Hizdahr and Yunkia (Book Spoilers)

[DaveyJoe]

If they filmed such a scene, it was cut in the final product. There was no mention of anything like that as far as I remember. If any such mention exists, it'd be in the same episode where Dany crucified the masters but I don't recall anything in that episode about that either.

The first supplicant was the goat herd and second was Hizdahr asking to bury his father. Other than that and the throwaway line, we've had no other information about the state of Meereen since it was captured.

These are things that deserve to be dealt with onscreen, not in the background or through throwaway lines. More time on this sort of thing and less time on Night's Watch deserters and weak battles at the Dreadfort would have been ideal I think.

I agree that some of Dany's scenes have felt rushed this year, but I'm not sure I would cut Craster's Keep or Dreadfort stuff to make time. It's all a delicate balance, the Craster's Keep mission especially seemed to be a crowd pleaser for show watchers, and it futhered Bran and Jon's characters. The Dreadfort scene was important to emphasize Theon's broken identiy, even if it felt rushed. The problem with Dany's story is the disconect with the plot in Westeros. This is a problem in the books, Dany's storyline in ADWD was my favorite, but it's extremely polarizing and gets a ton of hate among book readers. The producers need to keep Dany relevant and do justice to her arc but they spend too much time on it, they're going to frustrate viewers like GRRM frustrated readers in ADWD. I am all ready hearing friends talk about how much they are starting to hate Dany's scenes. I'd love to see Meereen be fleshed out much more, but the show needs to keep the momentum going. It will be interesting to see how the arcs all play out when it's all said and done.

[Mad Monkey]

I think you can keep the momentum going while portraying Dany's storyline in Meereen. The TV show has the opportunity to do something that I think the book should have done, which is to show the situation deteriorating on the ground from the POV of someone on the ground. Instead of just having Dany sitting on her throne listening to intelligence reports from Reznak, why not have shots of battles in the street, freedmen clashing with Masters, Harpy's Sons slaying Unsullied, people arguing for and against Daenerys. This could be a good way to expand the roles of Grey Worm or Missandei, having them act as Dany's eyes and ears on the ground (or having them do it on their own, really).

They could do a lot without having to worry about changing things from the book and it could be as fast-paced and kinetic as the Craster's Keep mission (which I honestly enjoyed). Part of the problem I had with the ADWD storyline was that it was very sedentary; I don't think Dany left the Pyramid even once until she married Hizdahr. It robbed the shadow way of assassinations and intrigue in Meereen of most of its excitement since all of it was relayed secondhand to her after the fact. This was logical for the books but it would make for terrible TV.

[Tixu Oty]

I think you can keep the momentum going while portraying Dany's storyline in Meereen. The TV show has the opportunity to do something that I think the book should have done, which is to show the situation deteriorating on the ground from the POV of someone on the ground. Instead of just having Dany sitting on her throne listening to intelligence reports from Reznak, why not have shots of battles in the street, freedmen clashing with Masters, Harpy's Sons slaying Unsullied, people arguing for and against Daenerys. This could be a good way to expand the roles of Grey Worm or Missandei, having them act as Dany's eyes and ears on the ground (or having them do it on their own, really).

[snip]

Part of the problem I had with the ADWD storyline was that it was very sedentary; I don't think Dany left the Pyramid even once until she married Hizdahr. It robbed the shadow way of assassinations and intrigue in Meereen of most of its excitement since all of it was relayed secondhand to her after the fact.

Good analysis and I like your idea

[DaveyJoe]

I think you can keep the momentum going while portraying Dany's storyline in Meereen. The TV show has the opportunity to do something that I think the book should have done, which is to show the situation deteriorating on the ground from the POV of someone on the ground. Instead of just having Dany sitting on her throne listening to intelligence reports from Reznak, why not have shots of battles in the street, freedmen clashing with Masters, Harpy's Sons slaying Unsullied, people arguing for and against Daenerys. This could be a good way to expand the roles of Grey Worm or Missandei, having them act as Dany's eyes and ears on the ground (or having them do it on their own, really).

They could do a lot without having to worry about changing things from the book and it could be as fast-paced and kinetic as the Craster's Keep mission (which I honestly enjoyed). Part of the problem I had with the ADWD storyline was that it was very sedentary; I don't think Dany left the Pyramid even once until she married Hizdahr. It robbed the shadow way of assassinations and intrigue in Meereen of most of its excitement since all of it was relayed secondhand to her after the fact. This was logical for the books but it would make for terrible TV.

I agree that I would like to see it done this way, but I think the producers are afraid of spending too much time on a storyline that many readers disliked because of its disconnect with Westeros. The show can make Meereen more exciting than it was in the books, but it still won't have anything to do with the War of the Five Kings or the White Walkers which are the main storylines that viewers are interested in. Ever since Dany's dragons were born they've been waiting for her to swoop in and roast the Lannisters. I think Meereen deserves to be fleshed out, but many readers got frustrated with it because of years of waiting for Dany to finally intersect with the other characters, it's a valid complaint. I think the producers are eager to get her interacting with established characters so the tv audience doesn't rebel against Dany's storyline as well.

[Caerl Targaryen]

There's no reason why they can't show us what's happening in the city. Reports worked in the book because GRRM wanted it to feel as though everything was spiraling closer and closer to Dany and she becomes more and more trapped as the book goes until Drogon swoops in and saves her. It's only then that she finds herself.

With POVs, he could convey that sense of claustrophobia and the enemies moving closer and closer quite nicely. That approach won't work on TV. Not directly anyway. There are plenty of ways they can give that same feeling to viewers. But to do that, they need to spend time setting it up. They need to establish the players beyond just Hizdahr and...well, Hizdahr. That's something they haven't bothered to do yet and it's unfortunate.

They could have easily kept the Craster's Keep material if they absolutely had to (I still think it was rather worthless) but they could have trimmed it down some. They spent a huge block of time over two episodes on that. Even cutting it down by 5 minutes (hell, cut it by 3 minutes) to give Dany's story room to breathe a little would have been enough. They even gave Dany a small council meeting not long after she captured Meereen. That would have been a great opportunity to really drive home the problems Meereen is facing. Instead, they made it all about her decision to stay. That's fine but they made it all about Astapor and Yunkai when clearly Meereen is having problems too. They could have used the problems in Meereen in addition to the reports from Astapor and Yunkai to really sell Dany's decision. It was a huge missed opportunity in that episode.

I agree that Qarth and Meereen are mostly about Dany's arc. But so far they aren't doing that. Meereen is just a locale that Dany is hanging out in. We don't even know the state of the city beyond a throwaway line. We've had two Meereenese in the story so far and both were supplicants. That's poor writing. Introducing a single Meereenese that tries to side with Dany would go a long way towards helping to give Meereen its own voice. I hope we eventually get that.

[DaveyJoe]

I don't think they want to show Meereen spiraling out of control because that will be her season 5 arc. I think this season is all about Dany going from conquer mode to ruler mode. Throughout the season she's realizing that ruling isn't as easy as conquering, and it will end with her chaining up the dragons and accepting that she's made some mistakes in her Slaver's Bay diplomacy. Season 5 will be about fixing shit in Meereen.

[Caerl Targaryen]

They don't need to show a ton of it. Establishing that there are problems in the city beyond some throwaway lines would help set up her arc next season. What we're getting, like we have all season with Essos, is core plot points reduced to a handful of lines with very little depth. In short, everything in Dany's arc is horribly rushed this season. Good writers should be able to write thematically relevant material to set things up for the next chapter by continuing to develop the characters. They give other characters tons of quieter moments and just give Dany badass scenes these days. This isn't good writing.

The point is they're rushing her material because they're spending too much time on other stuff. They aren't even establishing her situation very well with the time they're devoting to her. Her story is mostly an afterthought this season. The latest episode has done some to alleviate that feeling, and that's a good thing, but we still have large gaps when it comes to what's going on.

[DaveyJoe]

But think about the big picture, after season 5 they'll have spent 3 seasons in Slavery's Bay. That's a huge amount of time, and the viewers are seriously going to get fed up with Dany's story before long.

[Caerl Targaryen]

I am thinking of the big picture. I'm just not seeing how rushing through the introduction of Meereen in the current season will make this part of Dany's arc meaningful to people. I thought they did a pretty poor job justifying why Dany decided to stay. Sure, they introduced the problems in Astapor and Yunkai (pretty much through short infodumps), but they didn't think to mention that Meereen was actually having problems too? And then when we finally hear about one of the problems Meereen is facing, it's in a non-specific throwaway line in a scene more concerned with showing Michiel Huisman's ass. It's just...meh. Obviously it was a good scene for multiple reasons. I loved how Dany was in control like that and obviously it was good for people that wanted to see Huisman's ass. But beyond that the scene felt a bit empty.

Since they were already planning to have a few of the early ADWD Dany chapters in this season, with the other Meereen scenes being invented to act as a bridge between conquering Dany and ruling Dany, there have been missed opportunities to flesh out why we should care about Dany's decision to stay.

They've done a good job explaining what Dany wants to do. They've just done a poor job explaining why. They've glossed over all of the problems she has with the freed slaves at this point in the story. And they've reduced the whole "mother" angle to people lifting and carrying her on their shoulders (those lucky, lucky extras...), which got the message across I suppose but it was rather cheesy too.* The "what" is important but the "why" is even more important. They have the "what" down just fine. They just haven't done a good job with the "why." This has been a pretty consistent problem with her arc this season. Hope that makes more sense.

* Side note: Barristan and Jorah should have been immediately dismissed for allowing the last known Targaryen to go into a crowd of people without an escort. That just didn't make sense. At all.

[Faceless Man Friday]

I was referring to what has been described as a throw away line scene when I said "that scene" in an earlier post. I was pointing out that in the books they informed us of the revenge killings through the supplicants but since the show only had the goat herder and Hizzie, I thought the show just wanted you to get a sense that not all is well in the city by mentioning the revenge killings in the scene that was shown. My main point was to distinguish the revenge killings from the Sons of Harpy attacks which have not yet started in the show. Someone's post seemed to infer that the revenge killings were the Harpy attacks and I do not think they are. The revenge killings are just that the revenge killings that were briefly mentioned in both the book and the show. I believe the show played it correctly by just mentioning them in passing as I do not believe they warrant any more attention. But by trying to point that out I have already brought much more attention than deserved either in the Books or the show. :bang:

[Shebara]

I also think there will be a great change in the Mereen plot - well they did not introduce the Green Grace (who is probably the Harpy) but somehow they will arrive at Danaerys flying on Drogon and at the Battle of Fire...I am sure of that!