As to the Adaptation, am I the only one...

[The Prince of Newcastle]

At this stage, the TV show more or less looks like an INSPIRATION from the ASoIaF not an Adaptation.

This is completely untrue. A gross exaggeration at best.

[Stan the Man Baratheon]

This is completely untrue. A gross exaggeration at best.

Heh. It is not even an exaggeration, let alone be a "a gross exaggeration". This is solely from my viewpoint. If you think that this an proper adaptation then well be my guest.

[The Prince of Newcastle]

Not really, I get the feeling that the thought patterns and the language of the characters sometimes lapse into the current times, especially when D&D are writing their own plotlines or changing existing plotlines into something they like.

Talisa is probably an all-time cliche, Robb's lines like "You want me to marry the Frey girl because you arranged it" and conversations about "charitable work" are completely anachronistic

I mean that in the books it's quite fantastical. Moat Cailin is magical esque. Grey Water Watch etc.

In the show... The places don't seem like 8000 year old fantastical locations. They seem like normal English castles to me.

[The Prince of Newcastle]

Heh. It is not even an exaggeration, let alone be a "a gross exaggeration". This is solely from my viewpoint. If you think that this an proper adaptation then well be my guest.

Well, that's cool and stuff mate, and I do think it's a great adaptation and I think it's very close to the source material.

Saying it's merely inspired by the books is a gross exaggeration that to my eyes does a huge disservice to the show as frankly I cannot think of an adaptation that follows the source material so closely.

LOTR doesn't come close to being as close to the source.

Dune... The less said the better.

I would say it's as close to the source as anything is likely to get.

IMO of course, which me not being a writer or working in TV boils down to little more than "this is close enough to me"

[JagLover]

For the most part the show is as faithful as an adaption can reasonable be.

The majority of the major characters are identical or very similar to the book counter-parts by this stage of the story.

It is mostly true however that they do better when they stay close to the books. However most of the "invented" material in S3 was far better than in S2 so they seem to be getting better in that regard.

Rather than "where are mae dragons" or the Rob Talisa romance. We had Maergery's invented material, Gendry filling in for the other bastard, or Littlefingers "chaos is a ladder" monologue.

['96Buck]

I mean that in the books it's quite fantastical. Moat Cailin is magical esque. Grey Water Watch etc.

In the show... The places don't seem like 8000 year old fantastical locations. They seem like normal English castles to me.

How much are you willing to pay to watch this show? They can't afford to build numerous fantastic castles.

[boojam]

In way after four years odd how this topic still comes up, maybe not.

One thing I give Dave and Dan credit for, and they even apparently mentioned it to HBO 6 or 7 years ago... that Fantasy, and Adult Fantasy should not have the stigma they used to have.

Maybe it was Peter Jackson who pioneered this?

The Harry Potter series was really sold as a 'children's' story , but did have a huge fan base.

I am amazed Jackson was able to wedge out 300 million on LTOR which is not a children's story, it is adult but not ADULT!

I still see critics who are 'genre' unfriendly to GOT, New York Tims you listening?

So Dave and Dan must have done some really hard work to sell this story, even if they bungled the first pilot!

Hats off to them.

[The Prince of Newcastle]

How much are you willing to pay to watch this show? They can't afford to build numerous fantastic castles.

I don't expect them too and I have no real problems with the sets which are largely outstanding.

But for example, Storms End... It's not "magical" enough.

The book has this mystical quality to it that the show doesn't.

The magic dreams etc. The warging.

[lord athos]

the show is one of the most faithful adaptation i ever seen of a book or a series of books. It is not a chapter per chapter adaptation, but the substance is there. The thing is that GRRM world is so rich that it is very hard to translate everything on screen. Television is a very different medium than books. So i think the show must be seen as a take, a perspective on the incredibly complex world of ASOIAF. In this regard, it is very good and successful.

[The Prince of Newcastle]

They could make it more magicy is my only real complaint basically.

Yeah I understand the changes they make and sometimes I think "what was the point of that? Just stick to the book" but for whatever reasons they don't.

The westerlings would have been great. But they aren't in the show and are pretty minor in the books anyway.

I can't think of many adaptions that follow the source material do closely

[lord athos]

The change from jeyne to talisa is for me a good one because it gives more impact to the red wedding. In the books, there are a lot of secondary character that die or are captured in this event, but since the show can't portray them, having another important character dying at the wedding is a good way to preserve the emotional substance of it.

[lord athos]

The oly real complaint i have is the missed introduction of stannis in second season. The guy deserved a good 20-30 minutes of screen time of exposition, since he is the big player entering in the season two. audiences needed to understand where he came from and his motives, which i don't think his introduction allowed. There could have been for example a scene where maester cressen is talking to his soon to be successor maester pylon about stannis background, his childhood and relationship with robert, ect. The burning of the gods should have been more extensive too.

[Seer of Green]

I've always felt that in the case of adapting a book series (ASoIaF) to a multi-season TV show (GoT), deviations are born out of necessity, for many reasons. One issue is having aging actors portraying children that remain young in the books. Another example is having to deal with a filming budget. There are many vital scenes in the books that would just be way to expensive to film. GRRM has even gone on record saying that some of the changes D&D made were actually better than what GRRM had written. For instance, Martin has said that he liked the way the character of Bronn was portrayed on the show better than the way he wrote. Then you have instances where deviations were made just because certain scenes were simply drawn out loo long and could possibly lose the viewer's attention. But there are certain deviations that I just don't like and/or agree with. For instance, I don't like how much the sequence of Dany in the House of the Undying deviates from the source material. There's just so much that happens at the House of the Undying that becomes the foundation for R+L=J that was completely absent from the way the scene played out on the show. If the R+L=J theory is indeed true, I wonder how D&D are going to plant that seed in the viewers mind when it's so vital in the book. Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. I think most of the deviations work because they were pretty much a necessity, but I do agree that some were unnecessary and in some cases, as mentioned, completely change the future of the series.

[briantw]

That's just the thing isn't it. I don't see people asking that D+D write a show which follows our personal interpretations. All I see is people asking that D+D write an objective and unbiased adaptation. As in not writing in new events which make characters look better or worse based on whether or not D+D likes them or not.

There is no such thing as an unbiased adaptation, with the obvious exception being if it is adapted by the person who wrote the original material (and even then, things tend to change). Any time any work is adapted, the person(s) responsible are inevitably going to add their own touch, their own voice, to the material.

I also really don't understand this logic that D&D are making characters look better or worse based on their personal feelings about a character. Do we have any actual proof of this? The Stannis rage seems to come from some innocuous comment one of the guys made during an interview that had nothing to do with liking or disliking Stannis. As I recall, they said that he would make a terrible king. I totally agree with that statement, and somehow I still love Stannis as a character. It just seems to me that people took an out of context quote and made it into something that wasn't actually said to the point where the rage is actually kind of laughable.

For the record, I do think that Stannis' portrayal on the show hasn't been great, but I think that's more due to the writers simply making some mistakes with his arc than some ridiculous desire on their part to make him look bad because they hate him. I thought the Talisa arc was poorly done as well, but I don't think it was because D&D hate Robb or Jeyne Westerling. I think that they tried to simplify a character's origins and in the process accidentally screwed up a plot arc.

Yes, we all would like a perfect adaptation, but that's just not realistic for a story this vast and complex. Mistakes have certainly been made, and even D&D have admitted that they'd like a few takesies-backsies. I don't think, however, that the mistakes are large enough to take away from what is really a pretty great show.

[Jairion Lannister]

The change from jeyne to talisa is for me a good one because it gives more impact to the red wedding. In the books, there are a lot of secondary character that die or are captured in this event, but since the show can't portray them, having another important character dying at the wedding is a good way to preserve the emotional substance of it.

Yeah, the changes weren't great overall in that they made Robb look quite stupid, but at least his new wife at least had some sort of character about her, even if she wasn't great. His book wife was essentially a non-character, just there as a plot point.

[Travy1991]

Heh. It is not even an exaggeration, let alone be a "a gross exaggeration". This is solely from my viewpoint. If you think that this an proper adaptation then well be my guest.

This is a gross exaggeration. The show is largely faithful to the books and follows the plotlines very closely. I don't know how many books you've read that have been translated to screen but most films and TV shows make drastic changes to the source material for the screen. You only need to look at HBO's other book adaptation, True Blood. I watched the show and then read the books and the show takes massive liberties with plotlines and characters. Some storylines are ghosts of the plot in the novels and the rest was all made up or changed around by the show.

Game of Thrones might simplify a few characters, switch around the timeline slightly or combine a couple of supporting characters in the novels into one character for the show and that can be an annoyance. But overall, they have stuck pretty firmly to George's novels. Can you honestly say you've been surprised by much in the show? No because you've read the books and the show has followed them pretty strongly.

As for criticism of the show, I think criticism is valid. I don't doubt at all that Dan and David work extremely hard on the show but I think their ability can be criticised. I'm overall a big fan of the show and think they've done a great job but sometimes their writing is lacking and this is depicted in not giving Tyrion and Catelyn the layers they have in the novels. I don't think the characters are ruined though. Show Tyrion is still the witty, intelligent and scorned dwarf with the fucked up family like he is in the novels and Show Catelyn was still the maternal, grim negotiator that often had her emotional side take over her rationale. Yes, we lost the hints of morally dubious behaviour from Tyrion and the peacekeeping, strategist side of Catelyn but these were never huge parts of their characters arc (sure Tyrion's moral dubiousness is but they can get to that later in the season).

I'm not against people criticising the show and saying they wish Dan and David could handle these elements better. I'm not against people who say that they can't get past their love of the books to view the show in its own right. I'm not against nitpicking elements they simply have a visceral dislike of. But I do have a problem with people throwing around words like "abomination" and "ruination" as if they are valid statements. Take your nose out of the novels for two seconds and get a grip on reality here!

[David Selig]

For example Cercei sharing her childbirthing experience with Cat. You can like it or not, but the writers have probably thought it through more than any of us know.

Well, given that according to them it was possible for the queen to give birth to a boy without Catelyn finding about it for years, obviously they didn't think this scene through at all, because that's plainly ridiculous.

[protar]

Absolutely! Anyone can criticize anything they want; however the more someone knows about a topic the more interesting and informative their critique will be.

For example, GRRM knows more about Westeros than anyone; so his opinions carry the most weight. Doesn't mean you have to like or agree with what he says, but yes, he is absolutely more qualified than anyone here to. To a lesser extent, anyone who writes for TV is more qualified than someone who has not. Someone writes for HBO is even more qualified. Everyone who posts here is obviously a fan of the books; this doesn't make you also an expert in how to adapt a series of novels for HBO. There more specific skillsets involved than just being a big fan of the source material. However if you write well, express your views clearly and back up your statements with verifiable information, that is a good start.

I of course agree that knowing more about television production will lend people's praise or criticism more credence. But that's not what some people are saying. Many are dismissing any and all complaints about the show if the complainer doesn't have a job in television. And they never use their supposedly superior knowledge to enlighten us as to why a certain change was objectively necessary - they just say "no you're wrong, I'm right." None of these self-termed "experts" here on the forums have ever told me anything I didn't already know from my own education. There's several posters that really need to get off their high horse about whatever jobs they do or don't have in television.

[Lontra]

If the R+L=J theory is indeed true, I wonder how D&D are going to plant that seed in the viewers mind when it's so vital in the book.

Don't you think that they have started with Oberyn's mention of Rhaegar"s running off with another woman?

In general I think the adaptation is good. Sometimes I find things annoying. I thought Talisa would make my head explode, both with her anacronism and the way her presence warped Rob. Over all though, when I watch an episode the ending music starts and I realize an hour has passed and it felt like 15 min. There aren't many shows that have that effect. So I would say the adaptation has at least captured the absorbing nature of the books.

[lord athos]

Yeah, the changes weren't great overall in that they made Robb look quite stupid, but at least his new wife at least had some sort of character about her, even if she wasn't great. His book wife was essentially a non-character, just there as a plot point.

Robb is quite stupid in the books, he is 15 after all, it is normal.