A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Spoiler-Filled Discussion

In case some of you were wondering why westeros.org has had issues these past few days, one of the site's staff posted this helpful graph on the site:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/226665_10151394696950044_1548818190_n.jpg

He also claimed that most of the bandwidth was to the wiki. So I guess there's a lot of people deliberately spoiling themselves right now.

 

Quentyn was frustrating, no doubt, because while he certainly had an impact on the plot it didn't feel like one that was worth POVing. I don't get the hate for most of the last couple books though other than the overlong travelogue of a couple characters. Any time spent with Tyrion is time well spent as far as I'm concerned.

 

Where do whores go?

God, the pacing of the Tyrion stuff was just fucking atrocious. It's not going to get a lot better in the TV series - look at how slowly Theon's non-plot evolves this year and you can get an idea of how difficult it'll be to make Tyrion interesting. I guess their best hope is to put more focus on his chance encounter with Griff and maybe have him actually reach Dany at the end of it, assuming Martin ever intends that meeting to happen.

Really though the issues with the last two books are the problems with Martin's preferred method of writing the series becoming more transparent. He's very wedded to the idea of focusing in just set POVs, which is why we know more about Tyrion's languorous journey faffing about Essos than we do what the Tyrells are actually up to. One of the benefits of the show is it's never been as wholly wedded to this idea.

 

I think the last 2 books have been excellent. Not quite as good as the first 3, but still very impressive novels that set the standard for fantasy fiction.

I think the show suffers for being a streamlined portrayal of only the key events (Plus pointless nudity and sex scenes of course!). I like the novels for the smaller details that often don't make the cut for the show.

 

The Dornish plot in AFfC is one of my favorites. The idea of Doran being the brains of the plots while Oberyn is the face, the shifting plans to ally with first Viserys, then Dany, then finally Young Griff, the haphazard plot to crown Myrcella... there is a lot of stuff happening there.

"Vengeance. Justice. Fire and blood."

 

and DAAAAARKSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAR! HE IS OF THE NIGHT!

 

Darkstar was pretty over the top. I bet he looks good on TV though.

 

Considering the popularity of Tyrion/Peter Dinklage I think the chances of any Tyrion stuff being cut is slim and none. Maybe reworked, but there's no way they're going to have him not show up for half a season.

 

They're not likely to cut plot points concerning Tyrion, or any other major character. But if, as seems probable, Feast and Dance are combined into a single season, almost everything will move faster than it does in the books, which will generally be a boon.

 

They'll be combined, but not into one season. Between the rest of Storm, Feast and Dance, there is easily 20 episodes worth of material and a bit more to spare. The current plan at HBO is 8 seasons. If book 6 comes out before they start scripting season 5 (and is more like books 1-3 as far as plot density), that gives them a bit more freedom to cut out material from Feast and Dance.

 

I've read the current plan is seven seasons. I'd expect to see a fair bit of AFFC and ADWD next year (in a sense, we have a ADWD plot already with Theon).

FreezeC77 - I think we can take it as a given Dinklage will appear in most episodes of a season, he's actually only not appeared in two episodes of the show's entire run.

But they should have his plot move more briskly or feel more relevant - more focus on the Griff stuff, ignore a lot of the boat journey, that kind of thing.

 

Maybe they will give Dinklage a few episodes off and allow Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington the chance to be leads. Dany's being forever stuck in the east is as interesting as it sounds, but at least Jon gets the chance to shine. However, those two actors really need to step up.

 

Right, that's what I meant-- big chunks of Feast in particular take place during the end of Storm anyway and will probably appear in season 4, and they may end season 5 at the point in Dance where the two narrative streams unite and leave the later developments in the Meereen, Braavos, and southern Westeros stories until season 6.

There's no firm plan for the length of the show's run; at different times different producers have mentioned 7, 8, and 9 as possibilities. Obviously a lot is going to depend on the point at which they have to go it alone based on the general information Martin has given them.

The Winds of Winter certainly isn't going to come out before they start scripting season five. Six scripts for season four were already written by March of this year, so they're going to be scripting season five by the beginning of 2014. Based on the tone of Martin's responses to questions about the next book, he's not going to be done by then.

 

I doubt that we're going to get anything major in episode ten. As for season four, I've been thinking a bit about what we'll probably see. I think we'll certainly see the rest of the ASOS material, as well some of AFFC, and probably ADWD.

I expect that if we are going to see the Iron Islands storylines, we'll get a lot of that in season four, as Balon is supposed to die around the same time as Robb and Joffrey. I doubt that Dorne will appear at all, unless the trial happens much earlier in the season than I would expect. I could see them ending things in King's Landing with the aftermath of Tywin's death and Tyrion's escape. I could see Tyrion and Arya both arriving in the Free Cities by the end of the season.

 

I think Balon will die off-screen between episodes nine and ten, and most of Ash--*sigh*--Yara's storyline in episode ten will revolve around her reaction to that and the announcement of the kingsmoot, which will take place next season.

And I'm probably wrong.

 

Benioff and Weiss have consistently said their goal is 80 episodes in eight seasons. One of the other producers, Frank Doelger, said seven seasons in a recent interview.

I think the end of the fourth season is going to be the big decision point. If they determine that Martin is too far behind in his writing for the show's purposes and that the audience is going to lose patience they may veer off and wrap things up more quickly.

 

I hope, in that event, that they will consult closely with GRRM so that the ending makes some kind of sense within the established rules of that world. I really hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, it should be done with the author's blessing.

 

When they first started work on the show GRRM told the producers the ending he had planned in broad strokes. More recently they had a long session with him in a hotel boardroom where they spent hours going over where he intends all of the major storylines and characters to end up.

 

D'you think it'll make him write any faster?

 

Can you provide a source for that second part? That's the first time I'm hearing of this.

All I know is that Martin told them who'd end up on the Iron Throne.
And I guess they not so subtly told us in the House of the Undying scene (Snow on the Throne).