Game of Thrones on HBO

[spleen1015]

If I'm really reading what I'm reading in that EW article, I'm really disappointed. Maybe it will still be the case when GRRM finishes the books, but if the major theory around Jon Snow's mum isn't true on the show, then I am really disappointed. I guess it could still be the case but what's the point if he's dead?

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

It becomes apparent that GRRM has created a world that can go in any direction (as long as it takes a season or two to get there).

From a television perspective, I appreciate not having to join, for example, Brienne and Podrick's seemingly endless travels down roads that don't necessarily lead anywhere.

Aside from Dany and, perhaps, Tyrion, we're fresh out of characters that have an important purpose to the story. Everyone else (like Robb, Stannis, Jon, Ned, even Myrcella) winds up dead. Often, seemingly, for shock value as much as anything.

What initially hooked me on GoT was that they were willing to behead Ned (in front of Arya, no less) less than one season into the story. That got me reading the books.

This show can go on for a long time because there's always room for a new story and a new direction. I'd rather GRRM be running the story because he has an encyclopedia in his head and is probably the only person who can keep characters true to themselves. But we can start again in Dorne. Or in Meereen. Or at the Wall. And there's plenty to talk about. The show is expensive, but not necessarily because of the actors.

Winter was coming in the very first scene in the very first episode. It hasn't even arrived. And the only specific story that commands an answer is Dany and her Dragons (I'd imagine the other two are fairly screwed in the head after a few months in the dungeon).

I really don't want Zombie Jon, though. Hopefully that's just misdirection.

I've often had similar thoughts. As much as I love some of the characters and really interested to see what happens to them, I question their role in the bigger picture.

It seems like it's Dany, Tyrion, Jon (assuming he is alive) and then... everyone else. Well, maybe Bran, because he's got his whole Three-Eyed Raven magic thing happening. What role is Jamie going to plan at the end? Cersei? Brienne? Arya? Sansa? Littlefinger?

[whomario]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

If I'm really reading what I'm reading in that EW article, I'm really disappointed. Maybe it will still be the case when GRRM finishes the books, but if the major theory around Jon Snow's mum isn't true on the show, then I am really disappointed. I guess it could still be the case but what's the point if he's dead?

There is no point. Just like in a dozen other instances.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

If I'm really reading what I'm reading in that EW article, I'm really disappointed. Maybe it will still be the case when GRRM finishes the books, but if the major theory around Jon Snow's mum isn't true on the show, then I am really disappointed. I guess it could still be the case but what's the point if he's dead?

The disappointing thing will be if it doesn't matter.

[Solecismic]

Would it be really bad to hope that someone does a meme of Arya revealing all those faces, and two of them happen to be Rachel Dolezal, before and after her transformation?

[finkenst]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Would it be really bad to hope that someone does a meme of Arya revealing all those faces, and two of them happen to be Rachel Dolezal, before and after her transformation?

LOL.

yes

[Vince, Pt. II]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Actually, other than the Sand Snakes, the Dornish cast was largely great to good. The Red Viper - amazing. One of the best cast characters of the show - bar none. It is known.

Ellaria Sand - was great. Doran Martell was pretty much perfect and well cast, he just didn't have anything to do. Same with Areo Hotah.

It all comes down to the Sand Snakes. Yeah, they sucked. Every scene with them was pretty embarrassing.

But three minor - let's face it, they are SUPER minor characters, they are cool in concept, but even in the books they have done VERY very little - characters who are miscast and poorly written does NOT a trend make.

This isn't me spin doctoring, these are the facts.

I actually enjoyed the youngest sand snake, and not just because she gave us a striptease. I think she nailed it. The other two were pretty awful. To be fair, it's not like they had a ton to work with though.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

If I'm really reading what I'm reading in that EW article, I'm really disappointed. Maybe it will still be the case when GRRM finishes the books, but if the major theory around Jon Snow's mum isn't true on the show, then I am really disappointed. I guess it could still be the case but what's the point if he's dead?

Spoiler

I don't think it's a coincidence they reminded us that greywolf is still around a couple of episodes ago and then didn't show him in this episode. I also don't think it's a coincidence that Melisandre is at Castle Black.

I think those things plus the fact that they're trying hard to sell everyone on Jon Snow being dead points to him coming back in some way.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

I actually enjoyed the youngest sand snake, and not just because she gave us a striptease. I think she nailed it. The other two were pretty awful. To be fair, it's not like they had a ton to work with though.

To be honest, I would have liked it if "the youngest" was actually supposed to be portray the middle child, Nymeria. In the books (this isn't a spoiler because they aren't going to do this), the youngest Sand Snake is the daughter of a septa and gets sent by Doran Martell secretly to King's Landing to try to befriend the High Sparrow. In the books, Doran is doing all this sneaky kind of stuff and is always one step ahead.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

To be honest, I would have liked it if "the youngest" was actually supposed to be portray the middle child, Nymeria. In the books (this isn't a spoiler because they aren't going to do this), the youngest Sand Snake is the daughter of a septa and gets sent by Doran Martell secretly to King's Landing to try to befriend the High Sparrow. In the books, Doran is doing all this sneaky kind of stuff and is always one step ahead.

Actually, nothing has happened that I recall which would remove this option for next season, especially now that they have made the youngest, umm, stand out, and the High Sparrow is still very much around.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Spoiler

I don't think it's a coincidence they reminded us that greywolf is still around a couple of episodes ago and then didn't show him in this episode. I also don't think it's a coincidence that Melisandre is at Castle Black.

I think those things plus the fact that they're trying hard to sell everyone on Jon Snow being dead points to him coming back in some way.

Spoiler

Here's what we don't know... what is the time frame for Jon Snow being "dead" or warged into his wolf or whatever.

It's entirely possible Kit Harrington will not be under contract for next season at all (as per the article) because Jon Snow won't be in it. But he could be back for Season 7, after they set up his return using Bran or Melisandre at some point next season.

Consider that they clearly didn't have Bran's actor under contract this season (and never intended to). But presumeably he will be back next season. So it's not like there isn't precedence for this.

[spleen1015]

That's a good point.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Actually, nothing has happened that I recall which would remove this option for next season, especially now that they have made the youngest, umm, stand out, and the High Sparrow is still very much around.

You really think she could "septa" it up?

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

You really think she could "septa" it up?

It's not a fantasy of mine lol

But I could see the showrunners making a go of it.

[ISiddiqui]

Hey, you can't show your tits to anyone...

Wouldn't that defeat her only reason for existence on the show so far?

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Hey, you can't show your tits to anyone...

Wouldn't that defeat her only reason for existence on the show so far?

Removing the tongue in cheek for a sec, consider that Bronn is going to be back in King's Landing or thereabouts, depending on how this trip and Jaime's support of him (or following through on his offer) works out. Of course, Jaime has other stuff to worry about at the moment.

So even putting aside the possible political machinations of Doran (and although everyone seems to dislike his representation so far, I believe we still have a lot of story and a lot of Doran and his angles on things coming), there is some other reason for her to make the trip, since they seemed to have a connection there.

[ISiddiqui]

I think it is more likely that if she does get sent up there, it's to free Trystane, who will, no doubt, now be a hostage in King's Landing.

[whomario]

Well, Doran did manage to get Trystane on the small council. Whatever that will be worth.

Also, how has no one in Dorne heard about what has been going on in Kings Landing ? Aside from his daughter dying on him, thats going to be one weird homecoming. "Hey, what have you done to your hair ?" (if he even makes it that far and is not immediately taken into a cell himself)

regarding the "good change, bad change" discussion: The Shows decision to change up the battle of Hardhome from some vague happening off screen into maybe the best half hour of TV of the year has not been mentioned, if i am not mistaken.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by whomario

Well, Doran did manage to get Trystane on the small council. Whatever that will be worth.

As ISiddiqui mentioned, this seems unlikely to happen now, given what happened to Myrcella.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by whomario

regarding the "good change, bad change" discussion: The Shows decision to change up the battle of Hardhome from some vague happening off screen into maybe the best half hour of TV of the year has not been mentioned, if i am not mistaken.

I agree. I mentioned it last week or so during a similar type of discussion:

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

So, I disagree with the notion that most of new stuff hasn't been good. A lot of it has worked or has been an improvement. Not all, but their batting average has been very solid.

For example, Jon Snow being in Hardhome during the attack, I consider that an improvement. We finally get to SEE why we should fear the walkers, rather than just being TOLD about it. Great tension-building moments: the giant, the Night's King, the Valyrian steel, "I fucking hate Thenns," the woman that gets eaten by kiddie wights...powerful stuff.

Given the just under 50 hours of television we've had to cover five massive books, I think what the show runners have done is nothing short of a remarkable achievement.

Things had to be changed. The structure of the books and the different media demanded/required it. The show has exceeded expectations in terms of translating this work onto the screen.

[Chief Rum]

I think the biggest thing the showrunners have had to do is work with Martin's slow writing schedule and the likelihood they will finish the story before he does.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I think the biggest thing the showrunners have had to do is work with Martin's slow writing schedule and the likelihood they will finish the story before he does.

That is a problem.

Also, we saw a lot more deviations from the books this season than seasons prior because this season covered pretty much all of Books 4 & 5. Books 1-3 were amazing. They were very tight. They had strong plots, characters, action, etc. Books 1-3 were pretty filmable as written. Not entirely by any stretch of the imagination - they are massive and the cast is insane - but the story is tight enough and the characters interact enough and are close enough geographically speaking and in terms of plots - that they could film most of it with subtractions and alterations, but not quite as many wholesale departures.

After Book 3, however, things started to meander and lose their way. There has been a lot of wandering, side plots - some of which are interesting and some of which are less so and don't seem to go anywhere (Quentyn Martel) - and the characters and action became more separated and disparate.

As a result, in order to keep things tighter and have plot lines that included more than one character at a time - combining Theon/Sansa/Brienne/Little Finger/Boltons, having Jamie go to Dorne - and they had to do somethings to keep viewers interested and cut back on (seemingly) extraneous characters.

I know many huge fans of the series who really hated books 4 and 5. They read them, but the books pissed them off. I enjoyed them - not as much as the first three - but I can see where people were annoyed with them.

So, it's not too surprising to see some of this annoyance bleed over into the show as it entered this territory.

If Book 6 isn't out before the next season... People will lose their shit!!

Still, it's a great show. It's super popular and deserves to be.

[Easy Mac]

What would be great is if Jon Snow really is dead, but the guesses people have made to his parentage are right. Maybe even the prophecies he's supposed to be involved in are right... but, the Night's Watch screwed it up.

Now he's dead, and the White Walkers take over Westeros. The humans lose. It ends up being a story about how all the people who maybe tried to do the right thing end up dead before they're given a chance.

I think that would be a much better ending than comic booking characters all the time by having them come back to life.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

What would be great is if Jon Snow really is dead, but the guesses people have made to his parentage are right. Maybe even the prophecies he's supposed to be involved in are right... but, the Night's Watch screwed it up.

Now he's dead, and the White Walkers take over Westeros. The humans lose. It ends up being a story about how all the people who maybe tried to do the right thing end up dead before they're given a chance.

I think that would be a much better ending than comic booking characters all the time by having them come back to life.

That would be a terrible ending.

[Coffee Warlord]

The humans will lose...about half of Westeros. A new Wall will be built around the Neck, and all of the North will fall to the White Walkers. Cue another 8000 years of "peace". There are no beginnings or endings to the Wheel of Thrones.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

That would be a terrible ending.

Yes, this is horrible. This ending.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

That would be a terrible ending.

Sounds like a George RR Martin ending, tbh.

[Alan T]

So if all that you are left to choose between at the end are the Boltons, the Freys or the White Walkers... who do you go with?

[Kodos]

Go Walkers!

I know very little about him, but I wonder if Martin might not be content to just let the TV show finish the story and never finish the books.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I know very little about him, but I wonder if Martin might not be content to just let the TV show finish the story and never finish the books.

You do know very little of him . Martin is more of the sort who may decide to change a substantial part of the story just to spite the TV show 'spoiling' things .

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Go Walkers!

I know very little about him, but I wonder if Martin might not be content to just let the TV show finish the story and never finish the books.

I think if that were true, he wouldn't have okayed so many changes from his book in the show. I think he and the show producers worked on an alternate telling for the show once it became obvious he would not finish his books in time, in order for Martin to preserve the value of his original story and not compromise the work he had already done.

[Kodos]

Fair enough. He looks old, and I can imagine the pressure of writing these books would be a heavy weight to bear going down the homestretch.

[whomario]

Has this ever happened btw, that a TV show or movie series overtook its source material in such a way (book series still going with a, somewhat, finite number of volumes yet to be written, fairly close adaptation and not just a different version of the same serial, so to speak) ?

[spleen1015]

Not that I know of.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

The humans will lose...about half of Westeros. A new Wall will be built around the Neck, and all of the North will fall to the White Walkers. Cue another 8000 years of "peace". There are no beginnings or endings to the Wheel of Thrones.

You think the Soprano's ending was unsatisfying ...

I like it but what would happen to Dany and the Boltons?

[Coffee Warlord]

Boltons become undead, as they are swallowed by the undead army. All of the North are basically considered 'wildlings' now (or at least will be in the future). Dany managed to turn them back and becomes Queen of half the kingdom.

[ISiddiqui]

And then Stannis White Walker rises from the Dead and finishes taking the throne he was always fighting for .

(Ok, yes, I love Stannis, so?!! )

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Not that I know of.

Closest anyone came was Rowling (1st and 2nd movies between book 4 and 5, 7th book 9 days after the 5th movie)

[stevew]

Some clarity on how long the show plans fo run would be great

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by stevew

Some clarity on how long the show plans fo run would be great

Most of the actor Contracts are 6 years with an option for a 7th. HBO would have to pay through the nose for an 8th.

[stevew]

NEveryone assumes it will be 7, but thought can probably go 8-9 if you just kill half of the top tier people(Harrington, Dinkladge, Jaime, Cercei) and a few of the second tier ones. Arya, Sansa, Theon, Brienne, Stannis, Davos, Red Woman, Grey Worm, Daario, khaleessi's interpreter, Ramsey, etc)

Or season 7, part 2.

Just would be great to have a definitive # for clarification.

[bronconick]

I think HBO wants it longer, but Benieff and Weiss have been aiming at 7 to keep their sanity (they're working 10-11 months a year in multiple countries)

So, I guess they could fire them and all the worthwhile actors and have it cancelled anyway as the ratings tumble.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by stevew

Some clarity on how long the show plans fo run would be great

The showrunners (David Benioff and Dan Weiss) have been saying that they intend to keep it to 7 seasons.

[Chief Rum]

I don't have a link but I am pretty sure they have maintained the series would go seven max. That goes back a bit, though.

[Chief Rum]

Looks like we're really on top of that one.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by sabotai

The showrunners (David Benioff and Dan Weiss) have been saying that they intend to keep it to 7 seasons.

Indeed. And HBO and Martin want it to go 10.

[stevew]

I'm always shocked when I hear about the amount of time it takes to film this show. I get there is probably a substantial amount of time to film set piece action stuff but so much of the show is people talking in rooms or in front of green screens.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Indeed. And HBO and Martin want it to go 10.

Martin wanted them to do 3 seasons of ADWD to buy him time.

[ISiddiqui]

He actually wanted a total of 3 seasons for AFFC and ADWD combined, which is fairly reasonable to me. If the show treated Dorne well and introduced the Iron Islands (which it seems they'll do next season), they could have at least done 2 seasons of the 2 books.

[thesloppy]

It's been brought up here before with particular individual incidents, and the last episode was a bit of a respite, but after re-watching a few recent episodes: this show really suffers from 'Rocky' disease when it comes to one-on-one combat. There's seemingly a dozen bad-ass warriors on the show, who come with some story of amazing skill and bravery that happened off-screen, yet when it comes time to actually fight the aforementioned bad-ass looks completely over-matched by any random foe, for 95% of the fight, only to win with some sort of lucky flourish or deus ex machina.

Similarly cliched relics of Hollywood groupthink seem to occasionally pop-up when the show is filling in the blanks, which gives me a little bit of trepidation about the show as it gets further and further away from the written material, and the writers are left to their own devices.