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Has the shows writing become worse because it isn't following the books?


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I haven't been as impressed by the last two seasons as much as I have with the first four, and I think I know why.
Now before anyone calls me a book fanatic who can't love an adaptation, let me say this. After episode four of season 5 I was only half way through the first book, so I had no idea what was coming, and I really thought the writing was slipping on the show. My theory was that because they had announced before season 5 aired that the show was no longer following the books, that that was why the writing was slipping. I've heard people who don't even read the books complain about things in the show that just seem wrong, whether it be character actions, continuity, and other things.

Now that I'm caught up on all the books, I'm annoyed at more things than what I was then, but still, I was noticing stuff when I wasn't even caught up on the original source material. 

I think it's because the show writers now don't really have an outline for things. My best comparison to this would probably something like how the Lord of the Rings books relate to the the film trilogy. As a fan of the books I love the film trilogy, cause aside from a few bits of creative license, the overall story is kept intact. The way the Hobbit movies related to their source material was way different and the movies  are just not as popular as their LOTR counterparts. Stretcing one book into three movies, and having to make up half of what was in each film made book fans mad, and kind of bored movie audiences. I'm still entertained by them, but they aren't beautiful like the first trilogy was

I think this is what's happening to GOT. Now that they aren't following the books, they writers basically have to think up a whole new story, and it's why we have book and show fans alike pointing out errors. This isn't to say the show is bad now, just that it's not as good as it was before.

While I wasn't blown away by season six, I do think it was better than season five, so that means the writers could finally be adapting to doing their own thing. Maybe next season will be just as good as seasons 1, or 4. I want to try to be optimistic.

What does everyone think?

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It's tough to speculate exactly why the quality has declined but no longer having the books as a guide is certainly one of the reasons. George obviously excels at writing dialogue, and the best lines in the show were already penned by his hand. When the show does excel on it's own, like at Hardholme and the Hodor scene, it's usually an action beat.

George also used to write screenplays and the fact that he was in charge of an episode each season I believe helped to solidify the outline for those years which he wrote an episode.

The show is more lopsided than anything else, and I think it's more a systemic problem. Whatever process they go through to kind of game out and outline where the characters will end up each season must be flawed. The scenes they ultimately write do not always fit in with what they are trying to accomplish with the character, sometimes just really superfluous stuff.

The scripts seem rushed on occasion, like they need to be passed through and refined a few more times before it goes to final cut. We've all read screenplays written by fans that do a better job than what was professionally produced on screen. That should almost never be the case.

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I completely agree. The dropoff in writing quality was quite noticeable after Season 4. Granted, there are significant portions of seasons 5-6 that are still from the books, and it could be argued those were some of the main highlights of the show these past 2 seasons, in addition to the big battle scenes like Hardhome or Battle of the Bastards.

In addition to the plot discontinuities, head-scratching character actions and decisions, and lack of credible motivations for many of the characters, the other obvious problem has been dialogue. S1-4 had so many great scenes which were highlighted by amazing dialogue. It's become a bit of a cliché now for Tyrion to throw out zingers every so often, but going from that to his sad scenes with Missandei and Grey Worm is disappointing. The books are indeed full of so much great dialogue and interchange. GRRM is clearly a master at writing dialogue.

I really hope things pick up these last 2 (shortened) seasons.

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I don´t think it´s worse, no, I think it´s quite different. Some things that work in the books wouldn´t work on the screen (noble Denethor/pulverized "The North Remembers"); some things I particularly like better in the series, like mid-story Tyrion being an actual person with actual awkward lines and not just wittiness, and the exclusion of that she-dwarf that interacts with Tyrion just to tell us that he´s not, in fact, comfortable with being a dwarf (who would´ve thought, the guy who keeps throwing that in people´s face to show he doesn´t care, actually cares i.i teenager much?).

 

I´ll have to disagree with the guys above regarding GRRM and dialogues, I don´t think there´s nothing much to it, and I think he actually struggles with unimportant ones. He can´t make his characters sound natural if they´re talking about unimportant things. You don´t find "We don´t drink" "Until you do...*awkward smile*" in the books.

I don´t think D&D motivations are any more far fetched than GRRM´s, I just think people feel like GRRM is allowed to stretch belief because he "owns" the story, and D&D aren´t because they "don´t".

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No I think the books got a lot worse. Book 4 and even 5 were really bad. More importantly, GRRM started to just add too much filler without much thought. I get he was trying to flesh out the world but some things are not needed. 

 

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I think they just made odd choices more on spur of the moment ideas rather than thinking of what makes sense. Like Sansa going to Winterfell and being raped last season. We could have technically done the same thing with the battle of the bastards, or something similar and could have avoided the quite pointless Winterfell plot of S5.

Dorne in S5 was also pointless. The entire plot of it was saving Myrcella, and we didn't save Myrcella.

Dany fails to make peace in Mereen due to blatant arrogance in S5.

Arya aside from the final episode of S5 does nothing really interesting.

Basically the only compelling plot of S5 was the Wall plot. I think S5's pointlessness really shows in S6, but since we can't just pretend that a whole seasons worth of stuff didn't exist, they had to expand upon what they did, and I think they are kind of suffering for it.

 

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I do think the writing quality has dropped off, but I think largely it was because they know the way the story is ending and they also know they have a limited number of episodes to reach that end, and are chopping out plotlines they think are "unnecessary", and at the same time meshing other plotlines to try to get to the same points in the stories.

So it's basically a huge tangeld web of rushed plots that sort of works, but there are definitely some gaps in logic/believability (yes, I just said that about a show with dragons and ice zombies). By contrast, GRRM has no such constraints and can explore as many different plots at whatever pace he wants.

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The quality has dropped off significantly. I have to agree with your assessment in that it is due to the writers actually having to be creative instead of adapt. Even through season 6 they have been drawing on things from the books and it's almost comical how obvious the book vs original material is in some places, even when it comes to just adaptive choices. I know I totally sound like the book fanatic you speak of when starting your post, but it's pretty obvious that HBO gave a great story to pair of mediocre showrunners, Each season has been less true to the books as the one before it and the overall quality shows. Some changes have been fine but a majority have been questionable at best. Seasons 1-4 were fantastic, probably peaking during the latter half of 3 and most of 4 (i.e. the second half of Storm of Swords, no surprise there). Season 5 was relatively terrible and season 6 was maybe marginally better. Almost everything south of the neck until ep. 10 was superfluous or tedious (though quick shout out to Sam getting Valyrian Steel by unlikely means). I don't expect the last 13 or so episodes to be identical to the upcoming books as both parties have previously stated, but I think that may be a good thing, albeit from a book reader's perspective. I'll continue to watch the show but I don't have the faith in it I once did. 

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12 hours ago, xjlxking said:

No I think the books got a lot worse. Book 4 and even 5 were really bad. More importantly, GRRM started to just add too much filler without much thought. I get he was trying to flesh out the world but some things are not needed. 

 

This.

And as Aegonzo said, they know the ending, and basically have 13 eps to get us there. Hopefully we'll get a bazillion other spinoffs.

I'm not sure how we know they're not following the books, because we've not read them. I also wish people would stop pretending as if D&D live in some separate vacuum that has no access to GRRM, or that GRRM hasn't told them the main plot lines of where he's going, and how he's getting there. 

George has written television. He also understands that telling a story visually is much different than a written story told from inside different character's heads.

The story could never be filmed as written. I'm hopeful most people get that. I'm also hopeful that people understand film is always different.

How stupid would it have made Jorah look if we went an entire season with Arstan Whitebeard? Same for Coldhands. I recognized Benjen from the sound of his voice before he ever took off the scarf. Bran would have brain damage if he spent a season not knowing it was Benjen taking them to the tree. The audience would be screaming at their TVs hoping Bran would hear them, effectively pulling them out of the story, and making it all about why the hell can't Bran recognize his uncle, when the audience can?

I love the show, and never want it to end. I also think S6 is the best yet.

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If I had to mention things I would very much rather not see in the books the way they happened in series (the way I see them right now)-

-The entirety of Stannis´ death. It feels odd that a storm could be enough motivation for him to burn Shireen when we later get Jon and co. marching about the North, at least a month or two further into winter, just as it feels odd Brienne would actually find him (could have a full stop here) before any mounted Bolton scout found either him or her.

-Any Umbers truly turning on an actual Stark. It´s not that I don´t believe it could ever happen, I just believe they would be the last if they ever had to. D&D could have used another house, pretty much any other. I presume they felt like using the Umbers could better show just how desperate the North is, but it´s clear by the forums that it just sounded unbelievable to most.

-Time-travelling, unless GRRM manages to make the entire story about it right below our noses, which would then be great. I would be happy with a convincing explanation of the kind (plz don´t judge me) "the wheel of time is stuck and keeps going back and forth" or something actually good that can encompass every aspect of the story. Time-travelling for time-travelling´s sake is so low I´m fairly sure I shouldn´t even be writing this part.

-Everything that happens in the house of black and white actually being black and white, and Arya Kent. (more like Arya Ken and Will, puny weakling)

-Slavers, or anyone with hostile intentions towards Daenarys, sending ships anywhere nearby Mereen. I buy the show´s explanation, but I still preffer to believe that statesmen only have become so by not underestimating something like dragons. They´re slavers, I don´t think they´d mind forcing their soldiers to march part of the way as not to even risk losing huge amounts of money on burned ships. Also, no ship trebuchets. They can carry the log in the ships and assemble much more efficient weapons in the ground. It looks great on TV though.

 

ps-I actually like tv version of Dorne =p

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As with most things, it prob'ly is a combination of factors instead of just one thing.  One reason is that some of the changes have created sort of a snowball effect that over time gets out of hand. It's like telling a lie, One lie is told but then an unintended inconsistency pops up (a plot hole?) so here comes another lie to fill the hole, then another and another. At first it's manageable but over time it becomes a whole network of lies and the truth starts getting fuzzy. Same thing here, they make a single change in season 3 or 4 and by the time season 6 or 7 rolls around, we have characters in places they were never meant to be, doing things they wouldn't do if the original character hadn't been moved somewhere else to do some other thing an omitted character did in the book. Just think of the series of events and movements spurned by bringing Sansa to Winterfell and marrying Ramsay, or omitting and/or reassigning story lines in Dorne. Even when the changes work (and some do), it can still be burdensome to the overall writing due to all the little supporting changes that become necessary.

Another thing is Martin himself. As some have mentioned, the books themselves have dipped in quality. But I think the bigger issue is that he's become bored or at least less interested or passionate about telling the story. Not sure how else to account for the dip in his story telling and the growing gaps between books. He may be distracted by other projects, but frankly if he were really into ASOIAF, he wouldn't get so distracted. And like any of us, the more passionate he is about the project, the higher the quality will become. So as it relates to the show, at the beginning D&D had amazing source material and lots of it. The story was tight, the events in sync and the characters engaging. As time churns on, the source material has dipped in both quality and quantity and a greater percentage of the show has become conceived (often by necessity) by writers who simply aren't as good as Martin was in the beginning. 

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This is a show that is known for its plot twists and unexpected developments.  In season six there was almost nothing that happened that wasn't just predicted by fans, but predicted to be the most likely thing that would happen.  Not just Jon coming back to life in the exact way that fans predicted, or the outcome of the battle of the bastards, but everything.  The only thing that suprised me was Doran and Aero buying it in ep 1, but that wasn't a shocking moment, my reaction was more like "well, what was the point of that then?"

Verdict?  Absolutely correct.  Without good source material any more the show is coasting to the finish line and the writing is more like fan fic.

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20 minutes ago, geocool said:

 In season six there was almost nothing that happened that wasn't just predicted by fans, but predicted to be the most likely thing that would happen.

Agreed. Foreshadowing is a cool tool for a writer, and in a story like this generates lots of talk and speculation which is always fun. But the foreshadowing seems to have gotten excessive, it's become less like hint dropping and more like blunt force trauma. To the point where, as you correctly point out, things have gotten much more predictable than is ideal. 

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58 minutes ago, geocool said:

This is a show that is known for its plot twists and unexpected developments.  In season six there was almost nothing that happened that wasn't just predicted by fans, but predicted to be the most likely thing that would happen.  Not just Jon coming back to life in the exact way that fans predicted, or the outcome of the battle of the bastards, but everything.  The only thing that suprised me was Doran and Aero buying it in ep 1, but that wasn't a shocking moment, my reaction was more like "well, what was the point of that then?"

Verdict?  Absolutely correct.  Without good source material any more the show is coasting to the finish line and the writing is more like fan fic.

Lol? 

Even GRRM said his ending will be happy. He was unpredictable but at a certain point things just start coming together. Do you really think Aegon is going to rule Westeros? The character who comes into the fold after 4 books? Sure! Sooo unpredictable 

The only difference between GRRM and the show is that GRRM can put as much BS plot fillers because his books aren't restrained by 10 episodes per season (9 hrs a season). 

Oh and predictability about Jons fate? Yeah it's  like when he died in season 5 the entire internet went into crazy mode trying to do the spoiler reenactment. You have reporters hiding and following Kit and doing detective work to prove a theory... 

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On ‎20‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 6:04 PM, TheKnightOfJests said:

I haven't been as impressed by the last two seasons as much as I have with the first four, and I think I know why.
Now before anyone calls me a book fanatic who can't love an adaptation, let me say this. After episode four of season 5 I was only half way through the first book, so I had no idea what was coming, and I really thought the writing was slipping on the show. My theory was that because they had announced before season 5 aired that the show was no longer following the books, that that was why the writing was slipping. I've heard people who don't even read the books complain about things in the show that just seem wrong, whether it be character actions, continuity, and other things.

Now that I'm caught up on all the books, I'm annoyed at more things than what I was then, but still, I was noticing stuff when I wasn't even caught up on the original source material. 

I think it's because the show writers now don't really have an outline for things. My best comparison to this would probably something like how the Lord of the Rings books relate to the the film trilogy. As a fan of the books I love the film trilogy, cause aside from a few bits of creative license, the overall story is kept intact. The way the Hobbit movies related to their source material was way different and the movies  are just not as popular as their LOTR counterparts. Stretcing one book into three movies, and having to make up half of what was in each film made book fans mad, and kind of bored movie audiences. I'm still entertained by them, but they aren't beautiful like the first trilogy was

I think this is what's happening to GOT. Now that they aren't following the books, they writers basically have to think up a whole new story, and it's why we have book and show fans alike pointing out errors. This isn't to say the show is bad now, just that it's not as good as it was before.

While I wasn't blown away by season six, I do think it was better than season five, so that means the writers could finally be adapting to doing their own thing. Maybe next season will be just as good as seasons 1, or 4. I want to try to be optimistic.

What does everyone think?

Same here. I think the lack of source material and/or the inability to write their own thing properly has caused a decrease in the quality of the show. I liked the first four seasons but season 5 didn't feel the same at all. I felt that the quality was extremely low.

In my case, I read the books after s4, so the shock of watching s5 was so big; just imagine the situation. I won't say the last two books are easily adaptable or the most enjoyable, but they just didn't use them properly and preferred to invent worse things that didn't make sense at all and destroyed the characters; examples: Jaime, Brienne, Littlefinger. just to name three.

I also think that s6 is much better than season 5, but not because of their writing, because is still worse than the first four, but because of it being more dynamic, that makes it watchable, especially if you compare it to season 5, which, IMO, is just horrible.

Another reason was that they had some moments like "Hold The Door" that could adapt, and returned to book arcs.

But no, since they don't have the books or don't follow them, it's just another level of quality. Let’s say s6 is better but still bad. What did I like? Actually, I liked the scenes that were adaptations of the books: for instance, the Riverrun scenes (with the exception of Jaime being s1 Jaime talking about Cersei) but it was generally much better than the rest of the season. I also liked Bran's story (overall, there are exceptions) but I suppose it's because I love him (missed him) and I don't have the books to compare.

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1 minute ago, TheKnightOfJests said:

Why does everyone seem to hate the last two books? I loved book 4

I like them both but I can see why some people aren't keen and there are certainly valid criticisms.

 

To answer the original question, I'm not someone who thinks an adaptation should stick rigidly to its source material but I personally think the show runners are either just not good enough to take such a complex story their own way or simply don't care about the journey and want to get to the end with as many shocking moments as possible.

The most annoying thing to me is how the story uses the characters and dictates how they should be at any given moment. The characters should be dictating the story, not the other way around.

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