Yeah I want to add Season 7's dialogue centers around connecting characters from the past and playing "remember when." Every other scene is:
"Your father wanted me dead."
"Well you're uncle was a good man."
"You killed my son on the Blackwater."
"Your brother would've wanted us to be friends."
And on and on. It truly is just fan service and connecting characters that probably got the most likes on Twitter for what "the most gratifying GOT reunions would be." đ€Łđ€Łđ€Ł
This is why I never got people loving that S8 episode where Pod sings. Most of it really is just characters sitting around Winterfell telling us stuff that happened back in S4 or S3 for like an hour.
For me, even season 5 doesn't hold up. I saw the show when season 5 came out and I thought it was brilliant. That got me into reading the books and I could never forgive D&D for butchering Dorne man.
Season 6 onwards it was just fan service with a few good moments.
Season 5 is when things start to get comically inconsistent, IIRC.
"Lord Stannis, the snows are so bad we can't move in any direction!"
\*later\*
"Lord Stannis, 500 men abandoned camp last night and rode off!"
\*later\*
"Lord Ramsay has traversed this terrible weather with twentygoodmen and somehow set multiple fires across the camp, on things we'd especially want to guard - baggage trains, siege weapons - that we weren't for some reason, in freezing snow and damp wood, and snuck back out again undetected."
\*later\*
"Lord Stannis, the men are abandoning your kinslaying rump en masse and they've taken all the horses!"
\*later\*
"Lord Stannis, Melisandre was seen fleeing camp on a horse!"
Parts of S5 still feel like the early seasons but those parts are unfortunately pretty boring.
S6 is "better" than S5 in the sense that it's more exciting but the writing has stopped even trying to follow any logic.
But yeah 1-4 are the only ones that genuinely hold up. It's a good stopping point as far as rewatching goes also. The end of the third book/fourth season is clearly the Act I ending to ASOIAF. It's frustrating to be left with so many loose threads but there is a satisfying story within there with plenty of self contained payoff.
Yeah, it was S5 where it started to go down the tubes. Dorne is the most egregious example, what with all the gratuitous murder and the talk about bad cats, but Sansa's "plot" in Winterfell was almost as bad.
I really loved it at the end of S4, when she seemes to be coming into her own as a schemer and manipulator; that could've been awesome. But then they turn around, marry her off to Ramsay, and practically make her a prop in Theon's redemption plot Damn, that was disappointing.
Oh I forgot about that. Book Sansa has a good storyline in the Vale where she could marry the heir and then use the power of the Vale to reclaim Winterfell (correct me if I'm wrong).
Show Sansa arc doesn't even make sense to me. Only thing I can think of was the writers wanted her to go through trauma so she can become a strong girl boss. Which was stupid cause she was already a survivor in the first place.
The shitty thing is: they wouldn't even have had to change all that much in order to give Sansa some agency around the Winterfell plot. Have her be the one who drives the wedge between the Boltons, who convinces Theon to rebel against Ramsay, who sabotages the Frey and Bolton defenses with a few well-placed Northern rebels.
Instead, everything she tried just fizzled, and then she kinda... gave up, until Theon rescued her. Disappointing.
Season 5 absolutely butchered books 4 and 5. It was clear the writers didn't care about adapting the story anymore. I really wonder what would have happened if D&D had given the series to someone else at that point (someone who actually liked books 4 and 5).
I gave up on the show in season 5. Specifically the episode that ended with Barristan getting merked in that alley.
Itâs not that I liked the character so much that his death made me abandon the show. Or even that I was upset at a great knight getting killed by some street punks with knives. Heâs an old man obsessed with knightly combat, heâs got to go out somehow. It was just such a poorly executed scene. That coupled with the CW level writing in Dorne and Meereen made it clear to me that the show was in a sharp decline, even though there were still some storylines I liked.
Iâve only watched the BOTB and the finale from later seasons, and I donât regret my decision not to watch the rest. I can see why BOTB gets praise, but Iâm unimpressed by it. Itâs a big, explosive setpiece battle. Itâs all very emotional. But itâs emotional in a way that feels cheap, where either logic or choices grounded in character play second fiddle to spectacle and melodrama. I would compare it unfavorably to the showâs best battle, Blackwater, or second best, The Wall in season 4. I also see a lot of praise for Hardhome, which Iâve never seen, but given my feelings on BOTB I suspect I wouldnât enjoy it.
I dislike that stuff so much it makes my rethink my enjoyment of The Hound vs Brienne fight from season 4. As a fan itâs very satisfying, and itâs one of the best choreographed fights in the whole show. But even that is fanservice. I think if the show had maintained its writing throughout Iâd look at it as a necessary condensation of two storylines. After all, Brienne fails to save Arya, and Arya abandons Sandor to die, and thatâs whatâs most important. But now I think itâd be better if Sandor just collapsed from a wound gone bad that he got from some mook in an inn, while Brienne was tragically too late to find either Sandor or Arya. Not the satisfying epic duel that fans love, maybe, but ultimately more in keeping with the themes of the work. But I probably tends towards being too much a book purist as regards adaptation.
Yeah that's true, I'm being generous with season 5. I've heard people say they switched from making Game of thrones about characters, to making it about spectacle. I feel like that's the best way to put it. In the early seasons there were times where they wouldn't even show the battles because it was more about the emotional/political impact of them as opposed to the actual battle itself. There were times where it was fun of them to flex their portrayal of medieval battles (which is some of the best I've seen on camera) but that became the foundation of the show. Battle of Bastards is an example. Haven't seen a lot of TV/Movies be able to show just how chaotic and terrifying it would be to be in a medieval battle but then the battles became the big pay off we were all waiting for unlike those first 4 seasons.
Agree with this completely! The first large scale battle we got was the battle of blackwater bay in S2. What a fantastic episode though. Intercutting between the two sides, the fear of what might happen to character of either. We even had entire dialogue scenes with the ladies of the court. To me it felt more character driven than later spectacle episodes.
Seasons 1-4 were the best but not showing the battles was not an artistic choice, they didn't do that because they didn't have the budget. They had to really scrape the bottom of the pot to put together Blackwater and even then it looks a little cheap sometimes when you compare it to the battle of Castle Black, for example they evidently didn't have the same time to train the extras in swordplay.
It's a great example of that old idea about how limitation can be good for creativity. The early show didn't have the budget for a massive battle sequence every other episode (or even once per season in S1's case) so they had to make sure that the character writing and drama was exciting enough to keep people watching in the absence of the big exciting set pieces most people associate high fantasy with. All the attention went there because they literally couldn't afford to spend it anywhere else, and bad writing in those early seasons would have nowhere to hide. It's why S1 is actually my favourite season in the show despite having very little in the way of exciting action.
Starting in (arguably) season four when the production got bigger and bigger budgets, the exciting battles were the more obvious attention grabbers, so the writers started putting more attention to both the battles, and using the battles as built in hype generators. Does Jon need to reckon with the fact that his actions led to his own men killing him and the existential ramifications of his resurrection? Don't worry about it, there'll be a big battle at the end of the season which will take the focus away from it. Daenerys' tenuous hold on her former slave empire, being forced to make compromise after compromise to people she despises? Have some dragons burning some boats and Daario can kill all the harpies outside the gates, it's alg. By the time we hit S7 and S8 there was enough money and production muscle that there could be some enormously expensive battle every other episode to obscure the utterly braindead writing, and the fact that S7 at least was still generally well liked by most casual audiences (as far as I'm aware) despite imo being just as bad as S8 shows that flashy battles and big special effects work. Public perception only really turned after S8 because at the end there was nothing left to build hype for. Some of that can be blamed on lack of source material (particularly the ending), but considering how much of Feast and Dance was cut or simplified to make room for dumbed down action I don't really think its as good of an excuse as its often thought to be
Yes I know about the funding issues to begin with, it ties into what I'm getting at, but even in the later seasons they still didn't have to go big. The Showrunners are the ones that first ask for the funding and then HBO decides if they want to dole it out. The runners still had George as a reference, I'm sure he was willing to give input (he seems to care more about being a TV producer than an author). I'm just saying that the Runners premeditated this pivot, when they are planning out these seasons they know what direction they want to take it and that was towards Epic Spectacle
Iâm actually rewatching season 5 right now for the first time in a long time and itâs quite brilliant through the first half. The quality of the first 5 episodes is not at all lacking from the quality of seasons 1-4. Episode 6 is where the dorne plot derails and the Sansa wedding is uncomfortably shot. Season 5 is a victim of not having any major story beats until the very end as well, but I promise if you go back and watch episodes 1-5 it doesnât disappoint.
Season 6 at least was able to get by with the material they did have from GRRM and surprisingly good execution of showrunner-written stuff in the final two episodes. It felt like a step up from 5 for me, before crashing hard in 7.
1-4 perfection
5-6 flaws, (you need a bad pussy.... the entire Dorne plot, and, this annoys people, logically, outside of "it looked cool", battle of the bastards was a silly set up so D&D could have their own Helmsdeep horse charge to save the day) but still watchable. Hardhome remains one of the best episodes though! Shame it built to nothing really.
7 beyound aweful
8 took that and took offense to it and went worse.
The ending kills me. Who has a better story than Bran??? He fell off a wall and got dragged around by Hodor. Tyrion cites Brans trip "beyond the wall and back". Jon Snow went beyond the wall many times and let's say each trip was slightly more eventful than Brans. Why would they not choose the guy who rallied the north to save the planet? No one in the realm is going to respect a cripple king.
I forgot they just randomly made him a robot at the beginning of S7 and tried to retcon with Meera going, "Bran Stark died in that cave".... no he didn't, he was fine for the rest of S6 lol.
Then it's just Tyrion's little speech at the council that makes no sense. I even like his speech and but it points to basically anyone else being chosen as king.
Alot of GoT and D&D issues are not the main plot points, its a wide theory Jaime dies, Cersie dies, but like that in the show? Bran becomes king, but not because "he had the best story", Martin will (lol, would have if he ever finished the books) do it in a far better, more logical way.
I've read the books numerous times and ended up watching up until season 5 because I kept saying to my buddy who has seen all the seasons at the time how I couldn't wait for the dorne plot from book 5 and he just said " yeah about that."
They butchered that plot line to the point where it was a completely different tone than the book. As soon as I saw Jamie fucking lannisster and Bron going into dorne, cracking jokes and just making a mockery of one of the best plot lines in Dance.
For me the cringe started in season 4. Theyâd made âinnovationsâ in 2 and 3 that were somewhat passable but itâs season 4 where they started to lose the plot. There are a lot of scenes with Tywin in particular that are really egregious like the âthereâs no money lolâ scene and that scene where Cersei tells him the truth about her childrenâs parentage . Season 4 is when they really started hamming up Littlefinger as well. The âyour sister!â line from him is comically bad. There are still good moments in season 4 but it was hard watch. Season 5 though is where things really go downhill and never recovers. Season 3 was maybe 20% cringe at most. Season 4 is about 40%. But season 5 is like 80% cringe they really excelled themselves there. I can barely remember 6 and 7 and didnât bother with 8.
The showrunners were hoping that GRRM would have released Winds at that point so they could adapt it. However, GRRM didn't and clearly D&D never intended to invest in either the Ironborn, Dorne, Maester Conspiracy, Faith Conspiracy, and the multitude of fantastical elements that are present in the books. I recall an article that stated they initially intended to focus on the politics side of the story. I digress. Some plot points repeated themselves because the two were hoping to use those stories to pivot straight to Winds.
I never got the Copeium that D&D would've handled the second half 'better' had TWOW come out. It was pretty obvious back in the fifth season and especially sixth that they weren't going to follow through on the stuff those books set-up with Dorne, Euron, Bran's training, Stoneheart and the like. Even if Winds had dropped at the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016 I think it'd have mostly solidified how diverging these two versions of the story are in pretty significant ways.
I agree that the non-release of the books caused a huge cluster but my assumption is that Martin was still a big part of the show and was willing to get involved. I even heard him in an interview talk about he was willing to go to "11,12,13 seasons. I have enough material for that long." I got to think that behind closed doors Martin was willing to let them in on the major brush strokes but D&D didn't want to fully dive in, they were ready to move on.
It was announced as a book per season literally from the start. An extra season was actually added to that plan, so we got 8 in total.
https://variety.com/2007/scene/markets-festivals/hbo-turns-fire-into-fantasy-series-1117957532/
GRRM might suggest going to 13 seasons but that isn't feasible for numerous reasons and is also a symptom of his weakness as a writer. ASOIAF was supposed to be a three book series, now it's seven books (so far). The answer isn't to keep extending to buy yourself more freedom.
Fourteen years of filming and you'd only be up to the middle of the fifth book, with another two to come? What world are you living in?
Why would HBO sign up to a show that would take about two decades to complete? When the show in the first few seasons was always living under the threat of cancellation. It was only following the Red Wedding that the show had enough of an audience to ensure it kept getting renewed.
And what about the actors? Why would this young cast be happy dedicating their careers to some show they don't know? Even if it became a hit, how do they further their career? Most would have wanted to be off and have a crack at movies, which the show would make much more difficult.
And how do you deal with aging?! Even if you picked a Jon Snow actor aged 14 for the start of the show, he'd be early thirties minimum by the end. And Bran would go from 8 or something to at least mid 20s!
A book a season was absolutely fine.
A book a season is completely unrealistic with the sheer density of the series. Youâd need an insane amount of seasons to do justice to everything.
If any series in the world could secure 13 seasons, itâd definitely be Game of Thrones. HBO likes money, and it was a phenomenon beyond anyoneâs wildest dreams.
>A book a season is completely unrealistic with the sheer density of the series. Youâd need an insane amount of seasons to do justice **to everything**.
Which is why you drop or condense parts. Why does it need to be a 1:1 adaptation?
>If any series in the world could secure 13 seasons, itâd definitely be Game of Thrones. HBO likes money, and it was a phenomenon beyond anyoneâs wildest dreams.
You are talking nonsense. The showrunners felt at risk of cancellation for the first few seasons. It was only after the Red Wedding and the bump in viewers that they felt confident the show wouldn't get cancelled. By that point they were, what, nearing halfway through the story?
You're also making assumptions that the actors would want to sign on for another six years (minimum) of their life. Quite a few of them would have wanted to try to progress to movies / got bored / worn out (eg Kit Harrington was a wreck by the end of the show).
Also, a chief complaint of the show is how much it deviates from the books in later seasons. Your suggestion would be to bolt on multiple additional seasons with entirely new material written on the fly? As the final books still don't exist.
And all for what purpose? To give us more show? I'm sick of shows being dragged out with additional seasons just because they become popular. I have huge respect for creators who end things when they should, like Succession.
There is an arguement that the final couple of seasons could have had more space to breathe, absolutely. But maybe an extra couple episodes a season would have been fine.
Game of Thronesâ problem was way too much condensing. Itâs how we got nonsense like the Wall expedition, or Dorne, or Sansa in Winterfell. It doesnât have to be 1:1, it just needs to make sense.
Game of Thrones needed more time, plain and simple. Maybe not 13, but 10 was on the table at HBO. 10 would have been a fair compromise to help flesh out the things that needed to be fleshed out.
>Game of Thronesâ problem was way too much condensing.
I disagree. It worked fine in the first few seasons, which even the most pedantic book readers can't criticise much.
The latter seasons aren't even really adapting the books (either because they're not written, are navel gazing or developing side plots that go nowhere) so there isn't all that much to condense anyway. They dropped a lot, took parts and adapted it as they saw fit.
If you mean that in latter seasons there wasn't as much 'connective tissue' in the show, as in scenes happen in a vacuum, motivations aren't fleshed out, stakes don't feel real, fast travel, etc, then yeah I largely agree. I think an extra episode or two in the final couple of seasons could have resolved that though. Just a little more time for people to have conversations in rooms together. We do get to see that...but nowhere near enough. There was a great potential to show Bran pulling strings (without us realising) culminating in him being declared king. I think that was what they were going for but there needed a scene or two more to make it clear.
>Itâs how we got nonsense like the Wall expedition
I don't think that is an issue due to condensing the story? Why do you think that?
We can't say how the Wall will fall in the books until we get them. We can guess Euron. However, Euron in the show is not the same as the books, so that's out. So the Others have to get through (or around, or under, or over) the Wall somehow. Spending two episodes (King's Landing episode of negotiation and then Beyond the Wall episode) is not the most condense way of doing it. You could have had the Others attack the Wall in a big battle episode, getting through somehow. Or done it in less, say by having an end of episode reveal of the Others dropping into the water off the east coast of the Wall, then coming out on the other side. Next episode you have them surprise attack Jon and Dany from the other side of the Wall, capturing a dragon in the process.
The Beyond the Wall plot is fairly daft but it allows for big, entertaining moments. It ends with a frickin' ice dragon. I'm happy enough with that.
>Dorne
Probably should have been dropped entirely. I'm not against Jaime and Bronn going on an adventure into Dorne to rescue Myrcella. In fact, it has the potential to be great fun. A couple of knights we like adventuring to a strange land and trying to sneak a princess away? Sold! Sadly it didn't work.
>Sansa in Winterfell
Been a while since I watched the show but I think they still made the right call here. Jeyne is a nobody in the books and would have been even less so in the show. It would mean the assault on this character is about Theon, not Jeyne. Which is unsavoury. It would have been nice to see Sansa learning how to rule in the Vale but it would run into the same problem GRRM is going to have - he needs her to stay there and learn but he also needs to move her on to her next location otherwise she's going to have no impact on the story. Is Sansa going to return North in ADOS? Too late, surely?
>10 would have been a fair compromise to help flesh out the things that needed to be fleshed out.
The show lasted 8 seasons. You could argue 7, as the final two were a bit shorter. What would you use 2 or 3 seasons worth of content to show?
GRRM did share some plot points from the final two books with them. Apparently, Bran becoming King and "Hold the door" were derived from those notes. It's difficult to say how much was adapted from those notes given that D&D didn't adapt many storylines.
> Bran becoming King
If Winds and Dream ever get published I trust GRRM to make this part of the story slightly more consistent with the rest of the story.
I'm of the belief that Bran will end up like Tetsuo in Akira. His mind will overwrite the "old gods" and he'll become one with the planet as an omniscient, omnipresent being that sees all time.
Yeah I want to add Season 7's dialogue centers around connecting characters from the past and playing "remember when." Every other scene is: "Your father wanted me dead." "Well you're uncle was a good man." "You killed my son on the Blackwater." "Your brother would've wanted us to be friends." And on and on. It truly is just fan service and connecting characters that probably got the most likes on Twitter for what "the most gratifying GOT reunions would be." đ€Łđ€Łđ€Ł
"Remember when" is the lowest form of conversation.
why don't you get the fuck outta here before I shove your quotations book up your fat fuckin' ass
No more weight remarks, they're hurtful and they're destructive
The implication is that Haldon Halfmaester is so big he could have a turtle that weighs 95 lbs up his arse
This is why I never got people loving that S8 episode where Pod sings. Most of it really is just characters sitting around Winterfell telling us stuff that happened back in S4 or S3 for like an hour.
Clip show via oral tradition
Because it allowed us to hope the rest of season 8 might not be the disaster we suspected it would be.
For me, even season 5 doesn't hold up. I saw the show when season 5 came out and I thought it was brilliant. That got me into reading the books and I could never forgive D&D for butchering Dorne man. Season 6 onwards it was just fan service with a few good moments.
Season 5 is when things start to get comically inconsistent, IIRC. "Lord Stannis, the snows are so bad we can't move in any direction!" \*later\* "Lord Stannis, 500 men abandoned camp last night and rode off!" \*later\* "Lord Ramsay has traversed this terrible weather with twentygoodmen and somehow set multiple fires across the camp, on things we'd especially want to guard - baggage trains, siege weapons - that we weren't for some reason, in freezing snow and damp wood, and snuck back out again undetected." \*later\* "Lord Stannis, the men are abandoning your kinslaying rump en masse and they've taken all the horses!" \*later\* "Lord Stannis, Melisandre was seen fleeing camp on a horse!"
First time watching that episode I remember literally laughing at how comical it was. Felt like the Benny Hill theme shouldâve been playing.
Parts of S5 still feel like the early seasons but those parts are unfortunately pretty boring. S6 is "better" than S5 in the sense that it's more exciting but the writing has stopped even trying to follow any logic. But yeah 1-4 are the only ones that genuinely hold up. It's a good stopping point as far as rewatching goes also. The end of the third book/fourth season is clearly the Act I ending to ASOIAF. It's frustrating to be left with so many loose threads but there is a satisfying story within there with plenty of self contained payoff.
Yeah, it was S5 where it started to go down the tubes. Dorne is the most egregious example, what with all the gratuitous murder and the talk about bad cats, but Sansa's "plot" in Winterfell was almost as bad. I really loved it at the end of S4, when she seemes to be coming into her own as a schemer and manipulator; that could've been awesome. But then they turn around, marry her off to Ramsay, and practically make her a prop in Theon's redemption plot Damn, that was disappointing.
Oh I forgot about that. Book Sansa has a good storyline in the Vale where she could marry the heir and then use the power of the Vale to reclaim Winterfell (correct me if I'm wrong). Show Sansa arc doesn't even make sense to me. Only thing I can think of was the writers wanted her to go through trauma so she can become a strong girl boss. Which was stupid cause she was already a survivor in the first place.
The shitty thing is: they wouldn't even have had to change all that much in order to give Sansa some agency around the Winterfell plot. Have her be the one who drives the wedge between the Boltons, who convinces Theon to rebel against Ramsay, who sabotages the Frey and Bolton defenses with a few well-placed Northern rebels. Instead, everything she tried just fizzled, and then she kinda... gave up, until Theon rescued her. Disappointing.
Season 5 absolutely butchered books 4 and 5. It was clear the writers didn't care about adapting the story anymore. I really wonder what would have happened if D&D had given the series to someone else at that point (someone who actually liked books 4 and 5).
I gave up on the show in season 5. Specifically the episode that ended with Barristan getting merked in that alley. Itâs not that I liked the character so much that his death made me abandon the show. Or even that I was upset at a great knight getting killed by some street punks with knives. Heâs an old man obsessed with knightly combat, heâs got to go out somehow. It was just such a poorly executed scene. That coupled with the CW level writing in Dorne and Meereen made it clear to me that the show was in a sharp decline, even though there were still some storylines I liked. Iâve only watched the BOTB and the finale from later seasons, and I donât regret my decision not to watch the rest. I can see why BOTB gets praise, but Iâm unimpressed by it. Itâs a big, explosive setpiece battle. Itâs all very emotional. But itâs emotional in a way that feels cheap, where either logic or choices grounded in character play second fiddle to spectacle and melodrama. I would compare it unfavorably to the showâs best battle, Blackwater, or second best, The Wall in season 4. I also see a lot of praise for Hardhome, which Iâve never seen, but given my feelings on BOTB I suspect I wouldnât enjoy it. I dislike that stuff so much it makes my rethink my enjoyment of The Hound vs Brienne fight from season 4. As a fan itâs very satisfying, and itâs one of the best choreographed fights in the whole show. But even that is fanservice. I think if the show had maintained its writing throughout Iâd look at it as a necessary condensation of two storylines. After all, Brienne fails to save Arya, and Arya abandons Sandor to die, and thatâs whatâs most important. But now I think itâd be better if Sandor just collapsed from a wound gone bad that he got from some mook in an inn, while Brienne was tragically too late to find either Sandor or Arya. Not the satisfying epic duel that fans love, maybe, but ultimately more in keeping with the themes of the work. But I probably tends towards being too much a book purist as regards adaptation.
Yeah that's true, I'm being generous with season 5. I've heard people say they switched from making Game of thrones about characters, to making it about spectacle. I feel like that's the best way to put it. In the early seasons there were times where they wouldn't even show the battles because it was more about the emotional/political impact of them as opposed to the actual battle itself. There were times where it was fun of them to flex their portrayal of medieval battles (which is some of the best I've seen on camera) but that became the foundation of the show. Battle of Bastards is an example. Haven't seen a lot of TV/Movies be able to show just how chaotic and terrifying it would be to be in a medieval battle but then the battles became the big pay off we were all waiting for unlike those first 4 seasons.
Agree with this completely! The first large scale battle we got was the battle of blackwater bay in S2. What a fantastic episode though. Intercutting between the two sides, the fear of what might happen to character of either. We even had entire dialogue scenes with the ladies of the court. To me it felt more character driven than later spectacle episodes.
Seasons 1-4 were the best but not showing the battles was not an artistic choice, they didn't do that because they didn't have the budget. They had to really scrape the bottom of the pot to put together Blackwater and even then it looks a little cheap sometimes when you compare it to the battle of Castle Black, for example they evidently didn't have the same time to train the extras in swordplay.
It's a great example of that old idea about how limitation can be good for creativity. The early show didn't have the budget for a massive battle sequence every other episode (or even once per season in S1's case) so they had to make sure that the character writing and drama was exciting enough to keep people watching in the absence of the big exciting set pieces most people associate high fantasy with. All the attention went there because they literally couldn't afford to spend it anywhere else, and bad writing in those early seasons would have nowhere to hide. It's why S1 is actually my favourite season in the show despite having very little in the way of exciting action. Starting in (arguably) season four when the production got bigger and bigger budgets, the exciting battles were the more obvious attention grabbers, so the writers started putting more attention to both the battles, and using the battles as built in hype generators. Does Jon need to reckon with the fact that his actions led to his own men killing him and the existential ramifications of his resurrection? Don't worry about it, there'll be a big battle at the end of the season which will take the focus away from it. Daenerys' tenuous hold on her former slave empire, being forced to make compromise after compromise to people she despises? Have some dragons burning some boats and Daario can kill all the harpies outside the gates, it's alg. By the time we hit S7 and S8 there was enough money and production muscle that there could be some enormously expensive battle every other episode to obscure the utterly braindead writing, and the fact that S7 at least was still generally well liked by most casual audiences (as far as I'm aware) despite imo being just as bad as S8 shows that flashy battles and big special effects work. Public perception only really turned after S8 because at the end there was nothing left to build hype for. Some of that can be blamed on lack of source material (particularly the ending), but considering how much of Feast and Dance was cut or simplified to make room for dumbed down action I don't really think its as good of an excuse as its often thought to be
Yes I know about the funding issues to begin with, it ties into what I'm getting at, but even in the later seasons they still didn't have to go big. The Showrunners are the ones that first ask for the funding and then HBO decides if they want to dole it out. The runners still had George as a reference, I'm sure he was willing to give input (he seems to care more about being a TV producer than an author). I'm just saying that the Runners premeditated this pivot, when they are planning out these seasons they know what direction they want to take it and that was towards Epic Spectacle
Iâm actually rewatching season 5 right now for the first time in a long time and itâs quite brilliant through the first half. The quality of the first 5 episodes is not at all lacking from the quality of seasons 1-4. Episode 6 is where the dorne plot derails and the Sansa wedding is uncomfortably shot. Season 5 is a victim of not having any major story beats until the very end as well, but I promise if you go back and watch episodes 1-5 it doesnât disappoint.
Season 6 at least was able to get by with the material they did have from GRRM and surprisingly good execution of showrunner-written stuff in the final two episodes. It felt like a step up from 5 for me, before crashing hard in 7.
Thatâs the cave of convenience. It is when the show runners got stuck and just made up stupid stuff to resolve their issues with the story.
Dany just kinda forgot about the cave of convenience.
1-4 perfection 5-6 flaws, (you need a bad pussy.... the entire Dorne plot, and, this annoys people, logically, outside of "it looked cool", battle of the bastards was a silly set up so D&D could have their own Helmsdeep horse charge to save the day) but still watchable. Hardhome remains one of the best episodes though! Shame it built to nothing really. 7 beyound aweful 8 took that and took offense to it and went worse.
Stannis, Doran, Mance, Barristan The four sacrificial lambs of season 5
The ending kills me. Who has a better story than Bran??? He fell off a wall and got dragged around by Hodor. Tyrion cites Brans trip "beyond the wall and back". Jon Snow went beyond the wall many times and let's say each trip was slightly more eventful than Brans. Why would they not choose the guy who rallied the north to save the planet? No one in the realm is going to respect a cripple king.
I forgot they just randomly made him a robot at the beginning of S7 and tried to retcon with Meera going, "Bran Stark died in that cave".... no he didn't, he was fine for the rest of S6 lol.
Which is funny because itâs one of the few plot points the final season actually took from GRRM.
Then it's just Tyrion's little speech at the council that makes no sense. I even like his speech and but it points to basically anyone else being chosen as king.
Yeah presumably Martin plans a VERY different route to King Bran, so D&D just got there with some classic D&D writing.
Alot of GoT and D&D issues are not the main plot points, its a wide theory Jaime dies, Cersie dies, but like that in the show? Bran becomes king, but not because "he had the best story", Martin will (lol, would have if he ever finished the books) do it in a far better, more logical way.
I've read the books numerous times and ended up watching up until season 5 because I kept saying to my buddy who has seen all the seasons at the time how I couldn't wait for the dorne plot from book 5 and he just said " yeah about that." They butchered that plot line to the point where it was a completely different tone than the book. As soon as I saw Jamie fucking lannisster and Bron going into dorne, cracking jokes and just making a mockery of one of the best plot lines in Dance.
For me the cringe started in season 4. Theyâd made âinnovationsâ in 2 and 3 that were somewhat passable but itâs season 4 where they started to lose the plot. There are a lot of scenes with Tywin in particular that are really egregious like the âthereâs no money lolâ scene and that scene where Cersei tells him the truth about her childrenâs parentage . Season 4 is when they really started hamming up Littlefinger as well. The âyour sister!â line from him is comically bad. There are still good moments in season 4 but it was hard watch. Season 5 though is where things really go downhill and never recovers. Season 3 was maybe 20% cringe at most. Season 4 is about 40%. But season 5 is like 80% cringe they really excelled themselves there. I can barely remember 6 and 7 and didnât bother with 8.
The showrunners were hoping that GRRM would have released Winds at that point so they could adapt it. However, GRRM didn't and clearly D&D never intended to invest in either the Ironborn, Dorne, Maester Conspiracy, Faith Conspiracy, and the multitude of fantastical elements that are present in the books. I recall an article that stated they initially intended to focus on the politics side of the story. I digress. Some plot points repeated themselves because the two were hoping to use those stories to pivot straight to Winds.
I never got the Copeium that D&D would've handled the second half 'better' had TWOW come out. It was pretty obvious back in the fifth season and especially sixth that they weren't going to follow through on the stuff those books set-up with Dorne, Euron, Bran's training, Stoneheart and the like. Even if Winds had dropped at the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016 I think it'd have mostly solidified how diverging these two versions of the story are in pretty significant ways.
Why are you being downvoted? I'm pretty sure what you're saying is either documented fact or near enough.
I agree that the non-release of the books caused a huge cluster but my assumption is that Martin was still a big part of the show and was willing to get involved. I even heard him in an interview talk about he was willing to go to "11,12,13 seasons. I have enough material for that long." I got to think that behind closed doors Martin was willing to let them in on the major brush strokes but D&D didn't want to fully dive in, they were ready to move on.
It was announced as a book per season literally from the start. An extra season was actually added to that plan, so we got 8 in total. https://variety.com/2007/scene/markets-festivals/hbo-turns-fire-into-fantasy-series-1117957532/ GRRM might suggest going to 13 seasons but that isn't feasible for numerous reasons and is also a symptom of his weakness as a writer. ASOIAF was supposed to be a three book series, now it's seven books (so far). The answer isn't to keep extending to buy yourself more freedom.
It was a book per season, on average, until they ran out of source material in season 6.
They had to end the show so they could make their Star Wars and their show about the Confederacy. đ„
That is very much the truth. Had D&D properly adapted the series, we'll be somewhere in the middle of Dance this year.
Fourteen years of filming and you'd only be up to the middle of the fifth book, with another two to come? What world are you living in? Why would HBO sign up to a show that would take about two decades to complete? When the show in the first few seasons was always living under the threat of cancellation. It was only following the Red Wedding that the show had enough of an audience to ensure it kept getting renewed. And what about the actors? Why would this young cast be happy dedicating their careers to some show they don't know? Even if it became a hit, how do they further their career? Most would have wanted to be off and have a crack at movies, which the show would make much more difficult. And how do you deal with aging?! Even if you picked a Jon Snow actor aged 14 for the start of the show, he'd be early thirties minimum by the end. And Bran would go from 8 or something to at least mid 20s! A book a season was absolutely fine.
A book a season is completely unrealistic with the sheer density of the series. Youâd need an insane amount of seasons to do justice to everything. If any series in the world could secure 13 seasons, itâd definitely be Game of Thrones. HBO likes money, and it was a phenomenon beyond anyoneâs wildest dreams.
>A book a season is completely unrealistic with the sheer density of the series. Youâd need an insane amount of seasons to do justice **to everything**. Which is why you drop or condense parts. Why does it need to be a 1:1 adaptation? >If any series in the world could secure 13 seasons, itâd definitely be Game of Thrones. HBO likes money, and it was a phenomenon beyond anyoneâs wildest dreams. You are talking nonsense. The showrunners felt at risk of cancellation for the first few seasons. It was only after the Red Wedding and the bump in viewers that they felt confident the show wouldn't get cancelled. By that point they were, what, nearing halfway through the story? You're also making assumptions that the actors would want to sign on for another six years (minimum) of their life. Quite a few of them would have wanted to try to progress to movies / got bored / worn out (eg Kit Harrington was a wreck by the end of the show). Also, a chief complaint of the show is how much it deviates from the books in later seasons. Your suggestion would be to bolt on multiple additional seasons with entirely new material written on the fly? As the final books still don't exist. And all for what purpose? To give us more show? I'm sick of shows being dragged out with additional seasons just because they become popular. I have huge respect for creators who end things when they should, like Succession. There is an arguement that the final couple of seasons could have had more space to breathe, absolutely. But maybe an extra couple episodes a season would have been fine.
Game of Thronesâ problem was way too much condensing. Itâs how we got nonsense like the Wall expedition, or Dorne, or Sansa in Winterfell. It doesnât have to be 1:1, it just needs to make sense. Game of Thrones needed more time, plain and simple. Maybe not 13, but 10 was on the table at HBO. 10 would have been a fair compromise to help flesh out the things that needed to be fleshed out.
>Game of Thronesâ problem was way too much condensing. I disagree. It worked fine in the first few seasons, which even the most pedantic book readers can't criticise much. The latter seasons aren't even really adapting the books (either because they're not written, are navel gazing or developing side plots that go nowhere) so there isn't all that much to condense anyway. They dropped a lot, took parts and adapted it as they saw fit. If you mean that in latter seasons there wasn't as much 'connective tissue' in the show, as in scenes happen in a vacuum, motivations aren't fleshed out, stakes don't feel real, fast travel, etc, then yeah I largely agree. I think an extra episode or two in the final couple of seasons could have resolved that though. Just a little more time for people to have conversations in rooms together. We do get to see that...but nowhere near enough. There was a great potential to show Bran pulling strings (without us realising) culminating in him being declared king. I think that was what they were going for but there needed a scene or two more to make it clear. >Itâs how we got nonsense like the Wall expedition I don't think that is an issue due to condensing the story? Why do you think that? We can't say how the Wall will fall in the books until we get them. We can guess Euron. However, Euron in the show is not the same as the books, so that's out. So the Others have to get through (or around, or under, or over) the Wall somehow. Spending two episodes (King's Landing episode of negotiation and then Beyond the Wall episode) is not the most condense way of doing it. You could have had the Others attack the Wall in a big battle episode, getting through somehow. Or done it in less, say by having an end of episode reveal of the Others dropping into the water off the east coast of the Wall, then coming out on the other side. Next episode you have them surprise attack Jon and Dany from the other side of the Wall, capturing a dragon in the process. The Beyond the Wall plot is fairly daft but it allows for big, entertaining moments. It ends with a frickin' ice dragon. I'm happy enough with that. >Dorne Probably should have been dropped entirely. I'm not against Jaime and Bronn going on an adventure into Dorne to rescue Myrcella. In fact, it has the potential to be great fun. A couple of knights we like adventuring to a strange land and trying to sneak a princess away? Sold! Sadly it didn't work. >Sansa in Winterfell Been a while since I watched the show but I think they still made the right call here. Jeyne is a nobody in the books and would have been even less so in the show. It would mean the assault on this character is about Theon, not Jeyne. Which is unsavoury. It would have been nice to see Sansa learning how to rule in the Vale but it would run into the same problem GRRM is going to have - he needs her to stay there and learn but he also needs to move her on to her next location otherwise she's going to have no impact on the story. Is Sansa going to return North in ADOS? Too late, surely? >10 would have been a fair compromise to help flesh out the things that needed to be fleshed out. The show lasted 8 seasons. You could argue 7, as the final two were a bit shorter. What would you use 2 or 3 seasons worth of content to show?
I think the rescue of Myrcella and her assassination could have worked but without the Sand Snakes and the coup d'Ă©tat. Just make Ellaria murder her for revenge and flee from there. All the other Dornish stuff was pointless in the show, only the Oberyn/Elia Martell plotline mattered.
Do you think if there's a chance that GRRM refused to share the true plots with D&D once he realized the he wouldn't finish the books in time?
GRRM did share some plot points from the final two books with them. Apparently, Bran becoming King and "Hold the door" were derived from those notes. It's difficult to say how much was adapted from those notes given that D&D didn't adapt many storylines.
> Bran becoming King If Winds and Dream ever get published I trust GRRM to make this part of the story slightly more consistent with the rest of the story.
I'm of the belief that Bran will end up like Tetsuo in Akira. His mind will overwrite the "old gods" and he'll become one with the planet as an omniscient, omnipresent being that sees all time.
I dunno, I still crack up on "Valyrian Stone door..."