Game of Thrones [Potential Book Spoilers]

I am not sure family dynamics is there in ASOIAF. I mean in the sense of constant interactions and back-and-forth between members of family. Bear in mind that in the books, Ned doesn't have any scenes with Jon Snow, that was added in the TV Show...hence that scene of Jon and Ned's Deadly Deferred Conversation, an addition that I am okay with, because in a TV Show you have to dramatize or indicate the internal element and it conveys the basic issues between Ned and Jon. Jon is a "Well Done, Son" Guy and Ned is simply not being honest with him and can't fully give the boy what he wants for reasons that Sean Bean's gaze hints are deeply sad and tragic and which turn out to be the case. That's the power of acting there.. In the books, GRRM obviously avoided scenes between Ned and Jon, because it would have made it harder to disguise the secret...since readers will wonder why doesn't Ned think of Lyanna when he interacts with Jon, especially if we are in his POV. One way to cheat that is to use Jon's POV, GRRM does that trick when we learn about Ned's reaction about Jon entering the Night's Watch from Cat's POV. The only time GRRM does family dynamics is the Martell and Greyjoy stories, where you have interactions, between fathers-sons, brothers and sisters...and it's interesting how diverse it is. The Martells are a rational normal family that because they are in power, can't be entirely free and open and honest with one another. The Greyjoys are a bunch of hillbilly decadents, with only Asha being the one who is not a psychopath.

It's weird that, in a real sense the TV Show amplifies the family aspect a lot more...especially with the additional scenes to the Tyrells, the sentimental tugging off the Baratheons, and the Lannisters, but they botch the most TV-elements in the books. In the books, the stories are all about individuals...hence the different POV which feels different from one another, and navigating a complex world and society. That individualism is not there in the show...we don't truly get the sense that in this scene we are seeing it from this person's point of view. It's hard to do that in audiovisual medium but not impossible. You could have used Voiceovers...but unfortunately that's not popular wisdom these days among those who follow screenwriting rules.

There was a GOT panel today with D & D, Sophie and Maisie.

Season 8 is confirmed for only 6 episodes.

According to D & D, Tyrion has the best line in season 7.

D & D think there is going to be a spin off GOT show but that they won't be in it.

They were asked what was their favorite deaths:

D & D were asked who they'd bring back if they could and they answered Michelle Fairley.

D & D's toughest death sequence to write for them was Drogo's.

Easiest casting decision for them was Mark Addy as Robert Baratheon and the toughest casting decision for them was Arya.

D & D'a favorite Stark is Arya.

Well they confirmed what we suspected all along. The show is written by Maester Pycelle's underlings at the Citadel, so we have Tysha made into a real whore...Cersei made sentimental, Jaime not be Jaime from the Books, and Tyrion be canonized. So you have the ensemble compromised there...though in their defense that approach worked okay, in a Franchise Original Sin sense until Season 3, but it became a huge problem in Season 4, because the center is supposed to pivot in that moment away from the Lannisters, and they were unwilling and incapable to take their step on the dance.

I think the show in its current form and conception could have been salvaged in Season 4 and especially Season 5 where Stannis is supposed to be a major character, but without investment into that story, with the removal of the key speeches of the character and by Davos, and the overall aesop of the "What makes a Good King" that they keep having Tywin spout ad nauseam for no reason...they simply lost sight of the forest for the trees.

Oh god no please don't let their be a spinoff. I just want this thing to end with whatever is left of it's dignity, and I admit the show has been improving, if only because nobody has said the line "bad pussy" since last season.

"We want the Lannisters to win"

Okay so these guys are just fucking morons.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we agree about something? Bruh.

But yeah, this is idiotic. Did they even read the same series?

"We want to bring back Michelle Fairley"

Do you though.

@Shark Remember these are the guys that said Tywin was Lawful Neutral

Anyways D & D also said what who the writers were for season 8.

Episode 1- David Hill

Episode 2 - Bryan Coffman

Episodes 3-6 - D & D

I don't think they've actually read the books. They just skimmed the first book and made up their minds.

Tyrion, Tywin, Jaime: Super cool.

Cersei: Poor baby.

Robert: Drunk asshole.

Renly: lolgay fairy.

Starks: THEY'RE SO BORING!

Arya: She turns into a murderer. Sick.

Let's not be too harsh. They clearly did read the books. They know what the Red Wedding is.

They read it from their own perspective and biases and they didn't go back. You have to keep in mind that Benioff and Weiss, in terms of generation and cultural influences come from the New Hollywood and The '60s-The '70s punk era, basically the generation that gave us the '90s Anti-Hero. Benioff and Weiss' generation basically believed in Eternal Sexual Freedom, Religion Is Wrong, and At Least I Admit It Byronic Hero are cool, that conventional straightforward heroes are boring (i.e. All Girs Want Bad Boys). At that time that was seen as being cool and rebellious and a lot of great stuff came from that era and that school. It's just that decades after that, people saw limitations in that perspective.

GRRM is someone who was also in that same generation but he has updated and corrected that, and moved past it, and ASOIAF deals with that. ASOIAF is a Deconstruction of Disneyfied sub-LOTR Feudal nostalgia...but it's also a Reconstruction that wants to make Fantasy cool, exciting and fresh again. It's not trying to be the "last word" on the genre in the way The Elric Saga tried to be, and failed to achieve.

So basically, Benioff and Weiss thought the moral of ASOIAF was that Cersei had every right to cheat on Robert with Jaime and give birth to incestuous bastards and then foist that on the throne and they think that it's a Silly Reason for War for Ned to basically say that he's going to put Stannis on the throne. I mean more or less they made Show!Ned an idiot for anyone going back to watch Season 1 now, since Ned basically died for a character who later seasons revealed to be unworthy, when Book!Stannis was totally worthy of Ned's stand. They also made Renly their idea of Only Sane Man giving anachronistic speeches condemning Robert for glorifying the Rebellion...forgetting that 1) Robert didn't start that war, 2) That he would have died had he not fought back, 3) that if Robert died, so would his brothers, 4) Renly owes everything in his life (Small Council Seat, Storm's End, Loras Tyrell) to Robert. They also bought into the Tywin!propaganda in the books when ASOIAF is a Deconstruction that shows how people like Tywin are enabled and accepted by silent yes!men when he is the one who is patently unworthy, not Stannis.

We should be grateful to Weiss and Benioff that they barely became aware of the whole "peace of Meereen" thing became a parallel to Reconstruction because had they not been made aware, they would have sentimentalized the Harpy too because there were hints in S4 and S5 of them doing something like that. Most film-makers of the New Hollywood era or those inspired by it were chickens—t on the Civil War, see Ang Lee's Ride with the Devil, it took Spielberg's Lincoln for them to accept reality.

Wanting the Lannisters to win is not the same as thinking the Lannisters are in the right. The Lannisters are an interesting bunch of characters. People tend to root for interesting characters.

Well it feeds into the pathetic Draco in Leather Pants fallacy...where fans of a character latch on the superficial aspects but ignore the disturbing aspects of what that character does rather than admit that genuinely horrible people who do horrible things have qualities that are attractive and enticing. The attractive qualities are meant to explain why such people get away with being assassinated or face recrimination, or in the case of Domestic Abuse victims, why "they didn't leave"...

What the show has done is by latching on the superficial and attractive qualities of the Lannisters: their superiority, their arrogance, their play with words, and in the case of Tywin his brilliant mix of political and military leverage — all of which are attractive, and deliberately so — they make that palatable by ignoring the very real human beings trampled over just to indulge in a power fantasy.

More importantly, they let that get in the way, visibly so, to the detriment of other characters and stories.

You know that at that point there's, like, two remaining Lannisters? On opposing sides? Way to blow a quote out of proportion. If you want "the Lannisters" to win then you need to come up with a plan to reconcile Tyrion and Cersei, which won't happen.

It almost looks like you are looking for breadcrumbs so you can insult D&D.

edited 14th Mar '17 9:26:44 AM by Julep

Not to mention, Renly's speech was entirely justified. It doesn't matter who started the war, glorifying it as something desirable, especially given the reason he was glorifying it for, and especially having to hear about it day in, day out, day in day out, ad nauseum with no break.

Robert was a drunken boaster, and has boasted his entire life. I'm fairly certain Renly would have been grateful for just a moment of golden silence.

One Psychological Projection.

Two I have given immense credit to the showrunners for mounting such an ambitious project on TV and taking creative risks. I am quite sure that nobody else would have done a better job, and I am willing to admit that "fans" who claim that they can make something faithful and better are talking crap. The fact is that Game of Thrones is one of the best TV shows right now doesn't excuse the glaring flaws and failings of storytelling it makes. The good does not wash out the bad. And while Game of Thrones is an excellent TV Show, that is still not quite good enough. And to quote a character who is Adapted Out from the books, if we don't call out the flaws and issues and other baggage, and merely be content for praising Game of Thrones because it's better than the alternatives, then we would be criticizing with lowered expectations appraising each new arrival as "more blindingly adequate than the last."

The fact is Show!Tyrion is a kind of cool!guy antihero, and his narrative in Season 5 and Season 6 is that he's as smart as his father. The narrative of Show!Jaime is that he's trying to be a bad enough dude like his father. The point is that is a drastic misinterpretation, where the point is that Tywin is a complete liar and unworthy of this adulation. And the show bends over backwards in making Tyrion "right", the biggest Ass Pull is him telling Dany that Jaime told him about Aerys II's wildfire. This is a drastic Retcon that alters Jaime's character entirely, and it's done solely to make Tyrion in the "right". When your Character Focus and Creator's Pet attitude has such visible and obvious changes to the story and character dynamics then it is absolutely right to criticize it because 1) It's not good storytelling, 2) It dilutes the very qualities that made that character interesting to start with, 3) It comes at the expense of other characters and makes Dany look like a barely sentient violent troglodyte (which is also sexist needless to say).

I mean does anybody like the Ramsay Bolton show in Season 5 and Season 6 which came at the expense of the competence of the following characters (Littlefinger, Roose, Stannis, Melisandre) and the expense of these guys' stories (Rickon, Sansa, Stannis, Jon). I have heard it being defended against complaints of book fans which is admittedly a vocal group, but I have not heard it being defended on its own merits...Is Ramsay Bolton a complex villain? Is he saying something interesting? Is the series of stories and actions and dynamics around him and his characters logical and consistent with pre-existing Worldbuilding?

No it isn't. It's justified coming from Ned, but not from some moocher Ungrateful Bastard who owes everything he did to Robert's drinking and whoring, and love of battle.

@Julian-

Don't think it's psychological projection to diagnose that most posters in this thread have a hate boner for the show.

I mean someone literally posted above "Okay so these guys are just fucking morons" and that seems to have been met with general approval. And Sharknado's second post is emblamatic of how haters of the show tend to be blind to character nuances in the same way they accuse the show of being.

I do generally agree with your take on the Lannister-centric view though. I think sometimes it works well (I'll never feel bad about a more sympathetic Cersei whose not a misogynistic caricature), but it often has downsides. I'd also add that while in no way are the Starks unsympathetic in the show, the Lannister-focus probably does have some relation to the lack of exploration of other Northern houses. I think this is one of my biggest issues. Most of all though, Tywin is a despicable hypocrite and war criminal and while I don't begrudge his having Pet the Dog or Bait the Dog moments, you have to stick the landing.

"I mean more or less they made Show!Ned an idiot for anyone going back to watch Season 1 now, since Ned basically died for a character who later seasons revealed to be unworthy, when Book!Stannis was totally worthy of Ned's stand."

This is something I have a problem with though. Obviously that's how you see Stannis, but it's not a requirement that anyone who reads the books will come away with that same view. Or even come away feeling that this is the view that Martin wanted the reader to have.

Edit- "We should be grateful to Weiss and Benioff that they barely became aware of the whole "peace of Meereen" thing became a parallel to Reconstruction because had they not been made aware, they would have sentimentalized the Harpy too because there were hints in S4 and S5 of them doing something like that. "

Weren't the Harpy in seasons 4 and 5 more in the way of a revolt by some of Dany's former supporters against her. I got the impression they were a composite with the Brazen Beasts.

I'll also add (and this is a topic for a longer discussion) that I find the identification of Dany's Meereen plot with Reconstruction unconvincing and basically think that in effect (if not in intent) the aim is to deflect t criticisms of the obvious Orientalism of that plot arc by arguing that Dany's Lincoln/Thadeus Stevens/Frederick Douglas/etc. and the Harzoos are the KKK.

Now if you are looking for a Reconstruction metaphor in the books, the Revanchist "Old Way" advocated for by Balon and his siblings is much more on point.

But I'd wait for Word of God in either case.

Edit 2- I really need to learn to use quoteblock.

edited 14th Mar '17 1:31:38 PM by Hodor2

GRRM heavily reserarched the South and slavery and reconstruction for his novel "Fevre Dream" and more importantly the showrunners themselves referred to it in the Behind the Scenes for that episode where Tyrion makes a deal with the Volantenes. And I don't see how the Sons of the Harpy are not the KKK.

"Stannis becomes one of the few characters fully to understand that [the real battle is in the North], which is why in spite of everything he is a righteous man, and not just a version of Henry VII, Tiberius or Louis XI." -- George R. R. Martin

Is is Projection to bring that up and not respond to the arguments in question. It's more or less Ad Hominem to deflect criticism, or the possibility of it.

Even when that "argument" is "Okay so these guys are just fucking morons"?

I agree it makes sense to see parallels between the Sons of the Harpy and the KKK, given that both are masked revanchist terrorists. And yes, Martin definitely has a background in Civil War and ante-bellum/ post-bellum history given his earlier novel (I also believe he's a fan of the book and/or film of Gone With the Wind- take that as you will).

I'm skeptical though of a take that you can't look at Dany's chapters in the context of Orientalism/ Imperialism, because it's "obviously" a metaphor for Reconstruction.

You know, rereading the context. I actually think I agree with your comment RE Ned and Stannis. Because even though Stannis wasn't there for Ned and I think his interactions with Jon evidence both good and bad aspects of Stannis' character, he is ultimately the one leader there for the North and against the Others. So, in that sense I think you could say that Ned's trusting in Stannis ultimately paid off (even if it wasn't reciprocated toward Ned himself).

Where I'd disagree is in terms of the idea that the reader has to come away with a super-positive impression of Stannis or else they are reading the book wrong. Reminds me of something I had been pondering in terms of criticizing the idea that there's necessarily a right way to interpret a character and/or whether it's clear how Martin wanted the reader to view a character.

So, in-universe, characters have a positive opinion of Kevan Lannister and lots of fans think he's cool for smacking down Cersei. On the other hand, there's a well-argued essay pointing to the amount of war crimes he authorizes both under Tywin's orders as well as through his own initiative and compared him with Nazis who were loving family men in between carrying out the Final Solution. And I'm not sure what Martin's own opinion is/how he wants the reader to come way seeing Kevan.

Which raised the question for me of if there's a "right way" to depict Kevan on screen, because depending on how someone sees him you're going to get some pretty different takes.

Edit- Just to clarify in advance, I don't think that Martin wants the reader to come away with an unambiguously positive impression of Kevan, and I'd go so far as to say that Martin probably wants the reader to question the fact that characters do feel so positively toward him given the war crimes he orders.

But yeah, if one person thinks Kevan is a "good man doing bad things" and another thinks "he's a Nazi", they are going to have rather different thoughts on the "right way" to depict Kevan in an adaptation.

edited 14th Mar '17 2:13:19 PM by Hodor2

Rest assured were GAME OF THRONES made by a guy who liked Stannis, and he made "Stannis-The-Mannis" Ascended Fanon rather than Unpopular Popular Character, then that would create the same problems as whitewashing the Lannisters does, it would dilute the effect, argument and complexity of the book and the very qualities that made that character so interesting.

Of course, it could be defended on the grounds that it's not a drastic reinterpretation of the material, in the manner that say whitewashing Renly is, or sentimentalizing the Lannisters or making Ramsay Sue the all devouring black hole of the Northern storyline, undoubtedly is. Doing the latter damages their storylines at the expense of everyone else and drastically shortchanges: Edmure, Blackfish, Brienne, the poor poor Dornish, Myrcella, the Sparrows, Sansa and Stannis. Those changes happen because the showrunners want Jaime to be the good guy in Dorne and Riverlands, so he has to make him be "right" rather than walk that thin murky line in the books, and indeed the same murky line he did in Seasons 1-3, or in the case of Ramsay they wanted him to be Joffrey+Tywin since that allowed them easy storybeats to structure...even if the context and verisimilitude made no sense.

The point is that you must never be sure that in a conflict a certain character is doing the right thing, or acting as if he were fully aware that there was a better way. There has to be that murkiness. That's how GRRM presents actions. If, as in the case of Renly v. Stannis in the show, one side is painted repeatedly as being right (Renly), then regardless of what I think about Renly, that is automatically betraying the story. There has to be that ambiguity in the presentation of moment. In the books, we see it from Cat's view and she dislikes Renly and is afraid of Stannis. It's not clear to her what she should do, and that's what you should go for. If you say in the case of Jaime, that Blackfish is clearly fighting a Hopeless War in the show, whereas that's not the case at all in the books, then you are removing the point. If you make Edmure a milquetoast, then again you kind of remove and soften the nastiness of Jaime's threat to him, and of course, if you make the Sand Snakes...well what the show did to them, then that means that the Lannisters don't have to feel guilty about Tywin at all. Oberyn was a moron and unworthy of revenge, and the Martells and the Dornish fully deserve to be exterminated.

In the case of Stannis...see until Season 3, I didn't have too many issues with what they were doing. I mean even with the sanctification of Renly, okay in Season 1, that stupid speech he gave to Robert, absurd, hypocritical and ungrateful as it is as is that bizarre statement where he asks Ned "Do you think soldiers make good kings?" and Ned doesn't respond so we are supposed to take it as if Renly won^note Book!Ned would reply, obviously "Says a guy who is planning a palace coup, usurping succession by means of Might Means Right and never fought a day in his life". As bad as this is and still is, its not unproblematic because it's a way to vocalize some of the issues of Ned and Robert and the Rebellion. It's clumsy and hamfisted yes but it serves a clear thematic and narrative purpose. But without a proper pushback and counter, this becomes Franchise Original Sin: IF you say stuff like Rhillor is Evil, if you make Brienne a sadistic little bully just to sanctify Renly and clearly say that everything would be better if we listened and crowned him, then you are more or less poisoning the well.

Classic ad hominem. A correct statement is a correct statement, regardless of who makes it. Renly is absolutely correct that War Is Hell, and a ruinous thing to wish to inflict on the world again.

Save our sons from war, we pray. Stay the swords, and still the arrows; let them know a kinder day.

edited 14th Mar '17 2:42:38 PM by blkwhtrbbt

I didn't answer, period, so obviously I didn't answer to the arguments in question, since I was unavailable. I didn't ignore your answer, I just didn't read it before right now. which makes your accusation of me purposefully ignoring it groundless. My statement was only made on the process from Madskillz nitpicking the exact sentences that will get some posters here on fire to everyone answering by some variation on D&D's lack of talent/intelligence/understanding of the show. Which just happened to be what was on when I thought "hey, maybe I should check this thread to see if, for once, people are discussing the show and not insulting it?"

So it's "one of the best" and "not good enough"? Nice way to set some impossible standards, Terence Fletcher. This thread is filled with people who, at best, quickly go over what's good and discuss in lengths what sucks, which is exactly what someone who doesn't like something would behave. Now, if there was some kind of balance between people who like and people who dislike the show, that would be fair, because the whole thread would actually look like a place where people display different opinions (see: the Arrow thread). But all the people who used to say something positive about it just got out if here because of the prominence of hateposting, turning it into a circlejerk obsessed with finding new ways to dismiss the show.

Everything else in the post is just Blah, Blah, Blah that has nothing to do with the fact that the insults following D&D's statement were irrelevant. I don't give a damn about the character development or the adaptation in that case. When D&D say that "they want the Lannisters to win", they just say that they consider the Lannisters the most interesting characters (which is kinda true IMO), not that they are going to bend the story so that Cersei, Tyrion and Jaime all end up on top.

Tywin Lannister cannot win since he is dead. Neither can Myrcella or Tommen or Joffrey for the same reason. The only living Lannisters are Tywin's kids, and they are on opposite sides. They cannot win. Not all of them anyway. Which makes a literal interpretation of the statement completely idiotic.

Except Robert is not wishing for a war again in that scene. He's merely nostalgic for his youth and all the good times he had in that scene. Renly is the one going on the offense and he's more or less calling his brother a warmonger for going to war against the Targaryens. That is the implication there.

And yes I can call out Renly for that because he's making a moral statement that is one not germane to the context of the moment and the thing in the past, it's mostly his Ad Hominem attack on his brother for being a fat warmonger which is again his projection.

If you are going to make moral statements and not critical-aesthetic ones, your person and conduct matters a great deal. Renly owes his life, status, career to Robert and his martial skills. Demeaning that without reflection, without acknowledgment, is no way for that to fly. Furthermore, Renly's argument is undermined because he himself agreed with Robert to order the death of Daenerys.

And once again, he never once demeaned Robert's martial skill, he only denounced Robert's fondness for those particular days of war. Being that fond of a time period does carry the implication that one wishes the period return.

He doesn't criticize that Robert fought the war, he only criticizes that he would miss it, and all the destruction, death and horror that it brought. Robert's "Glory Days!" attitude demonstrates that he would not at all mind living in a state of perpetual rebellion, because that's what he was good at, consequences to everyone else in the nation be damned.

If you had a Vietnam vet family member, you certainly wouldn't criticize their participation, because they were a member of the armed forces. If they then turned around and gleefully told you they enjoyed the killing, and the looting, and the raping the local population, and that they wished for those days to come back, you'd have a very different opinion. At least, I certainly hope you would. Because as a citizen of a democratic nation they have some small piece of political power, and can in fact cause such a thing to return. Robert, as king, has even more.

Also, Renly doesn't owe it to his brother to listen to his war stories, and his rape stories, and his prattling about how war was better days just because Robert's war, which made Robert king, also happened to raise his own station. Robert did not fight that war for Renly's sake. Robert fought for Lyanna, and against Rhaegar. No one else mattered nearly as much (politically speaking) to him. Not to mention all the subtle little jabs at Renly, about how he "wasn't a real man" because he never fought a war himself. Did you catch any of that? Anyone would have sniped back, and been right to do so.

Ordering the death of Danaerys Targaryen is murdering a single person of great potential power so that the war doesn't repeat itself. Which is entirely consistent with his anti-war attitude.

edited 14th Mar '17 4:37:09 PM by blkwhtrbbt

That's, to put it bluntly, complete bollocks. Expressing a longing for past days doesn't mean one wishes they could return - one can fully recognize that yes, they felt good during those times and found enjoyment and purpose during them while ALSO recognizing that they weren't good times. The only thing that'd prove Robert was a warmonger would be him actually trying to start a war, which he doesn't do.

Reducing it to "you are gloryfying war!!!!" is childish. One's enjoyment of a situation for whatever reasons isn't a moral statement about said situation. Robert enjoys fighting and bloodshed - yes, that's a rather unsavory element of his personality, and one can point it out as such -, of course he's gonna have some feelings of nostalgia for the time when he could engage in both.

But that's all they are: feelings. You can call them disturbing, you can even call them callous. Robert obviously is kind of a jaded asshole and there's many points of his personality that go from obnoxious to downright toxic. But that's it. He's a bad king, though not without his moments of smartness: but he's not a warmongering king.

Your argument against Robert is reaching and basically boils down to "well he's not actually mongering any wars, but he feels a certain way about another era, so it's just the same!'', which is bunk. It's the kind of arguments people use when they don't have any left and just try to play couch therapist who knows how you feel better than yourself. Call him an unpleasant person for longing for the days of war: but that's not enough to call him "bad".

I'm not calling Robert bad either, I'm simply saying that there's no wrong in criticizing that particular line of thought, especially for a person who has likely had to hear that story over and over and over again.

It's not a story Renly particularly likes, not framed in a way to make it appealing to him, and not one he can relate to in any way shape or form.

And yet somehow Renly is "ungrateful" for cutting it short.

edited 16th Mar '17 9:31:13 AM by blkwhtrbbt