Book & Show

[T and A]

On 3/25/2019 at 9:18 PM, Jabar of House Titan said:

 

With Arianne and Aegon in the series, the weak seven-episode season we got could have easily made for a stronger ten-episode season. Add in Prince Quentyn and the two other Greyjoy uncles, Aeron and Victarion, we would have had an even stronger ten-episode season and maybe even a seven- or eight-episode long season eight.

This would have maybe all worked fine, if the following two scenarios were true

1. The series would have had at least 4 to 5 more seasons, 10 episodes each. 

2. The series was mainly aimed for book fans, and not a worlwide phenomenon to a massive fanbase. 

Nr 1. would not work for several reasons. First, the main audience would start to get bored with it, and the show would loose audience after, say, 10 seasons. Even if that weren't the case, a lot of actors would not continue working for that long period. You would have to recast. This leads to more audience stop watching the show and eventually a cancellation. 

Regarding Nr. 2: Show-only viewers, who are the main target of HBO, can't even remember the names of the characters you have now in the show. They should start caring for fAegon, Ariane, Quentin, Aeron and Victarion? Come on. This is not how you write a decent script for a TV Show. 100 characters with 100 sidequests. That is terrible storytelling in television. In the books, it works just fine. But book and televison are two very different mediums. 

I think, the biggest problem the series had, is that they included Dorne to beginn with. It was done terribly and no viewer could tell you what the purpose was. Cut that crap out, and focus more on the allready developed storylines and flesh out the main characters more (Bran for example). Regarding Euron Greyjoy, I am honest, I don't know which version I like less: the goofy guy in the show, or the cliché-pirate in the books. I hate them both. Maybe Euron in the books will become more interesting in future books. We'll see. 

 

[Ser Gareth]

23 hours ago, T and A said:

This would have maybe all worked fine, if the following two scenarios were true

1. The series would have had at least 4 to 5 more seasons, 10 episodes each. 

2. The series was mainly aimed for book fans, and not a worlwide phenomenon to a massive fanbase. 

Nr 1. would not work for several reasons. First, the main audience would start to get bored with it, and the show would loose audience after, say, 10 seasons. Even if that weren't the case, a lot of actors would not continue working for that long period. You would have to recast. This leads to more audience stop watching the show and eventually a cancellation. 

Regarding Nr. 2: Show-only viewers, who are the main target of HBO, can't even remember the names of the characters you have now in the show. They should start caring for fAegon, Ariane, Quentin, Aeron and Victarion? Come on. This is not how you write a decent script for a TV Show. 100 characters with 100 sidequests. That is terrible storytelling in television. In the books, it works just fine. But book and televison are two very different mediums. 

I think, the biggest problem the series had, is that they included Dorne to beginn with. It was done terribly and no viewer could tell you what the purpose was. Cut that crap out, and focus more on the allready developed storylines and flesh out the main characters more (Bran for example). Regarding Euron Greyjoy, I am honest, I don't know which version I like less: the goofy guy in the show, or the cliché-pirate in the books. I hate them both. Maybe Euron in the books will become more interesting in future books. We'll see. 

 

It's amazing how many people fail to realise that.  If the show had closely followed AFFC and ADWD then we'd never have gotten an ending, because HBO would have cancelled the show due to viewing numbers falling off a cliff.  The (poor) pacing of the books is what has gotten GRRM into trouble writing them, had the show remained true to the books it would have sounded its own death knell and no one would ever get a conclusion to the story.  The biggest general criticisms of the show were it was often too slow and that Dany kept going nowhere fast.

Euron is an awful awful awful character in the books.  In the show he is meh.  In the books he is a cardboard cut out pirate villain with his blue lips, eye patch and a crew full of mutes.....arrrrggghhhh shiver me timbers!  The Ironborn culture that GRRM presented us with would NEVER follow someone like that.  Oh and for good measure, just in case the reader hasn't cottoned on to Euron being evil, he is also a child molesting pedophile.

Euron for me is a symptom of everything that went wrong in AFFC/ADWD.  GRRM's writing style changed and ADWD (and the chapters we've seen from TWOW) had very little of the nuance and subtlety of the books that went before it.

 

[T and A]

17 minutes ago, Ser Gareth said:

It's amazing how many people fail to realise that.  If the show had closely followed AFFC and ADWD then we'd never have gotten an ending, because HBO would have cancelled the show due to viewing numbers falling off a cliff.  The (poor) pacing of the books is what has gotten GRRM into trouble writing them, had the show remained true to the books it would have sounded its own death knell and no one would ever get a conclusion to the story.  The biggest general criticisms of the show were it was often too slow and that Dany kept going nowhere fast.

Euron is an awful awful awful character in the books.  In the show he is meh.  In the books he is a cardboard cut out pirate villain with his blue lips, eye patch and a crew full of mutes.....arrrrggghhhh shiver me timbers!  The Ironborn culture that GRRM presented us with would NEVER follow someone like that.  Oh and for good measure, just in case the reader hasn't cottoned on to Euron being evil, he is also a child molesting pedophile.

Euron for me is a symptom of everything that went wrong in AFFC/ADWD.  GRRM's writing style changed and ADWD (and the chapters we've seen from TWOW) had very little of the nuance and subtlety of the books that went before it.

 

All true. Can you imagine the backlash the show would have gotten, if in season 4 and 5 they introduced Galazza Galare, Skahaz mo Kandaq, Quentin Martell and his "gang", Victarion Greyjoy, Darkstar and so on? Just imagine, you end up season 3 with this heartbreaking deaths at the red wedding, and begin the series with Mereen and "who the fuck is this guy and why am I still watching this"? Sure, most bookfans would love to see those characters, but they are like 1% of the audience.

 

[Ser Gareth]

On 4/24/2019 at 9:23 PM, aFeastForDragons said:

I've no idea how people still take what happens on the show as what will happen in the books. If we didn't have AFFC/ADWD would people honestly believe Littlefinger marries Sansa off to Ramsey Bolton, Jon would fight the WW at Hardhome, Jamie and Broon would go to Dorne and Asha + Theon would sail off to Mereen to collect countless characters most notably Varys?

None of those characters except Ramsey are even in those places. Sure its the rough plot line for some like WInterfell bu the story is heavily twisted for the show.

 

 

I'd say certain events have been mashed together and given to other characters.

Sansa has taken Jeyne Poole's place to speed up the plot and get her to Winterfell quicker (in the books she'll probably lead the Vale's army there to help rescue the day).

Hardhome, I think we'll see this through Davos's POV.

Asha/Theon are taking the place of Victarion.  I think Theon's end is coming in Ep3 and I think he would have met the same fate in the books.  Asha, I don't know.

Dorne - Well it's a clusterfuck in the books and an even worse one in the show.  The best thing the show did was end it quickly.  In the books they're destined to side with (f)Aegon who is likely to get torn a new one and Dorne is likely to get smashed in the process.

[Ser Gareth]

4 minutes ago, T and A said:

All true. Can you imagine the backlash the show would have gotten, if in season 4 and 5 they introduced Galazza Galare, Skahaz mo Kandaq, Quentin Martell and his "gang", Victarion Greyjoy, Darkstar and so on? Just imagine, you end up season 3 with this heartbreaking deaths at the red wedding, and begin the series with Mereen and "who the fuck is this guy and why am I still watching this"? 

 

It's funny that's how I felt when I first started reading AFFC when it came out.

ASOS was an amazing book (my favourite in the series) and I was literally at Waterstones the moment it opened to grab a copy of AFFC.  I took a day off work to read it!  I knew that certain major characters had been cut but little did I know what awaited me.

For starters the chapters didn't start with the POV's name anymore.  Then I had to wade through five chapters of brand new POVs before I got to one from the previous book (a Sam chapter), i.e. any semblance of character that I gave a toss about.  What was even worse was that two new areas (Iron Isles and Dorne) were introduced and they were soooooooo bland and cliched.  And a lot of the book was devoted to them.

By the time I'd got to the end of the book the plot had barely advanced at all.  And then ADWD comes out and it is by far the worst book in the series.

The show is far from perfect, but it is a spectacle and I'm just grateful it exists so I can finally end the journey that I began in 1998 when I read AGOT.