Another Sellsword Joins the Cast

[franko99]

I don't think they will be able to reach the Meereen material in season three unless they seriously rush through Dany's material. They have to cover:

• Dany meeting Barristan and seeking passage to Slaver's Bay
  
• Arriving in Astapor and meeting Kraznys and Missandei
  
• Arranging to "purchase" the Unsullied
  
• Sacking Astapor
  
• Leaving Astapor with her followers
  
• Meeting the Yunkish sellsword captains
  
• Taking Yunkai and being hailed as "Mhysa".
  

:agree:

And what is your basis for that statement? What's that, your don't have one?

Now, I can't speak for what goes on in D+D's minds, but logically merging Meereen and Yunkai makes the most sense for the show. While I don't like treating TV audiences like idiots (their not), the show does need to streamline information, and having three very similar cities in one location is something that I don't think works on TV. Also if we have both Meereen and Yunkai, Dany's season 4 arc will be a repeat of the 2nd half of her S3 arc, just stretched over more time. That's going to come across as trite repetitive filler. In the books each city is taken over the course of a chapter, but you're suggesting stretching single chapters over entire seasons. Not going to work. It would make much more sense to just have Meereen and Astapor, and after Dracarys to take elements from Dany's conquests of Meereen and Yunkai, and merge them into a few exciting episodes. Then S4 can cover some of her DWD material.

Dany's whole story line in Slaver Bay was a trite repetitive filler :P

I don't think that any of the Slaver's Bay cities will be merged. I understand why one might want to do this, but I don't think it will work. Each season must have major climaxes for each location and using up all of Dany's aSoS material in S3 will leave S4 without one. The aDwD story can't possibly be streched over 3 seasons, and Dany will need (for contract reasons) a significant amount of screentime for each.

In season 3 the focus will be on Robb/Cat's story (and also Arya), with the other stories being streched out more. That will have to include Dany's.

I don't think any city will be merged, there's no need for that, they'll have 3 seasons yet to get where we are in the books, and I don't think they rush it, what are they going to do when there are no more books left??

And yeah, Robb/Cat will be the main story this season, but Dany and Tyrion are by far the most popular characters in the show, they will give them as much screen time as they could, just look at season 2 they created a whole new (and poorly written) story to Dany since they desperately wanted to give her screen time

[protar]

It's not an issue of having space for all the important material, It's an issue of pacing as well as casting. The show likes to push characters back untill they are absolutly neccessary, so I doubt S4 will see both the Iron Islands and Dorne; probably just the Iron Islands.

I can see both Dorne and the Iron Isles being pushed forwards because if as I think S5 will compress AFFC/ADWD/parts of TWOW into one, they will need to bring a lot of material forwards. It also thematically makes a lot of sense. So Oberyn can arrive at KL with Arianne, then send her off to Dorne to crown Myrcella.

Also, principal characters like Bran and Arya who don't have alot of material in affc/adwd will need something to do and therfor can't have their story pushed forward.

Wrong. With Bran especially, he's going to be lacking in material no matter where you put things. Delaying his ADWD material to S5 would require stretching his 4 SOS chapters over 2 whole seasons. Moving some of his ADWD material up to S4 (Say up until he reaches BR's cave.) gives him less to do in S5. However I feel that his trip through the Haunted Forest is the best scenario for invented material, especially for keeping the Others on the scene which would otherwise be excluded for Seasons 4 and 5. Far too long for the main enemy to go missing on a TV show.

The logistics of filming new locations like Pentos or Bravos for one scene is to difficult to overcome.

It wouldn't be near as bad as you think. For one episode those locales can use internal sets and CGI to make things look good (e.g CGI Titan of Braavos.). Then next season new locations can be shot.

The only storyline that I think can be ligitimatly pushed forward is the Theon story and that would involve pushing forward Stannis and therfor Jon. Based off of the things D&D have said, I think the Battle of Castle Black is planned for the end of S4 so I don't think that is happening either.

I don't see how Theon's story can be moved forwards without seriously messing up the chronology of events. It would be better to leave Theon out of S4 for the most part, with his first ADWD chapter being used as a teaser in E10. This would also leave more space for other stories in S4.

As for Brienne's Quest, I'd cut most of it out (don't get me wrong, I love it, but it's not relevent enough to the other characters). All of this is not even counting how to make sure the show doesn't catch up to GRRM.

I agree Brienne's quest can be trimmed, but I'm thinking that moving it to season 4 would allow for a more impacting way to reveal Uncat.