Daemon Targaryen: Hero or Villain? Adapting Grey Characters, Myth, & Medieval History

Daemon Targaryen is one of the most fascinating and (should be) controversial figures in Martin's House of the Dragon, adapted for the screen by HBO and played by the venerable Matt Smith. What is he all about? Why do we empathize with him? What are the difficulties in adapting a novel like Fire and Blood to the screen? Where will Daemon go from here, and how must the emotional beats be constrained by the plot?

Fire and Blood focuses heavily on the ambiguity of history, and the difficulty of first gathering, then recording, then interpreting historical information with humility and scholarly rigour. When adapting a work like this to the screen, there is a constant tension between the need for audiences to resonate with characters (understanding them more fully) and remain uncertain regarding their motivations (ambiguity and suspense).

00:00 - Daemon is one of GRRM's Favorites
01:30 - Daemon's Destiny in Fire and Blood; Making Him Relatable
05:00 - How to Read History VS How to Adapt History
08:20 - Daemon's Strengths
09:15 - Archetypes: The Masculine vs the Feminine in Myth
11:53 - Is Daemon's Romance Machiavellian or Egotistical?
12:40 - A Warring vs a Ruling King
14:00 - Ambiguity in the Books; Things are Open-Ended
17:25 - Just How Virtuous are Daemon's Strengths?
18:56 - Honor Alone is Not Enough
20:10 - A Story Exists Beyond the Writer

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