Besides the obvious of being cheaper to only make 8 episodes vs 10 or 12 per season the only logical thing would be if metrics are showing that while everyone seemed to hate the last season or two of GoT and seemed to at least kinda dislike the back half of season 2 of Hot D those episodes are still getting views and/or people didn’t cancel their subscription so while people complained a whole lot it didn’t actually cost HBO any money. So if all people will do is complain that it sucks but still watch / rewatch then no real incentive for them to make more episodes (spend more money) unless they actually cared about the product, which no company does so yeah, 8 episodes we get. Which is lame.
Season 2 is marathoning right now so I flipped it on and I gotta say the courtyard scene at Harrenhall when Oscar Tully pretty much puts Daemon in his place is so perfectly done. Oscar going in on Daemon for being a shithead, Strong glancing over at Daemon with an absolutely terrified look on his face like "oh fuck what his he going to do", Daemon almost loosing his cool before Oscar quietly reminds him that he wants his army, and Daemon finally realizing what the play Oscar is going for is and realizing he has to debase himself a little bit in front of the lords of the Riverlands to win their fealty. So well done. And then immediately after Daemon has the vision in the bedroom with old Viserys asking if he still wants the crown.
killing off Jace (< major major spoiler) to kick off season 3 is certainly a storytelling choice. Having that end season 2 would have made more sense but whatever.
'House Of The Dragon' Season 3 Battle; 'Knight' Renewed; 'GoT' Spinoff God I can't wait for Aegon's Conquest. Cool that Dunk and Egg is most likely getting 3 seasons too.
I’m in the camp that George doesn’t “owe” the fans anything but I feel like there have been sixteen hundred announcements/alerts like this that will definitely have some people thinking it’s WoW but it just turns out to be some other super random shit he’s working on. I’ve never heard or seen whatever this is before but seeing “book 33 of 33” made laugh.
Also this was marathoning over the weekend and I’m more convinced than ever that the way they handled Daemon at Harrenhall was great and the people complaining about it just don’t know ball. Having all the visions guide him back to Rhaenyra’s side rather than make his own claim is about as good a way as any to explain his time at Harrenhall, because I feel like I remember in the book it being very like “yeah it seems like they left off on bad terms” and it’s never really explained what he’s doing there that whole time or what happened to get him back on the same page as the queen. Been a while since I read but I thought I remembered it being kinda hand waved away as oh it’s just good timing they decided to make their moves at the same time and etc