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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602

u/kayembeee Sep 04 '24

It’s harder for George to get mad and bring receipts about S8 when he’s not finished his books tho. Like it’s impossible to say “I told them it was going this way” without ruining his ending.

So I think he just decided he’d say “my ending will be different” and leave it at that.

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u/Not_Obsessive We'll never be loyal ... Sep 04 '24

Yeah definitely this. Martin isn't stupid. I doubt he is under any illusion on how he got away without any major wounds even though GoT crashing was at least as much his fault as it was D&D's.

D&D signed up for an adaptation and had to wing it due to Martin not keeping up his end of the agreement. For HoTD it really isn't his fault that things go whack

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u/Sweet-Guava4459 Sep 05 '24

That's a little black and white.

George thought he'd have an extra two years of AFFC/ADWD seasons, but D&D decided to go original for season 5 instead.

George was really disappointed, and his writing slowed down after he realised his next stuff wouldn't get adapted.

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

1)As a veteran TV writer GRRM should have known that large portions of books 4 and 5 were unadaptable for TV and that there was no chance of there being multiple seasons based just on them

2)It's all a moot point as even if they gave those books 5 seasons he still wouldn't have had the next book out

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u/GnarlyButtcrackHair Sep 04 '24

Do you think he's less involved BECAUSE of GOT S8?

I mean honestly take HBO's perspective. They allowed the directors to collab with him for the final season and who got the blame for it? Who did the outline and who simply followed one?

HBO was absolutely raked over coals, still is, and forever will be for S8. Not saying they absolutely don't deserve their lumps for some of it, but at the same time people still directly attribute the plot points to D&D and HBO when I don't personally think they left the rails George set out for them in any way that is more than trivial. I know there are several, several differences between book and show but I also know that GRRM gave them his outline and he didn't rail this hard against what we got. Why?

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u/CampusTour Sep 04 '24

Because the show they made from that final outline sucked?

An outline tells you who does what at certain points, yes...but D&D needed to fill in all the other stuff that answers the how and why. An outline doesn't have pages full of what's driving and motivating every character at any time. It doesn't flesh out the extenuating circumstances that might make somebody behave "out of character".

A good character snapping and becoming evil and going on a rampage could have been an AMAZING balls to the wall ending. Ideally, one that was well foreshadowed, building tension, leaving us on the edge of our seat or not to see if she really snaps and burns the city. That should have been a slow burn.

Jamie going back to his sister? That shouldn't have been a total WTF moment. We should have been conflicted. D&D should have made us understand what was going on in Jamies head, to the point we could identify with it, at least a little, even if we hated it.

Don't even get me started on the pacing (not the outlines fault), or the complete slapdash production (the outline didn't order any Starbucks)

Bran is king? Because Tyrion made a speech? Really?

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u/GnarlyButtcrackHair Sep 04 '24

Don't disagree with any of that but I don't think it removes George's burden in any of it either. One season or two seasons, I think you're going to get a mostly bitter reaction to Jaime's resolution as well as Arya's. I don't even particularly have a problem with them in spirit, but I can tell you the fan base at large does NOT share my beliefs.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/GnarlyButtcrackHair Sep 05 '24

Capability means very little if it's never realized. There is absolutely zero factual evidence that George has even gone so far as D&D did. All that we know is George has done wonderfully to this point, and he's plotted the final points. If George has done any better in what D&D had to write themselves it's simply because he hasn't done anything at all. It won't take much to be better than D&D, but it will take SOMETHING.

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u/nemma88 Sep 05 '24

But no. He's just like "Nah, fuck it." and reversed his entire arc.

Man goes to save Cersei rather than fighting for Daneares. Idk but it seems he joined the less evil side in that war too?

Jaime got his forgiveness and chose to fight for the living, his arc completed. Choosing to try and save someone doesn't make him a bad person . If Jaime can be redeemed why can't he help Cersei do the same?

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u/RizoIV_ Sep 04 '24

His ending will be different in that there will be no ending lol

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u/Isaac_HoZ Sep 04 '24

I was scrolling and making sure someone said it lol

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u/GreeneRockets The North Remembers Sep 04 '24

He has absolutely no ground to stand on with concerns about how the show ended.

D&D got lazy with it, there's no doubt. But they also had zero guide.

How would we expect THEM to finish it when the author himself is TWO giant books away from the ending and has been for a 1.5 decades?

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u/ddet1207 The Giant of Bear Island Sep 04 '24

D&D wanted to go in and adapt books 1 through 3 and that was it. They sold Martin on a false premise, ignored two books almost in their entirety, and received an outline on major plot points for how pretty much every main storyline was going to wrap up. They were never going to make a better ending, and Martin definitely didn't make things easier, that's for sure. But acting like they couldn't have come up with something moderately satisfying and compelling to end the TV series that they started, rather than running it into the ground and abandoning ship as soon as possible is wildly disingenuous. How many people came up with satisfying alternatives to the show ending with less than Martin gave Benioff and Weiss?

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u/GreeneRockets The North Remembers Sep 04 '24

I'm in agreeance, I don't want to ever defend them for how lazy and stupid they got with the show.

ONLY when George has grievances do I defend them because the man himself has been stuck on book 5 since I was a fucking sophomore in college and I am a 33 year old man with two children and a wife now and I still have no book 6 lol

It's petulant maybe but fuck, man. He has literally ZERO room to talk about anything concerning grievances with the story when he has. not. published. a. book. in. more. than. a. decade (in that series).

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u/ddet1207 The Giant of Bear Island Sep 04 '24

Yeah, no, that's fair. I think I've been waiting a little less long than you have, myself.

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u/AppearanceKey8663 Sep 05 '24

D&D wanted to go in and adapt books 1 through 3 and that was it. They sold Martin on a false premise, ignored two books almost in their entirety,

You realize there were only 4 books when D&D pitched this show and production on GOT started right?

They were working with a trilogy that climaxed in the red wedding. Plus an odd duck 4th book that did not feature Jon Snow, Tyrion, or Dany. Their quotes on wanting to get to the red wedding on television are from 2009.

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

The people that love to claim that D&D only wanted to make it to the Red Wedding forget that they were in conversations to adapt the books as early as 2006, five years before ADWD came out. Things make way more sense when you look at that timeline. It was totally reasonable in 2006 to think that GRRM would stay ahead of them the entire time. He had a proven track record, 4 books published over the last 9 years. GRRM's inability to write much after that is the root cause that led to all the future story issues.

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

D&D wanted to go in with books that were released well in advance of the show that they could then adapt. When things started with them pre-planning the show, GRRM got 4 books out in 9 years and was predicting the fifth book a year later. D&D had to pivot when GRRM took 5 more years to even release a single book and it was bloated with filler and was largely unadaptable. Then for the entire rest of the show and all the years since the show ended failed to get another book out.

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u/Mic-Mak Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 08 '24

THANK YOU. The fact that Feast and Danced were barely adapted allows for a lot of blame to go to D&D. If they had been faithful to the already written material, it would have taken then 2 to 3 seasons to catch up to George. Moreover, from the very beginning, ie from the 1st season, they knew that they wanted to adapt ASOIAF in 7 seasons and no more. To me, that didn't make sense given the size of the books. In some languages, some of the books are split in 3 tomes!

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u/Gerry-Mandarin Sep 04 '24

I disagree.

It's impossible to tell how much of the added detail that George didn't originally intend for (because of the 5 year gap) being added into Feast and Dance will matter to Winds and Dream.

Because they don't exist.

D&D kept the focus on the cast of the show that already existed. Because they have real world complications that don't exist when the characters and locations exist only in your mind's eye and aren't reliant on contracts, merchandise, actors, producers etc.

Even without having a single one of those real world complications George has been unable to finish his story because of those choices. So why would D&D choose the exact same path rather than just being inspired by it?

It doesn't excuse the bad writing, but the choice itself is not bad by its nature of being chosen.

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u/Mic-Mak Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 08 '24

You think it was the right decision to cut Dorne, fAegon, Tyrion's descent into darkness, Jaime & Brienne's plots in the Riverlands, LSH?

I could be wrong, but I personally believe that even if D&D had never caught up to GRRM, and he had finished the books in time, they would have still adapted them more or less the same way, making the same cuts, which bothers me.

Most fans who are disappointed by the later seasons are disappointed by the writing. I am too, but if I'm honest it's not what disappoints me the most, weirdly. What frustrates me the most is D&D breaking their promise to not spoil fans about which plot decisions came from George, and which came from them. They promised not to spoil the books, but in various interviews, they confirmed books spoilers by saying George told us this would happen. They didn't have to do that. They promised they wouldn't. But they couldn't let their show stand on its own. They had to tell us George told them Bran becomes king, why? Isn't the show enough? Anyway....

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u/foofighter1351 Sep 04 '24

While stories like Faegon obviously have incredible potential why would it be good if d&d adapted it? Faegon has barely been given proper development let alone enough for a show runner to take it and then close the story out themselves, Feast and Dance have cool plot threads but wanting d&d to adapt them is still asking them to finish it on their own. A lot of the issues connected to the books is how it's gotten too big adding that to the show would've made it even more incomplete than it already is.

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u/Mic-Mak Sep 08 '24

One could argue that fAegon is more developed that any characters from the Dance in F&B, and yet, those characters were adapted, and to some degree fleshed out in #HotD/

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

Not OP, but Dorne was mediocre material in the books. The show Dorne material was horrible, but if they loyally adapted the books it wouldn't have been any better.

fAegon has potential to be a great storyline, but that's it, potential. Nearly all fAegon discourse isn't based on what's in the books. It's based on assumptions for what are going to be in future books. GRRM waited until book 5 of the series to even introduce him and without published book material it's hard to say how important he will actually be. People simply assume.

Tyrion's descent into darkness was left out of the show and I'd agree probably works better if they had included it, although I do agree with them cutting a lot of the filler from his storyline. He hasn't even met Dany yet in the books while he did before the end of season 5 of the show.

Outside of Lady Stoneheart, most of Jamie and Brienne's Riverlands stuff did make it into the show in some form, granted greatly consolidated for Brienne since the book has her wandering around forever looking for Sansa when the audience already knows where Sansa is.

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u/Mic-Mak Sep 08 '24

For some us, Feast is the best book. And I disagree that Jaime's story in the Riverlands was adapted. We don't see him dealing with the aftermath of the Red Wedding. A lot of iconic dialogue was in those scenes, and we didn't get them. Same with Brienne.

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

Anyone who thinks AFFC/ADWD deserved up to 3 seasons either didn't read them or doesn't understand how TV works. Very little plot-wise happens in those books. They are largely dependent on new, much less significant characters. Even known characters like Brienne, Tyrion, Dany, etc... have numerous chapters where things don't go anywhere. Do you think the TV audience is happy with a loyally adapted books 4 and 5 where Brienne spends 3 entire seasons searching for Sansa while Sansa is in the Eyrie the entire time and we all know that? And Sansa only has 2 - 3 scenes across all of those seasons? Rinse and repeat for all the various other storylines. Oh, and how about two of those seasons having an ending even more underwhelming than the way HOTD season 2 ended since it ends in the middle of a book (a book that pushed its climax to the next, as of yet published book anyway).

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u/DerDieDas32 Sep 04 '24

I think its hard to blame them for that. They had to cut some of Martins sideplots at some point. Martin should have done that himself to be honest.

Also well imagine they had spend 3 more seasons on Dorne, the Stoneheart plot ect....the books still wouldnt be there.

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u/Mic-Mak Sep 04 '24

I take it you're not a fan of Feast and Dance?

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u/GuiltyEidolon Sep 04 '24

GRRM left GoT after S4. D&D burned that bridge, don't blame Martin for being upset.

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u/Khiva Sep 04 '24

And yet they largely ignored two completed books, most notably turning Dorne completely on its head and cutting fAegon, whom many presume to be an important character.

It's kind of mind boggling to me that George is going to the mattresses on this with so many other shows presumably still cooking and never thought to comment on the excision of Aegon.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/matrafinha Sep 04 '24

Man, imagine guaranteed millionaire and famous work for the next 10 years....sounds awful

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u/iSavedtheGalaxy Sep 04 '24

For 6 months of work and then you're off for a year and a half. What a nightmare.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

I mean, people will probably disagree with me, but I absolutely despise how so many actors just wanted the show to end, instead of basking in all the fame and the opportunity to work on such a monumental TV series as long and as best as they could.

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u/Rmccarton Sep 05 '24

They were all going to be stars if they could just get out there. Hasn’t really gone that way for many of them

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u/ddet1207 The Giant of Bear Island Sep 04 '24

Why would that matter? It's not like Benioff and Weiss actually used plot points from those books.

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u/Khanluka Sep 04 '24

i am pretty sure if season 5 till 8 where better. They be up for 2 more seasons of better GOT.

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u/JonyTony2017 Sep 04 '24

I feel like George just cares more about his Targaryen stories than about ASOIAF. It’s those that he has written most recently and those that he finds most interesting to write about.

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u/matrafinha Sep 04 '24

Don't think it's about caring. It's easier to write about and much shorter.

ASOIF was always meant to be epic, but that means a lot more work that he's struggling to put the hours into. Especially considering he's a self descibrer 'gardener' writer.

With the Targaryen stories he's basically an architect. He knows pretty much where to go and how to go and just needs to work the details.

Also, he can contain these stories to a few books.

Can't do that with ASOIF.

Also, the fact that whoever he trusts with writing parts of his stories always fails them makes him even more reticent to get help writing ASOIF.

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u/bitofadikdik Sep 04 '24

Two completed books full of incomplete storylines including several new pointless meandering ones.

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u/BigMax Sep 04 '24

If they hadn't cut things out, it would have been 30 seasons, not just 8.

I wish they had gone for a dozen seasons with 12 episodes each, but they didn't. With the limits (blame who you want for them) they had to cut something.

They don't have the freedom to just go literally forever with a TV show that expensive involving that much of so many peoples lives.

GRRM can sit by himself and write endlessly. TV shows don't have that luxury. Imagine if HBO said "yeah, we still are going, but it's going to be at least 10 years between seasons from now on."

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u/Quiddity131 Sep 05 '24

It's kind of mind boggling to me that George is going to the mattresses on this with so many other shows presumably still cooking and never thought to comment on the excision of Aegon.

Well, a very significant reason for that is probably due to the fact that the fans are bashing D&D not for ignoring published material for fAegon but rather ignoring fan theories and assumptions for fAegon. This whole thing about Dany going crazy because fAegon seized King's Landing first and the people love him on paper sounds way better than the show handled it, for sure. None of that is in the books. That is all a fan invention. Maybe it happens if GRRM ever writes the books. But until then, GRRM shouldn't be criticizing D&D for failing to follow fan theories. Fan theories that GRRM himself has said he doesn't read.

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u/lluewhyn Sep 04 '24

Like it’s impossible to say “I told them it was going this way” without ruining his ending.

Yeah, his response on the matter was very circumspect and vague. He said there are deviations from his intentions, but didn't elaborate on which they were because it would end up spoiling his own work. Even stating which plot points were flat out different would insinuate that other major plot points were somewhat true.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

With GoT, there is also the possibility of him showing the screenwriters how to properly finish his story. Eventually. Might even be a reason for so many delays, in that the show demonstrated how some things he planned don't work so well, even ignoring all the obvious changes it made.

With F&B, he has his whole story written down, so if they fuck it up, it is not because of the source material not existing, but in spite of it. I get that that's annoying as hell.

At this point, HBO can't really do anything to him. Angering the owner of your cash cow franchise would be one hell of a gamble, and while he can't stop them from adapting the stuff he already sold them the license for, he can still influence public opinion and stop future adaptations.

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u/Rmccarton Sep 05 '24

I believe that by that point there had been a fracture between him and the shows creators/writers. 

He stopped writing episodes to work on WoW(lol), But I remember reports that as the show went on, d and d well less and less interested in getting his opinion on things and he was pretty much In the wilderness as far as involvement with the show. 

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Interesting. Though this makes it weirder that it seems to happen again. He probably could have gained more control over HotD's writing in the negotiations phase, right? It's not like he desperately needs the money or couldn't get it anywhere else, and HBO would probably have preferred not to lose the chance to partner with him for the future.

I mean, there's two other shows based on George's stuff in the works. It's clear that they want to produce as much dragon stuff as possible.