What the show got better than the books

[Meera of Tarth]

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

How can anyone argue with a straight face that Brienne's s 5 arc wasn't a zillion times more boring than anything in the books? LOL

I'm only adressing the candle plot. But if that's what you are referring to, I agree, and I've written some arguments.

[kissdbyfire]

2 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I'm only adressing the candle plot. But if that's what you are referring to, I agree, and I've written some arguments.

I understand that ultimately it boils down to personal taste, I just really struggle trying to understand that one would prefer her s 5 arc over anything in the books, really. But to each their own, I suppose. 

[Dragon in the North]

3 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I agree with you. It doesn't serve to the Game's plot. But it doesn't mean it can't be adapted or that Brienne herself is not important to have a small adventure with Podrick. If you have Brienne worried for Sansa an entire season and you know you have to arrive to 5.10 with her killing Stannis, you can do a lot of things.

I also understand that she didn't have as much screen time as she should have had but still, so maybe you have to cut her adventure. She could have had an adaptation of her small adventure: Maybe someone trapping her like in the books? Or maybe she, just the inn, but having a bath and remembering Renly/Jaime? That would be an adaptation of her chapters, but considering the show constraints.

Or, like it was pointed out before, showing her trying to rescue Sansa, maybe a failed attempt. That would fit the adaption part because in the books she is looking for Sansa and if in the show they decided that she met her and Sansa rejected her, it would be interesting to make her try to do something. That would also be interesting for any type of viewers, and definitely, better than her candle plot.

Any of these things would have been perfect. And there are several more options that could have  happened better than the candle decision. Because it would still follow her arch. And she would arrive to the same destination she is supposed to be at the end of the season with Stannis.

 

I agree that they could have done more with Brienne in season 5, but I'm just not overly bothered by it. I see Brienne as a secondary character. I never would have thought that she would be getting her own storyline in AFFC. I'm sorry that one of your favorite characters was more or less benched for a season, but she may be getting a bigger plot in season 6.

[HairGrowsBack]

3 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Briennes immediate role is to get captured and possibly have to kill Jamie, or at least it looks like that. Everything before that is simply filler. So why include it? If she's going to be hanging around, at least let her have some sort impact on the plot.

Well then cut Arya in the RL, and have her go to Bravos directly. It's all just walking around anyway. Same for Dany, cut all the ACoK to ADwD stuff, she's going to Westeros, it won't really impact the endgame, what she did in Essos. 

GRRM is setting something up with Brienne, which I think will go beyond LSH. If you don't take the time to develop her character better, anything she will do later will be meaningless, and will lose its punch. It's  what good storytelling does.

[Dragon in the North]

7 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

How can anyone argue with a straight face that Brienne's s 5 arc wasn't a zillion times more boring than anything in the books? LOL

It was more boring than her AFFC arc, but it took up only a fraction of the time.

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Dragon in the North said:

It was more boring than her AFFC arc, but it took up only a fraction of the time.

Well, but anything in any book will take up a lot more time than the adaptation of the same work, right? As I said in my reply to Meera of Tarth above, I get that it's about taste. I suppose it's difficult for me to understand the argument because I love her AFfC chapters. 

[Farerb]

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

Well, but anything in any book will take up a lot more time than the adaptation of the same work, right? As I said in my reply to Meera of Tarth above, I get that it's about taste. I suppose it's difficult for me to understand the argument because I love her AFfC chapters. 

Watching The Hobbit films trilogy takes more time than reading the book.

[A Bong of Ice and Fire]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Well, but anything in any book will take up a lot more time than the adaptation of the same work, right? As I said in my reply to Meera of Tarth above, I get that it's about taste. I suppose it's difficult for me to understand the argument because I love her AFfC chapters. 

Brienne's chapter with Nimble Dick where they find and fight the Bloody Mummers is one of my favorites in the whole series.  It may not move the overall plot along so much, but it's well written and very moving.  I really felt for poor Dick.

[Meera of Tarth]

8 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I understand that ultimately it boils down to personal taste, I just really struggle trying to understand that one would prefer her s 5 arc over anything in the books, really. But to each their own, I suppose. 

Yes, sorry. I think the same. Her chapters may be boring for a lot of people and I understand why (I confess that the first one or two were boring even for me) but the candle thing is less entertaining than anything from her chapters. That's why I pointed out that even the action part or intriguing part from her POVs could have been better than the candle.

6 minutes ago, Dragon in the North said:

I agree that they could have done more with Brienne in season 5, but I'm just not overly bothered by it. I see Brienne as a secondary character. I never would have thought that she would be getting her own storyline in AFFC. I'm sorry that one of your favorite characters was more or less benched for a season, but she may be getting a bigger plot in season 6.

Thank you for your words

I really hope she gets a better storyline, I can't help but see her as not a mere secondary character, given the previous seasons, but even for those who are not fans: I saw a regression in her characater due to the decisions made on her storyline. She was far more prominent in the previous seasons ang got better script and can't understand the reasons of the candle arc.

Maybe she is a secondary character and will never be a main character (however, who knows what the future holds for her) but I appreciate your words.

[kissdbyfire]

2 minutes ago, farerb said:

Watching The Hobbit films trilogy takes more time than reading the book.

Very true. 

1 minute ago, A Bong of Ice and Fire said:

Brienne's chapter with Nimble Dick where they find and fight the Bloody Mummers is one of my favorites in the whole series.  It may not move the overall plot along so much, but it's well written and very moving.  I really felt for poor Dick.

Me too! I love that chapter, and there's info that might become relevant in the future. But their interactions were  funny, and like you, I really felt for him too.

I also like very much the chapter where she defends the orphans, and that could have both shown the devastation caused by the war and made for a cool fight scene. 

[Dragon in the North]

6 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Well, but anything in any book will take up a lot more time than the adaptation of the same work, right? As I said in my reply to Meera of Tarth above, I get that it's about taste. I suppose it's difficult for me to understand the argument because I love her AFfC chapters. 

Well, I didn't particularly like either, but her book arc was better, imo.

[A Bong of Ice and Fire]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Very true. 

Me too! I love that chapter, and there's info that might become relevant in the future. But their interactions were  funny, and like you, I really felt for him too.

I also like very much the chapter where she defends the orphans, and that could have both shown the devastation caused by the war and made for a cool fight scene. 

As a show fan(boy), I'll admit that Brienne's season 5 arc was a bit silly, or even ridiculous.  I did like the scene with Pod where she talks about Renly and why she loved him.  In general her interactions with Pod on the show are well done.  But the candle plan was silly.  Even if she saw the candle lit, what was she going to do?  Storm Winterfell by herself?

And it was a hell of a coincidence that she managed to stumble on injured Stannis in the woods with no one else around.

[Woman of War]

I hope very much that the show will continue to give Baelish a more ambiguous façade. Not only the audience but in-story the protagonists should almost forget what he did to Ned Stark, I would like everybody to be in doubt whether he is their antagonist to their ally. Let the audience empathize with him! The show needs  complex villains like Baelish and Roose, not only straightforward monsters like Ramsay.

So I hope that Baelish will stay in the game for quite a while yet and I hope that Sansa gets more involved with him. Actually the deeper her involvement goes the more emotional and interesting their falling apart will be in the end. I hope the show goes that way. Reuniting all the good guys and girls while killing off the villains when the ending is still far away - that would be too early. Focusing the story on fighting the Others right now would leave out so many options. A very long endgame, being simply good vs bad,  would need to go very deeply into magic and mystery to be really complex. Ok, but I want to see the "game" part continue a little longer as well.

[Meera of Tarth]

1 minute ago, A Bong of Ice and Fire said:

As a show fan(boy), I'll admit that Brienne's season 5 arc was a bit silly, or even ridiculous.  I did like the scene with Pod where she talks about Renly and why she loved him.  In general her interactions with Pod on the show are well done.  But the candle plan was silly.  Even if she saw the candle lit, what was she going to do?  Storm Winterfell by herself?

And it was a hell of a coincidence that she managed to stumble on injured Stannis in the woods with no one else around.

Agree with all of your points

I like Brienne and Podrick in the show. Podrick is funny. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

 

Brienne was changed so that it better served other plot threads and was a more efficient use of her character and screen time. That's the main reason for the change. 

Im sure they could have included the whole plot and it would have been entertaining, but if it's inefficient and creates a bunch of problems with other threads why do it? 

It's not even about which is better, of course the book version is more entertaining, but she is a secondary character taking up a load of space on basically a spin off story that serves not purpose until she reaches the BWB, D&D would be stupid to try and force that into the series when there is limited space 

[Gustavo Fringed Sleeves]

4 minutes ago, Woman of War said:

I hope very much that the show will continue to give Baelish a more ambiguous façade. Not only the audience but in-story the protagonists should almost forget what he did to Ned Stark, I would like everybody to be in doubt whether he is their antagonist to their ally. Let the audience empathize with him! The show needs  complex villains like Baelish and Roose, not only straightforward monsters like Ramsay.

So I hope that Baelish will stay in the game for quite a while yet and I hope that Sansa gets more involved with him. Actually the deeper her involvement goes the more emotional and interesting their falling apart will be in the end. I hope the show goes that way. Reuniting all the good guys and girls while killing off the villains when the ending is still far away - that would be too early. Focusing the story on fighting the Others right now would leave out so many options. A very long endgame, being simply good vs bad,  would need to go very deeply into magic and mystery to be really complex. Ok, but I want to see the "game" part continue a little longer as well.

You've just admitted that you're "dramatically satisfied" by cheap shocks and 180-degree character turns. The cheaper, the better. Good job for proving one our points. Give this woman a cookie!

I have to add, as someone who wasn't initially very impressed by Brienne's individual arc in the books, the show's "adaptation" was actually more boring, more pointless, more ridiculous, what with the whole candle affair. But what bothers me the most is D&D turning her into Westeros' (and Essos') top warrior, bar none.

WTF? Why the need to turn her into Rambo with teats? Who are they catering to? It's not pregressive, it's trite.

[Meera of Tarth]

7 minutes ago, Woman of War said:

I hope very much that the show will continue to give Baelish a more ambiguous façade. Not only the audience but in-story the protagonists should almost forget what he did to Ned Stark, I would like everybody to be in doubt whether he is their antagonist to their ally. Let the audience empathize with him! The show needs  complex villains like Baelish and Roose, not only straightforward monsters like Ramsay.

So I hope that Baelish will stay in the game for quite a while yet and I hope that Sansa gets more involved with him. Actually the deeper her involvement goes the more emotional and interesting their falling apart will be in the end. I hope the show goes that way. Reuniting all the good guys and girls while killing off the villains when the ending is still far away - that would be too early. Focusing the story on fighting the Others right now would leave out so many options. A very long endgame, being simply good vs bad,  would need to go very deeply into magic and mystery to be really complex. Ok, but I want to see the "game" part continue a little longer as well.

I also would like LF to stay in the show and not be killed yet. But not sure if I want it with Sansa because of his decision to make her marry Ramsay without knowing Ramsay was bad (I think that is a big plot hole because he was supposed to be extremely intelligent), and, apart from that, didn't like what happened to Sansa because of him not knowing).

But definitely would want to see him alive until the very ending. My perfect ending for him would be being killed by a Dragon or a WW, because he doesn't know anything about them (allegedly). He should continue the political game, the one he's aware of. Varys and LF showed they wanted the throne in the previous seasons. Something must happen. 

[JonSnow4President]

The sad thing is I really can't think of any larger decisions I would say the show did better.  There are a couple here and there (Drogo's on screen injury, small additions to Tyrion's confession, etc.), but just nothing on a large scale that I think I can point to and say they did that better.  Not a geographic region, not a character arc, nothing that I can say I like holistically better than the books (I like that Robb is more of a character, but the expense to Catelyn and the Talisa invention bring that down for example).

So yeah, they get some small details done better for me (although I'd say the book gets more over the show on common areas).  But nothing major.

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, JonSnow4President said:

The sad thing is I really can't think of any larger decisions I would say the show did better.  There are a couple here and there (Drogo's on screen injury, small additions to Tyrion's confession, etc.), but just nothing on a large scale that I think I can point to and say they did that better.  Not a geographic region, not a character arc, nothing that I can say I like holistically better than the books (I like that Robb is more of a character, but the expense to Catelyn and the Talisa invention bring that down for example).

So yeah, they get some small details done better for me (although I'd say the book gets more over the show on common areas).  But nothing major.

Aging up the characters was a good move, the Starks and Dany start off all about 2 years too young for the things they do.  Dany at 15-17 is much more believable as a leader than at 13-15, same for Robb.  Arya and Bran's aptitudes would be less jarring if they were a couple years older.

[Gustavo Fringed Sleeves]

1 hour ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I think the vast majority would have preferred Brienne in action instead of watching a candle for several episodes. (At least Brienne's fans)

Does Brienne even have fans among the show-only watchers? The impression I get is that most are annoyed by her and would rather have her killed off to give space to more useful characters.

Yes, book readers wanted Brienne to move on faster with the plot, but rarely wished her dead. Triumph for the show!