[BOOK SPOILERS] Changes from book to screen

[mormont]

What is the "stuff thats already been said" and did i say it or someone else?

Many other people have already discussed many of the points you raised, both pro and con. I won't detail them because, as I say, they've already been mentioned and if you want to know what they are, just read the thread.

Is there some rule against writing a bit longer posts or sufficiently explaining why i think like i do?

Excessively long posts on a message board thread are generally discouraged, yes. They take a long time to scroll past, for one thing. Nothing wrong with a long post per se, mind you - only one that doesn't need to be as long as it is. Yours could honestly have stood some comprehensive editing. Which I suppose you could view as ironic, really.

Would there be a point to remind you of being courteous to other users also and not use this aggressive unsubstantiated and unnecessary tone just because youre a moderator?

There'd be a point in PMing me to discuss my tone, if in fact my tone had been aggressive (it's certainly considerably less aggressive than your own). But there's rarely any point in public complaints about things like that, whether the person is a mod or not.

No it wouldnt. It would be much less confusing then what is filmed and you really need to provide some arguments for statements like these.

Well, I kind of think that critiquing one boarder's hypothetical version in any detail would be a waste of space and off-topic. We all have 'ideal' versions, after all, and unsurprisingly most of us like 'our' versions think they're full of good stuff.

[Tywin's bastard]

I explained that. He first sneers about the carnage, qualifies it as a fight over a goat and then wants to go check it out.

One does not follow the other. /(pun intended)

He does not ask for tracks either.

No you didn't explain it because you automatically dismiss the possibility that he doesn't believe it's what Will makes it out to be and therefor wants some sober eyes to see it, i.e. his own. If he doesn't fully trust what Will says it makes absolutely no sense for him to want to report that to his superiors.

Gared asks for tracks when they get there, it's irrelevant who came to ask the question first.

He can answer questions from his superiors like so: "We found them. They were all dead. Cut into pieces by other Wildlings over a goat. We didnt see where the goat went. And i didnt believe my scout about bodies in pieces at all. Why? Its not as if he is my scout or anything. I just dont trust those buggers. It was probably a goat anyway. What?"

(yes, im being sarcastic here)

Your sarcasm doesn't have much point when we're talking about someone constantly belittling his companions. It's not the least bit out of character for him to not buy unusual stories from Will without checking it out for himself. That's in fact exactly what the foundation of his complaint is in the book, that it sounds too strange.

Natural means? Where have i said that?

I first read your post wrong and thought it said that you found the fact that there was no blood left after the bodies to be the worst part.

I don't think it's a huge thing that Will goes to look though. He's already been threatened to be killed if he doesn't do his job.

It is because I wrote it as a bullet point rather then a story with surrounding details.

No, because you jumped directly into relatively active events. I of course condensed the actual prologue into bullet points when I compared them.

[Padraig]

The scene would be more believable if he didnt sneer about the carnage first but simply stated that, for example... - he thinks its suspicious and he needs to see the "body parts" himself. Or just expressed his disbelief about Wills report.

hiver, you've clearly convinced yourself that Will's actions were not very sensible. Of course, they weren't supposed to be that sensible. The arrogance of youth etc. That was made clear in the prologue. Waymar is not sure what to accept from Will's tale. He presumably expects some Wildings to have died but he clearly thinks that Will is exaggerating. Wanting to get a closer view himself is not surprising.

Its a bad choice because it will make viewers think all the subsequent action is happening right below it and completely fails to show lands beyond the wall as huge and wild as they are.

If we ever get to S2, we'll know how big and wild the land is. Its a lot less crucial to know this in the first episode. Knowing about the Wall is a lot more important.

Or viewers who would be informed about it through the dialogue between three rangers.

Show don't tell is still a good rule. :)

[twincast]

I'm not a fan of the visual (clothes/architecture) changes, especially the samurai influence and the Moon Trapdoor, but it all looks good and isn't really important in the grand scheme of things.

The one thing that bothers me in the TV prologue a whole lot are the cut up wildlings. Of course it could be referencing one of the unrevealed Martinian secrets only D&D know, but as it stands it's a rather big plot hole to have just to slightly increase the creepy factor.

And of course George spends a lot of time on describing hair colors and nigh as much on eye colors, but in the end the only really important difference is Lannisters = blond vs. Baratheons = dark (preferably black, but brown fits just as well). Even Targaryen silver hair is only important because it strikingly (supernaturally) stands out, but not really from a plot perspective, so I'm extremely happy they did it, but even that wouldn't have been a deal-breaker. That said, Melisandre's hair stands out just as strikingly (supernaturally), so her red hair looking odd on film shouldn't be a reason to drop it when it comes to it - especially since I doubt we'll get a heart-faced actress, which reminds me that I either want an Asian actress or Tricia Helfer as Mel.

But could people please stop defending not conventionally beautiful people by denouncing dissenting opinions as "too modern"? Other than the very recent tendency of walking skeletons being the epitome of beauty (born from gay designers who'd rather have boys to ogle and self-perpetuating from there as an ideal to strive for even if most men and women find it much less attractive/arousing than normal bodies with proper proportions - in short it's more comparable to a change in fashion than a change in actual attractivity) there having been major changes in what is considered beautiful is a mere myth: fairly young/smooth, fairly slim/fit, well-proportioned body, well-porportioned face - people usually aim (and settle) for someone on a similar beauty level as themselves, but when simply asked to rank people on a beauty scale, the majority of homo sapiens sapiens has always agreed and will for ever agree.

[The Mormegil]

I do wonder how many of the Others were around. Could it have been just 1?

We see at least two possibly three (when Gareds head is removed). I suppose the one(s) in the background could be wights but the clearer one does seem to be an Other.

Plus there's all the Ice talking which suggests there's more than one.

[smegma]

But could people please stop defending not conventionally beautiful people by denouncing dissenting opinions as "too modern"? Other than the very recent tendency of walking skeletons being the epitome of beauty (born from gay designers who'd rather have boys to ogle and self-perpetuating from there as an ideal to strive for even if most men and women find it much less attractive/arousing than normal bodies with proper proportions - in short it's more comparable to a change in fashion than a change in actual attractivity) there having been major changes in what is considered beautiful is a mere myth: fairly young/smooth, fairly slim/fit, well-proportioned body, well-porportioned face - people usually aim (and settle) for someone on a similar beauty level as themselves, but when simply asked to rank people on a beauty scale, the majority of homo sapiens sapiens has always agreed and will for ever agree.

What the hell?

[Xray the Enforcer]

What the hell?

The gheys: Why You Can't Have Nice Things.

I'm going to punish TerraPrime on General Principles. :whip:

[howland_reed]

I don't think I could ever sit and watch a TV adaptation with some of you nitpickers.

[TerraPrime]

The gheys: Why You Can't Have Nice Things.

I'm going to punish TerraPrime on General Principles. :whip:

I like your General Principles. Can you email them to me? kthxbai.

With regards to the prologue, I'll mention that everyone thinks they're a master chef. Yeah, I'm sure you can write a 15-page treatment of the prologue sequence and have other fans agree with you. But honestly, unless you have some experience in TV production, you're just fan-wanking. Which, of course, is good and all, as that's why we have this entire westeros.org. Just try not to take yourselves too seriously.

For myself, I enjoy the use of tl;dr on those occasions. YMMV.

[Tywin's bastard]

I do not automatically dismiss anything.

Waymar does not in any way show that he distrusts Will report.

In fact, by his comment about it being an inter Wildling fight - he seems as if he does believe him, only he sneers at it, or ridicules it, as a fight over a goat.

If he only said, for example: "Are you sure that is what you saw?" or, "I have to take a look at it myself" - but he didnt.

Gared did not ask for tracks. He said : "Go look where they went" - which only makes sense if the wildling bodies were whole and they presumed Will made a mistake and they were sleeping - which is in the book, not in the series.

I disagree. Will makes it out to be something strange that's never happened before and Waymar straight up tells him that he doesn't think anything that unusual was going on (a strong hint that he just thinks there's at most a few dead bodies there). He accepts that they are dead but accepting one part doesn't mean you accept every single thing someone says. Waymar also makes it very clear that he just thinks Will is being a coward that wants to get out of doing his duty, which further establishes a reason why he thinks Will is exaggerating.

And he does say why he wants to look, because he expects that he'll be asked how they died. If they are dead someone must have killed them and since they have a tracker they can find tracks. If they can find tracks they can know roughly how many wildlings that killed them. And again, it's not NW CSI because they do that. The rangers are supposed to keep track of the movements of the wildlings, that's the entire point of even bothering to send someone north of the Wall, save to keep the wood from getting too close.

And Gared doesn't ask for tracks of the killers because neither he nor Waymar will be believing Will's tale when they get there and there's nothing there, not even blood. There's no reason for them to believe that anyone was killed there, until Gared finds the entrails.

Yes, thats all in the book. Nothing of it is in the filmed material of the prologue. That is my point.

Youre only connecting those dots because you have knowledge from the book.

btw, my sarcastic post was meant to show that Waymar can just report that he found the wildlings dead.

There is no need for any other details, especially if you think it was just an ordinary fight between the savages of the land. They killed each other, or one group killed another and thats it. No need to determine the proper cause of death. Nobody is interested was it a cut of an axe or smash of a hammer, cut throat or punctured lungs or liver.

If he felt he needs to confirm what his scout said with his own eyes then he should have said so. But he didnt.

I certainly thought Waymar came off as condescending and belittling to the other two in the show's prologue. He has an arrogant tone, hardly looks at Will when he brings important news, dismisses his words without even having seen the site himself, mocks Gared and so on. On TV you don't have to spell out everything solely with words.

Waymar could report that but even the show prologue tells us why he doesn't, which I wrote above. That tells us that he obviously cares about doing the job properly, which is just as it is in the book for us readers. And again, the rangers keep track of what the wildlings do. I can't make any sense out of your claim that one group of wildlings were important enough to track for over a week but another, possibly larger, group is completely unimportant. And lastly, and the most obvious part, since he actually says that they will be asked how they died we are even directly told that it's something the commander will want to know. I don't get how you say that's unimportant after that line.

As Waymar said that they will be asked how they died he does explain why they are going there. Why would the arrogant leader need to explain himself in more detail than that?

No, the whole cleanup would be a very difficult job to pull without leaving any signs or tracks at all, especially if you consider the amount of snow that was colored by blood... which should have been the whole camp basically, judging from the number of bodies and severity of carnage.

Now you went to what I originally said, a normal reason why they disappeared. Since there's supernatural things involved I don't see why you assume something that sounds like an Other cleaning lady mopping it up. It could have been part of a magical ritual where things vanish in the process, just to name one outlandish effect that's well within the supernatural. When supernatural things are involved it's often the entire point to show impossible things and not letting the viewers understand how it was done.

I never said anything against that. I object the manner in which he scouts not the fact that it was him that scouted.

By walking out in the forest and looking around? I don't see the strange thing there.

I was trying to keep it short.

And if you move the wall to the end of prologue then there is no need to waste time showing the three traveling. You can as well jump to the important bits and use dialogue and general atmosphere to describe how far they are and how lonely and dangerous that land is.

Yes, keeping it short is probably the general motto when adapting something. My point is that the slow travelling is the biggest mood setter for the environment in the prologue, plus it gives more dynamic pacing. Note that I didn't complain about your version.

[Axon]

I don't think I could ever sit and watch a TV adaptation with some of you nitpickers.

:thumbsup:

[TerraPrime]

Great to see moderators of the site propagating tolerance and development of well argumented critical discussions instead of fanwanking, tl:dr-ing, strawmaning and just being obnoxious generally.

My statements concerning my reactions to your effort to re-write the prologue to your own liking is neither a form of discouragement nor a form of censure on your effort. Keep doing what you're doing. I just don't find what you said to be of particular value. When I start deleting your stuff because I personally dislike the content, then you'd have something to complain about. Until then, do carry on.

In other words, get over yourself already.

[Tywin's bastard]

Yeah fine ok. I disagree with your description and think youre inadvertently mixing up knowledge from the books with what is shown while i look only at what is shown, I find Waymars three sentences disconnected with one another and not sufficient for a new viewer to figure out what is happening exactly without filling in blanks with imagination.

With a different choice of words and just a few sentences more we could have had a more complete and logical picture.

You again speak of tracks while that was not mentioned once - which means youre filling in blanks yourself.

Yes, we'll disagree on that. The only non-reader I've shown the footage to got a pretty good grasp of it when I questioned him on it so I think it works well enough.

Of course I fill in the blanks, communication isn't about always explaining exactly how to do everything. We know that they were tracking the wildlings and when one gets asked to see where they went I'm naturally going to assume he's looking for their tracks. What else would he do? Run off and shout after them? Climb up i a tree and then realize that you don't see what's happening on the ground since he's in a forest?

For gods sake.... my point is that whatever they thought about disappearance of such a carnage, natural or supernatural - means only that they should have arrived at the conclusion that they are in direct and present danger.

The first thought that should come to anyone's mind is "Its a trap! Danger! Were screwed!"

Not - "go look where they went!"

That can come after they realize there is no imminent threat - which does not happen.

As to the scouting techniques... i guess you need to familiarize yourself with basic military practices and principles.

Will could have drawn that conclusion as he saw the carnage, but he just seems dumbstruck (somewhat understandable since he probably can't understand how that happened). The other two will think that he was wrong or lying, that's much more likely than to assume something supernatural happened since most people don't believe in that anymore. At least Royce don't at any point seem the least bit afraid of that the wildlings should attack them. My non-reader friend assumed that the wildling group wasn't that dangerous since they just sent three men to scout and that there were children among them. I see your point about the danger though and I'm not saying it's invalid, just that I find there's decent enough explanations.

I'm aware of how to scout as I did my military service as a ranger (fortunately not in the Night's Watch though). I've also competed in martial arts for many years and despite that I haven't practiced much with weapons I can see flaws in tons of movie fights if I wish (including GoT). I prefer to keep a relaxed attitude towards everything like that though since it's not just up to the makers of a show to entertain, half of the experience is about the viewer doing his best to immerse himself. That stance perhaps explain the context of my posts a bit more as well.

Just as a last note I'd suggest including the names of the poster when you quote someone. It's easy to for people to assume that I also wrote the last thing you quoted if they don't bother to check it out.

[Xray the Enforcer]

[mod] In this thread, fan wank is OK. Meta wank over your opinions of the moderators is not. That is best left to PM with the concerned parties. Thank you. [/mod]

[RobMRobM]

I was not particularly troubled by the opening Waymar scene except for the point that if the Others want to create wights, they shouldn't be cutting them up into pieces.

Regarding the opening Stark scenes from the prologue, the Arya scene was cute but putting the arrow in the middle of the bullsye was overkill IMO.

I've actually seen the rest of Episode 1 - cable industry contact gave me the advance review copy, which I will have to send back so it can be destroyed (the individual ID number shows in the top right hand corner throughout.) I won't give big spoiler details but there will be lots and lots of deviations to discuss where scenes were invented to make the various characters memorable to a TV audience. I agree that they maintained the spirit of the books but I'd say a vast majority of screen time is invented for the show rather than coming from the books -for reasons I understand and agree with.

There is one big deviation that I'm going to want to discuss after the show airs - the final scene re Dany's wedding. I didn't like how that was handled in particular.

Rob

[Xenophon]

Re. how much viewers who haven't read the books will pick up on the opening scene, I'm a pretty casual fan of the books (I liked but didn't love them), and I had completely forgotten about the prologue or the Others, but I was able to follow pretty well. It was clear that the leader was higher class but not as experienced as the other two, and that something was extremely wrong. It was also pretty clear that they were not expecting to find zombies and that seeing white walkers was very extraordinary and almost unbelievable in the setting.

Re. the wall, personally, I liked seeing the wall at the beginning. It's very cool visually, and as Dragonfish said above, it really gets the viewer thinking there must be something horrible beyond the wall or they wouldn't have built it. I think it really added to the opening. Also, the main things I remembered from reading the books once is that the series is mostly about a fairly realistic shades-of-grey morality civil war, but there is some bigger/more typical good vs evil battle in the background, and this has something to do with the seasons, dragons, and an enormous fantasy version of Hadrian's wall keeping the bad guys out of the north. So, for me at least, the wall was very important to setting the tone for the series, and I thought it was a good idea to show it to the viewer right away. It shows you right away that behind this pseudo-medieval world is something truly fantastic.

[evanesco75]

Well said, Xenophon. I'm not a casual fan by any means, but a fairly recent one nonetheless. And I will say (fangirl alert) that I had no clue anyone'd ever attempt a cinematic depiction of a series this dense, complex and excellent. I for one am ecstatic at the fact that D&D are making an effort to do this. Deviations or no, it's doubtless going to be a truly thrilling experience for book fans. I find that to be reason enough to rejoice!

Also, even if the show evolves into something significantly different from the books, I'd be thankful for the 'based on' interpretation too. I mean, how many readers fancied this would be filmed at all, ever, upon first reading?

[Killuncle]

I just found out that sky are airing Game of Thrones at 9pm. I hope that this early (although post watershed) start doesn't mean that they've compromised the sex and violence from the books in order to appeal to a wider audience. That would make me sad. Can't help but feel pesimistic this close to the beginning of something we all hope will be very special.

[The Mormegil]

I was not particularly troubled by the opening Waymar scene except for the point that if the Others want to create wights, they shouldn't be cutting them up into pieces.

The Book already has a Wight's (Othor) dismembered arm moving (and attacking) by itself it could well be the show takes this one step further and have Wight body parts join back up together unless they are burnt.

[Tywin's bastard]

What was the reaction like? Was it something like: "Yeah i get it. Bad boogie men behind the wall?"

I was talking about understanding Waymar's character and intentions. As for the general view, he said that it told that something dark and menacing existed behind the wall (and that they had obviously reappeared given what's said later).

The problem is the wording which implies the bodies in pieces stood up and went away.

Waymar says "it seems your dead men moved camp."

and Will actually replies:

"they were here."

As if bodies being in pieces is just suddenly forgot.

He does not say: "But they were cut up in pieces! And arranged in a circle! There is no way anyone could have cleaned all that up in a few minutes in this way! Whoever or whatever did it is still here!"

Or anything to that effect.

Nobody even mentioned bodies being in pieces. They talk as if we are dealing with the scene from the book where the bodies were whole and just lying still on the ground.

If Waymar said something like "whoever moved the body parts must have left some tracks. Find them.", that would be a different matter.

Again, I don't think Waymar believes Will and I don't take the "moved camp" line as "the bodies are gone" but like mocking him for being mistaken/telling lies (at that point probably not believing that anyone was dead at all to begin with). Will doesn't need to specify again that they were cut up, the strange part is that they are gone and him just saying "they were here" shows that he means that it's impossible that they went away well enough (perhaps he's even beginning to doubt himself as him being wrong is still slightly less impossible than that the bodies are gone). The added explanation doesn't really add much for me.

Waymar believing that there actually were cut up bodies that were moved makes no sense. If there were body parts, there would have been blood (which goes for anyone being killed without being chopped up as well). Makes more sense to think that Will was wrong/lying.

Which should be due to him being very new at this sport not because wildlings are not dangerous for three lone men deep in the woods.

He's certainly overconfident but probably still really good with his sword, given that he actually is an anointed knight. From what I remember of the scene of the massacre (don't want to watch it again, the premiere is too close now) there don't seem to have been too many people in the group they were tracking. I certainly got the feeling of more people in the book.

Then there should be no need to ask me how the scouting is done - which is not how Will does it.

You sneak, you use cover all the time, you use all the senses, hearing, smell - you always, always look for a higher vantage point and you never ever go peaking your head into the enemy camp unless you first did everything possible to check is there any active danger.

To name just a few things about it.

The whole scene where Will just raises his head and sees the "camp" twenty meters away, with smoke still wafting out of it is silly.

The initial scouting looks odd, that I agree with since there's not really any reasons for what he does (other than to not have him take too long to get there). We were talking about when he leaves the other two when they are back at the scene though and that I don't have any problems with. He's looking around at the same time as he's probably completely and utterly confused.

In the end I think the prologue works well enough. It's most likely not the best scene of the season but I can watch it and just focus on the good things.