SPOILERS: Rant and Rave

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

18 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

They went off book by the end of season 3. They didn’t know Samwell was a POV. They had their eye in a few select prizes. They didn’t run out of book material. 

I don't think they ever read AFFC to be honest (at least not before they began shooting the show).  My guess is they probably stopped reading the moment they read the Red Wedding, which is probably why Lady Stoneheart is missing.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

If you would cut Robb Stark and the Red Wedding in favor of Aegon and Arianne it's a good thing that no one asked you to do an adaptation, LOL.

Never said anything about cutting the Red Wedding, did I?

I mean, we get that you are pissed and want the book, and that you apparently either don't understand or don't want to understand the overall conceptional importance of plot lines you don't like,etc. but that's irrelevant to the topic at hand. At this point of the story chances are pretty high that both Arianne and Aegon's story are more important to the overall story than Robb Stark could ever be. He was just a sacrificial lamb killed for shock value. He was never build up as a hero, never a POV. Aegon is the subject of prophecy in the books, the only thing that was ever prophesied about Robb was his postmortem humiliation.

And Euron is basically the great big antagonist of everyone, the Dark Lord of the story, only a tiny fraction less dangerous than the Others themselves. He is infinitely more important than any of the tiny villains that are already dead.

[BlackLightning]

12 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, but there is also a real underlying truth under that hyperbole above insofar as a proper adaptation of the entire series could indeed have cut or greatly reduced the importance of things from the first three books that made it into the show simply because the overall roles of those characters are rather small.

I don't want anything to be cut, and of course the finished books are great in their own right, but if I were to adapt the books I'd rather cut, say, a lot from the first two books than, say, Aegon or Arianne if I had to cut things. I'd also use my knowledge of the overall story to streamline things so that crucial plot lines and characters are, perhaps, hinted or introduced earlier than they are in the books so things fit better together.

Wasting time with and create additional scenes for characters who are not main characters and will die soon is not a good way to do it.

True.

I did like how D&D trimmed the fat of the whole Arya in Harrenhal part of A Clash of Kings. Having Arya solely work for Tywin as a cupbearer works a lot better than watching Arya be passed around between washing Tywin Lannister's linens and being Roose Bolton's cupbearer. Even though it is much more likely for Arya to have been passed around that way, it's better for the narrative, the actors and the theme to stick her with Tywin.

While I used to not like the fAegon plot at all (I grew up) and I would have tried to skim over it if not outright exclude the Azor Ahai prophecies in the past, I don't think I would have ever cut down on the Ironborn, the Faceless Men or the Martells.

[Lollygag]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

They 'signed on' in 2007, I'm sure they never expected that Dance wouldn't be out until 2011, or that it would be a bloated book that doesn't move the plot forward very much.  Really, there is no reason in 2007 not to think that if the show was a hit, the author would easily finish the series in plenty of time.  It has been 12 years.  

Signing on doesn't determine when a series gets a pilot shot nor when it's approved. Some rights are sold without ever going into production at any level. GoT's first disastrous pilot wasn't shot until late 2009, and it wasn't until 2010 that it was approved after recasting, rewrites, and reshoots. ASOS was published in 2000. AFFC was published in 2005. They knew it was a very real possibility. They already lived it with True Blood and Harris.

If you want to blame GRRM for not getting the books out, go ahead. But the show's failings are on the show. 

 

[longest night]

5 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

True.

I did like how D&D trimmed the fat of the whole Arya in Harrenhal part of A Clash of Kings. Having Arya solely work for Tywin as a cupbearer works a lot better than watching Arya be passed around between washing Tywin Lannister's linens and being Roose Bolton's cupbearer. Even though it is much more likely for Arya to have been passed around that way, it's better for the narrative, the actors and the theme to stick her with Tywin.

While I used to not like the fAegon plot at all (I grew up) and I would have tried to skim over it if not outright exclude the Azor Ahai prophecies, I don't think I would have ever cut down on the Ironborn, the Faceless Men or the Martells.

fAegon's plot is important because he's coming to dethrone an unstable, horrific government and is setup to be loved by the people. This will make Daenerys invasion with a raping and pillaging Dothraki horde a complete nightmare since there is absolutely nothing she really offers.

[Cas Stark]

7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Never said anything about cutting the Red Wedding, did I?

I mean, we get that you are pissed and want the book, and that you apparently either don't understand or don't want to understand the overall conceptional importance of plot lines you don't like,etc. but that's irrelevant to the topic at hand. At this point of the story chances are pretty high that both Arianne and Aegon's story are more important to the overall story than Robb Stark could ever be. He was just a sacrificial lamb killed for shock value. He was never build up as a hero, never a POV. Aegon is the subject of prophecy in the books, the only thing that was ever prophesied about Robb was his postmortem humiliation.

And Euron is basically the great big antagonist of everyone, the Dark Lord of the story, only a tiny fraction less dangerous than the Others themselves. He is infinitely more important than any of the tiny villains that are already dead.

Well, I don't think the author will ever finish the books, so there will never be a resolution, never be a way to determine who is ultimately right or wrong.  Indeed, I think that the entire Dorne story is a poorly configured retcon, Doran's 'masterplan' of sitting on his ass for 15 years while Viserys goes crazy?  It's laughable.  The characters are inferior.  As for the pirate sorcerer Euron Greyjoy, again, he's too cartoonish. He belongs in a different type of tale.  The author lost his focus when he tried to fill the 5 year gap he abandoned with a bunch of new stories that aren't as good as the original story.  And, yes, this is my subjective opinion.  

[kissdbyfire]

22 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Are you serious?!

How can you read the books and not know Samwell was a POV? He's a POV in two of them and a pretty damn important POV at that.

Yup. 

You can see for yourself here. That and oh, so much more. 

[The Fattest Leech]

31 minutes ago, longest night said:

I question whether D&D even read the books, or just looked up information online.

Well, they certainly know this forum exists... and with that the theories that had been discussed. Everything from "reveals" to crackpots.

25 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Are you serious?!

How can you read the books and not know Samwell was a POV? He's a POV in two of them and a pretty damn important POV at that.

It is an interview that did at a university in England about 3ish years ago, after the s5 Sansa rape. John Bradly and Kit Harington were there with both Benioff and Weiss. Someone in the audience asked who was their favorite non-POV character in the books that they adapted to screen. Benioff pointed to Jon Bradly and said, "Sam." There was a hushed murmur for a second and JB politely corrected them... and then they had shots, or something. I'll see if I can find it.

'd by @kissdbyfire... again!

 

[OldGimletEye]

11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Aegon is the subject of prophecy in the books, the only thing that was ever prophesied about Robb was his postmortem humiliation.

I think the only thing in Aegon's future is to get nuked.

But, I guess he can at least be thankful he is not going to get the Sandra Marriage Strike, which would be truly devastating.

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

I did like how D&D trimmed the fat of the whole Arya in Harrenhal part of A Clash of Kings. Having Arya solely work for Tywin as a cupbearer works a lot better than watching Arya be passed around between washing Tywin Lannister's linens and being Roose Bolton's cupbearer. Even though it is much more likely for Arya to have been passed around that way, it's better for the narrative, the actors and the theme to stick her with Tywin.

See, didn't like that setup at all since it was just showing off actors and doing nothing to Arya's actual plot - which was about her suffering and seeing other people to suffer and being powerless to stop it. I'd have liked to see Weese, and it would have been great to play up Roose Bolton this early rather than insist on featuring Charles Dance the entire time. Tywin does have the time to shine in this story, there was no need to rush things here.

3 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

While I used to not like the fAegon plot at all (I grew up) and I would have tried to skim over it if not outright exclude the Azor Ahai prophecies, I don't think I would have ever cut down on the Ironborn, the Faceless Men or the Martells.

Well, for what it is worth it seems to me the Martells will turn out to be more or less just an accessory of the Aegon plot. Aegon and Euron basically are the two plot points AFfC and ADwD are spinning around. They are the things that are build up. It is because of these people Cersei has to fuck things up in KL, it is for them that the Lannister and Tyrell alliance has to sour, etc. We didn't really know this when we read AFfC because nobody, I think, foresaw the twist that Aegon might come to Westeros before and without Dany. That came out of nowhere. But it is what is going to set up the Second Dance which is basically the next major conflict in the series.

[darmody]

19 minutes ago, bloodsteel bitterraven said:

Anyway, I have to mention this.  Did anyone else feel that Arya forced herself on Gendry?  I didn't get the impression that Gendry wanted to do it.  Am I the only one who felt that way watching that scene?

He was nervous, though not as nervous as with the Red Witch. I didn't get the feeling Gendry was worried she'd throw dragonglass at him if he didn't go along with her, so no, she did not force herself upon him. 

If anything, he was reluctant because he knew her when she was a kid, she's the daughter of a lord, and he works for what they believe to be her half-brother. 

[Lord Varys]

6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Well, I don't think the author will ever finish the books, so there will never be a resolution, never be a way to determine who is ultimately right or wrong.  Indeed, I think that the entire Dorne story is a poorly configured retcon, Doran's 'masterplan' of sitting on his ass for 15 years while Vicerys goes crazy?  It's laughable.  The characters are inferior.  As for the pirate sorcerer Euron Greyjoy, again, he's too cartoonish. He belongs in a different type of tale.  The author lost his focus when he tried to fill the 5 year gap he abandoned with a bunch of new stories that aren't as good as the original story.  And, yes, this is my subjective opinion.  

Doran's master plan is going to go nowhere - and never was. Dorne will declare for Aegon instead. And Quentyn's demise ensured that there will be a Second Dance. This is setup for people to actually have reasons to hate each other. You have to do that in a realistic setting - after all, Ned and Robb also got their reasons for despising the Lannisters, etc.

Yeah, we know your opinion. But the point I'm making is that your opinion is pretty much irrelevant when discussing adaptation choices of people who are supposed to know where the story you don't like is going to go. You can only point to stuff you don't like and that you cannot read the continuation right now - but if you adapting things faithfully you know where things are going and then what you imagine is the core of the story is, in fact, not the core of the story but just the prologue or first act.

[Crona]

I think what D&D and apparently a lot of fans don’t realize is that characters who are secondary actually do a lot to move the plot. If we didn’t have Robert, Renly, Tywin or Shae move the plot in all kinds of directions then we wouldn’t have our story.  So yes they do end up dead but they were instrumental for the story.

So not including the Reach, Dorne, Ironborn or Aegon (without him what would be Varys’s motivation?) hurts the story because they move the story too. 

[BlackLightning]

1 minute ago, longest night said:

fAegon's plot is important because he's coming into dethrone an unstable, horrific government and is setup to be loved by the people. This will make Daenerys invasion with a raping and pillaging Dothraki horde a complete nightmare since there is absolutely nothing she really offers.

True. The smallfolk will love Aegon. **cough, cough, the smallfolk are important**

Well, Daenerys is likely to come with more than just a Dothraki super-khalasar. Try Tyrion Lannister, the Unsullied, a bunch of former slaves, Victarion Greyjoy, at least one red priest and the Fiery Hand. The Unsullied aren't that bad and former slaves are no threat in themselves. No one likes Tyrion Lannister and an Ironborn pirate playing king can never be good news...so that's two more strikes against her. But the Fiery Hand? And Moqorro and some other more competent red priests?

Yikes.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'd be on the very next boat to the Summer Islands. Hell, I'd even give Asshai a try.

This looks bad on paper yes and Daenerys will likely be seen as a terrorist by everyone south of the neck (everyone north of the Neck will have bigger fish to fry) but, if my predictions are true, then well...let's just say that fAegon and Friends along with Cersei, Euron and everyone else south of the neck supporting any one of the former will have been asking for the wrath of Daenerys and that they will have no one to blame but themselves.

But yes. Daenerys is going to look more like Magneto than Wonder Woman.

Just now, Cas Stark said:

Well, I don't think the author will ever finish the books, so there will never be a resolution, never be a way to determine who is ultimately right or wrong.  Indeed, I think that the entire Dorne story is a poorly configured retcon, Doran's 'masterplan' of sitting on his ass for 15 years while Vicerys goes crazy?  It's laughable.  The characters are inferior.  As for the pirate sorcerer Euron Greyjoy, again, he's too cartoonish. He belongs in a different type of tale.  The author lost his focus when he tried to fill the 5 year gap he abandoned with a bunch of new stories that aren't as good as the original story.  And, yes, this is my subjective opinion.  

I agree that GRRM made some pretty serious blunders.

But Dorne a poorly configured retcon? What is Dorne supposed to be a retcon of?

Sorry but your subjective opinion is wrong, mate. Feast is both something of an epilogue for the first half of the series and a extended prologue for the second half of the series. Feast and Dance is the new Game. Winds will be the new Clash with Dream being the Storm of the second half of the series. The writings on the wall at this point.

[Lord Varys]

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think the only thing in Aegon's future is to get nuked.

But, I guess he can at least be thankful he is not going to get the Sandra Marriage Strike, which would be truly devastating.

And what would the narrative purpose of that be? Why didn't he stay dead? There is a reason why we got this plot, it is a subversion of the expectation of the readers that Dany would eventually come to Westeros, kill all the bad guys, and then team up with the heroes to defeat the Others. She will still come, but it won't be her against the bad guys, it will be another pointless war where you can root for no one because both sides will have good and decent people at the top but are, for silly yet, hopefully, understandable reasons unwilling or incapable of reaching a compromise.

I mean, I've said that first when ADwD came out - when Stannis and Aegon and Dany are fighting each other who will you root for? It will be a very tough decision to make and thus a much more tantalizing read than Dany fighting only Cersei and Euron.

The reason why people seem to be so opposed to those new plot lines seems to have a lot to do with the fact that many people had a fixed idea how the story should or would continue and have trouble adapting (the non-existing proper endings of the last two books didn't help a lot in this regard, either, I agree). This is why many people think or insist that those new characters will all die very quickly. But there is actually little reason to think so. They were just introduced and at a point in time when no author would introduce them if they were not central to the future plot.

[The Dragon Demands]

On ‎4‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 10:22 AM, Lord Varys said:

 

Davos is one of the best cases to exemplify the fact that they just like to show off actors they like (as @The Dragon Demands really lays out in long and quite mad rants on his youtube channel). There is a very clear point in the show where you can see when the character from George the role the actor played disappeared and what's left is basically the actor himself, a guy the writers like to show off. Granted, the show Davos was always different from the real Davos due to him being much older and all, but the basic story and his relationship to Stannis were done in a similar and fitting manner. He also had pretty much the same story as book Davos up until they went north. But afterwards there is pretty much nothing of the character left. And in his case it is so obvious because Davos Seaworth has literally nothing to do with any of the characters he later interacts with. If Stannis were to die he would likely either die with him, fall into a deep depression, or perhaps decide to go try to get back home. He would not continue as if nothing had happened, becoming basically everybody's friend. That's just completely silly and shows that the writer don't care about either the characters or the story they are telling.

It's not even that "Book Davos" disappeared...."TV Davos", distinct from book Davos, disappeared.

From trying to write up coherent wiki articles on things like "TV Cersei" - there IS NO "TV Cersei", as a coherent fictional character.  Otherwise we wouldn't also have TV-only viewers turning on the show.  She randomly does stuff from one episode to the next to show off the actor.

For a while, I thought it was that simple: "wow, Cersei can make a worried face" etc.  And that is true, but it's a bit more than that...as we know from Bryan Cogman's repeated rants about The Faces on video.

The nonsense Benioff filled his head with is that "We should try to write scenes with no dialogue to show off the actors, but they can convey all this "subtext" through their eyes and facial expressions".

If you guys haven't seen my more recent video on the script reports that recently came out, please go over them:  their scripts are filled with bizarre...paragraph long descriptions of the characters internal thought monologues.  Much like a book.  They're filled with book prose.

Benioff never "learned" screenwriting, which he has no training or experience in.  Instead his scripts are filled with this....beautifully written internal thought monologues.  Which Cogman has repeatedly said "the actors can convey with their eyes!"....when it's...INFORMATIONAL CONTENT.  

So much from prior seasons I'm seeing in a new light now.  It's not purely "camera lingers on Sophie Turner's face while she makes a sad face"....that it part of it, and the core of it, but the.....way they mentally process or rationalize this, is that the scripts actually have like a paragraph long description of "this is what Sansa is thinking now".  Like a book.  

But this isn't a valid "ideology" - it's specifically why the first pilot failed.  They forgot to mention in spoken dialogue that Cersei is Jaime's sister!  It says it repeatedly in the scene descriptions.  Because it's like writing a book to them.

Thus a lot of scene which seemed to be lacking basic exposition....they felt this was conveyed through facial expressions.

Which comes around to the core issue, though:  "Wow, actors can emote with their faces!" - "So let's play favorites with the actors and randomly give ones we like more big emotive scenes!"

Cogman just a few days ago gave a podcast with Vanity Fair, I'm going over it now, and he....he repeats ALL of that silly stuff he said in that writer's school video interview from Season 7!

He....he quotes off Arya's internal monologue during her sex scene.  Some even wondered if it was consensual sex (only a few, but given her age, they wondered how she got into it)…..and he's saying her thoughts are "this is me embracing being a woman, embracing life" or something like that - actually fine but....he's insisting, word for word, "I am capable of writing a scene in which the actors don't talk, and all of this paragraph-long 'subtext' is conveyed through the actor's eyes because they're so amazing".

Vanity Fair's podcast hosts HAVE criticized the Sansa rape, and other stuff, in the past.  Why the heck doesn't anyone challenge when Cogman says these absurdities in live interviews?  Not even accusingly, just "uh, Bryan....I don't understand how the actor could convey that much specific info with just their facial expressions, please explain more".   They're just too stunned.  

This isn't going to fade, the end result will be making a special wiki writeup page just gathering together all of their quotes on this to explain their...mentality, towards "writing":  Cogman has laid it out very consistently.  

1 - we're showing off the actors' nonverbal emoting

2 - We can convey a paragraph of informational "subtext" from the script through a look from the actor's face (directly stated this in as many words)

my god...Emilia Clarke DOES NOT BLINK during her confrontation scene with Sansa in episode 2.  It's FOUR MINUTES LONG.  She never blinks.  Wide-eyed, well-lit face, showing off Emilia Clarke emoting "messiah face" (even though there's actual dialogue in this)

I'm still going over info.

 

[OldGimletEye]

3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And what would the narrative purpose of that be? Why didn't he stay dead? There is a reason why we got this plot, it is a subversion of the expectation of the readers that Dany would eventually come to Westeros, kill all the bad guys, and then team up with the heroes to defeat the Others. She will still come, but it won't be her against the bad guys, it will be another pointless war where you can root for no one because both sides will have good and decent people at the top but are, for silly yet, hopefully, understandable reasons unwilling or incapable of reaching a compromise.

Ultimately, he loses. We can argue back and forth about what purpose it serves, but ultimately he's a goner.

[Lord Varys]

16 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Ultimately, he loses. We can argue back and forth about what purpose it serves, but ultimately he's a goner.

He may not sit the Iron Throne, but do you know he won't see reason, unlike Aegon II, bend the knee to his (supposed) auntie, and help them defeat the Others? Just because a character doesn't accomplish his goal (permanently) doesn't mean he has to die. In fact, there are a lot of characters who might fail but who might not have to die in the end. Granted, not saying he has to live, just saying us knowing somebody is likely to fail isn't the same as them dying. Or how they die if they die. Aegon could bend the knee, help against the Others, only to be killed by them or later by Euron or whatever.

I mean, one would have assumed that Jaime was 'a goner', too, back in AGoT, right? When we all thought he was nothing but the evil and monstrous Kingslayer and would-be child murderer. Now he might still die but he did a few meaningful things along the way one didn't see coming...

23 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

If you guys haven't seen my more recent video on the script reports that recently came out, please go over them:  their scripts are filled with bizarre...paragraph long descriptions of the characters internal thought monologues.  Much like a book.  They're filled with book prose.

Yeah, watched that. On the level of mere quality of the show this kind of nonsense is a huge eye-opener. I mean, there are ways how you can direct actors without dialogues but to do that convincingly you really have to know how to do a proper silent movie - and even those include dialogue and other plot-related stuff in text - but these guys cannot do that, either.

The madness of taken a work so complex, subtle, and rich in great dialogue as George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and then deciding to convey meaning not through dialogue but (mainly or even exclusively) through facial expressions cannot be overstressed. That's utter nonsense. They rush through the material anyway, and then they use a method of directing things that reduces the amount of information they could actually convey and depict!

It would still be a crippling artistic choice when this were done actually with a proper concept and plan, but these loonies just have to be the actors the actors themselves, basically, allowing them to do what they like or are, in their opinion, good at producing on cue.

It is like praising Orson Welles' Othello because Orson Welles played a great Othello by recognizably PLAYING HIMSELF rather than Othello the character. And, of course, praising Yago for the quality of his FACIAL EXPRESSIONS rather than his FUCKING DIALOGUE.

23 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

 But this isn't a valid "ideology" - it's specifically why the first pilot failed.  They forgot to mention in spoken dialogue that Cersei is Jaime's sister!  It says it repeatedly in the scene descriptions.  Because it's like writing a book to them.

Even with the re-shoot there were many people back then who didn't catch it. It is mentioned now in the first scene with Jaime and Cersei, but stuff like that should have really been mentioned a couple of times considering how many characters they introduced in the pilot.

[OldGimletEye]

13 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

He may not sit the Iron Throne, but do you know he won't see reason, unlike Aegon II, bend the knee to his (supposed) auntie, and help them defeat the Others? Just because a character doesn't accomplish his goal (permanently) doesn't mean he has to die. In fact, there are a lot of characters who might fail but who might not have to die in the end. Granted, not saying he has to live, just saying us knowing somebody is likely to fail isn't the same as them dying. Or how they die if they die. Aegon could bend the knee, help against the Others, only to be killed by them or later by Euron or whatever.

You know, to be honest here I just get the feeling, we're evidently supposed to be completely invested in this Targaryen pissing contest, while at the same time being like Rob Stark and War of Five Kings? Meh, who fuckin' cares!

And I think Aegon, goes down in Dorne. That cyvasse game he played with Tyrion, I think suggest that.

 

[Adam_Up_Bxtch]

31 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

He may not sit the Iron Throne, but do you know he won't see reason, unlike Aegon II, bend the knee to his (supposed) auntie, and help them defeat the Others? Just because a character doesn't accomplish his goal (permanently) doesn't mean he has to die. In fact, there are a lot of characters who might fail but who might not have to die in the end. Granted, not saying he has to live, just saying us knowing somebody is likely to fail isn't the same as them dying. Or how they die if they die. Aegon could bend the knee, help against the Others, only to be killed by them or later by Euron or whatever.

Gotta agree here. Aegon doesn't seem like Viserys completely and may see reason when it comes down to it. Being raised his entire life to become King only to instead give it up and possibly die defending the realm against the Others would be quite a nice end to his story tbh.