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

he tells you that the connection exists, but I don't think it's fleshed out in any convincing way: it's just a series of schema. he puts religion in the places where it seems plausible to have religion, but it's cardboard. Why does the king have to worship the seven? What's the rationale? Is there some legitimating force? Is it just lip service because the poor and illiterate masses do? (this is one of the problems: his "clever" characters are all unbelievers) There is not even any sense of a theology.

GRRM gives a bit of a sense of religion as a personal experience, in the weirwood scenes etc - but as a statewide, continent-wide religion it's super unconvincing.

many xposts

In the series all of this just comes across as the obsessions of tiny groups of cultists rather than anything that's threaded through society. If there's a sectarian conflict lying ahead then the groundwork for it has been poorly laid.

i think its made pretty clear that no one believes an apocalypse is coming

the entire south and most of the north thinks the white walkers are just fairy tales

But see, that's what I was getting at: they can believe or not believe, but the fact that dragons were once huge and existed, with no question, and that there is some degree of magic, would seem to tip the balance in favor of ... believe.

"Bah, there's no snow zombie apocalypse that all our history books recorded happened once before. It's all make-believe. We live in a world of iron and steel, of blades and blood!"

"Yeah, but there used to be dragons that ruled the world and destroyed cities."

"Well, yeah, of course there used to be dragons. That's totally different."

Still want to know what happened to the snow zombies. A whole army was wandering around at the end of season 2. And then season 3, virtually nil. Meanwhile, all the humans, who have to stop, who have to eat, who are compelled to fight with each other every once in a while, had no problem heading south through the snow toward the wall. Did the zombies make a wrong turn?

The White Walkers were further north, whereas virtually everyone was heading south pretty damn quickly all season.

yeah the white walkers are just kind of chilling politely up north of the big forest until the other plotlines progress

basically just accept that the pacing on a couple elements of the story is so bad in the books that there's no way to fix it for the tv show. they already attempted to fix this on theon's arc and it resulted in a bunch of shitty scenes this season

xpost They knew there used to be white walkers. They just think they are all gone, and reckon stories from the north are just mental yokels making shit up. Just like they thought the dragons were all gone - and in Westeros the three dragons are still no more than a rumour. They haven't invented Twitter and Vine yet.

But see, that's what I was getting at: they can believe or not believe, but the fact that dragons were once huge and existed, with no question, and that there is some degree of magic, would seem to tip the balance in favor of ... believe.

"Bah, there's no snow zombie apocalypse that all our history books recorded happened once before. It's all make-believe. We live in a world of iron and steel, of blades and blood!"

"Yeah, but there used to be dragons that ruled the world and destroyed cities."

"Well, yeah, of course there used to be dragons. That's totally different."

Still want to know what happened to the snow zombies. A whole army was wandering around at the end of season 2. And then season 3, virtually nil. Meanwhile, all the humans, who have to stop, who have to eat, who are compelled to fight with each other every once in a while, had no problem heading south through the snow toward the wall. Did the zombies make a wrong turn?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, June 20, 2013 1:53 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know what you mean, but I do think the White Walkers are bound up with the weather (hence a rough old winter incoming being bad news for all concerned). Idk, I'm clutching at straws a bit. But White Walkers only able to exist in the most extreme cold weather, and therefore pushing further south as winter sets in? I think that might be kinda the point, but it's admittedly not made very clear.

The history books point is a little misleading too, this shit went down thousands of years ago. We don't believe in titans or giants or cyclops anymore either. Not especially far-fetched.

On a related point, what's all this about "Oh, the idea of in-fighting and petty personal squabbles between the higher-ups in the face of coming apocalypse is sooooooo unrealistic"?! Lone voices in the wilderness crying end-of-the-world, dismissed as cranks by the elites who are too busy fighting their own self-interested battles to car = a pretty accurate model of the way society works right now, afaict

The white walkers haven't been seen in millennia, and the stories have gradually faded into legend.

The last dragon died idk a couple of centuries ago? And there is a room filled with their skulls in the Red Keep.

yeah the white walkers are generally thought to be legendary whereas dragons are acknowledged to be real but are considered extinct. the general thought about the white walkers is wrong of course and they have definitely shown up in the distant past. the supporting historical record, such as it is, appears to consist entirely of dusty night's watch archives. the night's watch notably do believe white walkers to be real, but it is worth bearing in mind that they have come to be viewed as fringe weirdos as time has gone by and the oral history of the white walkers has been relegated into folklore.

otm

yeah that's something that's made a lot more clear in the books - the night's watch was once this noble/honorable thing to do with your life and now it's staffed almost entirely by criminals who were given the choice between death and taking the black. the attitude towards it in the south is more 'prison camp' than 'heroic defenders of the realm' whereas in the north they still take it a bit more seriously.

and the value of the night's watch for folks in the north is in helping stop wildlings from stealing their shit, rather than anything to do with legendary snow monsters

Yeah, it is subtler in the programme but the implication's still there that the Northmen get it. Ben Stark's presence in spite of his status as the youngest son of the de facto rulers in the North makes that point in a pretty heavy-handed way

xpost - otm about reasons for the Nights Watch being there for the Northmen

To add to the believability of white walkers given the existence of dragons, I'd say the existence of warlocks is better support to tip someone towards accepting white walker existence.

And when did we decide the story needs a commentary on how religion plays a part in politics? I know it would be a fantastic angle for them to explore but I don't think they're required to go there any more than they already are given the strength of the story otherwise.

The last dragon died idk a couple of centuries ago? And there is a room filled with their skulls in the Red Keep.

& the TV series makes it v explicit that the dragons aren't thought of as something that could be a present threat - iirc when Tyrion's told that Danaerys has dragons he's all "the last generation of dragons were the size of a small dog and sickly and weak, who gives a shit"

On a related point, what's all this about "Oh, the idea of in-fighting and petty personal squabbles between the higher-ups in the face of coming apocalypse is sooooooo unrealistic"?! Lone voices in the wilderness crying end-of-the-world, dismissed as cranks by the elites who are too busy fighting their own self-interested battles to car = a pretty accurate model of the way society works right now, afaict

Yeah no that was actually my point, dude.

And when did we decide the story needs a commentary on how religion plays a part in politics?

i'm not saying it needs "a commentary", i'm saying that the part of his worldbuilding that relates to religion is unconvincing. whereas, e.g., the part of his worldbuilding that relates to magic has a really sound internal logic (this is the no-spoilers thread, and it's mostly book stuff, otherwise i'd go into it more).

And when did we decide the story needs a commentary on how religion plays a part in politics? I know it would be a fantastic angle for them to explore...

― Evan, Thursday, June 20, 2013

yup nothing to see here

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/30000000/got-game-of-thrones-30059967-500-281.gif

weird -- there was def a pic of melisandre and stannis standing over the Painted Table attached to that post. anyhoo, cf: Melisandre

xxp: I should reread before diving into this more but part of the issue is related to the strengths of the different faiths, isn't it? The power of the 7 Gods is waning while the Fire God is waxing, reflected so far in how the ppl actively or notionally following the 7 seem to be in an overall weaker position than the people actively or notionally following the Fire God.

"On a related point, what's all this about "Oh, the idea of in-fighting and petty personal squabbles between the higher-ups in the face of coming apocalypse is sooooooo unrealistic"?! Lone voices in the wilderness crying end-of-the-world, dismissed as cranks by the elites who are too busy fighting their own self-interested battles to car = a pretty accurate model of the way society works right now, afaict

Yeah no that was actually my point, dude.

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, June 20, 2013 3:01 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

Yeah I think I skim-read that passage of the thread, was addressed as much at Josh in Chicago as you

The Red God seems to grant his worshipers actual powers...

The Red God seems to grant his worshipers actual powers...

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Thursday, June 20, 2013 3:10 PM (57 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Straying dangerously close to spoilerish book material so I don't wanna say anything out of turn, but I think in general this world is pretty good about giving you reason to believe that any of the competing faiths answer the prayers of the practitioners. Or at least that they are each possessed of their own unique powers

yeah but also

BOOK STUFF SPOILERS

the birth of the dragons has brought magic back into the world (hence the maesters' dragonglass candle test can now be completed); the return of magic means miracles are now possible; therefore the miracles promised by the fire god are now actually happening in a way that surprises even his acolytes (both melisandre and thoros of myr have chapters that cover their experience of this).

END BOOK STUFF SPOILERS

(that was in response to DJP and I guess chap)

And when did we decide the story needs a commentary on how religion plays a part in politics? I know it would be a fantastic angle for them to explore but I don't think they're required to go there any more than they already are given the strength of the story otherwise.

― Evan, Thursday, June 20, 2013 9:58 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean. religion plays an important role in politics, and vice versa. if youre building an even semi-realistic world this is somethign you need to address. its not commentary its verisimilitude

tbh it's been so long since I've read the books that I don't fully remember the timeline, which is probably why I feel like this is more chicken vs egg than it may actually be

its just weird that someone as interested in/attuned to power and its works as GRRM falls apart so completely on the question of religion, at least for the first three seasons

Spoilers

This is to do with the return of magic to the world (not as explicit in show as books). that's how Daenerys can hatch her dragons, how the "kiss of life" Thoros uses on Beric actually revives him (to his shock, it's a pretty standard ritual), how Bran can see the future & warg etc. The Faith of the Seven is the only faith without a magical element to it, it really is just prayers and candles.

jeez guys what part of NO SPOILERS PLEASE is missing from the thread title?

/boardlawyer

discussion of any differences in the TV show and the books from what we've seen is fine. ― Gukbe, Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:51 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

xpost to SPOILERS

But we saw a white walker in the opening scene of the first ep of the first series - dragons only hatched in the last episode. Dragons are part of the return of magic, not its cause.

xp to self but also, yes, mea culpa, one of the things i mention in my spoiler post is from a later book than 3 -- in my defence it's not a plot point.

that wss my concern but agreed it's not a plot point afawk so i suppose there's no need to press charges

huh, ithappens, good point.

and there has been lower-level magic shit going on previously: jaqen hagar's powers don't seem to be new to him, the warlocks in qarth have been going for ages, etc.

well these aren't really plot spoilers they're just things that the book goes more in-depth on. but yeah this is getting into other-thread territory i think

xpost tbf most Qartheen scorn warlocks as weird-looking has-beens with no actual mojo

and this was explicitly mentioned in season 2! ;)

What I was getting at is that I understand why people might not realize magic is back, but there has been enough magic in the past - no debate on the presence of dragons, for example - that these GoT dudes should at least allow for the benefit of the doubt. I mean, in our world there have never been giants or wizards or dragons, but if there were a room in the Smithsonian dedicated to dragon skulls of any size, I'd at least consider the possibility that some of that other magical stuff might have been real, too. Though I suppose they might consider dragons the way we consider dinosaurs - they're dead, so who cares - their dragons flew, breathed fire, coexisted with humans and conquered worlds, which is more than you can say for our terrible lizards.

Maybe it just is that the show has done a poor or incomplete job explaining magic in this world. Whether it was once known to exist or whether people think of it as myth and legend. I do like the show, but I do think if I lived in a land of miracles, I'd pump up my praying a tad.

Do dragons def count as magic? In the same sense as the resurrections + smoke monsters?

Sorry you sort of go into that with dinosaur analogy but I'm confusing myself thinking about it now.

How does the fauna of Westeros relate to our earth's fauna? Is it basically parallel, w/ some variation (direwolves). Do they eg have squirrels called squirrels?

They're called diresquirrels.

wait til you get a load of the direworms

xpost I think a better analogy than dinosaurs v dragons when considering whether "present day" Westerosi might believe in magic would be present day attitudes to disease.

Malaria used to be endemic to the UK. It was called the ague, or marsh fever. It wasn't till the discovery of quinine in the 19C that it was effectively combatted. Yet you say to almost any Britisher that for hundreds of years malaria killed thousands of people in the UK, and they will say: "Bollocks, malaria is a tropical disease. Fairy tales, mate." Things fade from memory and even belief much quicker than you would expect.

Yeah, but in this case they have troves of giant skulls, and no one denies dragons existed! And yeah, fire breathing monsters count as magic. At least they do as this show conceives of them. We've also seen a giant (once) and a bunch of proper mumbo jumbo magic. And snow zombies. But sure, no one knows about most of the snow critters yet. Or at least, lots of people suspect but remain rather nonplussed.

I do enjoy this show a lot, so don't want to come off a complainer. But say we were in the crusades, and there were people conquering in the name of God ... and God was real, or at least allowed/encouraged/enabled miracles. I'd at least reconsider my resistance. But maybe it really is just a matter of lack of communication. I was under the impression that Theon Greydick killed all the ravens up north or something. Are the rest of the ravens still alive? Because for all the shit going down of varying magnitude, this season finale seemed to be the first time we've seen messages sent or received in some time. Like, shouldn't there have been letters streaming south by the hundreds once head Crow nightwatchman was actually attacked by a snow zombie?

Is there another thread? Why would you have a Game of Thrones thread that is spoiler free? Once there's a post that says yes, it exists, what other purpose would a spoiler-free thread serve? Just asking, because I don't want to spoil (more).

There are millions and millions of people who do still believe God is real and allows/encourages/enables miracles, and they offer evidence to prove it …