What the show got better than the books

[Kaibaman]

The fact that we actually got to see more of Robb, get his perspective and see him develop more before our very eyes was one thing I really liked about the show. Also some parts of the books that weren't properly executed or explained were done better in the show with some improvisations here and there. For instance in the books while Ned only learnt about the Lannisters invading the Riverlands from vague testimonies, in the show Gregor's decapitation of a horse was what lead Ned to deduce he was the leading the attack from a previous episode. 

Also I liked how Cat seems a lot more kinder than she is in the books. While in the books she was unrepentant of her horrible treatment of Jon, in the show she at least shows remorse for her actions.

[ANNALISVETH]

On 4/18/2016 at 5:16 PM, Whomping.Willow said:

4. Varys & Littlefinger's conversations in the show. Each one of them is the best dialogues writers have written on the show.

 The ladder speech....epic

[StepStark]

5 hours ago, shadow282 said:

You just quoted the exact passage that says that she wanted to kill herself. If you honestly can't figure it out from that, try reading it again. Maybe slowly would help you?

You said he doesn't change after the wedding night. He very clearly does. Again, in the paragraph you so helpfully quoted, so thanks for that. Makes this much easier. Maybe slower reading would help here too?

Why you show lovers always insult other posters when you have nothing to say? Instead of trying to insult me, perhaps you should deal with what I wrote.

You have some illusion about Drogo on their wedding night, but in reality, he is not a shining knight. He didn't rape Dany, of course, and he was gentle when it came to physical intercourse, but he did marry a frightened girl of 13 years. He is capable of both good and bad right from the start. So later on, when Dany's hurt because of the way he makes love to her, he didn't change. It simply is part of his nature, especially when, unlike on their wedding night, they're surrounded by his tribesmen. And that's why it is very important that he doesn't even recognize Dany's agony. He's just going the routine Dothraki way in their marriage, he's on autopilot - but he doesn't rape her and he never hurts her deliberately. That is evident from the text itself and that is why I quoted it. Dany can't stand it, of course, but she eventually finds a way to change things into something that she likes.

And not to mention that in the close third person narration, when a character says she'd rather kill herself, it doesn't literally mean that she really is going to kill herself. It is a figure of speech, like we all do. Dany definitely is in an agony, but she's not really contemplating suicide.

In any case, I can't help you if you want to see a "change" in Drogo. If you want to keep ignoring nuances, that's your prerogative. If you want to think that Drogo was some sort of a Good Samaritan on their wedding knight, that's your choice. If you want to think that he's raping her and hurting her deliberately after that, that's your choice. Or, as you put it, your reading comprehension. But in fact he really didn't change.

The moment of his change comes later on, when Dany, with her initiative, makes piece between their two worlds. When they make love her was, but in front of the whole khalasar, like Dothraki do. That is the moment their marriage truly became a romance. And Drogo became Dany's husband first, Dothraki khal second. Shame that the show wasn't able to do justice to that scene.

[shadow282]

-Ignoring a large portion of the horribleness of the last two books

-Cersei maintaining actual depth

-Arya and Tywin

-Mance actually dying

-Hardhome

[HairGrowsBack]

1 hour ago, shadow282 said:

 

-Hardhome

Can you develop that one ? 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Lets try to not turn every conversation to one about Rape. Its like ASOIAF Godwins law.

[Lautrec]

26 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Lets try to not turn every conversation to one about Rape. Its like ASOIAF Godwins law.

Hahaha, good one  That is so true. 

[Woman of War]

1 hour ago, Wilnova said:

...

This was what it was like for Dany:

She has freaking open sores on her bottom and you are saying Drogo is unaware of the agony he is putting her through? And this is considered to be romantic?? Ugh.

She was a 13 yr old forced into a marriage with an adult. She had no choice but to adapt to the rape or suffer. How many here would consider it romantic if Tyrion had forced himself on Sansa because he is unaware of her disgust and she adapts to it by hiding her disgust? Would that be romantic? Tyrion gets shit from Sansa fans even though he never engages in marital rape. But apparently with Dany it's all A-OK and romantic. Even though she was also sold and forced into the marriage and even worse, raped. Why? Because Drogo is hot? 

By all modern standards, Dany was raped. She was a terrified, 13 yr old who had no choice on her wedding night. The show depicting it as rape was one of the best things they have done.

 

Thank you, Wilnova, there is nothing more to add  

What the show does better than the books - are, sorry, so often the scenes which are not in the books, wonderful gems catching and condensing the spirit of ASIOAF:

Tywin and Jaime, showing not telling what that overwhelming and horrible  father does to his children

Varys and Baelish

Cersei and Robert

Cersei and Tommen during Blackwater

Tyrion and Jorah reciting that poem

Hardhome

What did I forget..........so many more additional scenes entirely capturing the essence of Martin's book

see, I mentioned Cersei aka Lena Headey twice, she is an incredible enrichment to the Cersei character 

This  is a positive thread so I keep my show issues to myself, I stay on topic.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Further to my previous point about Jon, and outside of any particular scenes, the one thing I truly appreciate about the show is that it 'fixes' a lot of things I do dislike about the later books. When season 5 was coming out I was at my least interested point of the show ever. I knew they were adapting ADWD and AFFC and that dampened my expectations hugely. There was very little I was looking forward to seeing in that season, because there was very little that was memorable from the books.

Neither Jon's nor Dany's story was ever going to be very gripping, I dreaded having to see Tyrion trawl his way across the world, complaining and muttering to himself. I didn't want to see Brienne wander around, or the Kingsmoot, or Doran worring about his legs.

But somehow the show idenitified a lot of the issues people have with those books, the long travelogues, the lack of pacing, the disparate stories, the drawn out plots and lack of drama.. and they made them work for tv. 

Of course it caused a bunch of issues too, which is predictable, but at the very least they didn't slavishly stick to what they had to work with, but understood the medium they are working on and their end goal. 



 

[Neds Secret]

16 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Further to my previous point about Jon, and outside of any particular scenes, the one thing I truly appreciate about the show is that it 'fixes' a lot of things I do dislike about the later books. When season 5 was coming out I was at my least interested point of the show ever. I knew they were adapting ADWD and AFFC and that dampened my expectations hugely. There was very little I was looking forward to seeing in that season, because there was very little that was memorable from the books.

Neither Jon's nor Dany's story was ever going to be very gripping, I dreaded having to see Tyrion trawl his way across the world, complaining and muttering to himself. I didn't want to see Brienne wander around, or the Kingsmoot, or Doran worring about his legs.

But somehow the show idenitified a lot of the issues people have with those books, the long travelogues, the lack of pacing, the disparate stories, the drawn out plots and lack of drama.. and they made them work for tv. 

Of course it caused a bunch of issues too, which is predictable, but at the very least they didn't slavishly stick to what they had to work with, but understood the medium they are working on and their end goal. 



 

I get what your saying and I agree with the general direction of the points you made. D$D tried streamline the story, unfortunately and just in my opinion they didn't do a very good job of it. Sansas new plot made no sense, Dorne was a parody of itself, and Kings Landing was nonsense! Any squire of Loras would know he had a birthmark, no grounds to lock up the queen because a  squire says Loras has a birthmark. Olly basically running the watch at the end and Sam sidestepping his Nights Watch vows just terrible writing and I think it is obvious to any fair minded fan of Martins work, I used to love GoT but I feel really disappointed of late!

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

2 minutes ago, Neds Secret said:

I get what your saying and I agree with the general direction of the points you made. D$D tried streamline the story, unfortunately and just in my opinion they didn't do a very good job of it. Sansas new plot made no sense, Dorne was a parody of itself, and Kings Landing was nonsense! Any squire of Loras would know he had a birthmark, no grounds to lock up the queen because a  squire says Loras has a birthmark. Olly basically running the watch at the end and Sam sidestepping his Nights Watch vows just terrible writing and I think it is obvious to any fair minded fan of Martins work, I used to love GoT but I feel really disappointed of late!

And I get what you are saying. Of course there have been moments of poor writing and not entirely clever decisions, but I still deep down appreciate what they had to work with and the choices they had to make. There is simply no way you can take what Martin put on page, and lay it out on screen and expect a 10 episode season to at all entertaining.

Those books needed major rework if they were going to be made for TV. I appreciate and understand the vast majority of the changes that were made, because even before the season started I'd identified those issues and knew how problematic they would be. 

[Neds Secret]

45 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

And I get what you are saying. Of course there have been moments of poor writing and not entirely clever decisions, but I still deep down appreciate what they had to work with and the choices they had to make. There is simply no way you can take what Martin put on page, and lay it out on screen and expect a 10 episode season to at all entertaining.

Those books needed major rework if they were going to be made for TV. I appreciate and understand the vast majority of the changes that were made, because even before the season started I'd identified those issues and knew how problematic they would be. 

Yeah but they came up with " the cock merchant and "bad pussy" and I truly feel that it could not get much worse than that, if they cannot improve on that they should have found help that could. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

11 minutes ago, Neds Secret said:

Yeah but they came up with " the cock merchant and "bad pussy" and I truly feel that it could not get much worse than that, if they cannot improve on that they should have found help that could. 

In your opinion. Cock merchant was fine, there was plenty of dwarf cock jokes in the book and I actually thought the seen was a lot of fun. Bad pussy was awful, most of Dorne was really bad, but that doesn't take away from the vast majority of the show which was still very good, and has continued to be since the first season. If you think that is the worst thing you've seen I urge you to watch more tv.

Nor does it take away from the reasons WHY the show had to make so many changes, which can all be pointed back to Martin and his writing.

[The Fattest Leech]

40 minutes ago, Neds Secret said:

Yeah but they came up with " the cock merchant and "bad pussy" and I truly feel that it could not get much worse than that, if they cannot improve on that they should have found help that could. 

People who study to identify counterfeit money don't study fake money, they study the real thing so that when a fake comes by they can spot it immediately. You don't have to watch loads of tv to see what is good and what is not. 

[HairGrowsBack]

49 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

In your opinion. Cock merchant was fine, there was plenty of dwarf cock jokes in the book and I actually thought the seen was a lot of fun. Bad pussy was awful, most of Dorne was really bad, but that doesn't take away from the vast majority of the show which was still very good, and has continued to be since the first season. If you think that is the worst thing you've seen I urge you to watch more tv.

Nor does it take away from the reasons WHY the show had to make so many changes, which can all be pointed back to Martin and his writing.

So all the atrocious characterization is Martin's fault ? It does seem "physically"impossible.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Is that what I said? I said they were forced to make changes. 

[Ruhail]

47 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Is that what I said? I said they were forced to make changes. 

I dont see how bad pussy, 20 good men or cock merchant are changes that needed to happen.

[Tianzi]

5 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Lets try to not turn every conversation to one about Rape. Its like ASOIAF Godwins law.

So, going around the R word: Drogo's characterization is more consistent in the show, he's 'very Dothraki' since the beginning, and not Romeo during the first night and insensitive barbarian during the others.
 

[Wilnova]

24 minutes ago, Ruhail said:

I dont see how bad pussy, 20 good men or cock merchant are changes that needed to happen.

Bringing up 'bad pussy' is like flogging a dead horse by now. It's trite and getting old. We get it. It's bad. Just like 'fat pink mast' and 'Myrish Swamp'. Is there nothing else to criticize? 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

4 minutes ago, Wilnova said:

Bringing up 'bad pussy' is like flogging a dead horse by now. It's trite and getting old. We get it. It's bad. Just like 'fat pink mast' and 'Myrish Swamp'. Is there nothing else to criticize? 

Also its totally not the point of what was being discussed. Its a lazy fallback option.