Game of Thrones [Potential Book Spoilers]

Sadly, I think it is. Before the final season, there was so much press and so much hype for it, especially the much anticipated sequal series. There were hopes that more than one would be picked up and developed. Now I don't hear anything about them. I suppose one of them is planned or perhaps even started... but honestly, I'm not excited any more. Or to be perfectly honest, I am a little bit interested and I'll probably watch it because I was very emotionally invested in this series but I can't even start comaparing the levels of my interest and excitement. And the buzz is gone, methinks.

Agreed about How I Met Your Mother.

I've read twice (in my FB feed, still follwing one site with Game of Thrones memes) that GRRM is supposedly working very hard on the novel during because of quarantine/social distancing etc. Not interested, George R.R. Crying wolf for too many times.

So much potential wasted.

Yeah I wouldn't count on him finishing the next book any time soon either. I am still hopeful that we will get Wo W eventually, but I suppose chances that we see the end of the book series are at 50%.

Not exactly relevant to this thread, but thought I'd post it here, since seems the most relevant place I can think of.

So, I definitely thought Roy Dotrice did a good job with Haldane in the show, but I mostly knew of him for his narration of the books, which seems to be a Love It or Hate It thing, and which I was mostly familiar with in terms of the derided parts (i.e.Misandei's voice being Asian Speekee Engrish and Davos being given a stereotypical "pirate accent").

Well, I recently watched him in the Twelve Dancing Princesses episode of Faerie Tale Theatre and in an episode of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (I should make a page for that someday), and he was a really charismatic and entertaining actor. I'll have to seek out other things he was in. Apparently, he played a recurring character in the Beauty and the Beast tv show that Martin wrote for.

Edited by Hodor2 on Jul 19th 2020 at 6:34:54 AM

I know him from playing Mozart's dad in Amadeus and he has a guest role in Babylon 5 where he plays a Neville Chamberlain-type. He plays both roles well enough.

I finished watching the series in October of last year, I think, and there's one question that still nags at me.

Why did people just assume Ned was the protagonist in the first season? I've never been able to get a clear answer for this. The only two things I've heard were "Ned is played by a famous actor" (why would that matter? This is an adaptation, for crying out loud) and "Ned was given more focus than any other character" (I don't have the characters' screentimes on hand, so if someone can confirm this, it'd be nice). Neither are explanations I like. If Ned's death is meant to "subvert the expectations of people expecting a generic fantasy story"... How exactly does it accomplish that?

This old dude, father of several children, war hero who would find it very difficult to develop any further than he already has, who's already left his mark on the story's world offscreen in the backstory and who has a pre-existing supporting cast instead of slowly acquiring them over the course of the story... There's no way you could convince me he would have lasted long.

Meanwhile, there's a young man and a young woman who have been thrust into unfamiliar situations, who will have to find their place in the world by themselves, and who must slowly construct a supporting cast for themselves, are very clearly set up as protagonists. Was I not supposed to think that? Why?

Both Drogo and Robb's deaths were more subversive (though only Drogo was so out of left field it made me stay in denial about it till the second season's finale). I wasn't surprised by Robb's death, but I can see the argument that can be made: In every other fantasy story, the son of the famous hero/king/famous person would go on to avenge his death. That expectation is constantly enforced in fantasy stories, and when he died, it threw people for a loop. I understand that. But what expectations were being subverted in Ned's death? That the showrunners wouldn't kill a famous actor? That seems like the most cynical reason possible. When you watch a show - and get really into it, like GoT fans seemed to have gotten back in the early seasons - you tend to ignore concerns like what actor is playing who for the sake of suspension of disbelief. So it just seems odd to me that that would be why people were so shocked. It seems like what you would think if you weren't into it.

Easiest to just think of it as carryover from the books where he had a bit more of set up as a Decoy Protagonist and hints at the mysteries in his past. And where he was also much younger being only like 34 or 35.

Edited by doineedaname on Sep 5th 2020 at 12:55:43 PM

Because people forgot Sean Bean is contractually obligated to did in any media he appears in.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 5th 2020 at 9:58:26 AM

He's not,apparently he's rather annoyed by this and started declining roles where he's killed off

It was a joke. The fact that he got killed off so much is why it became a meme.

well you can't blame me when the joke jumps over my head!

Ned is the main character of the first season (and played by a famous actor, yeah). It's noticeable if you go back to season 1 after watching all of it, you can see evidently that the story is firmly set on Ned Stark and he moves basically all plotlines aside from Dany's (and even then he indirectly figures into it) and Jon's in the Wall. Season 2 noticeably has a tricky purpose of transitioning it more to the "multiple POV" purpose, with Tyrion kind of taking up Ned's mantle as the protagonist. This diminishes in season 3 onwards but Tyrion still has the greatest focus out of any character in general by a fair margin.

Season 2 was really were Tyrion had his big moments. Sad his tenure as Hand only lasted so long.

He peaked during his first term. It was all downhill from there.

I haven't read the books (maybe one day) so I can't say for sure, but I can imagine his importance would be much clearer when you can see the number of POV chapters dedicated to him vs everyone else.

Personally, I don't see him being played by Sean Bean as evidence for or against his death (pretty sure GoT was when he officially became typecast as 'dude who dies all the time'), but I will say that, going into the show expecting his death to subvert traditional fantasy conventions, I was disappointed. Everything about Ned told me that he was either going to die, or less likely, be imprisoned or exiled to get him out of the story because the story cannot hang on the guy who cannot evolve or rise further than he already has.

But in general, the series has failed me in this regard every time, partly because of It Was His Sled, and partly because of detachment from the action. By the time we got to the Battle of the Bastards, the show was in full Plot Armor mode, which is sad, because there was a point in it where I was genuinely thinking "Oh shit, is Jon actually going to lose?"

Game of Thrones: The one show that can make you say "So my favorite character DIDN'T die? Dammit!"

The first book does a good job of presenting him Ned as one of the main characters, by teasing the readers with scenes for which you would usually expect a follow-up.

His promise to Jon. Obviously those two will meet later on right? Or his feverish dream in the dungeon (not included in the television series) about the battle at the tower of Joy. Surely we will later get the full version of it?

Then it looks like everything is set up for him to fullfil those expectations. He will be send to the wall and talk with Jon about his past. And then wham, he is dead. Even his death is told in a somewhat detached way, not from his perspective, but from Arya's who does not even see it. I remember how I had to read the chapter in question twice in order to fully understand that Ned was dead.

Of course this only really works if you are not really aware of the series' reputation. If you know that plenty of characters' are going to die, then Ned becomes an obvious candidate.

Even his death is a big, important moment, with a lot of buildup worthy of a character that was important up to that point, as well as sending major shockwaves across the entire story. I may find it disappointing from the perspective of wanting to be surprised, but the way his death was used to move the story in different directions, give purpose to his supporting cast as well as other characters, and just shake things up in general was excellent. Some of the ones that happen in the future miss the point of why his death worked, I think.

Also, fantasy stories have a tradition of offing an older, experienced character to let the younger generation shine.

I am getting progressively more interested in reading the books because I was not aware of how much was actually cut, even in the early seasons. Tyrion in particular seems like he would appeal to me far more in the books than he did in the show (and keep in mind, he was my favorite character already).

Edited by DBZfan102 on Sep 7th 2020 at 10:07:39 AM

True, but those old characters are rarely view-point characters and they usually died once their journey was "complete". Ned's journey was far from over. Of course in the end it is difficult to argue just how shocking Ned's death truly was/is since main character deaths have become far more usual in the genre partly due to GRRM's influence.

I think you would really enjoy the books, however Tyrion is a very different chracter from the white-washed version of the books. He is far more ruthless from the very beginning, and his "romance" with Shae is also very different. But you will probably appreciate the depth of his character.

Although you will have to be prepared for the possibility that you will start a book series that will never be completed.

I've read books unspoiled and yes, Ned's death was really unexpected. The first book did a very good job with presenting him as one of the more important characters and teased reader with how he knew what was going on during rebelion/Jon's parentage/his promise to his sister/etc., and then he just died. One of the things that helps sell his importance is the fact that he was set as the only person who could answer some of important questions, so the reader waits for some kind of pay off from him.

Chalk it up to my sheer lack of feeling that he was the main character from not seeing his POVs, then.

I do vaguely recall details in the book about him making a mysterious promise to Lyanna, which I think is from the first book? Even though it was shown in the series only in the final season.

And yeah, I've heard about Tyrion and his Adaptational Nice Guy in the show, from watching a breakdown of his character. And I've also heard about what Tywin did to his first girlfriend Tysha, and man. Man, that whole plot thread just seemed really interesting. I don't get why they cut that Reveal.

And how Tyrion's inner monologues frequently mention her throughout the books, which is also something quite impossible to adapt faithfully.

Edited by DBZfan102 on Sep 11th 2020 at 11:42:53 AM

I'd say because it makes Tywin out to be an utter monster while the show loves to buy into the image Tywin cultivated in the books of a harsh, but intelligent ruler.

The show very routinely softens the rough edges of the men, and by that point Tyrion was the most popular character, so they couldn't have the precious cinnamon roll do something unquestionably terrible. Needed to save all that up for Dany.

Instead they made him an idiot and his intellect became an Informed Attribute.

D&D didn't quite catch the subtle stuff and took things at face value. And, of course, Littlefinger had to be moustache twirling because of reasons.

They figured out Jon's parentage (or not, if GRRM decided to pull a curveball in this decade he has been baking the next books) not by themselves, I swear.

If I recall correctly, GRRM talked about the idea of him throwing curveballs like that before and he thought it'd be a shitty thing to do - when you put out all these little clues, you want readers to put them together and theorise, figure things out. If you later decide to just change direction to for the sake of a surprise twist, that just makes people feel like they wasted their time.

True, but writers can be human and fall out of love with ideas they liked earlier. And there are ways to seed enough possible clues that at least 3 outcomes are perfectly plausible going into the next act.

It wouldn't exactly be a debate if the clues were things like "The killers initials are J. B." and "The killer is left handed" and the character of Jeff Brown is the only left handed character in the cast. Now, you could cheat and introduce Janice Beauford, the left handed robber, in the final act 3 pages before the end but that's no fun. Part of the goal to a good mystery is to obfuscate what is or isn't important and leave just enough possibilities or vague details that viewers will build their own mental narrative which the author can aim a canon at.

Agatha Christie was rather good at that back in the day. We'd always assume that there has to be one (MAYBE two) killers only to find out everyone did it. Or we'd assume that the POV character is the detective only to find out they're the murderer. And especially we'd never think a murder victim could fake their death and continue killing while completely above suspicion of the characters or the audience. It may not be murder, but ASOIAF is good at exactly that method.