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[Spoilers] Rant and Rave Without Repercussion


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10 hours ago, SerMixalot said:

I have to admit, it is very touching how Bran, Sansa and Arya are mourning the loss of poor Rickon.

You get the impression they outline their awesome plot points, then go back and fill in a few character moments, aka people being human, as an afterthought. And they sure do miss a lot of those moments. Like an obviously necessary dead brother moment.

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9 hours ago, Frances Bean Corbray said:

No new book deaths if no more books come out!

:D

:(

Oh I've got Rickon as a lock to survive the books, which is part of why his death in the show surprised and irritated me so.

 

I am a bit irritated that character deaths have become the 'tomato surprises' of the show. I don't know if the show runners are thinking that too. They don't seem to inclined towards an adolescent !!SQUIRREL!! of the week but I am not sure.

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I read the GoT books. Having read Lord of the Rings many times (and many of the additional books) I considered myself a purist and was appalled at the dismemberment of that story at the hands of Peter Jackson so I can feel the pain of the GoT book people with the direction the show has taken. But blaming D&D is misguided, the blame lies with Martin. It's his fault the show floats along like a rudderless ship. 6 or 7 years without the next volume? Unforgivable. The written version of this story should be complete by now, and the blame for that falls on Martin. The show would have direction, the books would be firmly entrenched as canon and the purists would have ground to stand on when they complain. Martin stole that from all of us. I absolutely love his literary creation, but the man himself pisses me off. He let us all down.

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38 minutes ago, Super Mario said:

I read the GoT books. Having read Lord of the Rings many times (and many of the additional books) I considered myself a purist and was appalled at the dismemberment of that story at the hands of Peter Jackson so I can feel the pain of the GoT book people with the direction the show has taken. But blaming D&D is misguided, the blame lies with Martin. It's his fault the show floats along like a rudderless ship. 6 or 7 years without the next volume? Unforgivable. The written version of this story should be complete by now, and the blame for that falls on Martin. The show would have direction, the books would be firmly entrenched as canon and the purists would have ground to stand on when they complain. Martin stole that from all of us. I absolutely love his literary creation, but the man himself pisses me off. He let us all down.

To be fair, D&D were not always true to the books, they made changes since season 2 and some of them were pretty major even though at that point they had written book material + major plot points from future books. They had Martin's phone number.

That said, your point is also valid, it's incredible how he cut 200 pages from ADWD and had 1500 manuscript but still wasn't able to produce a book in more than 6 years? And we don't even know by now how much time does he need, it may be released in a year or two, or more... He thought he could finish in 2015, then 2 times in 2016 and now we know there wont be any book in 2017. This is so frustrating, basically, he wrote less than a page a day while having 1500 manuscript. I can bet he didn't write anything in the first couple of years after the show aired.

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5 minutes ago, Duckface said:

To be fair, D&D were not always true to the books, they made changes since season 2 and some of them were pretty major even though at that point they had written book material + major plot points from future books. They had Martin's phone number.

That said, your point is also valid, it's incredible how he cut 200 pages from ADWD and had 1500 manuscript but still wasn't able to produce a book in more than 6 years? And we don't even know by now how much time does he need, it may be released in a year or two, or more... He thought he could finish in 2015, then 2 times in 2016 and now we know there wont be any book in 2017. This is so frustrating, basically, he wrote less than a page a day while having 1500 manuscript. I can bet he didn't write anything in the first couple of years after the show aired.

This is purely a gut feeling, so obviously could be way wrong..
But I think he is burned out on the books. Figure how many times does he have to hear, "Did you finish Winds yet?" Before it gets tiring. Also, I don't think the story can be done in two more books. It's going to be rushed with how many directions ADWD ended with and I don't think Martin will like to rush the story.
So now he is looking at possibly expanding it another book and that just compounds being burned out on it.
Also, let's assume there is a Dany/Jon relationship in the books like some people hope and the show is shoving down our throats. He is going to have to write that in 2 books and one character is dead and the other on another continent? I don't see it happening but if it does, there has to be another book or a really long book that is dedicated to it to make it feel organic.

My crazy guess is A Dream of Spring is going to have to be a part 1 and a part 2 for it to work. Or it's just going to be rushed, which hey, is fine by me if it's fine by him.

Again, all of this is just my theory that is probably wrong, but I enjoy it.

 

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I can't Blame GRRM for not being a green-seer. He had a 1500 page manuscript yes, but he's a writer and its his story that he want to be the best it can be. The sheer amount of plot-lines and character arcs in ASOIF is massive, so each book he writes he must consider the cause and effect of many of them. Thats difficult and why with each book the production time grows longer and longer. I do however think once GRRM, realized the show would end before the books he may have loosened up and took his time a bit. His big points will all be spoiled.

D&D, were as faithful as possible for the first 2 seasons. Changing a few arcs and killing a few character or omitting a few isn't really a huge change for the story. But, as the did so, a butterfly effect happened and next thing you know whole books are skipped. Like most of feast for Crows. None of this is georges fault. Its D&D's fault. They are the ones with the final decision. They are the ones who chose to speed up the story and add in fan-service, sex and fluff. Taking the direwolves out of the equation, glorifying war and violence when GRRm's story while visceral, wasn't glorifying at all. D&D/HBO chose to make GOT, about the spectacle... and not the story. its all about shocking you and surprising you and lacks a soul at this point. Thats not GRRM issue.

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So I was talking to a friend of mine that has only watched the show about this episode. He asked me what I thought of the battle, and I told him. But he brought up an interesting point that helped me explain how I (and I think others) view the show.

After our debate he told me one thing he did have a huge problem with is when Jamie was tackled off his horse in half a foot of water to suddenly, 2 feet away, be sinking into extremely deep water. So I said to him that kind of small inconsistency you noticed that pissed you off because it was there for no other reason then dramatic effect or whatever happens almost in every scene now regarding the plot. He seemed to finally understand what I was talking about the last 2.5 - 3 seasons about the inconsistency the show has when it comes to story telling.

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4 minutes ago, LokisRaider said:

So I was talking to a friend of mine that has only watched the show about this episode. He asked me what I thought of the battle, and I told him. But he brought up an interesting point that helped me explain how I (and I think others) view the show.

After our debate he told me one thing he did have a huge problem with is when Jamie was tackled off his horse in half a foot of water to suddenly, 2 feet away, be sinking into extremely deep water. So I said to him that kind of small inconsistency you noticed that pissed you off because it was there for no other reason then dramatic effect or whatever happens almost in every scene now regarding the plot. He seemed to finally understand what I was talking about the last 2.5 - 3 seasons about the inconsistency the show has when it comes to story telling.

My wife hasn't read the books and doesn't get that into the theories as I do. She hasn't understood why the past 2 some seasons I have been complaining about the show. After the water thing happened, she turned to me and said, "I think I finally get it."

Best. Feeling. Ever

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2 hours ago, Super Mario said:

I read the GoT books. Having read Lord of the Rings many times (and many of the additional books) I considered myself a purist and was appalled at the dismemberment of that story at the hands of Peter Jackson so I can feel the pain of the GoT book people with the direction the show has taken. But blaming D&D is misguided, the blame lies with Martin. It's his fault the show floats along like a rudderless ship. 6 or 7 years without the next volume? Unforgivable. The written version of this story should be complete by now, and the blame for that falls on Martin. The show would have direction, the books would be firmly entrenched as canon and the purists would have ground to stand on when they complain. Martin stole that from all of us. I absolutely love his literary creation, but the man himself pisses me off. He let us all down.

Exactly, thank you! I'm not one to defend D&D but I bet a factor that played a part in their decision to end the show this fast and haphazardly was, you know, the fact that there's literally no more books left. 

I know Martin allegedly told them how the story was gonna end and everything, but there's a difference between reading a well-written scene with snazzy dialogue where something cool happens and being told about it by a somewhat awkward dude in Santa Fe. 

I still can't believe Martin thought he was gonna be able to catch up to the show because he believed D&D were gonna spend 3 seasons in Feast and Dance. My god, that's hilarious.

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While I do dislike the show, I have to agree that Martin is to be blamed also. Like, I always defend the writers and book versions, but really guys, the first season of GoT came out the same year aDwD was released. So considering que won't release tWoW in another year (he won't), the entire show will have hapenned while George could not write a single book

I am really afraid we will never get to finish the series. Maybe he has just given up on it. I'm not sure he still enjoys writing about it (hell, we will know how it ends soon enough)

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2 hours ago, Paid Debt Lannister said:

While I do dislike the show, I have to agree that Martin is to be blamed also...

While I will never defend Martin's pace, the show's suck is far beyond his fault. I've never read the books and I can see that the show has become garbage all on it's own. If D&D can't run an internally consistent show without being spoon fed every plot point, character motivation, and logical consistency from another writer's source material, then they shouldn't have been allowed to make the show.

The biggest problem with the show at this point is that it spent so long stalling that it's now in wrap-up mode. And everything will be underwhelming.

After seven years of foreshadowing, we are going to get what? 3 episode of actual Walker threat? It was the first freaking scene in the show. ANd nothing has happened. Before they even made it south of the Wall, our heroes have already solved the mystery of their origins and weaknesses, found a way to stop them and are actively setting up the man power needed to put it into action. Boring. All that should have happened during the Walker invasion.

Instead this "Long Winter" is going to be even shorter and less destructive than Ramsay's reign. It's a joke. How far South will the walkers even get, Winterfell?  Didn't the show begin at the end of an "unusually long" summer. Seven years later, most of the continent seems nice and warm. There's simply no time left to actually show the fallout or outcomes anything that was set up as a threat in the first couple episodes. What's the point of the entire super long seasons thing if it never had any real payoff? The fact that a years long winter is immanent (and has been for 7 years), hasn't affected any character motivations in any way believable to me. The show spent too long drum rolling the apocalypse and anything they deliver will feel perfunctory at best.

I would have rather watched a show about the Long Night

 

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1 hour ago, iprayiam said:

While I will never defend Martin's pace, the show's suck is far beyond his fault. I've never read the books and I can see that the show has become garbage all on it's own. If D&D can't run an internally consistent show without being spoon fed every plot point, character motivation, and logical consistency from another writer's source material, then they shouldn't have been allowed to make the show.

The biggest problem with the show at this point is that it spent so long stalling that it's now in wrap-up mode. And everything will be underwhelming.

After seven years of foreshadowing, we are going to get what? 3 episode of actual Walker threat? It was the first freaking scene in the show. ANd nothing has happened. Before they even made it south of the Wall, our heros have already solved the mystery of their origins and weaknesses, found a way to stop them and are actively setting up the man power needed to put it into action. Boring. All that should have happened during the Walker invasion.

Instead this "Long Winter" is going to be even shorter and less destructive than Ramsay's reign. It's a joke. How far South will the walkers even get, Winterfell?  Didn't the show begin at the end of an "unusually long" summer. Seven years later, most of the continent seems nice and warm. There's simply no time left to actually show the fallout or outcomes anything that was set up as a threat in the first couple episodes. What's the point of the entire super long seasons thing if it never had any real payoff? The fact that a years long winter is immanent (and has been for 7 years), hasn't affected any character motivations in any way believable to me. The show spent too long drum rolling the apocalypse and anything they deliver will feel perfunctory at best.

I would have rather watched a show about the Long Night

 

I agree with your point, but 7 seasons does not equal 7 years in the story. There are only roughly 2 years between the beginning and Joffrey's death in season 4. Winter actually hit when Stannis was marching towards Winterfell, but then the show decided to do a U-turn and keep it nice and cozy for another full season.

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i am conflicted.

i only read the books after seeing the first season of the show.  I enjoyed the first season so much that i immediately purchased the first 3 books of ASOIAF because i simply could not wait another 8-10 months for the story to continue.

while i truly hate what the show has done to GRRM's work, i would never have known of GRRM or his work without having first viewed the show.  i do not blame GRRM for the delays to the book publications.  I do not blame the shortcomings of the TV show on the fact that GRRM hasn't spoon-fed D&D more artistic genius for them to bastardize.  

Every time some moron cites "budget" as the primary reasoning behind a decision regarding the show, i want to lose my mind.  The artistic license the show-runners employ (because they lack the talent of the source material's creator) is actually just a exercise in value engineering.  in the building industry, value engineering refers to the process of bringing the cost of a construction project down by reducing the quality of the materials used, and reducing the quantity of amenities available for the future building user(s).

this is exactly what D&D are doing.  cut a character here [Lady Stoneheart].  fuse a couple plot-lines there [Jeyne Poole/Sansa Stark].  add in a character that can speak to modern society and its problems (aka a gimmick) right there [Ros].... and presto!  you have Game of Thrones!

 

no amount of money can fix stupid in the writers' room.  no amount of time, money or wisdom can fix the hubris of two clowns who thought they could take GRRM's master work and turn it into a fun-filled, CGI-fueled romp through Medieval Times.  Of all the words that GRRM has ever spoken or written, it is to this phrase D&D should have paid their attention:

"Books were really my first love. I kind of missed doing them anyway. There's a freedom there that you don't get in Hollywood. There's a full canvas to paint on so you don't have to worry about compromising: having to fight with directors or networks or studios. But the real telling thing was that, although I was making a lot of money in Hollywood writing these screenplays and developing the pilots, they weren't getting made and it was just ultimately unsatisfying."

... and this...

All of my first drafts tended to be too big or too expensive. I always hated the process of having to cut," he told Entertainment Weekly in an interview prior to Thrones' premiere on HBO. "I said, 'I’m sick of this, I’m going to write something that’s as big as I want it to be, and it’s going to have a cast of characters that go into the thousands, and I’m going to have huge castles, and battles, and dragons.'" And so A Song Of Ice And Fire was born, starting with 1996's A Game Of Thrones and now clocking in at five books and 4,500 pages... and counting. Martin claims he "had a couple of meetings with other scriptwriters, and most of them wanted to do it as a feature film. Even Tolkien took three feature films, and three Tolkien [novels] are as long as one of my books. That got me thinking, 'How could it be done?' I knew it couldn’t be done as a network television series. It’s too adult. The level of sex and violence would never have gone through."

 

 

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Story-wise the show really died with the back to back deaths of Robb and Joffrey. It is what turned the show from a complex story into a soap opera. It killed the driving narrative momentum and D&D spent the next three years spinning wheels.  People will argue that the story is not about the plot, it's about the characters. But if you'll allow a metaphor, the characters are a face that make an individual interesting and unique, but it still needs to be stretched onto a somewhat standardized skeletal system or it's just a gross pile of skin.

When the Joffrey-Robb plot died, the Stannis story could have been the glue that carried the momentum ball but D&D let that fall apart too. So most of the orbiting plotlines fell into one of three categories:

1. Had no where to go, or no reason to do the things they did- This is where all the character motivation died. (Sansa, Arya, LittleFinger, Direwolves, the Hound, etc, everything, everything, everything in Mereen,)

2. Meaningless Filler. The piddling around of characters who's machinations were inevitably going to amount to nothing by the time they got killed (The Boltons, the Greyjoys, Margery and Lancel, Tywin, Mance Rayder everything Dorne)

3. Stalled out to the point that they became book-ends to the show, not central parts of the story. (White Walkers, Winter in Coming, Bran's tale, Jon Snow's lineage, etc., Dragons vs. Westeros, everything North).

These three things are why we got to where we are now with episodes filled with teleporting armies checking off plotpoints and delivering "moments" for twitter twerps to tweet about that look cool but make no sense in context and totally destroyed character motivations.

All this is largely to do D&D's fundamental misunderstanding of the show (and maybe Martins, I didn't read the books): Just like George Lucas thought Star Wars was the tragedy of Darth Vader just because he was a popular villian, D&D think that the central, sympathetic anti-hero of the show is Cersei and that all plots should either revolve around hers or get out of the way.

Viewed as the Tragedy of Cersei is the stupidest way of approaching the show and yet the only way the plot, pacing, and focus of the story makes any sense.

 

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26 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I agree with your point, but 7 seasons does not equal 7 years in the story. There are only roughly 2 years between the beginning and Joffrey's death in season 4. Winter actually hit when Stannis was marching towards Winterfell, but then the show decided to do a U-turn and keep it nice and cozy for another full season.

I guess. This is one of the main problems I have with the show. I have absolutely ZERO frame of reference for the passage of time. The actors have all aged 7 years (especially the children) and those dragons got big as hell, so I just assumed a season was roughly a year.

When sometimes it takes a character most of a season to travel between two cities, and sometimes entire armies are transported across a continent in a cut scene, it's hard to have any clue how much time is passing. I don't think the writers have any clue either.

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9 minutes ago, iprayiam said:

Story-wise the show really died with the back to back deaths of Robb and Joffrey. It is what turned the show from a complex story into a soap opera. It killed the driving narrative momentum and D&D spent the next three years spinning wheels.  People will argue that the story is not about the plot, it's about the characters. But if you'll allow a metaphor, the characters are a face that make an individual interesting and unique, but it still needs to be stretched onto a somewhat standardized skeletal system or it's just a gross pile of skin.

When the Joffrey-Robb plot died, the Stannis story could have been the glue that carried the momentum ball but D&D let that fall apart too. So most of the orbiting plotlines fell into one of three categories:

1. Had no where to go, or no reason to do the things they did- This is where all the character motivation died. (Sansa, Arya, LittleFinger, Direwolves, the Hound, etc, everything, everything, everything in Mereen,)

2. Meaningless Filler. The piddling around of characters who's machinations were inevitably going to amount to nothing by the time they got killed (The Boltons, the Greyjoys, Margery and Lancel, Tywin, everything Dorne)

3. Stalled out to the point that they became book-ends to the show, not central parts of the story. (White Walkers, Winter in Coming, Bran's tale, Jon Snow's lineage, etc., Dragons vs. Westeros, everything North).

These three things are why we got to where we are now with episodes filled with teleporting armies checking off plotpoints and delivering "moments" for twitter twerps to tweet about that look cool but make no sense in context and totally destroyed character motivations.

All this is largely to do D&D's fundamental misunderstanding of the show (and maybe Martins, I didn't read the books): Just like George Lucas thought Star Wars was the tragedy of Darth Vader just because he was a popular villian, D&D think that the central, sympathetic anti-hero of the show is Cersei and that all plots should either revolve around hers or get out of the way.

Viewed as the Tragedy of Cersei is the stupidest way of approaching the show and yet the only way the plot, pacing, and focus of the story makes any sense.

 

Funnily enough, the very same thing happened in the books after a Storm of Swords, especially the meaningless filler (god, so much filler!) and the stalled out storylines (we haven't even seen the White Walkers again since the third book). The epilogue of a Dance with Dragons is pretty much Martin panicking and shifting the plot to high gear after two books of stagnation. 

The big difference is that characters have remained consistent in their motivations and development in the books for the most part, though. 

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6 hours ago, ramla said:

I can't Blame GRRM for not being a green-seer. He had a 1500 page manuscript yes, but he's a writer and its his story that he want to be the best it can be. The sheer amount of plot-lines and character arcs in ASOIF is massive, so each book he writes he must consider the cause and effect of many of them. Thats difficult and why with each book the production time grows longer and longer. I do however think once GRRM, realized the show would end before the books he may have loosened up and took his time a bit. His big points will all be spoiled.

Why doesn't he just get a team of really good editors or even a ghostwriter at this point? 

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Greetings all! New Cat on the block!

Ok, while I loved the episode and squealed like a delighted 6 year old when Drogon started burning up Lannisters....I too am bothered by some things. Namely I echo the sentiments shared here about how Bronn should have died (though I've always liked the character). I I also think Jaime got off way too Hollywood easy too. 

The thing that's bothering me most though has to do with the general attitude that Cersi, and those allied to her have toward the notion of facing three Fire-breathing dragons. Everyone is acting just a little too "oh well" about it, and Cersi seems almost non-chalant, like it's merely a problem she can somehow buy or manipulate through. Everyone in Westeros knows the story of Aegon and his sisters. Every learned person must have grown up hearing about the 'Field of Fire.' The impression I have from the books is that most of the more sensible Lords and Leaders of Westeros would go rushing to bend the knee, rather than have a Field of Fire sequel. It would be more believable to me if Cersi started to go crazy from the terror of seeing the 'real prophecy' take further shape, rather than acting all Emperor Palpatine. That scene with her and the Iron Banker made me almost want to shout at the screen; Profitable??? Three effing Dragons just showed up on your doorstep!!! Ugh...that I blame the writers for trying to pump up her threat capability. Instead of trying to build up Cersi, they should have explored the Dragon Horn concept from ADWD. Now that would be a lot more threatening!

Lastly, while it is impressive that the Lannister and Tarly army held their formations at the site of Drogon...again...these are men that would have grown up learning about the Field of Fire. I'd have expected more of them to have broken formation and run at seeing such site. Ok...Rant over for now :-)

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