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Discussing the creative approach to adapting GOT


Sancho

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The plot of ASOIAF is deftly handled and definitely entertaining, I enjoy it a whole lot and I think people are in for a hell of a roller coaster if HBO preserves most of it. But I do think it's built on a lot of recognizable scenarios and tropes, and I'm not saying there's anything at all wrong with that. I just think that what could make GoT really stand out on television (because let's face it, it's not the only show with intricate politics and period costumes and sexy naked people on TV in recent times) is how Martin toys with those tropes and the deeper ideas he uses them to "discuss".

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This is a great thread. For my part, while I am enjoying the show, I don't think it is especially great television. I agree with the OP that it would be better if it were more character driven and they took more chances, and in general I think they are being way too faithful to the source material.

I do think that the POV narrative structure of the books makes this a particularly difficult story to adapt. And actually, it isn't just the POVs that are the problem, it's the juxtaposition of the POV narrative structure with the massively big, epic scope of the larger story (including the back story) that I think makes this a very tough nut to crack. It also doesn't help that the writers themselves don't know yet what happens in the next three books, which obviously makes it hard to figure out what plot lines they need to spend the most time on, what characters can be dropped, etc.

I would also like to see 13+ episodes per season.

And that Stable Boy scene totally blew!

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I think most people here have a skewed perception of the show (in fairness, I recognize it because I share it to some extent). Those of us who have read the books aren't anxiously waiting to see what happens but are already invested in the characters. As a result, finding out what happens next isn't particularly gripping and most of the excitement plot-wise comes from seeing how things will be portrayed than what will happen. You find yourself wishing there was more time spent on character development and motivations because you want other people to learn to love/hate the characters the way that you do.

Meanwhile, all of the people I know who haven't read the books are loving the show entirely on its own merits. My mom keeps throwing out speculations (I got R+L=J from her over dinner a couple days ago, with Robert as the R) while my friends go on about the awesome plot-twists, who their favorite characters are and what they hope does and doesn't happen to who.

To be perfectly honest, I think most of the people who are of the opinion that they would have stopped watching by now of they hadn't read the books yet are probably wrong. As far as I can tell, many of those who haven't read them are enjoying the series more than a lot of people who have.

(Note: Just in case it seems like I personally don't enjoy the series, I do. I've seen each episode between two and four times at this point because of the number of different groups of people I watch the show with).

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Something I've been thinking about since reading this thread: if I were going to write this story from scratch, but for the screen, not as a novel, how would I do it? When I think about the question that way, it opens up all sorts of avenues for approaching the story.

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Game of Thrones is a character-driven story and it continually makes choices to show the reactions to plot points and motivations of characters' actions OVER the actions themselves.

Were Game of Thrones less focused on character, we would not have gotten minutes of Renly and Littlefinger betting over the Hound versus Loras and just scant shots of the fight -- we'd have gotten more of the fight itself. There's plenty of little examples like this.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, I think you're missing the point here. A plot-driven narrative doesn't mean that the characters aren't interesting or fleshed out. It literally means that the machinery of the plot is driving the characters' actions, rather than the details of character determining the plot.

Renly and Littlefinger betting at the tourney is a perfect example. This is a detail of the plot (the joust) which is used to reveal something about the characters Renly and Littlefinger. In a character-driven narrative, the tournament would arise as a consequence of Littlefinger and Renly's interactions (as a silly example, maybe they get into an argument in the Red Keep and decide to go bet on the joust as a means of resolving it). It doesn't necessarily mean that the one dimension is more important than the other. It's just a question of how the author chooses to moves the narrative forward.

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