A Look at Valar Morghulis

[protar]

just....can't...help...myself.....

Absent an earlier revelation that the blue rose was Lyanna's favorite flower, the additional of the rose at the wall would have simply been a riddle with no answer. Utterly pointless to viewers.

So why didn't they put that in earlier. They could've mentioned it in season one, episode one how she always loved blue roses when Ned and Robert were in the crypts.

I think the reason they don't put in these references is because they're scared the show will get cancelled early and that the cryptic references will then lack resolution. Which (if that's what they're doing.) is exactly the wrong attitude to have, as it's setting themselves up for failure and not giving viewers anything to figure out and look forward to the reveals.

[Cirdan]

Exactly. A blue rose means nothing to the show and doesnt advance the plot. It would be nothing more than a nod to readers.

I understand all of that but the choice to cut the vision of Elia and Rhaegar is unforgivable. As Ran pointed out, it's the first time when the "song of ice and fire" is mentioned in the series, maybe the only one.

Btw, I don't trust a lot about what producers/writers/etc. has to say about their works. They are interested and what you expect them to say? We can only judge from different perspective the final result. And the final result is that we had more invented brothel/sex scene than current events of the HoU's book sequence. Is it done because it's better television? Or just because sex is a cheap way to seel the series as "mature"?

Personally, I believe that season 1 was good ans season 2 was mediocre. I've bought the DVD for season 1 and I wont' do the same for S2.

[Ran]

I like the series, is the thing. A 7 out of 10, more or less. The problem is that the disparity between what S1 could have been to what it was was, in my mind, significantly smaller than the disparity for S2. What's so hard to get about this?

A blue rose means nothing to the show and doesnt advance the plot. It would be nothing more than a nod to readers.

It doesn't advance the plot in the books. Most symbolism doesn't advance plot. It advances character, or foreshadows. Foreshadowing? That's part of making a story, man.

If all you want is soulless plot momentum...

But I know you don't, Godric. You're just taking an extreme position for the sake of argument, but you're basically abrogating any willingness to entertain the possibility that the producers made a genuine error in not taking the once-in-a-series opportunity to have Dany dive right into the deep layers of the narrative. The deep layers, I'll note, that Bryan admits exist.

The question is not that they don't acknowledge that they exist, it's that now was the time to start.

Seriously, if S4 we have "Oh, I had a dream about a mummer's dragon" and then S5 has "I'm Aegon Targaryen" and "By the way, you know, who knows if Aegon really died or not... ?" That doesn't really work. That feels exactly how Lost and other shows which only planned a year at a time do things. They're literally frittering away opportunities to reveal just how thought ahead the story is, which is an incredibly rare luxury in television.'

FLoW,

Absent an earlier revelation that the blue rose was Lyanna's favorite flower, the additional of the rose at the wall would have simply been a riddle with no answer. Utterly pointless to viewers.

"Oh, thank you Ser Loras. How did you know I loved blue roses? We had them in the glass gardens in Winterfell."

"You never heard of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, Bran? It was the tourney at Harrenhal--"

"Where Rhaegar gave my aunt the crown of winter roses?"

"Listen, Jon Snow, and I'll tell you about Bael the Bard and Stark's stolen daughter..."

They can do it much better. But the idea is they can put it in there to be a mystery that will be answered, and which viewers can start to figure out later. The idea is you note it now because: a) you show off that things are planned, B) you give people enigma and mystery, which most viewers appear to love.

A prosaic story is all well and good, but the lasting stories create lasting moments of wonder. They were pretty good at this last season. Not so much this one.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

And I support the producers decision that, for the show, they don't think the HotU was the most effective place to put that information.

That comment really jumped out at me.

The sequence of events and details that have been shown so far on TV are not aligned exactly with the events in the books. At this point in the books, we knew about Rhaegar's children, we knew about Lyanna, and Ashara Dayne, and a bunch of other plot points. We knew something strange had happened at the Tower of Joy. With that background knowledge, the HOTU came sort of as the perfect teaser at that point. Many clues still weren't known, but there was enough there to figure out some things, and let us know that the rest of it was important. I think had the three heads of the dragon, etc., been dropped right there, without context and at the end of the season, the impact would have been sort of lost on the viewers. Words, with no frame of reference in which to put them, followed by a long end of season hiatus.

However, if they lead off season three with those words coming from Quaithe, for example, the mystery actually gets the attention it deserves. It'll be something people keep in mind throughout the season when more clues start arriving. IOW, given that the first two seasons of the show did not contain all the pre-HOTU information that the books did, HOTU wouldn't have had the same impact for viewers even if it did rotely follow the book. The difference pacing and sequencing of the background information suggests difference pacing and sequencing for some of the mythic arc.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I like the series, is the thing. A 7 out of 10, more or less. The problem is that the disparity between what S1 could have been to what it was was, in my mind, significantly smaller than the disparity for S2. What's so hard to get about this?

It's not. I guess my original point is that I think the divergence is likely to increase as the book story adds more layers of complexity that the show can't maintain.

[Cirdan]

The sequence of events and details that have been shown so far on TV are not aligned exactly with the events in the books. At this point in the books, we knew about Rhaegar's children, we knew about Lyanna, and Ashara Dayne, and a bunch of other plot points. We knew something strange had happened at the Tower of Jor. With that background knowledge, the HOTU came sort of as the perfect teaser at that point.

It takes us YEARS of collaborative speculation and re-read to be sure of what most vision meant. The first time I've read the HoU's passage, I have not get the meaning of a single scene. So, no, it wasn't easier for the readers. It's just that the author of the series wasn't afraid to create a dreamlike sequence that could confuse a part of his audience.

[Ran]

We're talking stuff exists in these books that we still don't know what they mean, but the books have shown us that it all eventually becomes clear. The three betrayals, mounts, fires? Stuff for speculation and argument that still goes strong.

I completely buy that visualizing some of these things can be far more revealing than reading it. I mean, the feast of corpses would be pretty darn obvious as we'd see that they're dressed like northmen and so on, if they wanted to go so literal. But that's why some things can fall by the wayside -- I actually think the things that can be foreshadowed that won't happen for three, four, five years are more important than things that are happening next year. Because they tie more to the deep layers of history and prophecy, and because it means you can be very parsimonious in than dropping added details in place.

Here's the thing they can't do: they can't be afraid that the audience will anticipate them. They can't be afraid that someone will see that rose and come around to arguing (without ever once touching the books or getting spoiled) that that means Jon Snow is Rhaegar's son (how, I don't know, but lets just suppose someone can). Many of us here believe this as strongly as being absolute fact, and we aren't stopping with the series -- because, again, the beauty is about some of this stuff is that the "why" is as or more important than the "what". We don't know why, and we won't until GRRM decides to reveal it. Viewers who "figure it out" because of a single obscure image are going to be enthused and even more engaged, not turned off, by their realization.

Really, to me it's just a no-brainer, and my "outspoken" criticism is based on my being so shocked by something that I thought absolutely certain not happening. I think I've a healthy level of understanding what is and is not possible for the production in terms of budget and so on, and yet this can't be put down as a budgetary thing. It was a deliberate choice to tear out every single piece of mystery and foreshadowing Martin put in there. And Bryan's interview does not, in fact, give a real answer as to why that is. It acknowledges they should be seeding it in appropriate places (and there's fewer appropriate places than the House of the Undying), and it acknowledges that they can't just infodump lines of dialog (which I don't think anyone truly wants), but it doesn't say why it wasn't done at that particular place.

"They'll do it later" is a given -- they have to -- but now was the time to actually start with some of this, simply from the point of structure and audience receptivity. Nothing beats a weird magical surreal trip for being a place to lay the obscure symbolism and clues on people. Which is, I guess, why George used the HotU to do that, and didn't just have Quaithe pop up and deliver a prophecy with each chapter.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

It takes us YEARS of collaborative speculation and re-read to be sure of what most vision meant. The first time I've read the HoU's passage, I have not get the meaning of a single scene. So, no, it wasn't easier for the readers.

Yes it was. The viewing audience can't reread episodes for clues, especially when those episodes didn't contain the necessary clues/background in the first place.

[Sanette]

So why didn't they put that in earlier. They could've mentioned it in season one, episode one how she always loved blue roses when Ned and Robert were in the crypts.

I think the reason they don't put in these references is because they're scared the show will get cancelled early and that the cryptic references will then lack resolution. Which (if that's what they're doing.) is exactly the wrong attitude to have, as it's setting themselves up for failure and not giving viewers anything to figure out and look forward to the reveals.

Exactly, they had many opportunities to explain what is the significance of a blue rose but they decided not to. Like you said, they could've mentioned it in season 1. Robert even brought flowers to Lyanna in that scene. How hard was it to use blue roses and say "She always liked them"? It doesn't mean anything to the viewers but it's a great setup for future events like the HoTU or the story of Bael the Bard. I have to say that I'd much rather listen to Rose Leslie telling that story than listen to her talking about balls for a whole episode. It would even make her character look much more layered and likable.

If the HoTU gave us another blue rose, the viewers would start picking up the hints. People are not stupid, they really notice these things. It's such a shame they decided against this. I mean, the foreshadowings and the mystery are one of the big reasons why so many people love this series. I picked up the books last year because I loved the show but I keep re-reading them because they give me something to think about in the long run. I don't know why the writers are so afraid of this aspect of the books. This is exactly why shows like Twin Peaks and Carnivale still have such a cult following even though they were cancelled a long time ago.

[Ran]

I'm sorry, Jeff, but you're being obtuse. People can rewind and rewatch on HBO -- the stuff is on On Demand and HBO Go. People can screen-cap, they can frame-by-frame, etc. An invested HBO viewer can and will examine the series as closely as a novel reader will examine the books. Lost certainly proved this. It's just not a valid argument.

And again, yes, the blue rose at the HotU may, in this case, be a puzzle without an answer now -- but we know it has an answer, and that's a luxury that most TV shows (like Lost) genuinely don't have. This is actually a major benefit of adapting this material, and yet they don't pull the trigger on it, and so I'm shocked. It's part of the core of the story, in many ways, a major theme, and they're resolutely refusing to scratch the surface at the most appropriate opportunity they will ever have. It does not fill me with confidence about how they'll handle it in the future. I'm sure Bryan will try his best to make sure some of it gets there, but he's not the one who calls the shots.

[WillWork4NinjaPowers]

You CAN put in all of those visions and crap. You CAN put a blue flower on the wall. You don't need a damn flashback to ToJ. All you needed was Ned mentioning it to Robert or Robert to Ned last season. They could have had one of the kids talking about her in the crypts and say "Aunt Lyanna with her blue rose" while they WERE IN THE CRYPTS ALREADY. Not difficult. At ThotU, you didn't need Dany to SEE Rhaegar or the King with a wolf head. If anything, Pyat could have read her palm in the creepiest of ways after they had her chained up on the show...THEN they could have burned him up, after what is basically a narration of what her vision would have been. OR after leaving tHoU, have her run into Quaithe who gives her this info/ warning/whatever. That could have been done in place of the stupid choke out scene between Mel and Stannis.

[Aemon Stark]

I'm sorry, Jeff, but you're being obtuse. People can rewind and rewatch on HBO -- the stuff is on On Demand and HBO Go. People can screen-cap, they can frame-by-frame, etc. An invested HBO viewer can and will examine the series as closely as a novel reader will examine the books. Lost certainly proved this. It's just not a valid argument.

Do you seriously think most people are doing this? Or anyone? I never started reading ASoiaF so I could puzzle over prophecies or minor details - I read it because Jaime Lannister pushed Bran out the window and I fell in love with the characters and setting.

Granted, we all read for different reasons, but I *REALLY* do not think that most of the TV audience watches GoT for "enigma" or "mystery". They watch for compelling stories and characters and the setting. I think it's ridiculous to expect that most viewers are going to pick over details.

You CAN put in all of those visions and crap. You CAN put a blue flower on the wall. You don't need a damn flashback to ToJ. All you needed was Ned mentioning it to Robert or Robert to Ned last season. They could have had one of the kids talking about her in the crypts and say "Aunt Lyanna with her blue rose" while they WERE IN THE CRYPTS ALREADY. Not difficult. At ThotU, you didn't need Dany to SEE Rhaegar or the King with a wolf head. If anything, Pyat could have read her palm in the creepiest of ways after they had her chained up on the show...THEN they could have burned him up, after what is basically a narration of what her vision would have been. OR after leaving tHoU, have her run into Quaithe who gives her this info/ warning/whatever. That could have been done in place of the stupid choke out scene between Mel and Stannis.

There IS going to be another season or two, ya know - plenty of time to run into Quaithe again, as I fully expect them to before leaving Qarth.

[Ran]

Do you seriously think most people are doing this? Or anyone? I never started reading ASoiaF so I could puzzle over prophecies or minor details - I read it because Jaime Lannister pushed Bran out the window and I fell in love with the characters and setting.

No, I don't think most. But anyone? Hell yes, some people do. The same percentage of viewers, I wager, as the percentage of readers who'd flip back to re-read a scene of visions and prophecy, which is what we're talking about here.

And given the discussions on the forum, and the intense communities for shows like Lost and the X-Files, yes, I think a lot more people than you credit will watch a show for the puzzles and mysteries and enigmas they present. And a lot more people beyond that love when they learn, "Oh wow, I didn't even think about that." They don't have to actively be seeking out and puzzling over mysteries to be impressed and enjoy the revelation that there was something more going on than what they understood. That's just good storytelling.

[Conor]

For my part I enjoy the TV show but I feel that non book readers are missing out on so much more. I repeat I think the tv show is great entertainment but there are so many more layers that could be easily included. The keyword is 'easily'. For some reasons the producers have omitted simple references, as mentioned above, to blue roses or simple scenes such as a Ned fevered dream sequence.

At this stage the tv viewer still has no clear view of what mad King Aerys was like. Now imagine if Ned had a dream sequence about his father and brothers death (I know he was not there but dreams are dreams) this would have upset slightly the general view of Jamie, this being only one of its uses.

Instead, in episode 10, we get a totally useless scene of Kal Drogo (in my view) playing happy families. Reduntant. We get a empty throne hall. This had some merit but overall hardly shattering.

Again, great tv but I feel it could be so much better.

I asked a question before, could George Martin have written episode 10 considering the changes in the story. Blackwater he could write but could he have handled episode 10?

[redriver]

No, I don't think most. But anyone? Hell yes, some people do. The same percentage of viewers, I wager, as the percentage of readers who'd flip back to re-read a scene of visions and prophecy, which is what we're talking about here.

And given the discussions on the forum, and the intense communities for shows like Lost and the X-Files, yes, I think a lot more people than you credit will watch a show for the puzzles and mysteries and enigmas they present. And a lot more people beyond that love when they learn, "Oh wow, I didn't even think about that." They don't have to actively be seeking out and puzzling over mysteries to be impressed and enjoy the revelation that there was something more going on than what they understood. That's just good storytelling.

Instead of all this back and forth,could we do something practical like sending D&D an email,perhaps based on a poll run on this site?

Something like "Would you like to see more of the historical background and prophecies contained in the ASOIF books in the HBO series?"Yes/No.

A polite and respectful letter,of course.I don't know if it's too late in the development process to have any influence or not.

There are points in the book ASOS where this agenda can be promoted,such as Jaime's reflections to Brienne in the baths at Harrenhall,the Reeds story to Bran of the Knight of the Laughing Tree,Ser Barristan's memories of Rhaegar as told to Dany,amongst others.

Thoughts?

[protar]

Instead of all this back and forth,could we do something practical like sending D&D an email,perhaps based on a poll run on this site?

Something like "Would you like to see more of the historical background and prophecies contained in the ASOIF books in the HBO series?"Yes/No.

A polite and respectful letter,of course.I don't know if it's too late in the development process to have any influence or not.

There are points in the book ACOK where this agenda can be promoted,such as Jaime's reflections to Brienne in the baths at Harrenhall,the Reeds story to Bran of the Laughing Knight,Ser Barristan's memories of Rhaegar as told to Dany,amongst others.

Thoughts?

I think that sort of email would be great. Perhaps expanding it to some of the other changes as well? More and more it's looking to me as if D+D don't care and/or don't understand the source material. If we were to actually see some proper explanations I think that'd put me and a lot of other book purists at ease, even if we still didn't agree with the decisions.

[Ran]

I don't think D&D are going to pay fan petitions any more mind than GRRM or any other creator should or would do. It'd be nice for them to absorb some of the critiques of this season that have come from professional critics and fans alike, but there's no point to this petition or letter business.

[Conor]

But how could Martin have handled episode 10 if that was the one he was slotted to write? Or could he given the changes? I think this is a valid question.

How could Martin have written Robb and Talisa's arc in episode 10 or the house of the undying? In my view I don't think he could have or he would have had great problems.

What is your view?

[protar]

But how could Martin have handled episode 10 if that was the one he was slotted to write? Or could he given the changes? I think this is a valid question.

How could Martin have written Robb and Talisa's arc in episode 10 or the house of the undying? In my view I don't think he could have or he would have had great problems.

What is your view?

Well obviously he would've had to work with what he was given, just like he had to work with Show!Shae. But I certainly think the HOTU would've been much more faithful (the three fires prophecy would certainly have been met.), Theon's arc probably wouldn't have ended with some cheap comedy and Robb most definitely wouldn't have married using a seven based ceremony. Just to name a few things that would likely be different.

[GoodGuyA]

IOW, given that the first two seasons of the show did not contain all the pre-HOTU information that the books did, HOTU wouldn't have had the same impact for viewers even if it did rotely follow the book.

That's the biggest thing here. We do not have time for this sort of exposition. Sure, there are scenes that you can agree should have been kept or not, but the majority of the material needed to be there to tell the story for the screen. Given the amount of time that must be devoted to the various storylines and the time HBO has to run it (you cannot change how long an episode or season will be) the details are bound to be restricted to the current.

The details we had in the prior season for background were necessary. It was important to have that inkling of Lyanna in order to flesh out Robert's character. It was imperative to garner the background on the Night's Watch in order to understand their complex society. What does knowing Rhaegar do for any character currently in the story? Nothing. We simply know the Targaryen line some more. You can't just hold details to be unresolved for several seasons. A show like this, when it introduces concepts, should hastily put those concepts to good use. Thus far, it's done that.