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Things that have gone worse with respect to the draft


Mithras

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This thread is about the things revealed in George’s original draft, which was mainly about the first volume of his original trilogy, which more or less corresponds to the plots of AGoT-ACoK-ASoS.

 

For me, George should have kept two things most:

 

The whole Dany-Viserys-Drogo angle. That was a much better story than what George came up with later. The cost of abandoning that idea was huge. George had to reduce Viserys to an over-the-top moronic jackass. He converted original Dany-Drogo relationship to a love marriage in an unreasonable way which reeks with sexist rape-empowerment and whatnot. Dany murdering her husband for revenge instead of mercy-pillowing him would result in a much better story and make Dany a much more complex character.

 

Cat returning to Winterfell. The only actual reason why George decided to keep Cat with Robb is that he did not want to give Robb a POV. The rest is merely technicalities. The cost was huge. George had to invent stuff for Cat to do while Robb dragged her all along Riverlands and only Cat must be able to do what she did for Robb. Otherwise, it would harm the suspension of disbelief and that is exactly what happened many times.

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What was the original viserys plan?

 

Over across the narrow sea, Daenerys Targaryen will discover that her new husband, the Dothraki Khal Drogo, has little interest in invading the Seven Kingdoms, much to her brother's frustration. When Viserys presses his claims past the point of tact or wisdom, Khal Drogo will finally grow annoyed and kill him out of hand, eliminating the Targaryen pretender and leaving Daenerys as the last of her line. Danerys (sic) will bide her time, but she will not forget. When the moment is right, she will kill her husband to avenge her brother, and then flee with a trusted friend into the wilderness beyond Vaes Dothrak.

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Over across the narrow sea, Daenerys Targaryen will discover that her new husband, the Dothraki Khal Drogo, has little interest in invading the Seven Kingdoms, much to her brother's frustration. When Viserys presses his claims past the point of tact or wisdom, Khal Drogo will finally grow annoyed and kill him out of hand, eliminating the Targaryen pretender and leaving Daenerys as the last of her line. Danerys (sic) will bide her time, but she will not forget. When the moment is right, she will kill her husband to avenge her brother, and then flee with a trusted friend into the wilderness beyond Vaes Dothrak.


I actually prefer current dany story to planned but I'll give you cat going back to wf
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Strategy. Writing strategy, I mean. The outline was already an epic story, but GRRM needed to make it bigger still. A trilogy it was supposed to be. Stark versus Lannister, Targaryen versus the Seven Kingdoms, the Others versus life. Not small, but reasonably compact. That's how the story looked in AGOT (which I still maintain was the best book of the series). And then he kept adding plots and places, making the whole story near impossible to control, to maintain, to even see properly. I know he seems himself as a "gardener" type of a storyteller. That's perfectly fine. Here's a (written by someone else, I'm just pasting) piece of advice for gardeners:

Left to its own devices, a vigorous indeterminate tomato plant can easily cover a 4- by 4-foot area with as many as 10 stems, each 3 to 5 feet long. By season's end, it will be an unsightly, impenetrable, disease-wracked tangle.

 

And that is why, after fifth book of the planned trilogy, Daenerys is still hanging out in Essos, and before she can dream of going to Westeros, we'll have quite a few more Meereenese chapters, and she somehow needs to deal with the Dothraki horde, and... go to Dosh Khaleen? Shit, will two more books be enough just to move Ms. Stormborn's perfect ass to the Seven Kingdoms? And do something of meaning there, and don't make it all look sloppy and rushed?

 

Prune, sir. You should have pruned the plant when it was time, too late now. Three-stemmed bush is still a magnificent plant than can both give plentiful crops and look pleasing to the eye. Ten-stemmed bush is a sad mess.

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This thread is about the things revealed in George’s original draft, which was mainly about the first volume of his original trilogy, which more or less corresponds to the plots of AGoT-ACoK-ASoS.

 

For me, George should have kept two things most:

 

The whole Dany-Viserys-Drogo angle. That was a much better story than what George came up with later. The cost of abandoning that idea was huge. George had to reduce Viserys to an over-the-top moronic jackass. He converted original Dany-Drogo relationship to a love marriage in an unreasonable way which reeks with sexist rape-empowerment and whatnot. Dany murdering her husband for revenge instead of mercy-pillowing him would result in a much better story and make Dany a much more complex character.

 

Cat returning to Winterfell. The only actual reason why George decided to keep Cat with Robb is that he did not want to give Robb a POV. The rest is merely technicalities. The cost was huge. George had to invent stuff for Cat to do while Robb dragged her all along Riverlands and only Cat must be able to do what she did for Robb. Otherwise, it would harm the suspension of disbelief and that is exactly what happened many times.

No current version of Dany's arc was better. Killing for revenge will the worst for her arc considering how revenge was already overused in her arc. Present Dany is a much more complex character.

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I also would like to see the Joff capable of fighting in a battle instead of the ridiculous coward we had now.


He wasn't that big a coward in the books, that was more the show going overboard with it. I mean, he fought Robb at Winterfell, wanted to fight at the Blackwater until Cersei called him back, etc.
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Joff was an incompetent coward in the books as well. It took his breath off to slice a book with a VS sword.

 

The only brave thing Joff did in the books was when he called Tywin a coward in the Small Council. And what an amusing sight that was!

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Ned arranging for Cat and Arya to escape King's Landing.

 

Not everything would have miraculously gone Cercei's way, it would have shown some foresight from a man that has been a ruler for more than a decade and given him a small measure of success to take a bit from the sting of his death. As it is, poor Ned dies a self confessed traitor having accomplished exactly nothing during his entire tenure as Hand.

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Ned arranging for Cat and Arya to escape King's Landing.

 

Not everything would have miraculously gone Cercei's way, it would have shown some foresight from a man that has been a ruler for more than a decade and given him a small measure of success to take a bit from the sting of his death. As it is, poor Ned dies a self confessed traitor having accomplished exactly nothing during his entire tenure as Hand.

Agreed.

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I think what really happened between the pitch and the novels is that he built a believable world for his story to take place in, and then let the story evolve there. The original plot could have made for a great story, but the setting of "15th century England with some generic fantasy crap dropped in" would not have inspired people to dig through all the details and debate points of history as fiercely as they do for the real world or Middle Earth.

In the last two books especially, you can clearly see that plot took a distant third to exploring themes and to world building. Whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on what kind of series you're looking for.1

1 Of course for D&D, it's obviously a bad thing, but I don't think anyone really cares about their difficulties. After all, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it, bok-cack.
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