Daemon is sort of frustrating, I think, because they've chosen odd parts to highlight and really condensed things.
Keeping Rhea Royce, his first wife, in the show keeps it consistent with the books, but it's also a strange decision when time is short and could have been better spent somewhere else. In the books, Rhea just dies: it's a legitimate accident. Daemon is nowhere nearby at the time and completely innocent of any wrongdoing. This works well enough for a historical account--people do just randomly die!--but is somewhat unsatisfying in the context to the show: Rhea would be an off-screen obstacle until the plot needs her not to be one anymore, at which point she spontaneously vanishes. They had Daemon kill her to try to make it seem less arbitrary, I think, and to make him seem more dangerous.
But I think it would have been better just to write Rhea out entirely. "He's already married" is the least important reason nobody wants Daemon near Rhaenyra; Viserys can simply tell Daemon to find a wife and settle down instead of ordering him home to his wife. This could lead more cleanly into Daemon's romance with Laena. That, coupled with keeping a few deleted scenes featuring Laena, would have made it all work more smoothly, I think. Show a Daemon who is trying to come to grips with the idea that he'll never sit the throne, who is trying to settle down but finds that he can't.
Interesting! Yeah, I think your idea would have been a good one. It's sometimes funny how certain things get changed from the source material for the better and other stuff just gets kept in for seemingly little real purpose.
The difference in vitality between Daemon and Viserys is also something that always surprises me. My wife said they're much younger at the start of the story in the book, but right now it feels like Daemon has been forty for thirty in-story years.
Daemon is sort of frustrating, I think, because they've chosen odd parts to highlight and really condensed things.
Keeping Rhea Royce, his first wife, in the show keeps it consistent with the books, but it's also a strange decision when time is short and could have been better spent somewhere else. In the books, Rhea just dies: it's a legitimate accident. Daemon is nowhere nearby at the time and completely innocent of any wrongdoing. This works well enough for a historical account--people do just randomly die!--but is somewhat unsatisfying in the context to the show: Rhea would be an off-screen obstacle until the plot needs her not to be one anymore, at which point she spontaneously vanishes. They had Daemon kill her to try to make it seem less arbitrary, I think, and to make him seem more dangerous.
But I think it would have been better just to write Rhea out entirely. "He's already married" is the least important reason nobody wants Daemon near Rhaenyra; Viserys can simply tell Daemon to find a wife and settle down instead of ordering him home to his wife. This could lead more cleanly into Daemon's romance with Laena. That, coupled with keeping a few deleted scenes featuring Laena, would have made it all work more smoothly, I think. Show a Daemon who is trying to come to grips with the idea that he'll never sit the throne, who is trying to settle down but finds that he can't.
Interesting! Yeah, I think your idea would have been a good one. It's sometimes funny how certain things get changed from the source material for the better and other stuff just gets kept in for seemingly little real purpose.
The difference in vitality between Daemon and Viserys is also something that always surprises me. My wife said they're much younger at the start of the story in the book, but right now it feels like Daemon has been forty for thirty in-story years.
I'm becoming conditioned to reading these every week, compliments to the literary chef. They enhance the experience of every episode.
I'll save these for when I watch this.
The show's pretty good! I think it handles certain things better than Game of Thrones, if you ever watched that.