Will the show work well when ahead of the books?

[aFeastForDragons]

What will the backlash be like if something is real shit in Season 6 and it ends up being from TWOW and not D&D?

There was pages and pages about Stannis burning Shireen and then George let slip he hadn't even wrote the plot yet so what does that even mean. I really doubt Brieene is going to go North with Pod and Jaime will go to Dorne in TWOW so you can pretty much disregard everything from S6 and S7 apart from the end results which George is likely to change anyway. 

[Sjur]

I have faith in DandD. They have made one of the best shows in history, even if the books are different and often better the show is still great. I have also been disapointed by the show, but cmon, it is a great show. I will just enjoy it! And I will enjoy the book.

[Alayne's Shadow.]

The most "altered" storylines are usually the weakest ones. That is, Dorne, Qarth and Winterhell. I only expect it to be worse, tbh. With no book to base themselves on, they'll be able to roam free with their most "enlightened" ideas. That means Arya getting the female treatment on the show (After all, she's the only main female character that hasn't be raped yet), Brienne killing her way to Jaime, and Empowered Sansa using her set of skills learned via rape to unify the North against the Boltons. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

That means Arya getting the female treatment on the show (After all, she's the only main female character that hasn't be raped yet), Brienne killing her way to Jaime, and Empowered Sansa using her set of skills learned via rape to unify the North against the Boltons. 

You really need to keep nonsense like this in your own thread.  

[ssls6]

Hmmmmm,

I say the show will work and I assume they have the board stokes.  Stories retold often change details with the basic ending still in tact.  If anything, the book readers won't be able to fall back on GRRM's telling and we will probably find the show even more enjoyable.  Years later we can hopefully read the alternative details and find closure in the subplots.  I hope GRRM allows us some insight into the history of the irregular seasons or why Ashai is poison.  Maybe Bran can fill us in on these things.

I do hope they go for 8 seasons (I expect they will based on their comments) which would put S6 as convergence, S7 as the expansion of the Others, and my S8 as the reconciliation....just an opinion but I hope it is true.  I hate epic stories with really rushed endings.  Like leaving the Others alone until we go from Hardhome straight to the Battle of Dawn.

[Barristan Whitebeard]

The most "altered" storylines are usually the weakest ones. That is, Dorne, Qarth and Winterhell. I only expect it to be worse, tbh. With no book to base themselves on, they'll be able to roam free with their most "enlightened" ideas. That means Arya getting the female treatment on the show (After all, she's the only main female character that hasn't be raped yet), Brienne killing her way to Jaime, and Empowered Sansa using her set of skills learned via rape to unify the North against the Boltons. 

Shit like this belongs to the Rant and Rave kingdom. We don't need it in every single thread.

[Guest]

The books are great, amazing even. Agree the "rape" comments here are inappropriate, in context GRRM built a world that reflected the sad base state of years gone by. 

 

They can do 8 seasons more easily if my key lovable characters die (these actors make bank), here's hoping Tyrion, Cersei, Jamie, Davos, and Bran do make it.

[Alayne's Shadow.]

You really need to keep nonsense like this in your own thread.  

 

Well, of course I'm jesting about the Arya situation, but the other two are indeed things that we do know are happening in season 6. Brienne will have intense fights and will probably slaughter her way to Jaime's story in the Riverlands, and Sansa will indeed unify the North after her "escape". Those are actual plot-points of season 6.

As for the theme of the topic, I'm continuing what I said. Some of the weakest points in GOT are the most altered storylines. Season 6 will be mostly altered storylines. Therefore, I don't have any hope it will get better.

[Myself656]

I think a lot those questioning how the show can work without the "rich tapestry of the books" to support it are completely underestimating the "Unsullied" factor (i.e. viewers who've never even read the books) and seem to be following along just fine and didn't consider many of the parts the book fans have panned to be nearly so terrible. For all the complaints I heard from book readers about how Tyrion's journey of character development was mangled what appeared on screen was a functional plot in its own way that most non-book readers were quite happy with.

Let's remember that GRRM has given them outlines and notes of what he intends to have happen in the remaining books and they know how it ends so if some things were left out or altered that a book reader considered terribly important, the odds are that those parts actually weren't nearly as important as they thought they were (particularly once we hit the later books and the lack of editorial oversight led to GRRM expanding what was to be one book into two bloated monsters with a whole bunch of subplots which, based on D&D's adaptations probably were never going to amount to anything but colorful filler.

Frankly, I think AFFC and ADWD both contained a ton of character development that would be nearly impossible to transfer from a PoV third-person limited novel into the visual medium without a great deal of tedium and certainly not enough to be able to do much of it justice with just 550 minutes of air time in the season.

Hell, I've had the operating theory for some time (and will see if I'm right come April) that one of the unstated goals of Sansa replacing fArya in the Winterfell plot was about getting her character up to the North to start interacting with Jon and various other Northern players a full season ahead of when she would have if they followed the books (i.e. she'd end up heading North along with the Vale armies) and that this was done because some part of her story would revolve around one or more relationships with those characters that would take longer to credibly build for the audience than would be possible if she didn't make it up there until what would have been, at the time the change was made, the show's final season.

Similarly, I think the reason we got Jaime going to Dorne instead of the Riverlands was because ultimately the Riverlands events were going to end up being largely about characters' internal transformations based on seeing the horrors of war first hand... something very difficult to portray on screen since we're not privy to the characters' thoughts. Since they couldn't really portray that effectively in the time they thought they had left (at the time they thought season seven would be the last) they sent Jaime off to at least do something (introduce the various Dornish players who would later on be interacting with Dany when she finally reached Westeros) while keeping him close enough at hand to come back and deal with Cersei in the penultimate season of the series.

Now that they they have more time, they're sending Jaime to the Riverlands because its another place to put him into a holding pattern until the time comes for him to head back and deal with matters in Kings Landing, probably in season seven instead of six now.

Essentially... I don't think the lack of a completed book is going to be nearly as harmful as many here seem to think it would be.

[dsug]

Literally every single thing you said is a matter of your opinion that you are presenting as fact. 

I'm quite looking forward to the show airing without a certain dark corner of the fandom crying about how it happened it in the books. 

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Something many people who are fans of the show don't want to admit is that the show gets praised when they due things from the book just as they are in the books, with little adaptation. For example, a fan favourite (and mine too) is the conversation between Tyrion and Oberyn when Oberyn accepts being Tyrion's champion. Despite in the books this is a bit more humorous, the drama here works well. Nevertheless, this, as well as Tyrion and Bronn's goodbye, are practically carbon copy from the books. People loved the dialogue and interaction between them.

We can say the same about many scenes.

OTOH, when they try to do their own version and vision of the many events, they get the critics they deserve, because some things are either very forced or little thought. Things happen because they have to happen due to Martin giving them pretty much a list of things to do (e.g. Shireen dying).

If the show had a beautiful book filled with beautiful dialogues and outlines that they decided to ignore, they don't even have that now. Martin has probably just told them things like "yes, Dany marries Jon after they war together against the Others", but he hasn't developed their relationship or the things they will tell to each other, the things they live through and other things that make two characters believable. The show version of this hypothetical situation will be likely simply they looking at each other and immediately falling in love.

Season 5 was exactly that: a series of things happening because they are in the book, but with little development of neither the storylines or the characters. A had to be in B, so put A in B to have things happen. The characters neither grew or had issues that reversed their grew (except Sansa). Season 6 will be the same: things that George told them to have but with little context about why they happened.

 

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Shit like this belongs to the Rant and Rave kingdom. We don't need it in every single thread.

The R&R threads are for simply mentioning all the things we don't like about the show, without further discussion. The rest of the board is for discuss the show, both the bad and the good things. We can say the show is bad and explain why and argument about or against it. If you don't like the show being criticised, then I suggest you to open a thread to only talk about how good the show is.

So, nope.

[JonSnowed]

I have not read all the comments before I write mine so apologises if I duplicate.

Firstly, it's worth noting the show is not totally ahead of the books, we will have about 20-30% of AFFC in this season based on the plot line leaks we've seen (Iron born/Siege of river run/Septon Meribeld etc.).  Then I'd imagine that this forthcoming season is largely based on draft materials which have been shared with D&D - for some reason some people assume the show needs to wait for the books to be published which clearly isn't the case as they meet with GRRM and know all the plot lines.

So I guess what I am saying is I would imagine this season to stick reasonably close to the source material however the final season (or two) will likely diverge more than any other because at this stage there is no more than an outline of the path and final destination.

As for the quality, I felt season 5 was disjointed and some people complain that the show didn't stick to the source material close enough which in my view is almost impossible.  There is a lot of filler in AFFC which would not make good TV, the show made some good choices and some bad (Dorne/Sand Snakes) to get around that, it didn't always work but it could have been a lot worse.

[JonSnowed]

I don't think it's a matter of going further away, although Dorne is a bad sign. I do think that trying to struggle with the previous 2 books meant they probably weren't able to devote enough time to new elements. 

 

Im hoping the new freedom will allow a better show. Just watching something like The Leftovers shows that once you run out of material to adapt it doesn't mean things get worse. That show actually vastly improved. And that's by someone almost universally hated for his work on tv.

I tend to agree with what you write but it's worth noting they haven't ran out of material they have stuff from AFFC and the draft Winds of Winter material to work with this season.

[JonSnowed]

There was pages and pages about Stannis burning Shireen and then George let slip he hadn't even wrote the plot yet so what does that even mean. I really doubt Brieene is going to go North with Pod and Jaime will go to Dorne in TWOW so you can pretty much disregard everything from S6 and S7 apart from the end results which George is likely to change anyway. 

Posts like this are annoying to be honest, while I respect your opinion let's get a few things straight here:

1) Shireen will be burnt in the Winds of Winter, it may not (very likely won't) play out in the same way but it's from the next book whether you like it or not. Many people were even guessing this was coming because there are breadcrumbs in the books.

2) Neither Jamie or Brienne are not going to Dorne/North in the books I agree. This was clearly done for the show because they could not fit all the material in one season and guess what their AFFC storylines are in season 6 now so we are back on track.  It's this point which irritates me most because people seem to want to criticise without thinking things through regarding TV and how these storylines can be put on screen in one season.

3) They have access to TWOW draft materials, the show runners speak regularly with GRRM, I would imagine George will be back writing for the show in Season 7, somethings will change but many won't (read GRRM not a blog for written confirmation of this).

 

I apologise whole heartedly if this seems a personal attack, it's not, but I am really frustrated that a vocal minority are writing so much rubbish as it's spoiling it for the rest of us.

[JonSnowed]

Well, of course I'm jesting about the Arya situation, but the other two are indeed things that we do know are happening in season 6. Brienne will have intense fights and will probably slaughter her way to Jaime's story in the Riverlands, and Sansa will indeed unify the North after her "escape". Those are actual plot-points of season 6.

As for the theme of the topic, I'm continuing what I said. Some of the weakest points in GOT are the most altered storylines. Season 6 will be mostly altered storylines. Therefore, I don't have any hope it will get better.

Evidence that anything from season 6 is an altered story line please.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Well, of course I'm jesting about the Arya situation, but the other two are indeed things that we do know are happening in season 6. Brienne will have intense fights and will probably slaughter her way to Jaime's story in the Riverlands, and Sansa will indeed unify the North after her "escape". Those are actual plot-points of season 6.

As for the theme of the topic, I'm continuing what I said. Some of the weakest points in GOT are the most altered storylines. Season 6 will be mostly altered storylines. Therefore, I don't have any hope it will get better.

the problem with making those type of comments outside of the rant thread is they kill the tone of the discussion, plus it simply opens you up to ridicule that you could avoid keeping them in a place where nobody will pick them apart.

The other thread on here about altered or invented scenes in the show , proves that they show already has created plenty of excellent elements independent of the books. Yes theyve struggled at times but actually some of the changes they've made have been some of my favourite parts. I think they will do fine without the books.

 

 

[Alayne's Shadow.]

Evidence that anything from season 6 is an altered story line please.

Uh, I advise you to read D&D's interview about it. Also, how are you going to put Brienne and Sansa on the North in the books? By the power of plot-devices? We know at least those two have hugely-altered storylines.

[Rhodan]

 

Uh, I advise you to read D&D's interview about it. Also, how are you going to put Brienne and Sansa on the North in the books? By the power of plot-devices? We know at least those two have hugely-altered storylines.

Plus, of course Sam meeting rest of the Tarlys.

But of course, it remains to be seen, how much will that be plot-consequential.

[Rhodan]

Uh, I advise you to read D&D's interview about it. Also, how are you going to put Brienne and Sansa on the North in the books? By the power of plot-devices? We know at least those two have hugely-altered storylines.

Plus, of course, Sam meeting rest of the Tarlys. Although it remains to be seen, how much it will be plot-consequential.