Jump to content

Fickle Characters


Recommended Posts

21 hours ago, Gaz0680 said:

This statement is not an accurate or fair assessment of those who have issues with the writing on the show. 

You are basically accusing anyone who thinks the show has poor writing (which it does) of misinterpreting the plots presented, which is simply not true.

The reason many regard the show as bad writing is because it fails in many of the established criteria for good storytelling.

For one thing, in the early seasons the show writing worked off a strong well written source in George RR Martins books. However, since the show ran out of source material, the writers have done things differently.

At this point, it is perfectly clear the writers arent even trying to write a natural flowing story anymore and when you stop doing that, pretty much by definition characterisation and consistency will go out the window.

The writers now think about what they want to accomplish with certain scenes and the reaction they want from the audience and then fill in the details from there.

Is that style of writing prone to creating successful shows and getting mass audiences? Absolutely

Is it by any objective measure high quality storytelling? Absolutely not.

Nicely put. :)

I will say there are enough written material up to ADWD to continue without TWOW but the show made a conscious effort in the earlier seasons to leave out some very important characters.  They are now paying the price for leaving out an important character like Aegon.  I believe they left Aegon out to give Jon more screen time and more presence in the story.  They didn't like that George killed Jon so they gave him part of Aegon's story instead.  They killed Stannis to give Jon more action.  I hated that because I don't like Jon.   They killed off Mance and Barristan so that closed any options to use them in the current plot.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎01‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 11:35 PM, John Meta said:

Honestly, I've read threads and watched videos where people talk about how bad the writing on the show is, and in the end I've come to the confident conclusion that the writing on the show is fine, the real problem is with a percentage of the audience which cannot understand what they're watching, and have trouble connecting and correlating information which is being given to them along a plotted timeline. So really, "This show has bad writing" translates into "I cannot understand or correlate information being given to me along a plotted timeline": it's basically become statements about the self, and not about the writing.

I remember the same being true of Peter Jacksons version of LOTR, yes his adaptation was clearly simplified from Tolkiens just as GOT is simplified from Martins but there was a strong tendency from certain fans of the books(which I am) to not give his storytelling credit.

The problem is IMHO that its much easier to fall back on mere knowledge of the book as the only standard to meet rather than engaging in more in-depth analysis, if Martin's version is "correct" and anything that differs is "incorrect" things become much simpler.

In both cases I think what we really see is that those adapting the story look more towards its over arching tone where as a lot of fans cannot really see the wood though the trees and cling to details.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, MoreOrLess said:

I remember the same being true of Peter Jacksons version of LOTR, yes his adaptation was clearly simplified from Tolkiens just as GOT is simplified from Martins but there was a strong tendency from certain fans of the books(which I am) to not give his storytelling credit.

The problem is IMHO that its much easier to fall back on mere knowledge of the book as the only standard to meet rather than engaging in more in-depth analysis, if Martin's version is "correct" and anything that differs is "incorrect" things become much simpler.

In both cases I think what we really see is that those adapting the story look more towards its over arching tone where as a lot of fans cannot really see the wood though the trees and cling to details.

Similar, but not quite the same. Tolkien was dead when LotR got its epic movie version. GRRM is still alive. He sold the rights for his material to HBO before the book series was finished. He actually contributed to the show and afaik he's never said anything indicating that he regrets that decision or is unhappy about what they are doing on the show.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

I remember the same being true of Peter Jacksons version of LOTR, yes his adaptation was clearly simplified from Tolkiens just as GOT is simplified from Martins but there was a strong tendency from certain fans of the books(which I am) to not give his storytelling credit.

The problem is IMHO that its much easier to fall back on mere knowledge of the book as the only standard to meet rather than engaging in more in-depth analysis, if Martin's version is "correct" and anything that differs is "incorrect" things become much simpler.

In both cases I think what we really see is that those adapting the story look more towards its over arching tone where as a lot of fans cannot really see the wood though the trees and cling to details.

Im not sure dismissing it as merely 'They changed it, now it sucks' line of reasoning can really work at this point? Pretty much all storylines we're seeing now are now past the source material so it's not like there's a version of the story or a scene/dialogue you can directly compare what's happening on the show to. Yet we're seeing a lot more and more widespread criticism of what at this point are show only storylines. In fact, people who have never read the books and fans of previous seasons are now seen criticising the storytelling for much the same reason as ardent book readers. Clearly, something bigger is afoot than just disgruntled book snobs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of that criticism does I think have its root in the show moving past Martin's books although of course it is still operating with knowledge of elements of his future work. This means its knocking into fans pet theories about how the story/charcters should progress much more than it was previously and disagreement with this can easily be challenged into "fan fiction" like talk. Added to that of course expectation around the show is at record levels now which is more likely to have attention focused on the negative.

Its perhaps not as simple as "change = bad" but I think all along there's been this tendency to view elements of the show in the context of the book rather than whether they conform to there own logic.

Not that I wouldn't say this season didn't have a few leaps of logic though of course but I do rather see why they did so. I do feel the show is naturally drawing towards its finale, the characters and the actors performances for the most part now run the risk of outstaying there welcome IMHO and are best suited to pushing towards big climaxs. The kind of slower plot progress that could have removed some leaps of logic would potentially have risked bogging things down without the freshness to the characters that allowed them to spend several episodes on the road with the likes of Breinne and Jamie or the Hound and Ayra.

I suspect actually that this is part of the struggle Martin has, he's shown no signs of reigning in his story that gets ever more complex and difficult to draw to natural climax's hence the massive delays to the books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

 

I will say there are enough written material up to ADWD to continue without TWOW

So are you suggesting the show should have spent 3-4 seasons on Tyrion being a drunken mess on the Shy Maid and Daenerys having audiences in Meereen? Riveting! 

I agree they should have kept Arianne and Faegon, and shouldn't have merged Sansa's and Jeyne's story lines, but you can't make three seasons out of just that. There was not enough material.

Not defending the specific choices the show did, but some of the train wreck AFFCDWD needed to be cut/streamlined.

Quote

 They didn't like that George killed Jon so they gave him part of Aegon's story instead.

Yeah no.

1) Jon, in the book, is either not dead, or will also be resurrected in some way, not matter how much you dislike him.

2) If anything Faegon was cut in order not to steal Daenerys' thunder (what with him actually invading and doing stuff off screen, while Daenerys still sits in Meereen complaining that the people there won't accept her reforms and all)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

A lot of that criticism does I think have its root in the show moving past Martin's books although of course it is still operating with knowledge of elements of his future work. This means its knocking into fans pet theories about how the story/charcters should progress much more than it was previously and disagreement with this can easily be challenged into "fan fiction" like talk. Added to that of course expectation around the show is at record levels now which is more likely to have attention focused on the negative.

Its perhaps not as simple as "change = bad" but I think all along there's been this tendency to view elements of the show in the context of the book rather than whether they conform to there own logic.

Not that I wouldn't say this season didn't have a few leaps of logic though of course but I do rather see why they did so. I do feel the show is naturally drawing towards its finale, the characters and the actors performances for the most part now run the risk of outstaying there welcome IMHO and are best suited to pushing towards big climaxs. The kind of slower plot progress that could have removed some leaps of logic would potentially have risked bogging things down without the freshness to the characters that allowed them to spend several episodes on the road with the likes of Breinne and Jamie or the Hound and Ayra.

I suspect actually that this is part of the struggle Martin has, he's shown no signs of reigning in his story that gets ever more complex and difficult to draw to natural climax's hence the massive delays to the books.

But people usually feel a lot more strongly about already published material than about fan theories. Sure, some people get really into it, but I don't think most fans have full-blown detailed ideas about how things will go down. Very few people can claim to be authors of genuinely detailed fan theories. And I can't think of anything major that the show has done that would specifically disprove or go against a very popular theory. There's no reason for there to be a major outcry. It's much more likely that the increase in criticism is caused by a decline in quality of the storytelling - which indeed looks like the result of the writers suddenly having to make up all of the details themselves.

I get where you are coming from with people inserting details from the books into the show narrative and some of that can be unfair. But then the show has been quite inconsistent with their world building and characterisation. Sansa at one point seemed to change personality on a weekly basis and they regularly have characters behaving OOC for the sake of a later reveal. Or they will seemingly start an arc in a different direction only to revert to the original book storyline that no longer makes sense. Since you can't rely on the show characters and the show world to behave in a predictable manner it is only natural that people fill in the gaps from the books. Projecting this book characters onto the show is the only way I can still occasionally suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy a scene.

And the show often fails on purely show based logic and events.

I also don't think a better story means a slower story. That's a fallacy. A good storyteller/screenwriter can say more in a few scenes than a bad one in an entire movie. I mean, consider the last epiaode of the season, which was pretty close to an actual feature movie length. Then consider how much an average movie manages in that timeframe - intoroduce the characters in a memorable way, present a conflict and resolve it, usually with at least a little twist while having character arcs and themes. What was actually accomplished innthe last episode? Which characters experienced a profound character development? What did they struggle with? What was the theme? Why wasn't the conference only half as long? Why did everything important in Winterfell happen offscren? Ignoring the latest 5 min (and even then), how has peoples position genuinely changed? Its amqzingnhow much wheel spinning there is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...