Game of Thrones - Book Readers' Thread - - - - - - Part 23

And it was very good in the books? Wonder why they mucked it up.

 

Reaction to Dorne in the books is mixed, but I think most appreciated that storyline more so than the show depiction. It mostly came down to the fact that the Martells aren't as violent or eager to murder children as they are in the show, and that the main Martell character and POV was cut from the show.

Granted, I can understand why they weren't going to use Dorne originally. It mostly serves to supplement another storyline that the show didn't adapt. They needed to take Jaime out of King's Landing for Cersei's downfall with the Faith, and Bryan Cogman one of the writers, suggested that he go to Dorne so that they could build off the excitement people had for Oberyn in Season 4. It came together very late in the production.

 

Spoiler

For real? Have to find the room for the Riverlands, the Hound and the Tarlys I guess, now if they said I wouldn't be seeing Mereen and King's Landing again then I'd be set.

 

Spoiler

Tarlys are only in one episode I believe.

 

Eh, I mean the foreshadowing is there. Danny has had some dreams and we had the visions in the House of the Undying...but again I think it was poor plotting to introduce him so late in the game. And he still has barely done anything five books in. I also don't buy that you couldn't have had him there earlier, GRRM introduced the WW's in book 1 as a supernatural threat, so why not throw in Crow's Eye sooner as well?

Also, as others have said, we don't know if he'll actually end up being all that important to the end game plot. Say what you will about the show, but so far they've cut the plot lines that had little effect on the main overarching plot of this world. Quentin Martell wasn't included (thank god) because all he really added to the story was a way for Danny's Dragons to escape. LSH hasn't shown up either, and I'm beginning to think it's because she won't end up doing a whole lot more than she has in the books, which is basically nothing, aside from killing a few Frey's no one gives a crap about.

If Euron goes towards Danny and she ends up defeating him and keeping his ships, then I'm perfectly fine with how they're handling him in the show, because, again, he showed up far to late for me to care about him as a villain. If he really was supposed to be this big bad for the series, GRRM should have included him sooner, or made his presence felt in a way beyond a few bad dreams that we didn't realize the validity of until book 4 anyway. Take the Emperor in the original Star Wars trilogy. We don't see him until Movie 3, but his presence is felt very strongly in how other characters talk about him, and in the power we see him have over Vader in ESB. If GRRM wanted Crows Eye to be this big villain, he should have done something similar throughout the books with him. The dreams weren't enough.

And no, this stuff is not approaching the Sandsnake realm for one reason: Because the SandSnake stuff was stupid even to people who haven't read the books. The writing was bad, the acting was over the top, the plot line made no sense to include. Yes, show Euron is a much less impressive version of book Euron, but within the confines of the show he still made sense. He fits with the idea of the Iron born the show has set up. (And yes, I know Euron isn't supposed to, but I'm comparing this purely on the level of being a television program). The SandSnakes didn't fit with the GOT world. They didn't even fit with the presentation of other characters from their country "We don't hurt little girls in Dorne...aside from my girlfriend. She's crazy. Keep your kid away from her."
The Dorne Subplot failed as a piece of television. The Iron Born plot line isn't. It's a less interesting adaptation, but it as it is in the world the show has set up, it's perfectly fine.

And it's a hell of lot shorter than it was in the books, so I still like it better.

 

I see. Btw who is the main Martell character that was cut?

 

Also, as a general aside:

I don't want non book readers here to think that I'm saying the IB plot in the books is poorly written. It's not, in fact, GRRM has very little writing I would consider "poor" by any means. But I did think the plot felt rather pointless, especially since the Iron Born characters largely consisted of character types that we had already seen in the series. A hulking vicious barbarian who doesn't fear death and is a great pillager and plunderer...oh look Kahl Drogo on a boat. A manipulative brother who seems to be trying to use his family and his nation to achieve his own ends, possibly with supernatural means...Magic Littlefinger etc.

That said, Euron does seem like a cool villain in the books, and I would have preferred they had given the show Euron his look (why leave out an eyepatch guys, c'mon!) and his calm creepy swagger...but I still didn't care about him. I already had other villains to follow and other characters I had been reading about far longer. While he came across as interesting, it still wasn't enough to make me excited to see where his arc went in the story.

 

Quentin, and thank god, he was one of the most pointless POV characters in the book.

 

Oh right thanks. Also which book(s) are we talking about here? I will probably dive back in after this season is finished.

 

He was book 5.

 

Great, thanks.

 

No problem sir.

But yeah, Quentin was the height of a pointless character in GRRM's writing, at least to me. Luckily he didn't have too many chapters, but I still have no idea why GRRM included him. If it was to show the foolishness of trying to live out or embody the classic heroisms associated with these kinds of medieval tales...we as readers already had that point hammered home to us from the first book. If it was to show that Danny had a connection to Dorne and that she had been promised to marry into one of the powerful houses, hell why not do that through a raven? And if it was to get the dragons released, that could have been done in a plethora of ways that didn't involve creating a new POV character to do it. Quentin was really when I realized GRRM was veering into Robert Jordan territory and making things needlessly long winded.

 

Maybe that's why he's having such a hard job finishing the series up!

 

I honestly do think he's gotten to the point where he's become too wrapped up in his world to focus on completing the plot. It's like, if you had told GRRM to write out the Alphabet, he wrote it out to about N, and then decided to go back and rewrite all the letters in lower case, and then rewrite those letters again in different fonts. And I think it's because he doesn't know how to get from N to X, because we know he already has X, Y, Z figured out, but now he's gotten too caught up in his pretty penmanship to just finish the damn alphabet already.

 

This happens to me too when I write and it becomes impossible to finish something without veering off on 15 different tangents. And given how much there is going on in GoT I can see how he would get into that mess. Plus with all these years past and all this hype built up there would be so much pressure to deliver perfection that I can see why he would keep putting it off.

 

George R.R. Martin revealed 3 huge shocks to Game of Thrones producers

During the producers’ sit down with the author in Santa Fe two years ago, Martin famously sketched out a very rough plan of how he intends to end his saga in the books. Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss tell EW those conversations included “three holy sh– moments” in particular.

The first: Stannis Barathon sacrificing his daughter Shireen – which was shown during the show’s fifth season.

The second: Hodor’s mind-bending origin story, which was revealed in Sunday’s hour. Martin has known the true meaning behind Hodor’s name since introducing the character in the first novel of the saga, A Game of Thrones.

And the third shocking moment?

“… is from the very end…,” Benioff teased.

 

Yeah, and let's be real, he wasn't exactly a fast writer before the show was a mega hit and he had all this pressure. So I'm not exactly surprised that he's become even slower.

And all that aside, the guy isn't getting any younger, so he's not likely to speed up with age either.

 

True.

I bet with all those fan theories out there, there's a chance someone has covered this shock. Although I guess stuff like the Hodor origin wouldn't really be predictable however much people theorised as it's a bit too specific.

 

it was all a dream confirmed

 

Here are comments from a fan who was at the Jean Cocteau (GRRM's theater) event in Santa Fe (which is where I live, but I didn't go) last night on the Hodor name reveal:

"He interviewed Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) at the Jean Cocteau. Afterwards he answered questions while Joe Hill was signing books. Someone asked him about the show's Hodor name reveal. He said that his name reveal in the books will differ in the context and how it happens. So while the name will still mean the same thing (Hold the Door), it will be very different from the show's reveal. He said he came up with the name idea in 1991 and seemed depressed that the show got to reveal it before he did. He said he had no one to blame but himself for his slow writing. He joked about how jealous he was of Stephen King's writing speed. He said he seemed to release an entire book every time he's only just written about a chapter and a half.

"Someone else asked him if he was caught up on this season and GRRM said all his focus is on the books. Someone complemented his chapter that he recently released online. GRRM said that this is a character that isn't in the TV show as his response. The tone of his show related responses made it seem like he no longer likes it. He did defend the show writer's need to make major cuts to the books."


Good top reply there too:


"I do wonder if GRRM is more depressed then he lets on, his 20 year magnum opus is going to have its ending revealed by a tv show that went into production 15 years after the first book was published. Yeah they're different, but the ending will be the same (according to D&D anyways) and it's gotta eat him up a bit. If he's sad about the Hodor thing, imagine how he will feel when the series finale airs and he's only a couple chapters into writing ADOS."


Absolutely he's bummed out! He completely overestimated his ability to stay apace with the show while taking on a multitude of side projects and excursions across the globe. Procrastination and distractibility are a lethal combo against production. I've wrestled with the same issues in the past.

But IMO, even if he had buckled down to complete TWOW earlier, the sheer size of his manuscripts and the trend of an increasing average completion time for each would still preclude completing ADOS in time. That he thought he could accelerate his pace back to '90s form to get it all done in time was overly-optimistic delusional madness. Only if he was locked away in a remote mountain cabin with no Internet for years could he have met the deadline. And this is probably what he needs to do to finish the series before he dies.

 

Honestly George. Side projects and excursions! Fine to contribute on the show but the Magnum Opus, your defining work should always have been the priority over anything non-GoT related. That's all you needed to get done in life and then you could have relaxed or taken on as many side projects as you wanted!

I do feel sorry for him though haha, someone else will bring in the glory moment after all of those years of work.

 

I wish I could feel sorry for him. I guess a little part of me does, but, he did it to himself. He didn't have to reveal the ending to D&D. He could have told them to do their own thing after the source material was gone.

 

That might be difficult too as the show also reflects on him and his product and the ASOIAF legacy. I would guess he wants the show to end things just as well as the book and probably in exactly the same way, just to do it after he has produced the text that it is supposed to be based on. While he's writing the last book it wouldn't surprise me if he adds in a few awesome new things and those won't be available for the showrunners. You don't fully see the big picture of your work till you've finished, no matter how intricately you may have planned it all out.

 

I wouldn't say George is feeling too down, he knew this was coming for a long time. The bloke isn't stupid, he made a choice to labour over his writing and knew the risk.

The only thing that would concern me is that George always struck me as someone who reveled in swerving his readers, so I'd be worried he'd sacrifice his original vision for the sake of providing a shock.

 

I've read a number of interviews with him. In one he said he would be very unhappy if the series overtook the books. His mood was also very downcast when he admitted TWOW wasn't going to be published in time.

In another interview he said he doesn't write as if it's some game to confound readers. While twists are important, his main goal is to tell a good story. That's not going to be sacrificed in favor of shocks and surprises.