HBO Max is on fire recently, having lots of good new content to watch. I expected a new Game of Thrones tv series to be good, but it's not just good, it's as good as the original. Yes, there are a lot of sudden timeskips that can be quite confusing, but the overall theme of the story is solid. King Viserys has a bunch of potential heirs to his throne. He settled on one claimant, but she's a girl, going against all tradition, so people aren't very thrilled with her. To make matters worse she's then exposed as an adulterer and a woman of loose morals generally.
The other possible heirs to the throne all have their own problems -- the younger brother of the king is a temperamental beast, stirring up trouble, murdering people, seducing people and then abruptly abandoning them, breaking every promise he's ever made. It's unthinkable what his reign would look like.
Aegon is the firstborn son of Viserys but he's a sadistic hedonist with no interest or capability to run a kingdom. He too would be a disaster.
Aemond, the secondborn son of Viserys, is at least someone who can competently and in a disciplined manner achieve goals, but he too lets his emotions get the better of him, and cares for nothing but himself. Besides, in what tradition can the secondborn son, and the fourthborn child of the king overall, inherit?
Of course the secondborn daughter of Viserys is simpleminded/crazy so she's out of the running entirely. She's actually one of the nicer characters in the story though, all things considered.
There's also an elderly woman, the king's cousin, who has a reasonable claim to the throne based on her descent from previous kings of old. And she has lots of grandchildren, all of whom could be potential claimants. But she's not only a woman but elderly, so that also doesn't seem suitable.
And to throw in one more claimant, you could say the king's widow, the queen, should be the successor. Though again she's a woman.
While alive, Viserys again and again begged the people around him to get along and acknowledge his choice of heir, to bury their differences and look to the peace and prosperity of the realm. Viserys is aware of the coming of the Night King in the future and he wants the united Targaryan kingdom, complete with lots of dragon riders, there to meet and defeat this menace to mankind. But everyone is too selfish and self-centered to listen to him. They all are concerned with whatever petty ambition, unfounded paranoia, grudge or pleasure that motivates them, and all his pleas fall on deaf ears. After his death the hydra-headed war immediately breaks out, and there can be no winner whoever wins. As we all know, due to lunacy like this, the Targaryan line will soon sputter out entirely, and no one will follow them anymore. The Targaryans were not around to save the world, because they were not moral enough to last until the world needed saving. It's certainly a bittersweet tale, which is to be continued in a second season which I'm really looking forward to now.
Likewise the first season of The Last of Us is coming to an end in a few days. So far it's been brilliant, riveting, with great dialogue full of real emotions about real things that really matter, and terrifying special effects and music and all the rest that contribute to the sense of dread and doom everywhere. This is a really good zombie apocalypse series, from the terrifying first episode where everything suddenly falls apart to the many communities Joel and Ellie visit that have found their niche in the world-after-zombies-ruined-everything. I'm not a fan of all the race-mixing and lgbt romances the show keeps pushing on me, but it doesn't matter because all of those things are peripheral. It isn't about race-mixing or lgbt sex, it's about the white Joel's relationship with the white Ellie, one man and one woman, who make an amazing father-daughter combination despite not being related. It's about all the good traits a man can have, that Ellie learns from and is grateful for, like courage, grit, and vigilance, and all the good traits a girl can have, that Joel has to admit keep growing on him. Ellie's ability to joke about puns, for instance, something Joel would never in his life think about or care about, but a playful girl could shamelessly delight in. Or her willingness to admit that she cares about or needs other people, and isn't just some sort of stoic clam or emotionless robot.
There's a second season of The Last of Us planned, based on a sequel video game, but the story is already decently self-contained and has a suitable ending planned next episode. Of course I'll look forward to the second season too, but the most important thing in the series has already happened, and that's the full flowering of the platonic love between these two. It's been a delight to see growing across the entire season.
HBO Max also has Black Adam, The Suicide Squad and The Batman to watch. Black Adam was a funny, action-packed movie that never felt slow. I liked Black Adam's direct, no nonsense manner of speaking. It did not have any serious emotions or situations like the previous, much more realistic shows that explore the human condition. But it did have plenty of explosions.
Maybe it's hosting some other good stuff too, but that's already enough to justify a one month subscription. That's a lot of hours of entertainment for $16.
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