The realist thread

[Dragon greyscale]

I expect them to keep UnCat, as that will likely play a big role in the plot that would take a lot of maneuvering otherwise to get around it. There will almost certainly be more magic than just dragons and the others. The magic has been low key so far because it was also in the first book; granted, they've left out a few dreams and stuff but I think that was more because of time constraints. There will be magic in season 2 with Melisandre and very likely with Dany and the HotU, and possibly they'll add or at least expand on Bran's dreams.

When you mention later books and POVs, I don't know if you're only referring to AFFC/ADWD or all the books after AGOT. With ACOK and ASOS, I don't think the adding POVs will be a problem at all. There are more of them and they're not as connected in AGOT, but the POVs didn't even overlap that much in the first book--Jon and Dany for the most part were entirely separate. So with ACOK and ASOS they won't need to cut out any POV characters and can probably stay pretty faithful to the books, especially ASOS if they do it in two whole seasons.

With ADWD/AFFC, they're definitely going to need some pretty big changes. Likely they'll cut out most if not all of the Ironborne and Dorne POVs, reduce Brienne, and somehow add more to Sansa, Bran, and Arya, who combined in all of those two books only have 11 chapters. Hopefully GRRM has either told David and Dan about what goes in TWOW or it comes out before the fifth season, because they'll need to take elements from it in order to give Sansa, Arya, and Bran more to do.

With regard to magic, one of the stronger points in GoT and the series is that we're still pretty much in the dark about these mystical things. They can amp it up latet but it's a delicate balance. Prophecies.... they don't seem specifically magical to me tbh i.e. Prophecies, visions and dreams can easily be included. HotU included. I am talking about the very clear outlandish stuff like dragons, zombies and morphing beings. We already have wights and white walkers, I just think UnCat pushes it too far.

I see what you're saying about her importance to the story, but honestly,UnCat isn't essential yet either. The BwB was already active before UnCat. Which is why I find it strange you would cut out two entire houses. the argument that something can't be left out because it might become important later is difficult... We just don't know the ending of stuff. Personally, I think Dorne has had a bigger impact on the overall story than UnCat at this point.

The pov thing: dany is the only one that starts out isolated. Jon becomes isolated. Besides, sam's pov is also about the wall so there is overlap there. (just thought of the first pov that can be cut, partially at least). I think the problems for a tv show are already present in the second and third book. They only get worse in affc and adwdd. I think that the cutting out of certain characters in season two is already indicitave of this. There are just too much different stories for tv. We'll have to agree to disagree here I think

[Morky_Pep]

They shouldnt cut out UnCat. When i read the epilogue in ASOS i almost shit myself it was so awesome. I think after the Red Wedding, UnCat is the perfect way to bring peoples spirits up. If there was a audience whiplash because of Ned there is going to be an even bigger one with RW and UnCat brings hope for redemption and vengeance, it will give people an incentive to keep watching after such a sad event.

I would love it if they show Nymeria pull her body out of the water and then Beric giving her the kiss of life as the ending to the first season of the split up ASOS.

What makes the story so good is the combination of magic and realistic motives and politicking. I think to limit one of these aspects would hinder the story and ruin what makes it so special.

[Werthead]

We know that UnCat is in. Michelle Fairley was interviewed by the BBC during Season 1 and inadvertantly let slip that that's where her character will end up.

Although D&D could change their mind in the next year or so, I suppose.

[Padraig]

I can't see them skipping unCat. Why would they? Just to avoid a bit of magic when there is plenty of it around? She is important enough to the Jaime storyline. And I wouldn't be surprised if she involves herself with another storyline. (A Stark perhaps). And as mentioned, her bit in aSoS is one huge "whoa". They aren't going to exclude that from the show. I can imagine the internet reaction already!

I think that the cutting out of certain characters in season two is already indicitave of this. There are just too much different stories for tv. We'll have to agree to disagree here I think

They still have all of the POVs from aCoK. And the two new POVs in aSoS are already featured in the show, so we can expect D&D to be pretty faithful till the end of aSoS at least. For I do expect we'll see a lot of the Sam bit. Some important things happen there (prologue, Mormonts bit, Bran's bit etc).

I think everyone agrees that from book 4 onwards, things get more difficult.

[Dragon greyscale]

They still have all of the POVs from aCoK. And the two new POVs in aSoS are already featured in the show, so we can expect D&D to be pretty faithful till the end of aSoS at least. For I do expect we'll see a lot of the Sam bit. Some important things happen there (prologue, Mormonts bit, Bran's bit etc).

I didn't mean that they're already cutting pov's in the second season. I meant that leaving out the reeds and reek is an omen for later seasons. They will cut more characters and pov characters could be among them...could be.

And with sam I agree they'll leave important stuff in but some of it could be trimmed. It's been a while since I read the books, but is the Braavos episode really essential? Could he also skip it and travel straight to the citadel?

[DaveSumm]

He meets Arya though, and I imagine they'll want to capitalise on what few character meetings there are going forward. Awful lot of separate storylines not interacting with one another.

[WenchofTarth]

Are interacting storylines really that important? I'd be more concerned that when adapting the later books that they will trim too much away to hold the plot together. Some cuts can be made but if they overdo it or make too many changes...

I suppose I should be happy they've stuck with the books as much as they have, HBO could go the way of Dexter and not bother following the source material.

[Brienne the Beauty]

forget the name thing; the actors that play lancel and loras look very similar. Many nonreaders i know thought they were the same person. These are highly educated and adult people, mind you. So yes, I do think it is important to make the distinction between characters as clear as possible. Names included.

Ha, yes, I know a guy who was puzzled that Loras was meant to be gay but then a few scenes later was screwing the queen!

[Padraig]

Are interacting storylines really that important?

They are important enough. Because the plots do head off in various directions, having those links will be useful to remind people that this is still one overall story. That they will link up properly later on.

It's been a while since I read the books, but is the Braavos episode really essential? Could he also skip it and travel straight to the citadel?

Well, I am fairly open-minded about aFfC/aDwD, although Sam meeting Arya has its advantages as mentioned. I was more thinking about aSoS with my previous post though.

[mor2]

I must say I love wacthing the TV show but I am sooooooooooooo sick and tired of the TV show. starting with the overused Ironthonre image, that shows everywhere, I wont be surprised if they going to start printing TP with it, so you can the feel of it or something. Same goes for the HBO stark direwolf that seem to plague so many avatars lately is more of technical issue, I can feel in my browser that a new season is coming...

*rant*

[Rob the God]

Seriously

how do you get the idea that HBO will just cancel the series after 3-4 seasons with out an end????

They might chance the ending a little bit form the books but i believe they will want to make a run with Got. They wouldn't put that much money in 2(3) seasons and then just end the whole thing. Fans would be raging.

If they start with a 4th season i think HBO will finish the whole series and they will make it good

[Robin Of House Hill]

A lot of shows have ended with fans raging. Showtime did it to Camelot after one season. All TV execs care about is the money.

[Arrogant Bastard]

Seriously

how do you get the idea that HBO will just cancel the series after 3-4 seasons with out an end????

They might chance the ending a little bit form the books but i believe they will want to make a run with Got. They wouldn't put that much money in 2(3) seasons and then just end the whole thing. Fans would be raging.

If they start with a 4th season i think HBO will finish the whole series and they will make it good

Because it's been done before. Deadwood was canceled after three seasons and it ended before the producers/writers even had a chance to give it the ending they wanted. If viewership goes down a lot, which is possible in a couple seasons (I expect after the season 2 premiere they'll greenlight seasons 3 and 4 to shoot back to back), the show could face cancellation because it's so expensive to produce. It has an enormous cast that grows bigger every season, tons of armor and weapons and stuff that need to be made, and it films in like three different countries. And HBO execs won't give one shit about fans raging about the cancellation.

I could possibly see viewers getting frustrated with the show once it hits AFFC/ADWD, presumably in season five. Depending on how the show handles those books, a lot of new viewers might stop watching due to Dany still being in the east, winter still not having even come yet, and very little white walker action. It's possible, and the show is only going to get more expensive to produce as it goes on. Also, seven seasons is a long time for an HBO show. The only one that made it that far was The Sopranos, which was a gigantic hit. Deadwood and Rome, two historical dramas, were both canceled after only three seasons for the former and two for the latter. If Game of Thrones continues to grow and grow in popularity, I could see it finishing, but my gut tells me it will end unfinished--and it's also likely to catch up to GRRM, which could pose some problems way down the line.

[Robin Of House Hill]

I didn't think of GoT catching up with GRRM. That would be sad.

[Werthead]

Deadwood was canceled after three seasons and it ended before the producers/writers even had a chance to give it the ending they wanted. If viewership goes down a lot, which is possible in a couple seasons (I expect after the season 2 premiere they'll greenlight seasons 3 and 4 to shoot back to back), the show could face cancellation because it's so expensive to produce. It has an enormous cast that grows bigger every season, tons of armor and weapons and stuff that need to be made, and it films in like three different countries. And HBO execs won't give one shit about fans raging about the cancellation.

This isn't what happened. David Milch basically started dicking around and wanted to go make John From Cincinatti. Deadwood Season 4 was planned to be the final season in any case, so Milch could have finished Deadwood off and then gone to make his religious surfer thing and it would have all been fine. For reasons only known to himself, Milch wanted to make JFC straight away and not wait. So HBO indulged him, but putting Deadwood on hold for a year proved impossible, because keeping the entire cast on retainer was too expensive. So the cast drifted off and did other projects and were not available to come back to do Deadwood (and would have needed rehiring on new contracts anyway which, because of the success of Deadwood S1-3, they could have negotiated much more money for, which would also have made the show unproduceable).

So HBO was forced to cancel Deadwood because Milch's departure made it impossible to continue making it. When offered the choice of finishing Deadwood or absconding to make a whole new series, Milch chose the latter. The responsibility for Deadwood's cancellation falls squarely on his shoulders, and it's way past time people stopped blaming HBO and HBO alone for it.

Of the three 'great unfinished HBO series' two (Carnivale and Deadwood) went down due to the showrunners arsing around. Rome was cancelled prematurely by a HBO terrified of the show bombing and bringing financial disaster down on it (which evidently never happened and was never likely to happen, with The Sopranos still buoying its revenue at the time) which was short-sighted, but with $100 million on the table per season and the show severely underperforming, understandable.

As for GoT's chances of going further, this is quite likely. The series has been pre-sold to numerous countries for more than 50% of its budget (meaning the show has effectively already made $25-30 million per season in revenue before a single frame of footage is short). This means that HBO only has to make back $25-$30 million per season (in context, that's less than The Wire or Sex and the City had to make back per season) to make a profit, or a quarter of what Rome had to make back. Given that Thrones is the third-biggest show in HBO's history, substantially more popular than Rome, that's not an issue. The DVD/Blu-Ray pre-sales are huge, the international audiences have been strong, the HBO audience figures have been very significant and the show has attracted immense amounts of critical acclaim, coverage and awards.

This could all change in future seasons. I suspect that by Season 5-6 we will likely be seeing complaining about the show being too depressing, no-one ever wins etc and it's possible simple show ennui could sink the show. Most shows can generally manage 6-7 seasons maximum before people just get bored of them, and with an ongoing narrative building up expectations for an ending that has not come by that point, that makes the situation worse. By that point the worth of having a complete series that HBO can sell and market for decades to come (and HBO are milking the 'Complete Series' boxsets of The Sopranos, The Wire and Rome - which though rushed nevertheless formed a complete narrative - for all they're worth, quite successfully it appears) might overcome this issue. HBO have also vowed to not cancel the series as long as the creators want to make it (and David Benioff moving on to other projects is probably something we should be more worried about than HBO arbritarily cancelling the show), but obviously future management teams may not be bound by that promise.

[Arrogant Bastard]

This isn't what happened. David Milch basically started dicking around and wanted to go make John From Cincinatti. Deadwood Season 4 was planned to be the final season in any case, so Milch could have finished Deadwood off and then gone to make his religious surfer thing and it would have all been fine. For reasons only known to himself, Milch wanted to make JFC straight away and not wait. So HBO indulged him, but putting Deadwood on hold for a year proved impossible, because keeping the entire cast on retainer was too expensive. So the cast drifted off and did other projects and were not available to come back to do Deadwood (and would have needed rehiring on new contracts anyway which, because of the success of Deadwood S1-3, they could have negotiated much more money for, which would also have made the show unproduceable).

So HBO was forced to cancel Deadwood because Milch's departure made it impossible to continue making it. When offered the choice of finishing Deadwood or absconding to make a whole new series, Milch chose the latter. The responsibility for Deadwood's cancellation falls squarely on his shoulders, and it's way past time people stopped blaming HBO and HBO alone for it.

I've heard your version of the Deadwood cancellation before, but it's also been disputed. Alan Sepinwall, a tv critic, wrote that HBO basically made Milch take the fall for the cancellation of Deadwood. Here's a quote from an article of his on HBO canceling some of its comedies back in December.

"Deadwood" and "Rome" ultimately cost too much, for instance, and even in the case of "Deadwood," HBO tried to sell it as a decision David Milch had made to focus on "John From Cincinnati" (even though he wanted to do that fourth season of "Deadwood" first) and then promised that the series would wrap up with a pair of movies (which everyone knew would never logistically be feasible, and which no one at HBO has talked about for a long time).

I'm inclined to believe Sepinwall just because he's been in the TV industry for at least a decade and knows the kind of deals that happen. Plus, I have a hard time believing Milch would be so stupid to abandon Deadwood for at least a whole year to do John From Cincy when he'd lose all the actors in Deadwood in the meantime.

[Leuf]

A lot of shows have ended with fans raging. Showtime did it to Camelot after one season. All TV execs care about is the money.

Someone raged about Camelot being cancelled? The only thing that would make a second season of that watchable would be to kill off Arthur and everyone connected to him and make it all about Morgan.

What would really help getting the show over the hump of AFFC and ADWD would be for GRRM to get Winds of Winter out in good time and have it be ASOS knock you on your ass good.

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

I heard camelot was terrible.

[Auska]

I dunno, I just find it odd that people feel the need to proactively explain how much they'd be willing to give away because of some kind of imaginary constraints! Sure, it's not as though we're actually in negotiations here (unless D&D happen to read this and decide to take opinions into account), but you never start by explaining what all you'd be willing to part with…

The first season wasn't that far off the book. I don't see a reason why subsequent seasons should fare any worse, but that could just be lack of perspective.

[Auska]

Laggydupe.