SPOILER WARNING If you only watch the show, this thread will spoil you of future events in HBO's Game of Thrones. Thread contains discussion of all books of the series A Song of Ice and Fire Click Here for the spoiler-free thread.
On May 08 2012 05:14 Drowsy wrote: God damn. I can't wait to see RAMSAY BOLTON/SNOW. One of the most badass and psychotic villains ever. They better make him extra crazy in the show. IMO he's even more sadistic and cruel than Joffrey.
To be honest I don't like that character very much. Ramsay is just evil for evil's sake and seems to have no other character trait besides that. He does evil, twisted things because he likes doing them. The end. It's just.. kind of bland. I really prefer the kind of evil, twisted things coming from Joffrey or Theon.
I disagree...as far as evil goes I prefer Ramsay although Tywin and Joffrey are better characters overall. Theres something about the pure psycho evil of Ramsay that other villains in the book don't have, at least to me. His presence in every chapter and interactions with any other character just send a chill through your spine.
Yeah I agree. He's like a horror villain, and not necessarily a hannibal lector type. He's just very disturbed and does grotesque and perverse things to others. As you put it, his actions are very chilling.
On May 08 2012 00:58 chillpenguin wrote: I think putting in the whole Reek part would just be too confusing, not interesting for TV. They would have to delve into the whole Lady Hornwood situation, which would probably be boring/go over the heads of everyone who hadn't read the books. I personally didn't really understand what was going on with that situation the first time I read ACoK, but recently just re-read it when the season started, and it was pretty interesting once I understood wtf was going on. But like, having Bran sitting down talking to Luwin or Rodrik or whoever it was, about some Lady who no one in the show has ever heard of being forced to marry some other character they've never heard of, would just make no sense. They'll probably just have Ramsay show up at the end and kill everyone and burn down Winterfell.
that would be so LAME. Then there'd be no Reek precedent for when book 5 rolls around, and its such a nice twist at the end of book 2. Why the hell would they take it out?
Yeah forgoing the whole role reversal between Theon and Ramsey is a mistake. It was such a clever part of the story, and made the transformation of Theon into Reek all the more interesting.
On May 08 2012 13:45 snotboogie wrote: I feel a big part of why I enjoyed the books was because the world was so well-realized and vast. I felt the characters' storylines were important, history making events.
This show makes me feel like I'm watching a fantasy soap opera. Which is kinda what the book series is anyway, but it does so much better.
I don't think it's the show creators' fault - I'm starting to believe it's impossible to truly capture the scope that books can achieve within the television format.
Unless you are a magician named David Simon, and even then you are working with a fundamentally smaller scope
The scene that made me truly realize that this series will never live up to my expectations is the Brienne/Loras fight. In the books, that scene is a grand tournament with bodies scattered on the floor and a crowd of tens of thousands. In the show they are fighting a 1v1 on a beach and Renly is sitting on a bloody wooden crate. After that I cannot help but think throughout every episode that every scene is literally 10x lamer than the book.
Argh, but I'll keep watching... for whatever reason. I just wanted to vent my disappointment.
I get what you mean, but both fortunately and unfortunately there's a lot of differences between tv and books that no series ever ignores in a transition.
The structure of tv shows especially typically needs to leave some sort of cliffhanger with each episode to bring people back whilst intrigue and development happens throughout. Though GoT has a lot of cliffhangers (like more than almost any book I've read), there are still a lot of chapters in there with few exciting developments that transition well to tv. Internal monologues and stabbing a character that only gets talked about in the background once a book doesn't go as well to tv obviously.
Of course, there are some things lost in the transition also that are on account of costs. The lack of meaningful scenes with dragons or decent battle scenes isn't telling of their animation quality or fight choreographers, but the budget and time constraints versus the quality.
But finally, there's things which don't transition for reasons I'm not sure of. The over-dramatisation of Dany I get, even though I'm sick of it haha. Extending Jon Snow and Robb Stark as characters I also definitely get because basically if a tv audience doesn't see them, they appear to mean less to the story. Even the lack of Reeds isn't completely discerning as I think I'm agreeing with the notion people have that they'll appear in future episodes.
However not including stuff like the double-cross of Reek I don't quiet get. I don't think explaining Lady Hornwood would even be required for it, just insert a smelly guy into the sacking of Winterfell who pledges loyalty to Theon right before Osha. Have Theon kill the one guy who his guys beat. Put Reek in the hunting party for Bran+Rickon to grow familiarity. Insert Ser Rodrik (who mysteriously lost his 200 warriors on the road...) at the end. Bam! Wouldn't have even lost any time given how long Rodrik's execution took.
Still, this is why we read the books still. Because our imagination doesn't require a budget =D
On May 08 2012 13:45 snotboogie wrote: I feel a big part of why I enjoyed the books was because the world was so well-realized and vast. I felt the characters' storylines were important, history making events.
This show makes me feel like I'm watching a fantasy soap opera. Which is kinda what the book series is anyway, but it does so much better.
I don't think it's the show creators' fault - I'm starting to believe it's impossible to truly capture the scope that books can achieve within the television format.
Unless you are a magician named David Simon, and even then you are working with a fundamentally smaller scope
The scene that made me truly realize that this series will never live up to my expectations is the Brienne/Loras fight. In the books, that scene is a grand tournament with bodies scattered on the floor and a crowd of tens of thousands. In the show they are fighting a 1v1 on a beach and Renly is sitting on a bloody wooden crate. After that I cannot help but think throughout every episode that every scene is literally 10x lamer than the book.
Argh, but I'll keep watching... for whatever reason. I just wanted to vent my disappointment.
I get what you mean, but both fortunately and unfortunately there's a lot of differences between tv and books that no series ever ignores in a transition.
The structure of tv shows especially typically needs to leave some sort of cliffhanger with each episode to bring people back whilst intrigue and development happens throughout. Though GoT has a lot of cliffhangers (like more than almost any book I've read), there are still a lot of chapters in there with few exciting developments that transition well to tv. Internal monologues and stabbing a character that only gets talked about in the background once a book doesn't go as well to tv obviously.
Of course, there are some things lost in the transition also that are on account of costs. The lack of meaningful scenes with dragons or decent battle scenes isn't telling of their animation quality or fight choreographers, but the budget and time constraints versus the quality.
But finally, there's things which don't transition for reasons I'm not sure of. The over-dramatisation of Dany I get, even though I'm sick of it haha. Extending Jon Snow and Robb Stark as characters I also definitely get because basically if a tv audience doesn't see them, they appear to mean less to the story. Even the lack of Reeds isn't completely discerning as I think I'm agreeing with the notion people have that they'll appear in future episodes.
However not including stuff like the double-cross of Reek I don't quiet get. I don't think explaining Lady Hornwood would even be required for it, just insert a smelly guy into the sacking of Winterfell who pledges loyalty to Theon right before Osha. Have Theon kill the one guy who his guys beat. Put Reek in the hunting party for Bran+Rickon to grow familiarity. Insert Ser Rodrik (who mysteriously lost his 200 warriors on the road...) at the end. Bam! Wouldn't have even lost any time given how long Rodrik's execution took.
Still, this is why we read the books still. Because our imagination doesn't require a budget =D
I agree on almost all points, Jon's storyline didnt need change though, it was long and interesting enough in the books. I wonder what they'll gonna pull out with the Halfhand because it wouldnt be logical that Jon catches up to them with his hostage so basically it will come down to wildlings cornering Jon and he randomly deciding to go all under-cover agent on them. I hope they ll figure something out.
And yes, not introducing Reek is a very bad idea, i mean we know we'll have the bastard of Bolton in it somehow, but if they write him in the background, they will have one though time making the Northern storyline interesting when adapting ADWD.
On May 08 2012 14:35 fofa2000 wrote: I have only one question...Why did they kill Boromir!?
Because Uruk-hai are just plain evil man, and they only wanted to take the hobbits as hostages back to Isengard and Boromir was in the way, so they had to kill him.
I kinda don't mind HBO fudging with things and deviating from the books in major ways solely because of the huge drop in quality in books 4 and 5. Books 1-3 are perfect, but they really probably should change the pacing of books 4 and 5 and cut a lot of the irrelevant filler. There are some things that could be considered "filler" in 1-3, but in books 4 and 5 it gets to a pretty high level of severity. I actually wouldn't blame HBO if they just stopped after book 3, because books 4 and 5 are kind of mediocre, meandering, slooooowww, and not even really worth adapting to a show in their respective iterations.
Arya+Tyrion scenes are also really really good despite not being in the book.
On May 08 2012 07:27 Tewks44 wrote: It bums me out that the Jeyne Westerling character and related plot was replaced with this random girl from Volantis who apparently crossed the Sea to wander around Westeros tending for wounded soldiers of two Westerosi families that have no connection to Volantis... I mean the story of Robb meeting her when he's wounded after storming the castle and then she "comforts" him is a good story arc by itself... I don't know what the writers didn't like about it.
Yeah really. The show would have actually been a great way to give some attention to that part when it's just background in the book.
I felt sympathetic towards his betrayal of the Freys in the books. He was in a bad spot after hearing his brothers died and made a regrettable mistake but married her because he thought it was the honorable thing to do. Now his betrayal will be over some chick he's been hitting on for a while though, which really isn't as forgiving, regardless of how they choose to bring them together in the end.
It's possible that talisa is actually Jeyne and she's lying about being foreign to hide her actual identity. Remember that her family is actually sworn to the lannisters. It would make a lot of sense NOT to tell the opposing King that who could easily find himself with a free hostage. She also seems not actually foreign at all unlike all the other foreign characters, so there's that too.
I kind of like a lot of the revisions from book to TV because the revised content tends to be, well, better, or at the least it keeps the essence of the original and adds a little spice to some bits that works really well for television. For example, in the books Jaime does not duel Eddard when they meet in Kings Landing but they did in the show and it was really good. I like how they're trying to properly introduce Jeyne rather then open season 3 with SURPRISE! Robb's married now! I like how they found a way to give Tywin more screen time with Arya, I like how they handled killing off Yoren. No show is ever going to 100% copy the book and as long as it works as good television we can watch and enjoy it! Getting upset over it seems a foolish notion.
On May 08 2012 18:11 Drowsy wrote: I kinda don't mind HBO fudging with things and deviating from the books in major ways solely because of the huge drop in quality in books 4 and 5. Books 1-3 are perfect, but they really probably should change the pacing of books 4 and 5 and cut a lot of the irrelevant filler. There are some things that could be considered "filler" in 1-3, but in books 4 and 5 it gets to a pretty high level of severity. I actually wouldn't blame HBO if they just stopped after book 3, because books 4 and 5 are kind of mediocre, meandering, slooooowww, and not even really worth adapting to a show in their respective iterations.
Arya+Tyrion scenes are also really really good despite not being in the book.
I find it odd that you feel this way. A few people that I know that have read the books enjoyed the 4th the most and I personally enjoyed the 5th the most. I also feel most people would disagree with what you consider "filler" - filler to me is something that is completely unnecessary. And generally when I hear filler I assume the editor or writer intended it to be nothing more than a placeholder (as this is generally a term I associate with news papers/magazines) - I don't think GRRM uses text to fill up pages just because he likes fat books - so unless you have a better argument than what you've posted, I think you ought to avoid critiquing literature in the future.
Now by no means am I saying GRRM is an infallible author who's every word is gold, but when you say the pacing is bad because it is slow, I must confess myself confused. This is not a childrens book where the rabbit races the turtle and the cocky rabbit takes a nap whilst the turtle walks ahead, finishes the race, and the story ends. This is an adult novel that takes place over several years. I'm not sure if you know what pacing refers to. Generally saying it has bad pacing means that either the time lines don't match up in each perspective evenly or the progression of time is hard to follow (like if a year passed and no one told you and now you were lost). In my opinion the pacing in the books is nearly flawless (I say nearly because they say "nothing is perfect").
From what I gathered from your post your english is not perfect, but I really think if you believe the books were not up to your literature standards perhaps you should try something smaller/simpler.
On May 08 2012 18:11 Drowsy wrote: I kinda don't mind HBO fudging with things and deviating from the books in major ways solely because of the huge drop in quality in books 4 and 5. Books 1-3 are perfect, but they really probably should change the pacing of books 4 and 5 and cut a lot of the irrelevant filler. There are some things that could be considered "filler" in 1-3, but in books 4 and 5 it gets to a pretty high level of severity. I actually wouldn't blame HBO if they just stopped after book 3, because books 4 and 5 are kind of mediocre, meandering, slooooowww, and not even really worth adapting to a show in their respective iterations.
Arya+Tyrion scenes are also really really good despite not being in the book.
I find it odd that you feel this way. A few people that I know that have read the books enjoyed the 4th the most and I personally enjoyed the 5th the most. I also feel most people would disagree with what you consider "filler" - filler to me is something that is completely unnecessary. And generally when I hear filler I assume the editor or writer intended it to be nothing more than a placeholder (as this is generally a term I associate with news papers/magazines) - I don't think GRRM uses text to fill up pages just because he likes fat books - so unless you have a better argument than what you've posted, I think you ought to avoid critiquing literature in the future.
Now by no means am I saying GRRM is an infallible author who's every word is gold, but when you say the pacing is bad because it is slow, I must confess myself confused. This is not a childrens book where the rabbit races the turtle and the cocky rabbit takes a nap whilst the turtle walks ahead, finishes the race, and the story ends. This is an adult novel that takes place over several years. I'm not sure if you know what pacing refers to. Generally saying it has bad pacing means that either the time lines don't match up in each perspective evenly or the progression of time is hard to follow (like if a year passed and no one told you and now you were lost). In my opinion the pacing in the books is nearly flawless (I say nearly because they say "nothing is perfect").
From what I gathered from your post your english is not perfect, but I really think if you believe the books were not up to your literature standards perhaps you should try something smaller/simpler.
Holy condescending Christ on a stick, batman! Let the man have his preferences! And if you are going to attack someone like that, at least make sure you know what you're talking about. Pacing does not "generally" mean that timelines match up or are hard to follow. It is a measure of the evenness of the pace at which the story progresses. It is the rhythm with which the plot unfolds. Bad pacing, for a novel like this, means that action-filled chapters are intermingled, poorly, with duller chapters where not much happens. You seem to be talking about continuity.
"This is not a childrens book..." - "From what I gathered from your post your english is not perfect[...]perhaps you should try something smaller/simpler" my Dog, I can't believe you actually feel you can talk down like that to someone who simply expressed an opinion.
On May 08 2012 19:50 Sprungjeezy wrote: Now by no means am I saying GRRM is an infallible author who's every word is gold, but when you say the pacing is bad because it is slow, I must confess myself confused. This is not a childrens book where the rabbit races the turtle and the cocky rabbit takes a nap whilst the turtle walks ahead, finishes the race, and the story ends.
From what I gathered from your post your english is not perfect, but I really think if you believe the books were not up to your literature standards perhaps you should try something smaller/simpler.
"whose*", "children's*".
From what I gathered from your post, your use of apostrophes is not perfect. I really think that if you believe that grammar is so important, perhaps you should try learning some yourself first.
(While we're at it, work on your sentence structure as well. The poster whom you quoted has, for all his colloquialisms, much better flow to his prose, whereas your use of commas leaves a lot to be desired.)
My man, if you think that this is "literature" then you are sorely mistaken. As much as I love ASOIAF, it is merely (damn good) light entertainment, no more. As such, the aforementioned poster hit the nail on the head - while 1-3 were full of intrigue, plot twists, and general story-driven goodness, 5 especially felt like no progression had taken place. Now, this maybe is because I enjoy the politicking and intrigue of the King's Landing storyline (which was why I liked book 4, although many don't), but I think this is because there is no climax of the book.
Here's my point - in book 1, we had Ned's downfall; book 2, we had the battle of King's Landing; book 3 has the Red Wedding, the Wildling invasion and the fall of Tyrion and the Mountain; book 4 we had the fall of the Lannisters from King's Landing. What happens in book 5? Dany hasn't learnt to rule; Tyrion continues to be out of his element; the Night Watch hasn't made any progress on the white walkers. The only thing which feels important is Aegon's landing, and even then that's more of a prelude than a conclusion. For me, this book was one huge tome of build-up and no resolution - and since we'll be waiting a long time for the next book, left me rather disappointed.
I felt book 3-4 were the slowest really. Brienne's chapters really bogged them down too, and when you see the end of it, the whole thing felt totally pointless. They had a few major events, sure, but I found the filler to be very boring. Book 2 was mostly entertaining because of Tyrion's ruling as hand.
Book 5 was probably my favorite, with Dany's story finally getting interesting and King's Landing seeing some unexpected developments. Towards the end of it especially I found it to be the most enjoyable of the series, with much fewer painful chapters where literally nothing happens. To each his own, I suppose.
On May 08 2012 19:50 Sprungjeezy wrote: Now by no means am I saying GRRM is an infallible author who's every word is gold, but when you say the pacing is bad because it is slow, I must confess myself confused. This is not a childrens book where the rabbit races the turtle and the cocky rabbit takes a nap whilst the turtle walks ahead, finishes the race, and the story ends.
From what I gathered from your post your english is not perfect, but I really think if you believe the books were not up to your literature standards perhaps you should try something smaller/simpler.
"whose*", "children's*".
From what I gathered from your post, your use of apostrophes is not perfect. I really think that if you believe that grammar is so important, perhaps you should try learning some yourself first.
(While we're at it, work on your sentence structure as well. The poster whom you quoted has, for all his colloquialisms, much better flow to his prose, whereas your use of commas leaves a lot to be desired.)
My man, if you think that this is "literature" then you are sorely mistaken. As much as I love ASOIAF, it is merely (damn good) light entertainment, no more. As such, the aforementioned poster hit the nail on the head - while 1-3 were full of intrigue, plot twists, and general story-driven goodness, 5 especially felt like no progression had taken place. Now, this maybe is because I enjoy the politicking and intrigue of the King's Landing storyline (which was why I liked book 4, although many don't), but I think this is because there is no climax of the book.
Here's my point - in book 1, we had Ned's downfall; book 2, we had the battle of King's Landing; book 3 has the Red Wedding, the Wildling invasion and the fall of Tyrion and the Mountain; book 4 we had the fall of the Lannisters from King's Landing. What happens in book 5? Dany hasn't learnt to rule; Tyrion continues to be out of his element; the Night Watch hasn't made any progress on the white walkers. The only thing which feels important is Aegon's landing, and even then that's more of a prelude than a conclusion. For me, this book was one huge tome of build-up and no resolution - and since we'll be waiting a long time for the next book, left me rather disappointed.
"whose"*, "children's"*
from what I gathered from your post, your use of American english standards is not perfect. I really think that if you believe American english standards are not relevant because your not from America.... well I suppose that's perfectly fine.
On May 08 2012 19:50 Sprungjeezy wrote: Now by no means am I saying GRRM is an infallible author who's every word is gold, but when you say the pacing is bad because it is slow, I must confess myself confused. This is not a childrens book where the rabbit races the turtle and the cocky rabbit takes a nap whilst the turtle walks ahead, finishes the race, and the story ends.
From what I gathered from your post your english is not perfect, but I really think if you believe the books were not up to your literature standards perhaps you should try something smaller/simpler.
"whose*", "children's*".
From what I gathered from your post, your use of apostrophes is not perfect. I really think that if you believe that grammar is so important, perhaps you should try learning some yourself first.
(While we're at it, work on your sentence structure as well. The poster whom you quoted has, for all his colloquialisms, much better flow to his prose, whereas your use of commas leaves a lot to be desired.)
My man, if you think that this is "literature" then you are sorely mistaken. As much as I love ASOIAF, it is merely (damn good) light entertainment, no more. As such, the aforementioned poster hit the nail on the head - while 1-3 were full of intrigue, plot twists, and general story-driven goodness, 5 especially felt like no progression had taken place. Now, this maybe is because I enjoy the politicking and intrigue of the King's Landing storyline (which was why I liked book 4, although many don't), but I think this is because there is no climax of the book.
Here's my point - in book 1, we had Ned's downfall; book 2, we had the battle of King's Landing; book 3 has the Red Wedding, the Wildling invasion and the fall of Tyrion and the Mountain; book 4 we had the fall of the Lannisters from King's Landing. What happens in book 5? Dany hasn't learnt to rule; Tyrion continues to be out of his element; the Night Watch hasn't made any progress on the white walkers. The only thing which feels important is Aegon's landing, and even then that's more of a prelude than a conclusion. For me, this book was one huge tome of build-up and no resolution - and since we'll be waiting a long time for the next book, left me rather disappointed.
"whose"*, "children's"*
from what I gathered from your post, your use of American english standards is not perfect. I really think that if you believe American english standards are not relevant because your not from America.... well I suppose that's perfectly fine.
As dumb as I find this grammar discussion to be, this post is especially ironic.
On May 08 2012 19:50 Sprungjeezy wrote: Now by no means am I saying GRRM is an infallible author who's every word is gold, but when you say the pacing is bad because it is slow, I must confess myself confused. This is not a childrens book where the rabbit races the turtle and the cocky rabbit takes a nap whilst the turtle walks ahead, finishes the race, and the story ends.
From what I gathered from your post your english is not perfect, but I really think if you believe the books were not up to your literature standards perhaps you should try something smaller/simpler.
"whose*", "children's*".
From what I gathered from your post, your use of apostrophes is not perfect. I really think that if you believe that grammar is so important, perhaps you should try learning some yourself first.
(While we're at it, work on your sentence structure as well. The poster whom you quoted has, for all his colloquialisms, much better flow to his prose, whereas your use of commas leaves a lot to be desired.)
My man, if you think that this is "literature" then you are sorely mistaken. As much as I love ASOIAF, it is merely (damn good) light entertainment, no more. As such, the aforementioned poster hit the nail on the head - while 1-3 were full of intrigue, plot twists, and general story-driven goodness, 5 especially felt like no progression had taken place. Now, this maybe is because I enjoy the politicking and intrigue of the King's Landing storyline (which was why I liked book 4, although many don't), but I think this is because there is no climax of the book.
Here's my point - in book 1, we had Ned's downfall; book 2, we had the battle of King's Landing; book 3 has the Red Wedding, the Wildling invasion and the fall of Tyrion and the Mountain; book 4 we had the fall of the Lannisters from King's Landing. What happens in book 5? Dany hasn't learnt to rule; Tyrion continues to be out of his element; the Night Watch hasn't made any progress on the white walkers. The only thing which feels important is Aegon's landing, and even then that's more of a prelude than a conclusion. For me, this book was one huge tome of build-up and no resolution - and since we'll be waiting a long time for the next book, left me rather disappointed.
I think ADwD was very exciting with Jon & Dany's stories. Theon's rescue of Jeyne was compelling. Jon's didn't hit the hammer on the nail until the last scene when he gives his Winterfell speech, but Drogon's return was well constructed and left open a lot of possibilities. AFfC was something different. It felt like a lull in the storm and relieved a lot of tension from the war of five kings. It was something of a letdown that the Dorne plot imploded in favor of Quentyn's plot, but it was nice to learn more about Dorne. I'm not really satisfied with where Arya has ended up. If GRRM makes her a killing machine then we won't have any sympathy left for her. She has to find her family and hug Jon or hook up with Gendry or something heartbreaking.
Gonna be so damn sad when she dies T.T But seriously, if they mess up the Jon/Mance/Ygritte story Im'a be so damn annoyed. It's by far one of my favorite pieces.
Also, reading that non-spoiler thread is just hysterical. People all being like "Oh man I can't wait till Robb takes off Theon's head!" And so sure that Robb is already a victor.
I really really really did not consider Ygritte to actually be that conventionally attractive, I'm sure it must of been reinforced somewhere in the book that she was more along the lines of a redhaired Brienne than actually the pretty redhead in the series. Mellisandre is also alot prettier than I imagined too.
EPT
