HotD Season 2 Biggest Massacre is Way Overhyped (but We're So Here for It Anyway)
It’s no Red Wedding, but is brutal.
10 years after it first aired, the Red Wedding is still talked about as a pivotal moment in the success of Game of Thrones. And in some quarters, the Blood and Cheese scene we know is coming in House of the Dragon Season 2 is being talked about in a similar vein.
But it shouldn't be. The Red Wedding didn't just change Game of Thrones, it was a watershed moment for television. True, there have been plenty of deaths on the show, and this was far from the first. Jaime's attempt to kill Bran at the start of Season 1 was equally shocking in terms of its storyline. But it wasn't graphic or brutal in the way that we were yet to get used to on television.
By now, though, we're all well aware of how cruel Westeros can be. Indeed, if you think back to when Cersei left Septa Unella tied up in a room with The Mountain - or when she took revenge for Myrcella's death - the violence was in our heads, not on the screen. It no longer needed to be, because we knew how things worked here.
The Blood and Cheese storyline will have major political ramifications in House of the Dragon, but it's not a scene that will shock in the same way as the Red Wedding. Which makes much of the hype about it unnecessary.
It's probably not the actual violence that's so shocking, but the sheer mental torture of a mother being forced to choose which of her children will die. While it will be played out on screen, just like the scenes in which Cersei took her revenge, the effect of the Blood and Cheese scene on viewers will be what goes through their minds as they watch it.
Of course, it's worth remembering that Game of Thrones didn't pull the plug on graphic scenes with the Red Wedding. And let's face it, the brutality of the show was one of the things that kept us entertained. Blood and Cheese is going to be graphic. And fans of the show are very much there for that sort of thing.
So, regardless of whether it is (or is not) overhyped, we can all look forward to a scene that will have all the tension, drama and gore we've come to expect from the franchise.