re: House of the Dragon S1E3--Official Thread; “Second of His Name”

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I don't blame the king for hesitating to kill the stag. It was a beautiful animal. He would've been fine killing it on a real hunt, not this sham crap of tying it up while the sycophants cheer on the kill. He knew how phony it all was and saw through it.

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He hesitated because it wasn’t the stag of the prophecy he foresaw, which was also what helped reassure him that Rhaenyra was the right choice…He’s also slowly succumbing to an affliction.

That was what a royal hunting party was meant to look like. Martin himself said that the one in GoT failed to come close to capture what they really are like and this one righted that wrong

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The scene that annoyed him the most was just “fixed” by his Thrones‘ prequel House of the Dragon. In the first season of GoT, King Robert embarks on an ill-fated hunt through the woods along with a few others and is gored by a boar.

“Where we really fell down in terms of budget was my least favorite scene in the entire show, in all eight seasons: King Robert goes hunting,” Martin explained in the book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon. “Four guys walking on foot through the woods carrying spears and Robert is giving Renly shite. In the book, Robert goes off hunting, we get word he was gored by a boar, and they bring him back and he dies. So I never [wrote a hunting scene]. But I knew what a royal hunting party was like. There would have been a hundred guys. There would have been pavilions. There would have been huntsmen. There would have been dogs. There would have been horns blowing — that’s how a king goes hunting! He wouldn’t have just been walking through the woods with three of his friends holding spears hoping to meet a boar.”

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