‘The house of the dragon’, Will Smith’s ‘cameo’ in 1 × 08

The HBO Max series The house of the dragona series, remember, of fantasy fiction, with a political and geographical setting far from any contemporary element (there are no Starbucks cups here), could not have more references to the present in episode 8, the lord of the tides, in the United States in 2022. Let’s put aside, at least for now, how the series is punctuating its episodes with its modern (albeit patriarchal in its execution) view of abortion (remember that we are on an American series and it will air in 2022, when abortion opened a heated political debate in most states), and we will be left with one of the most celebrated deaths by viewers, which led to popular imagination (this is how they left constancy in the forums and in the networks of many viewers of the series) at the Oscars 2022 and the legendary attack of Will Smith against the humorist Chris Rock. Matt Smith’s character Daemon Targaryen is transformed for viewers into Will Smith at the Oscars in the scene where Corlys Velaryon’s brother Vaemond Velaryon (Wil Johnson), after shouting from the rooftops the bastard of nephews King Viserys ( Paddy Considine), shows up in the heat and decides to insult his wife, Princess Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). If the writers of the series had not given so much importance to this scene, which it does not have in the novel, perhaps it would have gone unnoticed by the viewers. in the novel fire and bloodIt was Rhaenyra, reportedly, who had ordered Daemon to cut off Vaemond’s head and then throw it to his dragon Syrax to be flambéed and eaten. And Vaemond, in the book, was Corlys’ nephew and not his brother (making him brother there is a certain parallelism between Daemon and Vaemond, due to inheritance rights). Who, um, is upping the ante and betting everything on this character (it can also be explained that the series wanted to simplify all the candidates of the Velaryon family and focus them on a single character …). And if Vaemond hadn’t been given more weight, maybe he wouldn’t have even clicked on some viewers’ heads, to the point of starting to generate memes that link the moment of Vaemond’s character’s death at Daemon’s hand to Daemon’s assault. .

In the series, Vaemond points the finger at Lucerys. He doesn’t recognize him as a grandson. Viserys reminds him that he is Driftmark’s second child. Vaemond continues to light up. He mentions Strong’s paternity to those present and then insults Rhaenyra, and there is also an accusing finger. The camera gave us close-ups of Matt Smith’s character lighting up even as Vaemond talks, making us understand that something is about to happen, that he doesn’t like what he hears (come on, they are not random shots). This takes the spotlight off Rhaenyra as the executioner and draws them directly to him, without any confusion (there are no exchanges of glances). Then it is the black sister, the sword of Daemon, who decides to resolve the insult. Neither the order of Rhaenyra nor the dragon Syrax are involved. Daemon acts alone. Attention, in the novel there is not even King Viserys wielding the dagger, threatening from a distance to punish the insult to his daughter, her great love (this is “my love”, not Alicent, Olivia Cooke, in case I didn’t have given invoice). But the spectators only had eyes in the forums for Daemon Targaryen.