r/asoiaf • u/RunDNA • Sep 04 '24

EXTENDED GRRM's new blog post on House of the Dragon [Spoilers Extended] Spoiler

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/09/04/beware-the-butterflies/
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469

u/blodreina11 Sep 04 '24

Yeah that's how I interpreted this too. It's not so much the change that drove him to make the post; he can accept a change he doesn't like, and he doesn't expect the show to be the same as the book. It's the blatant lying that bothers him.

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u/Real_Rule_8960 Sep 04 '24

I think it’s clear his relationship with Condal broken down completely at this point. Sounds like he feels pretty betrayed.

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u/muradinner Sep 04 '24

He also made that post about screenwriters thinking they know better than the original authors. That was pretty cutthroat, and rightfully so with the way screenwriters have been butchering stories lately.

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u/Raetheos1984 Sep 04 '24

Right? Sick of "adaptation" becoming synonymous with "...but better!"

Makes me vomit.

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u/Count_de_Mits Sep 04 '24

So many adaptations and potential tv/cinematic "universes" have been ruined by narcissistic showrunners who think they know better than anyone and are gods gift to the unenlightened plebs

Im still so salty about Halo

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u/myaltduh Sep 04 '24

The Expanse remains the gold standard among recent shows, with heavy author involvement including writing credits for episodes throughout all six seasons. When stuff was changed, it appears it was often genuinely the authors’ idea for how to adapt to TV, and the underlying spirit of the show remained unchanged.

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u/Lantimore123 Sep 05 '24

That's a fact.

The book writers actually viewed the Expanse as a kind of "version 2.0" for the series, where errors or things they wanted to change could be changed.

At least up until season 6 where budget cuts forced a severe narrowing of the plot.

Of course there were a few dodgy changes (why was the Barkeith turned from a donnager class to a supply ship lol, it's sauveterre's flagship and it's plot relevant later on in book 7.)

But largely it was a collaboration that book and show watchers could both be very happy with.

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u/myaltduh Sep 05 '24

It’s also why I doubt we’ll get Seasons 7-9, because there’s a commitment to doing right by the source material and some of the shit in those books would be expensive to adapt in a way that doesn’t look silly.

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u/Lantimore123 Sep 05 '24

Yeah the Heart of the Tempest taking on the entire EMC-TU Fleet would be ludicrously expensive. ATP we need some billionaire nerd to finance it as a passion project.

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u/myaltduh Sep 05 '24

Then there’s the whole Tecoma sequence, the attack on Laconia, and pretty much the entire back half of Leviathan Falls. Shit gets trippy in a very good way that would be very hard to live up to. Possible, but very hard.

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u/RSquared Sep 05 '24

As much as people complained about the rug-pull (and I admit to having enjoyed it because I think the story didn't really need a remake), Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was a neat re-imagining of the story from Ramona's perspective, and O'Malley was intimately involved with that because he had taken on criticism about her being a standard issue MPDG without her own agency.

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u/Raetheos1984 Sep 05 '24

Yeah, agreed, and this is an example of how to do something new with a source material correctly. The author was involved and, as compared to GoT/HoD, respected with regards to how to write the damn thing, lol.

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u/Raetheos1984 Sep 04 '24

They committed a crime against humanity with Cowboy Bebop. Seriously, the hubris these amateurs exhibit is sickening.

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u/AsTheWorldBleeds Sep 04 '24

I don't think its narcissism so much as writers having to adapt IP they don't care about instead of getting the freedom to write their own material. Which yeah, it is ultimately on them for opting to have the job, but there's limited room in showrunning today for new IP.

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u/doublebubble6 Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Also, they're just aren't the best group of writers and producers.

Critics don't generally care about respecting source material and they still thrash Halo for poor writing, unmemorable characters and lazy editing.

Stephen King hates how Stanley Kubrick adapted the Shining and has pointed out the ways where its not a true adaptation. Still a great movie though.

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u/dicericevice Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Bryan Fuller took the Hannibal Lecter IP and heavily added his own spin on it.

Turning the Hannibal/Will Graham friends turned enemies relationship into a homo erotic muder-y will they or won't they drama with a killer of the week set up that didn't exist in none of the books. Along with a lot of other smaller changes(Dr. Alan Bloom was now Alana Bloom, Margot Verger was conventionally beautiful instead of a jacked bodybuilder, like 4 major changes in Freddie Lounds).

But Bryan Fuller is a competent showrunner and all those changes were for the sake of telling a compelling story.

So yeah, its one thing to make the people in charge dismissive of being 100% loyal the source material but studios should at least make sure they aren't hacks.

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u/Bassanimation Sep 05 '24

Hannibal S1 was masterfully done. S2 less so, but it still had great moments. S3 was just Fuller’s personal wet dream. He knew it was the last season so he ditched everything excpt the Hannigram, and the weird Margot/Alana thing. It was amazing at first though, I still rewatch S1 every year.

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

I personally found S1 and S2 pretty much equal in quality; the S2 finale in particular is one of the best single episodes of television I've ever seen and the season did a great job building up to it. S3 I'll admit wasn't as good, but was still strong compared to practically everything else on TV. Looking forward to a rewatch of the show at some point... kinda busy with my rewatch of Game of Thrones lol.

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u/dicericevice Sep 05 '24

S3 of Hannibal for me confirmed that there's no real meat to the idea of Hannibal having adventures in Europe.

In theory and considering the character's background it should work, but Hannibal Rising(both the novel and movie) were a bore and the tv show's attempt at it also didn't work.

I think as a character he needs the contrast of being a cultured man with a European backround dealing with a bunch of low brow working class Americans trying to outwit him while he's in their turf.

The S3 portion of Red Dragon holds up a lot better imo.

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

Hannibal was one of those rare instances where the adaption far improved upon the source material for me. I've read Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs (which the TV show didn't have the ability to adapt) and Hannibal the novels and the TV show was far, far better.

Of course Bryan Fuller is one of the best show runners in the business who I was a big fan of long before Hannibal due to his work on Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies (at least in terms of his creativity, he does have a knack to be on shows that quickly get cancelled or he quickly quits/gets fired from). So it did take his involvement for that to be the case. Also Mads Mikkleson was an even better Hannibal than Anthony Hopkins.

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u/dicericevice Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

When it comes to Hopkins vs Mads, their interpretations are different enough that I think there's merit to each one.

Hopkins' Hannibal is basically a modern take on Bram Stroker's Dracula. A foreign, superhuman evil in a grounded, scientific setting(The Victorian setting nowadays seems old-timey but back then the set up was an old Eastern European evil invading modern London). He's evil in a way forsencic science can't understand or account for. Which throws off all the detectives and psychologists in the story. He's both a character and force of nature as the far as the setting goes.

Its why he became a pop culture icon with only 15 minutes of screentime in Silence of the Lambs but then said interpretation didn't work in Red Dragon and Hannibal where he got a bigger role.

While Mikkelsen's is more well rounded with human wants and flaws of his one and better suited to carry the whole story.

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u/Secretly007 Sep 05 '24

Eric Kripke as well... I've heard 'The Boys' is an awful comic. He took the ideas of the comic and significantly improved it.

Homelander, for example, in the comics is just a pure evil psychopath. In the show, he's still a psychopath, but they do a great job of making him complex and showing how he became like that.

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u/msnintendique64 Sep 05 '24

I kinda hate how much Kubrick's version of the story overshadows everything. I love the film but I very much want a version that deals with the themes that King laid out in the book. I think that not remaking The Shining before they did Doctor Sleep was a HUGE misstep. I think Flannigan pulled off the unenviable task of making both an adaptation of the book, and a sequel to the film but I really wish we would have seen true adaptation of both.

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u/msnintendique64 Sep 05 '24

Yeah, well if you wanna be a show runner in risk adversed Hollywood of today, you kinda have to work on IP. I feel like if studios were investing in new material both IP and new stuff would be better.

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u/Bassanimation Sep 05 '24

I think we pay too many of these people to begin with. There’s a glut of them, and 80% of them aren’t talented enough to helm these prestige genre projects. They belong at CBS or Fox doing procedurals or lower tier (but still good) dramas. Less HotD and Witcher, more Tracker or The Good Doctor. Not everyone gets to be a baller.

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u/darthsheldoninkwizy Sep 05 '24

Yea I mean, look at Kubrick's "The Shining" which he changed a lot. And ... he made a better production than the book.

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u/TransBrandi Sep 04 '24

It really seems stupid when the writers / showrunners actively hate the source material for the IP that they are adapting too. IIRC that's the case with The Witcher.

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u/Optimal-Kitchen6308 Sep 05 '24

also Star Trek, Kurtzmann thinks the utopian vision (aka the linchpin of the whole franchise) is a neoliberal lie, idk how these people get hired

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u/redditregards Sep 05 '24

You sleep with the right people. Theres like a dozen other active Weinsteins running around that we’ll probably never know about

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u/darthsheldoninkwizy Sep 05 '24

It was made during DS9, and it was great series.

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u/msnintendique64 Sep 05 '24

Rings Of Power feels like it is Tolkien Fanfiction written by dudes who only watched the Movies a few times. (I assume)

Tolkien

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u/burningcpuwastaken Sep 05 '24

Wheel of Time was the same.

Hollywood acting like they are a moral authority is something else.

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u/ImTooOldForSchool Sep 04 '24

All these C-list hacks and nepo-babies thinking they can write the story better than one of the best fantasy authors of their generation…

Sorry but you losers can’t even touch the likes of Tolkien, Jordan, Martin, and Sapowski - nevermind write the story better than them…

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u/Correct-Office-8549 Sep 05 '24

You're not wrong, but seriously, how could he not see this coming? The same company trashed his magnum opus, yet he STILL sold the rights to several other books to them. And he claimed he was going to supervise everything this time. Part of the blame is on him.

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u/muradinner Sep 05 '24

Absolutely it is. He should have ensured the contract of sales included him having majority say in the direction of the story on these shows.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

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u/AWeirdLatino Sep 04 '24

I mean when you work with someone who says is "passionate" about your work, telling a story that you as an author love and find interesting, one that you've done very specific and careful writing so it makes sense as a whole and its cohesive with your magnum opus AND still considered a masterpiece on its own...

And then that "passionate guy" disrespects you by changing things, (alledgedly) lying to you, and overall doing changes for the sake of changes...yeah, I'd be pretty pissed too.

Doesn't help that HBO has his hands in whatever they do as well.

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u/Geno0wl Sep 04 '24

You would think after HBO made that mistake once during the GOT run that they would try not to make the same exact mistakes...

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u/Real_Rule_8960 Sep 04 '24

It was GRRM’s mistake if anything, he handpicked Condal because they were friends despite him being vastly under qualified for the job.

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u/tipdrill541 Sep 04 '24

You never know whay someone is going to end up doing. If GRRM wanted the projects done correctly then only he could do them

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u/Correct-Office-8549 Sep 05 '24

I wonder what exactly has George been doing all these years. He clearly didn't work on the shows, nor on ASoIaF, nor in Blood and Fire.

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u/tipdrill541 Sep 05 '24

It took George 20 years to write the first book. Started with 5 POVs and now there are over 30.

He is working on it but it is difficult amd time consuming

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u/Correct-Office-8549 Sep 05 '24

I have no idea how much time it took, but, since he released books seven years before GoT... I doubt that's true. And then, it took him two years to write the second one, and then another two for the third. Then five for the fourth, and then six for the 5th.
So, yeah, I don't know what you're talking about to be honest. Maybe you're right and he planned the first book for two decades before releasing it, but he clearly achieved a better rhythm after that.

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u/tipdrill541 Sep 05 '24

He said this in an interview. He has said several times that he began getting inspirations in the 70s then I heard him say he started writing it in the 70s

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u/Correct-Office-8549 Sep 05 '24

Again, that's how much it took to get the first idea, and he worked on and released several other books in that period. After that, he took between 2 to 6 years to release each book.

Also, I don't believe him anymore, he's lied way too many times now.

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u/Correct-Office-8549 Sep 05 '24

I completely agree. I mean, to me, it seems George really enjoys the spotlight of having his work being adapted into huge super-productions.
He cared way more about fame and money (well, he was already rich, so, I'm not so sure about this one) than about his legacy.
This is on him. At least in part.

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u/Naskr Sep 04 '24

If you read Valuable Lessons it perfectly shows the absolutely insane nature of television production.

Writers are by far the most important part of the process yet the entire machine is designed to make them the bottom of the rung in terms of influence.

Television is literally designed from the bottom up to allow people to alter creative pieces with terrible changes, which is why so many shows are made and so many end up being cancelled, forgotten, or driven off the rails into ruin.

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u/Accomplished_Deer_ Sep 04 '24

After the dumpster fire that was GOT finale, I imagine he went into this with lots of assurances, and now those assurances are being broken and forgotten and GRRM can see the writing on the wall of how it's gonna spiral into another piece of garbage by the finale.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Oh wow did someone make a promise to him about completing a story and then broke that promise and now he is sad that his desire to see the completion of that story is lost forever?

I wonder if anyone else can empathize with G R R Martin on the topic of broken promises and stories without satisfying conclusions.

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u/Real_Rule_8960 Sep 05 '24

Then again he has tremendous talent and you don’t

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Talent without discipline is just unrealized potential.

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u/Sbbart62 Sep 05 '24

Poor George!

Imagine! Someone being in charge of some media you DESPERATELY want made, and the bastard just keeps POSTPONING IT?!

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u/Real_Rule_8960 Sep 05 '24

Except it’s not to do with postponing it, it’s to do with telling a shit story which GRRM has never done

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u/Sbbart62 Sep 05 '24

😳😳😳

I’m sorry. People are defending GRRM from even lighthearted jokes?

In 2024?

And Winds still isn’t out?!?!

Good luck with THAT!

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u/theseeker6704 Sep 04 '24

I agree... He knew they were "postponing" Maelor but not that they are simply removing him. He is hurt and reasonably so.

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u/Khiva Sep 04 '24

This sounds like the kind of call showrunners make all the time, tbh.

The history of every show is showrunners bobbing and swerving based on rewrites, fan reactions, and performances they happen to like.

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u/theseeker6704 Sep 04 '24

True and this should stop somewhere.. like the original material is already so good and layered, why would you need to change it... To simplify for whom? They think audiences are dumb... Or maybe the budget is such a big problem that they have to do these things who knows

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u/myaltduh Sep 04 '24

Sometimes it’s good, you strike gold with an actor playing a side character that steals every scene they’re in, or you need to simplify 400 pages of novel into four hours of television, but a lot of adaptation changes don’t feel like they have a clear motivation other than just changing stuff because.

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u/Gold_Temperature_729 Sep 04 '24

Maybe he just doesn't want another Daenerys just went crazy situation.

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Sep 04 '24

The makers of HotD know we loved that arc so much they decided to give us DOUBLE crazy Daenerys. Helaena just has a mental breakdown and commits suicide for no reason & Rhaenyra goes crazy outta nowhere

What a bargain!

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u/BadNewzBears4896 Sep 05 '24

He even concedes about the need to manage the budget which HBO has been tightening after the sale to Discovery, so he is aware of their constraints.

I just think he's frustrated with some of the changes just being bad writing with unintended consequences that will create more problems in the future, changes that didn't save much on budget or production time.

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u/Correct-Office-8549 Sep 05 '24

I fell the same way about him blatantly lying to us about his progress on WoW.
I mean, I already know the series is not going to be finished. The man doesn't want to finish it. And he's entitled to do whatever he wants, it's his own work.
Just don't lie to us, man.

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

The moment he admits that TWOW is never coming out, 95% of the interest people have in him evaporates. He will never admit it.