Jon Snow: The Bastard Returns

[Zorral]

Considering the White supremacist male xtian nationalist authoritarians openly advocating no rights for anyone who isn't Them, who every day are documented killing or trying to kill people who happen to be Black -- and say it out loud on all kinds of media, right down to broadcasting They are on the way to kill, the proliferation of lynch nooses in places where Black people happen to be, including work venues, who do openly advocate that slavery wasn't bad at all -- though sometimes it was for sad white slaveholder who had to be always thinking of his property's welfare when he'd rather sit on the porch and swig bourbon, which made him lazy and debauched (why yes, there is much documentation about this sort of thinking back in the days prior to the War of the Rebellion), and that people literally went to war to preserve and SPREAD this kind of system -- alternate history of the SCA prevailing -- of which there is a vast amount of fiction already written, particuarly in the sf/f world, by the usual suspects that have had a great deal of influence in the genre -- this was the worst idea anybody could come up with.  That HBO even considered it for a hot minute still has me considering canceling my sub.

The last thing this nation needs is more mass media showing the joys of owning slaves.

You know what would be a really different take for mass media to do, with opportunities of enormous variety and interesting stories to tell?  An alternate history in which Africans got to the New World first, and enslaved Irish and other Europeans to work their Delta cotton plantations.  There's even source material for this -- though one does need, I guess, to kinda go looking for that, as opposed to the enormous canon of fiction extolling the joys and tragedies of slaveowners and former slaveowners who lost everything in the Wah fighting to preserve their privilege of unpaid labor, hot and cold running rape, beating and murdering people at whim.  But take a look at Steve Barnes's Lion's Blood, and the sequel, Zulu Heart.  This makes terrific commentary on the history of the USA too.

What ya think? Wouldn't this be terrific tv? Like nothing you've seen before? Fresh and different and original? 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

13 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Considering the White supremacist male xtian nationalist authoritarians openly advocating no rights for anyone who isn't Them, who every day are documented killing or trying to kill people who happen to be Black -- and say it out loud on all kinds of media, right down to broadcasting They are on the way to kill, the proliferation of lynch nooses in places where Black people happen to be, including work venues, who do openly advocate that slavery wasn't bad at all -- though sometimes it was for sad white slaveholder who had to be always thinking of his property's welfare when he'd rather sit on the porch and swig bourbon, which made him lazy and debauched (why yes, there is much documentation about this sort of thinking back in the days prior to the War of the Rebellion), and that people literally went to war to preserve and SPREAD this kind of system -- alternate history of the SCA prevailing -- of which there is a vast amount of fiction already written, particuarly in the sf/f world, by the usual suspects that have had a great deal of influence in the genre -- this was the worst idea anybody could come up with.  That HBO even considered it for a hot minute still has me considering canceling my sub.

The last thing this nation needs is more mass media showing the joys of owning slaves.

You know what would be a really different take for mass media to do, with opportunities of enormous variety and interesting stories to tell?  An alternate history in which Africans got to the New World first, and enslaved Irish and other Europeans to work their Delta cotton plantations.  There's even source material for this -- though one does need, I guess, to kinda go looking for that, as opposed to the enormous canon of fiction extolling the joys and tragedies of slaveowners and former slaveowners who lost everything in the Wah fighting to preserve their privilege of unpaid labor, hot and cold running rape, beating and murdering people at whim.  But take a look at Steve Barnes's Lion's Blood.  This makes terrific commentary on the history of the USA too.

What ya think? Wouldn't this be terrific tv? Like nothing you've seen before? Fresh and different and original?

 

 

What would be even better.

Horses owning the place, with humon forced to pull carriages, plowing fields, and riding into battle on humon back.

[IFR]

38 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The last thing this nation needs is more mass media showing the joys of owning slaves.

It's interesting that this comment immediately followed DMC's take, which I think is more fair. 

You really believe that D&D wanted to write a show glorifying slavery? 

We'll never know, but I disagree that there is any indication that this is what D&D or the Spellmans were going for.

38 minutes ago, Zorral said:

But take a look at Steve Barnes's Lion's Blood, and the sequel, Zulu Heart.  This makes terrific commentary on the history of the USA too.

What ya think? Wouldn't this be terrific tv? Like nothing you've seen before? Fresh and different and original

Absolutely, I would be very interested in that concept. But that isn't what was being produced. Confederate, which was also an interesting premise, was being produced.

Anyway, Zorral, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this issue, and I don't want to hijack this thread. I had my little rant, it was cathartic, and I'm ready to move on. A debate will change no one's opinion, and Confederate is not going to happen, so it's rather moot.

[Darryk]

1 hour ago, IFR said:

However, it did ultimately result in D&D moving on to Three Body Problem, which has far more potential than even Confederate. So ironically Confederate being killed really worked out well.

Unless they decided to end GoT early because they were bitter toward HBO about what happened with Confederacy.

[Darryk]

37 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You know what would be a really different take for mass media to do, with opportunities of enormous variety and interesting stories to tell?  An alternate history in which Africans got to the New World first, and enslaved Irish and other Europeans to work their Delta cotton plantations.  There's even source material for this -- though one does need, I guess, to kinda go looking for that, as opposed to the enormous canon of fiction extolling the joys and tragedies of slaveowners and former slaveowners who lost everything in the Wah fighting to preserve their privilege of unpaid labor, hot and cold running rape, beating and murdering people at whim.  But take a look at Steve Barnes's Lion's Blood, and the sequel, Zulu Heart.  This makes terrific commentary on the history of the USA too.

There's a series with a similar premise called Noughts + Crosses.

But it's Network TV so I'm not gonna be bother. Would be interesting to see HBO or one of the streaming giants tackle your idea.

Or maybe something about Africans from Ancient Egypt getting shipwrecked in Northern Europe where they find white savages living in mud huts and rolling around in filth.

[IFR]

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

Unless they decided to end GoT early because they were bitter toward HBO about what happened with Confederacy.

Possibly. I don't know them personally, so this might have been the case. The impression I have of them is that they are highly dedicated individuals who devoted everything they had for 11 years to a show they were passionate about. According to Hilbert, nothing got through Thrones that wasn't first approved by D&D. People pin all the bad of the show on them, but all the good is to their credit too. It's not as simple as mindlessly putting the good source material on screen. So many good works have been adapted into abominations that this clearly requires skill to do so.

11 years is a long time to dedicate your life to a single thing. It had to be demoralizing when Martin completely failed them by not following through on his own duties as an author, so the pressure of completing this vast, sophisticated tale was solely on them. Also, many of the cast were clearly indicating that they wanted to move on.

And let's be honest. Fandoms are often cesspools of hiveminded bile. Dealing with that had to be exhausting. A lot fo fans are not satisfied with attacking the work itself: no, insulting the creators is all too common. I wouldn't want to deal with "fans" for all the money in the world. 

So a lot of factors probably went into the decision to end the show when they did.

Could D&D have done things differently, which would have resulted in a better ending? We'll never know. People suggest that the show should have had more seasons. I think the problem was with the writing itself. Martin and D&D seemed to be a magical combination. When Martin catastrophically failed in his duties and left D&D to take care of things, the quality of writing faltered. I think having more of that writing would not have helped.

Others suggest bringing on other competent writers. But even that may not have done much. I love Breaking Bad. One of the best writers, Moira Walley-Becket, went on to do her own show, Flesh and Bone, and it is unbelievably awful. And there are other examples of great writers who fumble with a different show. I suspect Lord of the Rings on Amazon will be another example of this.

At any rate, lots of factors probably went into the botched ending of GoT. We'll never know what could have been done differently to end it well. I do strongly believe that we'll find the answer isn't "Jon Snow spinoff".

[Winterfell is Burning]

2 hours ago, IFR said:

I just read about that. It wasn't just the idea of D&D, it was also the idea of Nichelle Tramble Spellman, and Malcolm Spellman, who I guess through association are insensitive racists too.

Honestly I think it's a shame that this didn't get made. It sounds like a promising show - far more so than most of the unoriginal drek that is fed to audiences right now. The US post victorious Confederacy has many avenues that would be extremely fascinating to explore.

But then I find I really like anything that explores alternate timelines. For All Mankind is excellent, and I really like Man in the High Castle (the book, not the show).

I suppose people would say the idea is insensitive, but there are those who would say the same of exploring a timeline where Nazi Germany prevailed. How do you determine which idea is acceptably insensitive? Measuring Twitter outrage?

But I guess simply not watching a show that one disagrees with is not an option. No one should be allowed to watch the show. It's a very frustrating attitude for me to see.

However, it did ultimately result in D&D moving on to Three Body Problem, which has far more potential than even Confederate. So ironically Confederate being killed really worked out well.

 

Edit: Note to Winterfell is Burning - Even though I'm quoting you, a lot of this isn't directed at you. I'm not trying to suggest that you are implying D&D or either of the Spellmans are racist, etc. This became a side rant on a rather unpleasant aspect of society I seem to encounter regularly. All I care about is a story that is intelligently designed, with good characters, ideas, and plot. It stops at that for me: that's all I care about. But right now everything must go through its sensitivity checklist, and in that process so much material that fails on good storytelling makes it through, as if that is not even a consideration anymore. It bothers me, so I had to indulge myself on a little rant.

Two big problems with the Confederate show idea: 1) D&D are very bad at dealing with nuance in general and slavery in particular judging by GoT. 2) There's zero chance slavery would have lasted until today as it did in the 19th century because of the mechanization of agriculture, particularly since the 1930's- one tractor does the job of at least dozens of men (slaves or not), so chattel slavery would have to end by that time, if not earlier. 

[Ran]

There's no evidence that they "ended the series early" for reasons related to the blowback from Confederate. They wanted to finish it even earlier and had to be begged and bribed to go as long as they did. That they wanted to end it had to do with a combination of exhaustion and wanting to pursue other things. 

In an ideal world, they would have handed off showrunning to someone else, and failing that, they would not have run themselves into the ground trying to personally manage everything in the hands-on way they did. A larger writer's room, not directing episodes of their own, delegating more to line producers and department heads, and so on would have left them with more time and energy so they could have finished out the marathon at a comfortable pace rather than at near-collapse.

 

[Darryk]

6 minutes ago, IFR said:

People pin all the bad of the show on them, but all the good is to their credit too. It's not as simple as mindlessly putting the good source material on screen. So many good works have been adapted into abominations that this clearly requires skill to do so.

I agree completely.

However, the way they treated Ian McElhinney ("he wrote us a letter, so we wanted to kill him even more, haha") makes me wonder if there's a spiteful element to them.

Hence why I wouldn't put it past them to have lost their appetite for HBO after their show got turned down.

7 minutes ago, IFR said:

Could D&D have done things differently, which would have resulted in a better ending?

Yeah, I think they could have. Handing the show over to someone else if they were burnt out. Hiring other writers to help them.

I think they got arrogant near the end, just no way around it.

12 minutes ago, IFR said:

Fandoms are often cesspools of hiveminded bile. Dealing with that had to be exhausting. A lot fo fans are not satisfied with attacking the work itself: no, insulting the creators is all too common. I wouldn't want to deal with "fans" for all the money in the world. 

True.

12 minutes ago, IFR said:

Martin and D&D seemed to be a magical combination.

Or at least it was until, season 2 when they started deviating from the books. I think the success of season 1 went to their heads and they figured they didn't need to rely on the source material so much. Big mistake.

That's why I suspect that for all their talent and hard work, there's an arrogant, cocky element to them that was ultimately their downfall.

16 minutes ago, IFR said:

Others suggest bringing on other competent writers. But even that may not have done much

It's something you should do just because every other top show has a team of writers and it's arrogant to think you can get on without one.

The show needs to have a writer's room where people bounce ideas off each other.

[SeanF]

12 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Two big problems with the Confederate show idea: 1) D&D are very bad at dealing with nuance in general and slavery in particular judging by GoT. 2) There's zero chance slavery would have lasted until today as it did in the 19th century because of the mechanization of agriculture, particularly since the 1930's- one tractor does the job of at least dozens of men (slaves or not), so chattel slavery would have to end by that time, if not earlier. 

I do think Confederate could have been interesting, as a kind of Alt.History dystopia.

I just don’t think the two D’s would have been able to pull it off in a way that was not offensive.  

[Darryk]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

There's no evidence that they "ended the series early" for reasons related to the blowback from Confederate.

I accept that, it's more of a little theory of my own, but I don't have anything to back it up.

[SeanF]

44 minutes ago, Darryk said:

There's a series with a similar premise called Noughts + Crosses.

But it's Network TV so I'm not gonna be bother. Would be interesting to see HBO or one of the streaming giants tackle your idea.

Or maybe something about Africans from Ancient Egypt getting shipwrecked in Northern Europe where they find white savages living in mud huts and rolling around in filth.

I thought Spartacus, the TV series,  actually handled slavery superbly.  The slaves were not portrayed as saints, and some of the slave owners were somewhat sympathetic as characters, but the horrors of the system were depicted very accurately.  And, there was no question that the slaves were justified in their rebellion.

[Ran]

22 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I accept that, it's more of a little theory of my own, but I don't have anything to back it up.

It literally flies against the timeline:

March 2017 - Final season announced to air in 2019 with 6 final episodes.

July 2017 - Confederate announced by Benioff and HBO, backlash follows.

October 2017 - Final season goes into production.

February 2018 - Lucasfilms announces Benioff and Weiss will create a new Star Wars trilogy.

July 2019 - Final season airs, some distinct  critical and popular backlash towards the end.

August 2019 - $200m deal with Netflix announced.

So the show was already preparing to enter in its final season early in 2017, before they announced Confederate... and then they proceeded to deliver the promised 6 episodes in the timeframe they said they would. Your theory doesn't work. That they took off and jumped over to Disney and then Netflix, yes, that likely has to do with feeling burned out after the Confederate backlash and deciding a change of creative environment would be better rather than any lingering bad blood over Confederate (I have the sense, certainly, that HBO did not proactively attempt to defend Benioff & Weiss from various attacks because of the proposed show). But GoT's ending had nothing to do with Confederate, they promised six episodes in 2019 to close the show and they delivered 6 episode to close the show.

[Zorral]

19 minutes ago, SeanF said:

there was no question that the slaves were justified in their rebellion.

But then, as you know, I know, nor was this slavery based on the color of someone's skin, as an indicator of integral inferiority that deserves enslavement in perpetuity, even as the descendants skin colors change, thanx to perpetual rape.  Which makes that slavery system quite different from what the European Atlantic slave trade created in the Americas, and nowhere more so than in the USA YAY.  We have not moved beyond that yet.

Also as you know, However, depicting ancient Europe as idiots rolling around in the fetid mud is also extremely incorrect, just starting with population levels, so fewer than Mesopotamia and Egypt.  Nevertheless somehow they managed to erect Stonehenge, etc.  Of course though, their general level of civilization was very different.  Nevertheless archaeology seems to show us remarkable trade patterns, which is the base for all of it, pretty much, so far as we know it.  Again, we work off preconceived notions which aren't actually, you know, historically true.  

That's the insurmountable problem with alternate history -- to do it well one really, really, really needs to know a lot of history, in depth and breadth and few who want to write alternate history do have that information or that knowledge.  Like GRRM, they work off already pre-conceived incorrect notions and other fictions written by others who didn't know either.  It leads to propositions that a tv series in which the CSA won the Wah and perpetuated and expanded Dixie system of slavery throughout the USA YA and the hemisphere -- for this was the CSA's objective, to serve, protect and expand the slavery capitalist system -- on a weekend during which the US is observing Juneteenth. 

 

 

[Darryk]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

It literally flies against the timeline:

March 2017 - Final season announced to air in 2019 with 6 final episodes.

July 2017 - Confederate announced by Benioff and HBO, backlash follows.

October 2017 - Final season goes into production.

February 2018 - Lucasfilms announces Benioff and Weiss will create a new Star Wars trilogy.

July 2019 - Final season airs, some distinct  critical and popular backlash towards the end.

August 2019 - $200m deal with Netflix announced.

So the show was already preparing to enter in its final season early in 2017, before they announced Confederate... and then they proceeded to deliver the promised 6 episodes in the timeframe they said they would. Your theory doesn't work. That they took off and jumped over to Disney and then Netflix, yes, that likely has to do with feeling burned out after the Confederate backlash and deciding a change of creative environment would be better rather than any lingering bad blood over Confederate (I have the sense, certainly, that HBO did not proactively attempt to defend Benioff & Weiss from various attacks because of the proposed show). But GoT's ending had nothing to do with Confederate, they promised six episodes in 2019 to close the show and they delivered 6 episode to close the show.

Yeah I kind of suspected I didn't have a leg to stand on here but I went with it anyway and you brutally chopped me down. Well played.

[JGP]

19 hours ago, Padraig said:

Definitely this.  He seemed to be quite closely involved in some of the prequels but I wouldn't be surprised if he is less involved in this one.  But right now, this option seems quite tentative.

I understood Martin as having veto power for a while yet, but now I think about it I can't recall where or when I read that. @Ran and Linda would know, surely.

 

---

 

I like new worlds, new stories, but Westeros is among those I love. I drag Martin infrequently, I hope I'm not mean about it, but he does brings something beautiful and cynical, and decidedly real with his writing.

And there is content to mine [which George seems to like :p] if Jon survives the written series and is also exiled Beyond the Wall, likewise Drogon because of the relationship between dragons and magic? Could be some conflict with Sansa if survival beyond the Wall isn't enough [would the defeat of the Others improve the weather in the Land of Always Winter or elsewhere] I don't see Jon styling himself as a King Beyond the Wall, maybe Eastwatch isn't destroyed and eventually the Wildlings cross the Narrow Sea looking for a new home but no one really wants to let them. A Targaryen in the east, a bit of magic, Drogon on the loose and maybe really pissed off. Lots of potential there, to me.

But what if George doesn't intend to kill Dany? Or kills both? He hit a knot with all of this as well. Some of this maybe became inevitable once HBO picked it up, but I also don't blame him either for cashing in because none of this would exist without his imagination and mind.

Congratulations, GRRM. Seriously.

I'd love to know what he'd say about this latest noise if he could. Is it a fishing expedition, is it all bullshit, who what when where how.  

 

edit: holy, it's been a while. had to fix a bunch of titles and geography lol

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

But then, as you know, I know, nor was this slavery based on the color of someone's skin, as an indicator of integral inferiority that deserves enslavement in perpetuity, even as the descendants skin colors change, thanx to perpetual rape.  Which makes that slavery system quite different from what the European Atlantic slave trade created in the Americas, and nowhere more so than in the USA YAY.  We have not moved beyond that yet.

Also as you know, However, depicting ancient Europe as idiots rolling around in the fetid mud is also extremely incorrect, just starting with population levels, so fewer than Mesopotamia and Egypt.  Nevertheless somehow they managed to erect Stonehenge, etc.  Of course though, their general level of civilization was very different.  Nevertheless archaeology seems to show us remarkable trade patterns, which is the base for all of it, pretty much, so far as we know it.  Again, we work off preconceived notions which aren't actually, you know, historically true.  

That's the insurmountable problem with alternate history -- to do it well one really, really, really needs to know a lot of history, in depth and breadth and few who want to write alternate history do have that information or that knowledge.  Like GRRM, they work off already pre-conceived incorrect notions and other fictions written by others who didn't know either.  It leads to propositions that a tv series in which the CSA won the Wah and perpetuated and expanded Dixie system of slavery throughout the USA YA and the hemisphere -- for this was the CSA's objective, to serve, protect and expand the slavery capitalist system -- on a weekend during which the US is observing Juneteenth. 

 

 

The great thing about history is how detailed research can either confirm received wisdom, or completely overturn it.

For example, thanks to ongoing discoveries in South Eastern Turkey, we now know that organised religion predates agriculture, by thousands of years.  The earliest temples date to 13,000 years ago.  Yet it was axiomatic, not too long ago, that organised religion did not exist among hunter-gatherers.

[Zorral]

47 minutes ago, SeanF said:

 Yet it was axiomatic, not too long ago, that organised religion did not exist among hunter-gatherers.

Exactly!   

[BigFatCoward]

You lot suck so much joy out of stuff by over analysing it. 

[Zorral]

And those who don't know what the hell they are saying make joy impossible for those who know Something, ya know?   One cannot unknow what one knows, yanno?     

Lottsa different joys looked for as there are so many different kinds of people with so much differing experience and expertise, and its directed at them all.