Jump to content

Heresy 197 the wit and wisdom of Old Nan


Black Crow

Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, Voice said:

 

For example, Benjen=Coldhands is an old, discredited theory,

Wasn't there a marginal note on the manuscript where his editor asked if they were one and the same and he wrote no?

[Its actually pretty common in film/TV adaptations to merge characters - avoids crowding the screen and saves on wages] 

It would be an interesting question to ask; whether Coldhands is no more than the Russian/Harlequin - or whether he is more significant?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Matthew. said:

No, a Season 6 adapted from fan theories certainly would have been its own brand of bad, but the show mostly just seems like D&D's badness to me. Much of it is incompetence, but some of it is (IMO), an attempt to wrangle the disparate plotlines of AFFC and ADWD together into more unified narratives--eg, Brienne and Sansa's AFFC/TWOW plotlines are jettisoned in favor of bringing them under the umbrella of the Winterfell story.

They failed, but then...GRRM spent ten years rewriting and agonizing over Dany's chapters in ADWD, and the end result there isn't so hot either.

:agree:

D&D may possibly be aware of fan theories, but the show's failure is still basically innovative for the boldfaced reason cited above.  (Maybe one day there will be an Innovative Failure Emmy?) 

But I do definitely think the World book and app include certain content directly based on fan theories.  This isn't and shouldn't be surprising, since the primary authors of the World book and app are also the admins of the fan site where the theories were originally posted. 

For instance, the silly notion that Aerys knew where Lyanna was in the middle of the war, and deliberately left her there -- instead of seizing her as an incredibly valuable hostage, beloved by both Robert and Ned, the leaders of the rebellion, as he did with Elia to control the Dornish -- was born in the forums.  It then found its way into the app.  And for perfectly obvious reasons, it will never, ever turn out to be the truth in the canon.

Ideas like that are to GRRM's world what Trump's ideas of climate change are in our world: well-known within it, but fundamentally wrong, and bound to be shown as such in time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Wasn't there a marginal note on the manuscript where his editor asked if they were one and the same and he wrote no?

Yes, this was how we got confirmation that Coldhands and Benjen aren't the same. My personal assumption is that Coldhands is one of the Raven's Teeth who took the black with Bloodraven (I believe he refers to the 3EC as "a friend" at one point), but I also think Benjen has become a 'freed' wight like Coldhands, and that we'll eventually learn that he's working with the CotF.
 

2 hours ago, JNR said:

D&D may possibly be aware of fan theories, but the show's failure is still basically innovative for the boldfaced reason cited above.  (Maybe one day there will be an Innovative Failure Emmy?) 

In some cases, I actually think the changes make sense (even if the execution was bad), such as the incorporation of Brienne into the Winterfell plotline.

With the value of hindsight, they really should have been planning with GRRM during Season 1 for what the AFFC/ADWD/TWOW seasons would look like, what was going to be cut, and how it would all set the stage for the final arc. For example, think of how much easier it is to minimize Dorne's role  and screen time in later seasons if they don't introduce the Myrcella-Trystane betrothal in season 2.

However, given that GRRM was annoyed about them killing off Mago in season 1, I imagine he wouldn't have been too thrilled to have a conversation about cutting entire plotlines.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Wasn't there a marginal note on the manuscript where his editor asked if they were one and the same and he wrote no?

[Its actually pretty common in film/TV adaptations to merge characters - avoids crowding the screen and saves on wages] 

It would be an interesting question to ask; whether Coldhands is no more than the Russian/Harlequin - or whether he is more significant?

For the love of the old gods, and the new, can we please untether arguments from the works of Joseph Conrad? ;)

 

3 hours ago, JNR said:

:agree:

D&D may possibly be aware of fan theories, but the show's failure is still basically innovative for the boldfaced reason cited above.  (Maybe one day there will be an Innovative Failure Emmy?) 

But I do definitely think the World book and app include certain content directly based on fan theories.  This isn't and shouldn't be surprising, since the primary authors of the World book and app are also the admins of the fan site where the theories were originally posted. 

For instance, the silly notion that Aerys knew where Lyanna was in the middle of the war, and deliberately left her there -- instead of seizing her as an incredibly valuable hostage, beloved by both Robert and Ned, the leaders of the rebellion, as he did with Elia to control the Dornish -- was born in the forums.  It then found its way into the app.  And for perfectly obvious reasons, it will never, ever turn out to be the truth in the canon.

Ideas like that are to GRRM's world what Trump's ideas of climate change are in our world: well-known within it, but fundamentally wrong, and bound to be shown as such in time.

LOL :cheers:

 

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

Yes, this was how we got confirmation that Coldhands and Benjen aren't the same. My personal assumption is that Coldhands is one of the Raven's Teeth who took the black with Bloodraven (I believe he refers to the 3EC as "a friend" at one point), but I also think Benjen has become a 'freed' wight like Coldhands, and that we'll eventually learn that he's working with the CotF.
 

Interesting nuance that will be impossible on the show. In the show, obsidian kills ww's, creates ww's, and obsidian can leave Benjen in a Coldhands-state that exists somewhere between the two.

Perhaps my previous statement was a bit too heavy handed. D&D are not so much relying upon fan theory as they are creating their own. The overlaps and parallels (such as Benjen=Coldhands) are likely coincidental.

BUT.... I think the show's version of the tower of joy does demonstrate some reliance upon fan theory. There's no way Ned could have pulled down that tower in the show, because, well, it wasn't a tower and it was full of people. The books' treatment of the tower long fallen is quite different, smaller, rounder, with no mention of an interior/rooms.

The show's version was born right here at westeros.org.

 

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

In some cases, I actually think the changes make sense (even if the execution was bad), such as the incorporation of Brienne into the Winterfell plotline.

I'm not a fan of Brienne ex machina either. Whenever a protagonist is in trouble, we can expect Brienne to show up and cut down a dozen armed men. It's become a bit absurd.

Plotwise, I agree she's more interesting in the north than wandering around the Riverlands. But Sansa's plot no longer makes sense. In the books, she's begun to mature and understand Jon's plight in the world. She relates to him. The show has painted itself into a corner with her alliance to Petyr and her role as Alys Karstark+Jeyne Poole.

Beyond that, book-Brienne's interest in Jaime seems to have been replaced with hilarious stares from Tormund. While I get a kick out of it, I can't imagine it serving as interesting a plot as Brienne is currently about. She's escorting Jaime to Lady Stoneheart as we speak... or, is about to betray her oath to Catelyn Tully.

That's far more interesting to me than the boring invincible character on the screen that seems to be everywhere at once.

 

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

With the value of hindsight, they really should have been planning with GRRM during Season 1 for what the AFFC/ADWD/TWOW seasons would look like, what was going to be cut, and how it would all set the stage for the final arc. For example, think of how much easier it is to minimize Dorne's role  and screen time in later seasons if they don't introduce the Myrcella-Trystane betrothal in season 2.

Dorne was so bad. What was becoming rather intriguing and important in the books was squandered in the name of hissing pixies from a Quentin Tarantino movie.

I don't know how to embed images here, but here are some funny memes on the contrast.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

Yes, this was how we got confirmation that Coldhands and Benjen aren't the same. My personal assumption is that Coldhands is one of the Raven's Teeth who took the black with Bloodraven (I believe he refers to the 3EC as "a friend" at one point)...

He does, but in that [notwithstanding Voice] he's closely echoing the Russian so I'd hesitate to take that too far

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Voice said:

 

That's a bit of a mischaracterization of what I said, don't you think? I'm not Ygritte. I don't accuse men of knowing nothing. Well, unless it's an orange manchild attempting to build a useless phallic symbol on the southern border... but that is an absurd example.

 

 

I stand by what I (actually) said.

D&D have never stated that GRRM told them who Jon's parents are. And it is quite obvious that they are relying upon fan theories for show content.

For example, Benjen=Coldhands is an old, discredited theory, and even a cursory comparison of Sansa's show/book plots should make this plain. D&D have Sansa doing all sorts of things that fans have imagined her doing, in great detail, on these very forums.

And if you don't believe Sharks have been jumped while riding the wave of fan fiction, you must have completely skipped the Sandsnakes and obsidian ex machina.

I quite agree with most of what you've written. D&D's discussion was about Jon's mother only, and they assumed by the look on his face that they had it right. That really doesn't tell us much.

 

13 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

GRRM should stop railing against 'fan fiction' and start writing.  

He jealously guards his ideas, so I wouldn't be surprised if everything is the reverse of what we expect -- all except the Hodor reveal...no way D&D could've thought of the causal time loop by themselves.

D&D seem to be working on something with regard to the time loop, and I hope it isn't strictly just to explain Hodor. I hope they plan on expanding? Maybe they will surprise us and they will be closer to GRRM's intentions? 

11 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Not especially. Very little of Season 6 reads to me as "Fan theory driven;" indeed, they seem to be actively refusing to give the Westeros.org and reddit crowds what they want: no Sandor and Robert Strong interactions, no grand plan from Doran, no purpose to Daario's existence (much less an interesting alternative identity), no Hellhorn, no payoff for the Faceless Men theories, no Jon-resurrected-as-Targaryen/Azor Ahai, no Stoneheart, no secret identity for the High Sparrow, nothing mind-blowing with Howland Reed and Arthur Dayne, no character progress for Jaime, no crazy Blackfish theories playing out...and so on and so on.

No, a Season 6 adapted from fan theories certainly would have been its own brand of bad, but the show mostly just seems like D&D's badness to me. Much of it is incompetence, but some of it is (IMO), an attempt to wrangle the disparate plotlines of AFFC and ADWD together into more unified narratives--eg, Brienne and Sansa's AFFC/TWOW plotlines are jettisoned in favor of bringing them under the umbrella of the Winterfell story.

They failed, but then...GRRM spent ten years rewriting and agonizing over Dany's chapters in ADWD, and the end result there isn't so hot either. AFFC and ADWD seem like a nightmare to adapt, especially when there are so many stories that don't really come together as a cohesive whole, and TWOW is still unpublished.

 

Is Benjen being presented as Coldhands in the show universe? I'm pretty sure he's never identified as such (seemingly, Coldhands doesn't exist in show world), barring an interview with Weiss where he almost fucks up and refers to Benjen as Coldhands. In any case, just because Coldhands isn't Benjen, that doesn't mean that Benjen hasn't suffered a similar fate. It's too early to say.
 

You are right that they haven't done every fan theory, but they have done a lot, but I don't think they necessarily have to be familiar with fan theories to come to some of the same conclusions. And as others also have said, the show has to condense A LOT. You just can't get in every detail or storyline into the show. It's just not possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

He does, but in that [notwithstanding Voice] he's closely echoing the Russian so I'd hesitate to take that too far

:lol:

Mark my words, one day Heresy will be renamed "the Congo Free State."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I quite agree with most of what you've written. D&D's discussion was about Jon's mother only, and they assumed by the look on his face that they had it right. That really doesn't tell us much.

Did Martin ever say that he had made the mystery of Jon's parentage too easy?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Did Martin ever say that he had made the mystery of Jon's parentage too easy?  

No, but I do seem to recall that the clues are supposed to be in the first book. Does anyone know of the SSM I am thinking of?

IMO we need to pay more attention to the tourney at Harrenhall and Meera's Knight story to Bran. That's where the most bread crumbs are. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Did Martin ever say that he had made the mystery of Jon's parentage too easy?  

Not in so many words, but readers have had far more time to puzzle their brains over it than he originally expected.

He has said that a few people have figured out the answer using the subtle clues he's planted although I'm inclined to treat the words "few" and "subtle" as deliberately ironic. He has also supposedly said that he's not going to change anything because those few might have figured it out. However given some of his other gnomic answers and evasions that wouldn't preclude him from changing anything of his own accord on account of the story having assumed a direction of its own over the 20-odd years and more he's been writing it. Something which might have seemed a good idea in 1993 might have been overtaken by another. After all nothing is set in stone yet

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Voice said:

I'm not a fan of Brienne ex machina either. Whenever a protagonist is in trouble, we can expect Brienne to show up and cut down a dozen armed men. It's become a bit absurd.

...

That's far more interesting to me than the boring invincible character on the screen that seems to be everywhere at once.

To me, the Brienne ex machine aspect is more a failure of execution than intent--I still think the core idea of getting rid of the Riverlands adventure is sound.

In addition, I don't disagree that the stuff with Stoneheart and Jaime is more interesting for Brienne's character, but it's not necessarily what would have been best for the show as a whole--which, in my opinion, gets to the heart of my issues with AFFC and ADWD.

There's lots of character journeys and plots that are enjoyable in a vacuum, but they don't always add up to form a coherent narrative; it's like you're reading a bunch of decent short stories that are all set in the same world, but they don't work together to form a novel. What is the plot of ADWD? What is ADWD about, what is its theme? Those questions aren't unanswerable, but they're certainly more murky than they would be in a well crafted novel, more murky than they were in AGOT; IMO, both AFFC and ADWD are weaker than the sum of their parts.

I believe these problems only become magnified in the jump to television, where lets say you have a scene of Littlefinger scheming in the Vale, and a scene of Arya learning about poison, and a scene of the newly introduced Quentyn Martell trying to figure out how he's going to woo Dany. Maybe, in the midst of that, you'll have seen a couple scenes you enjoy, but have you just watched a coherent hour of television? And that's before you begin to take issues like budget into account.

This is why I can put myself in D&D's shoes, and appreciate some of what they're trying to achieve. As a reader, I enjoyed Victarion's chapters, but as a showrunner, Victarion would be first on my chopping block. Naval battles? Volcano arm? That stuff will destroy my budget, and as cool as some of the Victarion stuff might be on its own, it's not clear that his existence is to the benefit of the larger story being told.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Voice said:

In the show, obsidian kills ww's, creates ww's, and obsidian can leave Benjen in a Coldhands-state that exists somewhere between the two.

I recall that you disliked what they were doing with obsidian back when S6 was airing, but at the risk of continuing to be disagreeable, I've somewhat warmed up to it.

After all, isn't the text also using obsidian as a "magic material" with broad applications? It destroys white walkers, you can (according to Quaithe) "wake fire" from it, you can make it into a glass candle and use it for farseeing, for invading people's dreams. If dragonglass can be used to destroy the Others, then I think it's not that crazy if it can also be used to block their control over a wight. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that's what's happening in the books, but I don't think it's an especially bothersome route for the show to take.

Even with the NK creation scene, I can still see what they're going for--"show, don't tell." It's a disadvantage of the medium that the show will never match the books in terms of nuance, lore, and history, lest it become bogged down in clunky expository dialogue, so they tried to tell a visual story that's comprehensible within Show World.

Show watchers have already been 'conditioned' to associate dragonglass with sorcery, so when we see an obsidian dagger being shoved into a man's chest, we can understand that we're seeing a magic ritual, even if we think it's "mechanically" stupid for obsidian to be a catch-all magic material. Magical logic aside, the dagger to the chest makes for an unsettling and memorable visual, especially since the scene is meant to be viscerally upsetting for Bran.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, LynnS said:

Did Martin ever say that he had made the mystery of Jon's parentage too easy?

Never to my knowledge.  He's said, more generally, the opposite: that in creating his mysteries, he is trying to come up with something good enough to have fooled his mother, who was very good at predicting twists. 

I think we'll see he did a great job.

5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

No, but I do seem to recall that the clues are supposed to be in the first book. Does anyone know of the SSM I am thinking of?

There's no such SSM posted on Westeros, and GRRM has never said anything like that in any interview.  It's just a canard in the forums that derives from vague notes Anne Groell wrote years ago.

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

readers have had far more time to puzzle their brains over it than he originally expected

That's true, but the outcome is that a particular theory has become seen as pre-canonical certainty.  And that has had the effect of obliterating almost all serious discussion and analysis for years and years -- at least as long as I've been here.  

But the fact is that it's really very easy to show that that theory can't be anywhere close to certain.  The bulk of the "evidence" for it is symbolic stuff that could mean many things (or nothing).

2 hours ago, Matthew. said:

What is the plot of ADWD? What is ADWD about, what is its theme?

It's the novel in which Dany begins her invasion of Westeros, hence the name. 

This derivation, in fact, is one of the few things that's survived since his synopsis from Oct 1993:

Quote

a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarian hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume, A Dance with Dragons.

But surprise, surprise, GRRM just lost all control over his wordcount.  So there was no room in A Dance With Dragons for the dance with dragons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Even with the NK creation scene, I can still see what they're going for--"show, don't tell." It's a disadvantage of the medium that the show will never match the books in terms of nuance, lore, and history, lest it become bogged down in clunky expository dialogue, so they tried to tell a visual story that's comprehensible within Show World.

Sure.  But they still could have told a story that made some sort of sense or exhibited some comprehension of the subject matter. 

Whatever, I guess. The show is the show, and the books are the books. 

I just wish I'd been in the room when they told GRRM what they were planning to do, and he burst out laughing and refused to say why.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Matthew. said:



Even with the NK creation scene, I can still see what they're going for--"show, don't tell." It's a disadvantage of the medium that the show will never match the books in terms of nuance, lore, and history, lest it become bogged down in clunky expository dialogue, so they tried to tell a visual story that's comprehensible within Show World.
 

I would say that is being generous when it comes to the story telling and character development in the show. The D's did not even know Sam was a POV character... which is funny because he comes in before the Red Wedding and those two make a statement in a few sources that the RW was a point they were very "excited" to tell... because it was shocking!

And really, Bryan "upjumped Nanny" Cogman is just as much to blame for the weird plotzee! they roll the dice and play as the D's are.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

And really, Bryan "upjumped Nanny" Cogman is just as much to blame for the weird plotzee! they roll the dice and play as the D's are.

You're my new favorite.

I seriously think anybody who's been posting in Heresy for three years or more could do that job better than he has.  Quite a few over in General, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Matthew. said:

I recall that you disliked what they were doing with obsidian back when S6 was airing, but at the risk of continuing to be disagreeable, I've somewhat warmed up to it.

After all, isn't the text also using obsidian as a "magic material" with broad applications? It destroys white walkers, you can (according to Quaithe) "wake fire" from it, you can make it into a glass candle and use it for farseeing, for invading people's dreams. If dragonglass can be used to destroy the Others, then I think it's not that crazy if it can also be used to block their control over a wight. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that's what's happening in the books, but I don't think it's an especially bothersome route for the show to take.

Even with the NK creation scene, I can still see what they're going for--"show, don't tell." It's a disadvantage of the medium that the show will never match the books in terms of nuance, lore, and history, lest it become bogged down in clunky expository dialogue, so they tried to tell a visual story that's comprehensible within Show World.

Show watchers have already been 'conditioned' to associate dragonglass with sorcery, so when we see an obsidian dagger being shoved into a man's chest, we can understand that we're seeing a magic ritual, even if we think it's "mechanically" stupid for obsidian to be a catch-all magic material. Magical logic aside, the dagger to the chest makes for an unsettling and memorable visual, especially since the scene is meant to be viscerally upsetting for Bran.

I assumed obsidian to be a catch all for Children's magic in both the book and show.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, JNR said:

Sure.  But they still could have told a story that made some sort of sense or exhibited some comprehension of the subject matter. 

If you were tasked with visually conveying the idea of the CotF creating the white walkers, what would it look like? 

That was the standard by which I judged that scene--whether or not the CotF have anything to do with the Others in the books is irrelevant for that assessment. As you say, the books are the books and the show is the show, and "the CotF created the WWs to stop the First Men from destroying the weirwood" is the story the show is telling.

By that standard, I thought the scene was fine. Not great (and not how I would have depicted that idea), but fine. Though, maybe I just have bad taste, because I legitimately liked the later visual of the withered weirwood in deep winter, surrounded by wights--and I can enjoy these elements independently of whether or not the underlying story ideas that prompted their creation is stupid.

I suppose that sums up my relationship with the show in general--the writing is terrible, but I enjoy the cinematography, music, and several of the performances enough that I'm not especially bothered by the fact that the writing is terrible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...