...were also being pretty classist, which was weird since I wasn't aware that they were of noble birth. But they said this was blasphemy because they're not dealing with "dragonlords", and since these people all had Targaryen blood, I assume the dragon handlers for some weird reason thought dragons cared whether their rider's parents were married, lol. Even though Jace, Luke, and Joffrey are proof they do not. I don't think the handlers were mad about using the dragons in war - the Targaryens have been doing that for a LONG time. And in this particular case, Rhaenyra is facing a side all too willing to use the largest dragon in the world as a weapon of war. I mean, this was always going to doom the Targaryens, using the dragons against each other (and indeed it does - very few of the characters onscreen now survive this fight, and it results in the death of all the dragons), but the handlers decided to quit when a group of bastards came before them, not when the war broke out. And it's unclear if their order has quit on the Red Keep side, but we haven't heard about it. I'd be more impressed if they'd all quit immediately, because it certainly is a bad idea to use dragons to fight each other, but doing it in this particular episode just seemed like more of the same Westerosi crap about bastards.
I'm not sure why they had Jace take this stance, since in the books using the dragonseeds was Jace's idea. Jace is not WRONG persay, that this may highlight that he's not special if any bastard with Targaryen blood can claim a dragon, but the way he was expressing it sucked. And it's a moot point, since as we know, Jace and Joffrey both die before Rhaenyra does, leaving Rhaenyra and Daemon's sons to carry on the line. So I'm not sure what the point of using screen time on this conflict was.
I kept thinking, shouldn't Rhaenyra have gone one by one? Sure, it's likely a ton of them would bolt as soon as the first person got set on fire, but...fair? LOL.
Do you feel like they're maybe about to switch some stuff around, incidentally? I can't tell. It's like they're setting up the finale for a showdown at Harrenhal - but the Battle of the Gullet should come well before that, and yet it feels like they're about to happen on top of each other. And really, the only thing that makes it seem like the Battle of the Gullet is imminent is that Joffrey, Aegon, and Viserys are all headed to a ship, and we know what that means. Except Joffrey is not on the ship - in the books, he dies during the storming of the dragon pit in Kings Landing.
Also, they didn't have Jace make the Pact of Ice and Fire? Maybe he's not going to, but it seemed pretty key to Cregan's motivation leading him all the way to the Hour of the Wolf.