OT - Game of Thrones

Submitted by WestCBlue on
It was a somewhat non-exciting episode last night. But they are changing several items from the books. They had to given that the books are so long and complex. Here's to hoping we see more Melisandra, the hottest woman on TV. Discuss....

ChicagoGoBlue

May 6th, 2013 at 9:25 AM ^

agreed, but even more cunning and ruthless, but also more nudity from Ms. Dormer in the Tudors than GoT.  The Tudors was a good show, but she's not in all four seasons of it unfortunately, but that's what happens when a show is based on history, and we (should) all know what happened to Henry VIII's wives.

joeyb

May 6th, 2013 at 3:37 PM ^

I would like to point out that, as far as the show is concerned, there is no "Jeyne Westerling". The girl that Robb married in the show is Talisa Maegyr. She told him when they first met that she was from Volantis, so it's not even that they just changed her name or parts of her background; it's just a different character altogether.

joeyb

May 6th, 2013 at 8:50 AM ^

If I were a lord in Westeros, my house motto would be "Shit's going down" because I keep saying that shit is going down in these episodes and it really hasn't been. Eventually, I'll be right, though. It kind of fits the same mold as "Winter is coming".

Seth

May 6th, 2013 at 8:50 AM ^

I couldn't be happier they're moving away from the books. George Martin is a creep, and a lazy, not very good writer. He specializes in writing evil and seems incredibly clunky when his characters need to be motivated by altruism, killing them off when any one force for good might be coming to a victory. I wondered more than a few times before I gave up on the books if Martin spends so much time on sadomasochism because maybe he's got those ideations.

Anyway if they are changing up things from the books, now that we've come to the torture and ruination of Theon Greyjoy, perhaps we'll have a point to it now instead of just so Martin the creep can vicariously get off.

joeyb

May 6th, 2013 at 8:57 AM ^

Whenever I read the sex scenes in the book, I imagine GRRM writing those scenes, looking and acting like Sam acts when he talks to Jon Snow about Ros in the show. It makes me feel like I'm getting a glimpse at his sexual fantasies and it creeps me the fuck out. I'm just glad that he stops at the foreplay without going into detail past that.

dmblue

May 6th, 2013 at 9:24 AM ^

While the specifics of events (typically small details) have been different from the books, I strongly feel that the changed events have only provided viewers  with an understanding of the true nature of character that would not otherwise be effectively communicated.  The series is unable to tell complete 1000 page plus stories in 10 episodes.   I don't feel that the nature of the story is any different.

Also, GRRM has stated that he may write Ros into the upcoming books, which is interesting

jdon

May 6th, 2013 at 9:36 AM ^

I have to respectfully disagree:

For me GRM is the man because he presents the readers with 'real world' characters who all encompass a wide range of emotions/motives/values. 

As for the writing.  I will site three examples of things I think he write well:

1.) Food - the show doesn't really show off how much GRM writes about food and how well he does it.  From Tormund's greasing chickens in his pockets to the lavish descriptions of the feast GRM covers it all.

2.)  vivid imagery:  when he describes the wall, or a boat, or even a piss/blood soaked floor (such as the kingslayers in season 2) you can almost smell the repulsive objects in the room

3.) variance in adjectives/adverbs and even nouns -  the man has an extensive vocabulary and  uses this vocab. to drive his imagery, metaphors, ruminations, dreams (especially the dreams - though dreams are more in the book than the movie, outside of Bran), and battle scenes.

 

You may not like the series but criticising GRM's  writing rings hollow in my opinion.

jdon

 

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 6th, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^

+1.  The fact that GRRM has got me interested in what happens next even when winter comes for good and real, I'd say makes him a pretty good writer.  The amazing breadth and depth of the characters - you'd be hard-pressed to find any two alike, and nearly all of them are extremely well developed and nuanced - is really difficult to do.

snowcrash

May 6th, 2013 at 4:41 PM ^

And one of the big themes is not so much that the altruistic characters invariably fail (some of them are doing reasonably well at the point I'm at in the books), it's that purist, absolutist characters of any type tend to do poorly in positions of power while the more flexible, pragmatic characters tend to fare much better.

Rabbit21

May 6th, 2013 at 1:10 PM ^

It depends on how you look at it.  Martin seems to be working on a fantasy deconstruction in which he does go after more self-interested characters.  He does this incredibly well and his looking at the motivations of different characters is interesting.   However, he lost control of the series and is having trouble getting it back in because he can't seem to figure out that not everything has to be shown in detail, I think he also has a bit of a "screw you" streak and kills off characters who can be interpreted to be more "good" because he knows fans typically latch onto them and he enjoys screwing with people.

I do think he has a worldview that makes him uncomfortable with the concepts of good and evil and so he does away with the concepts in the book.  I'm with Seth in that I do get a little tired at how relentlessly awful some of the people in the books are and how much he revels in it(the story about the Mountains men with the innkeepers daughter in the second book being a prime example of unnecessary detail).  This is my favorite series by far but only because I am heavily invested in certain characters, but am becoming more ambivalent about the series as a whole.

That said the Dunk and Egg series of Martin's is a great little break and does well with presenting a more traditional protagonist.

Needs

May 6th, 2013 at 9:50 AM ^

On Martin's writing...

I totally agree with the accusations of laziness. Someone counted up the number of times that Tyrion "waddles" in the series and its in the high triple digits. He's also been allowed to be incredibly self-indulgent in the way he's allowed his story to sprawl.

By saying that he's "been allowed to be self-indulgent," I think a lot of this has to do with the economics of the publishing industry. On the one hand, there have been broad cut backs in editorial staff, so material just does not get edited as carefully as it once did. On the other, the search for sales has made his publisher, I imagine, amenable to splitting what was planned as one 800-page book into two 1000 page+ volumes, despite the fact that the 4th volume brought what had been a fairly relentlessly plot-driven series grinding to a halt as Martin sent his characters all over the place without much payoff (Arya's and Brandt's stories are particularly self-indulgent) while introducing numerous new characters. There is seemingly no editor at his press that will say "no" or "shorter."

I think HBO's show runners have done a lot to smooth Martin's issues. The point about Theon is one case. I also feel that Rob's dilemmas are far more clear on screen than in print. It's one of the few examples where a show is better than a book, and I think this is largely because of the constraints that television imposes in the way that publishing no longer does. I do wonder what they're going to do after this, and the subsequent season, where the books really get into plot sprawl.

jdon

May 6th, 2013 at 10:05 AM ^

I won't argue for or against (i already did).  But I will say again that I doubt HBO does anything after Season 4 (end of book 3) simply because of the scope of the story from that point on...

 

the only choice will be to skip ahead in time or leave out a ton of plot (I will say that book 4 is tedious and the worst of the five so far, but there are some temendously important plots and a lot of history included in the book 4)

 

jdon

 

PinballPete

May 6th, 2013 at 1:16 PM ^

Since the first part of book 5 contains the characters omitted from book 4 I don't believe that D&D will have any trouble maintaining continuity. They have already proven adept at rearranging characters story lines in order to keep the show fluid. There would, however, be a greater focus on certain parts of the realm but we already see dany or Jon or Stannis missing from whole episodes this season so I don't think it will be a problem.



Since book 3 will be two seasons, I can see books 4 and 5 covering three more seasons. Hopefully by that time book 6 will have been released.

PinballPete

May 6th, 2013 at 1:28 PM ^

Martin has self-described his writing style as a "gardener" who has a point A and a point B and allows the story to be tended to in order not 'railroad' if you catch my drift.



This is why a planned trilogy is now slated to be 7 books. I even think that 7 may be short in order to completely wrap up all lose ends

joeyb

May 6th, 2013 at 1:36 PM ^

He has said for quite a while that he wanted this to be 7 books. When he split book 4 into books 4 and 5, I assumed that meant that there would be 8 books. However, he stated that the plan is still for 7 books and that will be the plan until it's not, i.e. he wants to wrap it up in 7 books, but if he finds it pretty impossible to do so, then it will end up being 8 books.

I have a feeling that there is going to be some huge world event that kills half the people in book 6 and book 7 ends up wrapping things up with one major event that decides the King between two remaining players.

joeyb

May 6th, 2013 at 3:51 PM ^

I think we are arguing the same point. Here's what I was referring to without actually quoting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire#Planned_novels_and_future

"Martin is firm about ending the series with the seventh novel "until I decide not to be firm",[13] leaving open the possibility of an eighth book to finish the series.[34] With his stated goal to tell the story from beginning to end, he will not truncate the story to fit into an arbitrary number of volumes."

Basically, it's 7 books until it's 8.

PinballPete

May 6th, 2013 at 4:10 PM ^

Yeah, sorry. I didn't want to come across as argumentative. Just that the idea did begin as a trilogy and the reason its not being the gardener style writing of Martin.



He must have planned 7 books for what? A decade? Based on my theories of what's going to happen I don't see it less than 9. At which point you come to the same problem as the Wheel of Time: the authors age and health

bo_lives

May 6th, 2013 at 8:58 PM ^

I myself would argue that D&D are the real creeps for working boatlaods of frivolous and absurd sexual content into the show that isn't present in the books whatsoever and doesn't contribute one iota to the plot.

As far as violence goes, I'd say sometimes he does go to far, especially with respect to violence towards women. Nevertheless, it is a realistic representation of the medieval era and indeed most of human history, and GRRM is obsessed with depicting the details of medieval life in incredible accuracy. He hates the typical idealistic representations of the era that you get from most other fantasy authors, because they just aren't historically accurate in any way.

If you want to read fantasy stories where the noble, altruistic heroes always reign supreme and all struggles are represented in a clear-cut good vs. evil nonrealistic fashion, there are plenty of other fantasy authors out there who can give you exactly what you want. I personally find most of the other modern work out there to be rather dull, predictable, and unentertaining, but that's just me.

There's a reason GRRM is often referred to as "the American Tolkien." Like JRRT, he really changed the name of the game with respect to modern fantasy, because he did something new. The incredible, somewhat realistic intrigue of ASOIAF is something you can't really get from any other fantasy authors at this moment.There are a host of message boards there are out there completely devoted to discussing conspiracy theories from the books, and you really take a look at them to be able to appreciate the true genius of GRRM and the depth of his story.

And honestly, if you think Martin is a sadomasochist, then so are most other fiction writers (including TV writers) of the modern era. In any case I do still think you're way overplaying the extent to which the forces of good are losing the fight in ASOIAF. Yes, some good people die. A lot of bad people die too though. That's the thing about GRRM, in his stories, as opposed to most other authors out there right now, you can't ever be absolutely certain about who he is going to have win/lose and what is going to happen next.

joeyb

May 7th, 2013 at 7:44 AM ^

"Yes, some good people die. A lot of bad people die too though."

I think this is one of the points he tries to get across in his books. "Good" and "bad" people have to die on both sides of the war and "good" doesn't always triumph. Generally, the death of one person leads to a major change in the story which couldn't have happened without the death, e.g. Robb becoming the King of the North. People were furious when Ned died in the show until they understood that it had to happen.

Another theme of the books is that people generally aren't truly evil and it really comes down to a matter of perspective. I have a feeling that if we had followed Tywin Lannister instead of Ned Stark in the first book, people would view Tywin as good and Ned as quasi-bad. Once you get inside someone's head, you realize that this person isn't as bad as once thought. Without looking in Ned's head, we wouldn't see his honorable qualities - we'd still hear about them from others. However, when he tries to overthrow the king in the end, he would look as traitorous as they come and no one would care that he died.

Fake Jim Harbaugh

May 6th, 2013 at 9:00 AM ^

 

Fact:  George R. R. Martin (author) is a Jets fan. 

Opinion:  Game of Thrones is more entertaining than the Jets.  But makes about as much sense as the Jets do.  

Question:  Did George R. R. Martin base Joffrey on Craig James?  Who unloads a quiver of arrows into a perfectly good hooker?

jdon

May 6th, 2013 at 9:39 AM ^

I have to say that the way they used Ros, basically creating a character arc that reflected Martin's creative style;  she rose up from nothing, began to play the game, and was slaughtered because of one false move...

'you win, or you die'

 

 

 

ChicagoGoBlue

May 6th, 2013 at 9:22 AM ^

last night between Tywin & Olenna was hilarious. "A sword-swallower through and through."  Priceless.

I'm torn on the changes between the book and the show. Some of them I really like, some of them I really don't get why they bothered. For example, changing who Robb married was a rather oddball choice IMHO. On the other hand, it's cool when a new character brings something to the series, like Ros.

jdon

May 6th, 2013 at 9:45 AM ^

that said I think we all have to accept the scope of the books vs. the scope of television.  One example recently is that Arya's inner dialogue is lost on us so Gendry was used to echo her thoughts in an onsceen dialogue (1st episode when he is berating her for wasting her three lives on people she hated instead of a higher up war target)

 

i have been impressed in the author's ability when going 'off script' at rounding out the arc or scene in a way that makes sense (such as ros, who I talked about earlier).  Think of season two and how much ground Littlefinger covered.  I think that by highlighing him, and varys as well, we get to see the 'game' much clearer than in the books.

jdon

 

 

ps.  I didn't keep my word to not comment on these threads, but I will keep my word to avoid spoilers...

joeyb

May 6th, 2013 at 10:58 PM ^

I disagree. I think she was useful to show off the brothels in the story a bit more. To that extent, I think she had served her purpose and was ok with her dying. I was a bit surprised that they didn't make a bigger deal out of killing off a character with a good number of lines, though.

MGoBender

May 6th, 2013 at 9:28 AM ^

Re: Hot chicks.

Last night was the first night that I was like... "Sansa is kinda hot."  Made me feel like a total perve when considering when this was taped she was only 16.  She only turned 17 a couple months ago.