A Game of Thrones

[guad]

I'm annoyed, the multi quote button does not seem to work

Re Dormer as Margaery: I'm not concerned about the age. They can make people look a bit younger and they've made most of them older anyway.

Plus Margaery is IMO no really a blushing maid. Not saying more here. I think that Dormer is going to be perfect. Just look at a pic of Loras and one of Anne Boleyn and you can totally see that they could be brother and sister

Re who is Jon's mum? In the show, there's this conversation between Robert and Ned, where Jon's mum is mentioned, the mysterious Wylla. I personally hope it's her

Zombies in the TV show: Now that has been bugging me since episode 1: If the white walkers make lethal killing machines out of corpses (like the one that attacked Jon in episode 8 or 9) WHY do they dismember them? Do the heads and bodyparts grow back on? Do they sew them back on? Do the white Walkers use superglue???

I know that's random, but ZOMBIEMAKING intrigues me!

Re soundtrack: It's beautiful! My favourite is probably the music of Aryas training, the King in the North, the finale and the opening.

[Moriath]

Originally Posted by guad

Zombies in the TV show: Now that has been bugging me since episode 1: If the white walkers make lethal killing machines out of corpses (like the one that attacked Jon in episode 8 or 9) WHY do they dismember them? Do the heads and bodyparts grow back on? Do they sew them back on? Do the white Walkers use superglue???

I know that's random, but ZOMBIEMAKING intrigues me!

Re soundtrack: It's beautiful! My favourite is probably the music of Aryas training, the King in the North, the finale and the opening.

I love the soundtrack! And I can't get enough of the theme song. It's so perfect, even though it still reminds me of Rome.

As to the White Walkers, maybe some of them play with food?

[flimseycauldron]

Originally Posted by guad

Zombies in the TV show: Now that has been bugging me since episode 1: If the white walkers make lethal killing machines out of corpses (like the one that attacked Jon in episode 8 or 9) WHY do they dismember them? Do the heads and bodyparts grow back on? Do they sew them back on? Do the white Walkers use superglue???

I know that's random, but ZOMBIEMAKING intrigues me!

(Was this addressed in the books?) I don't think the White Walkers dismember the ones that they want to turn into wights.... I think that they have their killing sprees dismembering those who aren't in a position to help them and use a different ritual to convert the ones that they want to add to their ranks...

[dreyesbo]

Not sure if this is the place to discuss it, but it is the only place only Game of Thrones fans visit...

After the first season, do you think that an adaptation of the Harry Potter series (the book series; no new material) with this format/budget could work?

I mainly made my case in this topic, but most people were against it. I'm not asking if it should be done, or not, but whether it could work as television.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by dreyesbo

After the first season, do you think that an adaptation of the Harry Potter series (the book series; no new material) with this format/budget could work?

No. Game of Thrones can work in this format because the story has multiple protagonists and is told from multiple points of view. The book has individual chapters told from the point of view (POV) of a different protagonist from the prior chapter. As in all stories, there are lulls, "cliffhangers" and resolutions along the way to the end of the story. By mixing things up a little bit, the miniseries can cut between protagonists before the viewing gets "stale," and have individual episodes culminate on something new each week. The writers can (with a little work) give each episode its own "story" paralleling or microcosming the entire story.

True Blood gets to do the same thing.

This would be very difficult (if not impossible) to do with any single protagonist story.

Originally Posted by flimseycauldron

(Was this addressed in the books?) I don't think the White Walkers dismember the ones that they want to turn into wights.... I think that they have their killing sprees dismembering those who aren't in a position to help them and use a different ritual to convert the ones that they want to add to their ranks...

Suffice it to say that there are Others and there are others. It should become a little more clear in subsequent seasons.

Originally Posted by guad

Re who is Jon's mum? In the show, there's this conversation between Robert and Ned, where Jon's mum is mentioned, the mysterious Wylla. I personally hope it's her

Well, one candidate for Jon's mum is mentioned. And several clues for a 2nd candidate are preserved. 10 years ago, at least, there would have been uproar about this! After so long, however, I suspect that the debate has sort of died down, at least in terms of the number of people worrying about it.

I simply have not had time to really look, but I do wonder how the hardcore Martin fans are reacting, and how it compares to how the hardcore Potter and Tolkien fans reacted to the movies. The Potter fans, in particular, are the better comparison because the series was still on-going, and we all assumed that plot elements from early stories would be important in as-yet unpublished stories. So, many of them (us) were outraged by omissions from films (e.g., Ludo Bagman from Goblet) that they were certain would undermine future stories (as Bagman certainly was going to be important later in the series, right?). Martin is even more tightly involved than Rowling, which makes the assumption that "my hypothesis is right and the adapters have it wrong" even tougher to accept for Thrones than it was for Potter. Still, if I know anything about Homo sapiens (or any of the other primates, for that matter), that won't stop people from claiming that the writers blew it!

[guad]

Originally Posted by Wimsey

Well, one candidate for Jon's mum is mentioned. And several clues for a 2nd candidate are preserved.

Well even if another candidate is mentioned in the TV show, they have left out a very important point from the book that supports the other candidate

BOOK SPOILERS

Spoiler: show

I mean of course Lyanna Stark and Ned's fever dreams and memories about "Promise me Ned" and her dying in the tower of Joy.

So leaving this out in addition to GRRM supervising the script could be an argument against this theory.

I stil think it's the most likely though, even if I personally would prefer Wylla.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by guad

Well even if another candidate is mentioned in the TV show, they have left out a very important point from the book that supports the other candidate

BOOK SPOILERS

Spoiler: show

I mean of course Lyanna Stark and Ned's fever dreams and memories about "Promise me Ned" and her dying in the tower of Joy.

Spoiler: show

Yes, that was cut: but they could not keep it without giving things away one way or another; in the book, we can read Ned's very general description, but TV would actually have had to show us. A lot of the details that we have craved would have to be there: and it is a case where it would be very difficult to show them ambiguously. (It also would have required casting of Lyanna, but that might be a trivial issue.) Given that all of the other clues were kept (and, remember, Ned did stress to Robert in the first episode that he had made promises to Lyanna), this made them overstressed, in that they kept a greater proportion of them than they did the general narrative.

I do think that this pretty much puts a fork in the Ashara Dayne hypothesis, however. In a way, it really surprises me: having Cersei throw that in Ned's face would have been effective as it would have made the audience wonder if Ned isn't a bit of a "do as I say, not as I do" hypocrite. I seem to recall that the N+A=J crowd was waning 10 years ago, however, and Feast of Crows provided only one evidence that it was her: and as that was equal evidence that it was Lyanna or Wyalia, it really was not evidence at all!

(I do remember someone once actually taking all of Martin's information and showing that Ned was nowhere near either Ashara or Wyalia when Jon was conceived. However, I would hesitate to take that too seriously as it's possible that Martin screwed up!)

Out of curiousity, why do you prefer Wyalia?

Spoiler: show

(There are two other outstanding mysteries, and Lyanna as Jon's mum makes Jon a good answer for them; I personally much prefer tightly plotted stories where the answer to one question is also the answer to another.

It's a long way away, and there is no guarantee that the series will even make it that far, but have they said anything about how they would handle Feast of Crows / Dance with Dragons? For those unfamiliar with the history of the books, this was supposed to be one volume, but Martin split it after it got to be way too long. He made the split by protagonists and POV characters: so, some popular characters got completely removed from Feast.

I cannot see them going a whole season without those characters (2 of which, at least, are among the most popular on the show), so I am betting that they will merge the two books back together for the season. (The Lord of the Rings basically did this, merging Books 3 & 4 and then Books 5 & 6.)

[dreyesbo]

Originally Posted by Wimsey

It's a long way away, and there is no guarantee that the series will even make it that far, but have they said anything about how they would handle Feast of Crows / Dance with Dragons?

No, they haven't gotten that far, but it does sound possible. No way there are gonna bench some characters for a year. However, it even puts more pressure on GRRM to keep writing.

They have mentioned how to handle ASOS, because it's a big book. It would probably take 1.5 or 2 seasons to tell, but it would really wreck some characters arcs. I hope they do two seasons, and figure out a way for it to work.

[Lord Godric]

Originally Posted by Wimsey

It's a long way away, and there is no guarantee that the series will even make it that far, but have they said anything about how they would handle Feast of Crows / Dance with Dragons? For those unfamiliar with the history of the books, this was supposed to be one volume, but Martin split it after it got to be way too long. He made the split by protagonists and POV characters: so, some popular characters got completely removed from Feast.

I cannot see them going a whole season without those characters (2 of which, at least, are among the most popular on the show), so I am betting that they will merge the two books back together for the season. (The Lord of the Rings basically did this, merging Books 3 & 4 and then Books 5 & 6.)

I personally hope they do merge Feast and Dance back together, but I would not want them to then cram the two books into one season. I imagine they'll make two seasons out of the two books but tell us the whole story not just half first, half later.

Originally Posted by dreyesbo

No, they haven't gotten that far, but it does sound possible. No way there are gonna bench some characters for a year. However, it even puts more pressure on GRRM to keep writing.

They have mentioned how to handle ASOS, because it's a big book. It would probably take 1.5 or 2 seasons to tell, but it would really wreck some characters arcs. I hope they do two seasons, and figure out a way for it to work.

I know GRRM wants them to split ASoS into two seasons simply because it is so large a book and ten hours couldn't cover it all, but HBO seems to want go stick with the one book/one season thing. But that could change as they begin to seriously consider the third season.

Also splitting ASoS could then create a problem with ADwD as it is just pages shorter and I am sure covers just as much as ASoS does. So they would then have to ask whether to split Dance on top of the problem of merging books fours and five. Honestly it's a logistical nightmare and I'm glad I don't need to solve it.

[Wimsey]

They can easily do A Storm of Swords in one season. Indeed, I think that they will kill the series if they do not: for every one person you turn off by "rushing" something, you turn off multiple people by dragging it out. People will want the season to get to some point in the end.

It is a very different series, but I suspect that Tru Blood has some pointers for this. (I am going by what my wife has told me, as she's read it, but she's pretty sharp on these things.)

[Moriath]

Originally Posted by Wimsey

It is a very different series, but I suspect that Tru Blood has some pointers for this. (I am going by what my wife has told me, as she's read it, but she's pretty sharp on these things.)

Actually, True Blood turned a lot of viewers off with their sensationalist plots that have moonsized logic holes in them. And they seem to favour introducing weird and ill-explained stories over the ones in the books, even though they are far more interesting, in my view. As I see it, Game of Thrones would do well not to copy anything True Blood does.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by Moriath

Actually, True Blood turned a lot of viewers off with their sensationalist plots that have moonsized logic holes in them.

True Blood's ratings have been very good, and the season opener tied the series high in ratings. This doesn't mean that TB hasn't turned off some viewers, but it does mean that TB has turned on more viewers than it has turned off.

Thrones has to do that if it's going to make it to the point where they will worry about how to merge Feast/Dance. (As Thrones almost certainly is more expensive than True Blood, it will have a higher minimum ratings necessary to keep it going.) Keeping things "snappy" is necessary (albeit insufficient) way to do that, and it's one thing that TB has done. Whether they want to do it the same way that TB has done it is an entirely different matter. (I haven't read the TB books, so I cannot really comment here: I only learn about the changes as my wife mentions them.)

[dreyesbo]

Oh, I agree that shows need to keep moving. I'm wondering about the logistic of several big events and climaxes on ASOS happening in one season. There's the belief by some that certain events and character arcs will move to Season 2, so that may give us an idea of how they'll adapt ASOS.

On True Blood, while it maintains high ratings, as an adaptation is far from close to the source material, as no doubt your wife has told you. GoT can't allow to deviate without changing the story. In fact, people angry on Twitter by Ned's death were wondering why didn't they pull off a "True Blood". That is, letting a character live, when in the books he died. True Blood can pull that off, but Game of Thrones can't.

[Wimsey]

I think that the Twitter folks could not see the story for the plot! However, I am suggesting TB as a general model, not a specific one. According to my wife, although the TV series changes a lot of plot elements, the stories remain the same. (She also says that every book basically retells the same story in a different way, so this might make things easier!).

My understanding is that one diffence is the emphasis given to different characters. This might be very important for Thrones. No, don't resurrect Ned or (King) Robert; however, pay attention to which plot lines grab people and which characters grab people. Now, if it happens that some of those characters die, well, that only means that the plot line and character will have an even more resounding impact than they would have done.

It is this sort of general adaptation I am advocating. Emphasize the things that work, replace the things that don't. Keeping or resurrecting a character that died in the book is an extreme form of this; but replacing Glorfindel with Arwen or Eomer with Eowyn is the same sort of thing. In the end, it often will keep a retelling closer to the story, too.

[guad]

Originally Posted by Wimsey

Out of curiousity, why do you prefer Wyalia?


It's a long way away, and there is no guarantee that the series will even make it that far, but have they said anything about how they would handle Feast of Crows / Dance with Dragons?

Honestly, only because it would be the one thing nobody expects. Everyone is speculating about Jon's parentage and it would be hilarious if it just was what was said in the beginning. Unlikely though

Well, about a speculative season 4, we haven't read ADWD yet, but I personally would probably prefer if they merged AFFC and ADWD in one season (maybe with 12 episodes rather than 10?) mainly because we can't have a season without some major players.

It's also possible that they "merge" book 3, 4 and 5 into two seasons, like for example interchanging scenes. We already had a scene in season 1 that belonged to book 2 (Jaime and Cat conversation)

I don't know though. I just hope the series continues to be good and most importantly, successful

[Lord Godric]

I think it would be such a disservice to the books to merge books 4 and 5 into one season. There certainly is a lot to cut from Feast but Dance is the second largest novel in the series thus far. To then merge it with another book and try to cram all the stories into one season would mean drastic, severe cuts. I think the best solution would be to merge them and then split them into two seasons. I don't know if the show will ever run the full course of the books, but I certainly would love to see them give it an honest effort and not cram the whole story in 4 seasons. Besides, they need to give GRRM time to finish writing the series, and that could take an awfully long time.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by Lord Godric

I think it would be such a disservice to the books to merge books 4 and 5 into one season.

If they don't, then they give at least 2 of the main characters a complete year off. Moreover, they will give two of the most interesting characters a complete year off.

Spoiler: show

It's only one season, but it seems that Tyrion and Jon Snow are, with Arya, the most popular surviving characters of the TV series so far.

That would kill the series then and there (assuming, of course, that it makes it that far).

It has been a while since I read Feast, but I do remember being struck by "Order of the Phoenix" like it was: i.e., a lot of unnecessary narrative. This series is working so far, and given that the "action/adventure" part is actually very low-key, it must be for the Tudors-like sociopolitical/character drama. That should provide a good guide as what to cut, or at least what to severely reduce.


Ultimately, though, there is an issue about story-telling. Feast told a story all by itself; is Dances going to be telling the same story in different ways? The fact that he wrote (or at least began) most of it while writing Feast suggests that they are telling the same story. If not, then there is a greater challenge. This series will work best if each season tells a single story, so either they adapt the different character lines to unite for a single story as in the books OR take a chance and make it a "dual" story. (Having the season conclude with no story told would, I think, also reduce interest in the series.)

Originally Posted by guad

Honestly, only because it would be the one thing nobody expects. Everyone is speculating about Jon's parentage and it would be hilarious if it just was what was said in the beginning. Unlikely though

Funny, yes, but...

Spoiler: show

... it will be important that it actually fit into story somewhere. In retrospect, Jon as Lyanna's son fits perfectly into the story as, once again, Ned's sense of honor and duty come into conflict: keeping his promises to Lyanna mean lying and allowing others to think that he is much less "honorable" (really, morally consistent) than he actually is. If Jon is his son by either Ashara or Wyalia (or by whomever this new candidate will be), then Ned is just the hypocrite that Cersei accuses him of being!

Again, it's sort of like Snape: given that this is story rather than history, things have to add up than more than "just what was said"! In this case, it really should touch on the idea that, no matter what Ned did regarding Jon, he was betraying some person(s) and/or value(s). That is, after all, what the first story was!

[Lord Godric]

I don think you're understanding me, Wimsey. I mean I think they should combine the two books so that we have the full narrative, all the characters. But then split that into two seasons. That way we'd get all the characters and 20 episodes to tell the story of the two books.

Spoiler: show

Oh, and Arya is in Feast. It's Dany, Jon, Tyrion and Bran who aren't. Still popular, but just saying.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by Lord Godric

I don think you're understanding me, Wimsey. I mean I think they should combine the two books so that we have the full narrative, all the characters. But then split that into two seasons. That way we'd get all the characters and 20 episodes to tell the story of the two books.

Again, each season has to tell a story. If they take an entire season and fail to tell a story, then it's going to drag badly, and probably lose audience.

Spoiler: show

The only POV lines worth keeping are Arya's, Sansa's, Cersei's and Jaimie's. Sam is interesting only as a sidekick, and that whole bit in Dorne is just Lockhart-at-the-Hospital level irrelevance. I still have not figured out what purpose Brienne serves. So, focus on the 4 aforementioned characters: they alone are adequate for telling Martin's story about people trying to be someone other than who they really are. Integrate in Jon's, Tyrion's, Dany's and Bran's storylines, and you tell an entertaining story or pair of stories, with the season culminating on .

Originally Posted by Lord Godric

Spoiler: show

Oh, and Arya is in Feast. It's Dany, Jon, Tyrion and Bran who aren't. Still popular, but just saying.

Spoiler: show

I noted that Arya was in Feast above when I noted that the other two of three most popular characters so far are not in that story. But that is a good point about Dany: I'd bet that she's #4. So, that would be only one of the 4 most popular characters!

Again, what is going to make this work is not sticking to the book, but sticking to the story and keeping it entertaining. Again, we only have to contrast Harry Potter (stuck to the book) with Lord of the Rings (stuck to the story) to see how effective the two strategies are!

[Lord Godric]

I think it is too premature in the series for fans like ourselves who do not know where certain PoVs are going to call them entirely irrelevant.

Spoiler: show

Especially the part about Dorne, which seems to have a large part to play in Dance.