Season 4 Roundup

[oierem]

Look at it this way. Martin started writing the series in 1991, publishing ASoS in 2000. That would mean around 3 years on average for the first three books (keep in mind that he wrote a significant amount of post-AGoT material prior to 1996).

AFfC is a peculiar case. We know he changed his mind about the nature of that book in 2002 (I think; someone correct me if I'm wrong) and scrapped a lot of written material. So, in a way, once Martin decided on what he wanted the Feast to look like, it took him three years to finish the book. Therefore, the only true exception is Dance with its abnormally long 6-year gap.

So, who knows? Maybe Martin will be back to his usual three years for TWoW. Though his progress report from a few months back wasn't exactly encouraging.

He didn't continuously write starting in 1991, if I'm not mistaken. And in any case, saying that it was around 3 years on average is cheating, IMO. He also had a significant amount of ADWD material before 2005, and he did have a fair amount of TWOW material before 2011.

[Mr Fixit]

He also had a significant amount of ADWD material before 2005, and he did have a fair amount of TWOW material before 2011.

Even better! He managed to complete AFfC in 2005 with all the ADwD material! However you put it, Dance really is an outlier here. For some reason, Martin had one hell of a writer's block there.

[Le Cygne]

For some reason, Martin had one hell of a writer's block there.

He tells you what happened here:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/217066.html

[Padraig]

And with the Marillion thing I think D&D/B&W might have been exercising their dry sense of humour (at least on the special features it is dry) although this sort of feeds into my guess that they were uncertain how much success Game of Thrones would have and therefore stuck to the books / kept things tight during s1 and then when they realised how popular it was decided to let their imaginations take rein / hubris set in from s2 onwards.

I don't know whether that makes sense. If they thought keeping to the books would bring success in S1, why deliberately change in S2? It's more likely that aGoT was the easiest book to adapt and thus required less changes, rather than anything more complex.

I don't know, it says to me just what it says, they knew he was "relatively important" to Sansa's plot, but made a call that in retrospect, wasn't worth it. I don't think viewers had the slightest investment in Marillion at the time, with all the characters and plots going on. Will they replace him with someone else, who knows, but it's certainly been on GRRM's mind, he's brought it up repeatedly ever since.

Investment probably isn't the right word. Familiarity might work better.

GRRM brings it up because its one of the best examples of a "change". I wouldn't read anything more than that into it.

[Le Cygne]

Investment probably isn't the right word. Familiarity might work better.

GRRM brings it up because its one of the best examples of a "change". I wouldn't read anything more than that into it.

Familiarity, investment, any word you want to use. Some random singer didn't even register on the radar.

Also, check out Marillion's Wiki page, they have most of it there, they missed that Sansa thought Sandor was rescuing her instead of Lothor, and they missed Sansa's role in implicating Marillion (a pretty big thing to miss), and of course songs don't have much meaning in this adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, but you can see all of the people this very specific (rather than random) singer connects to in the story, across two books and maybe more, that's why GRRM is bringing it up:

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Marillion

[PatrickStormborn]

I don't know whether that makes sense. If they thought keeping to the books would bring success in S1, why deliberately change in S2? It's more likely that aGoT was the easiest book to adapt and thus required less changes, rather than anything more complex.

Well that doesn't make any sense either and fails to explain the (widely criticised) changes made to Jon and Dany's storylines. Neither of those changes simplified the plot in any way (in Dany's case it just made it worse and left long-term problems such as un-named dragons).

The fact that ACoK is less easy to adapt can be used to explain the changes made to Arya's story (in the first 4-5 episodes - after that it just became a mess). And it can be even used to justify the changes made to Stannis's story, although I think in the end they made some absolutely terrible choices with that part of the season.

Clearly season 2 was less close to the books in part because of their arrogance (I don't think anyone has ever suggested that it was COMPLETELY because of this; it's quite obvious that ACoK is a harder novel to adapt, even though it has a very clear focus in comparison with ASoS). They've even admitted that they started adding more new scenes because of the "success" of the additional "two people talk in a room" scenes in season one. But that was clearly a bad idea. They only worked in season one because they were there as, essentially, filler scenes; in season two, meanwhile, they were actually taking the place of other important scenes from the book.

[Mr Fixit]

Clearly season 2 was less close to the books in part because of their arrogance

Yes, that's it. Thank you for bringing this nonsense to our attention for the n-th time.

How on Earth don't you guys tire of these incredibly juvenile notions?

[PatrickStormborn]

Yes, that's it. Thank you for bringing this nonsense to our attention for the n-th time.

How on Earth don't you guys tire of these incredibly juvenile notions?

I am tired of having to explain it constantly. But seeing bullshit like "oh changes were made because the book is more difficult to adapt than AGoT" makes it necessary, I'm afraid. You can feel free to disagree with my view, if that will make you feel better about the quality of season two.

The fact is that D&D have admitted several times that the success of season one encouraged them to make more diversions and add more scenes that weren't in the book (without realising that they were successful in the first season only because they did not replace book scenes).

[Dragonstoned]

I don't know whether that makes sense. If they thought keeping to the books would bring success in S1, why deliberately change in S2? It's more likely that aGoT was the easiest book to adapt and thus required less changes, rather than anything more complex.

Because from multiple comments by the showrunners it seems they weren't sure how well-received their show would be. From this follows the (possibly completely wrong) speculation that they played s1 conservatively and adhered to the books pretty closely because they i) didn't realise just how popular it would be and ii) had however a solid base of bookreaders they could rely on to watch it. The huge rise in popularity through s1 especially the influx of non-bookreaders meant the showrunners had an even solider foundation from which to try out new things/let their imaginations run free as I said.

It makes sense as far as internal logic goes, it just may be that it's completely wrong because I clearly have never spoken to any of the showrunners about it (would be worth asking them though). What makes less sense is people claiming that the increased adaptational demands of ACoK compared to AGoT are what's responsible for the frequency of changes after s1, including dramatic changes made to certain storylines, but giving no examples of how this may have affected things. If you look at AGoT then the showrunners had to basically rewrite the entire of the beginning of the story in order to introduce the characters properly (and did a great job of it) so I don't see what was so much harder about ACoK onwards.

[The Giver]

Wow. You know, I didn't know there were people who disliked season 2 until I came to this forum. When I first watched the two seasons, I actually liked season 2 better.

I've been here a while now, and although I understand people are coming from a book standpoint, I still think that it is a bit over-dramatic. The second season was good. It had it's issues, but all three seasons had issues.

[Dragonstoned]

We have all sorts on here. And to be fair no-one's said they dislike s2, just some myself included like it less than s1 often because of changes made to individual storylines.

[Annara Snow]

Season 1 had far fewer issues than seasons 2 and 3, though. The only really big issues I had with season 1 was the sexposition and pointless scenes created for the show just in order to get some nude 20-something women on the show. But this crap continued in the other seasons as well - but seasons 2 and 3 had a bunch of other problems. I can't say that season 1 really screwed up anyone's storyline or characterization (though I have some complaints), but seasons 2 and 3 did that with quite a few important characters.

The made-up storyline for Dany in season 2 was boring, pointless and full of atrocious writing ("I didn't come here to argue grammar" - oh FFS... BTW it wasn't even grammar, it was semantics they were arguing over) and it was ridiculed even by show-only viewers, who were bored by the whole "Where are my dragons?" shtick. The only good thing in the entire Dany season 2 arc were the scenes in the House of the Undying. Everything else I just want to forget. It would have been better if they had limited screentime for Dany as she has in the book, if that was the best they could come up with. And it would have opened up the screentime that was lacking for other characters.

Theoretically, increased screentime for Robb and showing his romance on screen was a good idea; my only complaint when I finished ACOK was that we should've seen a bit more of Robb, he practically disappeared from the second part of the book. But they really didn't need to rewrite his love interest and their relationship the way they did, to make it more similar to a conventional contemporary love story - Talisa and their romance seemed completely out of place, she was such an unrealistic character for the universe described in the series, and again, it's not just book purists who disliked it; I've seen many show only viewers say that they were incredibly bored by Robb and Talisa and wished they saw less of them and more of other characters.

I have no idea why they thought they had to make all those changes to Jon's season 2 story - just to have more 'sexual tension' with Ygritte? - but it made him look completely clueless, and you'll see a bunch of show only viewers mocking Jon and calling him a clueless moron.

And Arya's storyline... That one seems well liked by show only viewers, because people like the stereotype of lovable plucky tomboy, and I know that lots of people loved her scenes with Tywin... but I much prefer the book storyline, where she is not a stereotype, where she actually had a harrowing and traumatizing time on the road and in in Harrenthal, to the show where they downplayed and glamorized it all and where she seemed to be chilling out and serving Tywin,and it was like "oh look, even Tywin Lannister is charmed by how plucky and smart she is!"

[Padraig]

But seeing bullshit like "oh changes were made because the book is more difficult to adapt than AGoT" makes it necessary, I'm afraid.

Now, now. :) Its statements like that, that don't help discussions. You yourself admitted it isn't bullshit when you said that "it's quite obvious that ACoK is a harder novel to adapt". Fair enough disagreeing about it been the main reason for changes but calling something bullshit when you partly agree is rather misleading.

Familiarity, investment, any word you want to use. Some random singer didn't even register on the radar.

Also, check out Marillion's Wiki page, they have most of it there, they missed that Sansa thought Sandor was rescuing her instead of Lothor, and they missed Sansa's role in implicating Marillion (a pretty big thing to miss), and of course songs don't have much meaning in this adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, but you can see all of the people this very specific (rather than random) singer connects to in the story, across two books and maybe more, that's why GRRM is bringing it up:

I'm sure some people recognised Marillion from the earlier episodes?

And sorry, I really don't see the importance of the things you identified there. Although, they could easily have Sansa think Sandor is rescuing her if they want. Or have Sansa implicate somebody. Small things. Suggesting that GRRM keeps mentioning Marillion because he thinks these things are very important is simply reaching.

Well that doesn't make any sense either and fails to explain the (widely criticised) changes made to Jon and Dany's storylines. Neither of those changes simplified the plot in any way (in Dany's case it just made it worse and left long-term problems such as un-named dragons).

I would have said that Jon's storyline was simplified? It was reduced to just him and Ygritte rather than having Qhorin playing a decent role. The problem with Dany's storyline was that it wasn't complex enough in aCoK. So D&D tried to make it more dramatic. Not everything works.

OTOH, when I used the word complex, I was referring to people's complex theories about how D&D adapt aCoK. They were arrogant or whatever. When I said aCoK wasn't as easy to adapt it was because of things like Dany and Jon's reduced storyline in aCoK.

Clearly season 2 was less close to the books in part because of their arrogance

Arrogance is such a loaded word. D&D were going to get nowhere if they weren't brave in their decision making. Calling it arrogance is a not very friendly stick to beat them with, especially given that they have never struck me as arrogant from their interviews. They seem decent, creative people making some difficult decisions but still largely staying true to the books.

From this follows the (possibly completely wrong) speculation that they played s1 conservatively and adhered to the books pretty closely because they i) didn't realise just how popular it would be and ii) had however a solid base of bookreaders they could rely on to watch it.

Sorry, that still doesn't make much sense to me. Book readers could never generate enough viewers to make GoT successful, so they had to lure in more viewers. Yes, i'm sure they were more confident after S1. And if that's all you mean, fair enough. I'm not going to say its wrong for D&D to be confident.

As for the later books. It should be clear that aCoK and aSoS are more difficult to adapt than aGoT? Are you seriously suggesting they aren't?

[Annara Snow]

I don't think that the Marillion thing is important - they could use another character to fill that role (and they definitely have to use another character at least to get blamed for Lysa's death), it can be another singer or someon else from Lysa's household that was close to her. The audience wouldn't remember Marillion from season 1 anyway, and he didn't get a lot of characterization, apart from being silly and a coward.

But making Marillion the singer who loses his tongue was still stupid and pointless - I don't think that anyone particularly cared for Marillion, so the 'emotional' effect would've been just the same if it had been a random singer - and it would've made a lot more sense if it was some other singer. Marillion being in the Vale a few episodes earlier and then back in King's Landing was so random, especially since it was established that the trip from Vale is really difficult. So, he took the trip down all of his own, and paid for a long boat trip, just because he was, what, so eager to get back to King's Landing and sing satirical songs about the king and queen? Why not just stay in the Vale?

[oierem]

Seasons 2 Metacritic rating of more than 80, which the website rates "universal acclaim" (whereas season 1 holds a rating of 79).

[Le Cygne]

I'm sure some people recognised Marillion from the earlier episodes?

And sorry, I really don't see the importance of the things you identified there. Although, they could easily have Sansa think Sandor is rescuing her if they want. Or have Sansa implicate somebody. Small things. Suggesting that GRRM keeps mentioning Marillion because he thinks these things are very important is simply reaching.

That incident was unrelated to anything else. Therefore he could have been anyone. As opposed to someone who touched the stories of all of those characters, across two books, including a POV character (Sansa, Littlefinger, Lysa, Nestor Royce, Myranda, Robert, Lothor, Sandor, and much more). Establishing him in the Lysa storyline and bringing him back, that's investment. And not replacing him leaves a hole to be filled. Littlefinger murdering Lysa, then dragging Sansa into it, that's not a "small thing" - that's huge (and likely to come up again). All of the character development (notably sexuality, hence the singer/the song) he touched upon in her arc is important, too. Maybe they'll replace it with a poop joke.

And the concern was about, what if he's NOT replaced (see upthread). To say GRRM keeps mentioning it because he DOESN'T think it's important is reaching.

Here:

A change that has repercussions for season 4 is Marillion’s tongue removal from the first season. Martin said that the change was made (from an anonymous singer being the victim of a de-tonguing) because they wanted Joffrey to maim someone the audience would recognize. He believes this is an issue because of the part the singer plays in Sansa’s storyline, how he affects her interactions with others in the book, and he doesn’t believe another character will be fulfilling that role on Game of Thrones.

http://www.blastr.com/2013-10-15/george-rr-martin-talks-future-thrones-plots-tv-vs-book-differences

[Padraig]

Season 1 had far fewer issues than seasons 2 and 3, though.

I think what you pointed out regarding S2 are all fair points. I have wondered did they have less time to prepare for that season, given they didn't know whether GoT would be renewed until S1 was aired. There was little doubt that S3 was going to happen though, so they didn't have the same issues there (and I think that season was stronger). But, and as you noted in your list, I can clearly see why they made most of their decisions in S2. They may not have worked as well as hoped for but they weren't random or arrogant actions, as described by some people.

I don't think they expected anyone to care for Marillion. But they probably thought it was easier to cast 1 singer than 2. Since he was around, use him. And who knew would the actor that played that guy be around for S4 if they left him in the Vale. (It wasn't a pleasant place, so I can see why he would leave).

As opposed to someone who touched the stories of all of those characters, across two books, including a POV character (Sansa, Littlefinger, Lysa, Nestor Royce, Myranda, Robert, Lothor, Sandor, and much more). Establishing him in the Lysa storyline and bringing him back, that's investment. And not replacing him leaves a hole to be filled. Littlefinger murdering Lysa, then dragging Sansa into it, that's not a "small thing" - that's huge (and likely to come up again). All of the character development (notably sexuality, hence the singer/the song) he touched upon in her arc is important, too.

Sorry but all those characters are already linked by been in the same location except for Sandor, who is barely linked to the rest of them anyhow. You don't need a minor character like Marillion to do that. And seriously, LF killing Lysa is self-evidently not dependent on Marillion's existence. I'm not sure why you are trying to bring that up.

http://www.blastr.com/2013-10-15/george-rr-martin-talks-future-thrones-plots-tv-vs-book-differences

The problem with that quote is that I was at Capclave and GRRM didn't say that. He said he didn't know whether Marillion would be replaced.

oierem, this series has got a lot of praise but it was always going to face its toughest critics amongst the readers. So it has proved. :)

[Le Cygne]

Sorry but all those characters are already linked by been in the same location except for Sandor, who is barely linked to the rest of them anyhow. You don't need a minor character like Marillion to do that. And seriously, LF killing Lysa is self-evidently not dependent on Marillion's existence. I'm not sure why you are trying to bring that up.

The problem with that quote is that I was at Capclave and GRRM didn't say that. He said he didn't know whether Marillion would be replaced.

For the third time, it's not about Littlefinger killing Lysa, it's about him dragging Sansa into it. And characters in the same location (or being mistaken for being in the same location) is not the same thing as a story. Take away a story, you have to replace it with something. And once again, the author is concerned about it, because he said so repeatedly.

[Le Cygne]

But the books are plotted so intricately that you do step on a butterfly in season one and in season four you’re going to have to deal with that. There’s also another character, [the singer] Marillion, who also got his tongue ripped out in season one, and that doesn’t happen with the books. Joffrey makes that decision, but it’s an unnamed bard. Marillion [has more to do]. We ought to call it The Tongue Effect instead of The Butterfly Effect.

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/07/12/george-martin-talks-a-dance-with-dragons/

When David and Dan make changes, and we talk about some of this, it does have a ripple effect in later seasons that may be larger than it appeared. For example, you know, we're going to see ... well, I don't want to give too much away if you write about this.

But, for example, the character Marillion. In the books, yes, Joffrey does give a singer a choice between his tongue and his fingers, it's just some anonymous singer. It's not Marillion, who remains in the Vale and sort of becomes Lysa's court singer and then later gets the blame for [certain events that happen there]. So David and Dan then changed that and they made Marillion [the singer who got his tongue cut out]. So when they get to the Vale they're going to have to figure that out.

http://www.aoltv.com/2011/08/12/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-interview-part-2/

[Le Cygne]

Lots more where those came from. I love that he cares about Sansa's arc enough to bring this up over and over again for three years. Well, of course he does, but someone has to. The woman who asked the question:

I was the one who asked the question about the Butterfly affect during CapClave which made him bring up Marillion and ended with him saying the books are his, the show it theirs. The stuff he said that is not mentioned is that he has warned Dan and Dave time and time again about the 'bumps' they are going to encounter and how they will have to deal with those when the time comes. You could hear the disappointment with the changes they have made in his voice.

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