iiandyiiii Posted February 2, 2015 Share Posted February 2, 2015 Those of us (including me) who were huge fans of the books before the show started love to pore over trailers, casting announcements, and the like to see how much the show may or may not be diverging from the details in the books. This is fun stuff and doesn't need to be defended. I'd like to offer a different perspective on speculative fiction, adaptations, and "canon" in general, just for the purposes of discussion -- other approaches are certainly not wrong, but I think this one, at least for me, decreases the anxiety about the series, and increases the enjoyment of watching. All stories, whether they be made into movies, books, comic books, tv shows, or whatever, exist somewhere out there in the 'ether' (figuratively, or even literally if you subscribe to the metaphysical "multiverse" hypothesis). An author/writer snatches them out of that ether and puts them into book/TV show/film/whatever form. Many stories are adapted repeatedly, in the same media or different media, such as the stories of King Arthur. Some might think of a specific version (often the first version) as the 'official' or 'canonical' version -- but I don't think that is necessary. I think we can see them all as 'official' and 'canonical'. To take a non-ASOIAF example, let's look at the Star Wars universe: I've read online many SW fans complain that the new movies are discarding the novels and comic books of the Extended Universe, in which they felt personally invested. Some even felt betrayed! From my point of view, there's no betrayal -- the Extended Universe really 'happened', and so did the new movies... in the figurative or literal infinite multiverse, Chewbacca died on whatever planet in whatever year, and he also survived to have further adventures with whomever and whenever. They both happened. I think this applies to Game of Thrones and ASOIAF as well. These are two different, but related, universes. In one of them, Strong Belwas met up with a disguised Barristan and served Daenerys. Loras had two brothers, Garlan and the disabled Willas. In the other universe, Belwas never existed, or just never met up with Barristan... and Barristan never disguised himself, and Loras is an only child. Maybe there's another handful of universes in which Gregor and Daario look like totally different dudes but are otherwise the same :). The important thing, in my view, is whether or not an adaptation faithfully hews to the spirit of the 'original' story... and in that sense, I believe the TV show has succeeded greatly so far. I know Belwas fans are sad that we won't see him on the screen, but that didn't do significant harm to the spirit of the story (in my view). The point is that different versions of the same story can work and can be 'faithful'. Batman's story, as an example, is 'faithful' in the recent movie trilogy, the comic books, and the Michael Keaton movies from 20 years ago, even when they had different details (at least if you liked all those versions). Similarly, the Hound's story is faithful in both the books and the TV show -- even if he didn't meet Brienne in the books. This is all just my point of view, of course. Complaining can be fun, and there's nothing wrong with it. I bring this up because I think it helps me enjoy both the books and the TV series more than I would otherwise. Feel free to disagree! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iiandyiiii Posted February 4, 2015 Author Share Posted February 4, 2015 I'll add that none of this applies to Wyman Manderly. If he's left out of the series, I'll be pissed. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.