BookWyrm

Honestly, I understand what you're saying except for the bolded part, but I can't make the correlation between this post and my first one. I think you missed a point in my first post. The expenses of producing such large-scale battles as GRRM has written would make the price of creating the show rise dramatically. Maybe later you'll get to see a huge battle such as the Battle of the Blackwater, because of it's significance to the development of certain characters (i.e. Davos's experience in the battle, the attempted assassination of Tyrion or even what it forced Sandor to do), but spending such significant cash and time on something that doesn't actually advance the story in a essential way that isn't sort of superficial just isn't rational from anyone's point of view. A person can argue all they want about how too much airtime may have been spent with Tyrion in his tent or with Ned in his cell etc. etc. but to have a fully logical argument you need logical consistency. Saying less time should have been spent in Tyrion's tent then argue for precious time to be spent on a battle that is unnecessary to advance the plot and characterization falls utterly short of convincing. I understand that many of you wanted to see a battle, but why exactly? Besides just "wanting to see the battle" what reason for including it is there? Saying that it's important in the advancement of the plot is a useless and baseless argument because I still don't see how. There's virtually no actual explaining going on for the Pro-Battle Argument besides a primeval "b/c I said so" attitude.

I don't see much substance added to a story or character in any of the battles that they could have (or could have not: $$) added to the episode, the desire for this seems masturbatory. Martin's characters are so complex and go through so much as a result of war. War's consequences seem to be more important than the heat-of-the-moment action scenes. That's a lust that can be sated with practically any old hollywood film nowadays. Considering also the logistical inefficiency of using precious air time to show something easily glossed over in so complex a story. Getting to know about Tyrion and Tysha was more important than watching Jaime's sword go back and forth with the redundancy of watching leaves fall off of a tree. In the end one can infer the tree lost it's leaves and that Jaime lost the battle. Though GRRM writes suspenseful action sequences, imho that's not what makes him particularly special. I think the episode stayed fairly true to the spirit of the books. Such a monumental story was deftly handled and I say deserves a 10. As GRRM shows, one can be emotionally pulled to the edge of one's seat, without falling to the sating of a lust. The best one to date I think... Also... did Martin himself actually show the Battle of the Whispering Wood? It's been awhile but I don't actually remember a firsthand account from the books so it seems strange to me to expect the show to spent massive time and money on it.

WHOAhohohoHO!!!! This is going to be incredible!