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25 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I don't think they made the changes they did in season 5 because they 'ran out of runway', it might be part of the issue, but its obvious to most that season 5 would need to be altered rather radically from the books were it to work in the current format. The argument should really be that they should have changed a lot more, and been beholden to the books. But that again is a very easy argument to make when you don't have to suddenly write a whole bunch of material.

I still think they'd do stuff like condense and move Tyrion forward, etc. But I think it's hard to do something like fAegon or Dorne without knowing the next part of the story. If they could see how a completed fAegon story or a completed LSH story fit in, I think they'd be a lot more likely to try to adapt those parts.

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48 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I disagree. They are two entirely different arguments. 

One is : Judge the show on its own, is it consistent within its own universe and themes, not with the books. Don't complain that it isn't the same as the books or that it hasn't followed through on themes of the books, or they have destroyed characters from the books.

Second one is: Understand that the show has had to use the books as a source for its material, and other than completely making stuff up, any structural problems from the book would logically follow through into the show. Its entirely legitimate to argue that seasons 5 problems partly stem from the decisions Martin made with his books. As I say, the only other option is to simply not use anything from those books and just make stuff up, which actually happened more often in season 5.

Seems to me you're just using the books as and when you want simply to justify your position.

I agree with Position One. That's fine. I would argue that the show often fails on its own internal logic. In fact to me it seems like internal logic in the show is something bendable based on the will of the showrunners.

Position Two seems hypocritical to me. If you're allowed to use the books as a reference to the show for one reviewal procedure, you should be able to use the books as a reference to the show for any reviewal procedure.

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16 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I don't think they made the changes they did in season 5 because they 'ran out of runway', it might be part of the issue, but its obvious to most that season 5 would need to be altered rather radically from the books were it to work in the current format. The argument should really be that they should have changed a lot more, and been beholden to the books. But that again is a very easy argument to make when you don't have to suddenly write a whole bunch of material.

They read the books well before starting working on the show and then had another four years to think it through before they got anywhere near AFFC/ADWD. How is that sudden?!

Changes had to be made - but they had years and years to plan this out. 

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1 hour ago, Maid So Fair said:

They read the books well before starting working on the show and then had another four years to think it through before they got anywhere near AFFC/ADWD. How is that sudden?!

Changes had to be made - but they had years and years to plan this out. 

I think you focused too much on the one word in what I said. But you at least acknowledged that the books are a problem 

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6 hours ago, Maid So Fair said:

They read the books well before starting working on the show and then had another four years to think it through before they got anywhere near AFFC/ADWD. How is that sudden?!

Changes had to be made - but they had years and years to plan this out. 

It's sudden because they expected GRRM to have finished and therefore take their steer from the books.  It was only the last two years they realised that was unlikely to happen.  Had they known this they may have dispensed with a lot of the pointless bloat from the books much earlier.

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21 minutes ago, Ser Gareth said:

It's sudden because they expected GRRM to have finished and therefore take their steer from the books.  It was only the last two years they realised that was unlikely to happen.  Had they known this they may have dispensed with a lot of the pointless bloat from the books much earlier.

Actually, I think it was around Season 3 they had "the talk" with GRRM and he told them everything.

Either way, they went blind in Season 1, but Dance was released by Season 2, so they probably should have known whether they should have or not included many characters.

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49 minutes ago, Ser Gareth said:

It's sudden because they expected GRRM to have finished and therefore take their steer from the books.  It was only the last two years they realised that was unlikely to happen.  Had they known this they may have dispensed with a lot of the pointless bloat from the books much earlier.

We are talking about AFFC and ADWD however - the first one of these was out before the show started and the second came out shortly afterwards. Regardless of what happens in Winds and Spring, the show runners would have had to tackle AFFC/ADWD content at one point. They had plenty of time to come up with a plan/good script. And even without the series being fully published they have known about the ending for years - all they had to do was get from A to B in a compelling way.

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5 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I think you focused too much on the one word in what I said. But you at least acknowledged that the books are a problem 

Perhaps, but as you can see in the comments above this is somewhat of a common complaint, as is the assertion that because AFFC/ADWD are terrible that by necessity means the show would be as well. Not so. especially considering how much they diverged from the original. 

I don't think the books are necessarily a problem but at the very least you would have to merge everything back to one timeline and there's an issue with characters having too much/too little content as the result of the dropped 5 year gap, which would not work in a TV series with a main cast. What baffles me is the things they decided to keep or are circling back to (RL plot) while completely mangling any of what I would consider the best bits like the whole Northern plot. And somehow they managed to make Dorne and the Iron Islands worse

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AFfC and ADwD may have been hard to adapt to TV, but I'm sick of hearing that these books are "terrible".  They're the middle act of a 3-act play that are setting everything up for the final act.  I believe that once the series is finished (haha), these books will be seen in a much different light.  They're also beautifully written.

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19 minutes ago, A Bong of Ice and Fire said:

AFfC and ADwD may have been hard to adapt to TV, but I'm sick of hearing that these books are "terrible".  They're the middle act of a 3-act play that are setting everything up for the final act.  I believe that once the series is finished (haha), these books will be seen in a much different light.  They're also beautifully written.

I don't think they are terrible. I enjoy them because they are still ASOIAF. But I do think they are a bit of a disappointment. No matter what act they are in a play, that isn't really a good excuse for how much they struggle to maintain pace, diverge off into many different directions and lose focus and don't manage to really move the overall story forward very much at all. Those are decisions GRRM has chosen to make about his books. 

Some are ok with that, but I think its chirlish to think those issues wouldn't also follow through into the show. I knew before season 5 was coming out that I wasn't especially excited to watch it, because I knew the books they were adapting. Season 4 was something I couldn't wait to see, Tyrions trial, his escape, Mountain and the Viper.. but season 5.. meh. Turns out in some ways I was wrong because they managed to actually get imost of the interesting material ( basically the back end of ADWD) and wedge it into one season. But at the same time they were still left with the struggle of finding anything compelling to take from those books from which draw a level of drama that a general audience would find interesting. 

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34 minutes ago, A Bong of Ice and Fire said:

AFfC and ADwD may have been hard to adapt to TV, but I'm sick of hearing that these books are "terrible".  They're the middle act of a 3-act play that are setting everything up for the final act.  I believe that once the series is finished (haha), these books will be seen in a much different light.  They're also beautifully written.

I agree with this ; I think there are three major factors explaining why so many people harp on those books : 1) they started reading in the late 90s-early 2000s and found the waiting excruciating (which I get) 2) not having the end of the books causes a lack of hindsight and notion of how they fit in (though you explained it rather well 3) editing issues.

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3 hours ago, Maid So Fair said:

We are talking about AFFC and ADWD however - the first one of these was out before the show started and the second came out shortly afterwards. Regardless of what happens in Winds and Spring, the show runners would have had to tackle AFFC/ADWD content at one point. They had plenty of time to come up with a plan/good script. And even without the series being fully published they have known about the ending for years - all they had to do was get from A to B in a compelling way.

With no resolution to the myriad of additional plots in AFFC and ADWD they foolishly started trying to mirror them initially (as much as TV allowed) but then went away from them when they realised GRRM doesn't have a resolution for many of them either.

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2 minutes ago, Ser Gareth said:

With no resolution to the myriad of additional plots in AFFC and ADWD they foolishly started trying to mirror them initially (as much as TV allowed) but then went away from them when they realised GRRM doesn't have a resolution for many of them either.

It's funny because GRRM seems to think differently. But what does he know, he's just the guy writing these books.

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2 hours ago, A Bong of Ice and Fire said:

AFfC and ADwD may have been hard to adapt to TV, but I'm sick of hearing that these books are "terrible".  They're the middle act of a 3-act play that are setting everything up for the final act.  I believe that once the series is finished (haha), these books will be seen in a much different light.  They're also beautifully written.

They were very poor in isolation.  They completely destroyed the pacing of the series and generally introduced a whole load of new characters that were cartoonish comparative to the gritty realism of the first three books (Clans aside, as they were introduced in the first book and were generally ridiculous and out of place with the feel of the rest of the book).

ADWD was also poorly written IMO with loads of repetitive nonsense.  Reek rhymes with, where do whores go etc.

I don't believe we're anywhere near the final act.  AFFC, ADWD and probably TWOW are bridge books to get us to the final act which will take place over three more books (never basically).  There is no way this series is wrapping up in 7 books.  We're only 2 years into the 5 year gap he is trying to bridge.

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4 minutes ago, HairGrowsBack said:

It's funny because GRRM seems to think differently. But what does he know, he's just the guy writing these books.

I have to admit he contradicts himself a lot so I don't know what to believe anymore.  On one hand he says he has a gardening approach.  On the other hand there is so much foreshadowing in th books he clearly does a lot more planning than he claims too.

But a lot of what he said never came to fruition over the last 16 years and by his own admission he is constantly changing things and rewriting things etc, so do I believe anything he says publically?  Absolutely not.  Although I'm sure he means it when he says it.

That said I am not convinced he is writing TWOW at the moment.  I think he'll wait until the TV series is finished before he gets back to the book as he'll want to ensure the series is different to the TV show.  I'm also convinced he'll change the ending now too.

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Just now, Ser Gareth said:

I have to admit he contradicts himself a lot so I don't know what to believe anymore.  On one hand he says he has a gardening approach.  On the other hand there is so much foreshadowing in th books he clearly does a lot more planning than he claims too.

But a lot of what he said never came to fruition over the last 16 years and by his own admission he is constantly changing things and rewriting things etc, so do I believe anything he says publically?  Absolutely not.  Although I'm sure he means it when he says it.

That said I am not convinced he is writing TWOW at the moment.  I think he'll wait until the TV series is finished before he gets back to the book as he'll want to ensure the series is different to the TV show.  I'm also convinced he'll change the ending now too.

Yeah but you have to admit your argument doesn't hold water either way ; if Martin doesn't know where he's doing, then you can't just state that those storylines aren't going anywhere, since the author himself doesn't know ; and if he has already mapped these storylines out, then you should hold to his statements

The show is already different from the books. Has been for three seasons, and it didn't wait to run out of books for that. Whatever GRRM writes, it will be different. 

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5 minutes ago, HairGrowsBack said:

Yeah but you have to admit your argument doesn't hold water either way ; if Martin doesn't know where he's doing, then you can't just state that those storylines aren't going anywhere, since the author himself doesn't know ; and if he has already mapped these storylines out, then you should hold to his statements

The show is already different from the books. Has been for three seasons, and it didn't wait to run out of books for that. Whatever GRRM writes, it will be different. 

That's not what I meant.  D&D expected the books to be finished and therefore would have had the big picture to scale down from.

Instead they introduced characters and plots that don't have book resolutions.  And if GRRM doesn't know the outcome either that left the show with one option.  Make up their own conclusion to the plot line.  Had they known this when they started the show they could've completely dispensed with many of the subplots whose stories are nothing more than a means to an end.

E.g The whole Iron Born plot is to get Dany ships to land at Westeros.  Maybe the horn will work and set Dragon against Dragon and maybe a Dragon will die.

Pretty convoluted and almost certainly unnecessary.  Had D&D known this from day one they could have simply introduced another slaver city not in the books that had a large navy.  For strategic reasons Dany attacks the city to claim the navy but unfortunately a dragon is taken out in the battle.  More believable than evil Jack Sparrow and less character arcs to have to close off.

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33 minutes ago, Ser Gareth said:

They were very poor in isolation.  They completely destroyed the pacing of the series and generally introduced a whole load of new characters that were cartoonish comparative to the gritty realism of the first three books (Clans aside, as they were introduced in the first book and were generally ridiculous and out of place with the feel of the rest of the book).

ADWD was also poorly written IMO with loads of repetitive nonsense.  Reek rhymes with, where do whores go etc.

I don't believe we're anywhere near the final act.  AFFC, ADWD and probably TWOW are bridge books to get us to the final act which will take place over three more books (never basically).  There is no way this series is wrapping up in 7 books.  We're only 2 years into the 5 year gap he is trying to bridge.

There were some repetitions, but the reek rhymes were cool.  (Didn't like "nuncle", though.). Overall I felt GRRM's prose was excellent in the last 2 books.  The writing for the first 3 books was more simplistic, though still very good.  I also love be the atmospheric world-building of the last 2 books.

I think the main problem people have is the wait between books.  I'm sure AFfC and ADwD will fit contextually into the overall story very well.  They may not be as conclusive as many would like, but I still think they're a joy to read.  

But to each his own!

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