FIRST TIME WATCHING: House of the Dragon S1E2!!

I feel that all you upset about at viserys have no basic knowledge of child birth before modern medicine.. the moment the maester said the child was “breached” was basically him saying the queen is dead.

Caleb

Hope she will learn to love Viserys. He was too good for Westeros and the character I liked most in the season.

AC5555

He didnt need to ask, he knew what a bad child birth can do

devin flynn

Yeah, His wife was doomed from that pregnancy, the moment it started going south. The only two options was attempt to save the child or let both die. There was NO saving his wife, even if she could finish delivering the child. This is common for the times, even TYRION LANNISTERS mother died in child birth. He didn't WANT to do it, but he had NO CHOICE as king it was his DUTY to attempt to save his child and potential heir.

devin flynn

After re watching the season all the way through I only feel more strongly about my original sentiments.

Daniel Quezada

Corlys is actually one of the few that really did build his own legacy. His backstory is wildly cool and hopefully we'll get to see it because he's a character they're planning on doing a series about.

Kate Herzig

Just as a heads up , be extremely careful if you decide to google character names, google will think nothing of giving you their entire life summed up in a few sentences including deaths

Rey

Dragonstone is at max 2 days on a boat from KL hours on dragon back

Tyson Wilson

The source I quickly googled said Napoleon's times, but I was pretty sure the practice pre-dated that, which is why I said it had been around since at LEAST Napoleon's time.

Richard Maurer

The "Accompanied with this are how the decisions of men in power effect the women of the story and a big part of the show is the female characters trying to exercise their agency in a world that tries to take it away from them." is what we're being told while watching something entirely different play out on the screen.

Sonny Smith

Why do you think its justified?

Sonny Smith

It goes back way before Napolean, it predates the Romans.

Sonny Smith

While I know it seems gross, the use of maggots to clean wounds has been around since at least Napoleon's time and is still used to this day on gangrene, bedsores, and other wounds that are tough to heal.

Richard Maurer

personally, i thought the hate for viscery s was justified fuck him

Vincent Pang

I agree with what you are saying, I do think that you can be mad at him for succumbing to those societal pressures though. Overall i really like him, and I realize the fault is not entirely his own as far as the chances of her survival at all, but the way he did it was pretty monstrous. Like most GOT and HOTD characters, he contains multitudes.

Nimo-the-Red

He probably should have, but I think the main tragedy of this scene and really a motif of the entire season (don’t worry no spoilers), is that women have it tough at this time (and in most times throughout time). Viserys couldn’t save his wife at that point, and perhaps he should have asked or what not but I think it was implied that there was no hope, yet it was his fault she died in a more systematic way. As the writers tell us through the dialogue and story, the battlefield for nearly all the women in the story is the childbed. They are forced(meaning forced in a societal norm sense) to bare children in a time where childbirth is a deadly endeavor (doubly so for Targaryen women). Accompanied with this are how the decisions of men in power effect the women of the story and a big part of the show is the female characters trying to exercise their agency in a world that tries to take it away from them.

Daniel Quezada

Yeah, I know she tries to catch everything but has to give some commentary or she wouldn't be able to post it. :)

Yani Dodge

The amount you call people 'fools', 'dumb', 'trash', 'assholes' in your comments hardly makes you the most virtuous person online SouloBoy...

Rich House

Because people on the internet are assholes largely who take fiction way too seriously.

ConsciousChronicle143

Also you are right to be mad at Viserys, he wasnt exactly told by the maester that there was even a chance to save her instead, but he should have asked, it's on him to have not told her or asked her or anything beforehand.

Nimo-the-Red

Hey nat, was watching your reaction and hoped I could clear up the travel time from king's landing to dragonstone, they are really close, just across the (blackwater) bay from each other. This show also has more characters with dragons, so they make travel time for one or 2 people very quick (that doesnt apply to otto, that is just because the 2 locations are very close to each other). I had to look up a map for this one instead of looking up families like you had to for GOT. https://images.app.goo.gl/vMMrSWmgJFcrnys46 or just type Westeros map into Google, there are a couple really good ones. Also the opening is blood because it is showing the bloodlines for those in line or vying for the throne. If you pay attention to the symbols and the bloodlines you can follow the ancestry of Aegon the Conqueror down to Viserys and Aemma and their children and siblings and so on, sometimes has spoilers for the episode once you get the hang of what you are looking at, kind of like when sigils changed in GOT.

Nimo-the-Red

Why are there so many obnoxious and annoying comments on the last two episodes. Go watch one of the hundreds of other people who react to this massively popular show if you hate Nat’s reactions so much.

Emilie

I wouldn't mind watching on here instead of YouTube, but Patreon's media player is missing one feature that I really like and it's a silly, but nice one lol. I tend to rewatch a LOT of your reactions and when I'm doing a rewatch I'll typically be doing something else at the same time, so what I do is use my main monitor for whatever I'm doing, while having a 50/50 split screen on my second monitor. YouTube's media player has a 'theater mode' screen size option and it's fantastic for doing that, because while default is quite small and full screen doesn't allow for 50/50 split screen, theater mode simply enlarges the video to fit whatever size the window is, from side to side, and that makes it PERFECT for doing a 50/50 screen split. The end result is your reaction video and the movie/show screens are both the exact same size! Also lol, just for aesthetic purposes I always have your reaction on the right half and the movie/show on the left half, because it makes it appear as if you're actually watching it from the correct/same angle as me :P

Zeliodes

I think it's pretty obvious that the dialogue and intent are clear and you are arguing just for the sake of arguing, Erik.

TwistedMagoo

I'm just adding fuel to the fire, my friend.

Walter Lopez

If only 999 people had already said this exact same thing in the comments

Martin

Okay, we have to end this beef with King Viserys. His wife was going to die no matter what happened. Sure, he might have- okay he f**ked up but once you get to know him... He's an alright guy.

Walter Lopez

I was sooo done with westeros after that ending of GoT and damn it if this show hasn't pulled me right back in, I'm loving the politics

Rey

damm I haven't seen such hatred towards viserys from the very start lol I think someone needs to explain nat more about the choice Viserys made to try and save his unborn child.

jose giron

I'm really enjoying the casting for this show. This is my first time seeing Paddy Constantine in anything other than Hot Fuzz, and I think his performance as Viserys is great. Steve Toussaint I've apparently seen in Judge Dredd but don't remember his character, but his performance as Corlys is top notch. Then of course, Matt Smith.

Riolkin

Tends to happen alot with nat. I only find it annoying when she talks over something and misses it, then later criticizes a perceived plot hole that was explained if shed only paid attention. But such is the world of reaction videos.

jamie jones

Erik you’re wrong. The dialogue is clear.

jamie jones

The quality of the videos is a lot nicer when it's in the Patreon player. I'm a fan!

themightyabe

As has been said already Nat, expect time jumps. They are very intentional throughout this show. It's almost always explained by the dialogue though. This was based on what is basically a wiki of Westeros history. So due to the unreliable narrator/narrators, the story is intentionally spotty and based on the most important events during said history.

Brian Jones

It's about three days by ship from King's Landing to Dragonstone, according to the calculations I've seen others make, and Driftwood itself is at best a long afternoon away from Dragonstone. Actually makes Daemon's missive/wedding invitation all the funnier (and so Daemon), as there is no way for the King to arrive in "two days time". Not sure if it was intentional or not but brilliant all the same!

Kiera

Oh FFS Erik...... The book is clear, the showrunners are crystal clear, and while I find your pedantic arguing mildly amusing, even the dialogue is equally as clear. There was only one that could be saved, and that one was NOT the mother.🙄

Brian Jones

You might find people more receptive if you weren't so judgemental towards everyone who disagrees with you Erik.

Rich House

Erik the writers have made it abundantly clear in the "inside the episode" sections that Aemma was 100% dead either way. Viserys did not choose the child's life over his wife's life, he chose his child's life at the expense of a painful death over his wife instead of a less painful one.

Mango Maniac

I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of dudes see themselves making the same choice and get defensive when someone passes a judgement on Viserys that they don't like. The "standard response" as you deem it is merely a lack of desire to investigate the nuance of the situation and the specific dialogue choices the schowrunners decided to use. There was quite a big backlash to the C Section when the episode first aired, both for the gore and for how clear it is that Viserys has no desire to ask questions of the Maester to make an informed choice; I'm hardly the first to call out how shitty of a person Viserys is.

Erik Stevenson

This is one of those shows where you kinda have to pay attention to the dialogue. I think Nat misses some things because she's talking over the dialogue (which I guess thats her thing) but I think she's missing out or misinterpreting a lot of things that are clearly being explained.

Xenic Mark

As I said I can see why you might interpret it like that, but I think it is a reach compared to how everyone else is reading the scene disagreeing with you. It seems your issue is with the clarity of the dialogue though. The standard response by most people here is inline with the writers intention. I wouldn't want the dialogue made any clearer personally but to each their own.

Rich House

https://quartermaester.info/ This is a map of Westeros and Essos. You can on this map show who was controlling what area episode by episode of GoT. No HotD yet tho.

Connor Ellis

Exactly Rich! The Maester clearly does not say that there is no chance that Aemma survives! The Maester was also in the small council meeting earlier, understands the division on it over the status of an heir, and understands how desperate Viserys is for a son. As a result, it's telling that he does not say "there is no way to save Aemma", instead he tactically states that "there is a chance we can save the child" rather than actually clearly outlining Viserys' choices. At that point Viserys, without consulting Aemma who presumably has knowledge of what a breech birth is, decides to try the C Section, and lies to Aemma about what's happening.

Erik Stevenson

Exactly Rich! The Maester clearly does not say that there is no chance that Aemma survives! The Maester was also in the small council meeting earlier, understands the division on it over the status of an heir, and understands how desperate Viserys is for a son. As a result, it's telling that he does not say "there is no way to save Aemma", instead he tactically states that "there is a chance we can save the child" rather than actually clearly outlining Viserys' choices. At that point Viserys, without consulting Aemma who presumably has knowledge of what a breech birth is, decides to try the C Section, and lies to Aemma about what's happening.

Erik Stevenson

Makes sense to me, but I watch my reaction videos on a secondary TV with the YouTube app. Vimeo app when I need to. Until Patreon has a smart TV app, using their video player would be a pretty big inconvenience for me. But I can understand paying once and storing everything for later being unfair to the content creator

Eric Tanaka

Erik this is fiction, it doesn't matter about history of breech births. The choice that was presented to Viserys was to sacrifice one or lose them both. You really gotta listen carefully with these shows, especially if you're the type who is inclined to argue online ;)

Martin

The reason Patreon is pushing their own video is to stop people from downloading content.

Martin

Guess I'll post full dialogue here also. When Viserys first enters the room: "What's happening?" "The infant is in breech, Your Grace. All attempts to turn the babe have failed." "Do something for her!" "We've given her as much milk of the poppy as we can without risking the child. Your Queen is a strong woman. She's fighting with all her might, but it may not be enough." Clearly they know the baby is breech and a natural birth is being attempted. Later on when the maesters determine the baby will not be able to be delivered naturally: "During a difficult birth, it sometimes becomes necessary for the father... to make an impossible choice." "Well, speak it." "To sacrifice one... or to lose them both. There is a chance that we can save the child." I get there is some room to have your interpretation, but it is a very atypical way to read the scene.

Rich House

Rich - it's pretty obvious? A lot of dudes are saying that "The Maester said only the baby could live" which is not what the Maester said - my assumption is people simply don't know that breech births are survivable, otherwise it seems like they're intentionally misrepresenting what the Maester actually says in order to help themselves like Viserys.

Erik Stevenson

Driftmark and Dragonstone are neighbouring islands in Blackwater Bay, which the Blackwater Rush feeds into (the river next to Kings Landing.) The journey times are not excessive, you could easily fly from Kings Landing to Dragonstone and back in a single afternoon. Slightly longer by ship. Don't worry if you think it's getting predictable, there's plenty of curveballs to come. Prepare yourself for multiple time-jumps, but they're usually pretty good about telling you how much time has passed.

S1lm4r1l

lol dragonstone is right near kingslanding, thats why they said Aegon the conqueror looked out across to kings landing from dragonstone. which is why they're able to get there so quickly

Trinity Davis

The show never presents breech births as being 100% fatal so I don't understand why you keep bringing this up as some kind of argument Erik?

Rich House

start the timer when the HBO intro starts :)

Simon Bauer

Full dialogue so people aren't pointlessly arguing interpretations off limited paraphrasing: "During a difficult birth, it sometimes becomes necessary for the father... to make an impossible choice." "Well, speak it." "To sacrifice one... or to lose them both. There is a chance that we can save the child."

Rich House

Oh no, please stop. That’s not what even the exact point she was being upset about. Please, just abstain from being incorrigible. Thank you, and with all due respect, do not bother replying. I honestly do not want to force having to filter Patreon email to spam.

1xtrarice

Cool, hopefully folks get over Nat's justified dislike of Viserys.

Erik Stevenson

Oh, stop Erik. You’re just now actively patrolling the comment section unprovoked to look for someone else to convince with your advocacy. The world is still green, there is plenty of grass to touch.

1xtrarice

1xtrarice

Again - the comment in the actual show in no way says that the mother will 100% die. That's very clearly and very straightforwardly not what the Maester says, so it seems like Nat is pretty spot on with her reaction.

Erik Stevenson

ISeeTrees - just to clarify, your belief is that breech births were 100% fatal to mothers throughout history until the modern day? Can you tell us what specific point in time they became survivable?

Erik Stevenson

Well the reactor is accountable when they talk over the comment and don't notice it, which happened in this case, just a simple slip-up of her talking to the camera while he said it.

Miramir

The writers giving an interview after the show to clarify dialogue, instead of writing clear dialogue in the show, is the writers saying "shit our writing was bad, we need to clear this up." The reactor is not accountable for after-the-fact interviews. Also, what do they mean "Aemma was going to die anyway" - that breech births are 100% fatal in the world of GOT? IF that's the case, it's even worse that Viserys doesn't inform Aemma that the baby is in breech as she would surely know what that means. Viserys handles the entire thing poorly, that's clear from the writing and it's extremely valid to hate him for his actions.

Erik Stevenson

The travel in this episode is pretty standard nothing too crazy. Dragonstone and Driftmark are just across Blackwater Bay from King’s Landing. Nowhere near as far as say Winterfell, Casterly Rock, or Oldtown. Harrenhall is also quite close to King’s Landing. This map may be helpful to you: https://www.hbo.com/house-of-the-dragon/map-of-westeros

Dante

The opening credits show the family bloodline, pay attention to the branches as they change every episode!

Justin M York

Erik, I could agree with your argument if the writers of the show didn’t come out and explicitly state that Aemma was dying either way

Dante

Dragonstone being not far off the coast of King’s Landing, it isn’t too far of a journey, same with Driftmark being not too far off the coast of Dragonstone, it’s all the same relative area by Westeros standards

Christopher

Worth noting since you might have missed it, there was a 6 month time jump from episode 1 to 2, they said it a few times in passing in some of the scenes but in case you missed it, Season 1 has a few time jumps, the others will be much more obvious than this one, but there was a 6 month jump since Aemma’s passing

Christopher

The writers said it was save child or both die, but go off

Christopher

explain how you can save the mother but not the baby in this place and time?

ISeeTrees ofGreen

the writers confirmed the maester meant save one or save none, Erik

ISeeTrees ofGreen

"sacrifice one or lose them both" pretty sure that means there was no way the queen was going to live. Of course it was heartbreaking that he couldn't look her in the eyes and be honest about it, and she should've had the final say over her body, but the whole point of the scene was to show what women give in the GOT world in order to satisfy the men.

Austin

Relative distance wise, going from King's Landing to Dragonstone to Driftmark is not unlike going from DC to New York and to Boston (not sure of the exact mileages). As opposed to going to Winterfell, which is like going to LA, or to Oldtown, where Otto and Alicent are from, which is like going to Miami.

Ed Green

'Save ONE or lose them both'. Maybe he meant the baby. Maybe the writers meant the baby. But the dialogue was not 'the baby'.

Ed Green

Okay Dr. Erik what did the maester say? He said save the baby or they both are going to die.

Austin

The Maester did not say that.

Erik Stevenson

The king didn't kill his wife. She was going to die either way, the maester said that.

Jules

It's incredible how people are so determined to interpret the Maester saying "save one or lose both" automatically means that the mother would die 100% of the time in both cases. Simply not true for breech births and even if we want to pretend breech births are 100% fatal to the mother, that is not what's said to Viserys in the show.

Erik Stevenson

Corlys didn't found House Velaryon, but he did build it's enormous wealth and power to what it is in the show. He's not being full of it when he says he did it himself. I love Daemon. He's such a sad-boy criminal lol

johnny

Since she watches multiple episodes at a time I’m hoping she’ll realize in the next one after seeing all the comments

Dante

Natalie, you misheard the reasoning behind the king killings his wife, he was told to either kill BOTH or attempt to save one, she was dead either way.

Miramir

Just a heads up, there will be some time jumps in the series. I will not spoil how and when but just look out for it 😊

Len

For everyone using Chrome, Stream Recorder Extension will allow you to download the Patreon Stream.

Curaitis

Unrelated to the episode, but it looks like including the link to the unlisted YouTube video was a good idea. Doesn't look like there's a way to download it through Patreon. I also prefer watching things through YouTube anyway so I'm grateful for the link ☺️

Eric Tanaka

Hair looking gorgeous x

Lana Hands

You should react to The Last kingdom for a medieval show

Juan Colorado