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

Duracelle

lol.

I think he is trying to do something more interesting with this series. This quote from his Rolling Stone interview is pretty salient:

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

― schwantz, Tuesday, May 6, 2014 3:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know what GRRM is saying here and ive definitely said things like this in the past but this manages to both misunderstand LOTR and elide the fact that there are a lot of socio-political-economic-historical questions that GRRM isnt asking either

that being said i think GRRM has probably found the best balance btwn great-man history and price-of-grain history to tell an effective epic fantasy saga for the late 20th/early 21st century

aragorn apparently based on old school king in the north king oswald of northumbria

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gJXoNOB8AGM/TjwHhOkjiqI/AAAAAAAAAgs/3qtcdqqOmbo/s1600/4855831753_c861feecb4.jpg

Skipping the last couple bits of the thread because I'm two episodes behind, but there might be something to the self-defeating theory of killing your protagonists. The reason I'm behind is because my wife told me with a shrug she really has no interest in watching the show anymore (I'd been sitting on the eps for her). I guess that's what happens when you kill off your good guys, leave the other protagonists literally wandering the wilderness aimlessly, and stick the rest of the unpalatable bunch in these sort of dead-end, untenable positions. It's like a narrative cul-de-sac. The only moving part actually moving forward is the Dragon Lady, and frankly even she hasn't had much to do this season (that I've seen).

Rob Stark and his mother were never the protagonists.

Well, no. But they were the "good guys," and by default one's sympathies gravitated to them. Now the show's another Asshole Protagonist series, not even packed with Anti-heros (dwarf or maybe currently Hound aside). With the exception of Dany, but like I said, she's almost an afterthought so far this season; I think it's more than possible her story is what caught my wife's attention, and now why her attention has started to wane.

The bit I could do without is Magic Bran's tedious quest for the three-eyed raven, which resembles a dud YA movie. I'm more interested in the state of the Lannister finances than mind-melding with wolves. I guess the cleverness of the show is that it gives you both and lets different elements appeal to different viewers.

Everyone hates that storyline surely? At least it intersected with something good this week.

the most interesting part of the series for me is reintroducing magic in a world where it had been lost or believed to be merely mythical. bran is a huge part of that, and i like his story, and am fine with it moving slowly at this point.

I am interested in Bran because it feels like he and Arya Stark will be standing triumphantly in a high place at the end of the story. But maybe Martin would avoid the young rising hero thing because it is such a cliche (Frodo, Link, Harry Potter etc).

I would have thought that Tyrion and Arya were the crucial characters that people were rooting for, that would be the biggest risk with the audience if they were killed. Personally, Dany's story never really interested me much aside from the idea of her trying to take the throne. I'm quite fond of her bearded swordsman though.

I used to not like the Stannis segments until I grew to love Davos.

I wish someone would go somewhere cool like Bravos or Dorne for a change. Been watching people trudge back and worth from King's Landing to the Wall and the Eyrie so many times now. My heart sank when Brie told Sancho Panza that their journey was going to take weeks.

Gotta save something for next season.

that's another reason i like the dany storlyine, essos is cooler than westeros. even if we don't get to see that much of it.

are the dothraki even supposed to be part of her crew any more? do they disappear in the books too?

aren't there only like a dozen of them left or something? I can't even keep track of what happened to her Fabio-looking boyfriend from a few episodes ago

They replaced the actor.

wait what

do they look completely different or something?

yeah he's the beardo now.

ok lol that's ridiculous

i totally didn't get that was supposed to be the same dude

o.g actor went off to be in some new Transporter series

Yeah, it's weird. Why didn't they make the new actor have some kind of similar hairstyle at the beginning to ease the transition? I think already said this upthread though.

The OG Daario was one of the worst actors I've ever seen on TV, like a badly dubbed 70s Italian porn star. Thanks, Transporter, for sparing us.

http://i.imgur.com/uhajW4i.jpg

And of course, compared to the description in the books:

http://media.tumblr.com/f2c344f851ea422afcbc98e7a23f786a/tumblr_inline_mn4nczr5rv1qz4rgp.jpg

xp i thought he was great for that exact reason

Yeah he had that grocery-store-romance-novel-cover look to him.

yeah original guy was campy and totally great.

show could use some (more) camp imo

lol yeah I loved OG Daario. At least he was memorable, and totally made Jorah look like a chump in comparison.

new guy looks like a random dude from westeros which is the exact opposite of what the character is supposed to be like

exactly. I have no problem replacing actors if necessary but he's so off the mark for that character it's ridiculous

Fabio dude was great!

Maybe it's more of a meta casting change, a comment on the shallowness of the contemporary hipster beardo. Also, I'm pretty sure I saw nu-Daario on Orphan Black last week.

He was/is one of the main characters in Treme.

and his character on Treme is indeed a hipster beardo

Holy crap, I was going to ask who that dude suddenly hanging out with Dany was but I figured I just wasn't paying attention.

He was/is one of the main characters in Treme.

One of the buskers, right? (I stopped watching after 5 episodes.)

He was good in Zwartboek.

He was a busker in the first season, then a junkie then a fisherman. I think I stopped watching at the third season.

he played a Jack White-esque producer/musician in Nashville. I find him distractingly handsome normally but he seems so out of place in GoT

He's doing an OK job as far as I'm concerned. It's more an issue of the decision to not make him look anything like what the character looked like last season.

I mean they go through such lengths with sets and costume and everything to make everything as convincing as possible that it's strange that they wouldn't apply that same dedication to a casting change.

At least the old daario was a badass and somewhat of an interesting character.

This new guy picks flowers and follows her around like a lost puppy. Horrible.

http://img.pandawhale.com/post-41665-Daario-Naharis-Deal-With-It-gi-sSxB.gif

new Daario looks a bit like that guy from Interpol. I had forgotten about what old Daario looked like. Neither of them have dyed blue beard prongs. It's maybe-not-too-interesting, but a bit interesting, that a couple of the female leads have dyed hair to fit their character descriptions but none of the men seem to

I mean they go through such lengths with sets and costume and everything to make everything as convincing as possible that it's strange that they wouldn't apply that same dedication to a casting change.

Yeah I get the feeling that the previous dude's departure was rather abrupt and they just had no time.

It only takes me the morning to shave.