Why Rings of Power Failed where House of the Dragon Worked | One v One

5 kids fighting in HotD had more action and emotion than the entire RoP season

An old man slowly hobbling across a hall in HotD had more emotional impact than every episode of RoP combined.

Aemond's lost eye gave more chills than they could do with Sauron's eye

I felt more sympathy for Caraxes than anyone in ROP, i mean, look at the boy, he’s a noodle, how can you not love him

An old decrypted man walking up to his throne made me cry more than the entire season of rings of power

HOTD's biggest strength is that you always understand every character's wants, desires and decisions, even if you disagree with them. In ROP, you end up rooting for Sauron to eliminate all these idiots.

The Game of Thrones universe always centered their stories around human emotion and motivation. It was their driving force and they captivate you with moments like the iron throne scene in episode 8. It's really simple without any context, but since they pulled you into the emotions and motivations of Viserys, you also felt emotional. Rings of Power didn't just lack any of that, they avoided it in any way shape or form.

House of the Dragon is honestly the most surprising piece of media I've ever seen. I thought it was going to be garbage but damn! I've never been this surprised with any movie or show more than House of the Dragon. Bring on season 2!

It's honestly ironic that the franchise with a mainly adult only audience got a better reception than the one aimed for a more family friendly audience - it really just comes down to the writing and handling of high concept genres like fantasy at the end of the day.

The awkward moment when you want an evil cloud to win, so that you can finally watch something interesting happen.

When the king walked through that door, despite his age and bad health, it had the same impact for me as Hangman saving Maverick. Really well done and perhaps more so in HotD as there was a family element to it - I am showing up for my daughter.

High peaks of season 1 for both shows: RoP : 3 small ships of Valinorans carrying 300 warriors + (minimum) 300 horses + food, tents and other equipment engage "Deus ex Machina" style "epic battle" with a couple of hundred Orcs in a small village that represents whole region of Southlands, slicing down scores of enemies with a CHAIN HANDHELD BY A COUPLE OF HORSEMEN (!!!) and being victorious, of course, followed by threat of genocide of the whole race spoken by a lead "hero". HoTD: A single man, rotten by leprosy, physically half-dead king makes an agonizing last grand entrance and walk of pure pain to save his kingdom and heritage. No contest between the two.

I think it comes down to something similar of why the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones worked where the later ones didn't. You write relatable characters with understandable consistent motifs you win. You have stuff happen and characters doing stupid shit for no clear reason, you loose.

You are really worth listening to for some of these people getting crazy high budgets and succumb to bad writing.

The twist should have been: Galadriel was actually Sauron in disguise. Galadriel was really meditating in a tree somewhere.

Basically: House of Dragons is a person focused story with fantasy in the background. While Rings of Power is a fantasy story with people in the background.

The fact that Galadriel's motivation to avenge her brother might as well not even exist because after the pilot she pretty much just attacks, threatens and insults basically anyone she sees. It's almost like a tragedic character who cannot be free of her own hatred, but the show is trying to tell you that she is the good one and everyone else is wrong. This isn't just a Lord of the rings thing this is just plain horrible writing and any franchise, any story can be tainted by such arrogance. I am extremely happy that House of Dragon is smart enough and passionate enough to steer far away from such mistakes

The basic principle is: dont tell, show In Rings of Power characters often just tell how they feel, like Galadriel explains 100 times that she is angry and the audience just has to take it. In HotD they have introduced the characters slowly and demonstrated the motivation and character of each person. Now you could probably turn off the sound and you would still feel the tention in every scene.

I think the funniest part of this whole debacle is that A.) The writers actually got this script published B.) An untold number of suits signed off on it with glowing praise C.) And then the EPIC FAIL of Amazon thinking the Sauron reveal was clever... but hey at least they didn't delete 5,000 1-star reviews and get caught in real time... All in all, I think we can chalk this one up as a "W" for Amazon.

It really feels like it comes down to good writing vs bad writing. The complex interactions of a complicated family and the drama from greedy people grasping for power, vs. people just doing and saying things that gets us to the next set piece or reveals the next "mystery" box to string the audience along with cliffhangers that never go anywhere.