This HotD Character's Tragic Ending is Reminiscent of a Bad GoT Trope
House of the Dragon episode 5 ended with the death of Joffrey Lonmouth, reminiscent of certain types of narrative failure, which occurred in Game of Thrones.
Episode 5 was full of drama and set up the plot lines for the second half of the season. It saw Rhaenyra finally accepting her duty to marry before ascending to the Iron Throne. Unfortunately, her father's pick of a husband is rather poor.
To maintain the bond between Targaryen and Velaryon families, the only two families which can control dragons, she is betrothed to her cousin Laenor.
In Fire & Blood, the book, which serves as the source for House of the Dragon, there is a rumor that Laenor Velaryon is gay and is in a relationship with Joffrey. In the series that rumor is obviously true.
Rhaenyra and Laenor attempt to fix the situation by deciding to keep their marriage political and continue their ongoing affairs on the side. This, however, doesn't work out, as their lovers get into a quarrel at Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding, and Joffrey gets killed by Criston Cole.
The ceremony continues the tradition of traumatic weddings from Game of Thrones and sets up the potential factions for the Dance of the Dragons which is fine… but it also revives some bad memories from Game of Thrones.
First, the event as it played out is a pointless deviation from the literary source, which makes every involved character look worse. In the book, Criston Cole mortally wounded Joffrey in a tournament. In the series Cole brutally beats Joffrey to death in the middle of the court after the latter issues a veiled threat to reveal his secrets.
Cole getting away with this is nonsensical, the event fails to build up Cole's reputation as one of the strongest knights in Westeros, while Joffrey ends up looking downright weak and stupid.
Besides the general fact of the deviation, Joffrey's fate reminds of Ser Loras' story in Game of Thrones – another gay character whose characterization was largely reduced to his sexuality, and who died in a relatively wimpy way compared to the book.
Well, to be more precise, Loras was not yet dead at the point where Martin's narrative ends for now, but he got very badly injured when leading a charge into an enemy fortress, when he felt that a swift victory was needed to help his family.
In the series he got arrested by the Faith Militant, and eventually mind-broken enough to join the Faith Militant, only to be killed Cersei blows up the Great Sept.
However progressive the people working on adaptations of George Martin 's books deem themselves to be, they sure do like to give gay characters undignified deaths.