Dragons or Something

[Kaos]

Let me start by saying I loved Game of Thrones, right up until it turned to complete and absolute GARBAGE after Season 6. Never been more disappointed by a series any more than I was by this one.  The last two seasons were an affront to all who'd ridden the dragons and embraced the winter for the better part of a decade.  Not even lumberjack Dexter was worse.

The way it ended was so bad that I wasn't sure I wanted any more of that world.  I wasn't enthused, or even really interested when the prequel was announced and I ignored it when it aired.  Then people who liked the original series started telling me how good this prequel, House of the Dragon, is. 

Somebody who knew of my affinity for the series gave me the book the prequel is based on for Christmas.  I'm trying to read it, but like the later books by George RR Martin all he does is fill up page after page with drivel.  He's a really bad writer, to be honest.  I'm trying but I can't hack my way through it.   Usually I can read 500-600 pages in a day or three. I'm three days into this and haven't made 100 pages yet. I can't find my give-a-shit.   There's no real story. It's kind of like the "begat" book of the Bible.

So I figured I'd at least try an episode or two of the HBO series just to see if it was better or made more sense than his ridiculous book.  I've tried three times today to watch the premiere episode.  I can't get through it.  I start it over and I make it about 15 minutes before I find myself doing something else.  I don't abandon it on purpose, I lose interest and forget I'm trying to watch. It's not gonna grab me.  The characters are awful from what I can tell.

If I need to keep slogging through it to get to an episode where it will finally take hold, let me know.  I won't likely get there on my own.

[Kaos]

House of the Dragon

Without Game of Thrones, this would never exist.  It's not bad in and of itself, but without the book as background some of it makes no sense. It also screws things up by inserting wokeisms (like a black guy being the King of the Sea).   

But the absolute WORST thing about House of the Dragon is the casting.  All the main characters are so glaringly ugly they're hard to look at.  It really ruins the show. 

The CGI is generally pretty good. The dragons themselves are rendered well for the most part. The story is confusing (as was GOT often) but solid enough.  The casting, though, is absoulte SHIT. 

Start with Matt Smith as Daemon. He's hard to look at normally. Here, blonde and pale?  He's one ugly motherfucker. It's jarringly bad. 

Young Princess Rhaenarys can't act a bit. And she's ugly as bearded dragon hell 


The actress playing the older version of the princess is ugly in a different way.  May actually be worse.



The Targaryan princes are abrasively ugly, particularly the one-eyed Aemond who seems to think that the entirety of acting consists of making a stupid fucking duck face. 



The sad reality of this show is that there's only one single major character that's not an ass stain on the screen and cringe-worthy to look upon.  Queen Alicent is a cutie, but they kind of ruined her even with a creepy foot-fetish masturbation scene.

I finished the first season just because I started it and wanted to see how closely it hewed to the (virtually impossible to read and understand) book.  I won't come back for more.  They're all just too damned ugly to watch. 

Speaking of the book?  It is an impossible read.  I can see George RR Martin sitting at the keyboard, mustard stains in his beard, crumbs on the floor around him as he gleefully pounds out paragraph after paragraph of absolute drivel. Page after page after page of nonsense told from multiple, often contradictory, viewpoints. New characters in every sentence, their history explained in absurd detail only to be discarded/beheaded/forgotten on the turn of the page.  It's only for the most loyal, obsessed fans of the Thrones universe - something I was briefly but am no longer.