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The Goggle Box Thread

Just watched the next episode of GOT.

In Soviet Russia, show spoils books!

Not sure what to think... Write like the fookin wind George.
 
Loads of GoT fans on Twitter saying "hang on - THAT didn't happen in the book!"

To be perfectly honest, Bran's story arc is my least favourite of the series so it's no bad thing that they've added some new bits to it.

I think this season will merge parts of book 4 with the last few bits of book 3 - and the problem with book 4 is that half of the characters don't actually feature, as it takes place around the same time as half of book 5 (it's VERY confusing at times). So they may have to add to other storylines to make it work for the TV. Plenty of things they've done from the books which (IMO) have helped the pacing of the show. (I'll spoiler them just in case people haven't seen much of the series but are planning to):

 
1. The characters of Gendry and Edric Storm (both Robert's bastards) are amalgamated for the TV
2. Adding those fabulous scenes between Arya and Tywin in season 2 - doesn't happen in the books
3. Theon isn't seen for a long time after book 2 - seeing his suffering at the hands of Ramsay is hinted at in the books, but a lot later on.
4. The character of Talisa is made for the TV series. Robb's wife in the book isn't from Volantis, doesn't appear at the Red Wedding (subsequently isn't slaughtered) and isn't seen very often.


Plenty more examples but they're having to be quite imaginative with the adaptation for the screen, and I reckon that'll happen more often due to the slightly odd way books 4 and 5 are set chronologically.
 
Book Spoilers.

 
Not a lot actually happens to Bran in book 4/5 (I forget which one he's in). There are only about 3 chapters in the entire book so I'm glad that they're fleshing out his story. It was the final scene which really threw me. Confirmation that the Others are converting Craster's sons, confirmation that the Others have leaders and are clearly organised and in HBO's synopsis of the episode the Other in the show who converts the child was called 'The Nights King' (The Lord Commander of The Night's Watch who went rogue and started fucking a female Other).

As well as giving us this information way before GRRM does in his books, this basically confirms that Coldhands is Benjen Stark.
 
Book Spoilers.

 
Not a lot actually happens to Bran in book 4/5 (I forget which one he's in). There are only about 3 chapters in the entire book so I'm glad that they're fleshing out his story. It was the final scene which really threw me. Confirmation that the Others are converting Craster's sons, confirmation that the Others have leaders and are clearly organised and in HBO's synopsis of the episode the Other in the show who converts the child was called 'The Nights King' (The Lord Commander of The Night's Watch who went rogue and started fucking a female Other).

As well as giving us this information way before GRRM does in his books, this basically confirms that Coldhands is Benjen Stark.

 
It's probably the boldest change from the books thus far, but with regards to the books, would you agree that the Others are massively underused? I also think we'll see what happens to Rickon, Shaggydog and Osha too.

There was also the part in the last series when Ramsay cuts off Theon's John Thomas - again, that's hinted in the book but GRRM actually wrote the script for that episode which I thought was quite interesting.


I can understand that huge fans of the book (much bigger fans than I am for example) won't like these theories being confirmed so early in the series, or even that it's deviated from the books as much as it has. As yet, I don't think the changes have spoiled the show and I hope that continues to be the case.
 
Don't get me wrong, I love these theories being confirmed/torn apart. I just kinda wish I had read them first.

GRRM has been releasing sample chapters of TWOW recently but it's pretty clear that it's still a long way from being released and I doubt HBO will go over 8 seasons for GOT. It's looking increasingly likely that book readers will have to choose between watching the series end on TV or waiting for the last two books to come out. If it were any other series I'd be pretty angry about that but HBO have done such a fantastic job with the adaptation that I'm kind of okay with it.
 
Don't get me wrong, I love these theories being confirmed/torn apart. I just kinda wish I had read them first.

GRRM has been releasing sample chapters of TWOW recently but it's pretty clear that it's still a long way from being released and I doubt HBO will go over 8 seasons for GOT. It's looking increasingly likely that book readers will have to choose between watching the series end on TV or waiting for the last two books to come out. If it were any other series I'd be pretty angry about that but HBO have done such a fantastic job with the adaptation that I'm kind of okay with it.

They're planning on 10 seasons of GoT I think? The size and scale of Dance With Dragons will no doubt span over 2 seasons, and they way they're expanding certain plots makes me think they'll do a good job of compensating for the padding in A Feast For Crows, when there are too many chapters of fuck all happening.

We've hardly seen anything of the Martells or the Greyjoys yet either. Still a LOT to get through.

Of course, one issue with the speed of the series compared to the books is the age of the kids cast in the show.
 
Benioff & Weiss were talking about 7 seasons at one point and combining AFFC & ADWD (terrible idea). HBO have renewed GOT for seasons 5&6 though which I think will take them up to the end of ADWD. ADWD & AFFC are big books but as you said, there's actually not a great deal of action for large portions of them, particularly in AFFC (my favourite book of the series so far btw).

 
ADWD ended on a cliffhanger just before the battles at Winterfell & Meereen but there's no way they can do that in a TV series. I can see those battles being concluded by the end of season 6
 
Benioff & Weiss were talking about 7 seasons at one point and combining AFFC & ADWD (terrible idea). HBO have renewed GOT for seasons 5&6 though which I think will take them up to the end of ADWD. ADWD & AFFC are big books but as you said, there's actually not a great deal of action for large portions of them, particularly in AFFC (my favourite book of the series so far btw).

 
ADWD ended on a cliffhanger just before the battles at Winterfell & Meereen but there's no way they can do that in a TV series. I can see those battles being concluded by the end of season 6

 
Nah, I think they'll appear considerably later than that. There's so much we haven't seen yet, and I reckon plots like the Greyjoys' kingsmoot, Rickon/Osha, Myrcella in Dorne, Arya in Braavos etc are all going to be drawn out which isn't necessrily a bad thing. We're nowhere near any of those yet and there's still plenty yet to happen from book 3.


With regards to combining AFFC and ADWD, they're going to have to. There are major characters who appear frequently in one book but not at all in the other - they're going to have to show them side by side, rather than feature characters from AFFC then go back in time and show what the characters in ADWD were doing at the same time! It's confusing enough in the books - it'd be worse on screen.

A bit like how they had to mess around with the end of The Two Towers and the start of Return of the King - that's slightly muddled so to make it fit, they had to do some tweaking with the chronology.

It's a very difficult task to adapt GoT for the screen and it'll just get worse once we reach the events of AFFC and ADWD.
 
I know they'll have to show AFFC & ADWD chronologically rather than Geographically like GRRM did but they were originally talking about fitting it all into one season.

 
I think they'll end season 5 with Dany and Drogon in the fighting pits and season 6 with the battles at Meereen & Winterfell + the mutiny at Castle Black. Leaves plenty of time to fit in all the politics in Meereen, Jon fucking everything up as Lord Commander, Dorne (I can see them cutting the Sand Snakes or reducing them down to 1 person) and The Iron Islands (this is the second season where they've almost completely ignored them).
 
Didn't think much of the fourth episode to be honest. Also: GoT Facebook recap 4.4

They've been quite good at calming things down after a major plot development - and after the chaos of episode 2, it's been a little bit less manic. I like how they set things up. Lots of coolness to come this series.
 
The slow build is what takes it from good TV to great TV. Shows like GOT, Sopranos, The Wire and Braking Bad have a lot of individual episodes where, on the face of it, nothing at all happens. It's what sets them apart from bollocks like House or CSI who cares, where every episode has to have a beginning, middle and end.
 
The slow build is what takes it from good TV to great TV. Shows like GOT, Sopranos, The Wire and Braking Bad have a lot of individual episodes where, on the face of it, nothing at all happens. It's what sets them apart from bollocks like House or CSI who cares, where every episode has to have a beginning, middle and end.

Absolutely. Sometimes, you have to just take in what has happened. Key events in all 4 series so far are followed by a lot of characters digesting what has happened and reacting accordingly. I think it's the best way to do it.

Minor book spoiler:

 
The Red Wedding and Joffrey's wedding are very close in the books and as a result you hardly have time to catch your breath before the next huge plot twist (i.e. Joffrey's death) hits you.
 
The slow build is what takes it from good TV to great TV. Shows like GOT, Sopranos, The Wire and Braking Bad have a lot of individual episodes where, on the face of it, nothing at all happens. It's what sets them apart from bollocks like House or CSI who cares, where every episode has to have a beginning, middle and end.

I agree, but don't be knocking House.
 
As House goes on there is a lot more ongoing storylines and character development/backgrounds that make it one of my favourite shows.
 
David Simon, creator of The Wire and Treme, is planning a series on the history of the CIA. Shut up and take my money HBO. I would watch the fuck out of that!
 
Kitchen Nightmares on now is absolutely hilarious.
 
Apparently, as of Monday's episode, there will only be 1 advert break during Game of Thrones.

What's the betting it's 15 minutes long?!
 
Can't believe I missed this one:




The bits at 3:30 and 4:50 are just :icon_lol: and I wish they were in the real show.
 
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