Domitian - Tumblr Posts
The thing is, there is room for a great deal of that and it could be utterly amazing if - if you gave it to an excellent writing team.
As an example the Roman Emperor Domitianus is often regarded as one of Rome’s bad tyrannical emperors. Tacitus in particular paints him as an incompetent man, jealous of his servants great successes. He is accused of fabricating triumphs and wasting roman lives in unsuccessful wars. Thing is, he was extremely popular with the army and when Trajan began his Dacian Wars a lot of the necessary infrastructure was in place, put there in large part by Domitianus who also campaigned in the area, even though less successfully. Regarding his tyrannicsl nature, none of his reforms that were seen as tyrannical were ever reversed by his successors but only Domitianus ever caught any flac for it. Pliny remarks on his the ascension of Trajan to the imperial throne that he is so happy too never again have a princeps that he has to call dominus. Guess what he called Trajan in all his letters.
You could absolutely make a show about how Maegor and Jaehaerys ultimately shared many of the same ideas and values but one was very good at making them palatable to the Westeros-edition of the patriarchy and the other was murdered and labeled the worst Tyrant in history.
But again, you‘d need goid writers and the track record thus far does not inspire much confidence
HOTD and the future shows
Wanna know what I am fearing, in light of how the second season of HOTD have proved to be?
The future series based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg... if a show based on the Dance of Dragons-era/generations in Fire and Blood, can become so changed from the source material, how will things go for Egg aka future Aegon V in his boyhood, and Dunk, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, in how their plotline will be handed?
In fact, one worry of mine, when thinking about all of this, is how a TV show based on the reign of Maegor the Cruel would end like, based on what HOTD have done as "supposed" changes to the plot and characters.
I know that Classical Disney Movies may sound odd as a way to describe Maglor the Cruel, but I am thinking of the hand-drawn Original Disney Classics and the ongoing trend of making them into Live-Action versions:
Say that Maegor the Cruel as he is written in Fire and Blood, as well the other published books so far, is akin to a such Classic Disney movie, and how not all the Live-Action movies based on the Classics have proved to be....let's say well received, by fans.
If the second season of HOTD have proved to not be well received by fans for various reasons, then how well would a TV show based on Maegor do? Would the tv team try and paint his cruelity as "propaganda written by the Maesters/his enemies" to make Jaehaerys come off as a much better King? Would they rewrite his personality to 180 degrees, akin to how Season 2-Alicent is NOTHING compared to her book self? Would they try and make up something "tragic" about his relationships to his six wives, going for the far too common "All girls want bad boys" idea and that Maegor only "need" someone to see his "supposed real" self akin to Beauty and the Beast?
I am sorry for babbling, but if this mess of a second season is the result of trying to make a tv show out of Fire and Blood so far....
Then I am in honest doubt that the 2025 tv show about Dunk and Egg is not gonna live up to the original written tales of them.
And I can see Maegor's character in a possible TV show be haunted by cries from fans in style of "he is not like that in Fire and Blood!" "When did someone called the "Cruel" in-story suddenly become a "misunderstood" character like this?" "He is called the Cruel, not the "poor, second son" of Aegon the Conqueror!"