This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 1.
Adapting a book for television always involves making some changes to the source material, and even a multi-season TV show does not always have time for every character and subplot from a long book. But sometimes, the cutting of a character takes away something the story really needs, and in the case of House of the Dragon, we think that character is the court jester, Mushroom.
We can see why the writers chose to cut Mushroom from the show at first. The book House of the Dragon is based on, Fire & Blood, is a pretend-history. Its narrator is Archmaester Gyldayn, a scholar writing up a history of the Targaryen dynasty sometime shortly before the start of the action in A Game of Thrones. There have been a few fantasy novels written this way – Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell,...
Adapting a book for television always involves making some changes to the source material, and even a multi-season TV show does not always have time for every character and subplot from a long book. But sometimes, the cutting of a character takes away something the story really needs, and in the case of House of the Dragon, we think that character is the court jester, Mushroom.
We can see why the writers chose to cut Mushroom from the show at first. The book House of the Dragon is based on, Fire & Blood, is a pretend-history. Its narrator is Archmaester Gyldayn, a scholar writing up a history of the Targaryen dynasty sometime shortly before the start of the action in A Game of Thrones. There have been a few fantasy novels written this way – Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell,...
- 5/8/2023
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
This article contains spoilers for all of House of the Dragon season 1.
Author George R.R. Martin draws on lots of different things for inspiration when he writes his A Song of Ice and Fire series, which was adapted into Game of Thrones and now House of the Dragon. The influence of the medieval era on the history of Westeros is well known, from Henry I making his barons swear loyalty to his daughter Matilda just as Viserys I makes his lords swear loyalty to his daughter Rhaenyra in Fire & Blood (adapted into House of the Dragon), to the conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters in A Song of Ice and Fire that partly mirrors the conflict between the real life houses of York and Lancaster in the 1400s.
But there’s another semi-historical influence on Martin’s world that is not so often talked about. In 1934, Robert Graves’ novel I,...
Author George R.R. Martin draws on lots of different things for inspiration when he writes his A Song of Ice and Fire series, which was adapted into Game of Thrones and now House of the Dragon. The influence of the medieval era on the history of Westeros is well known, from Henry I making his barons swear loyalty to his daughter Matilda just as Viserys I makes his lords swear loyalty to his daughter Rhaenyra in Fire & Blood (adapted into House of the Dragon), to the conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters in A Song of Ice and Fire that partly mirrors the conflict between the real life houses of York and Lancaster in the 1400s.
But there’s another semi-historical influence on Martin’s world that is not so often talked about. In 1934, Robert Graves’ novel I,...
- 11/4/2022
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
Okay, so here’s the thing…
I started in on the sixth volume of Ooku: The Inner Chambers without bothering to re-read either the previous volumes in the series or my thoughts on those five books. As a result, I spent most of my reading time trying to remember who the various characters were and what their struggles were supposed to signify. I know that this makes me sound like a bit of a scatterbrain but Volume 6 does not feature any self-contained story lines, instead it concludes storylines from the previous volumes and lays the foundation for a storyline that will (hopefully) feature in Volume 7 if and when Viz Media get round to translating it. Given that characters in Ooku frequently change names and physical appearances with the passage of time and the somewhat interstitial nature of this volume’s narrative, I think that my disorientation is at least understandable,...
I started in on the sixth volume of Ooku: The Inner Chambers without bothering to re-read either the previous volumes in the series or my thoughts on those five books. As a result, I spent most of my reading time trying to remember who the various characters were and what their struggles were supposed to signify. I know that this makes me sound like a bit of a scatterbrain but Volume 6 does not feature any self-contained story lines, instead it concludes storylines from the previous volumes and lays the foundation for a storyline that will (hopefully) feature in Volume 7 if and when Viz Media get round to translating it. Given that characters in Ooku frequently change names and physical appearances with the passage of time and the somewhat interstitial nature of this volume’s narrative, I think that my disorientation is at least understandable,...
- 8/20/2011
- by Jonathan McCalmont
- Boomtron
The Joseph L Mankiewicz epic of Egyptian love has brains as well as beauty. But it's not just Elizabeth Taylor who's treated to great skirts and scrupulous grooming
Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Entertainment grade: C+
History grade: A–
Cleopatra VII was the last pharaoh of Egypt. She has been remembered often in fiction for her relationships with the Roman dictator Julius Caesar, and the general Mark Antony.
People
The film begins with Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison)'s defeat of Pompey and journey to Egypt. The boy pharaoh, Ptolemy Xiii, gives Caesar Pompey's signet ring, together with a big jar containing the rest of Pompey. Caesar is totally grossed out. Ptolemy's estranged sister and co-regent, Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor), gives the Roman leader a better gift: herself, wrapped up in a rug. This comes from the historian Plutarch. Spying on Caesar afterwards, Cleopatra sees him suffer what the ancients called "the falling sickness": an epileptic fit.
Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Entertainment grade: C+
History grade: A–
Cleopatra VII was the last pharaoh of Egypt. She has been remembered often in fiction for her relationships with the Roman dictator Julius Caesar, and the general Mark Antony.
People
The film begins with Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison)'s defeat of Pompey and journey to Egypt. The boy pharaoh, Ptolemy Xiii, gives Caesar Pompey's signet ring, together with a big jar containing the rest of Pompey. Caesar is totally grossed out. Ptolemy's estranged sister and co-regent, Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor), gives the Roman leader a better gift: herself, wrapped up in a rug. This comes from the historian Plutarch. Spying on Caesar afterwards, Cleopatra sees him suffer what the ancients called "the falling sickness": an epileptic fit.
- 3/31/2011
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
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