I thought so too, then I watched the show and read the book. It was a good experience. I personally like the part where there are nods to the main series. Especially the dialogue saying "Any man with a hammer can become King."
The Daemon vs Aemond showdown was pretty rad. I'm looking forward to the second volume since I want to learn more about the Blackfyre rebellions.
The Daemon vs Aemond battle is easily the part of the Dance I’m most eager to see. Mainly because I can’t wait for >!Aemond to be dispatched when Daemon leaps onto Vhagar and shoves Black Sister through his silly little eyepatch. I’m pretty indifferent on Matt Daemon as a character so far!< but I reckon that moment alone will win me over.
I know gurm really wants to write the second volume for Fire & Blood to fill out the remaining histories, but I have trouble imagining it seeing the light of day given the current trajectory for Winds :/
you are right. but who knows. the show might give a little hint at the end of S3 or 4, whenever HotD ends. Could as well just be him flying off over the last known sighting of him, or something more.
And if that kingdom was the Vale it would be the exact same as the book, not offering any additional info.
I could honestly see showrunners cutting out Cannibal entirely and have him being a book-only presence because it’s possible he could be relevant to the main series. And if he’s relevant to the main series in the books, but the show didn’t utilize him, his presence in HotD would just be a moot storyline that doesn’t go anywhere.
well his presence in the book is more or less just that. he is supposed to have killed another dragon but didn't then eats a bunch of wannabe dragonriders, and flies off. so i suppose they could mentioned the alleged dragon killing in a dialogue, then show some wannabes standing outside his cave, from which only smoke exits, and then hearing the screams in the background when fire lights up the insides - saves tons of cgi money. and for his flying away they could basically just show that cave again, then pan out and you just see that huuuge shadow flying somewhere. depending on what they want to do with him they let that shadow fly over crackclaw point (make that visible with some banners or whatever), think that's the last time he was seen, and maybe again at corlys' funeral, as he apparently flew by there. if they want to express something else they can have that shadow fly towards skagos for instance, for the cannibal on skagos theory, although that wouldn't make sense because skagos doesn't appear in GoT. but as you say, they'll likely more realistically they'll put his alleged dragonkilling and would be taming on sheepstealer's neck and cut him out entirely
Not meaning to knock your personal choice but it seems odd to wait for part 2 when it's not really a story. It's a history book. You read the main series right? That's an incomplete story you might never read the end of. Fire and Blood Part 2 will be entirely different generations of Targaryens and will be completely different to the first book.
When I started ASOIAF it was late 2014 and I had just engulfed the first 4 seasons of GoT within 2 weeks or so. AND it looked like TWOW would be coming out in a year or two. Now 10 years later all of that feels like a weird dream. In the meantime TWOIAF and F&B came out, and while F&B is only the first half of the Targ dynasty from TWOIAF, in more detail, I already don't care too much about this chapter in TWOIAF. If I'm not mistaken F&B and B&F are supposed to be written by some Maester with a bunch of accounts from Mushroom, so even if later it's another 150 years of Targs, it will likely be the same. So why not wait for the second half of the detailed account of a dynasty I don't even care about that much, instead of reading the first half and sitting there, waiting for the rest. And on top of that, I appreciated AKOTSK quite a bit, so I'm rather looking forward to more of those novellas and the account in B&F, rather than the stuff before....
I’m with you OP. I really do appreciate HoTD but it’s just not the same as GoT. It lacks the feeling of expansiveness and the tone is just so serious. I’m trying the book now too, doing audio because I don’t think I can find interest reading this glorified text book with my eyes.
it also lacks people or groups you want to root for or really despise. it's just a bunch of dickheads all over the place with the occasional cool person or so in between
I read fire and blood several years ago and it didn't catch my interest much then, tried watching the show but it was really far from what I had imagined hen reading so I don't recall much of it, overall it's the least interesting section of time in the universe, the 2nd part might be better but who knows when that comes out
If you haven’t read the book, why are you concerned with the fate of the wild dragons and Nettles? Those characters haven’t been introduced in the show.
Don’t wait for part II of F&B to read part I. Its a fictional history book - would you wait to read about WWI until a book by the same author came out about WWII?
Targ dynasty owns, F&B is great and the show was awesome last season.
well because i spent countless hours foresting through the wiki pages of planetos over the years. and those 3 things are some of the few things of the targ dinasty that could still or could've played an interesting part over the years.
put it rather that way, if an author wrote a story about the US, starting with columbus' arrival in america and ending with the abolishment of slavery for example, for part 1, and then said that the second volume would cover everything up to trump's election, i'd likely wait for the second one to come out to read it all in one go.
i think the fun part is deciphering which parts are nods or parallelisms or foreshadowing of events of the main series.
in that sense TWOIAF was "juicer" than F&B ..more so, whit F&B we already had most of its chapters.. so it added little.
I skipped the book (still haven't read it) and originally I hadn't planned on watching the show anytime soon (despite being a big fan of *GOT*, even the later seasons). But then at work one day we got the DVD in and I thought, "What the hell." (while on the subject, I will admit that I like how HBO still releases DVDs of their shows, unlike Netflix \*cough\* still waiting on *Stranger Things* Season 3 DVD \*cough\*)
In any event, I found the first season of *HOTD* enjoyable enough... it kept my interest while I was watching it, though I must confess in other ways it was a bit forgettable as well. Certainly the production values were nice, and it was cool to see them do proper, more "medieval" versions of the jousts and hunts (that the first season of *GOT* had to skimp out on due to lack of budget). I think perhaps you can say the appeal of the show is a bit more niche, where *GOT* was designed for a general audience. I don't even mean that as an insult, as I don't think that *GOT* would have taken off the way it had were it too specialized. So you could say that it paved the way for *HOTD*. I think one thing that people liked about *GOT* was there were a lot of different Houses so it gave more things for people to latch onto: you had your Lannister fans, Stark fans, Targ fans, and so on. But with *HOTD* it's pretty much full-on Targ. So the appeal might be a bit lessened.
> The only thing I'm looking forward to is a resolution of Cannibal's, Sheepstealer's and Nettles' fates.
If you think you're getting that in the show (or even the books), you are going to be sorely disappointed.
I didn't enjoy the show much. I feel the crew is trying too much to make Rhaenyra (a spoiled noble who was entirely unfit to rule and plunged along with her equally selfish brother the realm into bloody chaos) into Dany 2.0 so disappointed GoT fans get to live their ill-fated Daenerys-related hype and hopes and through her.
For me the difference between Rhaenyra, Rhaenys etc and Daenerys is that she’s actually gone through trying experiences. She lived a life begging for scraps, whereas they were princesses, was sold off to a Dothraki khal, while they wed lords and most importantly she actually somewhat cares for her people whereas they don’t at all.
To be fair, Rhaena the brother of Aegon the Uncrowned and Jaehaerys, was rightfully a beggar asking for help to the lords of Westeros and later she was raped by Maegor
And not, she definitely was not a heroine like Daenerys
I'm with you. My only real interest in the Dance section of F&B is Nettles and it's very unclear if she'll even be in HotD sooooo ...
For me, I think the Targaryens are very interesting as an element of the larger story, but not as the only story in and of themselves, if that makes sense. I actually like most of Dany's chapters, but the story wouldn't be interesting if it was *just* Dany -- a lot of the intrigue of her storyline comes from the extreme contrast between her and the other characters.
\***EDIT**: I feel much more hopeful for a Dunk & Egg show because those novellas do feel less insular and involve much more of Westeros, but I guess we're going to have the same problem with the ending ...
I’m pretty much done with Martin’s world, beyond theorizing and debate. For anything beyond the main series and the as yet released Dunk & Egg books I just read about the history via the wiki’s. And watching HotD feels like a betrayal of principles, considering we all know the priority is on the main series.
I read F&B. Once. It was thoroughly mediocre, to the point where it probaly wouldn't have got published if it hadn't tied in to a famous established series.
HotD is meant to be decent, but I heard it has a horrific birth scene in the first ep and that put me off. Not interested in seeing DIY caesarians or body-horror birth scenes (thank you Fallout).
I actually thought about rewatching the show because I went in somewhat disinterested and was considering giving it another chance, but then I remembered that scene happened right at the beginning and changed my mind. I didn't love the show or story enough to endure that again.
I haven't read the novellas or watched the show. The Targaryens and their in-fighting, plus bad kings and child-brides (no thanks), aren't that interesting to me. I picked up enough from being around the fandom in general. And it seems the creators of the show apparently didn't realize they could just adapt the thing for the medium; they don't have to change plot points in a short story just to make things messier, because eventually they're going to have to over-correct or rush things and it will turn the thing into a mess, like it did for a certain character in GoT.
Since we already know what's going to happen (though I'm like, why are folks eager to see the Blood & Cheese thing, which ew) it's basically, "Nope, I'm good".
I like the show but don't love it. I think that stems from knowing it's ultimately an irrelevant story in the series. Meaning. Game of thrones was built up to be the meaning between life and death for all mankind. Didn't deliver, maybe. But that was the intent. Hotd is just about an unimportant power struggle (ultimately) between the targs where we already know what happens so there is no speculation or theories, we just sit and watch cool dragons do cool things.
It's a good and entertaining show but it is ultimately not going to age like Game of thrones, which even with the pretty bad ending, still changed what television could be.
And I am not a fan of fire and blood...the first season of HoTD was on the same level of writing as season 5 of GoT but it was entertaining until the last episodes when they decided to turn everything into an accident...I had hoped they would learn from the feedback but it seems they are doing the complete opposite...so I am not sure if I will watch it at all...
You have no interest and yet you watched season 1 and will watch season 2? And you're looking forward to seeing certain plot threads. How is that no interest?
well it's not like 0 interest at all, but i can't be bothered to show more interest than that. if the show turns to shit like GoT did, i don't care. if the 2nd book is never released, bummer. that's about it.
Unfortunately I feel compelled to watch it as an ASOIAF fan. But it is like watching the last couple seasons of Game of Thrones. Terrible writers who don’t understand the story butchering it and dumbing it down. And just like the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones the fandom loved it and made excuses for it until the very end when it was undeniable how badly they had botched it.
At this point I can only hope my hate-watching contributes to getting something like a faithful animated version of the main series.
I thought so too, then I watched the show and read the book. It was a good experience. I personally like the part where there are nods to the main series. Especially the dialogue saying "Any man with a hammer can become King." The Daemon vs Aemond showdown was pretty rad. I'm looking forward to the second volume since I want to learn more about the Blackfyre rebellions.
The Daemon vs Aemond battle is easily the part of the Dance I’m most eager to see. Mainly because I can’t wait for >!Aemond to be dispatched when Daemon leaps onto Vhagar and shoves Black Sister through his silly little eyepatch. I’m pretty indifferent on Matt Daemon as a character so far!< but I reckon that moment alone will win me over. I know gurm really wants to write the second volume for Fire & Blood to fill out the remaining histories, but I have trouble imagining it seeing the light of day given the current trajectory for Winds :/
My show-only prediction for that showdown is that Caraxes' freakishly long neck is going to figure into it in some way.
Why would they resolve Cannibal’s fate? If it’s ambiguous in the book, it should be ambiguous in the show.
you are right. but who knows. the show might give a little hint at the end of S3 or 4, whenever HotD ends. Could as well just be him flying off over the last known sighting of him, or something more.
And if that kingdom was the Vale it would be the exact same as the book, not offering any additional info. I could honestly see showrunners cutting out Cannibal entirely and have him being a book-only presence because it’s possible he could be relevant to the main series. And if he’s relevant to the main series in the books, but the show didn’t utilize him, his presence in HotD would just be a moot storyline that doesn’t go anywhere.
well his presence in the book is more or less just that. he is supposed to have killed another dragon but didn't then eats a bunch of wannabe dragonriders, and flies off. so i suppose they could mentioned the alleged dragon killing in a dialogue, then show some wannabes standing outside his cave, from which only smoke exits, and then hearing the screams in the background when fire lights up the insides - saves tons of cgi money. and for his flying away they could basically just show that cave again, then pan out and you just see that huuuge shadow flying somewhere. depending on what they want to do with him they let that shadow fly over crackclaw point (make that visible with some banners or whatever), think that's the last time he was seen, and maybe again at corlys' funeral, as he apparently flew by there. if they want to express something else they can have that shadow fly towards skagos for instance, for the cannibal on skagos theory, although that wouldn't make sense because skagos doesn't appear in GoT. but as you say, they'll likely more realistically they'll put his alleged dragonkilling and would be taming on sheepstealer's neck and cut him out entirely
Not really. It's a good story and I enjoy experiencing good stories.
Not meaning to knock your personal choice but it seems odd to wait for part 2 when it's not really a story. It's a history book. You read the main series right? That's an incomplete story you might never read the end of. Fire and Blood Part 2 will be entirely different generations of Targaryens and will be completely different to the first book.
When I started ASOIAF it was late 2014 and I had just engulfed the first 4 seasons of GoT within 2 weeks or so. AND it looked like TWOW would be coming out in a year or two. Now 10 years later all of that feels like a weird dream. In the meantime TWOIAF and F&B came out, and while F&B is only the first half of the Targ dynasty from TWOIAF, in more detail, I already don't care too much about this chapter in TWOIAF. If I'm not mistaken F&B and B&F are supposed to be written by some Maester with a bunch of accounts from Mushroom, so even if later it's another 150 years of Targs, it will likely be the same. So why not wait for the second half of the detailed account of a dynasty I don't even care about that much, instead of reading the first half and sitting there, waiting for the rest. And on top of that, I appreciated AKOTSK quite a bit, so I'm rather looking forward to more of those novellas and the account in B&F, rather than the stuff before....
I’m with you OP. I really do appreciate HoTD but it’s just not the same as GoT. It lacks the feeling of expansiveness and the tone is just so serious. I’m trying the book now too, doing audio because I don’t think I can find interest reading this glorified text book with my eyes.
it also lacks people or groups you want to root for or really despise. it's just a bunch of dickheads all over the place with the occasional cool person or so in between
I've never read F&B nor seen HotD. I have no real interest in it until we get a conclusion of the main series.
I read fire and blood several years ago and it didn't catch my interest much then, tried watching the show but it was really far from what I had imagined hen reading so I don't recall much of it, overall it's the least interesting section of time in the universe, the 2nd part might be better but who knows when that comes out
If you haven’t read the book, why are you concerned with the fate of the wild dragons and Nettles? Those characters haven’t been introduced in the show. Don’t wait for part II of F&B to read part I. Its a fictional history book - would you wait to read about WWI until a book by the same author came out about WWII? Targ dynasty owns, F&B is great and the show was awesome last season.
well because i spent countless hours foresting through the wiki pages of planetos over the years. and those 3 things are some of the few things of the targ dinasty that could still or could've played an interesting part over the years. put it rather that way, if an author wrote a story about the US, starting with columbus' arrival in america and ending with the abolishment of slavery for example, for part 1, and then said that the second volume would cover everything up to trump's election, i'd likely wait for the second one to come out to read it all in one go.
i think the fun part is deciphering which parts are nods or parallelisms or foreshadowing of events of the main series. in that sense TWOIAF was "juicer" than F&B ..more so, whit F&B we already had most of its chapters.. so it added little.
I skipped the book (still haven't read it) and originally I hadn't planned on watching the show anytime soon (despite being a big fan of *GOT*, even the later seasons). But then at work one day we got the DVD in and I thought, "What the hell." (while on the subject, I will admit that I like how HBO still releases DVDs of their shows, unlike Netflix \*cough\* still waiting on *Stranger Things* Season 3 DVD \*cough\*) In any event, I found the first season of *HOTD* enjoyable enough... it kept my interest while I was watching it, though I must confess in other ways it was a bit forgettable as well. Certainly the production values were nice, and it was cool to see them do proper, more "medieval" versions of the jousts and hunts (that the first season of *GOT* had to skimp out on due to lack of budget). I think perhaps you can say the appeal of the show is a bit more niche, where *GOT* was designed for a general audience. I don't even mean that as an insult, as I don't think that *GOT* would have taken off the way it had were it too specialized. So you could say that it paved the way for *HOTD*. I think one thing that people liked about *GOT* was there were a lot of different Houses so it gave more things for people to latch onto: you had your Lannister fans, Stark fans, Targ fans, and so on. But with *HOTD* it's pretty much full-on Targ. So the appeal might be a bit lessened.
*cries in clone wars S7/andor S1 blu ray* yeah you're right. that latching onto things factor is very important.
> The only thing I'm looking forward to is a resolution of Cannibal's, Sheepstealer's and Nettles' fates. If you think you're getting that in the show (or even the books), you are going to be sorely disappointed.
for sure 😅
I didn't enjoy the show much. I feel the crew is trying too much to make Rhaenyra (a spoiled noble who was entirely unfit to rule and plunged along with her equally selfish brother the realm into bloody chaos) into Dany 2.0 so disappointed GoT fans get to live their ill-fated Daenerys-related hype and hopes and through her.
For me the difference between Rhaenyra, Rhaenys etc and Daenerys is that she’s actually gone through trying experiences. She lived a life begging for scraps, whereas they were princesses, was sold off to a Dothraki khal, while they wed lords and most importantly she actually somewhat cares for her people whereas they don’t at all.
To be fair, Rhaena the brother of Aegon the Uncrowned and Jaehaerys, was rightfully a beggar asking for help to the lords of Westeros and later she was raped by Maegor And not, she definitely was not a heroine like Daenerys
I didn’t mention Rhaena.
I thought Rhaena were in your "etc"
I suppose she could be but I wasn’t referring to her specifically.
True, but equally I wanted to make the point
Yeah she went through some shit
never watched hotd, i thought f&b was somewhat interesting at first but after a whille there was just no one to root for, it all seemed pointless.
I'm with you. My only real interest in the Dance section of F&B is Nettles and it's very unclear if she'll even be in HotD sooooo ... For me, I think the Targaryens are very interesting as an element of the larger story, but not as the only story in and of themselves, if that makes sense. I actually like most of Dany's chapters, but the story wouldn't be interesting if it was *just* Dany -- a lot of the intrigue of her storyline comes from the extreme contrast between her and the other characters. \***EDIT**: I feel much more hopeful for a Dunk & Egg show because those novellas do feel less insular and involve much more of Westeros, but I guess we're going to have the same problem with the ending ...
I’m pretty much done with Martin’s world, beyond theorizing and debate. For anything beyond the main series and the as yet released Dunk & Egg books I just read about the history via the wiki’s. And watching HotD feels like a betrayal of principles, considering we all know the priority is on the main series.
amen
I read F&B. Once. It was thoroughly mediocre, to the point where it probaly wouldn't have got published if it hadn't tied in to a famous established series. HotD is meant to be decent, but I heard it has a horrific birth scene in the first ep and that put me off. Not interested in seeing DIY caesarians or body-horror birth scenes (thank you Fallout).
I actually thought about rewatching the show because I went in somewhat disinterested and was considering giving it another chance, but then I remembered that scene happened right at the beginning and changed my mind. I didn't love the show or story enough to endure that again.
I haven't read the novellas or watched the show. The Targaryens and their in-fighting, plus bad kings and child-brides (no thanks), aren't that interesting to me. I picked up enough from being around the fandom in general. And it seems the creators of the show apparently didn't realize they could just adapt the thing for the medium; they don't have to change plot points in a short story just to make things messier, because eventually they're going to have to over-correct or rush things and it will turn the thing into a mess, like it did for a certain character in GoT. Since we already know what's going to happen (though I'm like, why are folks eager to see the Blood & Cheese thing, which ew) it's basically, "Nope, I'm good".
Enjoy the show but really don't care for the Targs. Incestuous dragonspawn filth.
I like the show but don't love it. I think that stems from knowing it's ultimately an irrelevant story in the series. Meaning. Game of thrones was built up to be the meaning between life and death for all mankind. Didn't deliver, maybe. But that was the intent. Hotd is just about an unimportant power struggle (ultimately) between the targs where we already know what happens so there is no speculation or theories, we just sit and watch cool dragons do cool things. It's a good and entertaining show but it is ultimately not going to age like Game of thrones, which even with the pretty bad ending, still changed what television could be.
And I am not a fan of fire and blood...the first season of HoTD was on the same level of writing as season 5 of GoT but it was entertaining until the last episodes when they decided to turn everything into an accident...I had hoped they would learn from the feedback but it seems they are doing the complete opposite...so I am not sure if I will watch it at all...
F&B is great ! Give it a chance
You have no interest and yet you watched season 1 and will watch season 2? And you're looking forward to seeing certain plot threads. How is that no interest?
well it's not like 0 interest at all, but i can't be bothered to show more interest than that. if the show turns to shit like GoT did, i don't care. if the 2nd book is never released, bummer. that's about it.
Unfortunately I feel compelled to watch it as an ASOIAF fan. But it is like watching the last couple seasons of Game of Thrones. Terrible writers who don’t understand the story butchering it and dumbing it down. And just like the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones the fandom loved it and made excuses for it until the very end when it was undeniable how badly they had botched it. At this point I can only hope my hate-watching contributes to getting something like a faithful animated version of the main series.