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Would Season 3 and 4 been better if merged


magic713

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Instead of splitting A Storm of Swords into two season, do you think it would have been better if they just had it as one season. Meaning they cut out much of the fillers storylines (like Theon's torture scenes), push the Red Wedding into an earlier episode, have the Purple Wedding in the same season, etc.


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No, I loved season 3+4 and it would've been pretty rushed to have it all in one season.

Dany had to conquer 3 cities, gain two armies, lock up her dragons, exile Jorah, struggle with ruling

Jon Snow had to spend time with the wildlings, climb the wall, betray the wildlings, convince those at castle black and have the battle.

We needed some torture scenes, to develop Ramsay and show Theon is very far gone.

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I think they could have done different things, but splitting was the right move.

For example, spend more quiet moments with characters - in particular I'm thinking of Dany,

From whom we got almost nothing but "rawr Fire and blooodddd!" for two seasons, but this can apply to other characters.

Btw I hate the theon torture but I hated it on the books too (unlike most people apparently). I don't really see much of a difference between the two.

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Trying to make A Storm of Swords into one season would have been a complete and utter disaster.


It also would have been a very convoluted season of television that would have introduced a ton of new characters with no time for viewers to get to know any of them. A lot of moments would have ended up feeling rushed and the shocking moments would have way less impact since there would be no time to focus on any of them.



Making A Storm of Swords in to two very successful seasons was the right call and it was definitely one the smartest decisions D&D have made.


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ASOS ideally should have been a 12-16 episodes season. We got a lot of meandering in King's Landing, The Wall, The Riverlands (Arya), and Dragonstone because of the two season split.

I agree. Instead of 2 seasons with so much filler, or one season with a rushed feel to it, the best way would have been one season with more episodes. Realistically, however, I don't think that HBO would approve of a season with more episodes than other seasons.

And also the extra season for ASOS meant another year that GRRM has for writing TWOW.

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I thought the pacing of season's 3 and 4 was wonderful, and there was much less "Arya meandering" than in the book.



Now, I'm very concerned with combining AFFC and ADWD, due to pacing (too fast) though admittedly half of each of those books were some of the most boring meanderings I've ever read.



I think cutting the Ironborn, Aegon and LS entirely is too high a cost, though I don't really have a problem with cutting/changing Brienne's arc, Quentyn's arc, and slimming down Tyrion's and Jorah's. Jaime going to Dorne to take on the Balon Swann/Aerys Oakheart path is an interesting decision, and I'll hold my tongue on that one until it plays out.


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In some areas it was needed but others it was dragged out.



Dragonstone to the Wall was dragged out way to long. There was way to much filler in S4. The paper shield was pointless aswell since they didn't race to the wall.



Yara's dreadfort attack should not have happened. Pointless waste of screen time and have brought iron born down to a joke in the show.



Daenery's story was fine for S3 + 4 but we have already seen so much of Mereen that its getting very boring in S5.



Skipping forward Reek and the Bolton story was a good choice.


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In a perfect world, I think slightly longer seasons (12-16 episodes) would have helped with this. Cramming all of ASOS into 10 episodes would have felt extremely rushed, but stretching it out over 20 episodes and two years felt like too much. It seemed like not every character's arc had enough story to be spread out over two years, so we got a full season of Arya walking around and wise-cracking with Sandor, nearly two full seasons of Stannis sitting at Dragonstone, and silly invented subplots like Asha attacking the Dreadfort, Bran and Jon at Craster's Keep, Gendry going to Dragonstone, and so on.



(Note that I understand longer seasons are not going to happen, but again, in a perfect world...)


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Three and four were terrible imo. What those two seasons needed was better writing, merging them together would have been the other extreme. The first episodes of three would always feel a bit padded out, but in the end it's better than an overly rushed telling of the story.


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No, it's great as it is.



My main gripe is that the Battle at the Wall should have been in episode 6 or 7.



Bran and co would have witnessed White Walkers ravaging Craster's Keep and it would have been a nice way to get rid of the mutineers, have Bran do something mid-season, show the threat of the Walkers, avoid Stannis hanging too much at Dragonstone, and allow the remaining of Jon's arc in Storm to conclude the season.


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