs purple eyes), is not always bc the casters and writers knew such happened in the orig story or to really further their own story or add some depth, but bc of costs and convenience and acting ability or nepotism.

[horizon-verizon]

"...we just hate the way Emma talk about this character feels like a mockery" Isn’t that just most of the cast, though? Most of them don’t bother to read the source material. Then they show up to interviews without a real understanding of their character arcs or endings and just throw out headcanons. Annoying? Yes. But it happens. It was annoying when Tom said Aegon was an empath (and his fans went wild, claiming he’s the only one who "gets him"). Emma, for the most part, provides a fairly neutral take on Rhaenyra. Sure, they’ve had moments where they veer into headcanon territory, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen. Then again, who wouldn’t start slipping after being asked the same question a thousand times: “What do you think your character felt when…?” 🙄 Out of the whole cast, Matthew Needham is one of the few who actually seems to understand his character. He doesn’t mock the role, try to justify actions, or force “good” qualities over the bad ones; he just presents his character as it is.

Anon talks about this post.

I haven't watched any interviews after the puppy one, that one with the black backdrop where Fabien and Matt were uncontrollably laughing, and one group one where Matt said he'd protect Emma in a different time period. And I haven't gone back for S1 interviews, so I wouldn't know about Emma's patterns there too well. But I have had the impression from clips on TikTok that it is as you describe, to the point that some people thought that they were a little wishy-washy to please the actor of Alicent (forgot her name) bc they were in their begiining of their friendship and we were all still in the midst of the show's pushing antiDaemonism/pro-Alicentism for Rhaenyra's popularity, which...never made any sense.

Important to note some things that other anon said:

A)

[...] we just hate the way Emma talk about this character feels like a mockery If Emma hates girlie stuff and thinking wore a skirt is their highest achivement? Its fine. But their fans had use the book to justifying that they are right while this character were nothing like in the book, it's better for them to throw fire and blood and embraced that their character love their stepmother.

B)

there's a lot of queer/minority actors in hollywood did all of them act like Emma? Emma didnt look like how George describe the character and didnt acting and behave like her, this one is older than her stepmom, the question is is this really the character? It is so understandable that Ryan and Miguel chose Emma through audition in Zoom meeting at the pandemic and it shows.

I forgot about the [bold] line above in the first quote or my eyes skipped it, but this presents as approaching transphobia/enbyphobia bc I'm not sure how Emma's supposed hatred feminine socially-coded feminine clothing impacted how the costumers created the clothes or how the writers decided to write a lot of show!Rhaenyra's subpar approaches to the war preparations. And Emma not looking like how GRRM describes Rhaenyra should really only refer to her (Rhaenyra's) clothing, bc acting is a priority over looks when considering fancasting. The person can be the "perfect" mirror of the official small-mouthed, plump Rhaenyra but if they can't act or portray Rhaenyra's character it's been a complete waste, esp when it's the MC. Makes the whole thing far less enjoyable or plain intolerable. And in general, fancasting/casting is not going to be perfect in terms of looks fitting those either detailed to T in the original text OR imagined so by one set of the audience from some deatils of the text anyway. It's not ever going to fit everyone's perfect idea of what the character looks like OR, again, fit the exact truely detailed accout from the text itself. No one looks like a "canon" Targ except maybe an albino, and even then we know Targs typically had "gold" (yellow/blonde) AND "silver" (white, NOT gray!) hair tendrils or has purple eyes (not dark blue that could pass as such, true purple).

So again, what we should consider is how the actor acts, what is written for them to base such acting on, and finally how the costumers/producers decided how this character dresses.

So there appears to be just some more possible transphobia here.

[horizon-verizon]

Imagine being so obsessed with a sadist rapist character that you create alternate personality for him...

I cannot understand it. I mean, TGC is doing a great job with the material given, but he is not really the level of breathtakingly beautiful/sexy/charismatic to actually make people lose their mind and touch with reality. The character is also broadcasting classic loser vibes (from a storytelling viewpoint : he does constant self pity, is deliberately portrayed as pathetic and stupid in many occasions and the rest of time he is not showing any positive attributes). What is about him that makes people not hate his guts as it would be natural response ? I am mystified.

"but he is not really the level of breathtakingly beautiful/sexy/charismatic"

To some people he is genuinely their "type", but I do get what you're saying.

"broadcasting classic loser vibes (from a storytelling viewpoint : he does constant self pity, is deliberately portrayed as pathetic and stupid in many occasions and the rest of time he is not showing any positive attributes)"

The "babygirl" phenonmenon has to do with it. Men and women and people who don't Id as either all in one way or another look at "pathetic" men as more endearing under the specific perception that he's so un-self aware it's funny or that he needs "help" understanding whatever situation he's gotten himself in. But sometimes, this extends to not holding men/boys accountable for understanding right form wrong at all and making him out to be a victim, whether it's an opportunity to self-project or tofeel as if you can "protect" and/or appeal to the man/boy. Like you are the one who can "fix" things for him and feel all the more "special" for doing so. Or to reassure him for the same results.

In the attempt to distort actual marginalized people's oppression and them expressing such as "self victimization" but white males' discomfort as "true" suffering, our white supremacist and capitalist/consumerist world has also taken to making said white males "victims" form basically not getting their way as they have for thousands of years. But saying it like bc men are basically socially & domestically incompetent, they need to have a historically oppressed party to make emotional and other types of "room" for them. And it's still designed towards this anyway, with many social and economic mechanisms made towards people siding more with males bc that's simply where we're taught the $ money is or is likely to be.

Basically, ego, capitalism, racism, misogyny, DEI hatred, plus media incomprehension or illteracy. And --Rhaenyra's, and even Alicent's, actual suffering that they can't avoid bc it's a "woman's place" is take for granted.

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Why do so many people love show aemond and try to ship him with all of Rhaenerya’s kids? Especially Rhaenerya and Daemon’s Visenya? It has never made sense to me why people love him so much. In another life, Aemond would still be dead, Visenya still alive and most likely married to her brother Aegon and Queen.

Show!Aemond's actor is very attractive to some people, either/both in his looks alone and/or bc he plays Aemond in a certain "silent and deadly" that thrills them. Some genuinely think that he was "right" and a forever victim of what happened at Driftmark. Some find the his seeking out prostitues for company from what he doesn't get from his mother to be deliciously sad and intriguing enough. Some think that he is like a "protector" of his family bc the show really hasn't developed him very well or doesn't want to show his "true" book!self. Even in the show, this isn't true--the guy was about to kill his own brother, talked crazy to his full-sister, and is so gungho about defeating a foe who actually doesn't even want to kill him or his people at all (and so very obviously doesn't since the first season that I'm just here like 🤷🏾‍♂️).

I think some people also just focus on the perceived better parts of him, whatever those may be, to have fun with him, which I'm not that opposed to.

Me, I don't care that much unless I have to see it in art (I don't scream about it or berate anyone, I simply scroll away) or if anyone tries to project their impression of him onto the canon-canon.

As to why Rhaenyra's Visenya? I suppose that it's a "what could have been", playful AU sort of thing where Aemond finds true love in the unlikeliest of places Romeo and Juliet style (or what were kinda taught as R&J being a romance when it's not that by genre). I'm telling you, people love forbidden love, it's never going out of style.

Also, I'm going out on a limb and saying that in most of the AUs people have for Aemond-Visenya is that Jace, Luke, and Joff are all or some are alive, the war never happened or was quickly won or something happened before Aemond could get killed and the blacks won and thus any of the V boys get to rule...not Aegon the Younger. Aegon the Y doesn't have to marry his sister since he's not likely to inherit much of higher status or authority like those 3 boys, so the usual practice of the oldest boy marrying his oldest sister in the Targ family isn't really necessary here. Even if they are still betrothed with those 3 or some of them alive, it's not one that is so necessary as to not be rearranged (Alyssa was at one point considered for Aemon, but Alysanne shut that down, and Aemon didn't even have another sister to marry at that point I think).

Or, perhaps the greens win and the blacks children get taken hostage or ran away, years go down the line, Visenya grows older, Aemond may or may not be still with Alys (if she even exists in this AU), and bam, they are still people of a forbidden romance. With a GRRM-taste, what with the large age gap. Or perhaps they have Visenya come earlier and be older than Aegon-Viserys. Or she is the oldest of their kids in someone's AU.

IDK, this is what I'd do if I shipped them. Any of these scenarios. Point is, people don't just draw or talk about a ship they imagine, they create scenarios in their minds if they don't write fanfics about it while they do it.

*PLZ refer to the comments about Visenya being a self insert.*

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Its so wild to me that the showrunners actively chose to include the worst, nastiest parts about Aegon II (the rape, the child fighting pits, the harassment of women, mistreatment and neglect of Helaena, deadbeat dad who tried to run away & abandon his children) and then they constantly go on interviews to talk about how sympathetic and minsunderstood he is. No tf he’s not, he just deserve to be killed in the most painful way possible.

I think TGC was saying that Aegon was "misunderstood" not in that he rapes bc he's been abused or anything like that, but that people misunderstand Aegon's...determination to lead or to fight or to make his own decisions. Because he says Otto wants to control him and underestimates how insistent Aegon is, which is actually true from the orig canon. Bk!Aegon straight up dismisses Otto and makes Criston Cole his hand. But elsewise, I think he's leaning into his character bc his rewatch with Ewan shows him hating on Jace and his posture in a more blank-faced tongue-in-cheek way. I'm not sure though bc he keeps his face mostly blank for all this. And I only watched these two clips from him so maybe I'm just misinformed-- but that's it for now. Did I dislike it being promoted as his "noble" determination to fight, sure, but that's how Aegon the character would see it and again, idk if he's just promoting a character as the others are. With Bethany, however, you can really see that she both believes as her character does in Aegon not being king, and not only is she just correct I love her enthusiasms, which is itself still promoting her character and the show bc it gets you hyped.

As for the showrunners that you were actually talking about...looking at you Sara Hess, a writer--who said that he "didn't know" he was SAing girls 🙄. We live with a global patriarchal film industry, what can I say? Where actors OR writers and producers will be compelled or actually believe that a male character is just "misunderstood".