If you watched the seventh episode of House of The Dragon, no you didn’t because it was so fucking dark no one could see a goddamn thing. Which, apparently, was an “intentional creative decision”.
Fans of the show took to Twitter on Monday night to complain about how fkn hard it was to watch the latest episode, called “Driftmark”, when so much of it was shrouded in darkness. Not even the dimmest screen setting would help — things were still barely perceptible to the naked human eye.
can #HouseOfTheDragon get over their dark aesthetic and let me actually see what’s on my screen #HOTD pic.twitter.com/wSH8TeizR2
— hailey (@raging_fangir1) October 3, 2022
Me trying to see what tf is happening in this dark episode of #HouseOfTheDragon #hotd pic.twitter.com/y7L8eu0gfE
— Mark🇮🇪 (@KryzeSkywalker) October 3, 2022
How dark the scenes be in #HouseOfTheDragon .. I can’t see shit. #HOTD pic.twitter.com/c9OS7oN3Bl
— 𝒥𝑜𝒶𝓃𝓃𝑒 🌻🇭🇹♍️ (@MelaninVirgo90) October 3, 2022
The backlash got to the point where, after one watcher tagged HBO on Twitter and demanded an apology for “literally a whole episode of black screen”, the streaming site actually responded.
“We appreciate you reaching out about a night scene in House of the Dragon: Episode 7 appearing dark on your screen,” HBO Max Help replied.
“The dimmed lighting of this scene was an intentional creative decision.”
Hi Stephen! We appreciate you reaching out about a night scene in House of the Dragon: Episode 7 appearing dark on your screen. The dimmed lighting of this scene was an intentional creative decision. Thanks! ^LL
— MaxHelp (@maxhelp) October 3, 2022
An intentional creative decision? It doesn’t even obscure how bad the Targaryen wigs are. And honestly, unless it’s designed specifically to be screened in a cinema or on a state-of-the-art TV, media should NOT require complete darkness with not even a single emittance of light in order to be watchable. If its on a streaming service, it should be accessible to everyone IMO!
Thank god for those glow in the dark white ass wigs because that’s the only thing I can see #hotd
— Mike (@michaelcollado) October 3, 2022
“Driftmark” does make a little more sense when you realise it was directed by Miguel Sapochnik: the same man behind that infamously dark battle scene in “The Long Night” in Game of Throne‘s final season.
He got backlash for it then too, but justified his direction by saying it was atmospheric.
“It made sense that this was the last hope humanity has, the last beacon of light, and from the perspective of where we needed the story to go — which was to reach a surreal, chaotic climax — we needed an environment that was friendly to that,” Sapochnik told IndieWire at the time.
“So all the reasons for doing it were there, and nobody sat there and wondered if it was gonna be too dark.”
Sure, except the gravity of “The Long Night” is not exactly comparable to House of the Dragon, is it? For one thing, it had seven seasons of build up. So I’d love to know how TF this ridiculous lighting choice was justified this time around. Especially given its poor reception.
House of the Dragon is already not the easiest to watch, let’s not make it harder, alright?
