I just finished watching Season 3, Episode 2 of House of the Dragon. It’s one of the few TV shows that I have followed from start to finish. I read the book that it’s based on (though did not finish it yet) and found its quality to be similar to the first seasons of Game of Thrones (which I liked).
The longer HotD has continued, however, the worse the writing has become. No, it’s not that characters are saying completely stupid or unbelievable things. No, it’s not that all the actions and plot twists stop making sense. (Although there are certainly a few instances of really stupid behavior and baffling changes from the book.)
It’s something more subtle than that, yet more important. Something I also noticed in many other modern shows, movies, and even some books.
This article contains minor spoilers for House of the Dragon (the show)!
I will give an example.
In Season 2, the show spends quite some time on showing the Lannisters gather an army (for “Team Green”) and move to battle the opponents (“Team Black”). We get some conversations about it, some short updates along the way, and some longer shots of that massive army (with lions and all) traveling.
Okay, nice, this is the proper way to build up to something. Surely these Lannisters are going to join the fight near the end of the season, or at least end up in a major battle at some point.
Until, at the start of Season 3, all we get is a brief shot of the aftermath of the battle and Team Black claiming victory. (Did we really need to see soldiers hacking away at an already deceased lion? Really?) They skipped over the entire battle! All that build-up, and with one quick time skip, the army is completely destroyed and will be of no further importance!
Around this time, the book also contains a few other major battles (such as Red Fork and Fish Feed). These were likewise skipped. They are only mentioned once, in passing, not even shown or explained in any other way. (I believe someone just tells Daemon they did a great job at these two battles and that’s it.)
All of this feels very unsatisfying. Wasteful. Build-up towards nothing. Massive plot holes because events were skipped so abruptly that viewers who didn’t pay full attention for half a second would not now about them at all. Not great!
When the writers/directors are asked about this, they always say the same thing: budget restrictions. And sure, that makes sense. Writing some paragraphs about a battle in a book is way cheaper than filming one, of course. You can’t show all battles in full detail, that’s just practically impossible.
But we’re not asking for that, are we? That’s not the problem, is it?
Many adaptations in the past have skipped “expensive” or “complicated” parts of the story and became no worse for it. Many stories have condensed major events into little time without issue. In fact, that’s one of the advantages of storytelling. The ability to be efficient and creative with the speed and perspective with which you tell a story.
Where House of the Dragon goes wrong, is that it doesn’t do either. It spends a significant amount of time and money on still building up to something or showing a small part of it—but then chickens out on the payoff.
That’s a lose-lose situation. It would’ve been much cheaper to skip the thing entirely and only mention the battle a few times after the fact. It would’ve been much more satisfying to actually show the whole thing. Now they’ve done neither.
The problem isn’t that they can’t show all the battles. Viewers understand this. Everyone understands shows have a limited budget and runtime. The problem is that many storytellers nowadays seem to believe they need to show the literal thing completely and there’s no other way to tell the same story.
I feel like we’ve lost the artistry and the creativity in it. The out-of-the-box thinking, the practical thinking, to tell the best story within our limited means. The subtletly of figure of speech and artistic direction. The strength in deciding what to show and what to leave to subtext or imagination.
Instead, stories will just plainly show the thing that happened, fully, as neutrally as possible, and that’s that. And sure, if that’s all you want to do, then it’s way too expensive to show all the battles (and other major events, mostly dragon-related) that are in the story!
But what if … bear with me … this is a radical thought … you could include the event but in a different way? You could be smart about it and tell the same story as “cheaply” as possible? Sounds good, huh?
- You could have a traveling circus or something do a (puppet) show to reenact the major battle they witnessed along the way.
- You could merge two separate battles into one, and then go all-out on an episode containing this one big battle.
- You could do the Reservoir Dogs thing: only show the before and after of the battle. (This “before” part would actually help a LOT with understanding who is fighting who, and where, and how, and other details viewers are lacking now.)
- You could show the battle from a specific perspective: a guard at the gate who must hold that one point and only sees wounded people stumble in/out (with increasingly terrifying wounds as the battle progresses), the mighty queen who must watch helplessly from behind her bedroom window, a single dragon that we follow as it briefly dips in and out of the battle. Sticking to one perspective makes the entire event feel unique and personal, while being waaaay easier/cheaper to shoot.
- You could use the break between episodes: end the episode on a cliffhanger like “this big thing is ABOUT TO HAPPEN”, then start the next epsideo with “this big thing JUST HAPPENED”. Because there’s a clear break in-between, this feels less like skipping or a cop-out to viewers.
- You could invent some reason to scale down the event. Twist the story slightly so the big battle is between fewer armies and only in one location, so it fits within budget. Or reduce its importance so much that you can get away with fully skipping it and only mentioning it in dialogue.
- You could consistently show all battles in the show with a 2D animated sequence (or some other art style/directing style). Many stories have done this before to great effect. (The first one I think of is Kung Fu Panda using a completely different simple art style for flashback/memory sequences. Obviously a different kind of movie and tone, but the same idea.) Cheaper to make. Creative and distinct. A sustainable way to keep all battles in the show.
There are so many ways to do it. Be smarter, instead of throwing more money at the problem. Be more creative with how you tell the story.
And I feel like older movies and shows did this. They had way smaller budgets and way more episodes per season to make. None of those silly two year gaps between seasons (and seasons with only 6 or 8 episodes). They knew the story didn’t need to be told/shown literally at all points, and they made smart story decisions to stay within their practical limits.
But House of the Dragon, at least in later seasons, puts itself into a lose-lose situation. They desperately want to show everything without ambiguity or tainted perspective, but they can’t with their budget, so they half-ass it with skipped battles and build-up without pay-off.
HotD has a massive budget. If they were slightly smarter with how they told the story, they could have easily fit all the major beats from the book in there. Instead, I have to wonder where all that money goes. (A question I have to ask of almost every big budget show these days.) Most scenes happen in the same locations, with the same clothing and weapons, which they had already built anyway. Most scenes do not involve dragons or big action sequences, but are just conversations or simple actions.
Most of the changes they’ve made to the story because it would have been “too expensive” or “too complicated”—such as cutting out the younger, pretty important heirs to the throne—just don’t add up. The budget and manpower is clearly there. Most of their scenes can be told in a slightly smarter way so you don’t even have to show them, or keep them on set for more than a day. But the writer seemingly could not IMAGINE not telling a story plainly, literally, and completely as-is.
Anyway, those were my thoughts after seeing HotD make the same mistake as so many shows. You don’t need to show every event as-is, blow by blow, completely literally. Be creative with how you tell the story, the perspective, the art style, the approach, the cuts. That’s how you stay within practical limits and within small budgets. It even adds a lot of the artistry and uniqueness of a story. I remember shows with a mediocre story for using clever ways to tell it, whereas most of these big budget shows all blend together because they all tell a different story in exactly the same (neutral) ways.
Whenever someone claims changes due to “budget”, from now on, let’s all tell them it’s a load of nonsense ;) Be smarter, more creative, more daring with how you tell a story. The practical limits are a good thing—restrictions breed creativity—so embrace them. Ask the studio execs for even LESS budget! Force yourself to be more creative!
I’ll keep following House of the Dragons, but I’m nowhere near as engaged with it as I was in the first season. It’s not because they haven’t shown enough battles or explosions or whatever. It’s not because I’m blind to the fact they have a limited budget. It’s because of dumb decisions within the script showing a complete lack of creativity—the one thing that would be so cheap and so easy to fix, and they never do.
Tiamo