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[Spoilers] Rant and Rave Without Repercussion


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On 8/12/2017 at 3:13 AM, Lockjaw of House Boltagon said:

Exactly, thank you! I'm not one to defend D&D but I bet a factor that played a part in their decision to end the show this fast and haphazardly was, you know, the fact that there's literally no more books left. 

I know Martin allegedly told them how the story was gonna end and everything, but there's a difference between reading a well-written scene with snazzy dialogue where something cool happens and being told about it by a somewhat awkward dude in Santa Fe. 

On 8/12/2017 at 6:37 AM, Lockjaw of House Boltagon said:

Funnily enough, the very same thing happened in the books after a Storm of Swords, especially the meaningless filler (god, so much filler!) and the stalled out storylines (we haven't even seen the White Walkers again since the third book). The epilogue of a Dance with Dragons is pretty much Martin panicking and shifting the plot to high gear after two books of stagnation. 

The big difference is that characters have remained consistent in their motivations and development in the books for the most part, though. 

On 8/12/2017 at 2:00 AM, ramla said:

D&D, were as faithful as possible for the first 2 seasons. Changing a few arcs and killing a few character or omitting a few isn't really a huge change for the story. But, as the did so, a butterfly effect happened and next thing you know whole books are skipped. Like most of feast for Crows. None of this is georges fault. Its D&D's fault. They are the ones with the final decision. They are the ones who chose to speed up the story and add in fan-service, sex and fluff. Taking the direwolves out of the equation, glorifying war and violence when GRRm's story while visceral, wasn't glorifying at all. D&D/HBO chose to make GOT, about the spectacle... and not the story. its all about shocking you and surprising you and lacks a soul at this point. Thats not GRRM issue.

I'd agree that both GRRM and D&D are to blame for the drop in quality basically since s5:

1) like @Lockjaw of House Boltagon said, there was also a drop in quality in the books post Storm of Swords with tonnes of filler and stagnation, it's not a coincidence that the show quality dropped at the same time. They were adapting lesser material to begin with. And that's on GRRM's writing not the show. That said - D&D had time to work out how they could improve issues in the books, but they only made it worse.

2) Like everyone's said, D&D no longer having a storyline framework to work off has meant the show has began to fall apart with plotholes everywhere. They really suck at writing original material and keeping things consistent. And that's on GRRM for writing so slowly.

3) D&D have just chosen to make GoT all about the spectacle not the substance. They've completely skipped out on character depth (Arya, Sansa, Stannis, Jaime, Littlefinger) and plot consistency for what looks "cool". That's all on them. 

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On 8/12/2017 at 0:05 PM, WSmith84 said:

I always say, when it comes to adaptions, it's usually better to cut something then adapt it poorly. Things that immediately leap to mind (and boy do they leap) are the Jeyne Poole marriage (seriously, just cut it out and have Stannis vs Ramsey, then Jon vs Ramsey in S6 with Sansa convincing the Vale to go North and help) and, unless it ends up playing a significant part of the story, the Greyscale plot. Oh, and Dorne. Bring a Dornish character to King's Landing or something, but there was no need to go there.

The Northern storyline adaption was a mess. Tbh, a major problem was they've over emphasized Ramsay from the beginning and made him a major villain. I remember them justifying replacing Jeyne with Sansa because "Jeyne/Ramsay/Theon was a massive storyline, so it made sense to give that to Sansa not some random"....except it wasn't?? They chose to make it a central plot.

Would have been better to expand on the Vale story with Sansa and Littlefinger. Both are bigger characters than Ramsay.

They also could have put the book!Riverlands plots - Jaime becoming a better human being, Brienne, Blackfish retaking Riverrun, maybe the Brotherhood - into s5, instead of s6.

So in s5 make the Riverlands and Vale more central and depict the aftermath of the war. The Vale and Riverlands tie together quite well, feature a lot of characters from previous seasons rather than introducing new randoms and give some overall plot follow up to the War of the 5 Kings and early season politics. Those stories could have shared characters and sets: Jaime and Littlefinger meet to discuss the state of central Westeros, maybe Brienne finds Sansa at the Vale.

And spend less time on the North and Ramsay: Either cut fake!Arya/Jeyne Poole, keep her minor or merge her with another character. (Alys Karstark who like show!Sansa ends up fleeing to Jon?) And cut Dorne, they cut Aegon as well which was a main connection. That avoids the repetitiveness of two seasons of Ramsay being terrible.

Then in s6 bring the Northern plot to the forefront and the Starks retaking WF. But have Sansa bringing the troops from the Vale herself, removing all the "why didn't she just tell Jon about the Vale army" plot hole. If you want a Stark sibling team up, they could have had Jon and Arya instead. Arya wasted so much time with the Hound and in Braavos. She could have gone to Braavos in s4 and come back to Westeros at the beginning of s6. 

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49 minutes ago, AryaUnderfoot33 said:

The Northern storyline adaption was a mess. Tbh, a major problem was they've over emphasized Ramsay from the beginning and made him a major villain. I remember them justifying replacing Jeyne with Sansa because "Jeyne/Ramsay/Theon was a massive storyline, so it made sense to give that to Sansa not some random"....except it wasn't?? They chose to make it a central plot.

Would have been better to expand on the Vale story with Sansa and Littlefinger. Both are bigger characters than Ramsay.

They also could have put the book!Riverlands plots - Jaime becoming a better human being, Brienne, Blackfish retaking Riverrun, maybe the Brotherhood - into s5, instead of s6.

So in s5 make the Riverlands and Vale more central and depict the aftermath of the war. The Vale and Riverlands tie together quite well, feature a lot of characters from previous seasons rather than introducing new randoms and give some overall plot follow up to the War of the 5 Kings and early season politics. Those stories could have shared characters and sets: Jaime and Littlefinger meet to discuss the state of central Westeros, maybe Brienne finds Sansa at the Vale.

And spend less time on the North and Ramsay: Either cut fake!Arya/Jeyne Poole, keep her minor or merge her with another character. (Alys Karstark who like show!Sansa ends up fleeing to Jon?) And cut Dorne, they cut Aegon as well which was a main connection. That avoids the repetitiveness of two seasons of Ramsay being terrible.

Then in s6 bring the Northern plot to the forefront and the Starks retaking WF. But have Sansa bringing the troops from the Vale herself, removing all the "why didn't she just tell Jon about the Vale army" plot hole. If you want a Stark sibling team up, they could have had Jon and Arya instead. Arya wasted so much time with the Hound and in Braavos. She could have gone to Braavos in s4 and come back to Westeros at the beginning of s6. 

Well said. This would have been SO much better than what we got.

Arya and the Hound were probably my favourite pairing in the whole show as characters, but their time together in the show didn't advance either of their characters or arcs enough. They could have done so much more with them in that season and a half they were together. Actually, late S3 and early S4 advanced Arya quite a lot, but rest of season 4 her and the Hound didn't do much and while it was enjoyable to watch them together, it wasn't really going anywhere -  aside from that wonderful character moment Sandor opened up to Arya about how he felt about what his brother did to him and how Arya reacted to that).

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1 hour ago, AryaUnderfoot33 said:

And spend less time on the North and Ramsay: Either cut fake!Arya/Jeyne Poole, keep her minor or merge her with another character. (Alys Karstark who like show!Sansa ends up fleeing to Jon?) 

I would've replaced Jeyne Poole with Jeyne Westerling (Talisa, ugh). Ramsay marries the former Queen in the North to solidify his position, Theon redeems himself by rescuing Robb's wife, Talisa doesn't get an unnecessarily graphic death on the Red Wedding, and, most importantly, as you said, Sansa stays in the Vale, where it's safe and less...rapey. 

(The problem here is that Sansa's Vale storyline barely has any material, since Feast only has 3 or 4 chapters of that. So that's on Martin. It's kind of funny when people - myself included - say D$D should've adapted Sansa's Vale story, and it's like, What story is there to adapt, really?)

I also fully agree that they should've cut Dorne and send Jaime to the Riverlands instead. I'm not particularly enamored of that plot in the books, but dear god, anything would've been better than show!Dorne.

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2 hours ago, Gaz0680 said:

Well said. This would have been SO much better than what we got.

Arya and the Hound were probably my favourite pairing in the whole show as characters, but their time together in the show didn't advance either of their characters or arcs enough. They could have done so much more with them in that season and a half they were together. Actually, late S3 and early S4 advanced Arya quite a lot, but rest of season 4 her and the Hound didn't do much and while it was enjoyable to watch them together, it wasn't really going anywhere -  aside from that wonderful character moment Sandor opened up to Arya about how he felt about what his brother did to him and how Arya reacted to that).

Exactly. They could have had Sandor and Arya together for the first few episodes of s4: Kept a few meaningful moments, Arya getting back Needle, Sandor opening up and then Sandor being injured (Maybe not by Brienne as she'd still be in KL, but the same end point of Arya refusing mercy). Have Arya arrive in Braavos in about episode 4, play out her s5 storyline then (man they might just have to cut some of her scenes sweeping floors, the tragedy) and have her going blind in the s4 finale. 

Switch her s6 training to s5 and then have her returning home, massacring the Freys/finding Nymeria/making her way North in s6. She rejoins Jon instead of Sansa early in s6, they rally the North together and Sansa brings in reinforcements having persuaded the Vale lords to help through some magnificent political savvy and manipulation she's learned over 2 seasons. (As opposed to rape having made her badass and capable).

That also works better if the writers want us to believe Sansa could betray the Starks in s7. It doesn't make sense after LF handing her over to Ramsay and her working with Jon. It makes more sense if she was in the Vale all the time, LF won her over and she expected to be Queen in the North. And while she helped Jon and Arya, she thought she was ahead of them in the succession and would arrive in WF as the heir - only for the North to crown Jon. They could have worked in Robb's will which named Jon as his heir and struck Sansa out due to being married to Tyrion, giving more justification for the random "bastard over trueborn daughter" call. Sansa finding out she'd been removed due a marriage she never wanted, and that her bastard brother and little sister were now more recognized than her, would rightfully annoy her.

1 hour ago, Lockjaw of House Boltagon said:

I would've replaced Jeyne Poole with Jeyne Westerling (Talisa, ugh). Ramsay marries the former Queen in the North to solidify his position, Theon redeems himself by rescuing Robb's wife, Talisa doesn't get an unnecessarily graphic death on the Red Wedding, and, most importantly, as you said, Sansa stays in the Vale, where it's safe and less...rapey. 

(The problem here is that Sansa's Vale storyline barely has any material, since Feast only has 3 or 4 chapters of that. So that's on Martin. It's kind of funny when people - myself included - say D$D should've adapted Sansa's Vale story, and it's like, What story is there to adapt, really?)

I also fully agree that they should've cut Dorne and send Jaime to the Riverlands instead. I'm not particularly enamored of that plot in the books, but dear god, anything would've been better than show!Dorne.

Jeyne Westerling instead of Sansa is such a good alternative. (And yes, keep the Jeyne/Robb story - fairly nice Westeros girl Robb marries for stupidly honourable reasons - rather than the Talisa/Robb - a character that walked in from a different show and Robb marries "for love" in supreme selfishness). They'd probably need to show Jeyne being respected among the Northern lords and acknowledged as a Queen in the North in s3 - to justify her use to Ramsay. (As opposed to that weird foreign girl Talisa was). But she's an established character and the symmetry of Theon rescuing Robb's wife after betraying him would be amazing. The books had lots of parallels and connections between Robb/Jeyne Westerling/Theon/Jeyne Poole and how they all impacted each other. Simplify that and make Jeyne one character. 

Yeah, to be fair there wasn't much in the Vale and it seemed easy to cut. But D&D ended up writing so much terrible original material - hi, Dorne! Jaime! Stannis! - that at least they could have done it to benefit a major character like Sansa not ruin her. Learning manipulation from LF rather than dumbing him down, her reaction to LF trying to poison Robin (what does she do?) and Brienne finding her and swearing fealty would be something in s5. Sansa managing to win over the Vale lords to take WF in s6 could be fascinating. (If she's been disguised as Alayne Stone does she reveal herself as Sansa, and use the fact that Ned Stark grew up in the Vale? Pull on memories of the victorious North/Vale alliance in the Rebellion? Is Harry Hardng a character - does she promise to marry him and rule the Vale/North with her if he leads troops North?) There were options to expand. 

 

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I agree with everything theee AryaUnderfoot. Sadly, cohesive storytelling is not high on the showrunners list of priorities, which has resulted in the mess of a situation we have now and ruination of several major characters (most of them really).

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2 hours ago, AryaUnderfoot33 said:

Yeah, to be fair there wasn't much in the Vale and it seemed easy to cut. But D&D ended up writing so much terrible original material - hi, Dorne! Jaime! Stannis! - that at least they could have done it to benefit a major character like Sansa not ruin her. Learning manipulation from LF rather than dumbing him down, her reaction to LF trying to poison Robin (what does she do?) and Brienne finding her and swearing fealty would be something in s5. Sansa managing to win over the Vale lords to take WF in s6 could be fascinating. (If she's been disguised as Alayne Stone does she reveal herself as Sansa, and use the fact that Ned Stark grew up in the Vale? Pull on memories of the victorious North/Vale alliance in the Rebellion? Is Harry Hardng a character - does she promise to marry him and rule the Vale/North with her if he leads troops North?) There were options to expand. 

Totally, that would've been great, and in the hands of more talented writers even an improvement over the books. Literally anything would've been better than Sansa being raped in Winterfell, anything. 

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D&D are bad for rushing, but GRRM is bad for being too slow.

Not enough character development in GoT, but AFFC & ADWD lacked action.

It is hard to please some. The show demonstrates exactly why it is taking GRRM so long. With so many interacting storylines it is almost impossible to get them both moving towards the conclusion at an even pace and logically consistent. Give him the time to do it properly.

The rate is not even ridiculously slow given all that. Plenty of authors write one 250-300 page book are year and are not chastised. By that page rate a 1000+ book should take 4+ years. GRRM's problem is that he started too quickly for his own good, giving everyone unrealistic expectations.

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On 8/8/2017 at 1:04 PM, Illiterati said:

WF is an outpost in the far North.  The North is rough and tumble, a hard life.  WF is meant to convey that sense of hardship.

Outpost? WF has been the center of the Northern kingdom for 1000's of years. The prior commenter had a point. Yes, it should be more rugged but hey've got it looking like Castle Black. Have you seen the schematics with the Solar and the glass gardens?

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The two greatest military strategists of the time, Randyl and Jaime don't understand that foot on an open field form squares to defend against horse.

 

"Form a line".    Yes let's do that against a fast moving lightly armoured force whose major winning tactic is to flank a defensive position and rely on their manoeuvre ability to take advantage of any breach in the line to punch through and attack from behind and who are at their most dangerous against isolated men on foot.

 

Dany needs to to have a chat with a fighter pilot, you strafe along the enemies line, not across it.

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53 minutes ago, pogo said:

Dany needs to to have a chat with a fighter pilot, you strafe along the enemies line, not across it.

I thought Dany was there to cut a hole in the line so the Lannister/Tarly army could be surrounded and captured. Then she wouldn't be a Mad Queen who likes to burn people. Plus, she'll be able to feed her army with the food she didn't destroy. 

Then she just goes ahead and starts burning whatever she can, while Dothraki were behind the lines. Weird. 

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On ‎8‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 10:13 PM, Donaldys I Trumpagar said:

<cavalry charge against a shield wall.

Nope.

Especially true of light cavalry.  But the point of the light cavalry should have been to force the infantry into a defensive formation where they are immune to light cavalry but subject to devastation from siege weapons, massed archers, and of course dragon's fire.

The light cavalry should never have hit the shield wall but instead they should have cut down the infantry once they were broken and running.

Heavy cavalry with lances and armored mounts would have made sense attacking a shield wall but only if they were also supported by infantry.

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On 8/13/2017 at 4:16 AM, Low Sparrow said:

Outpost? WF has been the center of the Northern kingdom for 1000's of years. The prior commenter had a point. Yes, it should be more rugged but hey've got it looking like Castle Black. Have you seen the schematics with the Solar and the glass gardens?

Of course, from the North's perspective, WF is the seat.  From Westeros' perspective, the entire region is an outpost.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I can believe a kid in a wheelchair seeing everything, I can believe a flying dragon spitting fire, I can believe riders standing on charging horses, I can believe a girl with less than two years training holding her own against a life long knight three times her size, but I refuse to believe that ballista had swivel technology.

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