Yes, I was saying that I thought that Margaery was to smart to fall for it.
A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Spoiler-Filled Discussion
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Cersei's chapters are some of the series' best black comedy. Watching her fuck everything up whilst crowing about how clever she is is glorious.
Cersei's chapters are the highlight of AFFC and among the best parts of the whole saga so far.
Removing everyone with an ounce of brain from the council, putting some random bastard (or not random,I forget his background) in charge of the fleet, allowing Faith Militant, telling Braavosi bankers to go fuck themselves, hatching the most bizarre and convoluted plan to get rid of all her enemies - what could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. It was indeed glorious.
Aye, I should probably stop browsing the internet while watching television.
I love Qyburn. I love even more that for some insane reason Cersei ignores the good council given to her by her advisers, yet trusts the clearly psychopathic mad scientist.
Clearly, Qyburn had the best possible credentials to be a new spymaster
Aye, I should probably stop browsing the internet while watching television.
I love Qyburn. I love even more that for some insane reason Cersei ignores the good council given to her by her advisers, yet trusts the clearly psychopathic mad scientist.
Aye, I should probably stop browsing the internet while watching television.
I love Qyburn. I love even more that for some insane reason Cersei ignores the good council given to her by her advisers, yet trusts the clearly psychopathic mad scientist.
No worries, based on how I posted it could have been taken either way.
One of the best chapters in ADWD has to be Bran's final one. The most overtly magical the series has been to date. His plotline is the one I'm most excited to follow in the next book, along with Arya and Sansa's.
The show will probably cut it down dramatically, seeing as they want the show to resemble a generic cable TV blood-and-tits historical drama, rather than the fantasy series it should be. Cutting Arya and Jon's warging was bad enough, but losing Coldhands and the talking door was too damn far.
There's more to ASOIAF than King's Landing.
The show will probably cut it down dramatically, seeing as they want the show to resemble a generic cable TV blood-and-tits historical drama, rather than the fantasy series it should be. Cutting Arya and Jon's warging was bad enough, but losing Coldhands and the talking door was too damn far.
There's more to ASOIAF than King's Landing.
^^^ Ah, yes - dragons, visions, pyromancers, red comets and white walkers definitely scream "historical drama". 
Coldhands hasn't been "lost" yet, as Bran's last scene was walking through the passage Sam showed them to the other side of the wall. They weren't shown walking out the other side, where they should meet up with Coldhands shortly thereafter.
Coldhands hasn't been "lost" yet, as Bran's last scene was walking through the passage Sam showed them to the other side of the wall. They weren't shown walking out the other side, where they should meet up with Coldhands shortly thereafter.
Ehhhh, not sure I agree. Of course, there are practical considerations to consider about how many cast members you can have a season and so forth, so it's understandable having them show up later, but it's definitely more awkward for the story having them randomly turn up and meet Bran and co. while they're on the run hiding than showing up while Winterfell is at peace and then going on the road with him.
^^^ I agree that it would have made the story flow better (and there may have been contractual limitations during pre-production that we might not be aware of that necessitated such a change) but I don't think the overall plotline for Bran was adversely affected by the change.
Not quite. Unnecessarily detailed explanation follows.
It started as a trilogy: A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, and The Winds of Winter. Book one would have included the Red Wedding (I think ending with it, but I can't find a source for that part at the moment), while book two would have included Dany's arrival in Westeros. (See here.) At this stage there was no five-year gap.
He worked on A Game of Thrones, and had done about 1400 manuscript pages (roughly 400,000 words) with no end in sight when he said, "So maybe it's not a trilogy." He took the first 1100 manuscript pages, sent them to his publishers, and divided the series into four books: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Dance with Dragons, and The Winds of Winter.
Then he was working on A Clash of Kings and the same thing happened. (I don't think he's ever specified how far he was into the book at that point.) So he took a step back, looked at the structure of the series, and decided on six books: Game, Clash, A Storm of Storm, Dance, Winds, and A Time for Wolves. He also introduced the five-year gap, to compensate for the shorter-than-expected timescale of what he'd written so far, which was leaving certain characters younger than he'd planned them to be. I imagine he was also trying to keep the series from spilling beyond six books. It didn't work.
Somehow, even when he abandoned the five-year gap, he was still trying to hold it to six, dropping A Time for Wolves as a title because he'd never really liked it (so the series was Game, Clash, Storm, A Feast for Crows, Dance, Winds) and restructuring the story so that some of the "gap" events now happened simultaneously with things that had been planned to happen years later. (Judging by his comments, much of what happens at the Wall and in the North in A Dance with Dragons after Stannis leaves was supposed to come after the five-year gap.)
Then A Feast for Crows got too big to be published as a single volume, and Martin expanded the series to seven books. On the advice of friend, fellow fantasy author, and sometime collaborator Daniel Abraham (who now does the script for the A Song of Ice and Fire graphic novel), he went with a split by character rather than down the middle, and decided to shift the titles again, making A Dance with Dragons the northern and eastern half of A Feast for Crows, rather than the following book, and bringing back A Time for Wolves as the title of the final volume. Then he came up with a final volume title he liked better, giving the series the seven-book structure he's hoping for today: Game, Clash, Storm, Feast, Dance, Winds, A Dream of Spring. Whether he'll be able to keep to that is an open question. My own guess is that an eighth book is at least as likely as not, but no one can really say.
He's never clarified which books correspond to what in the three versus six/seven structure, but obviously Game, Clash, and Westerosi events in at least the first sixty percent of Storm were all part of his notion of book one of the trilogy, and at least as far as Daenerys is concerned, we're not yet all the way through book two. But the various adjustments in relative chronology over the years probably render comparison tricky.
There's some of that, obviously, but there's also "horrors of war" stuff, complete with some of the same characters and settings from Arya's storyline in that book and the previous one.
The Jaime chapters went on like they did mainly because Jaime had been portrayed as such a total ass up til then, that he needed all the pages he could get to make him likable.
Most likely, since Martin knew he was removing Tyrion from the Westeros scene for a long time he had to create a "replacement" for Tyrion and decided to put Jaime in this role as well.
Most likely, since Martin knew he was removing Tyrion from the Westeros scene for a long time he had to create a "replacement" for Tyrion and decided to put Jaime in this role as well.
Barely appear on-screen.
Have been dramatically sliced down. Not just Arya and Jon's warging either, or Jon's communication with weirwood Bran. Every single one of Dany's visions in the House of the Undying in the books was removed from the show.
The actual line of dialogue from the books establishing that wildfire's potency and production rate has improved because of the dragons' return to the world wasn't in the show at all.
These.... exist?
The most significant appearance of The Others/wights in any of the books, namely the battle at the First of the First Men, was cut from the show, to make room for more Tyrell blathering. We got one wight instead.
definitely scream "historical drama".
The show keeps the absolute bare minimum of fantasy/magic elements, while dramatically extending the King's Landing plotline at every chance.
In the books, Coldhands saved Sam from a ton of wights. We should have seen him.
The producers don't seem to mind gritty, overtly creepy magic, like wights and wildfire and Melisandre's various enchantments (especially because the latter allow for T&A, which is a plus in their minds), but dreamlike, suggestive, prophetic, and subtly eerie material is pared down to the minimum possible. It's pretty obvious that some aspects of the series' overall tone appeal to them more than others. "Violence and intrigue? Yay! Mystery and wonder? Meh."
Me and Nagisa were discussing in PMs earlier how The Others in the books are much more ethereal, beautiful and ice-looking whereas in the show a lot of viewers confuse them for wights. I don't think the distinction is very clear, all my friends who watch the series think The Others and the wights are the same beings.
I suspect that budgetary aspects have also restricted some of the more fantastic elements being realised onscreen.
I personally think that the truth is somewhere between DalekJim and 137th Geibirg's respective positions: the series makers did, for the most part, dial down the fantasy elements in S1 so as to appeal to a mainstream audience. They did have the white Walkers in the pilot episode but, until the dragons appeared, the magic was largely excluded (exorcised if you prefer, ho ho ho) until the mainstream audience, who might otherwise have turned off, was totally hooked.
There is definitely less magic or fantasy in the tv version than in the book, but you still have Melisandre's Smoke Cloud (good to see him getting work after Lost ended), said dragons, a resurrected man, Bran's warging and visions, the walkers, giants etc.
I personally think that the truth is somewhere between DalekJim and 137th Geibirg's respective positions: the series makers did, for the most part, dial down the fantasy elements in S1 so as to appeal to a mainstream audience. They did have the white Walkers in the pilot episode but, until the dragons appeared, the magic was largely excluded (exorcised if you prefer, ho ho ho) until the mainstream audience, who might otherwise have turned off, was totally hooked.
There is definitely less magic or fantasy in the tv version than in the book, but you still have Melisandre's Smoke Cloud (good to see him getting work after Lost ended), said dragons, a resurrected man, Bran's warging and visions, the walkers, giants etc.
The book A Game of Thrones had minimal magic so it was more forgivable with Season 1. I actually have very few criticisms with the show's first year. Pretty much entirely faithful, and the stuff they did add was great. Robert and Cersei's conversation, the witty Littlefinger/Varys conversations, and a lot more Jaime than in the first book.
Then Season 2 was just... a mess. Theon's stuff was well done but every other plotline was fucked with too much.
Season 3 was a huge improvement. Though some of my favourite characters were ruined, such as Sansa and Stannis, it was much better paced and highly enjoyable. They got Jaime spot-on, though I've no idea how they're gonna excuse him not rescuing Sansa from King's Landing.
Then Season 2 was just... a mess. Theon's stuff was well done but every other plotline was fucked with too much.
Season 3 was a huge improvement. Though some of my favourite characters were ruined, such as Sansa and Stannis, it was much better paced and highly enjoyable. They got Jaime spot-on, though I've no idea how they're gonna excuse him not rescuing Sansa from King's Landing.
Pretty much all the problems I have with season three stem from decisions I disliked in the making of season two. ("The season of romance" in-bloody-deed.) In terms of new decisions, I think they did all right given the aspects of the story they've chosen to focus the adaptation on.
Robb's romance with Tulisa was cheesy and cliché, precisely the opposite of what A Song of Ice and Fire should be (Which is why I'm fucking hoping this Dany/Daario plot goes somewhere off-beat!). However, they almost made up for it when she and her unborn baby were stabbed to shit at the Red Wedding.
I think that was pretty clearly a budgetary consideration.
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