HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Book marketing strategy #1: Have HBO create a hit show from it.

What if he's taller than Holdor by season 5

― 龜, Tuesday, April 29, 2014 9:27 AM (1 hour ago)

All he does is say his name and you still got it wrong ;)

龜: "Your name, please"
Hodor: "Hodor"
龜: "Sorry?"
Hodor: "Hodor"
龜: "Holder?"
Hodor: "Hodor"
龜: "Oh. How can I help you?"
Hodor: "Hodor"

how has no one done the attorney general eric hodor bit on snl yet

lol

those who've read the books tend to say the last few are pretty much plotless, but that's not always a mortal flaw for fantasy. for me, anyway. but the other thing that really matters to me is the really geeky world-building, mythology, history, etc. stuff. i dont think the show has really done at adequate job with that stuff at all. though im not sure it's really possible give the constraints. but there may have been some more imaginative ways around that--particularly given how much time they waste on basic exposition of established plot points (as noted above). given that tv shows are a now more a text that can be returned to at will maybe they'd be better off (aesthetically) just letting the audience figure things out.

as a wheel of time veteran, i feel like im very experienced in the nearly avant-garde potentialities of plotless and boring-as-shit fantasy novels.

Oh god no, I want the worldbuilding to be rich and detailed, but subservient to the plot. May as well read an RPG sourcebook otherwise.

oh don't get me wrong, i wouldn't go as far as subservient but yeah there's a balance to be strived for.

loads of the world-building stuff in the TV show make less and less sense to me as the series go on - I dunno if I need a ton of exposition, but agree that time spent rehashing characters' storylines would be better spent actually explaining some shit

Jon Snow's sudden "we have to go back to get the crasters mutineers NOW!" thing seems like it should have happened ages ago, we last saw them last season - wouldn't Mance Rayder have got to those dudes weeks ago? Whole bit feels a little tacked on.
but whatevs - good villains and finally Brann and crew are doing something other than hiding in the bushes

and tripping out

i think that's a given, they're not going to just ignore popular characters for 8 episodes

You liar, Theon was never popular!

There's no sympathetic core because GRRM killed off the Starks

Arya???

I'm still honestly not even sure what the Stark girl and hound are doing or where they are going and why. Same with Bran.

Really? Of all the plotlines where motivations keep getting repeated for the benefit of the audience, Arya and the Hound, traveling to the Eyrie so he can ransom her to her aunt Lysa Arryn, is probably one of the most repeated IIRC? However, you're right about Bran, the Reeds (curly haired girl and epileptic boy) didn't mention why they're going North more than a handful of times, also, boring.

xps: interspersing relevant flashbacks would have been a nice touch, like maybe start the episode with a cold-open flashback to the mountain killing elia martell in the same episode that oberyn recounts it to tyrion. parcel out the history much like good fantasy novels tend to do. big blocks of exposition just don't work for tv.

Also, I was hoping that Kit Harrington had taken some acting classes judging from the first episode, but then he tried to stare down Alliser Thorne and it was facepalming time again.

why exactly are the hippy kids going North again? or have they really explained, other than visions say to go north to look for 3-eyed bird/self?

their is an expectation of a fantasy audience that when someone dreams of a three eyed bird and then decides they have to travel somewhere you have to roll with it.

IIRC it's his destiny, otherwise they're being cagey about it. xp

xps taling to myself still: even like animated shorts telling us about the children of the forest and the first men, or whatever. like para-texts.

bran is stuck on the frodo "get from point A to point B" plotline.

bran is the one

the hippie kids' father will, i suspect, play a role in a future plot development.

yeah, I'm rolling with it, just wondering if I'd missed some stated motivation beyond the 3-eyed bird carlos castaneda visionquest

XXP OK, Morpheus.

i guess reading the books a lot of your understanding of their journey is contextual, coloured by the mythology that the show can only go so deep into. even so, without hitting the giant red spoiler button i think i can say that there is no real need for the total vagueness for the show's purposes. they could drop some more substantial hints about the general if not specific nature of what they will encounter without ruining anything.

xps: interspersing relevant flashbacks would have been a nice touch, like maybe start the episode with a cold-open flashback to the mountain killing elia martell in the same episode that oberyn recounts it to tyrion. parcel out the history much like good fantasy novels tend to do. big blocks of exposition just don't work for tv.

― ryan, Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:32 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no way man. one of the great things about the books is the way the not-so-distant past is really... present... with all the characters and informs everything that happens, but you never actually "see" it, you just have to glean it from what the characters say and think. its actually some of the most skilled writing GRRM does. rhaegar targayen is the best character in the series and you barely know anything about him besides occasional asides and skimpy details. flashbacks would wreck that.

xpost damn it! now i'm so tempted to go read the wikipedia entry

Isn't there an intra-Kingsguard fight scene flashback somewhere in the books? I forget how it was set up...maybe a dream or vision.

rhaegar targayen is the best character in the series and you barely know anything about him besides occasional asides and skimpy details. flashbacks would wreck that.

totally agree! this is what motivates my complaints. he's barely present at all in the show and he hovers over everything in the books. how else to do that on tv?

yeah wish they wld work more of the allusionary over expositional approach in, theyve kinda gone lowest common denominator w the story telling, too bad

flashbacks don't have to be totally explicit and explanatory either.

Isn't there an intra-Kingsguard fight scene flashback somewhere in the books? I forget how it was set up...maybe a dream or vision.

It was Ned fever-dreaming after getting his leg stabbed through; also, I've read suggestions that he suffers from PTSD and that certain events trigger flashbacks to all that stuff.

the different storylines/groups of characters vary so wildly in quality, idk how it is in the books but everytime I see manc sam - 'samwell' is the worst name in a world of shit names - & Famed British Beauty gilly my heart sinks. amazing they can give bran a potentially cool power & make his crew the most consistently dull crew, want them to freeze to death & be done w/ it

otm

totally agree! this is what motivates my complaints. he's barely present at all in the show and he hovers over everything in the books. how else to do that on tv?

― ryan, Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:47 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they could do it in the dialogue (like they do basically everything else). i think seeing him would be a huge mistake, he's much better as this tortured lurking presence

yeah you're probably right about that.

im not even a big "show don't tell pedant" im just not happy with how they're telling. too much of what is compelling is getting lost or incorporated slapdash.

don draper's backstory, for instance, would be MUCH better kept off screen.

it def follows the common progression of fantasy/scifi thing turned into action, except in this case it was turned into a thriller so im cool w it

also i dont like fantasy/scifi lol

don draper isnt even in this show dude

[SPOILERS] yet

Jon Hamm as Rhaegar

in a blond wig

the books are basically thrillers already though

like GRRM was a tv writer for a while and it shows

jon hamm as the voice of the littlest dragon

i didnt say jon hamm i said don draper

who is don draper tho when u really think abt it

don drogo

lol

xpost Oh shit, I literally had no idea what the Hound was doing with Arya, and I thought I was paying attention.