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Game of Thrones


Tomahawk Rob
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Watched the season 1 finale of Game of Thrones last night. Epic stuff! Overall, it took a few episodes to get going, but once the shit hit the fan, awesomeness kicked in big stylee... Seriously, season 2 cannot come soon enough!

The missus also gave the adaptation a double-thumbs-up, even though she'd recently read the first two books in the series and loved em!

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Loved Game of Thrones, brilliant TV, can't wait for the second season.

Currently reading the first book after watching it and there's loads more detail in the book that makes me appreciate the characters even more. Literally can't put it down!

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  • 1 year later...
On 22/03/2013 at 13:21, DANGERMAN said:

I've been watching Game of Thrones, it's brilliant, but it's starting to turn in to the sort of fantasy bollocks that made me not want to watch it

If it's what I think you're talking about I wouldn't worry. It's only a relatively minor part of everything going on, at least for now anyway.

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Game Of Thrones is great - very minimal fantasy in the first season. I tried reading the book but got bored fast so no idea what to expect of season 2, an increase in fantasy I would imagine!

btw, if it's cool shit, fantasy is OK, alright?!

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Not really sure what GRRM intends to do with the fantasy stuff as it's been relatively minor up to book 5. It's always there in the background but it sometimes breaks through front and center when focusing on certain parts of the story.

It feels as though sometimes he decides to go full blown fantasy but then changes his mind and reverts back to normal again. Can be a little jarring when the books are jumping between lots of characters in quick succession.

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I think he probably didnt need to add so many characters per book, but at the same time I can see why he has done it. He has tried to achieve that sort of 'nobody is safe' attitude throughout the books, and on the whole I think it works really well. Everybody was shocked near the end of season one, people that watched the tv series and read the books too, I was looking for a way on interpreting it so that its all fine but it isnt, and that happens throughout the whole thing too.

I think the TV series will be fine with the fantasy stuff, its not actually up to Martin anyway regarding how the TV series portrays it, but I think he always had a TV series in mind when he wrote the books because they arent full of stuff that would normally stop most book series being converted to TV anyway. His philosophy is that magic exists in within the story but its always at a great cost, so you dont often get magic all over the place, and when you do it means something special.

My biggest worry as the TV series goes on, is that certain things get missed out, or amalgamated that in my mind seem crucial to the slow burning under story which is woven so far throughout the books. Again, I suppose his problem is that these details in the books are always very very minor at the time of reading, but when you look back after three books times and you realise that something was being forshadowed, it seems obvious. So with this in mind, he cant exactly make a big deal of certain things in the TV series that will then give away what he might still be planning for books six and seven, which makes it a difficult balance.

I actually think the way the books go from person to person is done really well, although many new characters are introduced over the course of a book, each book only had a few characters who act as narrators, (The book's sort of USP is that the action is always told as if you are one of a few characters, ive listed them below for book one, as you can see its a relatively even spread, but by book five it does dilute as required with more characters having only one or two chapters, however even then you can group these characters into their sub plots) which actually makes it easier for the TV series to work, and on the whole you can actually look at the TV's episode number and which of the book's chapters it will cover, and its almost exactly like for like with some minor tweaking here and there.

On my point about worrying that certain key scenes being missed out (which largely allude to what might eventually be a Heroes style 'older generation' story arch) I expect that most of these will just all be fed to the user in direct flashbacks in a sort of 'filler' series, that Martin might need to buy himself more time to write his books, as opposed to stories you hear or tales that are often recounted by characters but never directly 'seen' as the reader.

  • Ned Stark - 15 chapters
  • Catelyn Stark - 11 chapters
  • Daenerys Targaryen - 10 chapters
  • Tyrion Lannister - 9 chapters
  • Jon Snow - 9 chapters
  • Bran Stark - 7 chapters
  • Sansa Stark - 6 chapters
  • Arya Stark - 5 chapters
  • Will - 1 chapter (Prologue)

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Double post!

Not to mention the very daunting issue of how the TV series tackles books four and five, where Martin effectively divides his lengthy roster of characters and tells a year or so of one half of the character's story in book four, before then going back and telling the story of the other half of the characters during the same period and matching up events. Its hard to follow in the books, but is a mammoth undertaking for a TV series to handle well, and I suspect that they might just show series four and five as you would logically show them, with all events that happen at the same time, actually happening at the same time rather than going back and recounting what other people were doing when so and so was doing something.

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who cares! its back on next sunday! :-)

my fear with it is that the show will simply devolve into banal fantasy, lose its audience and get cancelled.

especially as the author has not even finished his books.

hope they keep the shows story tight, booby quota high and lots of tyrion.

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It is worth it, but yes it is a bit repetitive. The 2nd series is half the length sensibly I've been watching Game of Thrones, it's brilliant, but it's starting to turn in to the sort of fantasy bollocks that made me not want to watch it

If it's what I think you're talking about I wouldn't worry. It's only a relatively minor part of everything going on, at least for now anyway.

it was in season 2

Let's ignore the dragons because comparatively they weren't too bad, but a witch suddenly became pregnant and then gave birth to a shadow that killed someone instantly. Aside from how stupid that is in and of itself, if she can kill people that easily then why has the old magic died out. I didn't like the warlocks or whatever they were (the skinny guy who stole the dragons) but that's dealt with now

I do like the dead coming back though, that's pretty well done and set up series 3 pretty well

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Magic has gone because the magical things have gone, but as they come back, magic gets stronger. The point with that woman who is casting magic all over the place is explained by the god that she follows sort of being the anti to The Others, he is the god of light and fire as opposed to ice etc. His power is speculated at being linked to the comet in the sky through season 2

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Not to mention the very daunting issue of how the TV series tackles books four and five, where Martin effectively divides his lengthy roster of characters and tells a year or so of one half of the character's story in book four, before then going back and telling the story of the other half of the characters during the same period and matching up events. Its hard to follow in the books, but is a mammoth undertaking for a TV series to handle well, and I suspect that they might just show series four and five as you would logically show them, with all events that happen at the same time, actually happening at the same time rather than going back and recounting what other people were doing when so and so was doing something.

I was wondering the same but GRRM said in a recent interview that books 4 and 5 will be joined and re-edited for the TV show. Won't be an easy job at all and the potential for a Wall sized fuck up is huge.

He was also saying in the same interview that there are some characters who had died early on in the books but had so far survived in the TV show. Haven't looked into who specifically but I wonder on the ramifications of something like that. He had also been speaking to cast members who had asked him not to kill off their characters, but they were already dead in the books. Awkward!

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Walking Dead has done it, I notice Rick isnt missing one fairly major thing that he his literary counterpart is missing, and in my opinion its for the better.

None of the major characters that die or live in the Game of thrones books are still alive or dead in the TV, its just one or two minor ones, and there are many that arent in the TV series or are perhaps amalgamated into one which might explain why they are still alive, because they are fulfilling a few roles and only one of which might have died. I hadnt realised that the book which this current series is focussing on was being split across two tv series, in my opinion it would make more sense to just make more episodes per season, rather than another season. The main reason I can see for having done this is that more money will be made, it also gives him more time to write the next books, which in turn makes him more money, which is starting to frustrate me, but in his defence thats sort of always what he has been about so its a moot point.

So yeah, question answered then I guess, books will be joined into one, and then probably split over four or maybe five series, which means that there will be at least six more series just from the books that have been written, and thats not including the possible mini series that Dunc and Egg could produce from their prequel books. Wont be expecting the next two books to both be finished this side of 2020 then....

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The main reason the seasons aren't longer is not just money to made, it's the production costs as well. I recall reading somewhere that this was one of the most expensive TV productions ever, which concerns me a little.

What if the viewing figures and ratings drop significantly for some reason? The big TV stations have been known to drop shows for less, especially if it's costing them an arm and a leg to produce. There's no real way to just round it off and write a quick ending as in other shows. Even The Walking Dead could be written to an end as it's diverged from it's source so greatly, but GoT would would very difficult to finish prematurely.

I can't see that happening tbh, but you never know what these companies are thinking sometimes.

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True, but at the same time, many shows like this are renewed upon receiving the viewing figures from the opening show and then looking at the drop off from the next one or two shows. The biggest problem a show like this has is the writing, they get popular, then increase the amount of episodes per season, and in most cases they dont have a further season or two written in advance. This in turn leads to having to create 24 episodes per season from scratch which can lead to a drop in quality and viewing figures dropping off.

With this theres the script effectively written in advance and the main call they have to make is whether they think who is attached to directing and producing can actually convert that well enough to pull in the viewing figures required to green light the budget. I still think the danger area is going to be the handling of book four and five. If they can get through to the final parts of book five then they will be fine because thats got some great stuff, but the middle part of 4 and also five were a drop for me, and if they are combining the two then the combined middles of 4 and 5 could take the best part of a series, and there are so many new characters introduced, they are going to have to try and make as much as they can of some of the reveals like

young griff and how various people have been manipulating things behind the scene

because theres also stuff like

Arya being dragged all over the place, the fairly crappy group of people still loyal to Robert Baratheon and so on

which dragged reading...

I guess we will see, but if Lost could spin so much shit to keep people interested then im sure it can be done here.

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