Discussing Season 4

[Colonel Green]

Nor did I detect any noticeable change in her characterization in Season 4, unlike, say, Sansa going from zero to Machiavel in 4x08.

I don't think that the suddenness of that was a pivot as a result of new information. The writers of the show simply prefer that major character development take the form of a surprise twist.

[Mexal]

But whatever, we have differing opinions here--I think D+D are talentless hacks, and you don't. No biggie, the world goes on.

Putting together a show like this is hard. Multiple filming locations, a very large number of characters, a fantasy setting, not to mention 10 different plot lines all going in different directions. Despite this, despite that's a fantasy show on a premium channel, they still managed to get the viewership over 7 mil on first showing, up every year since the show has been on air. You might be disappointed in how they adapted the material. You might have wished they did things differently. That's fair. But calling them talentless hacks is ridiculous and disproved by every episode that is put on the air.

[Newstar]

I don't think that the suddenness of that was a pivot as a result of new information.

I meant as a noticeable shift in characterization, not as one necessarily informed by foreknowledge of post-ADWD events. However, I don't know how you can state with any certainty that the sudden pivot in Sansa's characterization change was the result of D&D's "shocking twist" preference as opposed to the result of newly-acquired knowledge as to post-ADWD events without knowing exactly what those post-ADWD events are. You might "think" that it must be the former as opposed to the latter, but you have no way of knowing.

[Colonel Green]

I meant as a noticeable shift in characterization, not as one necessarily informed by foreknowledge of post-ADWD events. However, I don't know how you can state with any certainty that the sudden pivot in Sansa's characterization change was the result of D&D's "shocking twist" preference as opposed to the result of newly-acquired knowledge as to post-ADWD events without knowing exactly what those post-ADWD events are. You might "think" that it must be the former as opposed to the latter, but you have no way of knowing.

While the writers got more details fleshed out in season 5, they already had info about the resolution of the series, and they had GRRM as a collaborator the whole time (even if not to the degree that some people think -- if he just sat them down one day and said "FYI, you should probably stop writing Sansa as a giant dumbass because XYZ"; or if he did, he's not a terribly helpful collaborator).

[Newstar]

While the writers got more details fleshed out in season 5, they already had info about the resolution of the series, and they had GRRM as a collaborator the whole time (even if not to the degree that some people think -- if he just sat them down one day and said "FYI, you should probably stop writing Sansa as a giant dumbass because XYZ"; or if he did, he's not a terribly helpful collaborator).

You seem to overestimate the degree of GRRM's collaboration and you assume a lot. There's nothing to imply that D&D had any inkling of post-ADWD events beyond the TWOW unpublished material GRRM has been feeding them until that powwow in 2013, and their knowledge of the ending--not "resolution," but "the ending"--must have been extraordinarily sketchy (probably something along the lines of "X gets the Iron Throne, Dany dies, these Stark kids die, etc."), or else a meeting where they demanded to know every character's endgame would not have been necessary. Nor would such a knowledge of the ending enlighten them as to needing to write Sansa as a budding Machiavellian power player unless she winds up as queen, as some sort of advisor, or with Winterfell (both of which I think are extremely unlikely). Unless Sansa figures prominently in the ending--and I think that there's a very good chance that she won't end up doing so--D&D would have been flying blind as to her endgame prior to that 2013 meeting. Even if they did know her endgame from the beginning as it formed part of the "ending" they were told, if her endgame was said to be something like "she runs off with the Hound to live in obscurity" or "she dies," that wouldn't exactly tell them a lot about how to write her character development before they had their meeting with GRRM laying out her and other characters' plot arcs in detail, now, would it?

We do know that GRRM has been giving them specific notes in response to certain non-book changes--he warned them against killing off Mago because he was supposedly important later on, e.g.--but there's nothing to suggest that he'd been coaching them on how to write in a more general sense with an eye to broader plot developments or endgames. If anything, I get the impression that GRRM has been pretty stingy with post-ADWD information beyond the unpublished written chapters and is still withholding details (I think D&D mentioned that they asked him about some or other detail, and he told them to "wait and see" or similar).

[Colonel Green]

You seem to overestimate the degree of GRRM's collaboration

I specifically said otherwise.

It makes no real sense that GRRM could have told them something so huge that it requires them to jump her story almost a book ahead of everybody else, indeed, to a more advanced place than she already is in GRRM's own narrative even at the end of the book in terms of attitude.

Unless Sansa figures prominently in the ending--and I think that there's a very good chance that she won't end up doing so

Why? She's one of the remaining six original main characters, and has been on the same kind of path her brothers and sister have been on. Indeed, morseo than any of the original mains apart from perhaps Bran, her arc to date has had the highest proportion of setup for later importance versus present action (hence, the complaints in some quarters that she doesn't do much early on).

[Newstar]

It makes no real sense that GRRM could have told them something so huge that it requires them to jump her story almost a book ahead of everybody else, indeed, to a more advanced place than she already is in GRRM's own narrative even at the end of the book in terms of attitude.

Based on what we know, that seems like the most plausible interpretation, since as you point out D&D vaulted her past the published books in terms of characterization over the course of a single episode. They've done whiplash "course correction" in snapping the TV characters back to their book characterization before, and they do favour the "surprise twist" big moment, but this is something entirely different, as Book Sansa isn't behaving like this in in the books...yet, that is.

Why? She's one of the remaining six original main characters, and has been on the same kind of path her brothers and sister have been on.

Again, none of that means that she figures prominently in the endgame. She might be one of the remaining six original main characters, but that's no guarantee of survival, especially when ADOS rolls around, and she's far more disposable than Jon, Dany, and Tyrion, all of whom could easily die in ADOS. I doubt Arya will figure prominently in the endgame, either, assuming she lives that long. She might make a major kill or wind up as Jon's Nissa Nissa, but that's pretty much all we can expect for her.

Indeed, morseo than any of the original mains apart from perhaps Bran, her arc to date has had the highest proportion of setup for later importance versus present action (hence, the complaints in some quarters that she doesn't do much early on).

None of that means that she'll figure prominently in the endgame. She's unlikely to play a significant role in the war against the Others, except maybe from a logistical or support perspective, she's very unlikely to wind up with Winterfell, she's very unlikely to end up on the Iron Throne as a consort or otherwise, and after she disposes of Littlefinger I'd say anything could happen to her. All of this equally applies to Arya except for the part about Littlefinger, although I'm more certain about Arya dying before the end of the books than Sansa once she makes her big kill.

Also, you make the mistake of assuming "later importance" equals "importance to the endgame," a curious assumption given how much material is left in the series. Sansa will likely be instrumental in taking out Littlefinger, but once that happens, all bets as to Sansa are off, and since I imagine Littlefinger will be dead long before the ending rolls around, that leaves a lot of room for Sansa to be utterly irrelevant to the endgame.

[Mr Fixit]

^

Six of the original 8 PoVs were Starks. Martin's initial title for the final book was A Time for Wolves. I think we can be pretty certain that ALL remaining Starks will be playing important roles in the endgame, Sansa included. I sincerely doubt that Sansa's main role in ASoIaF is to dispose of Littlefinger, who for all that he's done is still very much a secondary character.

[Miodrag]

Putting together a show like this is hard. Multiple filming locations, a very large number of characters, a fantasy setting, not to mention 10 different plot lines all going in different directions. Despite this, despite that's a fantasy show on a premium channel, they still managed to get the viewership over 7 mil on first showing, up every year since the show has been on air. You might be disappointed in how they adapted the material. You might have wished they did things differently. That's fair. But calling them talentless hacks is ridiculous and disproved by every episode that is put on the air.

Putting together a show like this may be hard, but that aspect has nothing to do with the writing/storytelling talent discussed here. As far as that talent is concerned, D&D pretty much lack any, as proven by every episode they put on the air. But even their lack of talent wouldn't be a problem, if only they realized they weren't blessed with it. Since the storytelling work in this venture has already been done for them, all they had to do was to follow the source material as closely as possible. However, they've chosen the opposite path of changing the story wherever and whenever their incompetence saw the opportunity for it. At this point, it's even worse than being talentless: it looks like they have some sort of a negative talent, meaning, time and again they manage to change highly adaptable storylines and plots and characters into something that is illogical, stupid, cliched, boring, senseless, ridiculous, childish, manipulative, cheap and ultimately embarrassing.

What these talentless hacks created is a financially successful project that brings a lot of money to everyone involved. What they didn't create, couldn't create, possibly never wanted to create, is a good show.

[Kyoshi]

For sure David Benioff had been around TV and film production and I think has a couple of fine screenplays under his belt, The Kite Runner (2007) and Brothers (2009)... I have a feeing that Wolfgang Petersen had more influence on his screenplay for Troy , which is an odd telling of the Iliad, still better than Robert Wise's rather off film Helen of Troy (1956).

Just wanted to say that I read The Kite Runner, the movie was a really bad adaptation. It kind of missed a few essential things in my opinion...did not enjoy it at all.

That said, really good season. Absolutely loved it. The Watchers on the Wall, The Watchers on the Wall...

[Mr Fixit]

What these talentless hacks created is a financially successful project that brings a lot of money to everyone involved. What they didn't create, couldn't create, possibly never wanted to create, is a good show.

It's really great to see someone who purports to be a journalist and a TV critic stoop to school-level name calling. It pains you that David and Dan have the opportunity to do this and what's more, to be recognised, doesn't it?

[Newstar]

It's really great to see someone who purports to be a journalist and a TV critic stoop to school-level name calling. It pains you that David and Dan have the opportunity to do this and what's more, to be recognised, doesn't it?

LOL, sounds like it. Not a good look, IMHO.

Six of the original 8 PoVs were Starks. Martin's initial title for the final book was A Time for Wolves. I think we can be pretty certain that ALL remaining Starks will be playing important roles in the endgame, Sansa included. I sincerely doubt that Sansa's main role in ASoIaF is to dispose of Littlefinger, who for all that he's done is still very much a secondary character.

Littlefinger might be a secondary character, but he's an extremely influential and powerful one. Disposing of him would be no mean feat. As for your argument, it seems to be "Sansa's important to the endgame because she has to be," which to me isn't really much of an argument, particularly when she's very unlikely to play a significant role in the war against the Others, to end up with the Iron Throne, or to end up with Winterfell. She might wind up with the Vale at the end of this, but the Vale in of itself is not shaping up to be important to the endgame, so that would hardly qualify. She seems like a good candidate to turn her back on politics in favour of love, which after survival has always been a big motivator for her; that would be nice and all, but it would definitely rule her out as playing any important role in the endgame.

[David Selig]

Putting together a show like this is hard. Multiple filming locations, a very large number of characters, a fantasy setting, not to mention 10 different plot lines all going in different directions. Despite this, despite that's a fantasy show on a premium channel, they still managed to get the viewership over 7 mil on first showing, up every year since the show has been on air. You might be disappointed in how they adapted the material. You might have wished they did things differently. That's fair. But calling them talentless hacks is ridiculous and disproved by every episode that is put on the air.

And Dan Brown has sold gazillion copies of his books, Britney Spears has become a pop music legend, Michael Bay is breaking box office records,etc... Just because you are commercially very successful doesn't mean you aren't a talentless hack.

[Janicia]

Neither of these two EVER worked on a TV show/and or movie--unless one counts Benioff writing scripts, which in my mind isn't even in the same universe, in complexity. I mean sure--maybe he walked on the set of 25th hour, but he didn't direct it, edit it, or have any more say than any other scriptwriter.

This simple fact is what amazes me the most about GoT--they gave control of the show--not to mention millions of dollars--to people who had zero experience in the field. Of all the numerous and justified criticisms of the show, the majority have their genesis in this appalling fact.

Game of Thrones is tremendously more successful and better received than any fantasy TV show has ever been and is one of the most successful (the most successful?) HBO show ever. If you don't like the story they're telling, that's fine. But the show runners are making good TV that people want to watch, and they're doing it on budget and all that. That's what you'd hope experienced TV people would be able to do.

Further, at this point, the creators of Game of Thrones are world experts in adapting GoT to TV. They have years of working on this project under their belt. Are you getting happier with the result now that experienced hands are working on it?

[Le Cygne]

The source material - what's left of it - is the draw.

[Janicia]

And Dan Brown has sold gazillion copies of his books, Britney Spears has become a pop music legend, Michael Bay is breaking box office records,etc... Just because you are commercially very successful doesn't mean you aren't a talentless hack.

Thousands of girls tried to do what Brittney Spears did. Thousands of authors have written thousands of thrillers that didn't grab people's attention like Dan Brown did. It is one thing to say "I don't like this art". That's valid. But when millions of other people do like that art, and do find meaning in that art - who are you to say there is no value in that work and that the artist is a talentless hack. It is rare to be able to create art that speaks to millions of people. Too many people enjoy ripping apart popular things just because.

[Mr Fixit]

Thousands of girls tried to do what Brittney Spears did. Thousands of authors have written thousands of thrillers that didn't grab people's attention like Dan Brown did. It is one thing to say "I don't like this art". That's valid. But when millions of other people do like that art, and do find meaning in that art - who are you to say there is no value in that work and that the artist is a talentless hack. It is rare to be able to create art that speaks to millions of people. Too many people enjoy ripping apart things that are popular just because.

Exactly.

I hate Michael Bay's movies with the burning heat of a hundred active galactic cores, but he most certainly isn't a talentless hack. The guy does exactly what he sets out to do and he does it well. One has to be very talented to make movies with all the visual panache that are Bay's trademark. They are audio-visual nightmares, sure, but someone who doesn't know first thing about filmmaking could never pull it off.

[Miodrag]

It's really great to see someone who purports to be a journalist and a TV critic stoop to school-level name calling. It pains you that David and Dan have the opportunity to do this and what's more, to be recognised, doesn't it?

LOL, sounds like it. Not a good look, IMHO.

This is probably the most pathetic example of the most pathetic aspect of today's pathetic culture: that people like you defend people like D&D from people like me. If anything pains me, then it's the fact that I live in a world in which this thing - this hysterical identification with people who are unremarkable in any way imaginable, except that they're celebrities - is not only possible, but quite frequent.

Opposite to you, I'm not fascinated with D&D's accomplishment. It's on HBO to judge how successful they are. If HBO's satisfied with their work, it neither joys me nor pains me. D&D's creativity/careers/success is not something I'm invested in. That is why, opposite to you, I can judge their work just like I judge any other work: by my own standards, by what I see, by what I notice. My judgment, opposite to yours, is not clouded by some childish fanboyism inspired by D&D's constant whining about how difficult their job/mission/life is. When I see illogical nonsense in the show, I'm able, opposite to you, to recognize it as a nonsense. Opposite to you, I don't feel the need to fantasize about some highly hypothetical and almost always unfounded theories about their reasons for doing this or that. For example, when they say the weather conditions forced them to give Sandor's lines to Littlefinger, it's so easy for me to see how big a bullshit that is, because, opposite to you, I happen to think about what they're saying (and it'd make absolutely no sense whatsoever that a scene with just two actors was replaced by a scene with dozens of actors and extras because of a scheduling problems) and I happen to watch closely what they're filming (and I clearly saw Rory standing in the background while Littlefinger was telling Sansa the story of his Sandor's face). All of which means that, opposite to you, I can clearly see the show for what it truly is, and for what HBO and the rest of the industry see it as: big money. Neither I nor HBO see anything artistic about it. The show isn't groundbreaking, isn't remarkable, isn't influencing the way things are done and/or analyzed in the TV industry. It is just one more highly popular show that fails to make any lasting impact.

You say D&D are recognized. May I ask by who? By those countless TV critics and reviewers? It's funny, then, that Weiss laughed in the face of all those critics and reviewers in "Inside the episode" video for episode 9 of this season ("Watchers on the wall"). Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspDoDxxOnA

At 4:20 mark, Weiss talks about something your cynical self, Mr. Fixit, might find familiar: watching the raw footage, they thought someone sped up the scene with Kit, and, says Weiss, it looked fake, so they asked special effects guy to fix the scene. It turned out nobody sped anything up, it was just that Kit was too fast, but that's beside the point. Now, you'll probably remember those two editing incidents from the first two seasons I wrote about. In those scenes (Ned-Jaime fight in episode 5 and Brienne-guards fight in episode 15), someone actually did speed up the raw footage and it did look fake. When I wrote about it and called it a blasphemy no respectable show would ever do, any number of show-apologists called me various names and tried to ridicule me. You, Mr. Fixit, were among the most vocal ones (since you were unscrupulous enough to bring you political hatred for the magazine I write for). And here we are, two years later - no editing incident of that kind happened in the show in the meantime, it should be noted - and Weiss himself spells it out how wrong it is to speed up the raw footage in order for the scene to look more effective. Now, you and some of your buddies here were especially amused by the fact that no other critic or a reviewer mentioned those two incidents I wrote about. Tell me, then, how do those critics and reviewers - and, by extension, you who so pettily were trying to ridicule me all this time - look like now, after Weiss spelled it for you?

By the way, I don't purport to be a journalist: I am a journalist, a very active one, with a fair share of people that like or hate what I write. I'm also a TV critic, but I don't pretend to be any kind of stoop as you imply. Rewards for me come in other forms, and one of those is when I see how disturbed people like you are by what I write. But I don't know why does it disturb you here, on this site. If you have problems with what I write as a journalist, feel free to criticize me whenever and wherever I do write as a professional journalist. Considering you're also from Serbia, it shouldn't be a problem for you, I guess. There you'll have all the opportunity to let your obvious frustration with my journalism to run wild. But here I'm not a journalist. I'm just an ASOIAF admirer and a poster who just happens to be a journalist in real life. No reason to hold my posts here against ethical standards of journalistic profession. But even if you insist on it, I fail to see what's so wrong with my post you reacted to. That I called D&D "talentless hacks"? You find that inappropriate? Jesus, how pathetic is that?!

[Mr Fixit]

As for your argument, it seems to be "Sansa's important to the endgame because she has to be," which to me isn't really much of an argument, particularly when she's very unlikely to play a significant role in the war against the Others, to end up with the Iron Throne, or to end up with Winterfell. She might wind up with the Vale at the end of this, but the Vale in of itself is not shaping up to be important to the endgame, so that would hardly qualify. She seems like a good candidate to turn her back on politics in favour of love, which after survival has always been a big motivator for her; that would be nice and all, but it would definitely rule her out as playing any important role in the endgame.

My argument is somewhat meta, I agree. It isn't based on any plot necessity--frankly, what is? Martin could circumvent any main character's role if he wished--but I do feel that all the remaining main AGoT characters will be quite important in the endgame. I will find it... interesting, to say the least, if Martin spends all these books giving Sansa plenty of PoV chapters only to sidetrack her with some unimportant plot.

[Mr Fixit]

This is probably the most pathetic example of the most pathetic aspect of today's pathetic culture: that people like you defend people like D&D from people like me. If anything pains me, then it's the fact that I live in a world in which this thing - this hysterical identification with people who are unremarkable in any way imaginable, except that they're celebrities - is not only possible, but quite frequent.

Angry much?

I defend D&D's work because I happen to like it, not because they're celebrities. This is a strawman if I ever saw one. And a typical reaction of people who think they've been robbed of "well-deserved" opportunities in life. The very fact that you feel so enraged because someone somewhere dares to like the show and "apologise" for "talentless hacks" speaks volumes.

And yes, I have read your columns. They truly helped formulate my opinion here.