[BOOK SPOILERS] Watching the show if it overpasses the books [Part 2]

[Janicia]

Kudos to Annara Snow and Seneti for taking a shot at defining "filler" . . . but neither of those definitions is quite right. Words mean specific things. Filler means something specific.

There is no filler in A Song of Ice and Fire. Unsuccessful writing does appear from time to time in the approximately 6,000 published pages, but filler? None.

Dictionary.com

Journalism. material, considered of secondary importance, used to fill out a column or page.

World English Dictionary

6. journalism articles, photographs, etc, to fill space between more important articles in the layout of a newspaper or magazine

7. informal something, such as a musical selection, to fill time in a broadcast or stage presentation

Merriam-Webster.com

material used to fill extra space in a column or page of a newspaper or magazine or to increase the size of a work (as a book)

If you define filler as something that can't happen in a novel, then sure, there is no filler in the novel. Your point regarding motivation for padding is well taken, but filler is being used in this discussion in a more general sense than the specific definition you offer.

We could call it something else, but that's just semantics. We are discussing the stuff that doesn't add to the plot, we are calling it "filler", and a dictionary's 6th definition for "filler" that doesn't pertain to books is not particularly relevant.

[sj4iy]

Did you even read the definitions? Whether or not something is "important to the story overall" does not define whether it is "filler." If it is, then writers like James Joyce and Thomas Pyncheon pretty much wrote nothing but filler.

I'm just trying to see that this word "filler" doesn't get away from us and start meaning "anything I don't like." The word has a meaning, and I'm pretty confident that not one single word was put into ASOIAF for the purpose of making it longer.

I know English quite well, thank you. And this isn't a newspaper, this is a book. The actual definition of filler is "a thing put in a space or container to fill it". Something CAN be a filler in a book if it's in there to fill the gaps in the story.

If Martin is writing storylines just to keep someone doing something until a specific point, then it's filler. If Brienne is simply wandering around Westeros only for the purpose of passing the time until she meets with the BWB, then it's filler. It's there to fill in the gaps in his story. Out of Brienne's 8 chapters in AFFC, she probably only needed 3 or 4 at most to get all of the important and relevant plot points in.

And really, almost everything concerning Dany in Meereen is filler by Martin's own admission. He didn't want her to have to stick around there, he was going to jump it ahead in time. Yet he realized he couldn't do that...so then he had to write a bunch of stuff just to give her something to do until he could finally move on with the story. That's why it's called The Meereenese Knot.

[Hodor's Dragon]

If you define filler as something that can't happen in a novel, then sure, there is no filler in the novel. Your point regarding motivation for padding is well taken, but filler is being used in this discussion in a more general sense than the specific definition you offer.

We could call it something else, but that's just semantics. We are discussing the stuff that doesn't add to the plot, we are calling it "filler", and a dictionary's 6th definition for "filler" that doesn't pertain to books is not particularly relevant.

Well, I'm a word guy. We're misusing this word regularly. That's sloppy communication. I'm not going to fight a war over it, but I am going to show the flag.

What proves it's sloppy communication is that the word is being used to mean several different things. When that happens, people don't really understand each other and ideas don't get properly threshed out. Maybe it's "just semantics," but semantics itself is a word, and it doesn't mean "useless drivel."

[Janicia]

Well, I'm a word guy. We're misusing this word regularly. That's sloppy communication. I'm not going to fight a war over it, but I am going to show the flag.

What proves it's sloppy communication is that the word is being used to mean several different things. When that happens, people don't really understand each other and ideas don't get properly threshed out. Maybe it's "just semantics," but semantics itself is a word, and it doesn't mean "useless drivel."

I think the bigger source of disagreement is which parts of the story are important, not the motivation for including the irrelevant parts of the story, which is what your definition of filler gets at.

The first season of the show did include several scenes that were filler by your definition, and they were among the best scenes.

[Hodor's Dragon]

I know English quite well, thank you. And this isn't a newspaper, this is a book. The actual definition of filler is "a thing put in a space or container to fill it". Something CAN be a filler in a book if it's in there to pass the time.

If Martin is writing storylines just to keep someone doing something until a specific point, then it's filler. If Brienne is simply wandering around Westeros only for the purpose of passing the time until she meets with the BWB, then it's filler. It's there to fill in the gaps in his story. Out of Brienne's 8 chapters in AFFC, she probably only needed 3 or 4 at most to get all of the important and relevant plot points in.

And really, almost everything concerning Dany in Meereen is filler by Martin's own admission. He didn't want her to have to stick around there, he was going to jump it ahead in time. Yet he realized he couldn't do that...so then he had to write a bunch of stuff just to give her something to do until he could finally move on with the story. That's why it's called The Meereenese Knot.

"put in a space to fill it." Your definition is just like mine. There's a certain amount of space available, and you put something in there with the intent to fill it. It might be a description of jellied eels to fill pages, it might be a 2-minute song to fill 23 minutes in a half-hour variety show, it might be joint compound to fill a nailhole. That's filler.

Now maybe you could argue that time is something that has to be filled in the books, there is a certain amount of it available, etc. But I still don't quite buy it, because you don't have to write pages to fill time. Just don't go to that POV for a while. Don't go there until enough time has passed. You never had to write filler, and if you did it wouldn't really help, because the time doesn't pass until the other necessary events elsewhere happen.

In fact . . . if people are expecting a certain POV . . . and it doesn't show up for a while . . . then narrative tension builds. People want to see that character again, even if s/he is doing nothing. I wouldn't call that filler, I'd call it keeping the readcers happy.

I think everything in the book is there to entertain. I don't think any of it is there to pad.

[Hodor's Dragon]

I think the bigger source of disagreement is which parts of the story are important, not the motivation for including the irrelevant parts of the story, which is what your definition of filler gets at.

The first season of the show did include several scenes that were filler by your definition, and they were among the best scenes.

Oh, there absolutely is filler in the show, I'm just talking about the books.

And as I've said before, stuff can be filler and also very good. It often isn't, but it sure can be.

[Annara Snow]

I don't see how most of Brienne or Jaime's chapters can be anything but. How are their travelogues important to the story overall? What is the intention of their respective arcs other than to keep them busy until they meet up with each other, when something interesting happens and then we get a cliffhanger.

Filler need not be boring, and not every important plot element is interesting. But there is filler in these books. Moreso in the last two than the first three.

Hodor's Dragon has just explained why they are not "filler". Filler is something that is intended as such - intended to fill the required space or time that the author(s) doesn't know how to spend otherwise. This is what often happens in TV shows - particularly US shows with long seasons (22 or more episodes). For instance, I love Buffy, probably my favorite show of all time, but it's very obvious in every season that some 4-5 out of those 22 episodes were filler - the writers were obviously just looking for some standalone stories to fulfill the required quota of 22 episodes.

Brienne's and Jaime's chapters are clearly not "filler", because GRRM was not required to write a specific number of chapters or pages; in fact, he originally intended to write just one book, but it grew and grew and eventually had to be split in two books (AFFC and what was later to become ADWD) due to its length. So, he certainly wasn't trying to "fill" anything and struggling to come up with something just as a "filler", quite the opposite. You may find those chapter boring or uninteresting (I don't), but that's a matter of personal preference. They are not "filler because they were not intended as such. GRRM didn't have to give Brienne all those chapters, he could have just skipped over most of it and showed her only meeting Rorge and Biter and then the BtW and Lady Stoneheart. He didn't need to show Jaime in Riverlands, he could have straight up showed him meeting Brienne and skipped everything before. Book characters don't have contracts about the number of chapters they need to be in.

"How are their travelogues important to the story overall?"

- What do you consider "story overall"? Just the bare plot? If that were the books are read for, you could just read the Wikipedia summary or some reader digest and get the same experience.

I love Brienne's and Jaime's chapters in AFFC.

The reason I was interested in Brienne's chapters was not whether she would find Sansa (which I never thought she would). What her chapters do is: tells us a lot of about Brienne's background and her inner life, the struggles of a woman who does not fit the usual gender role and has to deal with all sorts of prejudice and abuse - even though she is the truest knight/classic chivalric hero from medieval romance there is in the series (I liked her before, but it's only in AFFC when she got her POV that she really became one of my favorites) ; show us the sad wasteland and chaos that is a land ravaged by the war and all sorts of armies, mercenaries and outlaws, and the fates and psychologies of all those different men who have been participating in that chaos, from human monsters to "broken" men. Not to mention that Brienne's chapters also show us what happened to many of the characters we had met, from the Bloody Mummers (allowing Brienne to kill some of the men she had bad history with and close that chapter in her life) to Brotherhood without Banners, Gendry etc. and one Lady Stoneheart... not to mention the mystery of what happened to one Sandor Clegane - and the fact that he's my favorite character, and that I was also always super-interested in BwB, certainly help make Brienne's chapters among my favorite in the book.

Likewise, Jaime's chapters contain a lot of character development for Jaime (another one of my favorite characters), as he is redefining himself and learning to use means other than sword fighting (i.e. starting to use his brains as his main weapon, for a change), to defeat his enemies through manipulation, and other 'peaceful' means, not just because he is not the best swordfighter anymore, but because he is trying to navigate a complicated ethical situation (how to take over Riverrun from the Tullys if you have vowed not to take up arms against them?) - and we also, as in Brienne's chapters, see the consequences of the war and the Red Wedding, and learn the fates of many characters, from Blackfish, to Edmure Tully and Roslin, to other Freys, to Vargo Hoat or Gregor Clegane's men, or the smallfolk who have been victimized by the war, like Pia (and we also learn more about Jaime from the way he treats those people).

[sj4iy]

"put in a space to fill it." Your definition is just like mine. There's a certain amount of space available, and you put something in there with the intent to fill it. It might be a description of jellied eels to fill pages, it might be a 2-minute song to fill 23 minutes in a half-hour variety show, it might be joint compound to fill a nailhole. That's filler.

Now maybe you could argue that time is something that has to be filled in the books, there is a certain amount of it available, etc. But I still don't quite buy it, because you don't have to write pages to fill time. Just don't go to that POV for a while. Don't go there until enough time has passed. You never had to write filler, and if you did it wouldn't really help, because the time doesn't pass until the other necessary events elsewhere happen.

In fact . . . if people are expecting a certain POV . . . and it doesn't show up for a while . . . then narrative tension builds. People want to see that character again, even if s/he is doing nothing. I wouldn't call that filler, I'd call it keeping the readcers happy.

I think everything in the book is there to entertain. I don't think any of it is there to pad.

You can, too, write pages to fill time...especially if you have as many characters as Martin has that have to interact with each other at certain points in the books.

You may disagree about what is entertaining, but there is most certainly padding in the books- especially the last two, where it's obvious that he found himself in a predicament that he wasn't expecting what with not being able to jump ahead 5 years like he originally planned.

[Newstar]

My main experience of the term "filler" in relation to TV shows is in relation to Japanese anime shows adapted from a source manga, or comic book, while the manga is ongoing. To prevent the anime from overtaking the manga, it will be padded with self-contained filler arcs with new characters and stories. Thus the anime stays comfortably behind the source material.

Of course, D&D are not doing a filler arc strictly in that sense, although they have padded book arcs with non-book material to prevent them from overtaking other TV storylines (the Hound/Arya arc this season, e.g.). It looks like the Sansa Vale tour will be filler in the sense that the writers are likely marking time until Tyrion, Dany, Cersei and Jon catch up, but without TWOW released, we won't know either way.

[Annara Snow]

You can, too, write pages to fill time...especially if you have as many characters as Martin has that have to interact with each other at certain points in the books.

You may disagree about what is entertaining, but there is most certainly padding in the books- especially the last two, where it's obvious that he found himself in a predicament that he wasn't expecting what with not being able to jump ahead 5 years like he originally planned.

He wasn't able to jump ahead exactly because he realized that the characters aged 15+ weren't going to be sitting on their asses and doing nothing for five years, waiting for the Stark kids to grow up. (I can't believe he ever thought it was going to be a good idea - in time of peace, OK, but right after/in the middle of a civil war?) That doesn't mean that they're only doing "unimportant" stuff. For instance, Jon trying to integrate the wildlings into the realm, turning some of the influential NW members against him and getting stabbed is clearly not "filler" just there before he starts doing the important stuff - it is important stuff, which he would have probably been doing anyway after the time jump, only GRRM fortunately finally realized that you can't say "oh well there has been 5 years, and nothing interesting happened to Jon as the LC... but now it's starting to happen!"

Oh, and Theon is an example that GRRM is perfectly willing to have characters disappear for an entire book. As I said, book characters have no contracts that they have to appear in a certain number of chapters or pages. GRRM could have shown Dany, Tyrion, Brienne and Jaime with the same storylines, but with many fewer chapters, if he believed that they really didn't need so many chapters for their development/the development of the characters and situations around them. And then he would have had just one book instead of two, as he had originally planned, and wouldn't have had to split the books by location/characters and therefore piss off much of the fandom. The idea that he had to put "filler" in there just doesn't make sense. Whatever you or anyone thinks about some of these plots or chapters, GRRM seems to have thought they were important - or else, what reason was there to put them in there?

[Janicia]

The idea that he had to put "filler" in there just doesn't make sense. Whatever you or anyone thinks about some of these plots or chapters, GRRM seems to have thought they were important - or else, what reason was there to put them in there?

For whatever reason, GRRM thought that spending a lot of time with Quentyn was important and worthwhile. For whatever reason, D&D thought the Pod sex sequence was important and worthwhile. Neither choice has paid off yet; my guess is that neither will.

[Annara Snow]

For whatever reason, GRRM thought that spending a lot of time with Quentyn was important and worthwhile. For whatever reason, D&D thought the Pod sex sequence was important and worthwhile. Neither choice has paid off yet; my guess is that neither will.

In case of Pod sex sequence, it wasn't about important, it was about what they thought was funny (not to me, but anyway). So, while I hated it, it's not really filler but attempt at humor (plus, it also gave the opportunity for the obligatory amount of T&A, but since they continued referencing it afterwards, they clearly believed it was really funny).

[sj4iy]

Whatever you or anyone thinks about some of these plots or chapters, GRRM seems to have thought they were important - or else, what reason was there to put them in there?

He could think that 500 pages of Arya sweeping the floor was important enough to put in there for whatever reason...that doesn't make it true, though.

Just because an author writes something doesn't mean that they are the best judge of their own work, otherwise there would be no such thing as a bad book or a bad tv show.

[Annara Snow]

He could think that 500 pages of Arya sweeping the floor was important enough to put in there for whatever reason...that doesn't make it true, though.

Just because an author writes something doesn't mean that they are the best judge of their own work, otherwise there would be no such thing as a bad book or a bad tv show.

But we weren't talking about whether any of those scenes or plots were good or bad. We were talking about whether they were filler.

[sj4iy]

But we weren't talking about whether any of those scenes or plots were good or bad. We were talking about whether they were filler.

Some of it is filler, and some of it isn't.

[HairGrowsBack]

Like it or not, Arya scrubbing the floor, Brienne wandering, Jaime's Riverlands tour, etc, were at the very least important to their character development.

It bored you, that's a shame, but it doesn't make it filler.

[Frey Pies]

^ They were important to the character development up to a certain extent. After a certain number of chapters on them, however, they just became redundant. It does make it filler if the same points that could be condensed easily are brought about over and over.

[protar]

For whatever reason, GRRM thought that spending a lot of time with Quentyn was important and worthwhile. For whatever reason, D&D thought the Pod sex sequence was important and worthwhile. Neither choice has paid off yet; my guess is that neither will.

You're really comparing those two things? You're comparing the event that frees the dragons and that will likely cause the Dornish to turn against Dany to...a sex joke?

[Janicia]

The vast majority of the time we spend with Quentyn wasn't freeing dragons. It was wandering around incompetently for chapters. Quentyn didn't need to be a point of view character to free the dragons, either.

The Pod thing took 3 minutes on a character that needed to emerge from the background.

There were reasons for both, but neither really worked.

I'm not sure how this thread got onto a discussion on what is and isn't filler. More broadly, somethings work or don't work in the books, and some things work or don't work in the show, and some things that worked in the books wouldn't work in the show. And the show has the opportunity to do things that weren't in the books, like Tywin/Olenna conversations, that work.

In the excitement of arguing, I tend to state positions more extreme than the ones I actually hold. The books have brought me a lot of joy. The show has brought me a lot of joy. I'm grateful to all the artists involved for their work, and I sincerely hope they continue to make great things. Apparently the creator of Lost was so destroyed by the Lost fandom over the finale that his ability to create was hurt. That's horrible.

[Brewmaster]

Quentyn wasn't intended to be filler. But Quentyn didn't work. Quentyn was ineffective due much in part to the fact of when he was introduced in the story.

Most readers cared little about Quentyn because of how late he was introduced into the story. Also he was intentionally written as being a bit of a "boring" person. Quiet, unimposing, non-threatening and not much of an "action-man". He doesn't "do" much of anything until his final act which results in his death. I wouldn't quite consider Quentyn filler, because GRRM clearly indented to write this. However, I would say it is also one of the most ineffective written arcs in the books, as I don't think it provided the intended effect for the vast majority of the audience.

Yes, freeing the dragons could have been handled a lot better and didn't need another POV character introduced this late in the game to accomplish it. And if he felt strongly enough that it did require such, presenting the character as unassuming as he did with Quentyn is a poor way to draw the reader in.