Has the show lost it's heart?

[JagLover]

 

Stannis' storyline is another that is a major deviation. Sure he could very well die early in TWOW, but how it happens is very obviously different from book to show, as are a lot of the elements of that storyline. I understand that things need to be cut and streamlined, but it's tough to assume that because it isn't on the show, it may not be important in the books.

 

Stannis sacrificing Shireen has been fairly heavily foreshadowed IMO and harks back to ancient mythology and sacrificing a child to appease the gods. The twist GRRM will put on this I believe is that Stannis will do so under the delusion he is the chosen one, when he isn't and will die anyway knowing he sacrificed his child for nothing.

 

If that is the case then the show has kept the essence of the arc while changing some of the details. An essential; change for a TV show short on time converting a massive book series.

[JagLover]

 

Introducing characters like Aegon, Arianne and the Ironborn would not detract from the core characters that have been there since the start. They're important, but they are still secondary to the core cast. It's a misleading statement to claim that book readers want 30-50 more characters. Maybe a dozen, if that, and not all of them major characters. 

 

Each location adds numerous charcters.

 

You want Faegon well he doesn't come alone. You add Griff, various teachers, mercenary captains, people they interact with when they land in Westeros. I think that is a dozen just be adding one more omitted plotline.

 

You want the Ironborn just how many characters do you think you need to give a reasonably faithful adaption of the AFFC/ADWD storyline. 

 

It is the same with Winterfell and the Northern lords.

 

An extra 30-50 characters is a conservative estimate of what would be needed to more faithfully adapt AFFC/ADWD 

[protar]

*cough* Quentyn *cough*

 

There's also the fact that George wrote an entire book without bothering to put any actual ending in it. So either his grasp of common sense and basic narratives isn't nearly as strong as you seem to think it is or he really just doesn't give a shit about it. Either way, kinda undercuts your argument.

 

Quentyn was an important character. His main purpose is to serve as a catalyst for Arianne's development (who in turn is very important but no good writer includes a sub plot of the size of Dorne, without intending it to be important. Nor does a good writer spend so much time developing Arianne just for fun.). Once that purpose was fulfilled, Quentyn was a loose end who Martin used to tie up some odd jobs in the narrative. Namely freeing the dragons (and he may catalyse Dorne turning away from Dany and siding with Aegon, that remains to be seen.). It's debatable whether Quentyn needed a POV, but I think he did, just perhaps not as many chapters as he got. The Spurned Suitor and Dragontamer chapters both seem pretty tight, plot progressing chapters to me. And I can hardly fault Martin for giving us Quentyn an introductory POV chapter in The Merchant's Man. So the only point of debate for me is whether the Windblown is necessary. Perhaps not, but one somewhat superfluous chapter is hardly the level of bloat that people are claiming.

 

It's really rich hearing book purists criticize the show for being full of shock and awe when years ago, before HBO, the books were touted in no small part because of their shocking moments.

 

Furthermore, George has made use of the cliffhanger and fake-out death far more than the show has.  Too many to list, but you know how much he relies on this lame plot device if you've read the books.  

 

There's nothing wrong with having shocking moments, but they must come from an organic place. They must be earned, they must resonate with the themes of the series, they must be built on character development. That is what makes a shocking event great. Daznak's Pit is a great example. In the books this is the culmination of Dany's struggle with her Targaryen heritage. Is she a mother or a conqueror? And Meereen itself has been progressively going to hell throughout the novel. In the show, Dany has no such internal struggle and prior to this point all her problems in Meereen are solved. It's no quasi-erotic fulfilment of her family heritage, it's just Dany being rescued by male characters and then Drogon sweeping in as a deus ex machina. 

[protar]

 

Each location adds numerous charcters.

 

You want Faegon well he doesn't come alone. You add Griff, various teachers, mercenary captains, people they interact with when they land in Westeros. I think that is a dozen just be adding one more omitted plotline.

 

You want the Ironborn just how many characters do you think you need to give a reasonably faithful adaption of the AFFC/ADWD storyline. 

 

It is the same with Winterfell and the Northern lords.

 

An extra 30-50 characters is a conservative estimate of what would be needed to more faithfully adapt AFFC/ADWD 

 

You're pulling that number out of nowhere. And even if it were true it's a misleading statistic because a.) The introduction of those characters could be spread out over season's 3 and 4. And b.) not all of those characters would be important characters. For example the Kingsmoot would require a few extras to act as potential filler kings, but they would just appear for one scene. Not anything that would overwhelm viewers. And not much of a cost either.

 

I mean how many prostitutes do D+D cast? Just looking at the wiki they've cast about thirty prostitutes that aren't in the books. Many which are recurring characters which they've given names and even little stories (I remember them comparing Daisy the prostitute's arc to Sansa's back in season 2.).

 

These are some of the majorish characters I would have liked the show to cast:

 

Season 4:

> Euron

> Victarion

> Aeron

> Green Grace

> Skahaz

> Val

 

Season 5:

> Arianne (but fewer sandsnakes, so actually I'd be conserving characters in Dorne)

> Aegon

> Joncon

> Lemore

> Quentyn

> Manderly

> Lady Dustin

 

So about a dozen. And not all of those are even completely necessary.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

You are basically preaupposing that these characters must be important because there's no way Martin could do something like introduce a load of red herring storylines because he's such a good writer.

Except he's often not a good writer, and does a lot of things which are simply bad form. If he can fake numerous deaths and think that's clever he could easily write a bunch of characters who don't go anyway too.

The truth is we won't know how important these people are till the books are done. But we'll get a very good sense from what the TV show leaves out

[Joan Jett]

Why did Littlefinger risk leaving Sansa there with the Boltons acting as if she's some manipulative mastermind now when the show didn't develop it?
 

This is what really got to me. I mean at the end of Season 4 Sansa had just gotten away with a BIG manipulation. By the end it seemed like she would become some kind of politics/manipulation apprentice of Littlefinger or something, sort of like Arya going to train with the FM or Bran finding Bloodraven. But that didn't happen. There was no training/teaching whatsoever. What REALLY bugs me is that one of the writers in an inside the episode clip says that she "learned from the best". When? When did she learn anything? She was already kind of good at manipulation/lying before, but she was in no way a player. It's as if with Sansa's storyline they're acting like there was a 5 year gap. No one can learn that much in between seasons.
And even if she were like Littlefinger....why get married so soon? Why not wait until the battle is done so he can keep her out of harm's way?

[Pyat>Daenerys]

 

Stannis sacrificing Shireen has been fairly heavily foreshadowed IMO and harks back to ancient mythology and sacrificing a child to appease the gods. The twist GRRM will put on this I believe is that Stannis will do so under the delusion he is the chosen one, when he isn't and will die anyway knowing he sacrificed his child for nothing.

 

If that is the case then the show has kept the essence of the arc while changing some of the details. An essential; change for a TV show short on time converting a massive book series.

 

With foreshadowing I guess you mean the scenes where he hugs his daughter and tells her how much he loves her, and when he says to Melisandre to fuck off after she asks him to burn Shireen? 

 

This is what really got to me. I mean at the end of Season 4 Sansa had just gotten away with a BIG manipulation. By the end it seemed like she would become some kind of politics/manipulation apprentice of Littlefinger or something, sort of like Arya going to train with the FM or Bran finding Bloodraven. But that didn't happen. There was no training/teaching whatsoever. What REALLY bugs me is that one of the writers in an inside the episode clip says that she "learned from the best". When? When did she learn anything? She was already kind of good at manipulation/lying before, but she was in no way a player. It's as if with Sansa's storyline they're acting like there was a 5 year gap. No one can learn that much in between seasons.
And even if she were like Littlefinger....why get married so soon? Why not wait until the battle is done so he can keep her out of harm's way?

 

Because everyone involved in the WF plot needs to be a moron for it to work. There is no reason for LF to surrender Sansa. And there is no reason for the Boltons to not just kill him.

[MoreOrLess]

Maybe its just me but I felt there was quite a significant shift in the show towards the end of the 2nd season. The last couple of episodes really seemed to set the pattern that the series would follow after that, the plotting seemed to slow down and we got more focus on lengthier character scenes with less exposition.

 

I wonder if that's part of the reason why season 5's plot was so cut down, season's 3 and 4 had the luxury of cutting a single book in half in order to maintain that slower pace, with season 5 cutting out a lot of detail allowed them to do the same.

 

You look at the Stannis material for example and simplifying his campaign in the north allowed for a lot more focus on the drama involved.

[protar]

You are basically preaupposing that these characters must be important because there's no way Martin could do something like introduce a load of red herring storylines because he's such a good writer.

Except he's often not a good writer, and does a lot of things which are simply bad form. If he can fake numerous deaths and think that's clever he could easily write a bunch of characters who don't go anyway too.

The truth is we won't know how important these people are till the books are done. But we'll get a very good sense from what the TV show leaves out

 

Is he a perfect writer? No. But suggesting that he's such a bad writer that he'd spend so much time on new characters and plot lines to no ultimate goal is just insulting. For the most part, Martin is a great writer. So knowing that, we can assume that he's going to have good overall narrative structure. Because so far he has. People overstate the flaws of the last two books. 

 

I'm still very confused as to why exactly people don't think that Aegon, Arianne and the Ironborn are important. Despite that they are already linking up with the main plots as of the end of Dance. It seems to me that people were just bitter that their favourite characters weren't all in Feast for Crows and also people seem to overestimate how far into the story we are. Feast for Crows is about half way into the series. That's not too late to introduce major new characters.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

 
Is he a perfect writer? No. But suggesting that he's such a bad writer that he'd spend so much time on new characters and plot lines to no ultimate goal is just insulting. For the most part, Martin is a great writer. So knowing that, we can assume that he's going to have good overall narrative structure. Because so far he has. People overstate the flaws of the last two books. 
 
I'm still very confused as to why exactly people don't think that Aegon, Arianne and the Ironborn are important. Despite that they are already linking up with the main plots as of the end of Dance. It seems to me that people were just bitter that their favourite characters weren't all in Feast for Crows and also people seem to overestimate how far into the story we are. Feast for Crows is about half way into the series. That's not too late to introduce major new characters.

Well that's a matter of opinion. I see Martin as a good writer who often mates poor infuriating decisions in his books. Constantly killing off then bringing back characters, splitting books up and delaying storylines because he can't work out how to make things work. Sending characters off on wild goose chases to fill up space. He's far from perfect.

So to have faith in his actions is a big leap, at the moment I'm very sceptical of what he's doing with Aegon for example. You say it's half way through but it was introduced midway through the 5th book in a 7 book series. That is not half way. So if it's game changing its simply bad writing, if it's fake and irrelevant it's even worse writing.

[JagLover]

 

Quentyn was an important character. His main purpose is to serve as a catalyst for Arianne's development (who in turn is very important but no good writer includes a sub plot of the size of Dorne, without intending it to be important. Nor does a good writer spend so much time developing Arianne just for fun.). Once that purpose was fulfilled, Quentyn was a loose end who Martin used to tie up some odd jobs in the narrative. Namely freeing the dragons (and he may catalyse Dorne turning away from Dany and siding with Aegon, that remains to be seen.). It's debatable whether Quentyn needed a POV, but I think he did, just perhaps not as many chapters as he got. The Spurned Suitor and Dragontamer chapters both seem pretty tight, plot progressing chapters to me. And I can hardly fault Martin for giving us Quentyn an introductory POV chapter in The Merchant's Man. So the only point of debate for me is whether the Windblown is necessary. Perhaps not, but one somewhat superfluous chapter is hardly the level of bloat that people are claiming.

 

 

 In the first three books important characters (far more so than Quentyn) can not only be non-POV, but also offscreen. They are actually admirable examples to writers everywhere of staying true to POV limitations in terms of developing a story.

 

For the next two books GRRM decided that if anything interesting as happening anyway in the world we needed a POV character there. You may think that all of these people are important as a result others disagree.

 

Quentyn is important because of Arianne, who in turn is important because of Faegon. If the whole lot of them can be omitted without any significant impact on the core characters you have to seriously question their importance to the wider story rather than to each other.  

[JagLover]

 

With foreshadowing I guess you mean the scenes where he hugs his daughter and tells her how much he loves her, and when he says to Melisandre to fuck off after she asks him to burn Shireen? 

 

 

 

it has been foreshadowed in both book and show.

 

 

 “I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning... burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?”
^{-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Davos}

 

^{I think some people are being very simplistic when they complain about this storyline. Did Azor Ahai not love his wife?, did those men of mythology not love their children who they were asked to sacrifice to the gods?. The point about this was that Stannis did love Shireen in his own way but sacrificed her because he believed it necessary to fulfil his destiny.}

[kissdbyfire]

The problem with Stannis is not that he decided it was necessary to burn Shireen, it's everything that led up to it.

They've never really developed Stannis as a character, from his first appearance. Yes, it is possible that he will make the same decision in the books. But it won't - and in fact can't happen the way it did n the show.

They had characters stating that 'Stannis is the best military commander in Westeros' - both Roose Bolton and Littlefinger said as much this season. They showed us how much he loves his only daughter and sole heir; they showed us Mel hinting at Shireen's immolation as the way to move forward - literally - and Stannis basically telling her to fuck off. Then, in the very next episode, he changes his mind - something the Ds stated is something he'd never do - in a totally unbelievable way. Ramsay and his 20 good men managed to set all the siege equipment on fire, despite the 'heavy snows'; the best military commander in Westeros picked the worst possible sentries - all blind, deaf, and chronically sleepy - ALL of them.
The showrunners also made the decision that distances don't matter at all, because creatively they wanted that. So Stannis camp cannot be weeks away from Castle Black. There isn't that much snow that we see, they have, according to Davos, 'hundreds of dead horses' and allegedly lots of snow - this means they have food for more than enough time to send someone to CB or even to wait and see if the weather will improve or any number of things. But no, we're in a hurry, so let's burn Shireen in the cheapest, most unearned way possible. Also because shock.
And to add insult to injury, Stannis then decides to attack even though he has no men, no horses because the deserters too ALL the horses - except of course the one Mel hopped on to flee - and orders his handful of remaining men to prepare the siege, regardless of the fact that ALL siege engines were destroyed.
All these decisions were made by 'the best military commander in Westeros'.

That's part of the problem with what they've done to the character.

[A Ghost of Someone]

It's really rich hearing book purists criticize the show for being full of shock and awe when years ago, before HBO, the books were touted in no small part because of their shocking moments.

 

Furthermore, George has made use of the cliffhanger and fake-out death far more than the show has.  Too many to list, but you know how much he relies on this lame plot device if you've read the books.  

In the books, they were built up for something that has a valid reason other than just an OMG moment. The Books do have a "space" advantage that a television show simply does not have due to time constraints, I will give it that. This year in particular, the Sansa marriage and rape were completely un called for and it was clearly in there to have that shockingly sad night and to get her sexy look after the horrific event now that she was as Ramsay called "a woman".

[protar]

 In the first three books important characters (far more so than Quentyn) can not only be non-POV, but also offscreen. They are actually admirable examples to writers everywhere of staying true to POV limitations in terms of developing a story.

 

For the next two books GRRM decided that if anything interesting as happening anyway in the world we needed a POV character there. You may think that all of these people are important as a result others disagree.

 

Quentyn is important because of Arianne, who in turn is important because of Faegon. If the whole lot of them can be omitted without any significant impact on the core characters you have to seriously question their importance to the wider story rather than to each other.  

 

And why are you jumping to that conclusion? Everything we've seen indicates the exact opposite. Aegon is already conquering Westeros and Kings Landing is talking about how to deal with him. The new plot lines introduced in Feast and Dance are already making contact with the core plot as Aegon lands at Storm's End, Victarion reaches Slaver's Bay, The Sandsnakes go to Kings Landing and then Arianne is going to see Aegon as well. There's no reason to think that these people aren't important. People were just frustrated that their favourites weren't in Feast.

 

I don't disagree that the last two books are a bit more meandering but the flaws of those books are vastly overstated. I wouldn't have wanted the Dragontaming to take place off screen for example.

[protar]

Well that's a matter of opinion. I see Martin as a good writer who often mates poor infuriating decisions in his books. Constantly killing off then bringing back characters, splitting books up and delaying storylines because he can't work out how to make things work. Sending characters off on wild goose chases to fill up space. He's far from perfect.

So to have faith in his actions is a big leap, at the moment I'm very sceptical of what he's doing with Aegon for example. You say it's half way through but it was introduced midway through the 5th book in a 7 book series. That is not half way. So if it's game changing its simply bad writing, if it's fake and irrelevant it's even worse writing.

 

It's a little hypocritical to accuse me of making leaps of faith and then you put faith in D+D. Martin has proven himself far more than they have. They have a five year resume of poor writing. 

 

Martin on the other hand has written five very good books. And yes, even the last two books are very good. There's an argument to be made that they have the most depth of themes and character development. Martin has yet to introduce a major character who has been unimportant, so why would I assume that these new characters whose stories are not over, are unimportant merely because they were introduced a little later?

 

Aegon's introduction is later in the game than Arianne and the Ironborn. But I still fail to see how this is relevant and bad writing. Many series' introduce new plots and characters late into the game. Look at the Horcruxes and the Deathly Hallows in Harry Potter. Core parts of the mythos, not introduced until the penultimate and final books respectively. So long as there is still enough time to integrate Aegon into the setting, to develop his character and story, then it's not bad writing. And this series still has hundreds, even thousands of pages left.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Please don't hold up Harry Potter as examples of good writing.

And it's not hypocritical, D&D have to condense the story so it's more obvious to them which elements have less importance to the overall plot. If quentyn isn't in it then it's pretty obvious he is very secondary. He achieves literally nothing in his time and just takes up space. The same could be said of the majority of characters in the last 2 books. They might be enjoyable books but there is almost no plot progression.

[A Ghost of Someone]

Please don't hold up Harry Potter as examples of good writing.

And it's not hypocritical, D&D have to condense the story so it's more obvious to them which elements have less importance to the overall plot. If quentyn isn't in it then it's pretty obvious he is very secondary. He achieves literally nothing in his time and just takes up space. The same could be said of the majority of characters in the last 2 books. They might be enjoyable books but there is almost no plot progression.

We do not know if they try and make Trystane take on the role of Quentyn next season or not. His betrothal to Myrcella is apparently out of the way.

[JagLover]

The problem with Stannis is not that he decided it was necessary to burn Shireen, it's everything that led up to it.

They've never really developed Stannis as a character, from his first appearance. Yes, it is possible that he will make the same decision in the books. But it won't - and in fact can't happen the way it did n the show.

They had characters stating that 'Stannis is the best military commander in Westeros' - both Roose Bolton and Littlefinger said as much this season. They showed us how much he loves his only daughter and sole heir; they showed us Mel hinting at Shireen's immolation as the way to move forward - literally - and Stannis basically telling her to fuck off. Then, in the very next episode, he changes his mind - something the Ds stated is something he'd never do - in a totally unbelievable way. Ramsay and his 20 good men managed to set all the siege equipment on fire, despite the 'heavy snows'; the best military commander in Westeros picked the worst possible sentries - all blind, deaf, and chronically sleepy - ALL of them.
The showrunners also made the decision that distances don't matter at all, because creatively they wanted that. So Stannis camp cannot be weeks away from Castle Black. There isn't that much snow that we see, they have, according to Davos, 'hundreds of dead horses' and allegedly lots of snow - this means they have food for more than enough time to send someone to CB or even to wait and see if the weather will improve or any number of things. But no, we're in a hurry, so let's burn Shireen in the cheapest, most unearned way possible. Also because shock.
And to add insult to injury, Stannis then decides to attack even though he has no men, no horses because the deserters too ALL the horses - except of course the one Mel hopped on to flee - and orders his handful of remaining men to prepare the siege, regardless of the fact that ALL siege engines were destroyed.
All these decisions were made by 'the best military commander in Westeros'.

That's part of the problem with what they've done to the character.

  

Well let’s look at this entire plotline

 

I trust we have now moved beyond the simplistic argument that Stannis cares for Shireen=he would never sacrifice her. After all the sequence of events on the show was not “Stannis feels a bit cold so burns Shireen to keep warm”

 

Further, in terms of background, Stannis achieved an impressive victory over the Ironborn…at sea. He might be the greatest admiral in Westeros but prior to S5 his experience on land seems to be limited to surviving a siege, getting his ar*e kicked at the Blackwater and defeating the Wildlings when he took them by surprise.

 

In terms of the composition of his army (on show at any rate) a large proportion are mercenaries of  dubious loyalty.

 

In terms of the show events they are operating in conditions of extreme cold and very poor visibility  which would massively reduce the performance of any sentries.

 

Was the story a little rushed, yes. I would have liked to see another scene going into their desperation before the burning. Did it all make logical sense, again yes, despite what many claim, the composition of his army and the conditions make a number of different scenarios for the success of twenty good men possible.

 

The burning makes sense if Stannis believes this is vital to achieve his destiny.

 

Pushing on despite the desertions also makes sense due to his stubbornness In the same spirit he went to face Renly trusting in divine intervention to win the day.

[Tolsimir]

It is stupid for Stannis to sacrifice Shireen for the throne because without her his throne is meaningless anyway.