Jump to content

[Book Spoilers] EP510 Discussion


Ran
 Share

Recommended Posts

Putting aside how stupid the idea of two guys searching every bit of land in a vast landscape is, I love how a ring is the marking point of where she is, but the dragon and burned bones aren't.

Exactly why it's incredibly stupid - and that's even with ignoring how butchered Dany's character is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thoughts while watching:

- One could argue that the anticlimactic ending for Stannis's campaign was appropriate; the man sacrifices his only child for the promise of a glorious victory, only to face a humiliating and ignoble defeat. But the campaigns of Renly, Theon, and Robb all met rather inglorious ends, Theon's especially. Those downfalls were handled in a much more dramatically satisfying way. This wasn't anticlimatic in a tragic or ironic way that made for great television; it was anticlimatic in a poorly written, lazily executed fashion that invites frustration with the showrunners. And there are two other problems with this plotline:

1. As an adaptation of pre-existing material, this is one of the biggest departures the show has made, bigger (I would argue) than anything Peter Jackson did with LOTR or even The Hobbit. I've pointed out before that GRRM has asked D&D to change character names for far less than this.

2. The fact that it's such a radical departure is not in itself a fault; the departure could be forgiven, and enjoyed as comparable or even superior to the source material - if it had an equivalent level of interest and drama to the source. This did not, and I'm not even thinking of just Stannis anymore. Roose and Ramsay sitting around Winterfell talking about potentially troublesome bannermen isn't anywhere near as intense as Roose and Ramsay trapped in Winterfell by ever-growing mountains of snow and surrounded by obviously hostile bannermen, at least one of whom is engaged in sabotage. Making Ramsay and Roose - two sociopaths, and not particularly fascinating ones if I'm being frank - focal characters of the Winterfell scenes is much less interesting than focusing in on Theon, or on Sansa (who could have been better utilised in her modified story). And to go back to Stannis - how is his walking in a straight line across an open field (displaying none of that great military command that was talked up) after being abandoned by sellswords a more fascinating scenario than leaving him caught amongst his fanatic southroners, hardy and vengeful Northerners, his enemy at Winterfell, traitors in the midst of his Northern host, and Bravosi bankers?

I've seen many people claim that D&D hate Stannis. I don't go that far (I do think their claim that he'd "undoubtedly" make a terrible king is presumptuous at the least). But I think it's safe to say that Stannis Baratheon, like Cersei Lannister, is a character that D&D either fundamentally misunderstood, or never cared to understand in the first place, because they preferred to use that slot in the story for something of their own contrivance. And unfortunately for anyone who was moved, invested, or even mildly interested in Stannis's story, D&D's own contrivance proved far inferior to the source material.

- If Selyse's reversal last episode was unconvincing, then Mel's instant loss of faith and abandonment of Stannis was very unconvincing. A woman that self-deluded changes her mind and runs away because the sellswords (that were Davos's idea in the first place) ran off?

- Enjoyed the Arya material very, very much, but there are two points bugging me: how did Arya go blind, and why did one of the FM have to kill himself? Couldn't they just kill Arya for betraying the order, or throw her out?

- No strong thoughts one way or the other about Dany's scene.

- Building up Daario was a strange decision that I've actually come to appreciate and enjoy, but it was very strange to have him playing the intellectual and strategist.

- I've complained about Grey Worm/Missandei a lot, but I'm rather impressed at how restrained D&D proved themselves at pursuing that plotline.

- It's obvious that the direwolves prove too much of a budgetary/technical hassle to be featured as much as they are in the books, but that robs the story of a significant element. My solution would have been to turn the direwolves in to plain wolves, and just say that there are no wolves left south of the Wall 'til Robb and Jon find the pups. You could get them into more scenes more easily that way.

- Reversing whose idea it is for Sam to become a maester. On the one hand, that scene had good dialogue and solid performances. On the other, I think that reversal takes away from Jon's growth into command and from his relationship with Sam.

- So, Myrcella is fine with her parentage. That's interesting. The fact that the scene is executed in a way that suggests we're meant to be on her side on this is very, very, very very disturbing.

- Cersei. How many times can I repeat it, but: miss the batsh*t crazy one from the books. With Jon dead and Stannis out of commission at the very least (I do think there's a slim chance Brienne didn't kill him, if only because of when they chose to cut away), I have a nagging fear that a good chunk of next season might as well be named "The Whitewashed Lannister Hour."

- Dorne. I won't say it was pointless, as I'm sure there will be a payoff next season, but it was stupid. Incredibly stupid. From beginning to end, probably the single worst-executed storyline in the entire series.

- Shock and surprise, Olly kills Jon. And, shock and surprise, it was underwhelming. Another significant point of departure that could have been fine, if it measured up to what was in the books. It didn't. And it further reinforces my feeling that the Shireen storyline was not worth the time it took away from Jon.

Overall thoughts on the season: most of my notes on each episode were negative, but I think this season was in some key respects an improvement over the last one. It felt far less padded, and more events of note happened more frequently throughout. But it's easily the least faithful to the source material, and in nearly every case, the departures were for the worse IMO. Significant events (Shireen's burning, Jon's death, Stannis's defeat, others) may have had build-up over several episodes, but when it came time to do the deed, the scenes were rather perfunctory and tossed off. None of them were executed with the skill of the RW or Ned's execution.

My chief complaint goes back to a comment D&D made before the premiere: how they didn't want to include a lot of new characters because they "didn't want to shortchange Arya's story for someone we've never met." You may not have been willing to shortchange Arya for new characters, but you were willing to shortchange Bran to get that screentime freed up for your own ideas; you were willing to shortchange Dany by rendering her the least interesting character in her own location; you were willing to shortchange the source material for Cersei and Stannis to push something of your own making; you were willing to shortchange Theon to spend more time with his psychotic captors and a jealous bitch; and you were willing to shortchange Jon, and the whole Northern plotline, to throw away screentime on children.

This is a great post, but especially the bold part. :bowdown:

Also, in the book, the brothers assassinate Jon because he is deserting the night's watch to go participate in a political war. In the show they murdered him because they were butthurt about wildlings, even though they have proof that Jon's decision was the best option by far.

:agree:

But they only stole the 'war horses'....not the 'other horses'...LMAO. So Mel having a horse after 'all' the horses were taken isn't a blatant continuity error, it totally makes total sense....just like a man with no horses or siege equipment planning a full frontal attack on a stone castle with a moat makes total sense when he's a skilled miltary tactician....he would never intend something at night to minimize the difference in manpower, get an element of suprise and possibly take the castle by stealth. nope. attack at dawn!!

D&D's weaknesses in timing, geography of Westeros PLUS a lack of knowledge of military tactics is really telling.

I liked Feast and Dance, but yeah, I can see some cuts had to mp be made. And that's fine. I can even, very grudgingly, accept the merging of characters as a means of racing quickly to the end, even if I dont like it. But if they are going to do this, they could at least try and produce something good, instead of crap like window gazing, bad pussies, 20 Good Men, Dornish Birthmarks, The Ides of Ollie and Sansa The Victim (again :rolleyes: ). How anyone can watch stuff like the crap fest that was Dorne or Brienne's window gazing or ISIS Rising in Kings Landing and say it actually improved the books is beyond me.

Well said.

There's no doubt the show is still entertaining in its own right - as goofy, wild escapism that you don't have to think too hard about. A lot of people are fine with that, and will continue to ooh and ahh at the shocking deaths and the dragons and "White Walkers" and Tyrion's wisecracks. Good for them, I suppose.

But an adaptation of ASOIAF this is not - not any more. I'm not upset because the show is different from the books - I'm upset because it's so vastly inferior to the books. With the incredibly deep and rich source material they were handed, and with their production values and the talented actors that were cast, HBO had all the materials to create a masterpiece of television; I know they have limitations in time and budget, and that not every minor character is going to be represented or every minor event depicted (so don't give me the "books and TV are different, durr" stuff), but that hardly explains crap like the abomination that was Dorne this season, or the incredible dumbing-down of the entire Northern subplot. The amazing book dialogue is discarded more often than not, replaced with the show writers' own dialogue (spoiler alert: it's not as good). They cut the likes of Wyman Manderly and so many others but spend a bunch of screen time on unnecessary and uninteresting show inventions like Ollie, Myranda, whoever the guy is that Loras was sleeping with, etc. The characters are so one-dimensional and dull, nearly every plot line robbed of its excitement and intrigue. Just...such a waste of so much potential.

I agree that TWOW not being out yet is on Martin, and the show shouldn't be expected to wait for him. I don't think anyone expects that. But watching how D&D handled the material that was already published doesn't give me any hope for how they will manage the story once they're completely off on their own.

I think I'm done with anything ASOIAF-related until we at least have a release date for TWOW. Then I'll start a reread of books 1-5. Hopefully TWOW is out before Season 6 is all I can say.

Another great post.

Well, maybe somebody will come out here and say that HBO paid all that people to watch the show, you know?

Or - perhaps - they baited the audience with well-placed Benjen bait.

He has now a longer face...

His acting's a bit wooden though. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do D&D know how many problems this season had? GRRM is spammed with angry fan mail (which don’t get me wrong I don't approve), but how about D&D? Maybe they think that season 5 was their best season? viewership and ratings were high...

The show has essentially become it's own parody with it's own fan-base of mindless drones who think sex , violence, shock moments and cheap thrills are all there is to a good show.It's flooded with fanboys who watch it because :" it's game of fucking thrones, of course it's going to be good, oh shit boobs, gore, who's going to die next." and D&D apologists who defend their incompetence and their worst kind of writing mistakes , only because "hey it's different" even though it's shit besides different.

Essentially episodes have been receiving almost perfect ratings, because the show now caters to the lowest common denominator.

Mindbogglingly the seasons which stayed true most, to the books, received lower scores than a lot of the episodes this season.

HBO will say this was a success since it received the highest ratings since the show started and started controversy and will pat D&D on their back and say, do what you've been doing , you've hit the soft spot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She could still conceive and birth a child, it's just the birth would kill her.

But your in the wrong thread mate, this is a discussion about episode 10, not a discussion about the books.

Precisely. The show has never given us any reason to doubt R+E=J as a possibility.

The show has given us evidence against R+L=J: bastard is bastard and bastards can't inherit. If being a royal bastard makes a claim to the throne the twincest doesn't matter and Gendry is in line. The only English king who was a bastard is William the Conqueror who won the throne by right of conquest and allegedly having be made the recognized heir. The only other king without a legitimate claim to the throne was Henry Tudor whose line was legitimized before he was born precisely because being a bastard does to bastard well matter and he also won by right of conquest.

If Ned wouldn't do that sort of thing, why expect it of Lyanna?

Jon would actually have a better claim to the throne right now as Jon's bastard than as Lyanna's. The Targareans are deposed, the Lannister line about to become extinct but for Tyrion. Theon will no doubt tell Jon that Robb legitimized him and made him his heir. He is the legitimate Lord Paramount and Warden of the North. R+L=J only adds a southern claim.

The books provide contrary evidence for every theory. People pick and choose like Mel reading her fires. The evidence from the maesters is third hand at best.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some of you are being naive believing their hype about jons death. What are hey supposed to say? He's coming back, don't worry?

Fact: GRRM said Jon would learn of his parents.

Fact: Season five included info dumps about lyanna and Rhaegar.

fact: Kit is in Ireland right now.

Fact: kit is signed on for two more seasons.

Fact: show ended as book did. With jons death.

Verdict: he's coming back in both.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think the show is getting enough credit for the depth that it actually has. It's not just surface level T&A with blood and guts everywhere, I think it has a lot of depth that poses a lot of questions about morality and sacrifice while maintaining a level of medieval realism that has simply never been achieve in a TV series before. It's not ASOIAF, it never will be, it's a different entity all to itself.

I pose the question again: how do you possibly condense what will probably 9 or 10,000 pages of rich history and intense detail in to essentially 70 or 80 1 hour scripts? Sacrifices have to be made, players have to be cut, stories have to be compressed/streamlined, and tone has to be changed. One thing this show consistently does well is set up things for the future. There's a reason they had things from season 1 on their "Previously on GoT" at the beginning of the episode. They were setting things up for a larger arc later on and then bringing that action full circle. People complain about this little thing or that little being different, but I guarantee you those small details weren't just random errors or cheap cuts, they're calculated changes that may not have their importance fleshed out until the very end of the show. Everything happens for a reason though and I think if you see this character or that character get less screen time or not get the focus they deserve, it's because something important in the overall story made that change important.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some of you are being naive believing their hype about jons death. What are hey supposed to say? He's coming back, don't worry?

Fact: GRRM said Jon would learn of his parents.

Fact: Season five included info dumps about lyanna and Rhaegar.

fact: Kit is in Ireland right now.

Fact: kit is signed on for two more seasons.

Fact: show ended as book did. With jons death.

Verdict: he's coming back in both.

They are falling into the trap the writers want them to fall into. It's much more impactful if you actually think he might be dead and it has everyone talking about it. There is absolutely zero logical basis to think Jon Snow's story is done. The actors and writers have no choice but to sell the death otherwise it's completely pointless as a cliffhanger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Putting aside how stupid the idea of two guys searching every bit of land in a vast landscape is, I love how a ring is the marking point of where she is, but the dragon and burned bones aren't.

I believe that she expects them to find and search the bones that look like a dragon's leftovers, and that finding the carefully-placed ring will confirm that she intentionally parted company from Drogon here, and possibly point out the direction in which she traveled.

Of course she only traveled a few meters before being picked up by Jhaqo's khalasar, and I'm pretty sure that if Daario is a good enough tracker to follow their path from there, he would have been able to spot the signs of their circling Dany like 1930s movie Indians from the bone pile. Plus, I'm pretty sure they're taking her to Vaes Dothrak, given that it's literally the only settlement, and almost the only landmark, within an entire third of a continent. But she didn't know that would happen. Also, her searchers aren't exactly the smartest people in her entourage, so maybe they'll need the clue.

(Actually, I'd love to see the story of Jorah and Daario searching for clues written like a Sherlock Holmes story, with Jorah as a Watson too dumb to realize that Daario is even dumber than him. "Which is it to-day?" I asked,--"glue or paint fumes?" He raised his eyes languidly from the centerfold magazine he had opened. "It is paint fumes," he said, "--a seven per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?" "No, indeed", I answered, brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the fighting pits yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it." He smiled at my vehemence. "Whatever, brah, that just means more for me. And I'm already wicked high." Then he paused, and asked, "Dude, what were we doing again?" I have always found it a frustrating habit of his, to ask me to provide my interpretation before revealing to me all of the deductions I had missed, but I have found no recourse but to play along with his game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some of you are being naive believing their hype about jons death. What are hey supposed to say? He's coming back, don't worry?

Fact: GRRM said Jon would learn of his parents.

Fact: Season five included info dumps about lyanna and Rhaegar.

fact: Kit is in Ireland right now.

Fact: kit is signed on for two more seasons.

Fact: show ended as book did. With jons death.

Verdict: he's coming back in both.

I think that topic has come and went. Your the one talking about it now.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, if Rhaegar married Lyanna, that would be polygamy, and the Faith doesn't like that. Sure, he believed he needed to conceive three Targaryen children to save the world, and his ancestors didn't care that the Faith didn't like polygamy, and there have been at least two Kings on the Iron Throne whose fathers had multiple wives, but the Faith doesn't like it, so he might as well just give up and let the world die. Of course the Faith doesn't like adultery and fornication any more than it likes polygamy, but who cares about that, getting some hot Stark action is a lot more important than something like saving the world, so he ignored that one and knocked her up anyway. And then he somehow convinced three members of the Kingsguard to stay out of the war just to protect his mistress and their bastard love child. That makes a whole lot more sense than a secret marriage.

Besides, who says Jon has to inherit anything? He can be AAR, or Warden of the North, or Prince Consort to Queen Dany, or all kinds of other things without having to inherit anything. Unless you're expecting an ending where everyone realizes Jon is secretly the Rightful King so they all decide to stop fighting and live happily ever after the end?

After giving birth to Aegon, Elia was bedridden for six months, and the Maester said that she could probably never conceive again and if she did it would kill her and the child. Rhaegar summoned the best Maesters in Westeros for a second opinion and they all agreed. But we can ignore all that because and assume that she somehow had another child, because ...? Then the only problem left is how and why this impossible child was kept secret from everyone, and somehow ended up in the hands of Ned Stark, but I'm sure you have a solution for that too?

That one's even sillier. How, within the timeline, could Robert have gotten Lyanna pregnant? And, if she had, why would Ned hide that fact from, among other people, Robert? At this point, you may as well suggest that Jon was secretly Cat's son but she somehow bore without knowing, or that he was Ned and Wylla's son and Ned tricked Robert into secretly legitimizing him without realizing it, or that there is no father, it was the midichlorians.

Either R+L=J with a secret marriage, or Jon is a bastard but it doesn't matter (or maybe it matters for magical reasons but not political reasons, and Robb's legitimization is good enough for that).

Jon being Ned's bastard fits the evidence perfectly. But the book makes it rather clear he isn't.

A secret marriage does not save R+L=J. It isn't recognized by the laws of the old gods or the new. As you point out, Jon really doesn't need anything to be AAR or anything else. Being the third son through a bigamous marriage isn't really a step up from being a bastard.

I discount the 'evidence' from the maesters because none of it is first hand and the maesters predictions can be wrong.

As for why the child would be kept secret, that is a fact all the theories have to explain. But we do know that the birth was kept secret regardless of who the parents are.

My theory is that it comes comes to the prophecy that seems to have driven Rheagar to self-destruction. I suspect it has something to do with Aerys going 'mad' as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This kinda imply D&D are fans of the books. I wonder what storyline they are fans considering they have ruined them all.

I heard it in an interview. I will have to look through it again but it was in season one or twos commentary I believe. They aren't bright people. I imagine that they got OMG I IZ IN CHARGE NOW syndrome that a nine year old gets when the rents leave for an hour.

Edited by Marcus Agrippa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

By R+E=J you mean Elia? Elia Martell being Jon's mother??

What??? :lol:

Wouldn't be surprised if the show did do this. After everything they've done in these last 10 episodes I wouldn't even be surprised if cars are invented next season and it turns out they can kill the white walkers.

Everything makes creatively makes sense to David and Dan cause you know, they want it to happen.

Edited by Nights King's Queen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

By R+E=J you mean Elia? Elia Martell being Jon's mother??

What??? :lol:

Take out the evidence from Jon CON and there is nothing to discount it. JonCon does not have first hand knowledge and his name telegraphs that he is there to retcon Jon.

Would you believe a statement from a character called Jon Fibbington? How about Jon Misleadington?

D&D didn't have that info when they guessed the name of Jon's mother. GRRM added it after they bought him the big steak with butter.

JonCon reporting a smokescreen left by Rheagar to conceal the birth of a third child would make a lot more sense than all the effort being taken to conceal the birth of a bastard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...