Taking the Adaptation to Task: A TV Critic’s Perspective

[pleonasm]

I enjoyed the review. I thought he summarized well a couple of the major story issues a number of us had with the second season. I am also glad someone else called the misstep with Arya's storyline this year. Alot of folks were thrilled with the Arya/Tywin scenes, but I was saddened at how much the war story for the common folk was sacrificed because of it. I didn't need necessary need to see Arya kill a few extra's this year, but I wish they would have taken the time to show the effect the war was having on the countryside and its small folk. George does a masterful job in those Arya chapters and that was all lost.

I don't necessary agree with everything in the review (I still contend Qarth is a weak spot in the novel, that becomes even more obivious when attempting to adapt it, but I wouldn't say the tv version was better), but thats one of the great pleasures of the ASIOF fandom. There is rarely a universal consenus on anything.

I still contend, the biggest flaws in this season originated in the writing room when they initially broke the stories. Yes - I have minor issues with some production decisions (Iceland vs. a forested location, some of the costume/production design), but trying to cram the entire novel into 10 episodes created a number of pacing and story problems they weren't able to resolve. Why couldn't some of the stories from Clash bleed into next season?

[Aemon Stark]

I think the major problem is that most TV shows with ensemble casts either focus on a single character or subset of characters for an episode. Other times they employ an A plot and a B plot or sometimes a C plot as well. AGoT starts out with an A plot (Winterfell) and a B plot (Across the Narrow Sea), and eventually when there is something of a C plot with Tyrion and Catelyn's little detour to the Eyrie.

But it never gets much more complicated then that... but in ACoK we have the King's Landing stuff, Jon's story, Dany's story, Stannis/Davos's, Arya's, Catelyn's, Theon's, Bran's - A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H plots, though at least G and H eventually combine.

I think that "Blackwater" showed us how effective focusing on a single plot would make the show, but as it stands this season they've attempted to cover all or most of them in most episodes. I do think there is wide agreement that this has been problematic and it portends the challenge of adapting this story. I also feel that most of the complaints about things being overlooked or eliminated stems from the admittedly disjointed approach to the season's structure.

Now, if we were to get an episode that dealt with only Dany in Qarth and, say, Tyrion/Sansa in KL, we might have seen things get more fleshed out faster and better. I am with the season overall, but there is considerable room for improvement in the structure of the average episode. I think limited to "A/B/C" plots for the most part would certainly help, and it would also more closely mirror the experience while reading.

And, once again, a real review does not accuse the producers of lacking "honour" or spend 7,000 words telling us what the audience supposedly thought of every scene. Why not discuss the show as it was made with reference to the writing, acting, sets, music, story structure, etc.?

[David Selig]

Sure, Tywin must'be a coward because the biggest idiot in the books said so, this makes sense... :rolleyes:

I don't like Tywin at all, but that's a really weak argument.

[David Selig]

Joffrey heard some talk about events long before his birth and made his typical rash and idiotic conclusion because he's a psychopath and a moron. He might've been right for a change, but more likely not. It doesn't prove anything about Tywin's cowardness.

Not being suicidal as in not provoking unnecessary a King on the edge of madness with a penchant for burning peopl is very different from being a coward.

[boojam]

He's not the executive producer in question. He's not an executive producer, and he wasn't present at all for any of the filming this year.

I did not make my self clear. I didn't mean George as executive producer on the show, I was speaking of George as the creator of the source material.

Actually , on the page, there is more sex than in the show.

It does not bother me one bit ... tho , I must admit I get the impression that George is riffing, as is his want. I am sometime not to taken by it as his style, most times not, he's a great story teller.... George would had a ball as a singer-poet of the oral tradition telling the Iliad and Odessey in the 5 century BCE.

I am sure George was delighted that HBO picked up the story as an artistic implementer not circumscribed by unenlightened types like the MPAA who have imposed defacto censorship on art in the film form.

[Lyanna Stark]

I enjoyed the review. I thought he summarized well a couple of the major story issues a number of us had with the second season. I am also glad someone else called the misstep with Arya's storyline this year.

Indeed. Arya's ACOK plotline is extremely violent and bleak. Through her we see the ravaging of the countryside, the extreme violence, rape and pillaging the normal people of Westeros are subjected to (remember poor All-for-Joffrey or Pretty Pia?). At the end of it she's nearing the experience of a child soldier, but in the show she's Tywin's cheerful and smartass sidekick who walked out of Harrenhall without having to murder anyone herself.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

Actually Tywin as a coward is a great analysis. I agree, it explain his actions. From his mistreatment of Tyrion (insecurity), to his inability to take sides during the war of Usurper, to his murdering of children to curry favor with Robert, to his unwillingness to face Robb in the field.

Yes, people have explained it as pragmatism, but a true pragmatist would have appreciated Tyrion's talent and abilities, and made use of them. Cowardice and insecurity is a better overall explanation.

[Miodrag]

I think the major problem is that most TV shows with ensemble casts either focus on a single character or subset of characters for an episode. Other times they employ an A plot and a B plot or sometimes a C plot as well. AGoT starts out with an A plot (Winterfell) and a B plot (Across the Narrow Sea), and eventually when there is something of a C plot with Tyrion and Catelyn's little detour to the Eyrie.

But it never gets much more complicated then that... but in ACoK we have the King's Landing stuff, Jon's story, Dany's story, Stannis/Davos's, Arya's, Catelyn's, Theon's, Bran's - A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H plots, though at least G and H eventually combine.

I think that "Blackwater" showed us how effective focusing on a single plot would make the show, but as it stands this season they've attempted to cover all or most of them in most episodes. I do think there is wide agreement that this has been problematic and it portends the challenge of adapting this story. I also feel that most of the complaints about things being overlooked or eliminated stems from the admittedly disjointed approach to the season's structure.

Now, if we were to get an episode that dealt with only Dany in Qarth and, say, Tyrion/Sansa in KL, we might have seen things get more fleshed out faster and better. I am with the season overall, but there is considerable room for improvement in the structure of the average episode. I think limited to "A/B/C" plots for the most part would certainly help, and it would also more closely mirror the experience while reading.

And, once again, a real review does not accuse the producers of lacking "honour" or spend 7,000 words telling us what the audience supposedly thought of every scene. Why not discuss the show as it was made with reference to the writing, acting, sets, music, story structure, etc.?

Speaking of music, I find it the show's one redeeming quality. That, and Cersei’s cheekbones.

But, oddly enough, they keep misusing pretty good soundtrack by – overusing it. When you hear Stannis’ theme (one of my favorites) for the 100^th time, it does loose a certain charm.

Kidding, of course, they have more than two good qualities in this show, but those are discussed often enough. In fact, in mainstream media reviews, good qualities are almost the only thing being mentioned and analyzed to no end. Won’t lie, it does anger me somewhat.

On the other hand, bad things are almost never discussed, other than on fans forums, and even there is, to my taste, not discussed enough. When ADWD came out last year, I was much more pleased with it than many other readers, and then, I had some gripes that I never seen even mentioned, let alone discussed. But, generally speaking, ADWD was put through of many pros and cons. And Martin survived. And critics survived. And fans survived. No hell broke loose. In contrast to that, when someone criticizes GOT, he is bound to receive the fury from show-enthusiasts. And in the mainstream media, which do make an impact on general public’s opinion, criticism of GOT is almost non-existent.

Just explaining why I wrote the piece I wrote, without praising things that are maybe good, but certainly over-praised in my book.

And, speaking of books, I never wrote D&D had to force actors to read them. It should be every actor’s choice. And some of the best actors in the show didn’t read it (and the attitude of Cunnigham and Dance is quite refreshing in it’s honesty: “Don’t like reading large books, period”; much more sincere than “I don’t want to know things too much ahead”, which is a silly argument in and out of itself – what is it, a method no-reading? Should those actors refuse roles in adaptations of the books they read, or in the stuff based on known historical facts, because they know so much in advance?) What I wanted to say is what I wrote: if someone, anyone, let alone the actor on your adaptation project, asks you whether he should read the books, how can you not answer him a simple YES. You know, not forcing him, not keeping him for his word from now on, not punishing him if doesn’t read after all, but ADVISING him to read the novels. Suggesting it to him. Encouraging him to read it – yeah, 5000 pages may take some encouragement to enter into. Once again: what could possibly be the downside of Allen reading the books, for which D&D didn’t want to advise him to read?

At the end, Allen read the books, first three at least. I don’t think that anyhow damaged his portrayal of Theon, which, in surrounding circumstances, was quite good.

[Kittykatknits]

I enjoyed the review. I thought he summarized well a couple of the major story issues a number of us had with the second season. I am also glad someone else called the misstep with Arya's storyline this year. Alot of folks were thrilled with the Arya/Tywin scenes, but I was saddened at how much the war story for the common folk was sacrificed because of it. I didn't need necessary need to see Arya kill a few extra's this year, but I wish they would have taken the time to show the effect the war was having on the countryside and its small folk. George does a masterful job in those Arya chapters and that was all lost.

<snip>

I still contend, the biggest flaws in this season originated in the writing room when they initially broke the stories. Yes - I have minor issues with some production decisions (Iceland vs. a forested location, some of the costume/production design), but trying to cram the entire novel into 10 episodes created a number of pacing and story problems they weren't able to resolve. Why couldn't some of the stories from Clash bleed into next season?

I agree. I thought he was spot on in many of his points. GOT could have truly been a great show, up there with The Wire, Sopranos, and Deadwood but it isn't.

I completely agree with the Arya/Tywin exchanges. Those were some great scenes but they were done at the sacrifice of much else. I don't like the changes done with Cersei, I missed her fire. Robb is a completely different person than he is in the books. He is spot-on with Sandor and Sansa too. He's right about Tywin too, he is a coward. I think that shows a great understanding of the books and some really good analysis.

I enjoyed reading his perspective and am glad this was posted.

[boojam]

I’m somewhat puzzled with so many people not minding the fast-motioning scenes described in my piece. Allow me to explain a little more why those scenes bothered me so much:

This has to be an aesthetic judgement on your part, I was not bothered by it at all, and your exposition on it passes beyond my understanding.

I have this question , which I have posed several times here, I will pose it to you.

Way, way apart from particular identifiable problems with the adaptation this season, what do think the global problem was with this season?

That David Benioff and D. B. Weiss underestimated the task of adapting such a large amount of source material into such a small amount of screen time?

I can find no fault with the cast (in fact the quality of the cast has had an effect on character adaptation), nor production design (on , lets admit, a modest budget, yeah I know 60-70 million seems like a lot but not when placed against 300 million plus for LTOR). I can't find much fault with individual scenes.

I just get the vibe that David and Dan just spent less time with the teleplays and their total integration than they should have. From what I have seen and heard, they were overworked ... and just did not have time to think through how the heck they were going to get Clash into 10 episodes.

I see little discussion of this question.

You?

[boojam]

Double, double toil and trouble.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

I think part of the problem is that the way the approached the task. Episodic approach is just not the way to approach this story. The should have just plot out each thread. Assigned writers to handle thread, assign film crews to each thread/location, and then edit them into episodes later. And don't make each episode about every plot thread. Have a A/B/C structure, that if that means certain plots won't appear for an episode or 2, so be it.

[Jamie Lannister]

Lets not forget that Tywin was turned into a complete fool and a well meaning nice grandad type of character.... when he is not killing his own troops or other nonsense stuff.

I actually thought Tywin was portrayed fairly faithfully, both publicly and privately. He didn't stop his torture crew from unjustly tormenting prisoners for the evulz because he's a nice guy -- he did it because Harrenhal is fucking huge and could use some more labourers. In regards to Arya, he clearly takes some mild amusement in having someone half intelligent to speak with (aside from Kevan; I wanted more Kevan scenes...), but he still discards her to the Mountain's "care" before riding off to crush Stannis.

Deviations aside, I thoroughly enjoyed Tywin Lannister in S2.

[Istakhr]

I think the major problem is that most TV shows with ensemble casts either focus on a single character or subset of characters for an episode. Other times they employ an A plot and a B plot or sometimes a C plot as well. AGoT starts out with an A plot (Winterfell) and a B plot (Across the Narrow Sea), and eventually when there is something of a C plot with Tyrion and Catelyn's little detour to the Eyrie.

But it never gets much more complicated then that... but in ACoK we have the King's Landing stuff, Jon's story, Dany's story, Stannis/Davos's, Arya's, Catelyn's, Theon's, Bran's - A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H plots, though at least G and H eventually combine.

I think that "Blackwater" showed us how effective focusing on a single plot would make the show, but as it stands this season they've attempted to cover all or most of them in most episodes. I do think there is wide agreement that this has been problematic and it portends the challenge of adapting this story. I also feel that most of the complaints about things being overlooked or eliminated stems from the admittedly disjointed approach to the season's structure.

Now, if we were to get an episode that dealt with only Dany in Qarth and, say, Tyrion/Sansa in KL, we might have seen things get more fleshed out faster and better. I am with the season overall, but there is considerable room for improvement in the structure of the average episode. I think limited to "A/B/C" plots for the most part would certainly help, and it would also more closely mirror the experience while reading.

And, once again, a real review does not accuse the producers of lacking "honour" or spend 7,000 words telling us what the audience supposedly thought of every scene. Why not discuss the show as it was made with reference to the writing, acting, sets, music, story structure, etc.?

But here you are completely missing the point of what the show runners are interested in. They have repeatedly said what they are most interested to show is the so called "verbal duels".

This show is not LOTR movies. If you edit the scenes in the show to concentrate each storyline, what you get in many cases are much worse than what is presented in the show:

1- Dany spent most of her time whining and screaming. Do you want to see 50 minutes of her concentrated in 2 episode?

2- Tywin-Arya worked so well on the show because their scenes where short enough not to bore the audience.

3- Jon Snow was walking in the snow for nearly 30 minutes after Ygritte chase, should they have put this in one episode?

The reason TV show worked at all is because by using short scenes they managed to both create a sense of momentum and hide any lack of character development or lack of events in some story-lines.

Blackwater worked so well because of the sense of tension in that episode. Most other story-lines simply lacked this.

Of course they could have trimmed some plots and added to others, but that was not what they found important.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

But here you are completely missing the point of what the show runners are interested in. They have repeatedly said what they are most interested to show is the so called "verbal duels".

This show is not LOTR movies. If you edit the scenes in the show to concentrate each storyline, what you get in many cases are much worse than what is presented in the show:

1- Dany spent most of her time whining and screaming. Do you want to see 50 minutes of her concentrated in 2 episode?

2- Tywin-Arya worked so well on the show because their scenes where short enough not to bore the audience.

3- Jon Snow was walking in the snow for nearly 30 minutes after Ygritte chase, should they have put this in one episode?

That's the point, if they did show them in large chunks in smaller episode, the problem with their narratives in season 2 would have been obvious and then would have recognized it and done something different. They might have introduced the flight with Qhorin instead of walking in the snow. As is, the Halfhand, one of the most memorable small characters in the series, was completely wasted.

[Punchslap]

In fact, in mainstream media reviews, good qualities are almost the only thing being mentioned and analyzed to no end. Won’t lie, it does anger me somewhat.

I think it angers a number of people here, but the mainstream coverage speaks to the reaction to the show outside the narrow walls of these (and other) forums. I'm curious to see what (if anything) GRRM says in regards to the slice of fandom that are unhappy with the show--not because I think it will end the debate (forty-odd more weeks of that presumably), but simply because I'm interested.

[protar]

I did not make my self clear. I didn't mean George as executive producer on the show, I was speaking of George as the creator of the source material.

Actually , on the page, there is more sex than in the show.

It does not bother me one bit ... tho , I must admit I get the impression that George is riffing, as is his want. I am sometime not to taken by it as his style, most times not, he's a great story teller.... George would had a ball as a singer-poet of the oral tradition telling the Iliad and Odessey in the 5 century BCE.

I am sure George was delighted that HBO picked up the story as an artistic implementer not circumscribed by unenlightened types like the MPAA who have imposed defacto censorship on art in the film form.

There is definitely more sex on the show. While the books certainly have a lot of sex scenes compared to other fantasy novels, there's really only a handful. The show has sex and nudity almost every episode, sometimes multiple times an episode. In the books I think you'll find most of the sexual nature is just referencing rather than actual sex. And certainly most of the sex in the show is purely invented by D+D so I think it's fairly obvious that it's just for titilation.

[Miodrag]

This has to be an aesthetic judgement on your part, I was not bothered by it at all, and your exposition on it passes beyond my understanding.

I have this question , which I have posed several times here, I will pose it to you.

Way, way apart from particular identifiable problems with the adaptation this season, what do think the global problem was with this season?

That David Benioff and D. B. Weiss underestimated the task of adapting such a large amount of source material into such a small amount of screen time?

I can find no fault with the cast (in fact the quality of the cast has had an effect on character adaptation), nor production design (on , lets admit, a modest budget, yeah I know 60-70 million seems like a lot but not when placed against 300 million plus for LTOR). I can't find much fault with individual scenes.

I just get the vibe that David and Dan just spent less time with the teleplays and their total integration than they should have. From what I have seen and heard, they were overworked ... and just did not have time to think through how the heck they were going to get Clash into 10 episodes.

I see little discussion of this question.

You?

I tried to address issues raised by the known, stated and publicized facts, like what certain people involved in the series did say in some interview. As pointed out in the piece, it’s really hard to know the exact intentions of D&D, and I really tried not to speculate on any of those. If I failed, as if something of what I wrote really seems like a pure speculation, my bad. Writing is a process one learns until his death, writing an essay included.

I just hope some harsh judges, like my honest opinion of them failing to make both symphony and rock song, don’t strike as speculations. It isn’t a speculation, it’s my evaluation of their work, which – my evaluation – wan influenced with their statements.

Between us, I’d say the first season had the problem you brought up, of them not realizing how big a task is adapting this big a book into ten episodes. I was displeased with many faults last season, but wasn’t this much frustrated, because until the first season was over D&D really looked like they are somewhat aware they bit more than they could chew. And, it wasn’t only their fault, but also HBO’s, as pointed out on this thread: HBO had much more experience in high-drama than D&D had.

But, when the debut season was over, in one of their first interviews after finale, they said something like: “We don’t need nobody to tell us what mistakes we made, we know those mistakes better than anyone”. Now, whenever I hear this argumentation, I know two things: 1) they don’t think they made any mistake; 2) not only that they aren’t going to fix them, they’ll just make even more and even bigger ones. D&D are just the recent examples for how much that kind of statement – “we know our mistakes better than anyone else does” – is lame in it’s essence, sort of self-escapism really.

From there on, I’d speculate that D&D really persuaded themselves they are able to please HBO management, GRRM, pervert side of the audience, smart side of the audience, book purists, non-readers, actors, awards’ juries... Yeah, no return from that road. I mean, they may end up making a financially successful show with decent, entertaining story. But, will we get ASIOAF on screens? No. Will it be because of the budgetary reasons, or difficulty of adaptation reasons, or some other often repeated thing? No. With this much money and that much episodes, they could’ve done a much, much better show, that would – and it is maybe my biggest issue – that could earn as much and gain a viewership as large as it does now! Only the substance of the show would’ve been infinitely better, but everything else would go the same way it goes now.

Hope this answers your question.

[kg1982]

I think the major problem is that most TV shows with ensemble casts either focus on a single character or subset of characters for an episode. Other times they employ an A plot and a B plot or sometimes a C plot as well. AGoT starts out with an A plot (Winterfell) and a B plot (Across the Narrow Sea), and eventually when there is something of a C plot with Tyrion and Catelyn's little detour to the Eyrie.

But it never gets much more complicated then that... but in ACoK we have the King's Landing stuff, Jon's story, Dany's story, Stannis/Davos's, Arya's, Catelyn's, Theon's, Bran's - A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H plots, though at least G and H eventually combine.

I think that "Blackwater" showed us how effective focusing on a single plot would make the show, but as it stands this season they've attempted to cover all or most of them in most episodes. I do think there is wide agreement that this has been problematic and it portends the challenge of adapting this story. I also feel that most of the

complaints about things being overlooked or eliminated stems from the admittedly disjointed approach to the season's structure.

Now, if we were to get an episode that dealt with only Dany in Qarth and, say, Tyrion/Sansa in KL, we might have seen things get more fleshed out faster and better. I am with the season overall, but there is considerable room for improvement in the structure of the average episode. I think limited to "A/B/C" plots for the most part would certainly help, and it would also more closely mirror the experience while reading

And, once again, a real review does not accuse the producers of lacking "honour" or spend 7,000 words telling us what the audience supposedly thought of every scene. Why not discuss the show as it was made with reference to the writing, acting, sets, music, story structure, etc.?

For me, the fact that there are so many plotlines and lots of juggling of different plots is the main critique of the season and even season 2. This really has nothing to do with how faithful or not faithful the show is to the books. I'd say one of the main critiques of the books is that there is alot of sprawl in them and they're huge and densely plotted. I'd actually argue that being more faithful to the books would exasperate the problem. The changes that were made to season 2 were made because parts of the book wouldn't be able to be filmed or would confuse the audience. Also, Martin isn't Will Shakespeare and some parts of the books just don't work well... See Jeyne Westerling. And no, ASOIAF isn't a groundbreaking literary work ala The Great Gatsby that must be filmed as is to get the important message.

I think that there will likely need to be more changes going forward as well as some streamlining of episodes as was suggested. So if you are very upset with the changes.. please stop watching now so that the rest us can enjoy the show.

[protar]

For me, the fact that there are so many plotlines and lots of juggling of different plots is the main critique of the season and even season 2. This really has nothing to do with how faithful or not faithful the show is to the books. I'd say one of the main critiques of the books is that there is alot of sprawl in them and they're huge and densely plotted. I'd actually argue that being more faithful to the books would exasperate the problem. The changes that were made to season 2 were made because parts of the book wouldn't be able to be filmed or would confuse the audience. Also, Martin isn't Will Shakespeare and some parts of the books just don't work well... See Jeyne Westerling. And no, ASOIAF isn't a groundbreaking literary work ala The Great Gatsby that must be filmed as is to get the important message.

I think that there will likely need to be more changes going forward as well as some streamlining of episodes as was suggested. So if you are very upset with the changes.. please stop watching now so that the rest us can enjoy the show.

I will cut D+D a little slack here, because it's true that the books to just balloon out after GOT which was already large in scope. However this was still somewhat due to their poor handling of the material. The invented material like the dragonknapping and everything with Ros for example, further eats into the screen time necessary to show the sprawling scope of the story. Some plots could've been wrapped up early in E8 (which needed some meat anyway.). For example the Jaime/Brienne scenes didn't need to be picked up again after E8, HOTU could've been in E8 as the climax, meaning less screen time needed for Dany in E10 and we didn't need to see Stannis after blackwater.

ETA: also with some adjustment, Robb's marriage to Jeyne/Talisa could've all been finished in E8 as well with no need to revisit Robb's camp after that.