A Game of Thrones - TV Show Discussion Thread

[Dinner]

It's not the chair, it's the room to put it in.

In one of his blog posts GRRM said while he liked the Iron Throne in the TV show and thought it was a good design neither the throne nor the royal audience chamber were very close to what he had in mind when he wrote the books. The throne was supposed to be 20-30 feet tall so that the King was literally above everyone else looking down on them and audience room was supposed to be truly massive, like an ancient Egyptian temple massive, because Aegon wanted to impress everyone with how powerful he was so they'd forget he was an upjumped usurper.

[Felch]

Yes, because there is one thing that TV producers lack is access to large studios.

Actually, that is true for a lot of them, but not the kind who would make GoT.

It's explained somewhere that they'd need something the size of a cathedral. While they could probably find a big enough space, making it look good on modern HD television would have been much more expensive. You can't just bull**** the staging anymore.

[Dinner]

Apparently (and not surprisingly) GRRM is way, way, way behind on writing the next book in ASoIaF and HBO ia imploring him to please get to writing as the TV series is quickly catching up to where he is in the book series. Sadly, GRRM has dozens of projects all of which he is juggling at the same time and he keeps putting those other projects in front finishing The Winds of Winter. He has recently (in the last year) written a short story, an anthology, stuff for a new HBO series (a different one than GoT), started on a book much like Tolkien's Silmarillion detailing the history of Westeros, several merchandising items (miniatures, swords, calendars, costumes, etc...), and now he's even bought a century old movie theater which he is spending all of his time restoring. NPR covers all of this and mentions how GRRM just hasn't been writing much for the next ASoIaF book.

http://www.npr.org/2013/10/07/227772024/george-r-r-martin-author-and-movie-theater-guy

[MOBIUS]

I notice that HBO might NOT even wait for him to finish it and do it themselves if he takes too long...

[Dinner]

They were saying HBO might make up their own ending if GRRM doesn't get the lead out.

[MOBIUS]

That's what I meant...

[Nikolai]

IIRC, GRRM has made a will or something outlining how he wants things to unfold.

[Robert]

Only fools think that an author can work 100% on one project, like 15 hours a day.
Authors obviously need to go out, have things to do, and inspire themselves in any possible way.

[Guynemer]

Shush, Plomp. You're ruining the well-established internet narrative.

[DaShi]

They also need to meet deadlines and actually produce work.

[Guynemer]

His existence isn't to please you, DaShi. It is his world, these are his books, he does not have a boss. He can write them whenever he damn well pleases.

[Lorizael]

His boss is probably Bantam Spectra.

[DaShi]

His existence isn't to please you, DaShi. It is his world, these are his books, he does not have a boss. He can write them whenever he damn well pleases.

That's not what I mean. I mean, that to be a full-time writer is a lot like running your own business. Just because you are your own boss, doesn't mean that you don't have to complete work or don't have deadlines.

Yes, he's free to write whenever he pleases. However, if he doesn't produce timely work, it's going to hit him financially. I've seen too many writers who couldn't make it simply because they lacked self-management skills. Writing is a full time job. After you've written a successful book, it does become harder, because you have a lot more things to attend to than just researching and writing. Martin is certainly very busy beyond writing.

Now it could be that he's made all the money he'll ever need and doesn't care about the latter books anymore.

[Robert]

GRRM knows that these books are the ones he'll be remembered for, and he knows that he needs to finish them.
He clearly has a hard time finishing them, but I can't believe that he isn't trying his very best.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Oh, I don't know. He could be another Douglas "Chronic procrastinator" Adams.

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."- Douglas Adams.