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Le Cygne

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  1. It narrows the scope of what should be an epic story. Cramming it in makes it seem small, like a momentary spat. And they didn't just cram it, they changed the very nature of it, so it doesn't make sense even as a momentary spat. Something that bugs me about LOTR is that he didn't include the Houses of Healing scene with Faramir and Eowyn in the theatrical version. It's the resolution for two main characters! Scrap a couple minutes of endless orc closeups and there's time. Do the changes, or added stuff, or omitted stuff take away from the beauty of the story the author told? If so, reconsider. Find room for what matters, and don't stray from the original story when it's well-loved for many years.
  2. Yes, it could have been much better. There was the outline as well as many references within LOTR (Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragorn, and others talked about the second age). Given the choice of listening to the master storyteller or flying by the seat of their pants, they chose the latter. (Also the same for the Hobbit movies, I kept thinking, you had a perfectly fine story! What is this mess? The simplicity of The Hobbit was its charm. Tolkien knew what he was doing.)
  3. Well, I am excited about a Dunk and Egg series, and I wasn't about other shows. There are different sorts of viewers out there. D and E is more my kind of show. It makes you think, while at the same time, there's laughter and a lightening of the spirit that even in difficult times, there's friendship and courage. I like that GRRM went there with a more classic storytelling feel to these adventures, and think it would translate quite well to the screen. (Live action for this one!)
  4. Agree, I think Aragorn always wanted to be king, when the time was right, and on his own terms. He had quite the example before him to learn from, so he was wise to tread carefully. I think Jon has demonstrated that he wants to lead, he wants to make a difference in the world, so making him a park ranger after murdering family is pretty damned arbitrary. There's nothing that says perfect fit about Jon's time with the wildlings, nor Dany's time with the Dothraki. Ygritte and Drogo would probably still be alive, if not for Jon and Dany. There was love in those relationships, they helped them find themselves. There was something about the two wild ones that struck a chord in the two noble ones. Ygritte herself wanted to see the castles in Jon's world. Drogo wanted to take Dany to her castle, too. There was growth all around in the books, but the show tossed it all out.
  5. Jon's big question was always "who am I?" so how does finding out he's a Targ fit with his Stark identity. He's a dragon, he's a wolf, and the wildlings are his "no man's land" where he explores the different parts of himself. Also he's got to deal with not really being human anymore on top of all of this. Lots to be explored there, but the show just blew all of that off. I think the books will end very differently because they will account for all of this.
  6. I think she has self doubt for a good reason, her good intentions, she starts out wanting something good, like GRRM said ("George told me that Daenerys wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people") but finds the reality of ruling very difficult. So she second guesses herself. (There's also her repeated longing for a simpler life, living in a house with a red door, that showed us that she envisioned another kind of life for herself, but the show always shirked showing the interior lives of the characters, which are so important, and could have been shown in many ways.) GRRM said his ending will be very different from the show. I think Bran will perhaps be lord of Winterfell, because he's so tied to the north, but that's just my feeling about the story. None of us really knows how things will end for everyone, it could be any number of ways, as long as it fits what went before. With Dany, if she does fall, I think it would be a much better story for her good intentions to be her undoing, that's tragedy. Instead they gave us farce. Most of the audience liked Dany. As badly as they bungled the character, there's something good that shone through. It was a stupid season, insulting to the audience in many ways, but what they did to Dany was a glaring mistake, as shown by the instant audience backlash. They stated emphatically she's not mad!, then suddenly, on a dime, made her madder than a hatter. Their game of going in different directions regardless of what had gone before ("creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen") ran into the wall of the show ending.
  7. Yes, agreed. That's not what Tolkien was doing with Aragorn. He rose to the occasion when the time was right. Everything he learned to that point served him well. They were such bad writers, if only they had copied something good (well, like the source material). But they figured they could do better, which was their undoing. Often you could see they were going in one direction, only to go into another, without regard for what came before. When that's multiplied with various characters and plots, it's nonsense. I am kind of excited about Dunk and Egg, because GRRM is involved. Blackwater was a standout episode, and it could have been better had they not tied his hands with their nonsense. After that, they tied his hands completely, the butterflies were dragons, and the magic of the original material was long gone. I love that he tried to make something beautiful out of it, even so.
  8. Oh good point, one need only look to how Grey Worm, the Prince of Dorne, and Yara (at least Asha was spared being in the show) reacted (or didn't react) to see how forced it all was. It's like they pinned notes on Tyrion, Dany, and Jon: You good, you bad, you stupid. The rest of you, play into it in somehow, or just stand there and go along with it. Don't ask why. There is no reason. Yes!
  9. Just seeing this... Make it light-hearted, while also telling a good story, and they could do a short season per story. These are really good stories. I'd watch! https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/game-of-thrones-dunk-and-egg-series-1235372243/
  10. They basically punished all the other characters for not honoring Tyrion in the books. Tyrion was their self-insert character. They will not be ignored! Jaime was a rapist, but Tyrion was not, the opposite of the books. Brienne lost her story, because Jaime lost his. Sansa rejected Tyrion, so she lost her own story. Sandor lost his story, because Sansa lost hers. And so on. Tyrion must look good! Now we know Dany does not suffer fools, she's not gonna be undone by Tyrion, not easily, anyway. And if she is, she's gonna put up a good fight. Not go bonkers over a fool who then is fooled into killing her. They even absolved Tyrion of murdering Dany.
  11. Good point, he's a main character who drives multiple plots with his barely concealed malevolence. He's narcissistic, misogynistic, power hungry... all these things bump up against other characters in his way, and move things along. Turn him into a saint, and suddenly it all falls apart. So they had to change everyone else's story to fit this new St. Tyrion utter nonsense. So many characters lost their stories because of this, and they can't tell stories of their own. So they just plugged in random plots, which are extremely jarring and unsatisfying, the appeal of the books was the characterization, and how that drove the story, and take that away, and it's just jingling keys at the audience.
  12. Indeed. The show just made no sense. It was like someone threw random characters and random plots at the screen, and mixed them up with an eggbeater. They never actually told a story. Characters are supposed to drive the story. But here, nonsensical plot drives the story. You can't believe any of it would ever really happen, it's a house of cards and not even from the same deck.
  13. Here are good examples of "close reading" - Octavia Cox is a professor at Oxford who does a great job stepping through text in works of literature, staying very close what the author is saying, to find meaning. Very interesting stuff, and she explores Jane Austen and other romances on her channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DrOctaviaCox
  14. Exactly. It's just the way he talks. Sandorspeak, we called it. People rarely say what they mean, especially him. She thinks of him as her protector, as does he. He talks beastly, but she kinda likes it (just like in Cocteau and Disney). She kissed the Hound and she liked it, a story of a knight and a fair maiden, by Sansa Stark. Also... when the author has a picture of the two characters as Beauty and the Beast like the movie poster on the wall of his office (as in this case), that's a nice little nod.
  15. What I'm saying is I don't think what went down on the show even remotely resembles the book plot, because it's just too stupid. Tyrion is manipulating him, and Jon should know this. It makes no sense that Dany would kill Jon's family. Dany is Jon's family, too. These characters have been wanting this family connection all series long, then when they get together they kill or leave them. It's not a satisfying story.
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