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[BOOK SPOILERS] Season 2 new characters


j52y

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I didn't say cut Davos; I said cut his kids. Though cutting Davos is an interesting idea. He exists mostly for us to see Stannis and does little other than shield us from his thoughts, but on TV there's no need for that. We don't need to follow his story specifically. And while he's the impetus for Stannis going to the wall, he doesn't have to be (nor does he have to be a full character with 20 eps or whatever).

The thing is, if Davos didn't exist, you'd need to invent him. Davos won't be nearly as important without the POV structure, but Stannis' storyline wouldn't work if Melisandre is the only person he's interacting with. You need a character like Davos as a supporting character.

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I imagine they will cut out Qarth. It doesn't make sense to make sets and such for a location that isn't very important. They have other things that they would be better off spending money on.

If they cut Qarth they might as well just not have Dany in season 2.

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If they cut Qarth they might as well just not have Dany in season 2.

Dany's role in season 2 is kind of a problem. She doesn't do much of importance even in the novel. They should consider bringing stuff from ASOS into season two for her. Maybe they could merge Qarth and one of the slave cities.

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Same with cutting the Greyjoys. They don't have to all be there, at least not yet. We only need Balon for Theon. The greyjoys are especially problematic because they basically dont' show up at all in ASOS, meaning that if you cast Asha for ACOK she wouldn't get to play Asha for 2-4 years afterwards, which is hell for casting purposes and their jobs. It's especially tough if you want someone good. And at least in ACOK, we don't need Asha, or Victarion or Aeron.

Good point. You may be right about this. But it is such a key moment to show what sort of person Theon is when he hits on Asha.

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Dany's role in season 2 is kind of a problem. She doesn't do much of importance even in the novel. They should consider bringing stuff from ASOS into season two for her.

Well she meets Barristan the Bold and burns down the House of the Undying. It is going to problematic because Emilia Clarke is probably going to be a star of this series. Not to mention that she closes out season one in dramatic fashion.

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The thing is, if Davos didn't exist, you'd need to invent him. Davos won't be nearly as important without the POV structure, but Stannis' storyline wouldn't work if Melisandre is the only person he's interacting with. You need a character like Davos as a supporting character.
Yes, you do. But you don't need Davos specifically; one of his bannermen would be okay. And more to the point you don't need all of davos' baggage. You don't need Sallador Saan, you don't need his 5 kids, etc.

If they cut Qarth they might as well just not have Dany in season 2.
I figured they'd move her timeline up. She has a lot to do in ASOS, and getting her closer to interacting with the world would probably be better. That's going to be a weak spot of the show anyway - having her be dicking around Essos for 3 years will make people wonder why they even bothered with her.

Dany really is the weakpoint of the whole series from a TV perspective. She doesn't interact with almost anyone even tangentially related until the end of the second book, doesn't even know this until the end of the third, and then isn't even there until the 5th. If I were them, I'd actually expand ASOS to two seasons - but trim AFFC and ADWD to one. Do less of the aftermath and Cersei's fucknuttery and accelerate into the Dany story, pronto. You don't need the Dorne stuff in AFFC explicitly, you don't need Brienne's tale necessarily, and you don't need a ton of Cersei/Jaime.

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Same with cutting the Greyjoys. They don't have to all be there, at least not yet. We only need Balon for Theon. The greyjoys are especially problematic because they basically dont' show up at all in ASOS, meaning that if you cast Asha for ACOK she wouldn't get to play Asha for 2-4 years afterwards, which is hell for casting purposes and their jobs. It's especially tough if you want someone good. And at least in ACOK, we don't need Asha, or Victarion or Aeron.

Something to keep in mind about the Greyjoys, some of their A Feast for Crows chapters take place during the events of A Storm of Swords. If HBO does decide to make A Storm of Swords 2 seasons, I could see the Greyjoys getting an expanded story in season 4.

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Yes, you do. But you don't need Davos specifically; one of his bannermen would be okay. And more to the point you don't need all of davos' baggage. You don't need Sallador Saan, you don't need his 5 kids, etc.

Agreed. But there's little point in cutting Davos to give one of Stannis' bannermen a bigger (or any) role. He can remain Stannis' loyal knight without the baggage.

Dany really is the weakpoint of the whole series from a TV perspective. She doesn't interact with almost anyone even tangentially related until the end of the second book, doesn't even know this until the end of the third, and then isn't even there until the 5th.

They could merge Qarth and the Slaver Cities. Have her go to Meereen earlier on, keep the important stuff she does in ACOK but do it in a different location, and move into ASOS earlier.

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If I were them, I'd actually expand ASOS to two seasons - but trim AFFC and ADWD to one. Do less of the aftermath and Cersei's fucknuttery and accelerate into the Dany story, pronto. You don't need the Dorne stuff in AFFC explicitly, you don't need Brienne's tale necessarily, and you don't need a ton of Cersei/Jaime.

I agree with this. Very little of AFFC would make for interesting television.

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I agree with this. Very little of AFFC would make for interesting television.

We'll know what's actually relevant once ADWD comes out, but right now it looks like what you really need from AFFC is to introduce Euron, and show Cersei's downfall in a reduced manner. But the length of ADWD suggests you'd need two seasons just for that part of the story.

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Dany really is the weakpoint of the whole series from a TV perspective. She doesn't interact with almost anyone even tangentially related until the end of the second book, doesn't even know this until the end of the third, and then isn't even there until the 5th.

Dany's story in ACoK breaks into a bunch of good mini-episodes. If you paired them with scenes from the other plot that had similar themes, I think it could work. For example, you could say the theme of her travels through the Red Wastes is survival. That would pair nicely with Arya's story. In the Vaes Tolorro scene, we see that she is tempted to just stay there, taking an easier path, rather than pursuing her goal of reclaiming Westeros. Maybe that could be paired with Theon going to Pyke (siding with Robb is sort of taking the easy path for the Ironborn). And so on.

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Hmm. That's an interesting idea.

So have ACOK introduce the Greyjoys. All of them. And have them be more integral early on - show Victarion doing stuff, etc. And have Balon die at the end of ACOK.

And maybe most importantly, have Euron see Dany wherever she is during ACOK and take off in a black ship.

Have Euron come back in the start of ASOS. The ironmen can still be fighting the northerners at this point (we see almost none of this in ASOS, so the timeline barely matters). Have Asha's queensmoot, have Euron's horn blow, and have Victarion taking off during ASOS.

Then at the start of the 4th season, do whatever Victarion's going to do with Dany.

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Dany's story in ACoK breaks into a bunch of good mini-episodes. If you paired them with scenes from the other plot that had similar themes, I think it could work. For example, you could say the theme of her travels through the Red Wastes is survival. That would pair nicely with Arya's story. In the Vaes Tolorro scene, we see that she is tempted to just stay there, taking an easier path, rather than pursuing her goal of reclaiming Westeros. Maybe that could be paired with Theon going to Pyke (siding with Robb is sort of taking the easy path for the Ironborn). And so on.
From a TV ep by ep perspective it's okay. The problem is that if you go by each book being a series, Dany doesn't even think about relating with any other characters until Season 5. So in S1 - she doesn't get her kingdom back. In S2...still doesn't. In S3? Nope. In S4? Nope. All this setup since the first ep for no grand payoff is much harder to sell in TV-land. Hell, it's already hard to sell for the book fans.

It's already going to be tough for ACOK because of the sprawl of characters; we get Tyrion, Cersei and Sansa in one place and then basically everyone else all over the place. Jon still remains fairly isolated, Cat is the connector, Arya does her own thing (and I suspect this'll get cut some), Davos and Stannis don't interact much except with Cat, Theon and Bran do a bit together..but it's very spread out. That's going to be hard to do. Having the 'and then there was Dany' is even tougher. That payoff needs to happen at some point, or people will be wondering (rightly) why did we focus on Dany for four seasons?

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Having the 'and then there was Dany' is even tougher. That payoff needs to happen at some point, or people will be wondering (rightly) why did we focus on Dany for four seasons?

I think this is workable as long as the audience is kept aware that Dany is having to rebuild her army from scratch, while waiting for her dragons to reach maturity. I do agree though that she doesn't need to take longer than 4 seasons, MAX, to get the ball rolling in the direction of Westeros. In the interim, as long as they focus on the interesting stuff (House of the Undying, Whitebeard/Belwas, roasting slavers, conquering Mereen) there shouldn't be a problem holding anyone's attention. It'll take some clever structuring but it can work.

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Well she meets Barristan the Bold and burns down the House of the Undying. It is going to problematic because Emilia Clarke is probably going to be a star of this series. Not to mention that she closes out season one in dramatic fashion.

Lol? Jerome Flynn is going to be the star of the series. Him and Dinklage.

And anyway, they cut McNulty out of S4 in The Wire and it was the best season they did. You dont need your star to carry a series if it is done right.

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Actually a major spoiler from AFFC, but whatevs.
To my knowledge Victarion isn't giving Dany any ships in AFFC. IIRC, he hasn't even met her yet. what happens with him or how he goes about doing it is still a mystery. Hell, we don't even know if he makes it there yet.
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To my knowledge Victarion isn't giving Dany any ships in AFFC. IIRC, he hasn't even met her yet. what happens with him or how he goes about doing it is still a mystery. Hell, we don't even know if he makes it there yet.

He's taking the Iron Fleet to go get Dany. Dany doesn't have ships. Dany needs ships and doesn't have an immediate way to get them. Connect the dots and you have GRRM setting up Victarion's fleet set up as the means by which Dany and her army gets to Westeros, which needs to happen soon if this series is going to stay at 7 books.

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Everyone being in different locations isn't a problem. As someone already said, you can ties together individual episode stories by theme. If you look at shows like The Wire, Lost, and Oz, there are characters who don't interact for multiple seasons, and have their own story within a season. Once an audience cares about a character, like Arya, they'll be willing to follow just that character, especially if the story itself is interesting.

As far as Dany lasting four seasons or so without directly interacting with the main storyline, I think viewers will be just as patient as readers are. The relevance of her story is apparent in the first episode: she wants the thrones, but before she can have the throne, she needs an army. Her entire story in the first three books is about that (though she does get delayed because of her ambitions in A Storm of Swords).

I also expect some of A Storm of Swords early chapters to be included in the season 2 finale. Namely Jaime, Catelyn (if this chapter gets included at all), and Davos's first chapter, and if people are right about Dany's conquer of Astapor, that goes until her third chapter.

I really want the second season to have 12 episodes.

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