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*UNMARKED SPOILERS ALL BOOKS* Game of Thrones |OT| - Season 5 - Sundays on HBO
- Thread starter Steelyuhas
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Yup, also I do think D&D is correct in firmly limiting the show to 7 seasons. First, how many shows get 7 seasons or go past that? Very few and the few that do are usually brain dead procedural meant for syndication not a long form serialized story. Second, the budget would be damn expensive going past 7 seasons. As anyone knows cast salary goes up with each new season they sign on to which is why shows like Seinfeld and Friends were massively expensive by the end with each cast member getting millions of dollars per episode. However, I'm not sure HBO, unlike regular cable, can eat those costs since they rely on subscriptions not simple viewership for income as they have no commercials. I'm actually really curious as towards the profit margins of the show.
Cutting down content and streamlining the experience was necessary if not painful for us book readers to watch. I don't dislike D&D for streaming things I dislike them for their dumb choices that go against the books or show a complete lack of understanding of the source material. We are talking Jaimie outright killing his cousin, Cercei rape, Sansa rape, Loras stereotypical gayness, clunk clunk beetle scene, Yara dogs, Stannis butchering, Tyrion/Cercei whitewashing etc. These things I can criticize the show for as they have nothing to do with budget or time but are simply bad writing decisions. So I often find their smugness distasteful when damn near every original scene by them has been awful.
Saw this on reddit...fairly relevant I think regarding D&D's lack of subtlety and such.
To be fair that's taken out of context and not even the proper quote to make D&D look worse.
Full quote:
Ganzlinger
Member
She will marry Stannis lol
It was the one thing Jon gave her and her last connection to her family. Revenge was never a part of it.
I love the show, but certainly only as an interesting side companion to the books. But this is just sad.
Sure it's part of it. Abandoning Needle would be abandoning her family and abandoning her quest for revenge against those who have hurt her family.
And again, Dan is saying this within a context that a very specific event will happen in the very near future, hence keeping revenge in viewers minds: Arya killing Meryn Trant.
After 4.5 seasons, the original material the show comes up with is either average - bad. And it's getting worse the further they stray away from the source material.
I won't put the blame all on the writers, but I really think they disregard the intelligence of the audience way too much when it comes to how they handle the content.
I won't put the blame all on the writers, but I really think they disregard the intelligence of the audience way too much when it comes to how they handle the content.
Might as well. There are no suitors of her rank on the show left: Willas, Trystane, Aegon, Euron...
PhoenixDark
Banned
Agreed. Although I'm not opposed to going against the understanding of the source material. I'm opposed to bad television, especially which is what all the things you mentioned are. And of course admittedly I do compare the books and show in cases like that, where I wonder why a plot from the book was cut in order to do something utterly ridiculous. Like...sending Jaime to Dorne.
Shuggananas
Banned
Polygamy is OK in westeros ?
Moff
Member
nah, sorry, disagree, revenge is a big part of arya and needle is her instrument of revenge, that's a fact and that's what he is talking about.
as I expected earlier, the quote is not only taken out of context but simply false to some degree.
the ASOIAF book reader community is one of the most toxic I have ever been part of, they just use anything to shit on the show for no reason.
Selyse will be put down after she sacrifices Shireen.
Condensing 2 Books into 1 Season is clearly a mistake by this point. They should have done it in 2 seasons with the groundwork layed in Season 4. Bran and Sansa shouldnt have gone this far in Season 4.
You could then establish Dorne better and added more characters, you could include iron islands, maybe even Fake Aegon. You surely would include lady Stoneheart
End of Season Episode 9 Finale could have been either:
- Hardholm battle in addition with iron islands raid on the shields
- or even crazier, the whole Episode as a flashback Tower of Joy Episode (either with Sean Bean or not)
As it stands, Season 5 is a rushed and awefull mess. Wall and winterfell is rushed. Dorne is rushed and awefull without any characterdevelopement. We lost Riverland and Iron Islands, also some other characters from the book. Kings Landing is rushed and mereen is awefull.
I certainly wont take anyone serious anymore who propagates, that Book 4 and 5 is awefull padding when THIS Season 5 is the condensed Version.
You could then establish Dorne better and added more characters, you could include iron islands, maybe even Fake Aegon. You surely would include lady Stoneheart
End of Season Episode 9 Finale could have been either:
- Hardholm battle in addition with iron islands raid on the shields
- or even crazier, the whole Episode as a flashback Tower of Joy Episode (either with Sean Bean or not)
As it stands, Season 5 is a rushed and awefull mess. Wall and winterfell is rushed. Dorne is rushed and awefull without any characterdevelopement. We lost Riverland and Iron Islands, also some other characters from the book. Kings Landing is rushed and mereen is awefull.
I certainly wont take anyone serious anymore who propagates, that Book 4 and 5 is awefull padding when THIS Season 5 is the condensed Version.
Moff
Member
I don't understand how you can say anything is rushed when the non-readers still complain that nothing happens
I agree that dorne is a mess, though, and I don't expect it to get better. however, the problem is not that it was condensed, it was simply not done well.
WrenchNinja
Member
The full quote while better still seems inaccurate with regards to her character.
I'm not shitting on the show, I said I love it. Just that that quote misses the real point. It was always more sentimental than about revenge. She can kill dudes with any weapon, it doesn't have to be Needle. Frankie Says Relax!
Can she even write a letter to Jaime? He's on a "covert mission," and even though people teleport in this show (lol @ Littlefinger making it from Winterfell to King's Landing in a snap), there's nowhere to even send a letter. She doesn't know exactly where he is.
I've never seen needle as a tool for revenge. It's her last connection to a moment when her family was still whole.
Moff
Member
I wasnt talking about you but the people who made that picture above.
and I think it's a fairly spot on description of arya in the real quote, at least there is nothing in it I would necessarily disagree with.
I just hope I live long enough to actually see her use it again.
A TV adaptation cannot quote multiple paragraphs of internal monologue. This is a surprise to no one.
Three weeks ago, books readers were mad that Tyrion didn't rape the bar maid in Volantis. This week they are mad because Ramsay, of all people, did rape Sansa.
Sometimes a plot is cut because of the budget. Sometimes it is cut for timing. Sometimes because it doesn't work in the other medium.
LAUGHTREY
Modesty becomes a woman
That's not what's happening there. That's showing his poor understanding of the source material, not the poor adaptation.
He doesn't even get that Needle is her old life, he thinks it's a symbol of her future when she wants to get revenge.
If he doesn't even understand that, how can he put that same feeling on screen in any way? Internal monologue or otherwise.
cartoon_soldier
Member
Did you actually miss the Needle scene earlier in the season?
Did you actually see the full quote and not the false one that image shows? It demonstrates that Dan does in fact understand Needle represents her old life and family, as well as being a symbol for getting revenge against those who hurt her family.
The scene in the show perfectly conveys the feeling regardless, which makes your last point, and the misleading image itself, rather moot.
Both the actual scene with Maise's performance, and the full quote are pretty close to what GRRM wrote in that section.
The meme image wouldn't be "funny" without the condensed misquote though.
EDIT: D&D have fucked up more than a few things, that scene was not one of them.
I'm writing my Sansa x Tormund fanfic as we speak
LAUGHTREY
Modesty becomes a woman
I wasn't saying that they didn't get it on screen, I was explaining the joke.
The only storyline that is even remotely good or interesting to me anymore is Arya funny enough.
hipsterpants
Member
Maybe I like to think there's still a chance lol. Jaime is probably going to get caught up in Doran's scheming so maybe Cersei would find out and be able to write to him. That's a bit of a stretch though.
I have to agree with others that two seasons of book 4 and 5 would be astoundingly boring for probably even the most hardcore audience. I think the problem is twofold - first is that the best parts of the books are internal monologues and thoughts (Reek, Jaime, etc.) and second is that some parts of the books are pretty much literally untranslatable to TV. Of the four long arcs in ADWD, Jon's can be shortened without issue and they've done an excellent job with Tyrion's. But Cersei and Danyaerys require much more time, which they can't have due to the constraints of a ten episode season. Cersei's is quite obviously rushed, even unsullied can tell that things are moving a little too quickly. Daenarys requires a bunch of time explaining what's going on in the city, why things are happening, etc. (not to mention it's terrible anyway).
That's because Arya's a) the best character and b) has been handled the best by the show.
I don't feel like Cersei is rushed so much as the Faith Militant has been. I think it would've felt a lot better if they used some of the Arya/Hound and Brienne/Pod time in the Riverlands last season to show the Sparrow movement forming among the poor people in the countryside.
Dany didn't feel rushed until the Hizdahr marriage came out of nowhere. I feel like someone should've at least suggested marrying into a major family prior to that moment to plant the seed.
And yeah, two seasons would've been terrible. People are already complaining this is slow.
Agreed.
What grates at me is that for every terrible original scene we are missing out on actually relevant book scenes. Instead of the pointless clunk, clunk beetle scene we could have gotten the actual conversation between Tyrion and Oberyn about Dorne, Doran, and crowning Myrcella. This would be especially relevant since the current season seems to be all about Dorne. Why does Arya have to spend a whole episode trying to get into the House of Black and White?! And then when she gets in why must she be treated like she hasn't earned her place? Again, wasted time that could have gone towards what's actually in the books like explaining who the Faceless Men are, their origins, beliefs, purpose. Why didn't Aemon mention Egg in his "Kill the Boy" speech, you know the one thing that explains the context of his wise advice that would take literally two seconds to fit in? I could go on and on. Damn near every truly original scene has been crap and could have been replaced with actual book content.
Electric_ Cthulhu
Member
You know what's funny? I remember very well that many people were pissed during season 2, because D&D "butchered her storyline".
Now Arya seems to be one of the few characters whose development and characterization (almost) everybody loves. No complains here. Arya is probably my favorite character from the books and the show, but it shows that we shouldn't be so quick in our judgement when it comes to Sansa, Ramsay, Stannis or Littlefinger. Nobody knows the outcome yet.
adamsappel
Member
Where does this "Tyrion rapes" thing come from? He was in a brothel. He doesn't do any raping in that scene in the book, either. I thought there was some confusion over whether he didn't fuck the whore because he was impotent or because he'd become "good." I just rewatched the scene and it's obvious it was the affection of her holding his hand that threw him off his game.
It's not butchering storylines, it's neutering characters. Like the change to Tyrion above, they cut down Arya's killing from the books.
The lack of weasel soup really bothered me at the time, but looking back on it, it seems like it would've been pretty hard to include. In the books, Bolton leads the attack on Harrenhal, but for show purposes it was important to keep Bolton around Robb to develop something between them prior to the betrayal, and so that he can order Ramsay to take back Winterfell. You could've maybe assigned it to another lord like Umber, but then you run into the issue of why does Arya choose not to reveal herself to Umber? It makes sense when she refuses to reveal herself to Bolton in the books, since she's making a pretty accurate judgment of his character. If it were Umber at Harrenhal, you'd have to invent something to force her to leave without revealing itself, or come up with some reason he thinks she's lying.
If you leave out what leads to events, you can't have those events. Unless of course they're just so essential to the plot, so you recontextualize them and the book readers are mad, but not as mad as they'd be if you removed them altogether.
It's an unwinnable game of plot threads. There's never enough room for them all.
It's an unwinnable game of plot threads. There's never enough room for them all.
ChaosZeroX
Banned
That would actually be insane. Mel has to choose between Stannis and Jon.
Man if Cleganebowl happens. I don't really think the Hound died though.
Saw on cnn that the red woman's actress posted a selfie on set this week or last. Are episodes for the current season still being filmed? I assumed everything was done orior to the airing of episode one. I don't follow the production info much.
eot
Banned
CitizenVectron
Member
She won't choose, she'll be surprised. Here is how it could happen:
Jon and Stannis die at the same time. Stannis will get done dirty, much like Barristan (probably Ramsay will kill him or some lame crap), but that's a separate issue. Mel will burn Shireen to save Stannis (or maybe his wife will burn her, who knows), and then Mel will say the words to the Lord of Light, something like "Lord of Light, revive your One True Hero Reborn!" ... and Stannis will stay dead. But cut to Jon's body lying cold in the snow...and his eyes open, ice blue.
I actually don't hope that happens, because I want Stannis alive (and it's more likely they will end with Jon warging into Ghost anyway). But I could see it.
Stannis isn't known as a fighter right? He's a great general, but an average fighter I thought. He probably would lose in single combat.
Eyes ice blue because white walkers or because frosted blue roses (aka Lyanna)? I want Jon to be resurrected with the last shot of the season being Longclaw glowing red in flames. It's too good or fantastical to actually happen though
Steelyuhas
Member
ChaosZeroX
Banned
Eh I don't think Jon will warg into Ghost. At this point, I think they will just have Bran be able to warg into shit at this point.
I hope Stannis survives though. I know that Jon will 100% survive, but I've got no idea about Stannis.
Promo photo
http://watchersonthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/GOT507_101414_HS_DSC_00711.jpg
http://watchersonthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/GOT507_101414_HS_DSC_00711.jpg
Mommy, the faith have taken Margaery. What do I do?
crimzonflame
Member
Stannis better not die. I hope he gets to sit on the Iron Throne even if it's just for 5 minutes.
At this point, I would be surprised if Ramsay and seven men didn't defeat the entire Baratheon army.
With Margery and Loras imprisoned would make more sense for the Tyrell army to be in force at King's Landing, no?
I'm so burned by actually liking characters in this series/show that as ridiculous as this is, it wouldn't surprise me either.
I think the show has done a MUCH better job of making Stannis a likeable character. His book character is so austere and rule-bound.
biosnake20
Member
I wanna see some Randyll Tarly.
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