[Poll] How would you rate episode 106?

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

But episode 1 has a 7. 86 rating.

Yes, I noted that!

[lakin1013]

I waited a bit thinking my discomfort with the ep would subside.  I was reading some reviews and one used the term 'without showing its work'.  I think this is true.

1. Rh has been having a 10 yr affair and up til now, it hasn't either been noticed, or nobody cared?  ok

2. Criston took apart and murdered Joffrey in plain sight and now he is coach for the royal children  ok

3. 'I have no friends' Alicent keeps whining. ok

4. Pregnant, in pain, trying to give birth, and surrounded by attendants, Laena gets up, dresses, walks out of her room, through the castle, down the steps, and across the beach to become wilful toast.  ok

5. So Otto is fired for trying to besmirch Rh, but Lyonel is forbidden to quit, and allowed to take Rhs BFF back home ok

6. Larys gets a killing team together, takes them on a killing mission, yet first, before anything, he cuts out their tongues.  And if the slightest thing went wrong in the killing mission, were they supposed to do charades?  ok

7. 'I have no friends' Alicent whines to poisonous Larys, who then prompty orders the tongueless to kill the dudes and she says -- OH NO, I didn't mean you should do that.  Sure.  ok

8. Apparently, the people killed by the tongueless were Larys's father and brother.  Do we know why he did that?  Book readers will know, but shouldn't viewers only at least be reminded or told why, a clue even?  ok

9.  Apparently, Daemon is not impotent.  ok

And now genetics.  A Targaryen marries a Hightower and gets two standard issue Targs for chidren.  A Targaryen screws a House Strong guy and gets two brown headed, ordinary kids.  Why? 

 

I give it a 5.  It is good, interesting, or horrid to look at, who doesn't like dragons, and the music is good.  I just feel like they are rushing to get someplace and I don't know why.

 

 

[butterweedstrover]

2 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

To be fair, that is Alicent's character in the books so its a re-railment.

It was a lazy characterization justified by the unreliable narrator trope. 

The show actual did something with her, and then ruined it. And my god Olivia Cooke's acting made it 10 times worse. 

[Caligula_K3]

I give this episode a 6. As I wrote in the spoiler discussion thread, I remain disappointed that this show continues to just zoom through characters and plot without giving us a reason to care about any of them or it. Why does Laena get a long, emotional death when she's basically only been introduced as a character (as opposed to a ten year old girl) in this episode? Why should we care about Harwin and his relationship with Rhaenyra when it's introduced 30 minutes before he dies? The time jumps are also not doing any favours for consistency of plot or characterization: I continue to be completely baffled by Daemon. As a whole, the season isn't doing it for me right now, and I remain concerned that the writers* have basically thrown up their hands and adapted bullet points from a history book... as bullet points from a history book.

*Note, though, that this does not make them morons, or idiots, or lazy, or morally bad people. Can we cool it on this kind of stupid rhetoric? There are plenty of talented, smart writers who haven't succeeded at every project they've tried. Writing an epic fantasy TV show isn't easy, and although I disagree with many of the writing choices made, I'm not going to raise my pitchforks just because they committed the crime of writing a TV show I'm finding mediocre.

[butterweedstrover]

15 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

 

*Note, though, that this does not make them morons, or idiots, or lazy, or morally bad people. Can we cool it on this kind of stupid rhetoric? There are plenty of talented, smart writers who haven't succeeded at every project they've tried. Writing an epic fantasy TV show isn't easy, and although I disagree with many of the writing choices made, I'm not going to raise my pitchforks just because they committed the crime of writing a TV show I'm finding mediocre.

I agree but also I think given his history Condal is kinda of an amateur who got the job because of being a lore expert and not from his merit as a director. 

Which drives home the point I don't think hardcore fans should be making adaptions. They stick so close to the source material they don't care if the narrative suffers, they just need to hit all the plot beats and insert all the characters even if minor ones take the emotional catharsis from major ones. 

[Caligula_K3]

19 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

I agree but also I think given his history Condal is kinda of an amateur who got the job because of being a lore expert and not from his merit as a director. 

Which drives home the point I don't think hardcore fans should be making adaptions. They stick so close to the source material they don't care if the narrative suffers, they just need to hit all the plot beats and insert all the characters even if minor ones take the emotional catharsis from major ones. 

I think this is an absolutely fair point. The writers  should have either chosen to not cover the 20 years leading up to the Dance at all, or if they really wanted to, they needed to massively streamline everything- get rid of characters, combine characters, and compress the timeline. They weren't willing to do much of that, probably for the reasons you state.

But hopefully this is a learning experience for them.

[BlackLightning]

6 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

It was a lazy characterization justified by the unreliable narrator trope. 

The show actual did something with her, and then ruined it. And my god Olivia Cooke's acting made it 10 times worse. 

I don't think it was lazy. And I think Olivia Cooke is amazing.

I just think that it is all result of how they are moving too fast and putting way too much in every episode.

Given the reaction of all types of audiences, the show would've been better off ending season 1 with the fallout of Rhaenyra's wedding to Laenor and for season 2 to pick up 10 years later as this episode did. A lot of people (myself included) don't understand why they are trying to put ~30 years of story in a season of 10 episodes that each run about 50 minutes long.

It's very hard (and very risky) to do such a big time jump in the middle of a season...if you watch a lot of TV (films and plays as well) and pay attention, you see this over and over again. Time jumps of 5+ years are hard to pull off and dangerously so in the middle of a season. But a 5+ year time jump where you have to recast significant parts of the cast that you've already established and developed. That's ballsy.

Especially since they had already had four smaller time jumps over the course of the previous five episodes.

 

 

@Caligula_K3

The showrunners are doing good job overall. In fact, they are doing two and three times better than D&D even though D&D had a lot more material to adapt, better material to adapt (let's face it, the First Dance of the Dragons is boring and repetitive compared to ASOIAF), a fresh market and a lot of momentum in their favor. Plus, these showrunners are respectable and considerate...unlike D&D.

However, Condal & Sapochnik have -- objectively, I might add -- made a lot of bad decisions despite all the good they are doing. Some have been silly, some have been lazy and some truly idiotic decisions. And lately, the BTS discussions at the end of each episode have been headscratchers.

[BlackLightning]

31 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I think this is an absolutely fair point. The writers  should have either chosen to not cover the 20 years leading up to the Dance at all, or if they really wanted to, they needed to massively streamline everything- get rid of characters, combine characters, and compress the timeline. They weren't willing to do much of that, probably for the reasons you state.

But hopefully this is a learning experience for them.

Massively streamlining things is what caused the mess that GoT became.

And you can't just get rid of characters. This story doesn't even that many (main) characters. Get rid of too many and the narrative suffers. Don't believe me? Look at GoT.

Like imagine if there was no Aemma Arryn. Either you need ridiculous amounts of exposition to explain what's going on and why (i.e. why is Rhaenyra acting out, why is Viserys so hellbent on making Rhaenyra his heir, why is Daemon always in trouble with Viserys, etc.) or the story of the first half of the season completely changes and suffers for it

[Caligula_K3]

26 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Massively streamlining things is what caused the mess that GoT became.

And you can't just get rid of characters. This story doesn't even that many (main) characters. Get rid of too many and the narrative suffers. Don't believe me? Look at GoT.

Like imagine if there was no Aemma Arryn. Either you need ridiculous amounts of exposition to explain what's going on and why (i.e. why is Rhaenyra acting out, why is Viserys so hellbent on making Rhaenyra his heir, why is Daemon always in trouble with Viserys, etc.) or the story of the first half of the season completely changes and suffers for it

The problems of late season Game of Thrones are not at all because they streamlined things, in my opinion. Seasons 5-6 received a lot of critical praise for just that: streamlining, getting rid of the unnecessary fluff, and keeping up the pace of the show. But frankly, they didn't streamline enough, because D&D were still hoping that GRRM would deliver Winds and some payoff for the many plotlines he'd introduced. If they'd decided to go their own way earlier in season 5, I think the show would have ended much more elegantly.

If the show had tried to include all of the AFFC/ADWD characters and plotlines that many fans pine for, it would have been a disastrous mess, from both a production standpoint (tons of new actors to cast and storylines to fit in) and a storytelling one. Now, I know many fans view the ending as being a mess anyway, but adding more plotlines would have only made things even more difficult to resolve and would have only made the ending more rushed, especially given the writers had one to two years to write each season.

There's a reason it's now taken GRRM eleven years to write the next stage in his story. The garden is overtaken with weeds, and the basic structure of this three act story is being crushed to death under all of them.

I have to be honest: given the story so far, I really see no need to include Aemma Arryn. We already mainly just got a lot of exposition about her and Daemon anyway, followed by her only scene, in which she dies. She's I think a great example of what I've been talking about: the actress made an impression in her one scene, and the character had potential. So either turn her into a real main character, or get rid of her.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Caligula_K3

[BlackLightning]

43 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Seasons 5-6 received a lot of critical praise for just that: streamlining, getting rid of the unnecessary fluff, and keeping up the pace of the show.

Seasons 5 received also received a lot of really dithering criticism from audiences and critics alike. All of the complaints boil down to terrible plotting and bad characterization.

Season 6 was received a lot better but it still got a lot of criticism for pacing issues up until the final two episodes. Still it didn't receive the praise and acclaim that season 3 and 4 had gotten.

I think you are underselling the fact that season 5 nearly destroyed the show's momentum and goodwill. It's no coincident that the relative disaster that was season 5 was due to their "streamlining" of stories and characters. Case in point: Sansa.

43 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

But frankly, they didn't streamline enough, because D&D were still hoping that GRRM would deliver Winds and some payoff for the many plotlines he'd introduced. If they'd decided to go their own way earlier in season 5, I think the show would have ended much more elegantly.

How can you say that the show would've ended more elegantly if D&D started going their own way? How can that be if they were waiting for him to finish the story? That points to a clear lack of ability on D&D's part. Or else...why would they be waiting for him to finish? And if they are waiting for him to finish, why rush?

Can't they just faithfully adapt what has already been written? Why did they need to wait and see the payoff for what was already written? Especially when GRRM is already telling them "don't do that, you'll need that character/setpiece..." in response to what they write.

Just adapt the story that you do have and write a ending for it.

 

It's all besides the point. Because they did go their own way in season 5 and the reception was scathing.

43 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

If the show had tried to include all of the AFFC/ADWD characters and plotlines that many fans pine for, it would have been a disastrous mess, from both a production standpoint (tons of new actors to cast and storylines to fit in) and a storytelling one. Now, I know many fans view the ending as being a mess anyway, but adding more plotlines would have only made things even more difficult to resolve and would have only made the ending more rushed, especially given the writers had one to two years to write each season.

 

 No one is proposing that they include all the plotlines and characters from AFFC/ADWD. I don't think anyone, anywhere has proposed that.

But a lot of the plotlines and characters from AFFC/ADWD left gaping holes in the narrative once removed.

Case in point: Cersei Lannister. She's a major, major character that D&D were crazy about. Let's look at her case.

She inexplicably stays in power after its leader killing thousands of people (including very popular, powerful people with connections) to save her own skin from having to answer for her crimes. Nothing really important happens in southern Westeros after Daenerys destroys the Lannister army...which somehow regenerates for the second-to-last episode only for it to be destroyed again. Southern Westeros doesn't do anything nor does it matter. Which is a problem because this is half of a continent that is supposed to be doomed to be destroyed by a nuclear winter of a zombie apocalypse. Cersei herself does nothing in the last two seasons besides drink wine, look out of tall windows and scowl. She becomes a glorified extra.

The plotlines of the Martells of Dorne and fAegon with the Golden Company would've changed that. How so? They would've given Cersei something to do becoming of an actress like Lena Headey. In seasons 7 and 8 (and for most of season 6 as well), a completely different actress could've done what Lena done and not a single thing would changed. It wouldn't have mattered because the character doesn't do anything that a regular person off the street with no acting experience could've done. In other words, the lack of those storylines made Cersei look like an extra on the TV show.

 

You know what would have also improved the terribly uneventful (the ultimate sin in terms of storytelling) Cersei plotline? Properly adapting Euron Greyjoy...who, in turn, deeply impacts the story of at least two other main characters: Daenerys, and Theon. And if Daenerys and Theon's stories are impacted and changed this does the same for other huge characters such as Jon, Sansa, Tyrion, Bran, etc.

And here we are at Bran, the endgame king and the ultimate "winner" of the game of thrones. They knew Bran was the endgame back in 2013. Yet, they don't allow anything to happen that makes Bran's ascension sensible and plausible in 2019. Why? If they had all that time to prepare a streamlined, sensible story...why did it have such a negative response and reaction.

We're back at square one when it comes to the general incompetence and idiocy of D&D.

 

Sometimes, the secondary characters and subplots are there not for their own sake of coloring the story but for empowering the main plot and the main characters.

You can't include everything but you can't cut too much and you can't streamline everything. You destroy your own adaptation by cutting and streamlining too much.

Edited September 28, 2022 by BlackLightning

[BlackLightning]

36 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

There's a reason it's now taken GRRM eleven years to write the next stage in his story. The garden is overtaken with weeds, and the basic structure of this three act story is being crushed to death under all of them.

I have to be honest: given the story so far, I really see no need to include Aemma Arryn. We already mainly just got a lot of exposition about her and Daemon anyway, followed by her only scene, in which she dies. She's I think a great example of what I've been talking about: the actress made an impression in her one scene, and the character had potential. So either turn her into a real main character, or get rid of her.

Number one: Aemma was in four scenes. Not one.

Number two: this is the point you are missing.

Just because a character isn't a main character, it doesn't mean that they should be cut out of the story. Look at how the impact of the Aemma character has made on the characters of Rhaenyra and Viserys. The impact of the character informs the plot; it's what gets the ball rolling with Otto and Alicent, the big "villains" of the story.

You can't have a story with only main characters. If everyone is a main character, no one is. And everyone can't be ciphers and extras either. You need tertiary/side characters and you need secondary characters to support the main characters and their main plotlines.

Number three: this isn't a three act story. The original outline and the story's premise is a three act story but that hasn't been the case since Game of Thrones first came out. It's was more of a five or six act story at this point. Most people don't even write three act stories. Ever heard of Freytag's Pyramid?

 

 

[TormundsWoman]

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

And lately, the BTS discussions at the end of each episode have been headscratchers.

Personally I think The Behind the Scenes started to get ridiculous during GoT. The one from the episode where “Jaime / Cersei was rape but then by the time they finished it wasn’t” (I’m paraphrasing here some of the explanations from the producers/director) was where I started to just skip them. Every once in a while I fell for it (like Shiereen ep because I wanted to see exactly what they said about taking this from Martin) but nowadays I just read what they say and shake my head sometimes in full disbelief.

[Caligula_K3]

6 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Seasons 5 received also received a lot of really dithering criticism from audiences and critics alike. All of the complaints boil down to terrible plotting and bad characterization.

Season 6 was received a lot better but it still got a lot of criticism for pacing issues up until the final two episodes. Still it didn't receive the praise and acclaim that season 3 and 4 had gotten.

I think you are underselling the fact that season 5 nearly destroyed the show's momentum and goodwill. It's no coincident that the relative disaster that was season 5 was due to their "streamlining" of stories and characters. Case in point: Sansa.

How can you say that the show would've ended more elegantly if D&D started going their own way? How can that be if they were waiting for him to finish the story? That points to a clear lack of ability on D&D's part. Or else...why would they be waiting for him to finish? And if they are waiting for him to finish, why rush?

Can't they just faithfully adapt what has already been written? Why did they need to wait and see the payoff for what was already written? Especially when GRRM is already telling them "don't do that, you'll need that character/setpiece..." in response to what they write.

Just adapt the story that you do have and write a ending for it.

 

It's all besides the point. Because they did go their own way in season 5 and the reception was scathing.

 No one is proposing that they include all the plotlines and characters from AFFC/ADWD. I don't think anyone, anywhere has proposed that.

But a lot of the plotlines and characters from AFFC/ADWD left gaping holes in the narrative once removed.

Case in point: Cersei Lannister inexplicably stays in power after its leader killing thousands of people (including very popular, powerful people with connections) to save her own skin from having to answer for her crimes. Nothing really important happens in southern Westeros after Daenerys destroys the Lannister army...which somehow regenerates for the second-to-last episode only for it to be destroyed again. Southern Westeros doesn't do anything nor does it matter. Which is a problem because this is half of a continent that is supposed to be doomed to be destroyed by a nuclear winter of a zombie apocalypse. Cersei herself does nothing in the last two seasons besides drink wine, look out of tall windows and scowl. She becomes a glorified extra.

The plotlines of the Martells of Dorne and fAegon with the Golden Company would've changed that.

You know what would have also improved the terribly uneventful (the ultimate sin in terms of storytelling) Cersei plotline? Properly adapting Euron Greyjoy...who, in turn, deeply impacts the story of at least two other main characters: Daenerys, and Theon. And if Daenerys and Theon's stories are impacted and changed this does the same for other huge characters such as Jon, Sansa, Tyrion, Bran, etc.

They knew Bran was the endgame that they were going for since 2013. Yet, they don't allow anything to happen that makes Bran's ascension sensible and plausible.

 

Sometimes, the secondary characters and subplots are there not for their own sake of coloring the story but for empowering the main plot and the main characters.

But seasons 5-6 were two of the most critically acclaimed of the show: the reception was not "scathing" (it has a 91 on Metacritic). Sure, some book fans didn't like some of the changes and were very angry about them, but most reception of them from the time was very positive (and I emphasize: just some book fans. AFFC/ADWD are not popular among many fans, and pretty much everyone I knew was happy they were being cut up). And indeed, one of the most common complaints was that it was too slow... And that was after removing half the very slow plotlines of books 4-5 that, if they had been included, would have completely destroyed the pacing of the show. Like, it takes Tyrion seven episodes to meet Dany in Season 5, which some critics and fans claimed was too slow. How would following ADWD, where he takes thirteen chapters simply to reach Meereen, have helped? Would it have helped to follow Quentyn's Martell slow and pointless journey to Meereen too? Or to introduce Aegon, a character who comes out of nowhere and adds yet another player to an already crowded game, when the many storylines of the series should be starting to converge?

I simply don't think there was any reason for the showrunners to trust GRRM saying "there's a payoff... trust me" by Seasons 5-6. He doesn't know what the payoff is for most of the plotlines he's introduced in act 2, or if he does, he's changed his mind twenty times. So when you're telling showrunners: "add this, trust me, it'll be cool- I don't know how, but there'll be payoff one day," that's easy for the writer to say. The showrunners now have to hire more actors (while they're existing actors cost more and more money), build more sets, extend filming time, all on a budget. They have to write their scripts for the next season in a limited time. They don't have the luxury of taking eleven years to produce one season while they figure out what comes next. Case in point: your post is full of reasons why they need to include this plotline and that plotline, because they're so important. But the problem is... we haven't seen any of those things happen yet! What if Euron and the Golden Company don't do what you think they'll do? After AFFC, everyone was convinced Quentyn Martell would play a major role in the plot and Dany would have a major ally in Dorne. Except that plotline was a dead-end.

And that's why they should have deviated more, earlier. You can tell in Season 5 they didn't want to go past the published books. Season 6 still follows the basic events of Act 2, as far as we know it. If they had been willing to get Dany out of Meereen and in Westeros much earlier, to take just one example, a lot of the last two seasons could have worked better.

I'm not saying they were perfect writers. They should have spent more time on the aftermath and consequences of Cersei's Sept explosion, which could have worked perfectly well without Aegon; but they chose to have fewer episodes per season. They spent as much, if not more time, on those fewer episodes, but it was a mistake. They definitely screwed up Bran's storyline past Hold the Door. But I have a lot of sympathy for two guys who had to figure out the ending of a story that has ballooned out of control in 3-4 years while running the most complicated production in television history. And I think HOTD is proving exactly why an adaptation has to streamline things.

 

[Caligula_K3]

31 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Number one: Aemma was in four scenes. Not one.

Number two: this is the point you are missing.

Just because a character isn't a main character, it doesn't mean that they should be cut out of the story. Look at how the impact of the Aemma character has made on the characters of Rhaenyra and Viserys. The impact of the character informs the plot; it's what gets the ball rolling with Otto and Alicent, the big "villains" of the story.

You can't have a story with only main characters. If everyone is a main character, no one is.  And everyone can't be ciphers and extras either. You need tertiary/side characters and you need secondary characters to support the main characters and their main plotlines.

Number three: this isn't a three act story. The original outline and the story's premise is a three act story but that hasn't been the case since Game of Thrones first came out. It's was more of a five or six act story at this point. Most people don't even write three act stories. Ever heard of Freytag's Pyramid?

 

 

Oh, sorry. I have to admit, I confused Aemma Arryn with Daemon's wife.

I have no problem with Aemma's death and role in the show. She kickstarts the plot in the way that Jon Arryn does. As you say, her death also has an affect on other characters. The problem is that we're six episodes in and every character so far not named Daemon, Viserys, Rhaenya, or Alicent is an Aemma Arryn. In many ways, I agree with you: I would be happy with a version of the show where this "prologue" was a season or two and the characters were fleshed out. But if you're not going to do that... Don't include every character in HOTD just because GRRM included them.

As for ASoiAF... Who knows what it is at this point? We're five out of supposedly seven books in and two of the most important storylines (the Other's invasion and Dany's invasion) haven't even come close to beginning yet, while the number of plotlines and characters continues to balloon. If GRRM actually writes this series in seven books, the ending will need to be 10x as rushed as the last two seasons of Game of Thrones. It's a three act story, it's a six act story, it's just a mess.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Caligula_K3

[DMC]

On 9/26/2022 at 10:37 AM, Ran said:

Given we're past the half way mark, I thought I'd share where the board rankings for the first five episodes are at present:

Episode 1: Average 7.86
Episode 2: Average 7.21
Episode 3: Average 7.07
Episode 4: Average 7.65
Episode 5: Average 7.12

I find it interesting that the two lowest rated episodes are the ones that feature the biggest challenges of suspension of disbelief for viewers so far (Daemon's suicide run/bizzare Velaryon plan, Cole brutally murdering Joffrey Lonmouth in the middle of the feast).

This is interesting - and I appreciate the rundown.  But..no offense..given the sample size and subsequent statistical power, these very marginal differences really don't mean anything.

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

This is interesting - and I appreciate the rundown.  But..no offense..given the sample size and subsequent statistical power, these very marginal differences really don't mean anything.

I understand that in terms of general polling, but wouldn't variations within essentially the same group of raters from episode to episode (most everyone who rated ep 2 has rated ep 5, for example) have  more meaning to that set of "board members who vote their rating" than if they were purely randomized groups from week to week, even if the group is small? 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

have  more meaning to that set of "board members who vote their rating" than if they were purely randomized groups from week to week, even if the group is small? 

You're right that since it's much closer to a panel (albeit not exactly of course), it would be valued more among analysts than random sampling - or at least valued more among us bullshitting social scientists looking at the data.  But still, from what I've seen the sample for each episode is about or under one hundred, no?  Considering the minimal difference in means, that's not gonna get you a statistically significant result.  At least, well...there's statistical power calculators out there you could probably check and get a decent confidence interval, but..let's just say I and many others have higher standards.

Anyway, I was at least 97.5% teasing.

[of man and wolf]

On 9/27/2022 at 7:26 PM, BlackLightning said:

I don't think it was lazy. And I think Olivia Cooke is amazing.

I just think that it is all result of how they are moving too fast and putting way too much in every episode.

Given the reaction of all types of audiences, the show would've been better off ending season 1 with the fallout of Rhaenyra's wedding to Laenor and for season 2 to pick up 10 years later as this episode did. A lot of people (myself included) don't understand why they are trying to put ~30 years of story in a season of 10 episodes that each run about 50 minutes long.

It's very hard (and very risky) to do such a big time jump in the middle of a season...if you watch a lot of TV (films and plays as well) and pay attention, you see this over and over again. Time jumps of 5+ years are hard to pull off and dangerously so in the middle of a season. But a 5+ year time jump where you have to recast significant parts of the cast that you've already established and developed. That's ballsy.

Especially since they had already had four smaller time jumps over the course of the previous five episodes.

 

 

@Caligula_K3

The showrunners are doing good job overall. In fact, they are doing two and three times better than D&D even though D&D had a lot more material to adapt, better material to adapt (let's face it, the First Dance of the Dragons is boring and repetitive compared to ASOIAF), a fresh market and a lot of momentum in their favor. Plus, these showrunners are respectable and considerate...unlike D&D.

However, Condal & Sapochnik have -- objectively, I might add -- made a lot of bad decisions despite all the good they are doing. Some have been silly, some have been lazy and some truly idiotic decisions. And lately, the BTS discussions at the end of each episode have been headscratchers.

 you can say what you will about D and D but they did a better job on season 1 of their series than what we are seeing with this one.

 

But perhaps its just that that period of time was always more interesting than the period of time of this series.

[RumHam]

2 hours ago, of man and wolf said:

 you can say what you will about D and D but they did a better job on season 1 of their series than what we are seeing with this one.

 

But perhaps its just that that period of time was always more interesting than the period of time of this series.

I'm sure it also helped that they had waaay more material to draw on. I'd imagine there was very little dialog they had to come up with from scratch, except for those few invented scenes. If you gave them a maester's history of the main novels who knows how Game of Throne's first season would have turned out. 

[BlackLightning]

19 hours ago, of man and wolf said:

 you can say what you will about D and D but they did a better job on season 1 of their series than what we are seeing with this one.

 

But perhaps its just that that period of time was always more interesting than the period of time of this series.

No, I wouldn't say that.

A TV show adaptation A Game of Thrones practically writes itself. A lot of people fail to realize that they messed up the pilot so bad that the show almost got axed. And it wasn't the special effects or the sets that were the problem. It was the script.

How can you mess up the pilot? It writes itself. Just take the first seven or eight chapters of A Game of Thrones and put it in a script format.