Hey friends!
It’s the unexpected scent of popcorn in the air, Sam Cote, here with another Weekly Favorites! I’ve got a lot of thoughts on Epiode 1 of The House of the Dragon, and spoilers are marked.
What I’m Reading: Today I finished reading Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie! I found it to be a lot more entertaining than the first book of the trilogy, The Blade Itself (which I aslo enjoyed). The action of Before They Are Hanged is pretty evenly spread out throughout the book, so I almost didn’t realize I was approaching the end while I was listening to the audiobook– regardless, it was stimulating throughout, satisfying at the end, and the thought of what might happen in book three has me shaking in my boots.
What I’m Listening To: Ludovico Einaudi remains my absolute favorite artist to listen to while reading. He’s one of my favorite musicians anyways (see Weekly Favorites #5), and his music makes a perfect soundbed for reading fantasy. It happens frequently that the song playing will match up perfectly to the mood of the scene I’m reading, or change the way I interpret a scene in interesting and complex ways.
What I’m Watching: Last night I watched the first episode of The House of the Dragon on HBO. I have mixed feelings about it. Plot-wise, I’m already finding it riveting– the setup work done in the first episode makes me quite excited to see what will come next. I’m optimistic on that front. I’m more critical of the use/misuse of gore and portrayals of women. In general, I’m not a big fan of gore. It has a time and place, and I appreciate it when it’s useful. I thought it was useful fewer times than it was used in episode one– GoT was pretty intentional about its gore by comparison. (SPOILERS for Ep. 1 ahead). For example, I don’t think that showing severed genitals in the City Watch scene communicated the violence to me more effectively than the beheading or stabbing– they could have left that out and I would’ve walked away with the same message. That’s all I’ll say for gore, though it still applies to what I’ll talk about next. In one of the first scenes the Rhaenyra is characterized as partially “not like other girls” (she expresses a desire to ride dragons and fight, much to her parents’ dismay– if you’re not familiar, this trope implies that traditional feminine traits are negative to possess, and that worthiness is defined by acceptance of stereotypically masculine values). This wasn’t the worst case of this I’ve seen, but I could tell the writers thought they were making a positive social impact by including it. I’m hoping we’ll see more layers and development to her in coming episodes. Immediately characterizing Rhaenyra this way came across as poor attempt to gain the audience’s good graces before showing some intense and gory gender-based violence. One phoned-in girlboss character doesn’t exactly make up for a graphic non-consentual C-section resulting in Aemma’s screaming, thrashing death. I know it’s supposed to be disturbing, but I think there are better ways to create shock value. My only hope is that that scene motivates viewers to prevent that kind of violence in real life, and not to justify the it using the perpetrator’s motivations (which were apparently compelling enough to cause that event).
(End of spoilers)
What I’m Making: My apartment! As I’m settling in, I’m doing my best to make it my own– it’s as artistic a process as any, and as creatively challenging.
How I Slow Down & Unplug: Seeing friends! I drove about an hour and a half to visit a friend of mine who’s back stateside for a couple weeks. Great to see him and spend some time catching up.
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