Jack Bauer 24 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 My guess is George thought that he was done with the story after Storm. But he was sitting on a gold mine so after a long tedious five years out came Feast and after another five years the mess that is Dance. Heck, he himself wrote that he hated writing it ("three bitches and a bastard" were his words if I remember correctly) so no wonder the result was so woefully inadequate. To come back to the topic - my reader's imagination was pleased with all the trimming D&D went through in season 5 to present something to us that was actually watchable and enjoyable.They should have been even more thorough, Dorne was horrible in the books and shouldn't have made it on screen.Well said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 As the show goes more and more into uncharted territory, I think there is some cognitive dissonance there. Watching this past season, as a book reader things just felt 'off' to me that likely wouldn't for an Unsullied. A good example is Littlefinger and others' rapid travel - it takes me out of the episode. I literally laughed when Varys magically appeared in Meereen in the finale, and there was a lot of hemming and hawing on these boards over Jon and the wildings showing up on the wrong side of the Wall after Hardhome. These are things that, objectively as a TV show, should not matter, but I (and I think many others who won't admit it) can't help but be affected by it. Now, the central problem of Season 5 is this cognitive dissonance was compounded by unquestionably their weakest offering in terms of basically every other aspect of the production. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Patroclo Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 As a book reader i loved the first few seasons, mainly because a lot of scenes were nailed from how my mind`s eye saw the scene while reading it. As the series has progressed though, with the merging of characters and deviation from the books i feel robbed of some scenes i would have loved to see on the show. My question is this.. Do we book readers all watch the show wanting to see our imaginings brought to life on the small screen, and judge it unfairly because our own imagination isn`t constrained by a budget or timescale Game of Thrones is the one and only television product that I dio not judge negatively when I compared it to the books. The reason being that it is self-evident to me the author's effort to stay compliant as much as possible with the books and the time, budget, different medium and different audience constraints they have. The way in which timelines, missing characters and plots have been creatively rearranged was sometimes neat and made me smile being able to see through their choices. Perhaps, I would even dare to say that they should leave it go and not be afraid of making things up on their own, because trying to appeal book readers is a lost cause that can fire-back when you forget to address the needs of the TV audience. This year, the show was kind of weak especially in its beginning. I think that it is not a coincidence that the first four 'slow pacing' episodes of this season have been leaked. I would love to see the show run amok, forget about where the books are headed and their pace, and just play with the available pawns on the board. Addendum: one of the things I dislike the most of last two seasons is that they seem to have forgotten about playing the soundtrack at the "right" moments.. there are too many 'silent' scenes for my tastes. For the rest, I love the show. And I love the books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BalerionTheCat Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Depends of each of us I suppose. Some people, maybe less and less, are saying the show is better. D&D cut the fat, the unnecessary, whatever. But not me. I never saw the show, otherwise than the illustration of a few pages from the books. I understand HBO problem with money, and production constraints. To have only 10 hours per year. IMO, they should have done two seasons per book. It is not the battles and the murders, and the expensive stuff I miss from the books. It is Tyrion and Tysha story, how the lords are dealing with the commoners, Robb and Joffrey training session, Sansa and Arya, Arya and Jon, Fat Tom and how he died in KL ... Stuff like that. Things that deal more with people's stories, and not just the shock value. Maybe only the true fans of the books would have been interested. I don't know. But we are farther and farther from the books. And no, I don't see the latest books as inferior to the earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khorkalba Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 My guess is George thought that he was done with the story after Storm. But he was sitting on a gold mine so after a long tedious five years out came Feast and after another five years the mess that is Dance. Heck, he himself wrote that he hated writing it ("three bitches and a bastard" were his words if I remember correctly) so no wonder the result was so woefully inadequate. 1. The story of A Song of Ice and Fire was nowhere near completed with A Storm of Swords. 2. The series was hardly a "gold mine" back then in 2000 either. It's become a gold mine because of the TV show. 3. Stop talking about Feast and Dance like they're objectively bad. Many consider one of them to be their favourite book in the series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolsimir Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 My guess is George thought that he was done with the story after Storm. But he was sitting on a gold mine so after a long tedious five years out came Feast and after another five years the mess that is Dance. Heck, he himself wrote that he hated writing it ("three bitches and a bastard" were his words if I remember correctly) so no wonder the result was so woefully inadequate. To come back to the topic - my reader's imagination was pleased with all the trimming D&D went through in season 5 to present something to us that was actually watchable and enjoyable. They should have been even more thorough, Dorne was horrible in the books and shouldn't have made it on screen. Completely wrong. The series was originally supposed to be split into three parts, the second one being A Dance with Dragons. Indicating that Aegon was planned from the start. So no, GRRM was not done with the story after Storm. And as for your second quote. GRRM meant that writing those books was really fucking hard, not that he didn't enjoy it. Well said. Oh, look who agrees with a pile of shit. It's Jack Bauer, what a surprise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Brandon Badwater Posted June 28, 2015 Author Share Posted June 28, 2015 1. The story of A Song of Ice and Fire was nowhere near completed with A Storm of Swords. 2. The series was hardly a "gold mine" back then in 2000 either. It's become a gold mine because of the TV show. 3. Stop talking about Feast and Dance like they're objectively bad. Many consider one of them to be their favourite book in the series. When a book in a series debuts at number 1 in the bestseller lists{pre HBO G.O.T} then i would think that series is a gold mine for the author Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khorkalba Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 When a book in a series debuts at number 1 in the bestseller lists{pre HBO G.O.T} then i would think that series is a gold mine for the author Having a bestseller doesn't mean you're automatically going to receive tens of millions of dollars and be set for life. I'm sure George was a reasonably well-off man when A Storm of Swords came out, but it's the TV show that's making him outrageously rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Fox Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 The fact that so many readers are bitter angry about "only cat" and "bring me a block ed," proves it. Minor dialogue edits shouldn't even be a minor bother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LatrineDiggerBrian Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Not really. Season 1 missed out on a lot of the extravagance and imagery of the books. Like the Hand's Tourney for example. And yet S1 was great. The problem is that the show is now very different in terms of plot, and completely unrecognisable in terms of themes and character arcs. Many of the changes made are unnecessary or outright detrimental to the show, and are often downright offensive. So essentially what you're saying then is yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winter's Cold Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 After the disappointments of Feast and Dance, I'm definitely leaning toward the TV Show. At least it won't take a decade to meaningfully progress the plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Bauer 24 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 After the disappointments of Feast and Dance, I'm definitely leaning toward the TV Show. At least it won't take a decade to meaningfully progress the plot. If not for the show I would have probably given up on the books by now. Martin doesn't care anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingmonkey Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 The fact that so many readers are bitter angry about "only cat" and "bring me a block ed," proves it. Minor dialogue edits shouldn't even be a minor bother. Indeed. Let's be honest -- neither of these two is an inherently brilliant line, but they are memorable lines. What makes them memorable is the context they occur, which is never going to be the same in a different medium. "Only Cat" requires a capital letter to work properly without throwing some people. It would be clumsy writing for a TV show. "Fetch me a block, Edd" requires the reader to have had a moment of doubt about Jon's intentions because we know he previously thought "This is wrong" -- a trick of writing dependant on the PoV structure of the books that simply wouldn't serve any purpose to include in the show other than to duplicate the book. There was nothing wrong in deciding not to have these lines, apart from the fact that they are lines people liked from the books. The TV show is not a book. Reality check time. Metacritic score for series 5 was 91%, 8.7/10 user score. Rotten Tomatoes average rating 9/10, 4.3/5 user rating. IMDB average rating per episode 87.4%, with individual episodes coming in at 1st, 4th and 9th highest ratings of any season -- Hardhome getting an insane 9.9 average score from over 34,500 users. People here are not alone in disliking the Dorne sequence this season, with Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken rated as the joint worst episode of GoT on IMDB, but apart from that people generally LOVED this season. The opinions of the show on this board are hugely unrepresentative, and the obvious difference is that most people here have read the books, and enjoy that particular experience enough to spend time on an internet board discussing them. We here are the people most likely to be invested in a reading of the text that is not the same as the show -- of course people on here will, on average, see the show in a much more negative light. As the seasons go on, it's no surprise that more and more book lovers will become disenchanted with the show, as the inevitable differences grow and as the initial honeymoon of seeing one of their favourite books series on screen fades. I have no problem with people hating the show because it's not the GoT that they would have wanted, but that's entirely different from being bad television. If it was bad television, people who hadn't read the books would notice too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Onion Kniggit Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 No. The problem is not our imagination and whether the show lives up to it, the problem is that 1) the plots, characters and dialogue now mostly come from D&D's imagination and have very little to do with the characterization, character arcs and themes of the books, so it is failing as an adaptation; 2) it's also bad quality just by itself at this point, failing to meet the basic requirements of good fiction - the plots are often illogical, continuity is poor, characterization inconsistent and devoid of depth, narrative structure is poor, character arcs nonexistent or not making sense, dialogue often trite, thematically season 5 does not come together, and it's full of (often rather offensive) clichés. Pretty much sums up my opinion too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stannis is the man....nis Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Maybe for some but not for me my problem with this season (I still liked the show just not this season) was they fanfic things that didn't need to happen. The biggest example is Sansa/Stannis arhc in the North Im actually ok with the idea of giving Sansa Jeyne Poole's storyline but to cut out Wyman, all the other Northern Lords, make Stannis the villain, and have the Boltens win Im not ok with because it makes Sansa's arch pointless. Had say Wyman was there for Sansa to encourage to rebel, she runs away before the battle of WF, Stannis is still a good guy (for the most part) that she and reek run into and it's hinted she will help him, and at the least they don't show the battle like in the books I would be totally ok with the change Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 If not for the show I would have probably given up on the books by now. Martin doesn't care anymore.He quite obviously does Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Visenya Stark Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Even if you don't compare the show to the books, the show has many flaws. The plotholes are glaringly obvious, it's amazing how the critics ignore them.No. The problem is not our imagination and whether the show lives up to it, the problem is that 1) the plots, characters and dialogue now mostly come from D&D's imagination and have very little to do with the characterization, character arcs and themes of the books, so it is failing as an adaptation; 2) it's also bad quality just by itself at this point, failing to meet the basic requirements of good fiction - the plots are often illogical, continuity is poor, characterization inconsistent and devoid of depth, narrative structure is poor, character arcs nonexistent or not making sense, dialogue often trite, thematically season 5 does not come together, and it's full of (often rather offensive) clichés.Haven't you heard? Themes are for eight-grade book reports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
protar Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 So essentially what you're saying then is yes. Not at all. I don't expect scenes to live up to the exact picture of my minds eye. But now they're not even ticking off basic moments from the books. And worse the show is just poorly written and offensive on its own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Eddard Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 GRRM meant that writing those books was really fucking hard, not that he didn't enjoy it. Ah, you're in George's brain now? He meant what he said - and judging by the end result, he must have hated writing Dance every minute of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Eddard Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 He quite obviously does Yes, we have ample proof for that. After Storm, it took GRRM eleven years to bring out one book, split in half. Now it has been another four years since the debacle that was Dance and Winds seems to be nowhere near completion. So thanks a lot to D&D for providing us an with an ending - because GRRM quite obviously doesn't care anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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