Rant & Rave Season 8 [Spoilers]: When you are cool like a cucumber, as evil as the mother of madness, but never as perfect as the pet!

[Jaenara Belarys]

1 minute ago, BlackLightning said:

Then the season 2's infamous dragon-napping plot will make a lot more sense.

The Doreah turning traitor thing didn't really make sense to me, considering their relationship (as meager as it is). I would've preferred that instead of the horse dying, we have Doreah dying just like the books. 

 

However, the problem with introducing Euron and the dragonhorn so quickly is that you'd have to find a realistic way to a). introduce the character without affecting the overall plot for Dany (Unsullied, slaves) and b). how does he get away? 

and c). If Dany manages to kill him and acquire the horn (if it was introduced) how does that affect the later seasons? Yara doesn't need to flee and offer Dany ships, so you'd have to probably make her conquer Volantis or such for ships to conquer slaves and that delays her Westeros arrival....there are drawbacks and benefits. 

[BlackLightning]

10 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

The Doreah turning traitor thing didn't really make sense to me, considering their relationship (as meager as it is). I would've preferred that instead of the horse dying, we have Doreah dying just like the books. 

 

However, the problem with introducing Euron and the dragonhorn so quickly is that you'd have to find a realistic way to a). introduce the character without affecting the overall plot for Dany (Unsullied, slaves) and b). how does he get away? 

and c). If Dany manages to kill him and acquire the horn (if it was introduced) how does that affect the later seasons? Yara doesn't need to flee and offer Dany ships, so you'd have to probably make her conquer Volantis or such for ships to conquer slaves and that delays her Westeros arrival....there are drawbacks and benefits. 

It's easy.

a) Have him introduce himself to Dany when she is welcomed into Qarth (Daenerys II) and/or have Euron be a member of one of the Qartheen guild she approaches for assistance (Daenerys III)

b) It's not about how he gets away; it's more about how she gets away. After all, she's the one who leaves Qarth quick, fast and in a hurry (Daenerys V). Literally--she leaves almost immediately after the House of the Undying situation.

 

Euron wouldn't be a major character in season 2. He'd be a minor side character and a special guest star (a glorified cameo). He'd appear for maybe 1 or 2 episodes. You can write it so that Euron just misses Dany when she leaves Qarth. And you can have someone attempt to kidnap her and the dragons in season 3 only for the kidnapping to be prevented by the Unsullied and/or the freed salves. It literally happened in the books: an old enemy from one of the sellsword companies tried to attack Dany but the slaves protected her and tore him apart.

[Jaenara Belarys]

20 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Euron wouldn't be a major character in season 2. He'd be a minor side character and a special guest star (a glorified cameo). He'd appear for maybe 1 or 2 episodes. You can write it so that Euron just misses Dany when she leaves Qarth. And you can have someone attempt to kidnap her and the dragons in season 3 only for the kidnapping to be prevented by the Unsullied and/or the freed salves. It literally happened in the books: an old enemy from one of the sellsword companies tried to attack Dany but the slaves protected her and tore him apart.

That could work.....of course writing original has never been Dumber and Dogshit's strong suit. 

Season 5 is when the cracks started showing in my opinion. You have dull plotlines (Stannis at the Wall, Jon up until Hardhome), forced character death (Barristan Selmy), and overall dull material. Part of this is simply because AFFC is more political and worldbuilding than previous but it still has opportunities. You could cover the Second Sons and Unsullied  (introduce the freedmen companies) doing small battles and skirmishes with the Yunkishmen, and do a montage with Dany ordering the smiths of Meereen to produce armor (a simple brigandine or coat of plates is fine. Or half plate [which is what the Lannisters wear, a horrible imitation but half plate nonetheless] or a simplified version of the lorica segmentata). 

The script is mostly fine, except for the Tyrion Trend starts here. We have him doing and saying horrendous and frankly idiotic stuff for such a smart character.....

[BlackLightning]

3 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Season 5 is when the cracks started showing in my opinion. You have dull plotlines (Stannis at the Wall, Jon up until Hardhome), forced character death (Barristan Selmy), and overall dull material. Part of this is simply have AFFC is more political and worldbuilding than previous but it still has a few good things. Heck, you could even cover the Second Sons and Unsullied (you could introduce the freedmen companies) doing small battles and skirmishes with the Yunkishmen, and do a montage with Dany ordering the smiths of Meereen to produce armor (a simple brigandine or coat of plates is fine. Or half plate [which is what the Lannisters wear, a horrible imitation but half plate nonetheless). 

 

You don't even have to do that. And I take issue with your point about "dull material"

A Feast for Crows includes some thrilling WTF/action sequences such as:

• the fall of Dragonstone and the maiming of Loras Tyrell
• the Queenmaker plot
• the Ironborn invasion of the Reach
• Brienne and friends vs. Biter and Rorge vs. the Brotherhood without Banners at the Inn
• Brienne vs. the Brave Companions at the Whispers
• Cersei's failed attempt to escape the Sept of Baelor
• the siege of Riverrun and the escape of Blackfish

A Dance with Dragons has even more prime "reaction video" material.

The problem here is with D&D refusing to adapt the material from Feast and Dance. Like what's wrong with adapting the northern politics storyline in season 5? Stannis wouldn't be boring with all that sitting at the Wall he did; he'd move on early and mix it up with the Mormonts, the Glovers, the Karstarks and the mountain clans.

[Jaenara Belarys]

3 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

You don't even have to do that. And I take issue with your point about "dull material"

 

I was talking about the show, not the books just to clarify. 

4 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

• the fall of Dragonstone and the maiming of Loras Tyrell
• the Queenmaker plot
• the Ironborn invasion of the Reach
• Brienne and friends vs. Biter and Rorge vs. the Brotherhood without Banners at the Inn
• Brienne vs. the Brave Companions at the Whispers
• Cersei's failed attempt to escape the Sept of Baelor
• the siege of Riverrun and the escape of Blackfish

There is the problem of budget contraints as for all this, and I have doubts you could include all this (as in the source material from AFFC and ADWD) in ten episodes. As for adapting the northern plotlines, D&D most likely wanted to start narrowing down the amount of characters and doing a faithful adaption would've ruined their plans to get rid of Stannis. 

[BlackLightning]

5 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

There is the problem of budget contraints as for all this, and I have doubts you could include all this (as in the source material from AFFC and ADWD) in ten episodes. As for adapting the northern plotlines, D&D most likely wanted to start narrowing down the amount of characters and doing a faithful adaption would've ruined their plans to get rid of Stannis. 

A couple things:

1. you can slow down and spend two seasons adapting AFFC and ADWD. They already did this by putting the Kingsmoot, the Riverrun story and the Brotherhood in season 6. So...what's the issue with that? Totally doable. Play with the timelines to make certain events happen earlier or later than others instead of at the same time.
2. you can simply order more episodes per season. At that point, HBO wouldn't have opposed making season five twelve or thirteen episodes long as opposed to the usual ten.
3. budget constraints: if HBO wasn't at the "we'll give you a blank check, just make more good stuff" stage yet, you can circumvent budget constraints by spending two seasons adapting AFFC and ADWD.
4. The narrowing down characters excuse is BS. They added characters in season 5. The real thing is that they were lazy.
5. And they can get rid of Stannis all they want. That's fine. Stannis is probably about to hit the wall and die in The Winds of Winter anyway. Why rush and make it so that he hits the wall a whole "book" earlier? And if they absolutely had to rush it, there was absolutely no need to make it so sloppy. I never understood their love and adoration with Ramsay Snow either for what it's worth.
6. You can adapt northern plotlines without adding 50+ characters and blowing your budget for costumes and personnel. All you absolutely would need is 3 characters (a Jeyne Poole stand-in, Barbrey Dustin and Wyman Manderly) and a bunch of extras that you can cycle through. Throw in Sybelle Glover, the 3 main Karstarks, Wyman's son and granddaughters, Alysanne Mormont and the Umber brothers and you got a party.

A big problem with the last two seasons (especially season 8) is that Westeros -- which only a season before felt vibrant, full of life and character -- became empty and that there were no stakes because there was nobody left in Westeros except for the main cast. What was more frustrating is that the main cast suddenly became untouchable despite the show being marketed as "no one is safe."

 

Just bad planning overall.

[WhatAnArtist!]

2 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

There is the problem of budget contraints as for all this

There aren't any major battles in Feast/Dance like there were in the first three books. There's no Green Fork or Whispering Wood or Blackwater or the Wall. The largest battle is the taking of the Shield Isles, which could be done easily by just having a couple of ships knocked into each other, 30 or 40 guys in a moshpit, and some CG burning ships in the background. All of the other action setpieces would be very small-scale, basically just fights, not battles, e.g. Brienne vs the Brave Companions, Arys vs Hotah. The siege of Riverrun doesn't involve any fighting, just a big army camped out around it (pretty easy to use CGI with). 

[SeanF]

On 11/8/2021 at 12:11 PM, Darryk said:

Did HBO deliberately choose not to hire an intimacy coordinator, or is it a position that didn't really exist at the time? If the former, then it's yet another sign of potential toxic behavior by HBO that may have been going on for awhile without being exposed.

How old was Benioff at this point? This is like frat boy behavior.

I think Benioff is a psychopath.  His behaviour is just so bizarrely unpleasant;  the stupid practical jokes that made Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams cry;  the horribly fetishised death scene of Ros (the actress was grossly abused in real life);  the ten hour water boarding of the actress who played Unella etc.

[Le Cygne]

On 11/3/2021 at 2:56 AM, Crixus said:

Yet another GoT actor talking about how badly sex scenes were handled: https://www.avclub.com/gemma-whelan-says-game-of-thrones-didnt-have-an-intimac-1847983399

Ha ha ha, this comment for that article wins the day:

I mean, the show needed an everything coordinator, really.

[Ser Drewy]

Interestingly two people close to GRRM have interviews released today where they describe the second half of the show as a distortion, going against the books plans: 

His agent: https://www.westeros.org/News/Entry/New_Book_Gives_Insights_on_HBOs_Game_of_Thrones

Outlander author: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/23/outlander-tv-series-author-diana-gabaldon

[WhatAnArtist!]

5 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

Interestingly two people close to GRRM have interviews released today where they describe the second half of the show as a distortion, going against the books plans: 

His agent: https://www.westeros.org/News/Entry/New_Book_Gives_Insights_on_HBOs_Game_of_Thrones

Outlander author: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/23/outlander-tv-series-author-diana-gabaldon

One can only imagine just how frustrated and upset Martin himself is, but obviously he's far too professional and tactful to say those things himself. 

[SeanF]

13 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

Interestingly two people close to GRRM have interviews released today where they describe the second half of the show as a distortion, going against the books plans: 

His agent: https://www.westeros.org/News/Entry/New_Book_Gives_Insights_on_HBOs_Game_of_Thrones

Outlander author: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/23/outlander-tv-series-author-diana-gabaldon

Sansa was three or four characters combined, and her Vale storyline was completely removed, so her book story must be very different.

Bran will surely do something more meaningful than vanishing for a season, and then staring into space and making cryptic comments. 

Dany may well die at the end, but I'm quite convinced now that Jon does not kill her.  It's not described as one of the three "holy shit" moments.  Surely it would be the holiest of holy shit moments?

I think we can all agree that Cersei will not be sitting on the Iron Throne at the end of the novels. 

Tyrion is a piece of work.  He may end up as Hand, but I doubt if Martin will make him the sanctimonious fool that Ding & Dong turned him into.

The Others will be more than just Monster of the Week.  There is no Night King, and Arya won't kill the Great Other by jumping out a tree.

And, there's a black hole, with Arianne, Aegon, Lady Stonheart and Jon Connington removed from the tale.

 

[Darryk]

Her quote is interesting:

Quote

“Poor George, I feel very sorry for him,” she says. “What happened is that his show caught up with him, and he then met with the showrunners and he told them what he was planning to do in that book, so that they could then write accordingly. Only they didn’t write accordingly, they took his stuff, and distorted it and wrote their own ending, which wasn’t at all what he had in mind but used all the elements that he told them.”

Sounds like it confirms what a lot of us already suspected, that they used some elements of GRRM's plan but largely did their own thing.

I'm so eager to see how it pans out in the books. My guess is Bran will end up on the throne (D+D would have probably killed him off early in the series if GRRM hadn't told them that), and Jon ends up going back north of the Wall. Those are the only two things I believe will be the same. 

Everything else is up in the air. Dany and Tyrion's arcs are probably going to be completely different. The White Walkers will be completely different. Jamie and Cersei may die much earlier (I suspected they were kept around till the end because of how good the actors were). Sansa won't end up Queen of the North, that was clearly fan service.

 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

Her quote is interesting:

Sounds like it confirms what a lot of us already suspected, that they used some elements of GRRM's plan but largely did their own thing.

I'm so eager to see how it pans out in the books. My guess is Bran will end up on the throne (D+D would have probably killed him off early in the series if GRRM hadn't told them that), and Jon ends up going back north of the Wall. Those are the only two things I believe will be the same. 

Everything else is up in the air. Dany and Tyrion's arcs are probably going to be completely different. The White Walkers will be completely different. Jamie and Cersei may die much earlier (I suspected they were kept around till the end because of how good the actors were). Sansa won't end up Queen of the North, that was clearly fan service.

 

Even as fan service, it failed to work, because Sansa (like other characters) had been written unsympathetically.

[Darryk]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Even as fan service, it failed to work, because Sansa (like other characters) had been written unsympathetically.

To be honest I think she was written clumsily rather than unsympathetically. I think they didn't INTEND the audience to dislike Sansa, it just ended up happening 'cause they weren't putting enough thought into how certain actions would make her look.

 

[SeanF]

Just now, Darryk said:

To be honest I think she was written clumsily rather than unsympathetically. I think they didn't INTEND the audience to dislike Sansa, it just ended up happening 'cause they weren't putting enough thought into how certain actions would make her look.

 

Oh I quite agree - what we were shown never matched what they were trying to tell us.  I think too, the two Ds' have a very different moral outlook to George Martin.  They saw Tywin Lannister as "lawful neutral", and Cersei and Littlefinger as people to emulate.  Statesmanship was stabbing an ally or liege lord in the back - which for some reason, nobody took exception to.

They were a (very) poor man's Macchiavelli, not understanding that what he advocated was not immorality in political life, but pragmatism.  In most case, pragmatism leads one to honour obligations to allies, overlords, and vassals, because you want them to honour their obligations to you in turn. 

[Le Cygne]

On 11/24/2021 at 9:15 AM, SeanF said:

Even as fan service, it failed to work, because Sansa (like other characters) had been written unsympathetically.

Well, Benioff/Weiss/Cogman stripped Sansa of everything that made her a person, then made her thank them for what they did to her. You could tell by what GRRM said in various interviews, this was quite a diversion.

[SeanF]

12 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Well, Benioff/Weiss/Cogman stripped Sansa of everything that made her a person, then made her thank them for what they did to her. You could tell by what GRRM said in various interviews, this was quite a diversion.

On another thread @TheDragonDemands said there was a deleted scene in Season 6 where two women are complaining about the rape of Sansa, depicted in the play, and Arya breaks the fourth wall to shout at them, "If you don't like it, don't watch it!"

[HoodedCrow]

It may turn out that “ Hodor “ is the best thing that they kept…

[Le Cygne]

On 11/23/2021 at 5:35 PM, Ser Drewy said:

Interestingly two people close to GRRM have interviews released today where they describe the second half of the show as a distortion, going against the books plans: 

His agent: https://www.westeros.org/News/Entry/New_Book_Gives_Insights_on_HBOs_Game_of_Thrones

Outlander author: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/23/outlander-tv-series-author-diana-gabaldon

Thanks for sharing this!

“Poor George, I feel very sorry for him,” she says. “What happened is that his show caught up with him, and he then met with the showrunners and he told them what he was planning to do in that book, so that they could then write accordingly. Only they didn’t write accordingly, they took his stuff, and distorted it and wrote their own ending, which wasn’t at all what he had in mind but used all the elements that he told them.”

GRRM and Gabaldon have both mentioned several times that they meet regularly. Gabaldon said in 2014: "I know George Martin, I have breakfast in Santa Fe with him once a month because at this point in time, he and I are the only ones in this particular situation."

So after meeting with the showrunners in 2013 at Santa Fe, "they took his stuff, and distorted it." They admitted they didn't know what they were doing, yet they wouldn't learn from an experienced screenwriter who carefully plotted out the story they were supposed to be telling.