A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros: a young, naive but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits await these improbable and incomparable friends.
Rated 3.4 / 5 from 4 logs on Katalog
Finished watching finally. I never expected I’d enjoy a ASOIAF IP, and yet here I am, charmed. It’s whimsical, it’s cute, the costumes are brilliant, it suffers from no mistakes of the original show, and it’s all around a fun romp. The kid carries it, damn, where theyre finding these child actors recently, I’ll never know. But what cinched it for me was Lyonel Baratheon, the most bisexual man ever to have been portrayed on screen or stage. Good work, sir. You’ve won bisexuality and I salute you for it.
Well this kinda rocked! I've been following George R.R. Martin's silver screen adaptation since season 2 of #[tv:1399:Game of Thrones (2011)]. While I feel like the general consensus is that the final season ruined GOT, I would say that the writing's been on the wall as early as season 4. That's where character decisions slowly but surely started to stop making sense. The beautiful cohesion and realness to the world of Westeros was slowly dissipating as characters started to fast travel around the globe like they're in a video game. Actions stopped having consequences and characters started to serve the plot, instead of the opposite. By season 6, with a couple of exceptional no-plot but stunning battles episodes, I was watching it just to see how bad it will get. And with all my pessimism bubbling for years at that point, they still managed to disappoint. #[tv:94997:House of the Dragon (2022)] aired 4 years ago and, having been burned once already, I approached it cautiously. Season 1 had pulled me back into the world of Westeros once again. Almost everything about it was great. There were a couple of eyebrow raising moments which I, perhaps foolishly, shrugged off. But it seems like those moments were a sign of things to come. As season 2 released I found my eyebrows raise more often than not. The season had no vision or focus. Important characters had spent the whole season doing nothing while the showrunners try to make their changes from the books somehow work, when in fact they're only servicing their fanservice-y fantasies. I barely remember anything of importance that happened in season 2 now that I think about it. I'll still watch season 3, and maybe they will find their footing again but I wouldn't hold my breath. The Knight of the Seven ||Nine|| Kingdoms is the only show that I'm watching after having read the novellas so this time I could be the smug guy complaining about how the show is different than the books! Instead, I found myself largely impressed by how faithful the adaptation is, and how the changes that are there seem to actually improve the quality of the story (at least for the moment). The structure is diametrically opposed to how the other two shows are done. Instead of following many characters' perspectives and their intricate, continent spanning politicking, we stay almost exclusively in Dunk's head - at times literally. The show features a wonderful cast of characters meeting in a birthday tourney at Ashford. Dunk is a lowly hedge knight, squireless and broke, seeking to make a name for himself by jousting against some of Westeros's finest knights. On the way he meets a small bald boy who offers to squire for him at the tourney. Dunk and Egg and their relationship is at the core of this series. The actors have phenomenal chemistry together and some of the best scenes in the show is just them playfully teasing each other or sharing a touching moment. Setting up this relationship well was fundamental to getting this series right and I can say that they pretty much knocked it out of the park. The supporting cast is also fantastic. Many of the characters that are kind of just present in the book are expanded upon in the show. For example Lyonel Baratheon, who just kind of shows up near the end of the book, is introduced early and forms a relationship with Dunk in a very endearing way. Raymun Fossaway also gets a lot more to do, bringing some much needed warmth into the cold world of Westeros. Every Targaryen, even those with at most 3 lines of dialogue, leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. They have this gravitas to them that really emphasizes that they are conquering aliens ruling this realm. The show brings some much needed color and variety to Westeros, despite being set in the rainy riverlands. The lords all have beautiful themed armor. Humphrey Beesbury has yellow dyed mustache, Lyonel Baratheon has gigantic antlers sticking out of his helmet, Fossaways have managed to looks apples look cool as their armor is covered in apple patterns as they make apple based analogies. Reisling is a weird hippie knight, walking around barefoot and speaking of himself in third person. There's also some great diegetic songs sung by the characters that help flesh out the world. Everything is very "textured" for lack of better words, both literally and figuratively. The show also gets pretty playful with its creative choices, especially for a gritty medieval HBO show. There's some really fun and interesting directing choices, specifically in episodes directed by Sarah Adina Smith. The show starts by literally shitting over the GOT theme song, and while the toilet humour goes a bit too far at points, I think it's a side-effect of making other great bold choices. For example, there's some fun music choices specifically in the final episode, some really out there camerwork which really help to convey that we're supposed to be in Dunk's head. I think this is a rare case of better than the book syndrome. While it's 90% faithful to the source material, the show does add quite a lot on top of the book and almost all of it serves to improve the story. Arlan's characterization especially is done wonderfully and it did leave me quite emotional at the end, while also supporting the shows' kookiness. A couple of things did rub me the wrong way, but they're very minor complaints (at least for now). The couple of instances of toilet humour will not work for everyone, which is fine of course, but one instance of it undercut the emotional weight of the moment too much. ||Otho Bracken farting after Dunk's rallying speech was overdoing it.|| And one change in the story does leave me a bit concerned. ||Maekar not giving Egg permission to leave with Dunk. While I do like how this characterizes Egg, it has great implications of the rest of their adventures. It will need to be addressed immediately.|| All in all, another fantastic start to a show set in the ASOIAF universe, hopefully it stays good! Third time's the charm :)
Yes I'm watching the new GOT show based on the novellas I really really enjoyed despite being burned twice already...
