How Much Did GRRM tell D&D?

[Kusanagi]

I don't think the problem is GRRM didn't finish the books per se; rather it's more about the show's writers completely altering characters and story lines. And to add insults to injuries, make their characters complete idiots. Take the Battle for example, I would have satisfied if they kept the general outline, but spent more time to explain characters' motivations. And since the outcome of the Battle has to be Ramsay getting defeated, they can show Snow does that by a combination of tactics and luck. That Battle can be fixed by minor tweaks, but the writers were either too lazy or too incompetent, so they rely on cheap parlour tricks and cliches to appease their audience.

To me this is like what Zack Snyder did to Batman v Superman. You have a person who doesn't care about the source materials having creative control. Zack Snyder didn't care to make Batman and Superman interesting characters; he just wanted to film cool visuals and for some reason make the film super depressing.

Likewise, the show's writers don't want to show how interesting the book characters are; they just want to get the audience to be emotionally reliance, so the show has become the opposite of murder-of-the-week, the selling point has become who-will-die-this-week. 

[Zombies That Were Promised]

6 hours ago, Lyin' Ned said:

So they're working with uninteresting material and somehow they're the bad guys, not the guy who wrote the uninteresting material in the first place? It is their job as writers to come up with something interesting, but it wasn't GRRM's job to write something interesting to begin with?

 

Yes.

For writers to work on an adaptation they should be able to...adapt.  Whether George was able to finish the books or not, whether the books were interesting themselves or not.

[Zombies That Were Promised]

2 hours ago, Kusanagi said:

Likewise, the show's writers don't want to show how interesting the book characters are; they just want to get the audience to be emotionally reliance, so the show has become the opposite of murder-of-the-week, the selling point has become who-will-die-this-week. 

Pretty much - the show is popular because it does this, like The Walking Dead, which isn't great either.  GRRM's books are a well-crafted intricately woven tale of several characters on an epic scale, some of that IS lost when translated to a TV medium that can only do so much, but the show, as it is now, and has been for a while, has been an incoherent checklist of plot points of A to B to C.

[lancerman]

2 hours ago, Kusanagi said:

I don't think the problem is GRRM didn't finish the books per se; rather it's more about the show's writers completely altering characters and story lines. And to add insults to injuries, make their characters complete idiots. Take the Battle for example, I would have satisfied if they kept the general outline, but spent more time to explain characters' motivations. And since the outcome of the Battle has to be Ramsay getting defeated, they can show Snow does that by a combination of tactics and luck. That Battle can be fixed by minor tweaks, but the writers were either too lazy or too incompetent, so they rely on cheap parlour tricks and cliches to appease their audience.

To me this is like what Zack Snyder did to Batman v Superman. You have a person who doesn't care about the source materials having creative control. Zack Snyder didn't care to make Batman and Superman interesting characters; he just wanted to film cool visuals and for some reason make the film super depressing.

Likewise, the show's writers don't want to show how interesting the book characters are; they just want to get the audience to be emotionally reliance, so the show has become the opposite of murder-of-the-week, the selling point has become who-will-die-this-week. 

This isn't a good example because if anything Zach Snyder is TOO reverent to the source material. There isn't a scene in that film that was directly lifted from a major Batman or Superman comic. In fact, the big disconnect is that mainstream audiances were too familiar with the old Superman films and not the hundreds of Superman comics that questioned his place in the world that have been coming out since the 80's. It was the same thing with Watchmen, which was also almost a panel for panel adaptation outside of one major change. He focused too much on cramming as much of the source material in as he could and didn't let the settle in on it's own theme. This is particular telling since the most successful Batman films ever (Nolan's) took several comic book storylines, did the Game of Thrones approach where they completely gutted the minutia and let their own themes seep through. You can say a lot of bad things about Snyder's storytelling, but not caring about the source material isn't close to one of them. He is currently the closest to bringing the comic book Batman to the screen and it's really not even close.

While I would disagree that there is a problem with the show, because it's still a widely critically acclaimed show and the vast majority of people enjoy it. But if I were to find fault in it's comparison to the book it's that the books definitely shifted in focus from the first three and it expanded outwords. The show was never going to keep up with that under it's current format. So you see plotlines cut, and details gutted to get the main gist of the plot without the nuances. And a big part of that there is no clear path to the payoff of all of GRRM's little details. So they are stuck between trying to adapt a vision where the creator left a giant gap to fill between his current material and the endgame. Most writers are going to struggle with that. Even great ones.

 

[lancerman]

8 minutes ago, Zombies That Were Promised said:

Yes.

For writers to work on an adaptation they should be able to...adapt.  Whether George was able to finish the books or not, whether the books were interesting themselves or not.

Sorry this is a faulty premise. 99% of adaptations have a complete template of the work they are adapting. The ones that don't generally go like Dexter or the Walking Dead where they completely abandon the original writers vision for their own.

This is the unique rarity where they started out with the idea of adapting a complete material, the material wasn't completely, they still want the same endgame and payoffs, and they don't have a full path to get their.

You can say "they should be able to...adapt". But almost nobody else has ever been in this position. And certainly not a show as predominant as this where you have more than a significant amount of logistics to work out in addition to the writing and then a massive production undertaking.

So yeah they would have benefitted from having a complete source to work off. That way they could evaluate where all the details they cut were going and included the ones that were particularly pertinent to the plot. And if you really pay attention, most of the criticism around here comes from material that wasn't included that people have all these theories about where they are going without actually knowing for sure.

 

 

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

No one said their job is easy, but if it's too hard for them then they should step aside and hire better writers and just remain the show runners.

Bottom line is they are not getting the job done as writers because the end product is atrocious. Whatever the cause, the show will remain a poorly written show until they fix it, and you can't fix a problem until you acknowledge that a problem exists.

[Prince of the North]

3 hours ago, lancerman said:

 

You know if he finished his story and they decided to change things around just for the sake of it, then I might agree with you. But no. He saw money. He sold the rights to the book. Got a bunch people to invest their lives into adapting it. 6 years later and didn't have new material to be released. Left everybody high and dry. Then they were forced to fill in his gaps.

He can criticize them if he wants. But they started out wanting to adapt his show and he's the one who failed to give them material to adapt.

 

Martin is on record as saying he wanted to finish the series before the show got there but it simply hasn't worked out that way.  Also, there was no contractual obligation or even verbal promise for him to do so.  So...don't you think it'd be a bit fairer to at least place some of the blame at the feet of HBO and the showrunners as well?  After all, they began the series without any assurances that it would be finished before they needed it.  Martin didn't have a gun to their heads.  They knew what they were risking as well.

[lancerman]

4 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

Martin is on record as saying he wanted to finish the series before the show got there but it simply hasn't worked out that way.  Also, there was no contractual obligation or even verbal promise for him to do so.  So...don't you think it'd be a bit fairer to at least place some of the blame at the feet of HBO and the showrunners as well?  After all, they began the series without any assurances that it would be finished before they needed it.  Martin didn't have a gun to their heads.  They knew what they were risking as well.

No I think it's completely unfair to place the blame on the showrunners or HBO. The minute Martin signed on the dotted line and got his millions of dollars he knew there was a time limit. He knew once they hired a cast and started prepping for filming there was a point where he had to get things done to stay ahead of the show. He's an adult, he worked in television, he knows how it works. He knows the whole world isn't going to stop because  he takes 5 years to right a book. And quite frankly he spent 4 years laughing off that possibility and then you saw his demeanor change real fast once he realized he was probably never finishing the series before the show, and we all saw him get down right depressing in the blog post.

Either way you cut it, he had a 5 year head start, there were no surprises. If people want to complain that they veered off from the source material, well that's what's going to happen when the writer can't produce the source material. I hope that book comes out, I hope it's great. But I don't really feel bad if he's upset that show changed things (which there is no evidence of) or that the show is going to pass him. They didn't have a gun to his head either to make him give them the rights. They had a bag of money. He wanted it. It's part of his legacy now to. I'm not being one of those petulant fans acting like he owes me anything. But what happened has indeed happened and he owns more than his fair share of it. And if we are being completely honest. He was the one who came up with the excuses why the last two book took so long (timeline, Meerenes knot), he was the one who laughed off the idea that this would happen. He was the only the person who could actually control whether the books would be out in time for the show to adapt them. He knew HBO wasn't going to give him all that money and then sit on everything for several years.They got a great cast, had thousands of people devote their lives to this show. Everyone knew the show wasn't going to stop.

[Kusanagi]

14 minutes ago, lancerman said:

No I think it's completely unfair to place the blame on the showrunners or HBO. The minute Martin signed on the dotted line and got his millions of dollars he knew there was a time limit. He knew once they hired a cast and started prepping for filming there was a point where he had to get things done to stay ahead of the show. He's an adult, he worked in television, he knows how it works. He knows the whole world isn't going to stop because  he takes 5 years to right a book. And quite frankly he spent 4 years laughing off that possibility and then you saw his demeanor change real fast once he realized he was probably never finishing the series before the show, and we all saw him get down right depressing in the blog post.

Either way you cut it, he had a 5 year head start, there were no surprises. If people want to complain that they veered off from the source material, well that's what's going to happen when the writer can't produce the source material. I hope that book comes out, I hope it's great. But I don't really feel bad if he's upset that show changed things (which there is no evidence of) or that the show is going to pass him. They didn't have a gun to his head either to make him give them the rights. They had a bag of money. He wanted it. It's part of his legacy now to. I'm not being one of those petulant fans acting like he owes me anything. But what happened has indeed happened and he owns more than his fair share of it. And if we are being completely honest. He was the one who came up with the excuses why the last two book took so long (timeline, Meerenes knot), he was the one who laughed off the idea that this would happen. He was the only the person who could actually control whether the books would be out in time for the show to adapt them. He knew HBO wasn't going to give him all that money and then sit on everything for several years.They got a great cast, had thousands of people devote their lives to this show. Everyone knew the show wasn't going to stop.

Wait, are you suggesting that GRRM has a contractual obligation to write ahead of HBO production?

No, he is not obliged to do that. He has right to complain just because he can feel that the adaptation isn't doing his work justice. An author can sell movie rights and not get involved at all, and the production does not have to be faithful to the source materials, and the author has every right to complain because the adaptation can tarnish the original work.

Personally I don't mind him take his sweet time to write the books; as a reader I value quality over quantity. And as the show audience, I am saying that are ways to do the show much much better: don't butcher Dorne, do not butcher characters, make you characters make sense in context etc. But the show writers forgo all that and opt for who-will-die-this-week, and this makes the show stupid, illogical and boring to the books readers who expect an intricate epic that explores the human conditions in dark times. 

[lancerman]

9 minutes ago, Kusanagi said:

Wait, are you suggesting that GRRM has a contractual obligation to write ahead of HBO production?

No, he is not obliged to do that. He has right to complain just because he can feel that the adaptation is doing he work justice. An author can sell movie rights and not get involved at all, and the production does not have to be faithful to the source materials, and the author has every right to complain because the adaptation can tarnish the original works.

Personally I don't mind him take his sweet time to write the books; as a reader I value quality over quantity. And as the show audience, I am saying that are ways to do the show much much better: don't butcher Dorne, do not butcher characters, make you characters make sense in context etc. But the show writers forgo all that and opt for who-will-die-this-week, and this makes the show stupid, illogical and boring to the books readers who expect an intricate epic that explores the human conditions in dark times. 

Did I say that? No I didn't. I don't even understand how you could read that post and even think that.

I said George is not a moron and knew what was going to happen the second he signed a contract for the rights to adapt his book. He was the only one in control of whether the books would be in a position to completed in time for the show to adapt them and he failed at that if he had any such goals. So if he is upset, which again that is just conjecture because he's never expressed as much, and he thinks that they tarnished the original works (which there is no proof of) then he should look in the mirror and be upset with himself first for signing over the rights OR for not finishing it on time. Because he had complete control of the situation before and after the contract to make sure it was finished.

What's happening with the show is so simple that a blind man can see it. They know the major beats but not any of the details so they are guessing. They know that Dorne somehow figures into the story, have no clue how Arianne and her plot figure in, largely because it probably figures into another incomplete plot involving a superfluous character that everyone thinks is a fake, which you could probably plan for if you had a pathway for how it all fit together. But if you don't, it's just a jumbled mess of guess work (and quite frankely with the rollout of the books, it looks like GRRM is still guessing). So if you have problems with what happened in Dorne, the only way to really figure out a way to correct it is to know what the endgame of Dorne is and how everything fits together. And we don't. And since we don't, there's no way of knowing what steps they should have taken. Because if I asked you and anybody else how the Dorne plot should have went this season if they did a direct adaptation last season, nobody would have a clue.

And before someone goes off the rails about me saying GRRM has a major role in how this played out, don't you think I would much rather the books be out so that I could have read them and the show could have used them and had a more effective source material to base itself off of? Don't you think that would be the ideal scenario for virtually everyone involved in this? The fans, George, the showrunners, HBO. The only thing is I'm willing to acknowledge that the reason the ideal scenario doesn't exist has to do with exactly one person.

 

 

[Kusanagi]

12 minutes ago, lancerman said:

Did I say that? No I didn't. I don't even understand how you could read that post and even think that.

I said George is not a moron and knew what was going to happen the second he signed a contract for the rights to adapt his book. He was the only one in control of whether the books would be in a position to completed in time for the show to adapt them and he failed at that if he had any such goals. So if he is upset, which again that is just conjecture because he's never expressed as much, and he thinks that they tarnished the original works (which there is no proof of) then he should look in the mirror and be upset with himself first for signing over the rights OR for not finishing it on time. Because he had complete control of the situation before and after the contract to make sure it was finished.

What's happening with the show is so simple that a blind man can see it. They know the major beats but not any of the details so they are guessing. They know that Dorne somehow figures into the story, have no clue how Arianne and her plot figure in, largely because it probably figures into another incomplete plot involving a superfluous character that everyone thinks is a fake, which you could probably plan for if you had a pathway for how it all fit together. But if you don't, it's just a jumbled mess of guess work (and quite frankely with the rollout of the books, it looks like GRRM is still guessing). So if you have problems with what happened in Dorne, the only way to really figure out a way to correct it is to know what the endgame of Dorne is and how everything fits together. And we don't. And since we don't, there's no way of knowing what steps they should have taken. Because if I asked you and anybody else how the Dorne plot should have went this season if they did a direct adaptation last season, nobody would have a clue.

I don't care about all that, and I don't think people who dislike the show's writing do either.

We are saying the writing is very bad and illogical within the premises set in the show universe. The writers can make up their own story base on the character arcs; they don't have to follow the book esp. when GRRM gives them the leeway to do so. All they need to do is come up with good writing, that's it.

If you don't know what to do with Dorne, don't show it; once you show it, commit to it. Furthermore, are there legit reason for Jon Snow to be a complete idiot? The Book Snow has shown multiple times he is the exactly opposite, so don't blame GRRM for that.

[lancerman]

3 minutes ago, Kusanagi said:

I don't care about all that, and I don't think people who dislike the show's writing do either.

We are saying the writing is very bad and illogical within the premises set in the show universe. The writers can make up their own story base on the character arcs; they don't have to follow the book esp. when GRRM gives them the leeway to do so. All they need to do is come up with good writing, that's it.

If you don't know what to do with Dorne, don't show it; once you show it, commit to it. Furthermore, are there legit reason for Jon Snow to be a complete idiot? The Book Snow is shown multiple times he is the exactly opposite, so don't blame GRRM for that.

Well your rationale for whether Jon is an idiot mostly comes down to him chasing after his brother right before a battle to save his life (which was more desperate than stupid) but we are also basing it off a battle that we in fact don't know how it goes in either the book or the show. Maybe Jon in the books gets out maneuvered by Bolton, and he needs the Vale to bail him out.

And I don't what GRRM's plans are, I don't know what he told the showrunners, so I'm not going to just blindly not take that into account because some people feel like we need to through him a pity party.

[Ser Quork]

8 hours ago, Masha said:

They don't. You are putting your emotions as their motive.

They are doing the best they can because what they have is a huge plot hole from point A to point E, while missing B, C, and D. 

Well, that's patently false when you look at what they did with the Northern storyline alone where they had A, B, C and D.  They smashed it up with a dash of Sansa and Davos where they didn't belong and left out Stannis and the North Remembers, huge components where they did belong, and they've cooked up a whole, hot mess of stupidity that makes no sense.

They may not have had D-E, but why change everything they did have?  Because they thought they could do better than what was written - or they would not have done it!

I don't have anymore to say to those who are wilfully blind so I'll leave this conversation here.

[Lockjaw of House Boltagon]

4 minutes ago, Kusanagi said:

I don't care about all that, and I don't think people who dislike the show's writing do either.

We are saying the writing is very bad and illogical within the premises set in the show universe. The writers can make up their own story base on the character arcs; they don't have to follow the book esp. when GRRM gives them the leeway to do so. All they need to do is come up with good writing, that's it.

If you don't know what to do with Dorne, don't show it; once you show it, commit to it. Furthermore, are there legit reason for Jon Snow to be a complete idiot? The Book Snow is shown multiple times he is the exactly opposite, so don't blame GRRM for that.

That's a legitimate concern (about Dorne especially and characters acting OOC) but it still doesn't let GRRM completely off the hook, IMO, because it probably wouldn't be happening if he had written the damn books. 

I'd say both GRRM and B&W share the blame tbh, the former for sleeping on his laurels and the latter for some crappy writing.

[Kusanagi]

2 minutes ago, lancerman said:

Well your rationale for whether Jon is an idiot mostly comes down to him chasing after his brother right before a battle to save his life (which was more desperate than stupid) but we are also basing it off a battle that we in fact don't know how it goes in either the book or the show. Maybe Jon in the books gets out maneuvered by Bolton, and he needs the Vale to bail him out.

And I don't what GRRM's plans are, I don't know what he told the showrunners, so I'm not going to just blindly not take that into account because some people feel like we need to through him a pity party.

Show Snow was completely out of character and the writing went against what he was setting up to be.

If you want to show him still being an hot head? Fine, but you can also have Davos or whoever stops him running off and sends some else to rescue Rickon, and this person promptly gets shot to pieces. This is way you reinforce the idea of him learning and how he realizes he has a huge burden on his shoulders, that people can die because of his actions. This way you show he is a complex and conflicted character.

But no, the show has to make him a plot armor wearing idiot who needs to be saved by deus ex machina. You don't need to be a great writer to figure out that's bad writing.

[Ser Quork]

7 minutes ago, Lyin' Ned said:

That's a legitimate concern (about Dorne especially and characters acting OOC) but it still doesn't let GRRM completely off the hook, IMO, because it probably wouldn't be happening if he had written the damn books. 

I'd say both GRRM and B&W share the blame tbh, the former for sleeping on his laurels and the latter for some crappy writing.

Since they changed so much that was major in both plot and characterisation where they did have the books, I don't think it's reasonable to assume they'd have kept to the final books if they had been written by now - the evidence says your premise is demonstrably wrong.

 

[Darkstream]

2 hours ago, lancerman said:

Well your rationale for whether Jon is an idiot mostly comes down to him chasing after his brother right before a battle to save his life (which was more desperate than stupid) but we are also basing it off a battle that we in fact don't know how it goes in either the book or the show. Maybe Jon in the books gets out maneuvered by Bolton, and he needs the Vale to bail him out.

And I don't what GRRM's plans are, I don't know what he told the showrunners, so I'm not going to just blindly not take that into account because some people feel like we need to through him a pity party.

I'd argue that d$d portrayed Jon as a bumbling idiot well before episode 9 and his suicidal uh, no heroic nope, that's not it either, Invincible Man charge.

[Darkstream]

3 hours ago, Ser Quork said:

Since they changed so much that was major in both plot and characterisation where they did have the books, I don't think it's reasonable to assume they'd have kept to the final books if they had been written by now - the evidence says your premise is demonstrably wrong.

 

 

Since it appears that d$d haven't even read AFFC & ADWD, I highly doubt that GRRM having finished WOW would be any benefit to them. They have shown that they clearly have no issues with making up their own drivel even when there is an abundance of source material to draw from.

3 hours ago, Lyin' Ned said:

That's a legitimate concern (about Dorne especially and characters acting OOC) but it still doesn't let GRRM completely off the hook, IMO, because it probably wouldn't be happening if he had written the damn books. 

I'd say both GRRM and B&W share the blame tbh, the former for sleeping on his laurels and the latter for some crappy writing.

That's funny, because it has happened with the books that were already written. I'm pretty sure AFFC was available to d$d before they wrote season five's debacle in Dorne, as well ADWD was out long before they decided to replace the entire Northern plot for their super villain Ramsey Sue. 

Beside, blaming GRRM for d$d's (two professional writers) incompetence in writing a decent story is ridiculous to begin with. That would be like blaming the kid that sat in front of you in school for you failing a test because you couldn't see his answers clearly enough to copy them. Why should GRRM be held responsible at all for something that he had nothing to do with writing? d$d are supposed to be Emmy worthy writers, yet they can't even do a half ass job without having the entire story written for them. It's pathetic, they should have their Emmy stripped from them, it was never deserved in the first place.

[Direwight]

GRRM is to blame for not finishing the books yet. The show is to blame for the show sucking (if you think it sucks). That's all there is to it.

The idea that GRRM not having finished the books means that there exists some kind of invisible cosmic force which forces the writing of the show to suck (if you think it sucks) is obviously ridiculous. If you have a budget of $10 million per episode, you can get as good writing as you want.

[aFeastForDragons]

1 hour ago, Direwight said:

If you have a budget of $10 million per episode, you can get as good writing as you want.

 

Unfortunately they can't spend $10 of that for someone to glance over a script for plot holes and wildly inconsistent story telling.