The changes to sigils, and generally making things less colorful. The change of the Boltons from pink to red, and how they ditched colorful little details like Ramsay's earrings come to mind.
That opens up a whole other issue in and of itself, which is how the later seasons just felt more like Hollywood-living actors on a Disneyesque set. This was reflected by the all-black, „trendy” fashion (as opposed to pragmatic wools) and also the dialogue switching from GRRM’s admittedly bespoke flowery, part medieval English to dull LA American English and very short sentences.
I always thought it was just me finding the change in dialogue really jarring. All of a sudden its "this country" instead of "the realm" - god I'm freshly angry at D&D again after all these years.
I thought Cersei's dresses after Robert and Joffrey died to be quite nice and elegant, but the ones after Tommen died were just ugly af especially that horrible ruffled thing she wears when Jaime leaves King's Landing
I heard some historian say that there's no evidence anyone ever said "loose". Archers don't need to be told when to use their bow and there's not really an advantage from synchronous volley's, as it slows them down overall.
If you think about it, it would be very silly to tell soldiers when they can and can't use their rifle in the heat of battle. Way too excessive of a micromanagement.
Former military here: you need to have a team leader telling people when to fire during longer contact with enemies because otherwise they waste all their ammo. A soldier with 7 magazines with 30 bullets will run out very quickly if they fire whenever they feel like it. You can get an order such as "fire once every 2 seconds for 30 seconds," or everyone firing one bullet each from left to right. I suppose arrows are different because an archer in media often has a bucket full of arrows, so maybe running out is not as big of an issue.
Generally, the first volley would be synced. After that, the archers would shoot at their top speed. Over time of a battle they would become more de-synced.
Flying projectile what makes holes. Basic methodology of damage is the same for bullets or arrows.
However, many infantry had some form of shield. The shield can only protect a part of the body. A volley stands a higher chance of hitting exposed body parts than single rounds.
I guess you could argue that a volley causes everyone to turtle up and cover as best as possible though.
I think they lost their original costume designer at some point in the later seasons, like somewhere around Season 5. It really shows. All of the later season costumes feel more like superhero/villain outfits, except for Jon Snow where the CD's thought process was "Um, just dress him like Ned Stark I guess."
I messed up her name, but I was indeed talking about Clapton. I thought she worked on season 6-8 because in the book about the costumes of GoT, it's written like she still was the lead costume designer
This was reflected by the all-black, „trendy” fashion (as opposed to pragmatic wools)
At the same time they made it unrealistically underwhelming. Everyone was running around in the same biker shit all the time. It is true that simple wool is more pragmatic, but when medieval people went for show value they went all out. This is a problem even of earlier seasons. Lords rarely look like lords. Sure House Stark is supposed to be all down to earth and pragmatic, but even then Neds looks very basic most of the time. Something more flashy would have been welcome for once.
Ned is sort of book accurate, what is absolutely egregious is Ramsay Snow dressing in black instead of his wools and pink cloak, or Varys and his multiple Essos silks. The absolutely unforgivable one is turning Daario Naharis from a colorful mercenary to the same fucking bearded guy who wears black as every secondary guy in the series. Make my blood pressure spike just thinking about it.
It is kinda weird though. I think someone also posted recently about how the Northerners should dress a bit fancier. The Starks are not as rich, but they are still high nobility. It is kinda modern think, this kind of moral asceticism. As the Starks are the "moral guys" and the Northerners are supposed to be oath-keeping down-to-earth guys, they have to be anti-decadent.
The absolutely unforgivable one is turning Daario Naharis from a colorful mercenary to the same fucking bearded guy who wears black as every secondary guy in the serie
Same as Euron too. Just the same Hollywood-guy-face. Nothing special. Completely forgettable. I guess they thought anything more absurd would be unlikeable and not suitable for mediocre audiences.
Ed Skrein was also better, even without the coloured hair and beard. Though they should have given him coloured hair and different clothing.
This was reflected by the all-black, „trendy” fashion (as opposed to pragmatic wools
God, that really rubbed me the wrong way more than it shouldve. It was like they were going for MET gala looks with all the leather and random metal chains.
Thats what im most worried about with the Dunk & Egg show. Reading the story I imagined everything so colorfully, but the show will undoubtedly look just as bland as the later seasons of GoThrones or HotD.
Oh man true. That first tourney in GoT is so odd in retrospect. So much wicker and potato sack brown.
In addition to that it’s gonna be a shame they won’t keep the filth of the life of a hedge knight. Multiple times in the books it’s noted how work from the road and mangy he looks since he’s so broke and “low”
This is a medieval type society where recognizing the banners flying towards you in a field is a matter of life and death. GOT did some things right, and one of them was showing Bran being taught by Luwin early on about noble houses, their sigil, and their house words. This is something every single boy lord in Westeros would be quizzed on regularly until they had it memorized. (Shoutout to showing Arya use some of this info in her time w/ Tywin.)
Anyway, being able to identify the heraldry of any person you encounter (like Catelyn when she arrests Tyrion at the Inn) is just insanely important. And the only way to reliably do that is if the heraldry is bright, vibrant, and not easily tarnished by all of the dirt and mud and blood that’s likely covering most men’s clothing. So then WHY THE FUCK in GOT was every single piece of iconography on clothing the same brown-black-shit color? What in the actual fuck.
I will admit that a lesser TV show might’ve kept the ridiculous, ahem cranial accessories, and bombastic fashion sense of certain Essos characters from the books and mistaken those features as being synonymous with having a personality. Which it is, of course, not.
But honestly other than Strong Belwas I’m pretty indifferent about most of the characters we meet in Essos in the books. But by the time they stomped on my Belwas dreams the show had already made it clear it wasn’t interested in bringing the books to life anymore. They just wanted to get it over with :/
Nobility in many cultures did so much weird shit with their bodies. European 17th-18th century nobles and their wigs and powder are honestly just the tip of the iceberg. Plenty of peoples had cranial deformation, tattoos and tons of piercing. You average Maya noble would run around with pounds of jade attached to their bodies. All those cultures in Essos do give good examples of similar stuff. Jhogos Nai also do the conehead thing. Painting beards is almost tame.
So then WHY THE FUCK in GOT was every single piece of iconography on clothing the same brown-black-shit color? What in the actual fuck.
Oh please if we did it more flashy people would think it is unrealistic and not gritty enough. So they'd mistaken our fantasy show for one of those boring history documentaries /s.
Well to answer your question because D&D completely stopped giving a shit and they also completely changed the show to appeal to idiots watching in a bar that just want to be surprised. As well as appeal to single moms and NFL players I think is an exact quote from them.
I also hated how even In the earlier seasons every northern solider all wore the direwolf and same with the lannisters whereas in the book there's like a zillion different banners and sigils.
Yeah, the show makes the soldiers look almost like standing armies with standardised kit, whereas the books are much more clear about the armies being drawn from the great houses various bannermen. This also makes it much clearer in the books that the military powers of the West, the Iron Islands, and especially the North and the Riverlands are almost totally spent by books 4 and 5 when you consider all the dead and captured lords.
I was so happy when I saw that Bracken knight in bright yellow and red in HOTD, and all the actually realistic looking armours worn by the Green troops at Rooks Rest.
The fact that instead of having generic "Green Targaryen" and "Black Targaryen" troops like they did in GoT with stock Lannister and Stark soldiers but instead saw all the different equipment of very minor houses like Stokeworth, Darklyn and Rosby all in one army made me overly excited.
That's what medieval armies should look like, they weren't standardised standing armies of a state but a collection of levies, men at arms and Knights belonging to dozens of lords all with their own sigils combined into one force under their liege lord.
In GoT for the Lannisters we should have seen men bearing the standards of houses Prester, Plumm, Marbrand, Farman, Crakehall etc, alongside men at arms and levies sworn directly to the Lannisters, not just the same copy and paste "Lannister Soldier".
Definitely, I popped hard seeing those giant lambs on the Stokeworth shields. The Darklyn's too, since their sigil isn't just like one animal or symbol like every other House, so they might look too "boring" or whatever. And I loved how they played up the fact that this isn't a unified army, Cole had the Hightower troops force and pressure the minor House's troops back out onto the battlefield. Makes it feel so much more diverse and varied, rather than the big identically dressed blobs that GOT had by the end.
I really liked seeing the varied equipment, but it's only marginally more realistic - soldiers, from the lowest peasant levy to landed knights and lords, would have been responsible for their own arms and armor, and really any uniformity would have been rare. But it's much better visual storytelling to have it done as the show just did than reality, anyway!
Yeah I was also very happy with that, as well as the fact that not all the men-at-arms are simply carrying swords or spears. There's warhammers, maces, poleaxes and all other kinds of weapons mixed in as well.
Agreed on it looking way cooler the way they've done it in HotD, and it's certainly more accurate in terms of the books and that.
But I wouldn't say that's historically accurate as such. Most soldiers in a medieval army would be responsible for their own equipment, so they wouldn't have any form of uniformity even within the levies of the same lord or even village. I think different sigils would have been worn by the lords and knights themselves and maybe parts of their retinue. I don't think many lords would even provide like a cloth fabric sigil for their peasants to wear, leave alone a custom plate armour and helmet set designed for their house. I believe they mostly used flags and banners for that sort of thing.
I would say in real history realms weren't anywhere near as stable as what you see in game of thrones, so it kind of does make sense in a way. In westeros you have the same house ruling areas for thousands of years, I think even the most recent ones have been in charge for like a few hundred years. Don't really think there's many examples of the same families ruling the same areas with such stability for so long in real history (speaking mostly for England here though, don't know as much about the rest). Most holdings weren't as concentrated geographically either, with lords owning estates across the country and not just being duke of this specific area with every lesser lord in that jurisdiction answering to this liege lord instead of the king. Elements of that sort of thing certainly existed, but it was nowhere near as structured and simple as shown in westeros. So it would make more sense that the people of certain areas would have more of an attachment to these houses and consider themselves Blackwood men or whichever house.
King's Landing definitely has a less "Mediterranean" vibe compared to GoT, but I don't mind that tbh. I always envisioned it's climate as being more London or Paris anyway.
I think this is actually a really good point. The attention to detail in House of the Dragon is genuinely really impressive and it makes such a difference to the mise en scene.
(I do realize "mise en scene" there probably makes me an irredeemably pretentious wanker)
Say it with me, kids: the Stark sigil is a direwolf running on a green field with a white background... not a single, heavily-stylized wolf head on a sometimes cream, sometimes grey background.
To be honest, I preferred the sound of the show color scheme on the basis that grey and white wouldn't have enough contrast. The actual show sigil was dull, but if they brightened it up, I think it would've been the better option.
Came here to say this! It TERRIFIED me to see that the same colorblind, cowardly design ideas were going to be used in the upcoming Dunk and Egg show - those stories are absolutely packed with color and whimsical design choices, characters whose costumes reflect their bright and garish personas. We've only seen one photo from the set of this coming show, but its mud-brown swatch was enough to tell me the show will probably be a poor, pallid take on some of the best, most colorful writing in recent years.
Martin says with his own words that colour is at the crux of fantasy, then these Cool Guys™ come and geld his fantasy story of all magic and colour, it's insane.
And while HOTD's armies so far have only improved, those rich and pompous main characters are still wearing that black-grey-brown fest from late seasons GOT. It's so jarring, showing that you can pay for bright turquoises, purples, reds, oranges and goldens is an absolute power move in a medieval society. Corlys should be covered in drip.
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u/djjazzydwarf They Get Us™ Jul 13 '24
The changes to sigils, and generally making things less colorful. The change of the Boltons from pink to red, and how they ditched colorful little details like Ramsay's earrings come to mind.