A Game of Thrones - TV Show Discussion Thread

[Felch]

I just want to observe that if the books were rewritten to be the same as the show, they'd be tremendously better.

Different media have different needs. It's like how people complain about the LotR movies. In a book you can get side tracked for a few chapters with Tom Bombadil or have people talk about Osgiliath but never go there in the story. In a movie or TV show that just doesn't work as well. You need to cut out the characters who are unnecessary to the plot, and you need to show people the settings that are being talked about.

[Hauldren Collider]

Different media have different needs. It's like how people complain about the LotR movies. In a book you can get side tracked for a few chapters with Tom Bombadil or have people talk about Osgiliath but never go there in the story. In a movie or TV show that just doesn't work as well. You need to cut out the characters who are unnecessary to the plot, and you need to show people the settings that are being talked about.

You need to do that in books too, but people like you let GRRM get away with not doing it.

[Lorizael]

There are unnecessary elements to the books, such as the lavish descriptions of food, clothing, and heraldry. But beyond that, it's all part of a large plot and even larger world, and there are many who greatly appreciate the care with which he's crafted all that.

[regexcellent]

Can we all just hug and agree that most of of the 75,000 in shot probably weren't real?

Yeah for some reason I thought you were talking about the folks marching behind her on that road with the crucified girl.

[Hauldren Collider]

There are unnecessary elements to the books, such as the lavish descriptions of food, clothing, and heraldry. But beyond that, it's all part of a large plot and even larger world, and there are many who greatly appreciate the care with which he's crafted all that.

There's too many characters. The show has pared down a number of them into a single character by identifying which parts of them are actually interesting and important. GRRM wastes my time with boring nobodies who show up once, maybe twice, and then are completely irrelevant thereafter. It should be noted that even in the show there's too many ****ing characters. It's impossible to keep track of them all unless you start trolling wikis or memorizing it because you're somebody with way too much free time.

[Imran Siddiqui]

There are unnecessary elements to the books, such as the lavish descriptions of food, clothing, and heraldry. But beyond that, it's all part of a large plot and even larger world, and there are many who greatly appreciate the care with which he's crafted all that.

Indeed. And a greater lore. Things like stories involving the history of Westeros prior to the death of the Mad King Aerys II may not be a good idea to explore in the show, but in the books (and beyond - such as the Dunk & Egg stories) it is definitely rewarding.

[Imran Siddiqui]

For example, only due to the details of the books could such an indepth article be written (though like HC would think it boring ):

http://towerofthehand.com/blog/2012/01/05-southron-ambitions/

[regexcellent]

There's nothing wrong with preferring slicker, simpler stories with faster pacing. It's a stylistic choice and a stylistic preference.

[Lorizael]

Certainly, but part of the joy of ASOIAF specifically is its depth. If you want slicker stories, you've chosen the wrong series to follow.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Indeed.

[Dinner]

Simple stories for simple minds. Some readers want everything spoon feed to them while others take joy in reading between the lines and puzzling things out on their own from small fragments. The later type of reader are the ones who truly love the depth and detail of the books.

[Imran Siddiqui]

There's nothing wrong with preferring slicker, simpler stories with faster pacing. It's a stylistic choice and a stylistic preference.

Let's turn that around "There's nothing wrong with preferring world building, complex stories with slower pacing. It's a stylistic choice and a stylistic preference."

Right now there is the best of both worlds: The books allow for the more complex, world building narrative, while the show has the slicker, simpler story. Your brother, however, wants both to be the same type of story and therefore wants to say **** off to the people who want the more complex story, because he being himself: a complete tool.

FWIW, a more slicker, simpler story likely wouldn't have gotten picked up by HBO for a show. It was its epic nature that grabbed the imagination of the showrunners.

[Dinner]

This thing isn't just epic, it redefines what epic truly is. I'd say traditional fantasy trilogies, like LotR or Dragonlance, were epic stories but this is well beyond that plus GRRM throws in a huge amount of realism which makes the whole experience better and more emursive. As others have said the level of detail is a big part of that feel plus it makes the story even more interesting because each (of the many, many characters including the minor characters) all saw different events from their own particular point of view and some of them even saw different parts of the events but not the whole event in question. That means you have to filter information based upon what the characters likely motivations were/are plus there is a ton of history and events (a whole time line's worth really) sprinkled here and there all throughout the series so that gives lots of juicy puzzle pieces for readers to work with. One of the reason GRRM takes so long to write each of these books is because he obsessively goes over every tiny detail to make sure he gets the hints and puzzle pieces right.

That means this series is more than just a fantasy story, it also has bits of a detective story in it, bits of drama, bits of romance, and lastly an almost Tolstoy like aspect going into describing things like culture, dress, mannerism, styles, etc... All in extensive detail. After reading Tolstoy you have a damn good idea about what it was really like living in early 19th century Tsarist Russia right down to clothing, interior decorating, social moores, class interactions, food types, etc... The same comes out on the fictional place of Westeros.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Um, let's not get too hyperbolic here. LOTR has the Similarion and an entire invented language that actually made linguistic sense (from what I've heard).

[Berzerker]

I dont want too much info but does the kingslayer dude with 1 hand know he's the father of the king?