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5 Year Gap in HBO Series


Revan Baratheon

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the possibility (or rather likelihood) of the child actors maturing quickly doesn´t bother me in the least... I think it would actually make the story more credible. Time always seemed to pass much to slowly in the books, especially when considering just the distances involved in travelling.

When reading the books it somehow seemed to me that one week Dany set out from Pentos, next week she is in Vaes Dothrak. I think that distance is "really" more like from Lisbon in Portugal to Kabul in Afghanistan, or close to it. Imagine travelling that on horseback.

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Ser Amoc,

First of all, I'll repeat that I believe that the TV series should NOT do a 5 years gap. HBO has struck gold with the child actors and there's no reason to do it if the books do not. And most of all, the tv adaptation alrady made the children older to begin with, so the original problem that the books had doesn't exist.

Now, my post was related exclusively to the books. And I only say that I would have liked that GRRM would have found a way to make it work. Since he's the one that knows most about his opus, I believe him when he says that for some characters it was unworkable. But that doesn't contradict that some characters were benefited by having a five year gap, and that's why George had the idea in the first place.

Personally, I'm happy we're with these characters every step of the way. It is as much about the journey as it is about the end result. I won't care about the end result as much if I don't care about the characters. The journey reveals who these characters are through what happens to them and how they react to it.

I agree with all the "it's the journey not the destination" philosophy. Wholeheartedly. But it's fair to skip the parts of the journey that aren't thrilling, interesting or rellevant to the overall story.

Skipping ahead five years wouldn't be character development at all. And just assuming character development as the reader is giving a free pass to the writer in my opinion.

Take Theon Greyjoy to illustrate my point. You haven't seen him for two books and some years. When he returned, he had change a lot from his old self. Do you believe he hasn't had character developement? Are you of the opinion that GRRM has gotten a free pass here? Do you believe that the series would be better if within ASOS you had found chapters describing how he is tortured in the Dreadfort's dungeons?

Of course not. Reading the Reek's chapters (one of the highlights of Dance) you realise that you don't need to know in detail how Ramsay broke Theon. It's even more scarier if it is left to the imagination. And you don't lose charectaritzation at all because filling in the gaps is very easy.

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the possibility (or rather likelihood) of the child actors maturing quickly doesn´t bother me in the least... I think it would actually make the story more credible. Time always seemed to pass much to slowly in the books, especially when considering just the distances involved in travelling.

When reading the books it somehow seemed to me that one week Dany set out from Pentos, next week she is in Vaes Dothrak. I think that distance is "really" more like from Lisbon in Portugal to Kabul in Afghanistan, or close to it. Imagine travelling that on horseback.

It's interesting in , I think, that long interview George did recently mention the same thing about travel times. He was talking about the show and that the viewer should add the understanding , implicitly, that some 'time has passed' , which is an age old visual narrative device in visual media.

I think that , say, when Arya 'ages up; in the next three years (if we get lucky!) viewers should be smart enough to go with teleplay's version of the story . George says explicit he that he understands the process of adaptation, after all he has considerable experience doing it.

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Take Theon Greyjoy to illustrate my point.

This is a damn good point. Also, my bad on not seeing your difference between the book and the show in regards to skipping five years.

I guess it can work either way. You're right that it would be boring to see Theon get tortured for several chapters. It works meeting Reek and realizing that it's actually Theon and that something horrible happened to create this transformation.

It's obviously just personal opinion, but I really like Arya's arc throughout the entire series so I'd hate to see them cut large parts of it from the show.

I don't think skipping five years would be as good as just following the source material as closely as possible. I'm one of the "I saw the show before I read the books" guys, but I was amazed at how closely season one mirrored book one. I'm hoping they hold onto that for the entire run. They've easily created one of the best adaptations from book to film that I've ever seen.

I think we're all just worried HBO botches this somehow, considering the size of what they're dealing with.

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Nope. If HBO overtakes GRRM, they overtake GRRM and we will see the ending of ASoIaF on screen earlier - potentially many years earlier if the books go to eight or more volumes - than we will see it in a novel. HBO are not going to be delaying the series (at a cost of millions of dollars in lost revenue and risking losing actors to other projects) so GRRM gets the books out first.

It depends entirely on how much delay there is. They aren't going to delay it indefinitely, but they certainly will delay it some if they need to. As I said in my post, that delay could occur in slight increments over several seasons. The delay in SoS is a separate issue, in that it is story driven. It is being split into two because there is too much story for one season. All you have to do is delay each successive season by a couple months or so. Doing that would have very little affect on actor availability or cost millions in revenue. I suggest you go back and read my post again, because I'm not sure you actually read it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If HBO proceeds ahead of the novels, does that mean GRRM is obliged to tell HBO the ending of his series?

Or do they make up their own story line?

How would it work? I somehow doubt GRRM would trust HBO with his precious secrets haha :)

Either way, it seems Martin will have a lot of incentives to release his novels sooner rather than later.

As good as his books are, I believe he can find it within himself to complete it in 1.5 years *IMO*. If he actually is motivated and focused!

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If HBO proceeds ahead of the novels, does that mean GRRM is obliged to tell HBO the ending of his series?

Supposedly he already told them, not in all the details, but he did in general outlines.

In any case, I'm sure, the show will either bring us ending before the book will or it will get prematurely cancelled. Better to accept it, it ain't that hard, I accepted it, and it doesn't give me nightmares.

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