HBO Executives Discuss Programming

[Brienne the Beauty]

As someone who doesn't like fantasy/scifi books normally, I can appreciate what they are trying to do.

I'm interested to know what you don't like about fantasy normally.

I used to like it a lot, but as I grew older the whole genre seems so tedious, excluding a few exceptional novels such as ASOIAF. The characters do not seem like people, and the range of permissable plots seems very limited. Almost every time I pick up a fantasy novel I am disappointed.

I feel like a book like ASOIAF should be the standard of the genre, not the exceptional standout. It's virtually the only one that does not make the obvious mistakes. I get bored reading the back covers of most fantasy novels, they are so predictable and cookie-cutter.

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

It annoys you, so what?

If I was presenting this series, I'd do it exactly the same way. Fantasy fans are already certain to watch the show. To have GOT stand out, you need to attract people who would normally avoid fantasy like the plague.

Its very simple. Some of you should grow a thicker skin imo.

And yes, the majority of fantasy is shit. The last thing we want is for people to judge this show via 'Legend of the Seeker' or 'Merlin'. You need to create a selling point, a hook.

[smegma]

I'm interested to know what you don't like about fantasy normally.

I used to like it a lot, but as I grew older the whole genre seems so tedious, excluding a few exceptional novels such as ASOIAF. The characters do not seem like people, and the range of permissable plots seems very limited. Almost every time I pick up a fantasy novel I am disappointed.

I feel like a book like ASOIAF should be the standard of the genre, not the exceptional standout. It's virtually the only one that does not make the obvious mistakes. I get bored reading the back covers of most fantasy novels, they are so predictable and cookie-cutter.

I will preface this by saying that I am very picky about literature as a whole, yet I also do like to ingest some "fluff" stuff now and again just to have something mindless and entertaining. However, I find that most fantasy novels, even those that are supposed to be of high quality, rely too heavily on fantastical elements to supplement the drama and character progression, instead of creating dynamic characters that I want to read about. In so much fantasy it's about what happens to the character, rather than what the character makes happen. Even when that is not the case, fantasy writers often take too many liberties (for my tastes) in making up friggen words without ample explanation. A good example of this to me was in Lord Foul's Bane, supposedly one of the best fantasy novels ever written. It bored me to tears, and while I empathized with the character a little, the setting, the world and the language just seemed to be randomly plucked out of thin air. I've never put a book down, consciously, until I got 3/4's of the way through that one. What a letdown after all my friends recommended it so highly.

I guess what I like is what AGOT has to offer - magical realism. Yes there are fantastical elements (the seasons, the dragons, the Others) but the story is grounded in the reality of what happens to the characters. They die. The good ones do bad things. Bad guys do good things. People make bad choices that they think are good and they pay consequences for them. I feel like that is lacking in a lot of the fantasy I have attempted to read. They lack the understanding of how the world works - and I LIKE reading books that have great insight into the heart and mind of people. So, I'm a character driven reader instead of a plot person, usually, and many fantasy books rely heavily on plot.

Do I care what other people read? Absolutely not. This is purely my own taste, and as I mentioned, I freely admit to reading crappy stuff too (I've reread all of the Christopher Pike novels - as an adult). I like Stephen King, although his endings usually leave me a little disappointed.

[DizoakiusMaximus]

The genres come with a stigma. They hear "Fantasy" and think Tolkien. They hear "sci-fi" and think Star Wars.

That reminds me of a poster on theforce.net, who got all up in arms over my calling Star Wars "sci-fi"..."WHOA WHOA WHOA" (he said) "STAR WARS IS NOT SCI-FI! It's a Space Opera!"

Like I'm some sort of Phillisitine for calling it Sci-Fi...man...some people.

[Kat]

Aside from the secondary world setting, the first book of ASOIAF has approximately as much fantasy in it as the first season of LOST did, and that was not marketed, initially, as a SF show. (As such, I had a really hard time convincing my mother, after 3 or 4 years, that she was watching SF and enjoying it.)

I think the bigger draw of this show is that it's HBO doing something. HBO does things well. I wouldn't have watched Deadwood if someone was like, "And here's another western" because I was kind of tired of the genre. I wouldn't have watched Six Feet Under if someone was like, "Here's a family drama" because that's something I usually avoid as well. But both of those shows worked, because HBO did them.

[Commodore]

As has been mentioned, this is the smart thing to say. Sci-fi/Fantasy fans will check this out regardless.

These statements were targeted at folks who are not fans of the genre, he was empathizing with them, saying he is like them.