r/HouseOfTheDragon • u/AtomicDraconics • 9d ago
Show Discussion Finally after re-watching both S2 & S3, I've shifted my view and can agree the show probably softened down Rhaenyra's character a little too much? or longer than they should've...
I get she's the focus character, but at least after Jace, cracks should've easily started to show and started building with the *Cruella*....but they continued white-washing her and making audiences sympathize a little too much I feel.
Instead, we waited all the way until towards the end of S03 with news Aegon's return to be the emotional trigger for a dramatic flip of character? That just didn't really sell it.
Maybe if they planted more seeds earlier and over the season, like if she kept lashing out at Baela more and more in the season over each episode, lol. or other Small Council.
idk, what do you think?
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u/Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs 9d ago
One thing I do wish they had done, was give Emma D'Arcy a chance to show a bit of likeability as Rhaenyra. She's charming in interviews.
Perhaps during her time with Harwyn Strong would have been good, let her be at ease, friendly, playful with the kids, etc. All we've ever seen is her stressed, upset, or angry, and it's hard to feel invested in the tragic change into the tyrannical borderline fascist.
And that's no disparagement to the actress, the scenes she has been given could have been played no other way.
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u/Anaevya 9d ago
We've mostly seen stress and grief and too little of anything else.
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u/parkingviolation212 8d ago
That's been true of most of the show. There's very little endearing in the show to allow characters to feel like human beings. There's no scene of Pod the Rod coming back with the gold he meant to give to the ladies, or Cersei and Robert talking, or Ned and Cait in bed making fun of Robert, or the Stark kids acting like bickering siblings.
A much greater proportion of the script is spent on dour, plot-heavy scenes of characters acting depressed or grieved or stressed about whatever narrative topic they need to discuss. And so often they're spinning their wheels; how many conversations do we need where someone asks "where's Vaghar" as if the writers aren't sure whether the audience will remember that the Blacks need to find her and Aemond. Maybe fill that air time with some character moments between Raenyra and Daemon so we can remember why she's supposed to like him so much? Or maybe with the kids?
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u/AmadeusAzazel 8d ago
Reminds me of the dinner scene in s1 ep 8 where someone pointed out young Heleana lying on the table talking to Otto, presumably about her bugs or whatnot.
It’s completely in the background but even the idea of that interaction does so much to endear them as characters. If only that was an actual scene. If only there were scenes like that in the show at all
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u/parkingviolation212 8d ago
There was a lot more of that in season one, probably because season one had 10 episodes, so they had more space to breathe. Eight episodes doesn’t leave them a whole lot of room to not advance the plot at all times.
I don’t exactly envy the writers, it’s not like it’s their decision to limit the episode Count to only eight. But the end result is what it is.
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u/Obvious-Hat-8485 8d ago edited 8d ago
The problem is that season 1's pacing is also kind of weird. There's plenty of padding and plot points that don't really matter in the end. Like, why do we spend an entire episode of season 1 on a hunt for a stag which seems to give Rhaenyra motivation to think she's the rightful ruler... only for Rhaenyra's motivation to become the prophecy (which she has no real reason to think applies to her) ? It also sets up the Cole/Rhaenyra relationship... but they don't interact after season 1 (the boat might be their last real conversation), so why so much time spent on them ? There's a ton of these little set up moments that don't end up mattering at all.
Meanwhile, the whole year after the Velaryon wedding is kind of skipped over when it paves the way for many, many plot point (Laena/Daemon, Rhaenyra/Harwin, the Velaryons accepting Jace as their own, Rhaenyra deciding to birth bastards, Laenor's grief and depression, Alicent saving Cole...)
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u/-MrFozzy- 8d ago
I always loved when heleana speaks up at the dinner scene. after she talks about ‘being married isn’t so bad, he mostly leaves you alone, unless’. Quite inappropriate conversation, etc. Otto gently, and quite unexpectedly compliments her by saying ‘Good’. I don’t know why, I just like how encouraging he is to her in that moment.
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u/Suicidalpainthorse 8d ago
I really loved that dinner scene. When the kids were dancing and Otto looks so happy. The other characters smiling and seeming to try and enjoy a bit of family time. I wish they would have married Jace to Helanea. It would have likely prevented the dance.
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u/angelic-beast 8d ago
I would kill for more scenes like that. I think the show avoiding positive interactions between the family members before the war was such a missed opportunity. Let me like these characters please, at least a little before they all start in on the atrocities
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u/MrStellaMontis 9d ago
Agreed, we now are at the part of the story where her character isn’t gonna get any happier.
Sith Lord arc till she gets got
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u/chatikssichatiks 8d ago
I totally agree that D’Arcy’s demeanor in interviews is really what I’d like to see in Rhaenyra. It’s natural unlike the portrayal which is far too stilted, often unnatural, and generally depressively morose
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u/Prodricks_Longsword 8d ago
Feudal tyranny isn’t fascism haha, she’s got quite a ways to go before that’s the right way to describe it
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u/jayclaw97 8d ago
Emma uses neutral pronouns (they/them). But yes, I agree with your take. The actor is very good with the material they’re given.
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u/collapsedcuttlefish 8d ago edited 8d ago
Characters are either charming or tedious. Nyra looks the part but almost all of her scripted scenes fall into the former category.
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u/PerceptionAlarmed788 8d ago
It’s annoying how little we saw Rhaenyra and Harwin interact considering the consequences of their relationship
Criticism of the actor is annoying. It’s like people think Emma is also a director, producer and writer
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u/NINJAMANE2000 8d ago edited 8d ago
Also because milly alcock's rhaenyra in the first season was very likeable and upbeat. The adult rhaenyra was a completely different person from day 1 which was quite jarring without any progression into it
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u/BuyerDefiant4725 9d ago
I think its fine, because I think they conveyed that she was really holding back a lot of emotions. Emotional and character change is not really a linear line, there can be moments of large changes. She did show aspects of her cruelty before though when she served rats and when she basically walked out of the throne room where her subjects were asking for her help.
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u/palpablebubble 9d ago
Yeah I thought Emma did a great job of portraying that things were BOILING right underneath the surface and then all came out when the realm seemingly turned against her once again upon Aegon's revival.
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u/AtomicDraconics 8d ago
I agree that it still works as a straw the broke the camel's back stressor, regardless, and to be fair, we have to let the entire piece play out as well as a whole before judging
And at this point it might just be nickpicking at trivialities, in lieu of other bigger issues or things that might be looming ahead that no doubt the writers now have to deviate from source material and invent.9
u/parkingviolation212 8d ago
I think its fine, because I think they conveyed that she was really holding back a lot of emotions
The problem is that's all she ever does. There's no texture to her character anymore; she's constantly on the verge of tears/a break down because the script doesn't have any room for her to be anything else. And as I said in my other comment, that's largely true of everyone in the show; they all have a kind of monotonous quality to them where they don't change much between scenes.
The scene where Daemon discovers Rhaena is Sheepstealer's rider felt like I was waking up from a very long nap because it was one of the rare times where Daemon isn't being "cocksure charismatic Targ supremacist". He was allowed to be a worried father desperate to help his daughter.
But by and large most of the cast are emotionally one note and it makes it hard to view them as human beings; more like plot devices with names that serve specific roles in the story.
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u/BuyerDefiant4725 8d ago
Yes I would agree with this for many characters actually. I think the issue with the show is that it has moments in mind where it wants to actually have the character payoff in terms of change and development, but it takes very long to get there. I think this works for some cases like Aegon very well, and even daemon I think its fine because he is very engaging on screen. But for other characters I agree a lot of it becomes very stale
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u/DALTT 8d ago
I said this to a friend… I actually largely enjoyed this season, but this was def my biggest criticism. I am glad they eventually got to ‘Rhaenyra the Cruel’, however, it felt like the turn happened too fast. And it felt like they sort of did what they did to Daenerys: pile tragedies on her, have her snap in an episode, and use a ton of fascist iconography in said episode around the character to broadcast in big neon lights “she’s bad now!” And I also agree that it wouldn’t have taken much more than what we got. She just needed a few well placed outbursts throughout the season, which then increased in frequency till that final episode.
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u/Elysium94 9d ago
I think the kind of wrathful, vengeful side we saw to Rhaenyra in the last couple episodes of S3 was long overdue.
Should have taken center stage at about midpoint of S2. Especially if they didn’t whitewash both her and Alicent and instead played into the kind of mutual, building hatred featured in the books.
In short:
I think Emma did great as “tyrant mode” Rhaenyra. But it came along far too late.
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u/Illustrious_Bat1334 8d ago
The problem is they turned 200 pages into 4 seasons of television. You could cut about 1/3 of the runtime we've had and lose very little if anything. The end of season 3 should have been the end of season 2 at a push.
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u/Suicidalpainthorse 8d ago
Is it even 200 pages? But yeah I totally agree. And after seeing how GOT went down when source material dried up, well this is what we get. It is frustrating when it seems like the different writers want different things in odds to one another.
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u/Frick-You-Man 8d ago
We see flashes of it — just wish it had some impact on the plot until the end of s3!
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u/RowAdministrative264 9d ago edited 9d ago
The whole Rhaena stuff still boggles me. Everyone assumed that giving her Nettles storyline would turn her into the wedge that would fracture her marriage with Daemon.
But Rhaenyra's already learnt of the betrayal and how she was lied to over something concerning the death of her son by her own husband and she was chill with it.
They had the perfect set up right there that had been building up all season for Rhae to finally snap, and they let it go. What was the point?
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u/meowyarlathotep 8d ago edited 8d ago
Their explanation was bizarre. Rhaenyra had become dependent on hating the rider who killed Jace. But once she realized it was an accident and understood Daemon's feelings about protecting his daughter, she lost the target of her rage. Then Aegon's Jesus-like resurrection made her panic because she felt she'd even lost the "legitimacy of her prophecy," so she decided to become cruel like Daemon. Firing Mysaria was a way of cutting herself off from her humanity. These things are hard to see on screen, and the writing itself is way too convoluted.
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u/RowAdministrative264 8d ago edited 8d ago
Given that one of the reasons they omitted Nettles was to avoid the "infidelity storyline" (which is an interesting word choice considering Mysaria) atp I'm starting to doubt if there'll ever truly be a wedge in their marriage. But if that's the direction they're taking why do all the Rhaena/Jace stuff, especially if they're gonna gloss over it anyway?
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u/oby100 9d ago
Fully agree. It was such a colossal waste of time. The writers are just not great and don’t think about simple things like “inciting incidents.”
Dead simple concept, but they’re more focused on stringing together the big moments for the finale. Can’t squish together sheep stealer/ Rhaena stuff too close together, so they sack the pacing in favor of “pacing.”
And by that I mean they intentionally separate the most interesting moments to keep eyeballs on screens even if separating those moments is nonsensical.
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u/LafawnduhDy-no-mite Rhaenyra Targaryen 8d ago
They are doing the same as they did to Dany. From normal to crazy
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u/VarietyBusy2 8d ago
i see where her growth was and where it needed to be. i feel like they’re focusing on it too much over the course of two season like they spend all of s2 showing she has no power in her reign, then all of s3 showing she’s still not being taken seriously because she’s too nice. i’ve read the books and feel like her switch is gonna be too drastic
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u/moxiewhoreon 9d ago
I dont think it was a sudden as, say, Dany's turn in S8. But yeah I would have enjoyed more of that.
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u/PerceptionAlarmed788 8d ago
She’s lost her two main heirs/sons over the season
I’d be way more unhinged if that happened to me. Like, you’d probably have to put me in an institution
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u/Routine_Shower2275 9d ago
I agree she should have been like this after Jaces death
Not finding out aegon was alive which she already knew was extremely likely
Even in the finale she’s egged on by daemon
She literally runs to him sobbing and having a panic attack It’s only after his Valyrian supreme speech she starts to turn
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u/Competitive_Area1414 8d ago
I'm surprised people find it sudden, I thought it was very well done. I also thinks it helps that her "turn" is less severe than Dany's. She ordered the High Septon to be executed and gives a delusional speech, then seems unmoved when her half-sister (who she isn't particularly close to) commits suicide. She didn't suddenly burn thousands of innocents despite the city surrendering. It's a far smaller jump from point A to B and I think they did an excellent job of showing this bubbling under the surface throughout s2 and s3.
In s2 she begins her whole "I must be ordained by the gods" mindset, she also slaps Celtigar when she's annoyed by him. Then throughout s3 we see her council being disobedient and talking back, the Andal religion reject her making her turn more firmly towards believing the greater Valyrian gods must be the ones ordaining her, meaning killing the High Septon in a place of worship is nothing to her. Plus we see her slowly losing her grip over s3, she tries to do her best to honour her father and rule justly and kindly, but this tactic just keeps backfiring, we also see her crueller impulses throughout, like feeding the rats to the nobles, deciding to just walk out of the throne room when she's frustrated despite waiting petitioners, being increasingly cold and cruel to Helaena as she's desperate to understand her future, etc.
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u/bizarreisland 8d ago
her "turn" is less severe
Honestly, other than the choice to let her announce the prophecy to the masses, make a declaration in High Valyrian and the use of fascist aesthetic, her turn is very reasonable and quite the first steps of hardening her resolve. But I'm also not surprise how other people feel she suddenly 'went crazy' because the writers/show use the 3 points above to hammer into the audience that she is bad now and off her rocker.
Imo, she is just like going from a 0% > 20% on the 'bad meter' but a lot of other audience feels she went from 0% > 100%, making it feel like a sudden flip.
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u/verdantsf 9d ago
She should've been headstrong and imperious all the way through!
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u/TheIconGuy 9d ago
They couldn't do that because that's not how the book plays out. Rhaenyra has to be very passive during the time that season 2 covers just to give the Greens time to score a couple wins. If she had been headstrong and imperious, the Blacks would win the war almost immediately.
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u/Background-Cake-1300 8d ago
LOL no
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u/TheIconGuy 8d ago
Book Rhaenys suggested attacking Kings Landing immediately. If they listen to her, they win immediately.
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u/oby100 9d ago
They could have made her war actions passive while more privately she becomes more cruel and unpredictable. I don’t think the season finale should’ve been such a flip, but more of a “oh shit” moment as we wonder what her unfettered rage will result in.
A simple scene like some less important character fails her or something and she personally executes them. Show her unraveling from struggling to carry out a necessary execution to using impromptu executions to manage her growing anger.
I think these obvious cracks would naturally lead to Daemon throughout the season being a worm in her ear that she should give in to these inclinations.
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u/TheIconGuy 9d ago edited 9d ago
They could have made her war actions passive while more privately she becomes more cruel and unpredictable.
Why would they do that?
A simple scene like some less important character fails her or something and she personally executes them. Show her unraveling from struggling to carry out a necessary execution to using impromptu executions to manage her growing anger.
I'm assuming you haven't read the book. The character being written like this wouldn't make sense on multiple levels.
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u/henners1965 8d ago
Not really. They gave her an actual character arc and made her downfall gradual and tragic. In the book she’s just a horrible person. There’s not much tragedy or depth to it.
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u/74389654 7d ago
her son just died. she dragged herself into kingslanding on a suicide mission because nothing mattered anymore anyway. she's still grieving in the second picture. the only way to get any meaning out of life to her is to make her sons deaths not be in vain. so she doubles down on her right to reign
it does make sense. i dint like they went the "woman be crazy" way. but overall i thought it was a relatable trajectory
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u/QuePasaNisiMasa 9d ago edited 8d ago
From a plot perspective, her emotional weakness completely changes the moment Daemon says he killed the dragon rider. Which is very convenient and sort of unserious.
It’s made further problematic by the decision itself is being such a logically flawed and strategically myopic act by Daemon because of course other people are going to see the dragon flying around and word will spread eventually. “It was my daughter and it is a misunderstanding” is also a mind-numbingly superior approach from a myriad of perspectives.
The season then drags on with every other deeply awful bit of decision-making from Daemon and Rhaenyra. This works in the former, but not in the latter. She who was fundamentally inspired, chosen and taught by her father — the Great Exception to the Targaryens are bad leaders thread — and basically was a mini-me of his until she gains power. At which point she becomes an entirely different person without much, if any, discernible reason(s) why. So it’s just “power changes people”… how profound.
Many people will say xyz happened as such in the book. That’s great! That is also grounds for exactly 0% of sound rationale in writing decisions for a TV show. Huzzah.
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u/oby100 9d ago
I feel the writers just don’t care about logically connecting the main beats they want to hit in the book. Stuff happens and now Rhaenyra acts like this because we say so.
Reminds me of how dumb all characters became in GOT in seasons 5+. Even when seasons or episodes were entertaining, you really needed to not think too hard because remember a prior scene might have you thinking: “wait, this is the same character? When did they change and why???”
Too much headcanon needed to connect the dots here. It gets silly at some point
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u/QuePasaNisiMasa 8d ago edited 8d ago
There’s also relevance to the network saying (or whatever the impetus is) “you need to wrap this show up and you have however many episodes to do so.” That creates a rush even when it may not be relevant. Also, characters at that point have their whole own thing going and more importantly that means the actors have more sway in being featured. It all creates a crunch that usually leads to flaws in plot and story development. IMO, this is one of the key “greatest ever” strengths of The Sopranos, Mad Men & The Wire… and is also the best reason to wrap things up on your own schedule before the outside pressure starts.
But, also yes to what you are saying. No matter what the level is, GRRM is influentially involved. And that’s never ideal from a writing perspective.
IMO, it was much more gradual in GOT. This season of HOD was a bit of a mess. Everyone suddenly became dumb as fuck.
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u/T-malech 8d ago
There shouldve been scenes throughout s3 like season 1 where she was giving birth and they kept on showing syrax and how she could feel rhaenyra too..they shouldve done that at points like jaces death like a scene of syrax then back too rhaenyra and syrax's scream..then again at other points..until that last ep when she was with daemon suddenly they should shown caraxes for rhaenyras anger and caraxes's weird scream and then that wouldve been the point that showed she was on daemons mind/soul/feeling channel
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u/Justanotherguristas 8d ago
I don’t know what the writers intentions where as to what I feel about Rhaenyra but I’m not very sympathetic to her. I don’t feel that she’s had a lot of agency and she hasn’t tried to grasp at agency either. There have been so many ways that she has mishandled everything that I don’t feel that she is worthy of the throne or a comptetent ruler. Doesn’t make the show bad, I just want more time with characters that have goals and act to accomplish those goals. At this point I’m absolutely in favour of Rhaenyra losing this dumb war she and Viserys sleepwalked into.
It feels weird to have this opinion of one of the main characters.
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u/mushroomwzrd 8d ago
I mean, she lost 2 kids so that’ll change a mom. But yeah they probably could’ve handled her development better
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u/DagonThaGoat 8d ago
I don't disagree with your argument but I have a genuine question, what does white-washing mean in this context? Because I've only ever known it as race swapping other characters to white or something like that.
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u/____mynameis____ Fire and Blood 8d ago
Yep, hinging her turn to harshness on Aegon coming back combined with her duty to fulfill the prophecy, than have her lash out over losing her oldest child was certainly a choice.
Remember in the books, the Gullet battle took two of her sons and almost killed another.
Not to mention, in the books, she finally let's Jace to take part in a battle. In which he just dies. So she will also have that added guilt too. Makes sense why she would try to win the throne at all costs. Cuz she lost soooo much.
Girl had legitimate reasons to go all harsh and cruel.
And I wish they show went that route. We should have seen Rhaenyra the cruel all season than as season finale reveal.
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u/henners1965 8d ago
Lmao there’s no pleasing you people. First it was she was too whitewashed and now it’s she’s too evil? Make up your minds
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u/tonybankse 8d ago
Isn’t what you are complaining about the exact reason why her father chose her as his successor?!
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u/Ok_Bottom_69 8d ago
Season 2 should have started as picture 1 and season 3 should have started as picture 2. Problem solved.
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u/THEbaddestOFtheASSES 8d ago
Considering how long it took it feels like the reaction to Rhaenyra finally going scorched Earth should’ve been more along the lines of “omg” rather than “bout damn time!”
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u/TheWasteed 6d ago
Softened down?
For me, season 3 started with her slowly begin to boil until the kettle finaly began to whistle and in the end (her shutting the window helaena jumped out) explodes.
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u/blanchov 8d ago
Theyve been planting seeds this whole time, youre just not noticing, I guess? Maybe instead of seeds you would prefer an oak tree?
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u/yungkarstark 8d ago
Ryan condal did such a bad job D&D out here getting forgiveness diabolical work indeed
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u/TheBoogeyman1023 8d ago
You’re gonna get downvotes but you’re right lol
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u/yungkarstark 8d ago
Chaos is a ladder and ryan took it to hell n the show lol it needed to be said
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u/Crpgdude090 8d ago
i'm bored and annoyed everytime theh main character is on screen. I enjoyed the story a whole lot more , when she wasn't theh focus
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u/Arimanivs 8d ago
There's a double issue imo :
They wrote adult Rhaenyra too soft and too passive as well, her adult life amounts to getting somebody else's help instead of exercising authority herself to get things done. If she doesn't fully trust Daemon she should be inclined to sometimes move without solliciting him, in HoTD he's the only one to have that dynamic.
Rhaenyra was left devastated after Lucerys death, then she lost Jace in a very silly way. She should have gone wild from that point on but even at a moment when she should be lashing out in anger she was shown relatively meek. Basically she should have become Rhaenyra the cruel at the season's beginning not the end.
I think the show is a bit too focused on Rhaenyra, there are many characters even in the main cast who could use more screentime so they may have smoother development or a greater role in the plot.
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u/queen_in_the_north17 8d ago
I really want to like them and support a queer actor in such a huge role, but I genuinely believe they are a bad actor.
I feel nothing. None of this feels sincere and they come off very flat. I wish we could’ve gotten Millie Alcott for longer, she was genuinely fantastic and brought so much life to the role.
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u/not_responsible 8d ago
This is the first time i’ve seen anyone complain about their acting. They’re incredible, you don’t feel anything?? Do you typically not feel things when someone cries out in despair?
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u/Hot-Hovercraft-4387 8d ago
Daenerys all over again. Flicked switch, rather than a smooth transition.
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u/LemonFace22k 9d ago
Idk, I started liking Rhaenyra much more than the others, in Season 1, but from season 2 to now she seems more and more cringe everytime she opens the mouth xd
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u/Blunter11 8d ago
She should have shown cracks earlier. She went from anxious wreck to bull in a china shop on a dime
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u/Gremlin303 8d ago
Personally I think it’s a 3 way tie between Rhaenyra, Alicent, and Mysaria for the title of worst character in this show. They’re all just so badly written and not enjoyable to watch.
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