Is There Anything On The Show That You Think Is Better Than The Books?

[Cron]

6 hours ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

Interesting.

About Tyrion: I don't know that much about the J+A=T theory either, but I don't really believe it. We already have Jon and Aegon apart from that it would already mean that Tywin was right about Tyrion the whole time. I believe that Cersei and Jaime will both die and that Tyrion will live, so it would be nice if Tywin's last surviving child and the new head of house Lannister is the one he hated the most and wanted to disinherit. But yes claims might not matter very much in the end. 

About Sansa: I've heard a lot of statements which claim that she's been groomed to rule, but I disagree with these. LF teaches her how to play the game, but playing the game is something completely different than ruling. Ruling involves things like diplomacy, finance (we know she's bad in that area), military strategy, justice, and so on. She has never been taught anything about ruling. Neither by her parents nor by LF. I could see her more in a position where she has to work behind the scenes. I actually think that playing the  game and ruling are things that get confused quire often. Not all players of the game would necessarily make good rulers. Most of them are probably too selffish and would only do what is good for them, but not what is good for the realm. 

Regarding Young Griff: I think there are a lot of good arguments for him being Aegon, but also a lot of good arguments against it, so it could turn out both ways. The show has alredy left out so much important stuff and barely focused on the prophecies. However, I do believe that the person or persons who will rule at the end of the show will also rule at the end of the books. I kinda suspect that Young Griff will die in the books. Martin has said that several people will sit on the IT before the books are finished and he could easily be one of these people. 

Regarding Sansa, I think there's overlap between "the Game of Thrones" and "ruliing," but you're right, of course, they are not completley the same thing.  Are you familiar with Venn diagrams? If not, picture two circles drawn on a piece of paper that partially overlap.  One circle is "The Game of Thrones," and the other is "Ruling."  The concepts have some areas in common, but each also has some separate area too, where do not overlap.

Here's how I see Sansa's strength as a "ruler":  Even from the VERY beginning, she's been interested in lords and ladies and functions and houses and the politics of their interaction.  Her interest is a big plus (if a person wants to be successful at something in life, here's a good tip:  choose to do something you love and are interested in, it improves odds of success quite a LOT.  It's not at all surprising that many people love things they are good at, and are good at things they love doing).  

Sansa focuses on this kind of stuff, and we've seen her use her knowledge (remember when Sansa first met Shae, and Shae lied and said she had been a handmaiden or whatever to some noble lady, and Sansa immediately said something like "There is no Lady [whoever] in King's Landing"?  It was useful information in that conversation, and I strongly believe the only reason Sansa knew that off the top of her head is b/c she had spent time studying something that other "rulers" (such as Robb or Jon) would never have bothered to do, cuz they would have despised doing it  (can you imagine Robb and Jon sitting around trying to learn all the noble houses of Westeros, and all their intersts and motivations???  HARR!!!   This kind of stuff is also what Luwin was teaching Bran when he was quizzing him about the Houses).

Knowledge like that makes Sansa a strong player of the "Game of Thrones," which IS part of ruiling, it's just not all of ruling, granted.  To me, the Game of Thrones is a lot more than just a struggle to obtain power so you can be "King of the Hill" or "Queen of the Hill."  it's also about politics in general, and knowing all the players, and in that area Sansa is way ahead of many others (in fact, pretty much everybody except Littlefinger and Varys, I would say).  it is also in this area that she HAS received additional knowledge and training since leaving Winterfell, including (but not limited to) training she got from both Cersei and Littlefinger.  While Jon was wandering around north of the Wall with wildlings who don't understand some of the most basic things about what the major Houses would call "civilization," Sansa spent a lot of time at the very heart of power and "civilization," King's Landing, interacting with the most powerful movers and shakers on the entire continent.

Young Griff:  Wow, that's an intriguing thought, the possibility that Young Griff could be legitimate but die.  Believe it or not, I hadn't really thought about that.  My thoughts on him have mostly been that in the books, if he's legitimate, he'll be a major player and probably even one of the 3 heads of the dragon, but yeah, he could be "the real deal" and then die, which would explain why the show left him out:  Cuz he is NOT the final winner, or even one of the final winners, anyway.  My strong understanding is that the books and show ARE supposed to converge on these major issues in the end, and that the showrunners DO know the ultimate endings of the major characters, and so, if GRRM told them that Young Griff is not there at the end, they could have felt comfortable leaving him out of the show, and not caring if he's really Rhaegar's son or not.

[Meera of Tarth]

19 hours ago, Cron said:

Yeah, good stuff!

I think most people on these boards are (and/or have been) pretty heavy readers, so we've got soft spots for Sam cuz he loves to read so much, and that library scene is like an amusement park for us!!  Oh, how we would love to browse through there!

On a similar note (love of reading), I also thought it was pretty cool how GRRM gave us Asha's uncle, "Rodrik the Reader."  HARR!!!   Classic, classic character, everyone else is out in the world doing things, and this guy just sits around reading all the time.  I think it's a real shame how they chopped so much of Asha's story our of the show, definitely including Rodrik the Reader.

I'll have to refresh my memory about Sam's last chapter in Oldtown, I admit it's gotten pretty fuzzy.

Yes, I completely agree with everything you have said!

Well, that scene in the library is really well-done and it's a "wow" moment. A moment of joy and complete happiness and that goes completely with ShowSam's personality, and also BookSam, because-even if the latter doesn't like becoming a Maester he surely loves books. It reminded me when I've discoveried old -or big- libraries from countries I've visited (I'm obsessed with them) although I don't read as much as I'd like to

Oh, and i love the library! It's like Alexandria's library...what could have been but much more greater....and the spheres are the ones that appear on the opening credits...I wonder if they might mean something. 

http://heavy.com/entertainment/2016/06/sphere-chandelier-in-citadel-library-astrolabe-sam-game-of-thrones-intro-title-sequence-sun-theories/

I don't remember everything from his last chapter, just that he was likely to be in peril....that the person he meets looks like dead Pate...oh...I don't remember it exactly I might be wrong...I'll have to reread it but it was amazing.

[Cron]

7 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

Lynch's Dune is you could argue not a great adaptation given that it not only loses a lot of detail but arguably the central message of the story(Paul actually fighting against the messianic role) but as a more simple heroic story I think its effective, generally very well acted and the atmosphere does sum up the books nicely(well minus the Sardaukar), best thing Toto were ever involved in as well(although I suspect Eno locked them in a cupboard and did the whole soundtrack himself). The problem I spose is that its not really Lynchian enough for his fans who view it as for hire work whilst still too weird for the general public and not close enough to the book to please its fans.

On one level I actually think Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is closer to ASOFAI/GOT in subject matter though, very detailed fantasy world involving lots of sex and violence. You could argue as well its naturally quite well suited to TV being rather episodic in nature with just a single plot thread but the problem is your dealing with much stranger and more complex world and a much less heroic protagonist.

Yeah, I have a general impression that I liked Dune (the movie) more than the average person, but as I was saying elsewhere on these boards very recently, I have a tendency to focus on positivity in my life.  Dune (the movie) fell short of the book, but in my opinion that will almiost always be true of such an adaptation, and I sat down to watch the movie fully expecting it to not live up the book.  How could it? It's a matter of time and detail limitations.  The movie was about 3 hours, as I recall, but to really do it properly would take about 10 hours, like I said up above.   I think a lot of people who routinely RIP adaptations go in with very unrealistic expectations, then intensely focus on the negativity of what fell short and they didn't like, and as a result decide the whole thing sucked, but that's not my way.

In Season 5 of Game of Thrones, some things were done that I intensely disliked,  In fact, I know people who stopped watching b/c of them, but I stuck with it, cuz to me the parts they were doing right made it worth it.   I can criticize the show, no doubt, but ultimately D&D did a LOT of stuff right that even exceeded my expectations, so I just try to keep it all in perspective.

Been so long since I read New Sun that I remember very, very little, unfortunately, but like I said, I would detinitely watch it if they made a show out of it.  My memory is that I liked it a lot, it seemed to be a bizarre mish mash of sci-fi and fantasy, and I thought that was really, really cool.

Have you read Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series, or Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series?  Both have "A plus" material in them, but they are both many books long (12 books for Sword ot Truth, and 14 books for Wheel of Time, if I recall correctly), and so they each drag somewhat here and there, too.  Sword of Truth was made into a t.v. show (only two seasons, as I recall), and I've heard rumors about Wheel of Time being adapted, but I've not heard oonfirmation.   Wheel of Time is probably more well suited to an HBO "Game of Thrones-type" adaptation, although the sex and violence are not nearly so intense or pervasive as GOT, so maybe HBO would pass on it. 

[Cron]

3 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

Yes, I completely agree with everything you have said!

Well, that scene in the library is really well-done and it's a "wow" moment. A moment of joy and complete happiness and that goes completely with ShowSam's personality, and also BookSam, because-even if the latter doesn't like becoming a Maester he surely loves books. It reminded me when I've discoveried old -or big- libraries from countries I've visited (I'm obsessed with them) although I don't read as much as I'd like to

Yeah, I hear ya there.   When I was younger, I was a reading machine.  (I peaked when, at one point, I believe I read about 70 books in about 5 months.  Not kidding. (The books were not all as big as ASOIAF books, of course.  A lot were only 200 to 300 pages, although there were a fair amount in the 500 to 700 range, too.) I picked local bookstores clean of anything and everything I had any interest in, especially in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi section.  Haven't been able to do anything like that for a long time, though, too busy (or just making excuses, I guess).  

3 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

Oh, and i love the library! It's like Alexandria's library...what could have been but much more greater....and the spheres are the ones that appear on the opening credits...I wonder if they might mean something. 

http://heavy.com/entertainment/2016/06/sphere-chandelier-in-citadel-library-astrolabe-sam-game-of-thrones-intro-title-sequence-sun-theories/

Hmm, very interesting!  I failed to catch all that, thanks!

3 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I don't remember everything from his last chapter, just that he was likely to be in peril....that the person he meets looks like dead Pate...oh...I don't remember it exactly I might be wrong...I'll have to reread it but it was amazing.

Pate...Pate.  Who the heck was Pate???? HARRR!!!

[Queen of Procrastination]

13 hours ago, Cron said:

Regarding Sansa, I think there's overlap between "the Game of Thrones" and "ruliing," but you're right, of course, they are not completley the same thing.  Are you familiar with Venn diagrams? If not, picture two circles drawn on a piece of paper that partially overlap.  One circle is "The Game of Thrones," and the other is "Ruling."  The concepts have some areas in common, but each also has some separate area too, where do not overlap.

Here's how I see Sansa's strength as a "ruler":  Even from the VERY beginning, she's been interested in lords and ladies and functions and houses and the politics of their interaction.  Her interest is a big plus (if a person wants to be successful at something in life, here's a good tip:  choose to do something you love and are interested in, it improves odds of success quite a LOT.  It's not at all surprising that many people love things they are good at, and are good at things they love doing).  

Sansa focuses on this kind of stuff, and we've seen her use her knowledge (remember when Sansa first met Shae, and Shae lied and said she had been a handmaiden or whatever to some noble lady, and Sansa immediately said something like "There is no Lady [whoever] in King's Landing"?  It was useful information in that conversation, and I strongly believe the only reason Sansa knew that off the top of her head is b/c she had spent time studying something that other "rulers" (such as Robb or Jon) would never have bothered to do, cuz they would have despised doing it  (can you imagine Robb and Jon sitting around trying to learn all the noble houses of Westeros, and all their intersts and motivations???  HARR!!!   This kind of stuff is also what Luwin was teaching Bran when he was quizzing him about the Houses).

Knowledge like that makes Sansa a strong player of the "Game of Thrones," which IS part of ruiling, it's just not all of ruling, granted.  To me, the Game of Thrones is a lot more than just a struggle to obtain power so you can be "King of the Hill" or "Queen of the Hill."  it's also about politics in general, and knowing all the players, and in that area Sansa is way ahead of many others (in fact, pretty much everybody except Littlefinger and Varys, I would say).  it is also in this area that she HAS received additional knowledge and training since leaving Winterfell, including (but not limited to) training she got from both Cersei and Littlefinger.  While Jon was wandering around north of the Wall with wildlings who don't understand some of the most basic things about what the major Houses would call "civilization," Sansa spent a lot of time at the very heart of power and "civilization," King's Landing, interacting with the most powerful movers and shakers on the entire continent.

Young Griff:  Wow, that's an intriguing thought, the possibility that Young Griff could be legitimate but die.  Believe it or not, I hadn't really thought about that.  My thoughts on him have mostly been that in the books, if he's legitimate, he'll be a major player and probably even one of the 3 heads of the dragon, but yeah, he could be "the real deal" and then die, which would explain why the show left him out:  Cuz he is NOT the final winner, or even one of the final winners, anyway.  My strong understanding is that the books and show ARE supposed to converge on these major issues in the end, and that the showrunners DO know the ultimate endings of the major characters, and so, if GRRM told them that Young Griff is not there at the end, they could have felt comfortable leaving him out of the show, and not caring if he's really Rhaegar's son or not.

Ah.. I had forgotten how part of this board overrates her character. 

If knowledge of the houses is what it takes to be a good ruler than I vote for Podrick Payne as king. He clearly excels in that area and he spend a lot of time with Tyrion who is  a strong player of the game and was also part of the small council, so Podrick might be suited. Sansa is not a strong player in the game, yet. She can become one, but so far she has not played the game on her own, she has only followed LF's plans and not made her own moves. Saying that she is ahead of everyone in the game except for LF and Varys is an insult to characters like Tyrion and the Queen of Thornes.

BTW Jon displayed extremely good knowledge of most Northern houses in ADWD and he tried to gain a lot of information about "Selyse's court" beforehand. While I think that he would be a good ruler, I want him as far from the IT as possible, because he's a Northmen at heart. 

[Le Cygne]

Cersei and LF are the cautionary tale...

[Cron]

1 hour ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

Ah.. I had forgotten how part of this board overrates her character. 

If knowledge of the houses is what it takes to be a good ruler than I vote for Podrick Payne as king. He clearly excels in that area and he spend a lot of time with Tyrion who is  a strong player of the game and was also part of the small council, so Podrick might be suited. Sansa is not a strong player in the game, yet. She can become one, but so far she has not played the game on her own, she has only followed LF's plans and not made her own moves. Saying that she is ahead of everyone in the game except for LF and Varys is an insult to characters like Tyrion and the Queen of Thornes.

It is simply not accurate to dismiss Sansa as nothing more than a pawn of Littlefinger.  She has played the game, and has exercised power.  She held LF's own life in her hands twice, once at the Eyrie (after he crossed off Lysa and they were meeing with the lords and ladies of the Vale, and once when Sansa and Brienne met with LF at Mole's Town).

Podrick Payne knows sigils and banners.  Period.  I cannot recall ever seeing him demonstrate any more knowledge or skill in this arena that I am talking about than that.

And I never said that knowledge of the houses is all it takes to be a good ruler.  Please see my post above.  I went out of my way to stress that I was saying it's PART of ruling, but not all of ruling.  There is overlap on these issues, but they are not the same thing for all purposes.

 

1 hour ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

BTW Jon displayed extremely good knowledge of most Northern houses in ADWD and he tried to gain a lot of information about "Selyse's court" beforehand. While I think that he would be a good ruler, I want him as far from the IT as possible, because he's a Northmen at heart. 

Jon's knowledge of the northern houses is not comparable.  The Starks grew up in the north.  It is not surprising that any or all of them are familiar with these issues in the north.  But look how clueless Jon was when letting the wildings through the Wall got him killed.  Not only should he have known that about half the Night's Watch hated him and wanted him dead, but he was told that (by Davos and/or Stannis), and he blundered into getting himself killed even though the former Lord Commander (Mormont) had recently been killed himself by rebels (and thus, one would think, Jon would be more aware of and sensitive to the possibility that his own men might murder him).

I like Jon Snow as a character, but I'm sorry, he simply is not adept at stuff like this.  His "plan" to attack Winterfell via "full frontal assault" was foolish in the extreme (it is only by sheer luck that he lived and his forces prevailed), and at Castle Black he utterly failed to recognize the extreme mortal danger that was right at his doorstep.  As he admitted to Davos, he failed.

[MoreOrLess]

13 hours ago, Cron said:

Yeah, I have a general impression that I liked Dune (the movie) more than the average person, but as I was saying elsewhere on these boards very recently, I have a tendency to focus on positivity in my life.  Dune (the movie) fell short of the book, but in my opinion that will almiost always be true of such an adaptation, and I sat down to watch the movie fully expecting it to not live up the book.  How could it? It's a matter of time and detail limitations.  The movie was about 3 hours, as I recall, but to really do it properly would take about 10 hours, like I said up above.   I think a lot of people who routinely RIP adaptations go in with very unrealistic expectations, then intensely focus on the negativity of what fell short and they didn't like, and as a result decide the whole thing sucked, but that's not my way.

In Season 5 of Game of Thrones, some things were done that I intensely disliked,  In fact, I know people who stopped watching b/c of them, but I stuck with it, cuz to me the parts they were doing right made it worth it.   I can criticize the show, no doubt, but ultimately D&D did a LOT of stuff right that even exceeded my expectations, so I just try to keep it all in perspective.

Been so long since I read New Sun that I remember very, very little, unfortunately, but like I said, I would detinitely watch it if they made a show out of it.  My memory is that I liked it a lot, it seemed to be a bizarre mish mash of sci-fi and fantasy, and I thought that was really, really cool.

Maybe it helped that I saw Lynch's Dune before I read the book? its main strength for me is as an exercise in stylish sci fi/fantasy, a lot of excellent design, a lot of excellent acting(even Sting is tolerable for once) but having read the book most of the meat is taken out of the story.

Honestly I think a big issue is simply the way ASOFAI evolved progressively made direct adaptation harder and harder to achieve meaning D&D needed to go more out on there own from season 5 onwards. I don't think they were quite as consistent as when the adaptation was closer BUT I think you also see that a lot of what made the show successful did come from them(and the cast/crew of course) as well as Martin and they were able to keep the standard high by focusing more on those areas.

Personally I found I appreciated season 5 a lot more in retrospect, granted some stuff like Dorn isn't great(outside of a few Jamie/Bron scenes) but the slow pace that the cut back story allows for means the mournful atmosphere can be built very nicely. Season 6 is definitely something that benefits from having viewed season 5 direction beforehand, moreso than any other season for me as one is the payoff to the other.

[Queen of Procrastination]

46 minutes ago, Cron said:

It is simply not accurate to dismiss Sansa as nothing more than a pawn of Littlefinger.  She has played the game, and has exercised power.  She held LF's own life in her hands twice, once at the Eyrie (after he crossed off Lysa and they were meeing with the lords and ladies of the Vale, and once when Sansa and Brienne met with LF at Mole's Town).

Podrick Payne knows sigils and banners.  Period.  I cannot recall ever seeing him demonstrate any more knowledge or skill in this arena that I am talking about than that.

And I never said that knowledge of the houses is all it takes to be a good ruler.  Please see my post above.  I went out of my way to stress that I was saying it's PART of ruling, but not all of ruling.  There is overlap on these issues, but they are not the same thing for all purposes.

 

Jon's knowledge of the northern houses is not comparable.  The Starks grew up in the north.  It is not surprising that any or all of them are familiar with these issues in the north.  But look how clueless Jon was when letting the wildings through the Wall got him killed.  Not only should he have known that about half the Night's Watch hated him and wanted him dead, but he was told that (by Davos and/or Stannis), and he blundered into getting himself killed even though the former Lord Commander (Mormont) had recently been killed himself by rebels (and thus, one would think, Jon would be more aware of and sensitive to the possibility that his own men might murder him).

I like Jon Snow as a character, but I'm sorry, he simply is not adept at stuff like this.  His "plan" to attack Winterfell via "full frontal assault" was foolish in the extreme (it is only by sheer luck that he lived and his forces prevailed), and at Castle Black he utterly failed to recognize the extreme mortal danger that was right at his doorstep.  As he admitted to Davos, he failed.

I was only talking about the book version here and Sansa has not played the game in the books, yet (she can still do so in the future). I will acknowledge Book! Sansa as a player when she has made her moves, but so far she is just following LF's plans. She never held LF's life in the books. Book! LF was able to blame Lysa's dead on the singer Marillion and did not depend on her. The meeting in Moles Town never happened, because Sansa is still in the Vale and never married Ramsay. Show!LF behaved in a way in which Book!LF would never behave. If you analyse his actions in the Show closely, most of them are actually quite stupid and only work because of sher luck or because the people around him behave even more stupid. 

Show! Jon is also a completely different character than Book!Jon and they have dumbed him down very much. Not just in Season 6, but already back in Season 2 and they have excluded most of his achievements as LC in Season 5. While I acknowledge that he has made some mistakes in the books (but which character hasn't?), he also managed to achieve quite a lot. When he became LC the NW was in it worst state ever and before they killed him the NW was at it's best state in decades, if not in centuries. He was also working on integrating the wildings into the North (e.g. the Marriage of Alys Karstark and Sigorn the Magnar of Then) and took hostages in order to ensure their loyalty. Show!Jon is an idiot who is only good at swinging his sword and can't formulate two sentences clearly, while Book!Jon is a quite competent negotiator. The circumstances which lead to his death were also completely different. We can't judge Book!Jon's competences as a military commander yet, but I doubt he would do the stuff that he did in the show. 

And the stuff about Podrick was just sarcasm. 

[Cron]

1 hour ago, MoreOrLess said:

Maybe it helped that I saw Lynch's Dune before I read the book? its main strength for me is as an exercise in stylish sci fi/fantasy, a lot of excellent design, a lot of excellent acting(even Sting is tolerable for once) but having read the book most of the meat is taken out of the story.

Honestly I think a big issue is simply the way ASOFAI evolved progressively made direct adaptation harder and harder to achieve meaning D&D needed to go more out on there own from season 5 onwards. I don't think they were quite as consistent as when the adaptation was closer BUT I think you also see that a lot of what made the show successful did come from them(and the cast/crew of course) as well as Martin and they were able to keep the standard high by focusing more on those areas.

Personally I found I appreciated season 5 a lot more in retrospect, granted some stuff like Dorn isn't great(outside of a few Jamie/Bron scenes) but the slow pace that the cut back story allows for means the mournful atmosphere can be built very nicely. Season 6 is definitely something that benefits from having viewed season 5 direction beforehand, moreso than any other season for me as one is the payoff to the other.

Dune:  Yep, they needed 10 hours to do it right, but they didn't have 10 hours to work with, so I judge the movie by what they did have to work with, and I thought they did okay with 3 hours.  As I've said elsewhere, can you IMAGINE what GOT would be like if they only had 2 or 3 hours per book to work with??? Oh. My. Freaking. Goodness.  Trainwreck.

 Regarding Seasons 5 and 6 of GOT:  Here's my opinion of what happened:  Once they got into AFFC, the showrunners had very different opinions than GRRM about who should be the main focuses (focii?) of attention.  GRRM spent a lot of time with characters in AFFC that the show simply was not going to give that much screen time to, so they started wildly diverging.  Jon and Dany are extremely popular characters, NO WAY were they gonna take a back seat for what might have been 2 seasons.  Of course, a lot of this has to do with the pretty unusal way that AFFC and ADWD were written in the first place, with most of the action in the two books happening simultaneously, but with each book tending to focus on a limited number of characters.

Bottom line for me is that while Season 5 is my least favorite season, and while Season 6 surely has some deep flaws, I still enjoy them both, more so, I think, than most hard core ASOIAF fans. 

[Cron]

41 minutes ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

I was only talking about the book version here and Sansa has not played the game in the books, yet (she can still do so in the future). I will acknowledge Book! Sansa as a player when she has made her moves, but so far she is just following LF's plans. She never held LF's life in the books. Book! LF was able to blame Lysa's dead on the singer Marillion and did not depend on her. The meeting in Moles Town never happened, because Sansa is still in the Vale and never married Ramsay. Show!LF behaved in a way in which Book!LF would never behave. If you analyse his actions in the Show closely, most of them are actually quite stupid and only work because of sher luck or because the people around him behave even more stupid. 

Ah.  Book-Sansa.  Okay, cool.

41 minutes ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

Show! Jon is also a completely different character than Book!Jon and they have dumbed him down very much. Not just in Season 6, but already back in Season 2 and they have excluded most of his achievements as LC in Season 5. While I acknowledge that he has made some mistakes in the books (but which character hasn't?), he also managed to achieve quite a lot. When he became LC the NW was in it worst state ever and before they killed him the NW was at it's best state in decades, if not in centuries. He was also working on integrating the wildings into the North (e.g. the Marriage of Alys Karstark and Sigorn the Magnar of Then) and took hostages in order to ensure their loyalty. Show!Jon is an idiot who is only good at swinging his sword and can't formulate two sentences clearly, while Book!Jon is a quite competent negotiator. The circumstances which lead to his death were also completely different. We can't judge Book!Jon's competences as a military commander yet, but I doubt he would do the stuff that he did in the show. 

Ah, okay.  Again, the difference is show versus book.  Got it.

41 minutes ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

And the stuff about Podrick was just sarcasm. 

HARR!!! Okay, cool!

[Cron]

16 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Cersei and LF are the cautionary tale...

Cautionary tale?

[MoreOrLess]

23 hours ago, Cron said:

 Regarding Seasons 5 and 6 of GOT:  Here's my opinion of what happened:  Once they got into AFFC, the showrunners had very different opinions than GRRM about who should be the main focuses (focii?) of attention.  GRRM spent a lot of time with characters in AFFC that the show simply was not going to give that much screen time to, so they started wildly diverging.  Jon and Dany are extremely popular characters, NO WAY were they gonna take a back seat for what might have been 2 seasons.  Of course, a lot of this has to do with the pretty unusal way that AFFC and ADWD were written in the first place, with most of the action in the two books happening simultaneously, but with each book tending to focus on a limited number of characters.

I think its the point where differences between mediums become much more apparent, Carrying on branching out the plot like that is IMHO much more sustainable on the page than it would be on screen where as you say it could mean 1-2 seasons without major characters and indeed that it would be much harder to work towards climax's during each season. Some say you could merge those books but really as they are I think it would have resulted in the situation becoming much more cluttered without the changes we saw.

Honestly my view in general tends to be that I like to see adaptations bring something original to the work provided they respect the spirit of the original. Jacksons Lord of the Rings for example was I think made much more interesting by the changes to Faramir that for me were both in the spirit of the work and effective/original on screen.

Stannis tends to be the biggest disagreement but for me I think we likely have gotten the core of where the character is going, just with much less plot/politics around him. I think you can make a decent argument this actually works very well as it means we get to focus much more closely on Stannis himself who IMHO is the best thing in Season 5 beyond the Hardholm battle.

[Cron]

5 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

I think its the point where differences between mediums become much more apparent, Carrying on branching out the plot like that is IMHO much more sustainable on the page than it would be on screen where as you say it could mean 1-2 seasons without major characters and indeed that it would be much harder to work towards climax's during each season. Some say you could merge those books but really as they are I think it would have resulted in the situation becoming much more cluttered without the changes we saw.

Good stuff, sounds like we agree.

5 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

Honestly my view in general tends to be that I like to see adaptations bring something original to the work provided they respect the spirit of the original. Jacksons Lord of the Rings for example was I think made much more interesting by the changes to Faramir that for me were both in the spirit of the work and effective/original on screen

Yeah, I liked the Faramir character in the movies a lot, too.   It had been so long since I read the books that I wasn't sure how canon-accurate his portrayal was, but it sounds like you're saying there were some differences.  Peter jackson is fantastic, his Tolkien movies are the very definition of "epic."

5 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

Stannis tends to be the biggest disagreement but for me I think we likely have gotten the core of where the character is going, just with much less plot/politics around him. I think you can make a decent argument this actually works very well as it means we get to focus much more closely on Stannis himself who IMHO is the best thing in Season 5 beyond the Hardholm battle.

When Stannis burned Shireen, i was absolutely appalled.  I was glad when Brienne crossed him off.  He totally deserved it, as he basically admitted himself ("Do your duty")

[Meera of Tarth]

6 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

Stannis tends to be the biggest disagreement but for me I think we likely have gotten the core of where the character is going, just with much less plot/politics around him. I think you can make a decent argument this actually works very well as it means we get to focus much more closely on Stannis himself who IMHO is the best thing in Season 5 beyond the Hardholm battle.

 

57 minutes ago, Cron said:

When Stannis burned Shireen, i was absolutely appalled.  I was glad when Brienne crossed him off.  He totally deserved it, as he basically admitted himself ("Do your duty")

I think Stannis was probably one of  the worst things done (if not the worst) from Season 5. 

Firstly, there is a beautiful scene when he reconnects with his daughter-that I loved, then he is "forced" to sacrifice her beloved daughter because 1 inch of snow and 20 Good Men are The end of World; and finally because now we have to hate him for what he did, Brienne goes there and instead of trying to save Sansa kills kim for revenge, because he deserved that.

They manipulated his story so as to make Shireen's death more shocking (he loved her!) and illogic and then his death just because the bad guy has to die after that.

[JonSnow4President]

Stannis doesn't remotely stick to the "spirit" of the book story.  

Book Stannis becomes the one man in ten thousand that Maester Aemon describes that will perform his duty at the cost to those he loves, something not even "goody goody two shoes obsessed with honor" Ned Stark can bring himself to do.  I totally seeing him burning Shireen, but the motivation behind it changes it to such a degree that it is not the same act.  

Show Stannis burns his daughter alive with ambition as his motivation (from D&D's mouths).  He's a monster, not an anti-hero or an uncharismatic hero, or anything remotely not monster related. 

[Dragon in the North]

2 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I think Stannis was probably one of  the worst things done (if not the worst) from Season 5. 

Firstly, there is a beautiful scene when he reconnects with his daughter-that I loved, then he is "forced" to sacrifice her beloved daughter because 1 inch of snow and 20 Good Men are The end of World; and finally because now we have to hate him for what he did, Brienne goes there and instead of trying to save Sansa kills kim for revenge, because he deserved that.

I have the exact opposite view. I think the scene with Stannis and Shireen was used to show the tough decision Stannis had to face. The act of burning her doesn't mean he didn't love her, only that Stannis had a duty to the realm and its people. Stannis truly believed he was the messiah sent to save the world from the White Walkers, and that no one else would be able to stop them. His army was grounded to a halt by a blizzard, not 1 inch of snow, leaving his army vulnerable to attack, which is exactly what happened. The only chance they had at victory was to move forward, and the only way to do that was to melt the snow. His portrayl in the show didn't bother me in the least. In fact, he became one of my favorite characters, whereas I found his book counterpart rather one dimensional and boring. In the end, I don't hate Stannis for what he did, even though I find it deplorable. I merely pity him.

 

2 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

They manipulated his story so as to make Shireen's death more shocking (he loved her!) and illogic and then his death just because the bad guy has to die after that.

Shireen's death was foreshadowed in the earlier seasons, so her death wasn't used for shock factor. It was used to develop Stannis's character.

[Meera of Tarth]

9 minutes ago, Dragon in the North said:

I have the exact opposite view. I think the scene with Stannis and Shireen was used to show the tough decision Stannis had to face. The act of burning her doesn't mean he didn't love her, only that Stannis had a duty to the realm and its people. Stannis truly believed he was the messiah sent to save the world from the White Walkers, and that no one else would be able to stop them. His army was grounded to a halt by a blizzard, not 1 inch of snow, leaving his army vulnerable to attack, which is exactly what happened. The only chance they had at victory was to move forward, and the only way to do that was to melt the snow. His portrayl in the show didn't bother me in the least. In fact, he became one of my favorite characters, whereas I found his book counterpart rather one dimensional and boring. In the end, I don't hate Stannis for what he did, even though I find it deplorable. I merely pity him.

 

 

If no one else had to stop them then why would an army of 20 Good Men?

Seriously, if there was that amount of snow, that wasn't the case, the Bolton's would have had to dealt with it, so the better would have been to delay the fight maybe. 

I'm not against his portrayal, but the script.

I pity the character that was awfully destroyed for this decision.

Quote

Shireen's death was foreshadowed in the earlier seasons, so her death wasn't used for shock factor. It was used to develop Stannis's character.

I know it was foreshadowed in S4 but subtitly if you have not rewatched the show. The shocking moment was that her father made that decision after showing he loved her, which is just incompatible.

[JonSnow4President]

12 minutes ago, Dragon in the North said:

I have the exact opposite view. I think the scene with Stannis and Shireen was used to show the tough decision Stannis had to face. The act of burning her doesn't mean he didn't love her, only that Stannis had a duty to the realm and its people.

Per the showrunners themselves, he burned her for ambition. Move on.

Stannis truly believed he was the messiah sent to save the world from the White Walkers, and that no one else would be able to stop them.

See above.

His army was grounded to a halt by a blizzard, not 1 inch of snow, leaving his army vulnerable to attack, which is exactly what happened.

In the books, yes.  Rewatching the Shireen scene, there isn't even an inch of snow on the ground where they are.  If you want to argue it's compacted there, you can see ground in the background.  Show me the damn blizzard (I doubt a shit ton of snow in the background, and not falling, is an expensive effect). 

The only chance they had at victory was to move forward, and the only way to do that was to melt the snow.

Once again, show not shown.

His portrayl in the show didn't bother me in the least. In fact, he became one of my favorite characters, whereas I found his book counterpart rather one dimensional and boring. First, this hasn't happened in the show.  Second, you need to read closer if you think he's "one dimensional." (I suggest http://poorquentyn.tumblr.com/tagged/stannis+baratheon/page/21 as a small example). Third, everything you're talking about literally isn't shown in the shown. While I can't guarantee I have the perfect read on the events that get to Shireen's burning (an impossibility on the books until after he fights the Boltons), I don't see how you can compare the two and say the books are the one dimensional of the two.

In the end, I don't hate Stannis for what he did, even though I find it deplorable. I merely pity him.

 

"Why do you think I abandoned Dragonstone and sailed to the Wall, Lord Snow?” 

“I am no lord, sire. You came because we sent for you, I hope. Though I could not say why you took so long about it.” 

Surprisingly, Stannis smiled at that. “You’re bold enough to be a Stark.”

Can you really imagine show Stannis smiling at a joke at his expense?

[Dragon in the North]

3 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

If no one else had to stop them then why would an army of 20 Good Men?

The "them" I was referring to was the White Walkers. Stannis was the only one who could defeat them.

 

5 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

Seriously, if there was that amount of snow, that wasn't the case, the Bolton's would have had to dealt with it, so the better would have been to delay the fight maybe. 

This was explained in the show. Ramsay's small force is a lot more mobile than Stannis's large army.

 

6 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I know it was foreshadowed in S4 but subtitly if you have not rewatched the show. The shocking moment was that her father made that decision after showing he loved her, which is just incompatible.

It was also foreshadowed in the season 2 finale. Besides, I prefer subtle foreshadowing than foreshadoing that thrown in the viewer's face. I just mean that they built up to the moment, and it didn't only happen out of the blue.