[Book spoilers] Too many storylines in season 5?

[Draco_Dracul]

Excellent post. I agree with you on just about everything except Quentyn. I think it's best for D&D to cut Quentyn's arc out. I know George probably put it in there to create hostility between Doran/the Martells and Dany and have them go to Faegon's side because of this. But there are other ways. I imagine they could easily get by with just having Arianne and Trystane as Doran's two children. I've always thought Trystane was the heir like Rickon and would end up ruling Dorne anyway because Arianne won't make it out of this series alive, especially if she marries Faegon.

I agree there are three reasons why Doran would go with Aegon with Quentyn cut: 1) Aegon is much closer blood than Dany, 2) Aegon is of an age with his daughter and no Quentyn means no in with Dany, and 3) Aegon is right here right now rather than on the otherside of the world playing Queen.

The real danger is that there's too few storylines, not too many. Winds of Winter isn't going to be out this year; and realistically, probably not in 2015. aFfC and aDwD have to last two seasons, maybe even three.

Then the show will pass the book. I think two season for AFfC and ADwD is unrealistic as it will give only 2 season for TWoW and ADoS and D&D already have GRRM. Three season is just silly as I don't think there is more than a season and a half of material between the two books.

[LordFirkraag]

Then the show will pass the book. I think two season for AFfC and ADwD is unrealistic as it will give only 2 season for TWoW and ADoS and D&D already have GRRM. Three season is just silly as I don't think there is more than a season and a half of material between the two books.

You say that as if it doesn't matter whether they have to write tWoW for themselves.

GRRM is a world-class writer; Benioff and Weiss would appear to be midding writers at best. Along with their responsibilites directing the show you cannot possibly expect them to produce a story which comes even close to the one that Martin will bring out.

Making up their own material from scratch is a sure-fire way to ruin the series. Devoting two seasons to two big volumes, not so much (regardless of the opinion of some guy). GRRM himself believes that there's easily enough material in there for two seasons.

[Colonel Green]

Making up their own material from scratch is a sure-fire way to ruin the series. Devoting two seasons to two big volumes, not so much (regardless of the opinion of some guy). GRRM himself believes that there's easily enough material in there for two seasons.

George R. R. Martin is deluding himself if he still believes that.

Which is irrelevant, because the writers have said all along that they are not waiting for Martin, and the pacing of the show will not be dictated by the release schedule of the books. Martin has contractual obligations, and the show can work off his basic outline (at this point, that's more or less what they're doing anyway).

[LordFirkraag]

He's deluding himself to believe that two volumes might deserve two seasons?

I, personally, have no trouble imagining how you can get two good seasons of writing from these books. The first season would close with Cersei being captured by the Faith and the wildlings being let through the Wall; the second season would finish with "daggers in the dark" and the pink letter.

The only problem is the Dany chapters, where it seems they have begun aDwD material in season 4. However, what seems to you to be the surest way to screw up a television series: (a) Trade a world class author for the creative material of a pair of upstart writers who are already loaded with a tonne of responsibilities; or (b) Devote more time in a couple of seasons to background and character development/exploration, given that there's easily enough writing in the novels to make this possible?

[Draco_Dracul]

However, what seems to you to be the surest way to screw up a television series: (A) Trade a world class author for the creative material of a pair of upstart writers who are already loaded with a tonne of responsibilities, or ( B) Devote more time in a couple of seasons to background and character development/exploration?

No, the surest way to screw up a TV series is to devote long stretches of time to characters no one cares about while pushing fan favorites into the background for long stretches of time. Doing it as two season means far, far less time with Dany, Jon, Arya, and Tyrion each of whom have a single season of material and it means slowing down the myth arc that people are already complaining about the pace of.

[Colonel Green]

The only problem is the Dany chapters, where it seems they have begun aDwD material in season 4.

That's the only problem? What are Sansa, Arya, Bran, Davos, Brienne, Sam and Jaime going to do for two more full seasons? Bran will have one chapter left, tops, by the end of season 4. Jaime has a decent number of chapters, but after a certain point it's basically a travelogue. The rest have like 3-5 chapters apiece, mostly with very little plot.

[LordFirkraag]

No, the surest way to screw up a TV series is to devote long stretches of time to characters no one cares about while pushing fan favorites into the background for long stretches of time. Doing it as two season means far, far less time with Dany, Jon, Arya, and Tyrion each of whom have a single season of material and it means slowing down the myth arc that people are already complaining about the pace of.

No. If you get a couple of seasons which are weak by comparison, you get a couple of seasons which are weak by comparison. That's a mighty big IF -- who said people won't care about Brienne, the Sand Snakes or Euron Crow's Eye, Victorian, etc.? I think these characters will go down just as well as all the other characters..

On the other hand, switching one of the greatest writers of the day for a pair of upstarts is almost certain to lead to weak material which will turn off the viewers. Instead of television series based on a first-rate story, you'll have an ordinary television series. It'll become like Xena the Warrior Princess or something.

[Draco_Dracul]

No. If you get a couple of seasons which are weak by comparison, you get a couple of seasons which are weak by comparison. That's a mighty big IF -- who said people won't care about Brienne, the Sand Snakes or Euron Crow's Eye, Victorian, etc.? I think these characters will go down just as well as all the other characters..

A couple of seasons that are weak by comparison have killed plenty of shows. Focusing on new characters over established characters have killed plenty of shows. Stretching material has killed plenty of shows.

On the other hand, switching one of the greatest writers of the day for a pair of upstarts is almost certain to lead to weak material which will turn off the viewers. Instead of television series based on a first-rate story, you'll have an ordinary television series. It'll become like Xena the Warrior Princess or something.

Who do you think has been righting most of the scripts thus far? D&D don't have to make the plot, they already have the plot to the end. To be frank, GoT will never be ordinary television by virtue of budget alone.

[LordFirkraag]

That's the only problem? What are Sansa, Arya, Bran, Davos, Brienne, Sam and Jaime going to do for two more full seasons? Bran will have one chapter left, tops, by the end of season 4. Jaime has a decent number of chapters, but after a certain point it's basically a travelogue. The rest have like 3-5 chapters apiece, mostly with very little plot.

They had too much scene-switching in season 2 and learned their lesson. They had two minutes of one character, two minutes of another, two minutes of every character, and tried to get them all into every episode. It didn't work and they shied away from that in season three. It led to superficial plot arcs that only people with short attention spans would find satisfying.

You don't have to show all the characters all in a few episodes. Quality counts more quantity of characters. People loved the Battle of the Blackwater even though two of the main characters there were Bronn and the Hound, who were hardly fan favourites at that point.

[Phonzadellika]

No, the surest way to screw up a TV series is to devote long stretches of time to characters no one cares about while pushing fan favorites into the background for long stretches of time. Doing it as two season means far, far less time with Dany, Jon, Arya, and Tyrion each of whom have a single season of material and it means slowing down the myth arc that people are already complaining about the pace of.

^ this right here.

At this point it's the Jon-Arya-Theon-Tyrion-Danaerys show with generous helpings of Jaime-Stanis and Company-Other Starks-everyone else. You may be able to get some people to care about Arianne or the other Greyjoys, but at this point everyone is emotionally invested in Team Whatever-their-favorite-character-is and they are interested primarily in the exploits of that person. This goes for me too, I read the books, I really like them, but the show has a finite amount of time and budget and I while I'm looking forward to the Greyjoy brothers joining the story I still want the show the focus on the main conflicts.

You also have the audience expectations to deal with. The show-runners want each season to be at least as good as the last season and, if possible, have a crazier ending. There's enough fireworks in AFFC and ADWD for 1 great season and that's about it. There's not really enough time in the production life-cycle to get heavily into character development at this point.

[LordFirkraag]

Who do you think has been righting most of the scripts thus far? D&D don't have to make the plot, they already have the plot to the end. To be frank, GoT will never be ordinary television by virtue of budget alone.

They don't have the plot; they have a very rough outline of the plot. It simply won't be enough -- especially given that GRRM himself has had to wrestle with the complexity of the narrative. You seem to underestimate just how daunting a task it is to write a story, come up with memorable scenes that advance the story, and translate that into a screenplay. They'll have to hire a whole new team of writers, and that itself will cause creative problems; or they'd be taking on a bunch of responsibilities for which they don't have the time or the ability.

[Phonzadellika]

No. If you get a couple of seasons which are weak by comparison, you get a couple of seasons which are weak by comparison. That's a mighty big IF -- who said people won't care about Brienne, the Sand Snakes or Euron Crow's Eye, Victorian, etc.? I think these characters will go down just as well as all the other characters..

On the other hand, switching one of the greatest writers of the day for a pair of upstarts is almost certain to lead to weak material which will turn off the viewers. Instead of television series based on a first-rate story, you'll have an ordinary television series. It'll become like Xena the Warrior Princess or something.

If GRRM cares about the quality of the writing on the show then he should finish the books to give the show-writers more material to draw from. That's the scenario that would make everyone happiest.

I think the show-runners have done a really good job so far. Not perfect, but really good. Tywin-Arya was fantastic, Gendry-Stannis was good, making Cersei a 3D character was pretty good, Theon at the dreadfort, while difficult to watch, was well-done. Tyrion and Shae is pretty good as well.

I think they missed on Robb attacking Casterly Rock instead of needing to go back to the North, don't really understand that choice. I too would have preferred Jeyne Westerling over Talisa. It's hard to understand why people follow Stannis on the show.

The show looks great and the actors are fantastic. It's a tough story to serialize. I wouldn't go as far as calling them hacks, I really like a lot of the different spins they put on characters and the spotlights they put on non-POV characters in the story. Part of the appeal of the show, to me, is that you get to see on-screen a perspective on scenes that you know have happened off-screen in the books sometimes.

[LordFirkraag]

You also have the audience expectations to deal with. The show-runners want each season to be at least as good as the last season and, if possible, have a crazier ending. There's enough fireworks in AFFC and ADWD for 1 great season and that's about it. There's not really enough time in the production life-cycle to get heavily into character development at this point.

One season for these two novels? To cover all the old characters -- most of them now in separate locations -- as well as Dorne and the Iron Islands? Come on: that is utterly ridiculous. aSoS has had two seasons, and it still feels to most fans of the series that they're glossing over the material in the books.

Character exploration can be just as satisfying, if not more so, than high body count. Many people in this thread don't seem to understand this point.

[Colonel Green]

It didn't work and they shied away from that in season three.

Not really. Almost everybody was in at least seven episodes, the exceptions being Bran and some of the Dragonstone people, who had 4-6. They'll want to continue with that going forward, or they will lose all plot momentum (what little many of those stories have to begin with; the Stark kids are all already in basically a holding pattern, for instance). They are not going to reduce huge swathes of the cast to bit players for two seasons.

They don't have the plot; they have a very rough outline of the plot. It simply won't be enough -- especially given that GRRM himself has had to wrestle with the complexity of the narrative. You seem to underestimate just how daunting a task it is to write a story, come up with memorable scenes that advance the story, and translate that into a screenplay. They'll have to hire a whole new team of writers, and that itself will cause creative problems; or they'd be taking on a bunch of responsibilities for which they don't have the time or the ability.

They can get additional plot info as needed, but you seem to be overlooking that the writers are already largely treating the books as a source of plot outline. King's Landing last season, for instance, had more invented scenes than scenes from the books.

And, again, they've made it very clear they aren't waiting for GRRM. This isn't something they're considering.

[Phonzadellika]

One season for these two novels? To cover all the old characters -- most of them now in separate locations -- as well as Dorne and the Iron Islands? Come on: that is utterly ridiculous. aSoS has had two seasons, and it still feels to most fans of the series that they're glossing over the material in the books.

Character exploration can be just as satisfying, if not more so, than high body count. Many people in this thread don't seem to understand this point.

Sure, character exploration can be satisfying, but you have to have the screen time available to make it work. You can develop Walter White and Jesse Pinkman over multiple seasons because you can devote 20 minutes per episode to each character and have them respond to differently to similar situations multiple times to show their growth or de-evolution as human beings.

I don't think it's feasible to do character development in GOT. You'd have to have 24 episodes per season to delve into the characters properly. GOT is telling an epic story with lots of interlocking parts and that's the audience interest in the story at this point. The characters in ADWD and AFFC get interesting because of the development but most of the books are spent developing the characters and there isn't a whole lot going on otherwise. You can do the very necessary bits of character development - Dany sucks as a ruler, Jon makes emotional decisions that aliennate his base-of-support but win the masses, Stannis learns to be flexible, etc. but spending a season on the Tyrion pity-party and then a 2nd season as Tyrion-as-a-slave is just too much for a story that has 2 books yet to be published, 4 books to show on TV, and 4 seasons to do it in tops.

[LordFirkraag]

I think the show-runners have done a really good job so far. Not perfect, but really good.

Every single one of the scenes that the fans love most is pulled from the novels.

Apparently the writers don't even have the ability to mimic the characters' speaking styles...let alone mimic the creative flair of a writer such as GRRM.

I don't think it's feasible to do character development in GOT. You'd have to have 24 episodes per season to delve into the characters properly.

We already have seen character development, e.g. in Arya, Sansa, Jaime, perhaps Jon. We'll see it with Tyrion this season. There's no rule saying you can't have character development if you have a lot of characters to cover. The Sopranos managed it. Breaking Bad was just a poor show with limp, stagnant characters.

[Phonzadellika]

Every single one of the scenes that the fans love most is pulled from the novels.

Apparently the writers don't even have the ability to mimic the characters' speaking styles...let alone mimic the creative flair of a writer such as GRRM.

Out of curiosity, which seens weren't included that you would have like to have seen?

Different people love different things. I would have loved to have seen Theon threatening to hang the Cassell girl and the rest of the hostages. That would have been awesome. I also would have preferred to see Robb having everyone acknowledge that Jon was his heir.

[Colonel Green]

Every single one of the scenes that the fans love most is pulled from the novels.

Apparently the writers don't even have the ability to mimic the characters' speaking styles...let alone mimic the creative flair of a writer such as GRRM.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here -- that you would prefer if they waited? Fair enough. But nothing you've said resembles an argument for why they will wait, since it's all premised on the idea that the writers are aware that they suck, which I rather doubt (quite apart from, again, the fact that they've said they won't wait).

[DaveyJoe]

On the other hand, switching one of the greatest writers of the day for a pair of upstarts is almost certain to lead to weak material which will turn off the viewers. Instead of television series based on a first-rate story, you'll have an ordinary television series. It'll become like Xena the Warrior Princess or something.

You're being really unfair to Benioff and Weiss. They're not bad writers. All of their novels have been very well received. They also wrote 20 episodes of the show. Have you enjoyed the show at all? If so, it's ridiculous to dismiss them as much as you're doing here. They've done a great job adapting this series to TV and it's not their fault that GRRM is taking forever to finish the series.

[jbent87]

My concern is that come season 5, we're going to have a totally different show than what we've become accustomed to thus far. By not introducing some of the newer characters in season 4, come s5 we're going to have the Greyjoy uncles, Arianne/Doran/Sandsnakes/Darkstar(?) and gods knows who else we'll encounter in Essos/Mereen. That's a lot of time to devote to fleshing those new characters out when the majority of the viewing audience is going to be clamoring for Dragons in Westeros and Others breaching the Wall.

s4 is going to have so much action and plot resolution for main characters that it's going to be hard to get the masses to settle down and reinvest in these new guys, IMO. If that is how it goes, I think the book people will be okay, but the tv only ppl are going to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off.