A proposed rewriting of the last seasons/books

[FictionIsntReal]

I'm putting this in the show forum because while structured in terms of books, it includes concepts only in the show and removes some found only in the books. Bryan Caplan proposed a general outline of how events after season 4 should have gone (perhaps analogous to GRRM's original pitch letter). I find Facebook annoying, so I'm copying his original text:

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Look, *Game of Thrones* has had awful pacing problems since they wrapped up *Storm of Swords* at the end of season 4. But the source material deserves most of the blame. What should have happened:

1. *Feast for Crows* should have lived up to its name. In this book, a horrific winter descends on the North while Stark loyalists fight Baratheons fight Wildlings fight Boltons fight Greyjoys, leading to mass famine and swarms of refugees fleeing south. Meanwhile, Dany fights for control of Slaver's Bay, and Cercei struggles for control with the religious fanatics. The book ends with Boltons attacking the Night's Watch, allowing the Others to break through the Wall.

Major deaths: Stannis, Davos, Melisandre, Ramsey Bolton, Rickon, all the Night's Watch except Jon and Sam, all the named Wildlings, Jorah, all of Dany's slaver enemies.

2. In *Dance with Dragons*, the horrible winter continues south, along with swarms of refugees. The Night King takes over the North and besieges Moat Cailin. Cercei kills off her enemies in the Sept Massacre and sends Jaime to reinforce Moat Cailin with technical help from Sam Tarly. It looks like it's going to work, but Dany (with Tyrion as her Hand) attacks King's Landing with her dragons, leading to general collapse of the Lannister's resistance. The book ends as the Others swarm Riverrun and take the Twins.

Major deaths: All of Cercei's local enemies, Jaime, Cercei, Tommen, all the Tullies, all the Freys.

3. In *Winds of Winter*, Dany desperately tries to fight the Night King with her dragons and allies as the devastation of the North gets repeated everywhere North of Dorne. Littlefinger (who has long-since married Sansa and killed Robert Arryn) lures the Night King to the Eyrie after obtaining ancient lore to bind the Night King to his will. Meanwhile, all the remaining named characters rally to Dany, fortified by Sam's technical help. One dragon gets turned undead; the Night King uses him to destroy the Eyrie, killing Littlefinger and Sansa. As the book ends, King's Landing falls, and the survivors desperately retreat to Dorne.

Major deaths: Littlefinger, Sansa, Tyrion (who desperately tries to repeat his victory at Blackwater Bay), Sam, Varys.

4. In *A Dream of Spring*, the survivors fortify Dornish defenses. Winter abates, and much of the Night King's army slowly rots into extinction. The Night King tries breaking the impasse with his undead dragon, but fails due to Arya's spycraft. This opens the way for a multi-pronged counterattack. Half the remaining beloved characters die on five different fronts. In the end, they force the Night King back beyond the Wall, and prepare for the next Winter. This time, when a Stark says "Winter is coming," all Westeros believes him!

Major deaths: Half the remaining beloved characters, but probably sparing Dany and Jon to give a little hope for the future.

Furthermore, each of these seasons should have been a full ten episodes. Cutting story-telling for special effects is a rotten trade-off. And never skimp on polishing the dialogue, which is the glory of the first four seasons!

One last thing: The Night King shouldn't just talk; he should be a cool Satanic figure who bluntly points out the wickedness of Man and uses it to rationalize human extinction.

He breaks further from GRRM's original work than D&D did in season 5, perhaps because D&D weren't yet that comfortable with doing so and just saying "We didn't like AFFC/ADWD". I know Bryan Cogman insisted on including Dorne, one of the most maligned subplots, which Caplan doesn't mention until after Dany sacks King's Landing. Another reason might have been that D&D expected GRRM to finish Winds of Winter (and, to a lesser extent, Dream of Spring) earlier and didn't want to lose elements set up in his last two books which would be paid off afterward. One possible issue here is that Arya & Sansa aren't even mentioned for AFFC/ADWD, and while they didn't get many chapters in the books (or season 5 subplots that people liked) leaving them out entirely is something the showrunners try to avoid (except for Bran in season 5, and especially Rickon after season 3, though GRRM also kept him offscreen), hence Theon in seasons 3 & 4. Bran is also absent from Caplan's summary, and he would seem to be better at Arya than spying on the Night King. With the benefit of hindsight, I like this overall arc better than what we got in the show, but I wouldn't agree with the Night King talking. He's an impersonal ancient force who wouldn't feel any need to tell humanity anything. I guess he could talk with the Children of the Forest or the Three Eyed Raven, but having him remain silent works well enough for a source of horror. Perhaps a Sparrow could make the argument that human wickedness is causing the Seven to scourge humanity with Walkers. Tyrion had already done his beetles monologue about fruitlessly trying to understand his situation (which would be in conflict with the Night King actually telling the audience how to understand the misfortune of humanity), while Cat had used punished-by-the-Seven logic in her much maligned "motherless child" monologue (which I liked). How would you guys rewrite the show after season 4?

[YoungGriff89]

These summaries really aren’t nuanced enough.  Is there a link to a more detailed outline?  Personally it’s hard for me to make heads or tails of what some guy I have never heard of or met personally would have done.

[The hairy bear]

I would surely exclude from the books any of the elements introduced by the show in other to wave off entire subplots without any afterthought, such as blowing off the Sept of Baelor or the existence of a "Night King".

 

 

[Ran]

14 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

I know Bryan Cogman insisted on including Dorne

Just pointing out that this is wrong. David and Dan had wanted to get Dorne in but didn't think they could work a way out that fit with the parameters they placed on it (i.e. established characters going there). Cogman figured a way to do it that let his bosses get to show a region they wanted to show. Unfortunately, the elements they liked about Dorne were not the elements most fans of Dorne liked about it.

[Eltharion21]

That synopsis is  bit more horrible in ways than what we got in the show.

Especially making all the characters rally behind one "chosen one". Where is there "human heart in conflict with itself"?

White walkers are represented as much larger threat and use of more locations would give sense of scope and increase budget, but would it improve core of story? There is more interesting use of Baelish but that is all I like about it.

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

They should have followed the books.  Why cut Arianne Martell for example?  The actress that played Tyene in the show, could have easily been cast as Arianne.  Why cut Quentyn?  Hire the actor that plays Trystane as Quentyn.  Why cut Aegon?  Hire the actor that plays Harry Strickland to play him (yes, he's much older than book-Aegon, but so are book Jon and Dany, and Aegon is older than them).  Stop creating show-only characters.  Instead of Olly we could have had Satin, instead of Talisa we could have Jeyne Westerling, instead of Myranda, we could have had Jeyne Poole etc. (and it could have easily been the same actors).

In other words, (and this goes to D&D) you're not smarter than the person who actually wrote this story!  Stop doing fanfiction and adapt the story GRRM wrote.

 

[FictionIsntReal]

13 hours ago, YoungGriff89 said:

These summaries really aren’t nuanced enough.  Is there a link to a more detailed outline?  Personally it’s hard for me to make heads or tails of what some guy I have never heard of or met personally would have done.

As far as I know, he hasn't elaborated. But I don't normally read Facebook content and only knew about that because he linked it elsewhere, so if he's expanded on that I could have overlooked it. I had heard of him long before the show due to his economics blogging and non-fiction books (though I've only actually read his first of those).

7 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

I would surely exclude from the books any of the elements introduced by the show in other to wave off entire subplots without any afterthought, such as blowing off the Sept of Baelor or the existence of a "Night King".

I agree on the Sept of Baelor. It makes no sense that people in King's Landing put up with her after that, much less have her rule in her own right. What I find notable about Caplan's suggestion for the Night King here is that he doesn't act as a Load Bearing Boss/Single Point of Failure. He's not actually killed, merely forced to retreat, so perhaps the cycle will repeat again thousands of years later.

7 hours ago, Ran said:

Just pointing out that this is wrong. David and Dan had wanted to get Dorne in but didn't think they could work a way out that fit with the parameters they placed on it (i.e. established characters going there). Cogman figured a way to do it that let his bosses get to show a region they wanted to show. Unfortunately, the elements they liked about Dorne were not the elements most fans of Dorne liked about it.

Thanks for the correction. I know that D&D joked about Jaime getting there via jetpack.

6 hours ago, Eltharion21 said:

That synopsis is  bit more horrible in ways than what we got in the show.

Especially making all the characters rally behind one "chosen one". Where is there "human heart in conflict with itself"?

White walkers are represented as much larger threat and use of more locations would give sense of scope and increase budget, but would it improve core of story? There is more interesting use of Baelish but that is all I like about it.

In his summary Daenerys seems to be a rallying point almost by default as everyone closer to the White Walkers gets destroyed by them. It seems particularly notable that he has Cersei & Jaime's resistance (with Sam Tarly!) nearly working until Daenerys invades King's Landing. Rather unusual in making the ultimate hero act as a spoiler who puts humanity at greater risk of exctinction. We often talk about how human infighting weakens their ability to deal with the larger problem threatening them all, and here they really do repeatedly lose to the Night King because of it (rather than because Dany brought a dragon north for him to kill & make his own). In the show the non-Cersei characters united together more out of choice, even if Sansa has some complaints about Dany.

5 hours ago, bloodsteel bitterraven said:

They should have followed the books.  Why cut Arianne Martell for example?  The actress that played Tyene in the show, could have easily been cast as Arianne.  Why cut Quentyn?  Hire the actor that plays Trystane as Quentyn.  Why cut Aegon?  Hire the actor that plays Harry Strickland to play him (yes, he's much older than book-Aegon, but so are book Jon and Dany, and Aegon is older than them).  Stop creating show-only characters.  Instead of Olly we could have had Satin, instead of Talisa we could have Jeyne Westerling, instead of Myranda, we could have had Jeyne Poole etc. (and it could have easily been the same actors).

I get the impression they didn't want to introduce so many major characters, and definitely didn't want them in plotlines without major characters the audience already knows. So Jaime & Bronn were in the Dorne plot (a requirement Ran said Cogman helped to fulfill), and Tyrion spends more of his Essos trip with Varys & Jorah rather than Illyrio & Griff. I also think they did a terrible job of putting Sansa in Jeyne Poole's place, but I understand why they preferred her to a very minor character who hadn't gotten any lines in the show and disappeared in the first season. A Storm of Swords got adapted into two seasons of show, and while GRRM wanted AFFC/ADWD to be adapted into three seasons, D&D were trying to wrap things up and not have major characters offscreen for too long (as noted above with Theon, although Bran did miss one season). It's also an issue that AFFC/ADWD make for a large combined length but weren't originally intended to be two books, and hence don't have a natural chronological break for seasons. What sort of events would be in the penultimate/final episodes of those larger number of seasons?

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In other words, (and this goes to D&D) you're not smarter than the person who actually wrote this story!  Stop doing fanfiction and adapt the story GRRM wrote.

But GRRM hasn't actually written the last two books, so that's not an option for the later seasons (and if you think they can wait years for him to finish, you don't know much about tv production). I would be interested in hearing you map out some future seasons with an adaptation striving to be more faithful.

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

19 minutes ago, FictionIsntReal said:

 

I get the impression they didn't want to introduce so many major characters, and definitely didn't want them in plotlines without major characters the audience already knows. So Jaime & Bronn were in the Dorne plot (a requirement Ran said Cogman helped to fulfill), and Tyrion spends more of his Essos trip with Varys & Jorah rather than Illyrio & Griff. I also think they did a terrible job of putting Sansa in Jeyne Poole's place, but I understand why they preferred her to a very minor character who hadn't gotten any lines in the show and disappeared in the first season. A Storm of Swords got adapted into two seasons of show, and while GRRM wanted AFFC/ADWD to be adapted into three seasons, D&D were trying to wrap things up and not have major characters offscreen for too long (as noted above with Theon, although Bran did miss one season). It's also an issue that AFFC/ADWD make for a large combined length but weren't originally intended to be two books, and hence don't have a natural chronological break for seasons. What sort of events would be in the penultimate/final episodes of those larger number of seasons?

But GRRM hasn't actually written the last two books, so that's not an option for the later seasons (and if you think they can wait years for him to finish, you don't know much about tv production). I would be interested in hearing you map out some future seasons with an adaptation striving to be more faithful.

Regarding the first paragraph, yes, that's true.  However, they knew that by making changes they would have problems with characters being nowhere near where they should be.  I'm pretty sure for example that in the books, Sansa will show up with an army from the Vale and save the day for Jon when he attacks the Boltons.  On the show however, Jon and Sansa have already met, so to keep us guessing how the battle will go, they have Sansa not revealing that the Vale army is coming, which is out of character and has made many viewers dislike Sansa.

And George is obviously at fault as well, but the problems began long before D&D ran out of book material to work with, and while at the time the problems they were causing did not appear to be significant the differences from the source material keep getting bigger and bigger, and what's worse is that D&D never gave much thought to how they would deal with the changes they were making as the story evolved.  Their thought process was, once our changes become a problem, we will figure something out to make it work, but many of the solutions they came up with haven't made any sense at all.

 

[FictionIsntReal]

3 minutes ago, bloodsteel bitterraven said:

Regarding the first paragraph, yes, that's true.  However, they knew that by making changes they would have problems with characters being nowhere near where they should be.  I'm pretty sure for example that in the books, Sansa will show up with an army from the Vale and save the day for Jon when he attacks the Boltons.  On the show however, Jon and Sansa have already met, so to keep us guessing how the battle will go, they have Sansa not revealing that the Vale army is coming, which is out of character and has made many viewers dislike Sansa.

 

I think they even could have written around Jon & Sansa being together. Put Sansa & Littlefinger on much worse terms, which would actually be justifiable given what he did to her. She could react in a way that would make him say what a terrible enemy she's making in him. In the run-up to the battle (although before the episode itself so viewers don't treat it like Chekov's gun) she could say that she requested help from the Vale, but hasn't heard back and thinks Littlefinger will keep the knights home rather than help her & Jon. Then when he actually does show up it's more like Tywin showing up during Blackwater. Jon's forces are heavily depleted, while Littlefinger's Vale knights have taken negligible casualties, so now a baddie still threatens to hold the balance of power. Sansa's struggle against him will then be at a disadvantage while he's in a position of power (until the truth of his treachery is revealed and the Vale knights abandon him).

[YoungGriff89]

15 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

As far as I know, he hasn't elaborated. But I don't normally read Facebook content and only knew about that because he linked it elsewhere, so if he's expanded on that I could have overlooked it. I had heard of him long before the show due to his economics blogging and non-fiction books (though I've only actually read his first of those).

Oh ok.  Sorry I think my initial comment came across a little more venomous than I intended.  I'm just not familiar with the author, I didn't know if his name was supposed to be familiar to me or if he was just some random guy you knew from facebook.  I'll look into his work.  

[The Coconut God]

It strikes me as a bit presumptuous of him to propose a rewriting of two of George's books just so he can get to the ending he wants.

It's easy to come up with four blurbs and make up a bunch of death lists. It is a hell of a lot harder to turn those blurbs into coherent, engaging and thematically consistent novels, and to turn those deaths into great moments that fit into the story. And Caplan's outline has a ton of issues:

• His version of AFFC in particular is overly complicated and almost certainly wouldn't fit in a single book. He basically wants a Wot5K 2.0 in the North, but didn't bother to think through how those conflicts would start or play out.
• Key story elements that were painstakingly set up in Feast and Dance are expected to sort of be there anyway with no introduction, The Wildlings, who were defeated by Stannis at the end of ASoS, are supposed to be involved if this war in the North. Cersei is supposed to have a conflict with the Faith, but how does that start according to him?
• He doesn't mention at all how exactly Dany comes to Westeros. In his version of Feast she's in Slaver's Bay, in Dance she's attacking King's Landing. Sounds like he just wants Slaver Bay on fast forward for the sake of the plot, which is the epitome of bad writing. He doesn't seem to understand George's difficulties with removing the Five Year Gap and why it was important to give the Slaver Bay story some depth.
• Most of the story seems to just be about the Others. I get that he is trying to compensate for episode 3, but he's going a bit too far. Three of the four books he proposes are primarily about the Others invading different regions of Westeros. Sounds repetitive.
• No explanation as to how Sam gets to Moat Cailin and why he has the necessary expertise to give "technical help". All of these plot points he pulls out of nowhere just keep piling up on what his version of Feast is supposed to set up.
• What's the point of introducing a McGuffing that would allow Littlefinger to control the Others if he's going to fail anyway? It sounds like some bullshit made up on the spot just to give Sansa and Littlefinger something to do and force their arcs to end abruptly. It is completely divorced from the themes associated with these characters and just as bad as anything D&D have ever written.
• His version of Winds in general just zaps all over the place. The Others supposedly devastate the Westerlands, the Riverlands, the Reach and the Stormlands all while Dany tries to stop them with her dragons but can't. They don't have a dragon yet. Littlefinger lures them to the Vale, and somehow that's when they get a dragon, even though that's the one moment when they face two different threats. Why does Littlefinger's ancient lore McGuffing fail? Who knows? The story then zaps on back to King's Landing so that it may be destroyed. I presume Dany spends most of the book flying from place to place on dragon back, with at least one chapter per location dedicated to her meeting new people.
• In Dream, he finally wants to use Dorne, but have we been to Dorne before in his version of the story? Do we know any characters, are we invested in it at all, or are they going there simply because it exists? Introducing a new location, probably just as alien as Qarth, on the last leg of the story, when stakes are supposed to be at their highest, seems like a very uninspired idea.
• After the living continuously failed to hold back the Others, he now inexplicably introduces a deus ex machina save... Winter abates on its #%*@&^ own so that now the Others are apparently in an "impasse". Seriously?  And Arya's "spycraft" is another bullshit plot point, but I guess Caplan thinks she needs to do something.
• The Others are pushed all the way from Dorne to beyond the Wall in this book, I guess this either means a lot of fast paced action, or a time jump. Oh, and what was the point of a Night King at all? There is no Night King in George's books...
• A ton of characters die, but somehow he still wants a fairytale ending with Jon and Dany on the throne. That is just so conventional...
• There is no thought given to George's PoV style of writing. A lot of things are supposed to happen overall, but do we have PoVs to show them to us? Do we have PoVs to show us Riverrun and the Twins being swarmed? Or is he making up blurbs for the books while having the show in mind?
• There is little to no thought given to developing characters and creating situations that highlight George's favorite writing subject, the human heart in conflict with itself. It's all action, action, zapping around and character deaths. And cool Satanic speeches about the wickedness of Man.

All in all, Caplan should probably stay away from trying to "fix" George's writing. Seeing how the man himself dislikes fan fiction, it comes off as a bit rude... and frankly, someone who ranks Ayn Rand of all people as a favorite author is hardly qualified to talk about good writing! 

[FictionIsntReal]

19 hours ago, The Coconut God said:

The Wildlings, who were defeated by Stannis at the end of ASoS, are supposed to be involved if this war in the North.

Aren't there still remaining undefeated Wildlings, like the Weeper?

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Sounds like he just wants Slaver Bay on fast forward for the sake of the plot, which is the epitome of bad writing. He doesn't seem to understand George's difficulties with removing the Five Year Gap and why it was important to give the Slaver Bay story some depth.

I suppose the accelerated plotting of the show affirms how bad such writing can be. My recollection was the George thought a number of characters could just skip ahead five years, but that King's Landing under Cersei would be tumultuous to just skip over and have her recall incidents in the past-tense.

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Most of the story seems to just be about the Others. I get that he is trying to compensate for episode 3, but he's going a bit too far. Three of the four books he proposes are primarily about the Others invading different regions of Westeros. Sounds repetitive.

Since the book series was titled "A Song of Ice and Fire", and only the first book "A Game of Thrones", it seems fair for the Others to get multiple books, particularly late in the story as the magical elements gain in prominence relative to political ones. David Gerrold's "The War Against the Chtorr" series got five books out of such a conflict, although there hasn't been a new entry since 1993 and per Gerrold there are still two left. GRRM seems relatively productive by comparison.

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What's the point of introducing a McGuffing that would allow Littlefinger to control the Others if he's going to fail anyway?

His take on Littlefinger reminds me of what many people expect of Euron in the books. He seems to be relying on old tropes where a person who attempts to summon/control a powerful evil force always winds up destroyed by it.

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After the living continuously failed to hold back the Others, he now inexplicably introduces a deus ex machina save... Winter abates on its #%*@&^ own so that now the Others are apparently in an "impasse".

I would agree that's the least satisfying element. It reminds me a bit of the ending of War of the Worlds. Seasonal variation is a normal thing, but in this world it's supposed to take years. I suppose these later books/seasons could skip across time to consume more of a normal westerosi season, but the whole point of a Long Night is that it's much longer.

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Oh, and what was the point of a Night King at all? There is no Night King in George's books...

There is no thought given to George's PoV style of writing. A lot of things are supposed to happen overall, but do we have PoVs to show them to us? Do we have PoVs to show us Riverrun and the Twins being swarmed? Or is he making up blurbs for the books while having the show in mind?

Like I said, I posted this in the show rather than book forum for a reason. He starts out by discussing the tv show, and at the end discusses these in terms of "seasons" with 10 episodes each. Also, I believe the Night King appeared first in the fourth season, and he's leaving that as it is while rewriting what came next.

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A ton of characters die, but somehow he still wants a fairytale ending with Jon and Dany on the throne. That is just so conventional...

To be pedantic, he didn't mention them being on the throne. Perhaps it blows up when King's Landing falls for the last time.

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There is little to no thought given to developing characters and creating situations that highlight George's favorite writing subject, the human heart in conflict with itself.

If we look at the original pitch letter, the two examples of internally conflicted characters are that Sansa has a son by Joffrey and sides with her new family against her old one, and that there's a love triangle involving Jon, Arya & Tyrion (with the last siding against his old family in an explicit parallel to Sansa).

[The Dragon Demands]

On 5/2/2019 at 11:20 AM, Ran said:

Just pointing out that this is wrong. David and Dan had wanted to get Dorne in but didn't think they could work a way out that fit with the parameters they placed on it (i.e. established characters going there). Cogman figured a way to do it that let his bosses get to show a region they wanted to show. Unfortunately, the elements they liked about Dorne were not the elements most fans of Dorne liked about it.

In the dvd commentary, Cogman made it clear his SOLE contribution was to suggest sending Jaime as a POV the audience knows, instead of another Kingsguard.  Literally one sentence.  Everything else was all Benioff and Weiss. When Dorne would come on screen he’d just say “ I didn’t write this at all and have nothing to say about it”

[The Coconut God]

16 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

I suppose the accelerated plotting of the show affirms how bad such writing can be. My recollection was the George thought a number of characters could just skip ahead five years, but that King's Landing under Cersei would be tumultuous to just skip over and have her recall incidents in the past-tense.

The plot lines at the Wall were another reason for removing the gap. Between Stannis, the wildings and the Others, it didn't make sense that nothing would happen there for five years. Dany' however, posed a bit of a problem, because at the end of ASoS she had declared her intention to stay in Meereen and rule. It would have been jarring for her to immediately change her mind. A lesser author would have probably come up with a transparent plot device to rush her along, but George stayed true to the character and the circumstances she was in and allowed her to continue her arc naturally, and I really respect him a lot for that.

18 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Like I said, I posted this in the show rather than book forum for a reason. He starts out by discussing the tv show, and at the end discusses these in terms of "seasons" with 10 episodes each. Also, I believe the Night King appeared first in the fourth season, and he's leaving that as it is while rewriting what came next.

Caplan clearly blamed the source material and proposed his restructuring based on the titles of the books, so that's how I'll interpret it.

And he seems to be missing two essential points:

• Feast and Dance are the set up for the next two books. We can't really judge how effective they are at that until at least Winds is released. We certainly can't do that based on our own projected endings, let alone D&D's, who write the worst fanfiction of all.
• The show should be responsible for its own set ups and payoffs, especially when it diverged from the books way before it ran out of material. Plenty of original shows manage to do that on their own.

Now, Caplan's main problem is that the Others were dealt with in an anticlimactic way. That is true for the show because the show built up this huge confrontation with them that fizzled out in a single episode. The show gave them a dragon, the show gave them a gigantic army, the show established that their goal is to end all life, and the show gave them their computer game weakness that ultimately allowed the living to defeat them, and it did it all within four episodes of the big battle.

The books did none of that. Yes, the Others were set up as a Chekhov's gun and therefore need to play a pivotal role in the story, but they don't necessarily need to take central stage. George currently has the freedom to take them in several different directions and still end up with a satisfying story. Even if it turns out they're just a minor threat, which I doubt, it wouldn't really ruin the tone and internal consistency of the books. I mean, the dragons aren't unstoppable juggernauts either...

[FictionIsntReal]

On 5/5/2019 at 7:35 AM, The Coconut God said:

The plot lines at the Wall were another reason for removing the gap. Between Stannis, the wildings and the Others, it didn't make sense that nothing would happen there for five years.

You're right, in the interview in which he points to Cersei as one person for whom the five year gap is a problem, he then follows it up by saying Jon poses an even bigger problem.

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Dany' however, posed a bit of a problem, because at the end of ASoS she had declared her intention to stay in Meereen and rule. It would have been jarring for her to immediately change her mind. A lesser author would have probably come up with a transparent plot device to rush her along, but George stayed true to the character and the circumstances she was in and allowed her to continue her arc naturally, and I really respect him a lot for that.

Would it be "jarring" if she changed her mind after five (offscreen) years?

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Caplan clearly blamed the source material and proposed his restructuring based on the titles of the books, so that's how I'll interpret it.

And he seems to be missing two essential points:

• Feast and Dance are the set up for the next two books. We can't really judge how effective they are at that until at least Winds is released. We certainly can't do that based on our own projected endings, let alone D&D's, who write the worst fanfiction of all.
• The show should be responsible for its own set ups and payoffs, especially when it diverged from the books way before it ran out of material. Plenty of original shows manage to do that on their own.

I agree on holding the show responsible for doing a poor job of adapting AFFC/ADWD in season 5, and having even more responsibility for the bad writing in subsequent seasons. And while the later books may not exist, so we can't fully judge setups for it, I think we can still judge them on their own basis. A Game of Thrones was setup for later books (and was originally supposed to include events up through A Storm of Swords), but was able to work as its own unit. Similarly, people were able to enjoy seasons of the show when later seasons weren't available. Season 5 was terrible on its own regardless of whether it was setting things up for later. There is an issue in that AFFC/ADWD were also supposed to be one book and were split apart by POV/region because of practical reasons of bookbinding, so perhaps one might want to judge the two of them together as one unit (Caplan does not do anything like GRRM did above, instead just having them serve as seasons 5 & 6, respectively).

Your point of running out of material got me thinking. Many people regard The Leftovers as greatly improving after it fully (but not strictly faithfully) adapted the novel into the first season and then moved on to very different things. But there Tom Perrotta was available to help Damon Lindelof write the series, and not busy with writing sequel novels. On the other hand, Homeland is often thought of as having peaked with a first season that (quite loosely) adapted the original Israeli series. That adaptation was loose enough (not even really sharing a name, even translated) that it didn't seem like a bad idea at the time to continue, even if it turned out there were diminishing returns. I did think it odd that The Sinner had a second season after first adapting the German novel that inspired it and not needing most of its characters any more, but the original material there turned out to be at least as good. I haven't watched the second season of The Handmaid's Tale, but I know that went beyond the novel and now Margaret Atwood is planning on writing a sequel, decades after she wrote the original, but she's introducing a 15 year gap. That means the show won't overlap it (although her book canon may be inconsistent with it).

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Now, Caplan's main problem is that the Others were dealt with in an anticlimactic way. That is true for the show because the show built up this huge confrontation with them that fizzled out in a single episode. The show gave them a dragon, the show gave them a gigantic army, the show established that their goal is to end all life, and the show gave them their computer game weakness that ultimately allowed the living to defeat them, and it did it all within four episodes of the big battle.

The books did none of that. Yes, the Others were set up as a Chekhov's gun and therefore need to play a pivotal role in the story, but they don't necessarily need to take central stage. George currently has the freedom to take them in several different directions and still end up with a satisfying story. Even if it turns out they're just a minor threat, which I doubt, it wouldn't really ruin the tone and internal consistency of the books. I mean, the dragons aren't unstoppable juggernauts either...

We don't know how the books ultimately deal with the threat, but aren't they set up to be a hugely important deal? The series is called A Song of Ice and Fire, we hear legends (of the sort Tyrion dismisses) of the Long Night in which they came before and the Last Hero defeated them, and this ties in with Azor Ahai & The Prince That Was Promised. The very first prologue chapter introduces them, the house words of the Starks are "Winter is Coming", and the most recent epilogue we have now notes that winter is arriving in Kings Landing. GRRM has said the magical elements of the story will build over time, and the Others certainly seem part of that. Melisandre is one of the more knowledgeable (if fallible) characters when it comes to magic, and she certainly believes the war with them to be more important than political struggles between humans. I think GRRM has even said those earthly struggles are supposed to be viewed as distractions from the bigger threat posed by the Others & winter.

I am curious, could you sketch out an imagined path for the books in which the Others are "just a minor threat" but it doesn't ruin the tone & internal consistency of the books?

[KingMudd]

The only thing that sounds good in this is the 10 episode seasons.

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Littlefinger (who has long-since married Sansa and killed Robert Arryn) lures the Night King to the Eyrie after obtaining ancient lore to bind the Night King to his will

Holy shit that sounds terrible.

On 5/2/2019 at 1:34 AM, FictionIsntReal said:

Winter abates, and much of the Night King's army slowly rots into extinction. The Night King tries breaking the impasse with his undead dragon, but fails due to Arya's spycraft.

So the army just rots away. The Night King can raise the dead so anyone he kills is added to the army and most of the wights were just skeletons anyway, why would they just start rotting away and why would the winter start to abate when the last long night lasted for generations?

On 5/2/2019 at 1:34 AM, FictionIsntReal said:

One last thing: The Night King shouldn't just talk; he should be a cool Satanic figure who bluntly points out the wickedness of Man and uses it to rationalize human extinction.

So he's there just to kill eveyone. No other motivations, just a silent douche that gets his ass handed to him. We already got that.

 

I prefer what we actually got so far. It's not great and nowhere near as good as the books but this proposal sounds worse. We'll all just need to wait for GRRM to finish to see what the actual ending will be.

[The Coconut God]

13 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Would it be "jarring" if she changed her mind after five (offscreen) years?

Five years would have allowed her to achieve that goal off-page and start from an entirely different position. Like I said, I much prefer the story as it is, but this was probably the idea.

13 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

I think we can still judge them on their own basis. A Game of Thrones was setup for later books (and was originally supposed to include events up through A Storm of Swords), but was able to work as its own unit. Similarly, people were able to enjoy seasons of the show when later seasons weren't available. Season 5 was terrible on its own regardless of whether it was setting things up for later. There is an issue in that AFFC/ADWD were also supposed to be one book and were split apart by POV/region because of practical reasons of bookbinding, so perhaps one might want to judge the two of them together as one unit (Caplan does not do anything like GRRM did above, instead just having them serve as seasons 5 & 6, respectively).

AFFC and ADwD are both fantastic books on their own, I would easily say better than AGoT and ACoK.

However, unlike AGoT, many people judged them based on their own questionable expectations, the most widespread of which being the idea that Dany had to reach Westeros as fast as possible for the story to move forward. People who believe that don't consider that maybe her state of mind (and therefore her character's journey) might be important for the endgame. They are already convinced the endgame will be dragons fighting zombies and Dany falling in love with Jon, so as far as they're concerned the best way to tell the story is to slingshot her across the narrow sea as fast as possible, and anything else is filler. But chances are high that their expectations are wrong, so their argument is moot.

Similar things can be said about the Ironborn, fAegon, Brienne, Dorne, etc. Will they play into the endgame in a satisfying way? If yes, then their introduction was warranted (and it's fun to try to predict why it might be so).

15 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

We don't know how the books ultimately deal with the threat, but aren't they set up to be a hugely important deal? The series is called A Song of Ice and Fire, we hear legends (of the sort Tyrion dismisses) of the Long Night in which they came before and the Last Hero defeated them, and this ties in with Azor Ahai & The Prince That Was Promised. The very first prologue chapter introduces them, the house words of the Starks are "Winter is Coming", and the most recent epilogue we have now notes that winter is arriving in Kings Landing. GRRM has said the magical elements of the story will build over time, and the Others certainly seem part of that. Melisandre is one of the more knowledgeable (if fallible) characters when it comes to magic, and she certainly believes the war with them to be more important than political struggles between humans. I think GRRM has even said those earthly struggles are supposed to be viewed as distractions from the bigger threat posed by the Others & winter.

Important? Yes, by all means, but like I said, that doesn't mean everyone teaming up to fight them for two or three books out of seven is the only way to go. In fact, that's probably the most cliched option. I'll give you a few alternatives:

• My own pet theory, the Exodus the Essos. In this scenario, everyone is gradually pushed out of Westeros, starting with Jon Snow and his people, who leave for Braavos on the Manderly Fleet. Dany never arrives to Westeros, but there is a lot of political story in Essos. In this case, the Other's impact would be enormous, but narratively speaking they would always be on the edge of the story, because the PoVs are running away from them.
• Some on the Heretic threads believe (they can correct me if I'm wrong) that the Others are connected to the Starks and may end up serving them, kind of how the Targaryens have dragons.
• Some believe that the Others are a trick concocted by Mance Rayder to get the Night's Watch to allow the wildlings through the Wall, or that they are acually controlled by Bloodraven, who was using them to turn Jon into a hero figure before his true parents are revealed.
• Depending on how aggressive they are once they get south of the Wall, they can pose a moderate danger that triggers the creation of some alliances and destruction of a few settlements, without being a full fledged existential threat. This is probably closest to the show, minus the dire tone.
• They could be a threat left for the epilogue, with all the alliances leading to the fight against them being the subject of the series (unlikely, but feasible).
• To answer your final question, a scenario in each they are only a moderate, threat, that could work if the goal is to create mistrust towards Jon after his parentage is revealed. He's like the boy who cried wolf and needs to overcome that.

[FictionIsntReal]

On 5/7/2019 at 1:54 PM, KingMudd said:

So he's there just to kill eveyone. No other motivations, just a silent douche that gets his ass handed to him. We already got that.

I prefer what we actually got so far. It's not great and nowhere near as good as the books but this proposal sounds worse. We'll all just need to wait for GRRM to finish to see what the actual ending will be.

A silent douche who's just there to kill everyone is what we got on the show. Caplan argues for one who is not silent and gets to explain some motivations. I prefer the former version, as it makes him stand out more from the talkative humans of the series and seem more like an unfathomable threat.

On 5/7/2019 at 4:19 PM, The Coconut God said:

• My own pet theory, the Exodus the Essos. In this scenario, everyone is gradually pushed out of Westeros, starting with Jon Snow and his people, who leave for Braavos on the Manderly Fleet. Dany never arrives to Westeros, but there is a lot of political story in Essos. In this case, the Other's impact would be enormous, but narratively speaking they would always be on the edge of the story, because the PoVs are running away from them.
• Some on the Heretic threads believe (they can correct me if I'm wrong) that the Others are connected to the Starks and may end up serving them, kind of how the Targaryens have dragons.
• Some believe that the Others are a trick concocted by Mance Rayder to get the Night's Watch to allow the wildlings through the Wall, or that they are acually controlled by Bloodraven, who was using them to turn Jon into a hero figure before his true parents are revealed.
• Depending on how aggressive they are once they get south of the Wall, they can pose a moderate danger that triggers the creation of some alliances and destruction of a few settlements, without being a full fledged existential threat. This is probably closest to the show, minus the dire tone.
• They could be a threat left for the epilogue, with all the alliances leading to the fight against them being the subject of the series (unlikely, but feasible).
• To answer your final question, a scenario in each they are only a moderate, threat, that could work if the goal is to create mistrust towards Jon after his parentage is revealed. He's like the boy who cried wolf and needs to overcome that.

The exodus sounds somewhat similar to Caplan's proposal, only for him the Others don't get all the way to the narrow sea. Still lots of them advancing while the POVs run away. Having the others serve human beings sounds a bit like Littlefinger's angle in Caplan's proposal. I don't think I like them actually acting like underlings for a human, though having Littlefinger destroyed by his own dabbling in Things Man Wasn't Men to Dabble With would fit classic horror tropes. I can't buy them being a "trick" though. Bloodraven is magical enough that he could be an exception to my earlier objection about them serving humans. It would be confirmation of Melisandre's beliefs about the "Great Other", but I don't know if it would make for a good story. Plus, why would Leaf help fight off the wights, only to then lead Bran & co to their master? Having them left to the epilogue would fit the speculation that GRRM never figured out how to write "Aragorn's tax policy" as a compelling narrative so he won't end the story with mundane details of governance. Your own answer to my question is an unexpected one. I don't know if it makes for a good story, but If GRRM really wanted to go for subversion of storytelling tropes that would certainly qualify!

[The Coconut God]

3 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

The exodus sounds somewhat similar to Caplan's proposal, only for him the Others don't get all the way to the narrow sea. Still lots of them advancing while the POVs run away.

The Exodus is a lot more about politics than zombie action. It subverts the expectation that Dany will reach Westeros by having the Others invade first and push the Westerosi to Essos in the midst of her conquest, but it also opens up some interesting themes while doing so. We have benevolent dictatorship versus democracy in Dany's conflict with Braavos, we have territorial losses and migrations triggered by climate change, and we have the prototypical white Europeans in the shoes of the immigrants. Caplan's scenario doesn't lend itself to any themes, it's just a bog standard humans fighting evil story.

In fact, I don't understand why we need to keep referring to Caplan. What authority does he have? The way I see it, he disrespects George's work by claiming that "the source material deserves most of the blame" for the show's failings, then comes up with a half baked cliched "alternative" that can't hold a candle to the books. He should stick to crackpot economics! 

As for my other suggestions, they were merely a handful of example of where the series could go, some better, some worse. The actual scenario matters less than how well the character arcs and the themes are represented. That's where George's writing shines. Now that I was able to internalize episode 4 a little more, I can even see how he could give that scenario justice.

Imagine that Dany is already a bit unhinged when she comes to conquer Westeros, due to events that happen in Winds. The Others are not quite as powerful as in the show, they don't have the Night King and they don't have a dragon, perhaps the wights don't move quite as fast as the zombies in World War Z, but the Starks still need Dany to defeat them. The question, however, isn't whether the dragons can win, but how the Starks will handle the Dragon Queen after the war. Along with her help, she brings Red Priests keen on converting everyone and burning heart trees, sellswords eager for land grabs, and a penchant to feed whoever disagrees with her to her dragons. Ice and Fire are both acknowledged threats from the start.

So when Jon sets out to enlist Dany's aid, they don't fall in love. He seduces her to secure her help, just like once seducing Ygritte helped him infiltrate the wildlings, but this time the feelings are no reciprocated. There is always the threat that she will burn him alive if she finds out he's playing her. Sansa and Tyrion have legitimate reasons not to trust her; they don't challenge her directly, but they suggest strategies that diminish her forces and secretly back fAegon. At the same time, whenever Dany herself gets a chapter, you see that she is trying to be a good leader, she's trying to find a family and a home, but doesn't really understand the dark side of her impulses and feels that "fire and blood" is the only way... so she's a very tragic anti-villain who just barely missed the mark on being the hero. In the end, it would be interesting if fAegon ends up on the throne and history gives him all the laurels for stopping the Others, even though he did the least, an idea the show can't really explore.

This could be a very compelling character driven drama, with some tense battles and behind the scenes politicking. The show simply fails to portray it because D&D are bad at writing complex characters and don't care about the internal consistency of the story, preferring shock to organic plot developments. But if George writes something like this, chances are it will be great.

[FictionIsntReal]

5 hours ago, The Coconut God said:

We have benevolent dictatorship versus democracy in Dany's conflict with Braavos, we have territorial losses and migrations triggered by climate change, and we have the prototypical white Europeans in the shoes of the immigrants. Caplan's scenario doesn't lend itself to any themes, it's just a bog standard humans fighting evil story.

Why would Dany have a conflict with Braavos? She's just been fighting slavers in Essos, and Braavos was founded by escaped slaves who maintain an anti-slavery politics.

I know GRRM has said that Westeros vs Essos isn't supposed to be white vs non-white, and that Westeros is like a huger version of Britain which is adjacent to continental Europe (much of Essos seems modeled after the mediterranean). The size of Westeros makes it a bit like the New World though, and we've already got stories about white European immigrants going there (which would be ancient history in Planetos). Going back in the other direction would be a less common story.

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In fact, I don't understand why we need to keep referring to Caplan. What authority does he have?

None at all, his post just serves as a starting point for discussion in this thread.

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Imagine that Dany is already a bit unhinged when she comes to conquer Westeros, due to events that happen in Winds. The Others are not quite as powerful as in the show, they don't have the Night King and they don't have a dragon, perhaps the wights don't move quite as fast as the zombies in World War Z, but the Starks still need Dany to defeat them. The question, however, isn't whether the dragons can win, but how the Starks will handle the Dragon Queen after the war. Along with her help, she brings Red Priests keen on converting everyone and burning heart trees, sellswords eager for land grabs, and a penchant to feed whoever disagrees with her to her dragons. Ice and Fire are both acknowledged threats from the start.

That sounds interesting.

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So when Jon sets out to enlist Dany's aid, they don't fall in love. He seduces her to secure her help, just like once seducing Ygritte helped him infiltrate the wildlings, but this time the feelings are no reciprocated. There is always the threat that she will burn him alive if she finds out he's playing her.

It was Ygritte who seduced him when he didn't want to break his vows, not the other way around. I never thought of Jon as the Daario type, but maybe Dany would be into him.

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Sansa and Tyrion have legitimate reasons not to trust her; they don't challenge her directly, but they suggest strategies that diminish her forces and secretly back fAegon.

The Starks have bad blood with the Targaryens. I don't know why Sansa & Arya would prefer Aegon, or if he'd be inclined to work with them.

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At the same time, whenever Dany herself gets a chapter, you see that she is trying to be a good leader, she's trying to find a family and a home, but doesn't really understand the dark side of her impulses and feels that "fire and blood" is the only way... so she's a very tragic anti-villain who just barely missed the mark on being the hero. In the end, it would be interesting if fAegon ends up on the throne and history gives him all the laurels for stopping the Others, even though he did the least, an idea the show can't really explore.

What villainous things might she do after hooking up with Jon? In the show we characters talking about her shortcomings as queen and preferring Jon, but as far as her actions go she still seems like a straightforward hero.