The TV show Game of Thrones and the book series A Song of Ice and Fire
On gardening, the show, and the books (or: what would the story be like without the RW? by Feldman10
(Spoilers Everything) On gardening, the show, and the books (or: what would the story be like without the RW?) * /r/asoiaf
Season 6 of Game of Thrones was an odd thing for a book reader to watch. In one sense it spoiled a great many things that will happen in the novels. Jon Snow came back, was named King in the North, and his parentage was revealed. The Boltons were deposed.
reddit.com
Really great short analysis about how the show and books have diverged despite shared plot points.




That's awesome. I hadn't thought of organic growth in terms of writing. But you certainly get that feel with GOT.
I semi-agree with the article. I liked how the storyline developed, but the way it was presented was very anti climatic overall. Definitely missing out on the character developments and MO's. Although the story "developed" I don't feel at all that we've really moved that far beyond the books.
I'm very interested to see how the book will unfold now with Season 6 out. Previous seasons (to me) were very unmatched to the books and I stopped watching it for awhile, but you can see in this season the writers trying to steer the storyline back to where the books were (re: Jamie and Cersei).
@Pasta - I totally agree about Tyrion. It would be incredibly out of character for him as well as Tywin to attack Winterfell. And Catelyn going beyond the wall? I don't think see it either.
I agree. There are a handful of plot points that have not been depicted in the books, but by and large they were all already expected. A lot of this season, right down to the white raven in episode 10, was still published book content.
I like how things turned out as opposed to the outline, lol. Arya learned a lot from her time on her own and she needed that development on her own as opposed to being a substitute for Meera.
Given how Tyrion treated Bran and Sansa with compassion and doesn't seem terribly offended by his brief imprisonment by Catelyn, burning Winterfell seems really out of character for him. He's not loyal to House Lannister and probably would sit in camp instead of participating. Also, it seems doubtful that Tywin would allow Tyrion that level of responsibility, because commanding a campaign alongside Jaime would give him more legitimacy and power than he would like.
On topic, I do like the idea of gardening because it lets a story grow more organically and fortunately GRRM does think things through before committing to an idea.
My realization with Season 6 is that I've been using the books far more than I expected to support the show. I've read them many times, so the show has been a visual feast. It ranged from supplementing the books to providing interesting alternate tangents, like new chapters with a different view of the same events. I was rarely bothered by the show's depictions, as in most cased I could see why changes were made; it all made sense. I felt the show was doing a great job re-imaging the original story fore the screen.
But with Season 6, that's no longer possible. Even with the show still mining the existing books heavily for this past season's events, the connections seem rushed or outright unclear. The nuance and plot twists are suddenly gone, along with a lot of character development. I have been wondering, was the show really not as good as I thought? Did being a reader help cover up the show's early faults?
The more I've thought about it though, the less I think it was just my book comparisons making the difference. As the link mentions:
That's so true. It's like the show has GRRM's outline of major events, but no details, and they're unwilling or incapable of filling out their own version without Martin's examples to work from.
The idea that characters are "teleporting" around illustrates just how bad it's gotten. Vary's disappearance from Meereen was so quick it sparked a flurry of speculation: Was he leaving before Dany returned to avoid meeting her? Did he have some other plot in mind? Was Varys in Meereen just a Fight Club figment of Tyrion's imagination? But instead of the sudden departure being relevant, he just appears for a second in Dorne to deliver a quick line, and then is magically back with a fleet of ships some unknown time later. We never got to see Varys and Dany meet for the first time, just as we never got to feel the passage of time as the ships sailed around for months and the Dothraki painfully learned to become sailors. Characters are accomplishing more and more with no real effort; there are no problems to overcome. They just jump over the issues to get to the next plot point as fast as possible.
And because of that the show is now feeling cheap. I'm certainly enjoying this season's special effects, but the story is so thin it's become transparent.
I agree with that too. I'm much more excited to read TWOW now. I want to read the deeper story. I couldn't care less anymore if the show ends completely different from the books. If the show can't support itself without the books, then ultimately it was only supplemental book material the whole time.
I'm personally very excited for TWOW too, but the differences in the show have stopped bothering me. I think Feldman and you make great points about how they glossing over things and ticking plot boxes, but it has one thing the books will never have. Real people and being able to see all these things on screen, George is a fantastic writer but seeing Drogon roast ships full grown raised goose bumps. speakertothedamned on asoiaf today made a great response to a Preston Jacobs video that I thought was very insightful.
I agree that the writing is getting more frayed and the massive time jumps are frustrating, but don't think they really detract from the show's quality of viewing. Littlefinger's jet pack is a prime example I've been critical of, but do I really want to watch 5 episodes of him traveling in carriages bored? No, and they really could do better to show the passage of time for sure.
Also, great to see you here KJ! ASOIAF mod here, sorry I stole your namesake >< someone snaked ASOIAF out from under me in revenge.
Oh I agree completely there. The acting makes the show as much as the good design, costumes, and certainly effects. Tyrion used to be one of my 3 favorite characters in the books, but his Essos trip grew too angsty for me, and I really didn't care for his recent chapters. Dinklage on the other hand still steals every scene. There are a lot of minor characters that were given new life in the show that I appreciated.
My concern is that I keep seeing things that make me feel like they're either phoning it in now, or they've started to lose the top-talent they had earlier in their crew.
For example, "No One" was written by D&D, so it should have been solid if not great writing right? In reference to that Arya chase, Mylod was quoted to say "the writers had put down the most dazzling foot chase ever committed to film." I don't see how the scene we got is in any way even close to dazzling let alone "most dazzling." I found it trite and predictable, and the whole wounded thing kept breaking my suspension of disbelief on top of that. Mylod said he "devoured every foot chase in the history of cinema." I've watched quite a few very, very good foot chases, and I can't believe Mylod watched any of them. I originally thought, 'well there must have been some production problem, and they ended up with that scene. That's how it goes some times.' But after reading interviews and finding out what we got was all intentional...? I couldn't help thinking the guy's a fool.
And speaking of fools, this comparison of Loras' and Mace's armors bugs me a lot. Mace's looks like a "community college production" prop. I don't care if the character is ultimately supposed to be a complete idiot. We've seen the how rich the Tarly estate is. The Tyrells can afford the best in all things. Loras' armor reflects that. Even if Mace doesn't care, Olenna would, and she'd never let her son, the Lord of Highgarden, go out in plastic kid's armor. IT makes the House look bad. The costume's knit in the undershirt is so huge the fakeness of the 'chainmail' is obvious. Whoever did the costuming for Mace can't be the same person that did Loras in the earlier season. That broke the 4th wall for me too.
And really that's the thing. I shouldn't be thinking about production problems when watcing the show. I should be in the moment, enjoying the scenes. The show used to be that way 100% of the time, but now it's not. :(
Haha, yeah no worries. I was kind of relieved ;) I've wanted to check out Imzy, and even set up some communities to see how it works, but I get more than enough GOT/ASOIAF modding in on Reddit. This last season was tough. I'm happy to just make some comments here right now. Plus I feel more open to commenting here anyhow. I don't play the alt game on Reddit, and when I post GOT/ASOIAF stuff as a user it sometimes "has baggage" coming from a known mod. So mostly I just don't comment anymore.
I did just set up a couple of art communities to check it all out. I don't like the extra-heavy focus on mobile with the UI, but there are some interesting ideas they're definitely doing right here too.
I've found a way to turn the corner and just enjoy it as visual entertainment, which sometimes could use some work, but is by far the best produced tv show on the air. My imagination will always be better though. Like an Avengers movie stretched over, is everything gonna add up? No, but still enjoy a lot of what I'm seeing. Like was it ridiculous that Jon got crowned the King in the North despite mostly losing the battle and the guys who crowned him weren't there? Yes, definitely. Still get chills when little Lyanna starts talking about how the North remembers. (The Braavos plot was pretty bad though, no disagreement there).
It's nice and easy here, like an easy pleasant trip down a slow river vs. the unending torrent and rapids of reddit. And no one calls me names for daring to remove their precious racist rants.