Game of Thrones getting a big head?

[Kingsleigher]

So let me start off by saying I FUCKING LOVE A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE WITH ALL OF MY BEING. That being said, I really think the show is starting to butcher the story. I started off on the show and I think almost everything so far is amazing, so I don't mean to be a snob, at least.

My biggest problem with the show is Jaime's relationship with Cersei as Jaime is my favorite character. HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE DISTANCING HIMSELF FROM HER! And in the show they only seem to be growing closer which really fucking pisses me off.

Most reports seem to suggest Lady Stoneheart will be written out entirely which infuriates me because she seems to be a huge part of Jaime's storyline.

And the cast list for season 5 introduces a ton of new Martells which isn't bad because I love the Martells but because they at least have not listed Euron or Victarion as cast members and THAT too infuriates me as I spent so much time trudging through the Greyjoy storyline until I finally kinda loved all of them (lol).

Now none of this is set in stone and o know that but it kinda seems like the show might be heading the route of Walking Dead which is to say fucking horrendous and drawn-out and completely boring. I sincerely hope this doesn't happen as I absolutely love this story and characters.

Please share your thoughts! :)

[sj4iy]

This should be in the show forum...also, there are plenty of threads to discuss the show.

[lionsfan7979]

i agree and young griff should be in the next season also

[CharlesW]

Seems that way.

[Stannis's birthright]

I agree . The more they strAy from the book the more that show annoy me .

[Nymeria10k]

I agree too. I've only watched 5 and a half episodes from season 1 so far and I'm annoyed already. Dany/Drogo wasn't really portrayed appropriately at first I don't think.. Drogo was portrayed as this sex-obsessed beast which he may have come across as being at first but in the books their relationship quickly became really romantic and sensual I think and in the show Drogo just looks sex-obsessed throughout and a savage. No humanity or love in him at all, simply lust. Which is sad really because I admired their relationship in the books, he was clearly Dany's first true love but you'd never know that from the show.

However where she hits Viserys after inviting him to supper and in response him dragging a whore into her tent by the hair, I think she really did book-Dany justice there. And Viserys was perfect throughout.

I don't have any other qualms so far, but I hear Arianne Martell and Lady Stoneheart are cut from the show. That's disappointing to hear... I know it's hard to fit so many different characters into a show but Lady Stoneheart could potentially play a big part in coming books (if the great northern conspiracy is to be believed) and Arianne Martell was a POV for goodness sake!

[ADB]

I don't have any other qualms so far, but I hear Arianne Martell and Lady Stoneheart are cut from the show. That's disappointing to hear... I know it's hard to fit so many different characters into a show but Lady Stoneheart could potentially play a big part in coming books (if the great northern conspiracy is to be believed) and Arianne Martell was a POV for goodness sake!

Contrary to what you've heard, no one actually knows anything yet. And if it's that important to the books, it'll be in the show.

Anyway, if people really think that GoT is "butchering" the story, they need to see more adaptations to see what that actually means.

[sati]

Contrary to what you've heard, no one actually knows anything yet. And if it's that important to the books, it'll be in the show.

Anyway, if people really think that GoT is "butchering" the story, they need to see more adaptations to see what that actually means.

I watch a lot of adaptations and I still think they are butchering the story.

[Sword of the Morgan]

I am not pleased with the growing deviations from the books.

[JustAnObsessedFan]

Jamie begins to loathe Cersei in Feast though. She's not in power yet in the show - from S5 onwards she will be and that's when Jamie will start to really loathe her.

[Noojers]

No one knows what butchering a book is until they watch the Eragon movie. Dear lord that was awful.

[Salafi Stannis]

My biggest problem with the show is how they keep butchering the character of Stannis the Mannis.

He is such an amazing character in the books but in the show he seems easily manipulated and even sometimes cruel. An amazing character like Stannis is being made into a dick while there are characters who are awful in the books like Cersei, who whitewashed and her general evilness is toned down. Let me give an example, in the books Stannis only burns people who have committed crimes punishable by death, whilst in the show he burns people for being infidels, and even ordered the execution of his closest ally, Davos. On the other hand, in the books, Cersei orders the executions of Roberts bastards, and thinks Joffrey is a brilliant and wonderful king,whilst in the show, it was Joffrey who ordered the deaths of Roberts babies and Cersei is grief stricken about how awful Joffrey turned out. WTF?!?!?

[Julia Martell]

Whenever there's a thread like this, and there are many as my learned colleague sj4iy pointed out, someone says that we should treat the show and the books as two separate entities and not compare them.

I've been trying. I've been trying very, very hard, but I can't do it. Stuff that they got away with in the first season or tow in terms of simplifying characters and stories lines, adding HBO mandated boobies, filling in gaps in particular story lines with original material, giving characters and groups more memorable, visceral qualities, changing a few names, is really staring to bug me and seem less justifiable then it was.

In this first two seasons I kind of understood why changes and additions were made, even if I didn't especially like them.

"Okay, they took all the myriad prostitutes and made them one character with a face, fine.", "Asha does sound like Osha, fine", "You know, Dany has nothing to really do this season, let her run around looking for her dragons, I guess", "Jeyne Westerling is a little pathetic, at least this lady has an actual character. I will grudgingly accept this".

But now, I'm either baffled by changes and additions, or I just shakes my head cynically. "Why does Ramsey Bolton have psycho girlfriend who has very loud sex?", "Why are the Thenns cannibals? Dark cord of shock value!" "Do they care about Cersei and/or Jamie's motivations making any sense?" "That's what the Children of the Forest look like?", "Why do they spend five minutes talking about beetles when this is the perfect opportunity to talk about THE formative experience of Tyrion's life?" "Are all the Dornish characters going to have a fake latin-esque accent?"

I know I wouldn't have any of these problems if the books didn't exist, but they do, and the books are telling this story much better. At this point, I consider the idea that they're going to diverge from the books completely after they get through all the aDwD material to be good news. Let them tell their own story, maybe it'll be awesome. The maybe I can like or dislike it on its own merits.

[igrewupinKL]

I agree OP, that Jaime and Cersei's relationship in season 4 made no sense and just generally annoyed me

I also don't like the news that they are cutting Greyjoys and Martells yet adding unnecessary characters and changing whole stories yet adding pointless ones

For example in season 5 they are adding in a Trystane-Myrcella romance and getting rid of Arianne- yet keeping all the sandsnakes when one of them could've easily been replaced by her

[Fisch]

Since a (somewhat) related thread in the Books section just got locked, I'll copy my thoughts from there:

I didn't read the books until I saw the show, and I only started watching the show earlier this year. I blew through the earlier seasons in about three days before Season 4 premiered, and I dove into the books as Season 4 was going. I think I made it into ADwD by the time the season finished, so needless to say, I liked the books.

I'm more than comfortable seeing film/TV adaptations as distinct entities from their source material. Much like Jackson's Lord of the Rings, I think GoT proves equal to its source material in most respects, improves on a few, and falls short on a few others. But compared to the LotR films, GoT is more of a mixed bag. It's still damn good television, especially compared to most everything else I watch/have watched recently, but it has rather substantial problems, and some of them have only grown with time.

I've rewatched the earlier seasons since reading the books. 1 is obviously the most faithful, but the changes made in 2 and 3, for the most part, worked better for television, or worked to efficiently condense a lot of information. More importantly, they didn't undermine the plot or the characters (again, for the most part; I don't have a problem with Talisa replacing Jeyne in Robb's heart, but I did have a problem with the major change made to what Robb's plans are leading up to the Red Wedding). Season 4, on the other hand, seemed to struggle to fill its ten hours. More than any of the others, it felt severely padded. Individual elements, like Tyrion's trail or the battle at the Wall, were masterfully done, but so many of the new story elements seemed to exist merely to kill time. Some of them were damn hear nonsensical (ex. putting Arya and the Hound at the Vale so they could run into Brienne; it may have been an intense fight, but the Hound and Arya made it to the Eyrie. Littlefinger and Sansa haven't left yet, and Sansa's identity is known; why on Earth would someone claiming to have Sansa's sister not be held for questioning and identification, whatever Lysa's health?) Dany felt almost superfluous for much of the season too.

The biggest problem I have with the series is the same as my biggest problem with the books; too many character given too much to do, after a very complex with a large cast was already underway. On top of that, the show seems much more aggressive in trying to give even the most despicable characters (Joffrey excluded) some semblance of sympathy. I seem to recall D&D claiming in an interview that "there are no villains" in GoT, but even GRRM has been willing to throw such labels out there (admittedly, he hasn't named a villain, but in a Sports Illustrated interview that he saw the Starks as the heroes, and the Lannisters as their enemies, so...) I can appreciate that Cersei loves her children, and the books provide ample material to work with here, but there's only so many times the show can give her a monologue wherein she acknowledges what a monster Joffrey is or how well she understands and works against Tywin or Tyrion, before it comes off as annoying, making her even more unlikable than she already is.

[Thanos Targaryen]

One has to remember how production and personality politics affects any successful big-budget TV show. The big/breakout stars are Dinklage/Harrington/Clarke/Headey/Coster-Waldau. By default they're going to command more attention and more screen time. The books are essentially written around their characters anyway and the TV show has more-or-less done the same. If a sub-story, not matter how popular it is with the book fans, can be merged with another/turned into something else/cut out altogether because the big characters need the screen time then the producers are going to do it pretty much by default. There's no way around it, no matter how infuriating it might be to the hardcore book fans and purists. After four successful seasons these actors also gain enough power that they can (and I'm not saying any of the five explicitly have) make more demands for higher pay, more screen time than the producers might want to give them, or start to refuse doing things on screen that they just don't like (e.g. Emilia Clarke basically openly refusing to do any more nude scenes at all). The ball is in their court and they know it. It doesn't make them bad people, it's just people protecting their own turf as they see fit. I imagine that this was one of the unspoken reasons why Peter Jackson shot all three of the LOTR movies at one time. Toss in a two year gap between films and all of a sudden the breakout stars like Mortensen and Bloom could quite easily be saying "no, I don't want to do that" and end up negatively affecting production. If an actor gets a big head and demands excessive amounts of money, or becomes such a diva to deal with that no one else wants to work with them anymore, the producers might end up employing the nuclear option and having to recast the character altogether. This is a major problem for them, with everything from the remaining actors not making the replacement feel welcome to a fan revolt where box office amounts or ratings are driven down by fans angry at their favourite actor no longer being there. This is the way the business works. They're not making changes to piss people off, they're doing it because on a day-by-day basis they've got a real minefield to walk a path through.

Another thing too to consider is the reality of the hardcore fan (i.e. the book followers) vs the casual viewer. The casual viewer might watch the show religiously but they don't seem to have much interest in following the books. The unfortunate reality is that the casual viewer of a successful TV show or movie series, even for genre media items like ASOIAF, usually greatly outnumber the hardcore fan. As such the producers don't have much stake in favouring a more exact interpretation of the details in the books onto the screen. The hardcore fan might get angry and stop watching at Vargo Hoat being eliminated and replaced by Locke, or by Talisa replacing Jeyne Westerling, or Asha being renamed Yara because they think the viewers are too dumb to understand the difference between "Asha" and "Osha", or Roz being given five minutes an episode for two-and-a-half seasons that could have been used much better for another character. But it really doesn't matter to the TV people what our sore points or pet peeves are because the casual viewer doesn't care about these things and once they're hooked into a show they're always going to be there to ensure that the ratings stay high. The hardcore fan, as important as he/she is for making ASOIAF popular in the first places, unfortunately, is essentially expendable. It's a true for ASOIAF readers as much as it is for pro wrestling fans who don't like the talking skits taking too much time away from the in-ring matches, or for LOTR fans that didn't like the liberties Peter Jackson took with the books, or comic book fans who really don't like what Hollywood does in terms of ignoring basic character canon when Spiderman or the X-Men get made into another movie.

It's difficult to accept a lot of this. I'm not immune to being angry at it either. I can't remember anything in a movie that enraged me, as a lifelong Tolkien fan, as much as the scene where Legolas "boarded" down the steps at Helm's Deep atop an orc shield; I actually almost walked out of the theatre when I saw that atrocity Peter Jackson tossed in for probably no more intelligent of a reason than "the kids will think it's cool". The only options for ASOIAF fans are to either not watch the HBO show at all, or quietly accept it for what it is. The TV people don't really care what we think and we're going to have to accept that they're simply not going to listen to us. :bang:

[Daske]

...

It's difficult to accept a lot of this. I'm not immune to being angry at it either. I can't remember anything in a movie that enraged me, as a lifelong Tolkien fan, as much as the scene where Legolas "boarded" down the steps at Helm's Deep atop an orc shield; I actually almost walked out of the theatre when I saw that atrocity Peter Jackson tossed in for probably no more intelligent of a reason than "the kids will think it's cool". ...

Much as I do for the most part like the films that is also my stand-out 'what were they thinking?' moment of the whole trilogy. Just terrible.

Also, for butchery consideration - the addition of Dune's wierdling module ray guns. And Galactus being a gas cloud. These really are leagues above anything GoT has done.

[Beric175]

I love the LOTR books and I love the peter Jackson films as much. I found the 'funny' bits during the battles funnily engaging most of the time. And yes, Faramir in the film is much more believable than Faramir in the book. Ultimate ring of power that corrupts everyone and of whom even Gandalf is scared and yet a simple Gondorian commander feels not even a little bit tempted to take it? Is Faramir Jesus or something?

The show is not butchering the story, the story as told in the books has been left untouched and will come out in good time and so far has not been finished so I don't think we can say the show screwed up the story when the writer himself can screw up the story just as easily by getting sloppy or just lowering his own standards (I still hate AFFC and ADWD but so far the good of the first 3 books balances this out). Any choices that the show makes can only benefit or hurt the show itself, not the story from the books. Maybe they found a way to work around the Greyjoys. Remember, the whole AFFC and ADWD stuff is just an expansion of the phrase 'and the lords of Westeros fought for a long time' or something like that. martin just wanted to have more worldbuilding. Ultimately, the Others are still going to make it over the Wall, Daenerys will still make it to Westeros but yeah, the details will differ. I cannot recall a single thing except Loras getting injured and Oldtown getting besieged that would show me that the Greyjoys' roles cannot be given to other characters. instead of Victarion you have Yara/Asha going to Dany for her father, who might take over Euron's role more or less. Arianne has most likelty been cut because Jon Connington and Aegon will have been cut too and if you read the books you know that Arianne is most likely going to be marrying Aegon because Doran's plan with Quentyn failed and so they'll be jumping on the first chance they get to get close to the 'Targaryen heir'. Since Dany will undoubtedly make it over and kill Aegon (who I never bought as anything other than another obstacle to overcomplicate the plot) the fact of the matter is that dany is going to be in charge of KL at some point and so the show wisely takes a shortcut and eliminates that Aegon subplot entirely, since the result is ultimately going to be the same. They are going to get to the same destinations by different roads. Stoneheart is also something that people just assume will be hugely important, even though she just killed a couple of Freys and met Brienne. That does not say anything to us whether or not the payoff will be worth it since book 6 is not out yet but people blindly assume that everything is already mapped out far in advance and I cannot share that opinion.

As much as people want every single stupid detail from the books to be relevant to the overall story, and hence think it should make it into the show, that's not going to be the case. Sorry.

[Thanos Targaryen]

I was hoping to forget forever about gas-cloud Galactus from that execrable second Fantastic Four movie. Utterly terrible and unforgivable. For the reboot of the FF movie brand they cast a black actor to play Johnny Storm. Johnny - black, Sue Storm - white? Same father-different mothers or vice versa? I might get called a racist but I really don't care. They could hire the best black actor in the world to play the Human Torch and it'd still be one of the dumbest ideas and violation of decades-old superhero canon a Hollywood production has ever come up with.

Hell, compared to what these geniuses keep doing to comic book movie adaptations the changes/eliminations that HBO does sometimes to ASOIAF have been kind of small in comparison so far. If you're a comic book fan it's hard not to believe that most of the movie adaptations really are a blatant spitting of a huge loogie of disrespect right in your face. :ack:

[Keycube]

I write this as someone who joined GoT late...speed-watched seasons 1-4 just this Spring and Summer...and only now am reading the books (a fraction of the way through ACoK).

As much as I love the TV series, I picked up the books not necessarily wanting to read an exact reflection of what I just saw...I mean, I just saw it, right? Now, if in fact that were the case, and the books served to detail the character motivations/thoughts and side-stories that for whatever reason weren't going to be seen in the show, all the while running perfectly in stride with the show, that would be cool (and in fact, that is what we often get), so I can see where a book-before-TV compression is a lot more frustrating for someone than a TV-before-book expansion, especially when there are deviations in the story.

However, I look at it this way; I have longed for ASoIaF/GoT for so long; something to whisk me away into a netherworld where the justice felt sweet and real and yet the injustice was wiped away after closing the book or turning off the TV (although it never works out that way, does it). :) We are blessed with a wonderful escape in these two mediums. And so, if it essentially becomes two different wonderful escapes, or at least something with unpredictability , I am most definitely okay with that.

All this being said, I do understand how someone who was reading the entire series before the TV show, could feel "cheated" in some respect, having had to create their own mental images of setting and form and whatnot. For those of us that had GoT do the dirty work for us first, I know it's different, and I respect that.

Still...as long as it's quality storytelling, bring me whatever the hell you want, HBO. I am putty in your hands :)