HOUSE OF THE DRAGON had its third episode on Sunday. And it's an interesting study in contrasts. King Viserys spends the episode...well, drinking, mostly, and arguing with/worrying about his daughter.
Meanwhile Prince Daemon, who has been mostly offscreen for the last two years losing his war against the Crabfeeder and his Triarchy, gets word that his brother is finally going to send ships and save the day--and kinda seems to lose his whole honking mind, first beating the king's messenger and then taking on the Crabfeeder's forces literally on his own.
It's a trap, of course, but it is dangerous in the extreme, and he gets shot twice in the chest in the process. But his risk succeeds in drawing out the Crabfeeder's troops, which allows the Sea Snake's forces to finally once and for all destroy the Triarchy. And Daemon, who let's be honest has had a pretty checkered record so far when it comes to being the badass that he says he is, emerges from the moment seeming just the cat's meow of cool, even though the whole move is really predicated on him not wanting his brother to show him up.
Meanwhile Viserys, who was finally doing the right thing by sending men, looks that much lamer. Seriously, V., save your "troops" and your "boats." We're rock and roll down here, we just need a guy with some guts.
[And for me a big key to the scene is the archers. They get off SO MANY rounds while he's running for the Crabfeeder. They're the threat that you know is eventually going to take him down, because there are just too many of them, he has no defense against them and too far to go. And yet he keeps running. They embody the level of risk he is taking.]
How do you get people to root for a character? Have them be !%!%ing bold. They don't have to succeed. In some cases they don't even have to be talented. They just need to be willing to put it all on the line to attain their goal.
And how do you get people to turn on a character, even a good one? Do the opposite. Have them be wishy-washy, whiny, indecisive, helpless, inert. Viserys really is in a shitty position. He's the king, he rides a freaking dragon, for gods' sake, and yet all anyone wants to talk about is his heir. Oh, and also, he really is still backing his daughter, despite all the pressure against him to do otherwise. We should be on his side. But because all we get from him is words and foot stomping, he's very hard to root for.
