Dragon > Rings

Hey, everybody. I'm a bit late on my episode reviews for Amazon's RINGS OF POWER and HBO's HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, late enough that episode five of Rings of Power is already out and I haven't watched or written about it yet -- hopefully I'm in a for a pleasant surprise later when I get around to that.

Anyway let's start off with a quick summary in case anyone reading this post is not familiar with the two television series:

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

(prequel series to "Game of Thrones")

First off, let's start with HBO's House of the Dragon since it premiered earlier and has a more recent fanbase thanks to its breakout predecessor series Game of Thrones. Without spoiling GOT for those who aren't up to date on that completed series, HBO's House of the Dragon takes place 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. The series focuses on the succession issues of the dragon-riding Targaryen family, although the related Valeyrion family has dragons as well, and the conflict that arises when King Viserys suffers the death of his wife and firstborn son and names his elder daughter Rhaenyra as heir in order to quell the chaotic debate of who will be next in line -- especially since he has a cruel and sadistic younger brother just itching to sit on the throne. The main character of the series appears to be the king's daughter Rhaenyra but also focuses on Rhaenyra's best friend Alicent who is daughter to the king's top adviser Otto, the king's brother Daemon, and various surrounding nobles and knights of the Valeyrion family and Kingsgurd.

So far, three major players have continued on the stage in the struggle for power -- the king's daughter Rhaenyra who has a creepy relationship with her Uncle Daemon, and Rhaenyra's best friend Alicent who is not only daughter of the top adviser Otto but becomes the king's new wife and queen after the death of Rhaenyra's mother and stillborn brother. To add even more spice to the dragon pot -- Daemon and Rhaenyra have kissed in a brothel, Rhaenyra lost her virginity to her knight bodyguard Criston, and her best friend Alicent the queen gave birth to a son Aegon who many ... especially Alicent's father ... want to be heir instead of Rhaenyra since boys have been heirs for most of history and traditional marriage practice has girls adopt their husband's name and ownership.

And so now, the young girls who were friends and lived innocently protected from the chaotic stage of male succession ...

... Find themselves thrust against each other in a battle for survival. Rhaenyra is currently heir so in the future to protect herself and her own children's right to succession she will have to block or remove her best friend Alicent's child Aegon from the competition, which is also the exact same thing Alicent must do in order to protect herself and her own family.

This is all thanks to the best king ever to grace the lands of Westeros, the mad genius/ kingdom-replica enthusiast, King Viserys himself ...

This guy!

In his grief and impatience, and out of fear that his crazy brother might Cain-and-Abel him, Viserys put his daughter in very imaginable danger by breaking with tradition and making her his heir ... and then ten seconds later he puts a baby in her best friend because that was never going to cause any problems for the family.

And then there's this guy ... Mister Wild Card, Mister I Used to Be the Doctor from that British Alien Phonebooth Show, (which might be an unfair simplification) who is ever ready to mess up the mess so that it's even messier because that's how he likes things -- super, duper MESSY. To his credit, he is one of the exciting characters and he has a giant red dragon so that's obviously a sign that he has to be some kind of villain.

~

Now to Episode 5 of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

(Beware ... there be dragons -- I mean SPOILERS beyond this picture)

These two get cozy but, unlike Rhaenyra who saw their tryst as just the doorstep of the house of pleasures her uncle Daemon said she could enter as a teenager/young adult (she looks way too young for what goes on), Criston her knight sees their late night evening as a sign they should run off together and get married. Obviously the freedom-seeking Rhaenyra's reaction to this idea of giving up her power and submitting herself to a life of peasantry under another bumbling man (that's just how all male characters are written these days, especially if they're supposed to be the good guys) is basically ...

... Just kidding. She doesn't have him burned alive by magic dragon flames but when her best friend Alicent's father Otto learns of her and Daemon's kiss he approaches the king about the uncomfortable development which leads to Rhaenyra lying about it and Otto getting fired. Doubting his daughter's chastity, Viserys betroths Rhaenyra to Jacaerys, the son of the Valeryion family or ...

.. THIS guy's son -- the black guy with the white dreads. But surprise, surprise, Jacaerys ends up being secretly gay so while they go through with the pairing anyway, a spat between Rhaenyra's lover Criston and the Valeyrion prince's lover ... I'm blanking on his name but he's not really important other than acting as the motive for why Jacaerys would hate everyone which is understandable: someone else's secret mister beat your secret mister to death, something most people frown upon.

Anyway, the episode concludes with the king making sure that Jacaerys and Rhaenyra are married before passing out (dead?) and Criston tries to commit suicide but Alicent stops him which leads me to think she'll use him against her friend Rhaenyra in a bid for power.

I've no clue how the time jump will handle things. There will be new actors to show that people have aged and I at least recognize Alicent's actress from the TV series Bates Motel which like Madmen and Game of Thrones and Dexter was pretty fantastic but ended rather shittily with an almost painful last season. The point is that actress was good on that show so guessing from that, hopefully she'll be good here too!

My main problem with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is that while it's an obviously expensive show with a huge amount of nostalgia working in its favor thanks to its predecessor GAME OF THRONES popularity -- it doesn't do anything new, it's not in anyway original, and the cast and writing is nowhere near dramatic and striking as that of Game of Thrones. It often feels like a watered down spin-off with no daring cliffhangers or any overarching conflicts outside the interpersonal which while good for normal dramas is not what people expect from epic fantasy series. I am not captivated by the fantastical or mundane elements yet but hopefully that changes.

Here's a trailer for the show:

And now for what everyone's been really waiting for ... my review for episode four of Amazon's "Rings of Power"

Dear Whoever's Listening, please give me strength ...

For those unfamiliar with Amazon's RINGS OF POWER, it is another prequel series -- prequel to the famous "Lord of the Rings" trilogy -- by a big budget studio but when I say big budget I mean they put basically a billion dollars into this show. RINGS OF POWER is the most expensive entertainment production in recorded human history ... but also potentially the biggest piece of fantasy crap ever shit out by modern Hollywood establishment that cares more for propaganda than actual story and characters. I am so goddamn bored while I watch this active historical moment.

To summarize RINGS OF POWER so far, a demon bad guy called Morgoth organized humans and orcs and goblins together to stage a 9/11 terrorist-like attack on the home of the elves by destroying two humongous trees of light -- or one of them I'm not clear on that. Anyway, the elves were understandably angry so these lazy biologically immortal pointy-ear people sent thousands of their youths across the ocean to fight the demon Morgoth and his orc and goblin and human allies.

This war is won by the elves but they lose a lot of their people, "defeat" Morgoth, make Morgoth's second-in-command run away after a failed assassination attempt, supposedly "wipe out" the orcs, and establish an occupying force of elven soldiers in this new land of Middle Earth where humans hate them. It is a very hammer-over-the-head metaphor for America's War on Terror that was exponentially done better by a beloved anime series called FULL METAL ALCHEMIST by Hiromu Arakawa.

But this review isn't about the anime series FULL METAL ALCHEMIST (original & Brotherhood) ...

... And I don't have time to explain why a lot of anime has ten-times better writing than most modern Western media.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I ENVY you but anyway let's get back to the expensive community-theater slop that is RINGS OF POWER:

So it appears that on Amazon's RINGS OF POWER, the main character is a young elf warrior named Galadriel who appears to be of some royal descent. She is a no nonsense, unfriendly, charmless, pompous character and I can think of maybe ten different actresses who would've brought more charm and depth and grit to the role than this angry bland mannequin.

Onward from there, we have a slightly interesting cast of characters ranging from hobbits to dwarves to for the first time black elves ...

... Which didn't end up being as big a deal as I expected despite the online storm on the matter.

My opinion when it comes to diversity, is treat everyone the same -- replace attractive white roles with attractive non-white actors, and vice versa! It's tiring to see Hollywood's idea of diversity be to replace attractive, talented, white actors with non-attractive, untalented, non-white actors. It feels like a massive psychological operation to demoralize some populations while making other ones feel cheated or wronged in someway. Basically -- there are talented actors from all over the world, so diversity casting should be done with the same care as it was done before.

Anyway, RINGS OF POWER has a black elf. He's basically a black Orlando Bloom, handsome, ladies love him, likes arrows, very little personality but he's eye candy and that's what eye candy's for ... looking pretty while firing arrows. His name is Arondir. He's in love with a human white woman so it's kind of like an interracial relationship, except inter-species? They're different types of humanoids.

RINGS OF POWER has a black elf AND a black dwarf -- a dwarfess if you will. She's sassy, she's spirited, she's stout (ALL the dwarves are stout, relax I'm just describing her), and I LOVE HER. Most of the Internet storm over her was unwarranted. The overall writing of the show is garbage but Disa, the black dwarf, adds some much needed heart to the show ... RINGS OF POWER is painfully bland. The show needs pizzaz. I mean look at the elves, they all look like Neil Patrick Harris clones wearing Spock-ears.

And honestly she hasn't had enough screen time for me to make a proper conclusion on her character but I favor underdogs. So I got love for Disa, she's a dwarf, they live underground, are short, and have to deal with a world that's got not just normal people but cute little people hobbits and lazy procrastinating pretty-boy elves. I repeat, I got faith and love for Disa (please Amazon gods don't ruin her character).

This woman is attractive, she happens to be non-white, she's from a part of the Lord of the Rings lore that I know basically nothing about and ... the reason I dislike her is she's either not a good actress or her character's writing is unbelievable and boring, unbelievably boring. Good job to Amazon for diversifying with an attractive non-white actress, that's better than most of Hollywood but they did either did not pick someone with talent or the writer's room hates her guts. I'd rather watch this show's dumb gumby elves than experience whatever part of the story she's supposed to be propelling.

~

ANYWAY ... On To Episode 4 of RINGS OF POWER

The she-elf Galadriel was sent to return to her homeland despite finding evidence of Morgoth's assistant, Sauron, the wizard who murdered her brother. She jumps off the boat, teams up with a dirty human man who ends up being a king of some forsaken land. Arondir the black elf is a outpost soldier watching over a village that hates elves. The humans there are mistrusted because in the war their ancestors sided with a literal demon and orcs and goblins so the elves understandably don't trust their judgment. Arondir, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's annoying son find evidence of the orcs under the village in tunnels. The son finds the coolest evidence, a blood-magic sword that makes a blade of fire out of the user's blood. For a while, Arondir and the other dumb elves get captured by the orc while his girlfriend chops off one of the orcs' heads because forty-year old herbalist obviously have more battle experience than thousand year-old elf soldiers ... anyway Arondir's elf buddies act stupid and get murdered by the orcs but not before Arondir injures one of the orc leaders. Or at least, I thought that orc was the leader until they summoned someone named "father" to oversee that orc's death in a weird mini-ritual. Lo and behold, the person the orcs call "father" is an elf who treats orcs like friends and tells Arondir that everything he knows about the past is a lie ... if they show this "father" guy falling in love with a orc or goblin woman I might throw my laptop out the window. Just kidding, I'll continue recording the historical travesty that is this show. Long story short, Galadriel annoys everyone but some generic characters change their mind about her because of a dream they had and decide to send soldiers to accompany her to Middle Earth. Oh and one of the elves is going to start making magical rings because if you're familiar with any of the original trilogy or the Jackson movies ... that's a brilliant idea, more nukes for everyone.

To summarize my feelings on the show, I expect beauty and inspiring characters from Lord of the Rings but that's not what I've seen so far. The CGI is gorgeous but the characters and their conflicts feel like they've been messily stitched together for a story that will be no surprise to anyone because anyone can google how it ends. So much repetition in the movie and tv industry. They need to give us something new ... some experimental, something risky, but maybe now's not the financial time for it.

As a final thing, these are just opinions. Not law. I watch this show with my family and half of them actually enjoy the show and find very little wrong with it, and I feel nothing but jealousy about that. Perhaps I'm right or perhaps I'm nitpicking.

See you all in my next review, I promise it'll be short ... or at least shorter, much shorter

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