I thought the theme of tying the violence of primitive- (or any, actually) era childbirth was interesting. But, i feel like it's overdone already in season one. And this most recent thing was just extraordinarily heavyhanded and cheap. Not sure about how the sequence would have been helped by putting it at the end. It might have meant something different/more? Like, an 'opportunity' lost, to replace what was just lost? Different significance, even if you think about it in hindsight.
So, yeah, i was a defender of the last bits of GoT, because so much of the kvetching was 1) without recognizing the constraints of production and the context of what needed to be done; 2) without recognizing that there were still so many absolutely incredible episodes/scenes/moments—that were still head and shoulders above anything ever done in film or tv before.
I have loved every bit of House of the Dragon, up until the dragon crashed through the hall floor and killed 200 'commoners' who were only there because they were herded to illegitimately legitimize the coronation. For a character who has been consistently on the side of principle, that seemed like a wildly out of character move. Squash the poor folk and just bark at the insurrectionist leaders? Nope. Not good.
And then that led directly into the finale, where everything was just so... not genius. From the camera moves, and the actor movements, to the actual storyline and scenes. Heavyhanded is the word that keeps coming up for me. Obvious is the other. Things were just telegraphed in a way that i haven't seen before. I kept wondering, in real-time, who the director of this episode was. Like, it was someone who we hadn't seen before, and who was doing a very substandard job of it. Just as an example, near the end. Was there anyone who didn't know that one of those kids wasn't coming home? Blame the writing at the front—as it was just bitchcakes stupid to send a 12-year old to a castle/house you don't know you control, when it's obvious that the other faction—your opponent—also needs that house. Why would you do that? Even if you say, Oh, he'll be on dragonback—he's safe. Um, nope—he's gotta get off the dragon to make his appeal and pass your note. And then they've got your dragon, too. That didn't happen, but jeezus, if you're considering that plan, wouldn't that be something you'd consider?
I'll have to re-watch to remember the other stuff, but much of it was more nuanced. I'm particularly into the direction and production in addition to the dialogue. The direction just seemed less 'poetic' and lyrical. It was more hamfisted. Again—just not genius and perfect as we're accustomed to seeing.
Yeah, like DoctahLexus—i have trouble with the names. I don't remember any of them except Corlys and Viserys... It's kinda funny, the naming violates the most basic principles of screenwriting. When you write a movie or tv show, you're supposed to avoid character names with even the same first letter. To help the viewer differentiate and remember. With HoD, we've got multiples of the same name and variations on others. Plus we're supposed to 'pre-remember' how they all relate to characters we've seen 10 years ago. It's an adventure. The 'trick' GoT used to employ—and also because the cast was SOOO HUGE—was they would almost invariably have one character say the name of the other in each new scene. I don't think they're doing that here.
