Game of Thrones TV [spoilers]

Yup, Oburi thanks for that.

This's one of those moments where I want to get spoiled cos I don't care for the character and I'm falling into a trap where the more popularity he garners the further I push myself from feeling for his loses or rooting for him. Thanks for questioning my post, yeah I don't want to be spoiled. It's just something a friend said in passing over dinner and I shook my head.

In terms of material from the books covered on the TV show, they're almost done with adapting book 3 (I'm told?). 2 more books left and 2 books after that to finish the series? Do you think the TV show will end before the last book comes out? The Stark kids look pretty old even now (a little jarring when I recently marathoned the show) ... do they age as much or is there a time jump in the 2 released books?
 
I'm not at all impressed with how the show has handled Jon's arc. It's completely understandable to me whenever TV audiences say they aren't into the character.

The show doesn't really do anything to highlight what makes him interesting, which is quite an accomplishment considering how many POV chapters belong to him and how much material the showrunners have but don't use.

Whenever I watched the show with my non-book reading friends, they weren't interested in Jon at all. They were more into the costume drama and intrigues at King's Landing.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Redfield said:
I'm not at all impressed with how the show has handled Jon's arc. It's completely understandable to me whenever TV audiences say they aren't into the character.

I always figured it was the casting, which was a problem I immediately recognized once I saw the actor on screen. Kid has zero charisma. He's one of the three most popular characters in the books.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
IncantatioN said:
Who are the other two?
Tyrion and Daenerys.

It's not hard to understand why. These are the series' three underdogs, working uphill against the limitations placed on them by the world. They're easily Martin's most sympathetic characters.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
Walter said:
I always figured it was the casting, which was a problem I immediately recognized once I saw the actor on screen. Kid has zero charisma.

But he's so sexy :troll:

Its true though. Its so much more apparent when he's on screen with one of the other more talented actors. For example, when he and Sam are on screen at the same time its like night and day.
 
Walter said:
I always figured it was the casting, which was a problem I immediately recognized once I saw the actor on screen. Kid has zero charisma. He's one of the three most popular characters in the books.

I'm not so ready to write Harrington off yet, but I can understand how others aren't big on him.

I see it as the show's weakness more than anything. In the TV show, Jon Snow is a bystander in his own life. I feel like he's just standing around, watching the story unfold beside the rest of us. He might as well sit down next to us on the couch and have some popcorn and beer.

The show just seems content to let the character wander around looking lost and confused. In the 9th episode of the 4th season, with the battle at the wall, I finally felt he was going to be given his chance to shine and show the TV audiences what the book audiences have known about him since A Game of Thrones was published.

It really should have been his coming out party. And in some ways, it was. But half the episode is Sam and Gilly or various other drama going on that has nothign to do with his strengths as a character. Even in the episode that should have, in my opinion, been 'the Jon Snow' episode, he had to share the spotlight with all these other people.

Mind you, I'm not tryin to sound like a Jon Snow fanboy. Apologies if it sounds like that. This is more of a criticism of how the show's poor narrative choices and pacing have hamstrung him in all of the ways that make him matter in the books.

Even the absence of Ghost in the TV version is noticeable. In the books, Jon's eerie connection with Ghost makes him seem enigmatic and potent. By comparison, because the show doesn't want to do all that CGI, they keep contriving ways to keep Ghost offscreen.

This is just my opinion, but beyond his sex appeal, I have no idea why anyone should care about Jon Snow in this show. The TV show has done a terrible job with the character. And in this most recent season, the episodes were shorter for reasons I can't understand. They were mostly ending at the :54 mark, and I'm thinking 'there are still five more minutes they could be using to hit the mark with certain characters.'

This most recent season felt very drawn out to me. Which is weird, considering all the stuff they left on the table from the books that could have been used to tell more of the story.
 
Stopped watching Lame of Thrones a little while back. It's taken one of the greatest fantasy sagas and turned it into nothing but HBO's glorified fanfiction and a collection of tired internet memes. From the glimpses I've caught of S4 and what I've read, it's now barely recognizable from the books anymore in terms of tone, theme and characterization.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
As someone who is completely ignorant of the books and has no intention of ever reading them, I find the show enjoyable. Its good most of the time, and really good some of the time.
 
Delta Phi said:
It's been about a year since I read it, but
I don't recall any real differences. He certain dies the same way, head smashed in and I do believe he gets his teeth knocked in.

The one thing I'm not sure about is his bisexuality--or I guess a more appropriate term would be his omnisexuality. I honestly don't recall that being a big deal to him. He seemed entirely interested in his paramour from what I remember.

Thanks man.
 

Kompozinaut

Sylph Sword
Doc said:
Stopped watching Lame of Thrones a little while back. It's taken one of the greatest fantasy sagas and turned it into nothing but HBO's glorified fanfiction and a collection of tired internet memes. From the glimpses I've caught of S4 and what I've read, it's now barely recognizable from the books anymore in terms of tone, theme and characterization.

They've progressively gotten farther and farther from the source. Season 1 remains one of the best adaptations of a book I've ever seen, however, unfortunately the quality begins to dissipate from Season 2 on. And yeah, Season 4 is the worst offender. You can tell which scenes were taken from the book and which were written by the producers, usually with the latter being far weaker.

While I enjoyed this season, I'm afraid the next season is going to lose a lot of viewers. A Feast for Crows is by far the weakest (and most boring book, in my opinion) so 1) just by it's virture I can see people getting bored with it 2) There will probably be a lot more filler or additive scenes that will bring down the general quality of the show or turn away some of the book readers. Not to mention
Bran and Dany
are quickly running out of narrative story. Why they accelerated their stories, I'll never really understand.
 
The general feeling I get from the altered narrative of the TV show is that they're preparing for an endgame that would be independent of Martin's books in the event ath they either catch up to the novels or if the show starts to lose some steam and they decide to end it after six or seven series (they're currently confirmed for 6 seasons.)

Characters like Bran experiencing escalations in the timeframes for their arcs are probably (and I'm just speculating here) because audiences will completely stop caring if they don't' show the characters getting somewhere. I'd think that the showrunners wouldn't want general audiences feelling apathy towards some of the characters, so by showing them actually getting somewhere, as opposed to having them STILL 'on the road' or STILL 'on the other side of the ocean', they keep their storylines relevant. Also, by doing this, it probably allows them to bring about a series finale at the end of season six or season seven if they want or need to wrap it up. Pacing it the way the books does might not work for a TV show unless it had an ironclad commitment by HBO to finish the series no matter how long it takes.

HBO COULD commit themselve to an irregular shooting schedule if they chose to stick to the books more closely, but I think that relies too heavily on Martin's writing schedule and he's too busy going to conventions, watching football in the winter and promoting his art theater. It's likely very complicated for HBO to keep all those actors, writers, production crews, directors and sets in a holding pattern while Martin goes to Australia to talk about Wildcards or whatever else he's involved in.

One option, if they wanted to produce GoT related material and were dead set on waiting for Martin to finish the next book, would be to adapt the Dunk and Egg stories into miniseries and substitute those during the years they can't show GoT.

Also, in regard to A Feast For Crows, I think the book has some pretty good ideas, and it has two of of my favorite scenes in the entire series (Jamie looking through the Kingsguard book and realizing he hasn't really been a great knight and the monk talking about Broken Men), but most of the material probably would have worked better if fit into the already existing narrative. I think it was just a poor time to write a book that ignored the plight of the Starks kids in favor of introducing new characters and political factions. I appreciated the Cersei and Jamie stuff. A Storm of Swords was, for me, the apex of the series so that book is a tough act for the next part to follow.
 

Deci

Avatar by supereva01 @ DA
Well Martin sat down with the show's creators and told them exactly how everything will end, and at least one of the creators has said outright that they're not waiting for him and they don't want this to go on too long, like 6-7 seasons max. Martin likes to kinda pretend that he has some say in the matter when he's asked about it, talking about doing prequels, adapting some short stories, finishing the story off in movies, etc, but it's absolutely not his choice and the choice is pretty much already made. It will be over in a few years, and the show will beat the books.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Deci said:
Well Martin sat down with the show's creators and told them exactly how everything will end, and at least one of the creators has said outright that they're not waiting for him and they don't want this to go on too long, like 6-7 seasons max. Martin likes to kinda pretend that he has some say in the matter when he's asked about it, talking about doing prequels, adapting some short stories, finishing the story off in movies, etc, but it's absolutely not his choice and the choice is pretty much already made. It will be over in a few years, and the show will beat the books.
It's pretty hilarious how Internet tough guy your attitude is about this. "The creator's wishes? Fuck that nonsense. Let's get this goddamn filth over with."
 

Deci

Avatar by supereva01 @ DA
Walter said:
It's pretty hilarious how Internet tough guy your attitude is about this. "The creator's wishes? Fuck that nonsense. Let's get this goddamn filth over with."

That isn't my attitude. I didn't really feel like going into detail about how I feel about it at all actually, but I think it kinda sucks that this what we are getting for an adaptation of the series. I also realize it could be a lot worse though and enjoy watching still, even if I wish they would do simple things like
introduce Coldhands, or Lady Stoneheart (which wouldn't require a lot of screen time at all, and could easily replace one of the scenes they added in)
. The audience would probably go bananas over
Lady Stoneheart
. =/

You confuse me, sir! :???:
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I find Martin to be refreshingly agreeable and mature when it comes to his work being adapted (without seeming merely opportunistic). I give him a lot of credit for not being a condescending and sour son of a bitch about it and recognizing that it's been an incredible boon to his legacy as well as his bank account rather than having it both ways and cashing the checks while acting like he's above it all.

Also, I have to agree on Jon Snow book vs show. If you've read up to even his his first POV chapter hes 10x the character and clearly very important. Basically, if you've only seen the show you're left wondering why they waste so much time on him, but if you've read at all from the books you wonder how they could waste his time so much. Anyway, Kit Harrington sure doesn't help with Jon (except maybe in those fight scenes), but nobody is less charasmatic to me than the young man who plays Bran. Good lord, they got just as unlucky with that kid growing up as they were fortunate with Maisie Williams.

Deci said:
I also realize it could be a lot worse though and enjoy watching still, even if I wish they would do simple things like
introduce Coldhands, or Lady Stoneheart (which wouldn't require a lot of screen time at all, and could easily replace one of the scenes they added in)
. The audience would probably go bananas over
Lady Stoneheart
. =/

I thought the same thing at first, but while it certainly would have won twitter that night where would they go with that on the show? Particularly where the actress is concerned as Alex Graves pointed out. If they're going to do it, better to slow roll it next season so it's not just a gimmick. Though they have a fine history of ending seasons on cliffhangers to nowhere, I think the show grew up a lot this season and that's evident in the finale's restraint.
 

Deci

Avatar by supereva01 @ DA
Griffith said:
I thought the same thing at first, but while it certainly would have won twitter that night where would they go with that on the show? Particularly where the actress is concerned as Alex Graves pointed out.

Well the fact that she's a
Stark
automatically makes it important to the story, afterall a large part of the Song of Ice and Fire is about that House specifically, with
Jon
being the penultimate. At least in the books.
Catelyn is a pretty big part of Jon's character, just as much if not moreso than Eddard.
I totally get what they're saying though, and for the show it can work, even though I wish they would've done it differently. The direction they took in the show with basically making
The Iron Throne
being the main focus instead of
The Prince That Was Promised (whose song is of ice and fire)
. Show watchers don't get any of that.

In a weird way, Jon's story isn't that important to the direction the show has taken, at the moment at least. It's obviously building to something huge, but it does seem like you could cut it all out and still understand the show's story 100% without any confusion. They basically rolled all of The Prince That Was Promised/Azor Ahai parts into Dany's story and left Jon out. What little they mention of him.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I do think it's strange that they've thematically cut out all to do with the actual SoIaF and the prince, yet they've technically kept in enough to still do it, such as Ned's comments early in season 1. They've just completely deemphasized it, but with the potential to reactivate it later. The same for what we were originally talking about introducing the Brotherhood Without Banners and Beric, only to abandon their later purpose. Of course, that really hasn't gone anywhere in the books either, and perhaps it really won't if they're cutting it from the show altogether. As you said, they have consulted with Martin on the direction of the story, so perhaps he just doesn't have too much in mind for it. Of course, if the show does finish with some half-assed ending, then he gets to sell the final book as "the real thing" to millions of HBO viewers, so he really has no incentive to beat the show, or rather let it get the final word.
 

Deci

Avatar by supereva01 @ DA
Griffith said:
I do think it's strange that they've thematically cut out all to do with the actual SoIaF and the prince, yet they've technically kept in enough to still do it, such as Ned's comments early in srason 1. They've just completely deemphasized it, but with the potential to reactivate it later. The same for what we were originally talking about introducing the Brotherhood Without Banners and Beric, only to abandon their later purpose. Of course, that really hasn't gone anywhere in the books either, and perhaps it really won't if they're cutting it from the show altogether. As you said, they have consulted with Martin on the direction of the story, so perhaps he just doesn't have too much in mind for it. Of course, if the show does finish with some half-assed ending, then he gets to sell the final book as "the real thing" to millions of HBO viewers, so he really has no incentive to beat the show, or rather let it get the final word.

That's the real problem that's presented here, for us readers anyway. If the show reveals the ending of the story that's a pretty big fuck you right in our faces. But it's the reality of the situation. Or so it seems (dun dun dun). I've been sorta slowly forming an opinion on the matter as the show deviates more and more from the source material. I find it very tedious and annoying, because the natural logical thought progression when anticipating an adaptation of a work you admire is that you hold onto that little thread of hope that it will shine out and do the source material proud. "Small things", like
since Arya killed Biter in a pretty comical moment screen time, that Biter won't be having that fateful encounter with Brienne/Pod/Gendry, which then of course should lead to the three good guys (two of which are a Payne and a Lannister) to Stark... er Stoneheart (hm this is seemingly not such a "small thing" anymore, lots of big players) and a more murderous Brotherhood which of course leads to Jaimie with his reforged Stark sword and Brienne, bringing our redeemed hero Lannister to meet the now twisted and malevolent Stark... and who the hell knows where that's going but I don't think this is small stuff.
Anyway, that is just an example, and that whole thing might just be some side plot filler stuff we don't really need anyway. But it serves what I'm hoping in that, I've begun theorizing anyway....

that we won't really be having an ending to...

The Song of Ice and Fire
(the last hero/Azor Ahai reborn/prince that was promised/the night that never ends/the fate of the world is at stake :magni:) Which of course readers have discovered is the "real story going on here"

by the end of

A Game of Thrones
(the "rightful family" will have the Iron Throne/who really cares which family sits on that uncomfortable chair anyway/King's Landing literally stinks from miles away :troll:) the focus point we started out thinking what this story was about with Eddard's detective work.

Like you said. I hope that's right anyway. Or something like it. Who knows. :???: Martin is always trying to trick his audience. His torture of our poor souls never ends. :sad:
 

Saephon

Die young and save yourself
Been forever since I posted anything, but just thought I'd chime in to say that while I enjoy the books more, this season was by far the strongest to date. There were a couple things cut that I was disappointed about, but they're probably just saving them for next year. We already know by now that the seasons aren't supposed to be a word for word timeline of the books, but when all is said and done the show is meant to be true to the spirit of the series. That's enough for me, and despite a couple missteps here and there, we are honestly lucky to be getting the adaptation in the state it's in. So many things like this are screwed up beyond repair, and HBO is producing a real treat, and they know it. Every year it gets more funding because they respect the strength of the story and its popularity.

It baffles me when I hear someone say they thought Season 4 was mediocre because "not a lot happened". Uh, what? Griffith is absolutely right that this is the first season where everything has felt like a cohesive, suspenseful political drama. I found the episodes to be paced really well this year; it's just a shame the source material is never this exciting outside of this segment of the books. Half of me dreads a drop in interest starting with Season 5 - the other half of me is excited to see what the next two books might look like when actually chopped up by an editor. They could realistically make next season better than the books it draws from.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
VengeanceQuest982 said:
Series V Trailer
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zq4S_4_iM2s

They'll be running out of material very shortly. And then I guess we'll get the equivalent of the Akira movie ending.
 
Walter said:
They'll be running out of material very shortly. And then I guess we'll get the equivalent of the Akira movie ending.
With the lack of adding much of anything relative to progressing the story in the last 2 books, that Akira ending is fine with me. Truthfully, I have no interest in reading Martin if I have hbo. I can't say that about anything else, but those books are a great way to fall asleep.
 
Well considering the fact that a few characters have been dropped such as
Lady Stonheart , and Aegon Targaryeen
I can see the latter characters plot being merged with Daenerys Targaryen's.
 

Kompozinaut

Sylph Sword
I haven't seen trailers for this coming season, but I get the feeling this will be the season that does the most damage to the fan base. A Feast For Crows was a pretty boring book to wade through.

Then there's this...
http://www.cnet.com/news/the-sixth-game-of-thrones-book-wont-be-released-in-2015/

Seems like this series will really start to take turns from Martin's vision. Only the broadest strokes will likely be the same. Could be more interesting that way.
 
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