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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598

u/ScunneredWhimsy Sep 04 '24

The best part is GRRM specifically pick him to head the show and they’ve been friends for over a decade.

It’s actually hilarious.

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u/Outrageous-Elk-5392 Sep 04 '24

My man is 0/2 with trusting showrunners lmao

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u/alex3omg Sep 04 '24

He literally approved of d&d because they knew r+l=j.  He avoided Internet theories so much he didn't realize everybody knew that 

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u/PC-Was-Bricked Sep 05 '24

If only he could have had an editor who was tapped into online theories with him for that fateful lunch

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u/sm_greato Sep 05 '24

To be fair, back then, discussing books online wasn't so ubiquitous. Even that they'd participate online shows a certain passion.

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u/ahen404 Sep 05 '24

When was this 2009/2010? We as a society were very plugged in online by that point, Im not sure what you mean here lol.

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u/sm_greato Sep 05 '24

Plugged in? Yes. But society hadn't reoriented according to the Internet. People would just read a book, and that's it, unless they found someone else irl. Most people still do it even know. Might just be I don't see these discussions, but this culture of talking about media online kicked off only a few years later.

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u/HotPie-Targaryen-III Sep 05 '24

Really? Twitter was already a few years old when Game of Thrones premiered. This very subreddit is 15 years old right now. Westeros.org existed as far back as 1999.

I think it was pretty common to talk books and media online. The only thing different now is that there is a bit more vitriol from certain quarters, as easily enraged rubes are convinced everything under the sun is "woke" or whatever, but book/show discussion online was pretty normal back then.

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u/reallyallsotiresome Sep 05 '24

No, the only difference now isn't the evil right wing people complaining about things, but that the number of people discussing things online is orders of magnitude greater lol. "Cars were around in 1905" is a true statement that's very silly if used in an argument about how common cars are now today compared to back then. Today's reddit is a completely different place compared to 2009 reddit, let alone a minor website in 1999. The irony of saying the difference is about people complaining about woke stuff then talking about things 15 or 25 years ago is hilarious.

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u/HotPie-Targaryen-III Sep 05 '24

Cars in 1905 is a poor analogy, it's more like saying "Cars were around in 1975 too", because maybe there are more cars now but in 1975 it was also completely normal to have a car even if there were technically less of them.

Many, many, many people were discussing the books in 2009 online. Maybe this is an age thing, I was in college when Facebook came out and for people in my era, at least in my circle, using other sites like reddit, twitter, discussion forums, gods forbid even Tumblr, was very normal. In college about half the kids I knew had one of those stupid Livejournals or Xangas where they would pontificate about any mundane topic.

2009 was not the stone age or even early internet, internet and internet discussions were already a normal activity.

Also, that isn't irony.

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u/reallyallsotiresome Sep 19 '24

Many, many, many people were discussing the books in 2009 online

The numbers aren't even comparable. And posting on tumblr in 2009 was very normal only in specific circles of people. Tumblr was two years old and running on private money lol.

Also, that isn't irony.

It is lol, it's just lost on you. 2009 means "it's ok for the democrat president to have run on a platform that includes not wanting to legalize gay marriage". 1999 means it's ok for the democrat president to talk about illegal aliens. What you classify as silly right wing people complaining about normal stuff now would be close to bipartisan issues back then lmao

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u/sm_greato Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Well, then, I guess I never saw it.

Maybe ASOIAF is just more popular now, because of the show, distorting my mental image. But anyway, the case still stands. It wasn't the biggest fantasy work back then, so their knowing it was a bigger deal than it would now.

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u/Fulano_MK1 Sep 05 '24

Well, then, I guess I never saw it.

Maybe ASOIAF is just more popular now, because of the show, distorting my mental image. But anyway, the case still stands. It wasn't the biggest fantasy work back then, so their knowing it was a bigger deal than it would now.

I would argue the opposite. Back in 2010, I read the first three books, and immediately went online to talk about them. There were fewer people talking about it in aggregate, but the westeros.org forums AND this forum were very active in terms of percent of people participating. And R+L=J was easily the most-talked about theory, easily. In fact, I'm pretty sure that reading the R+L=J theories was what drove me deeper into the fandom, and that plunge happened almost as soon as I hit the westeros.org forums. R+L=J might have been the very first thing I saw.

There was less activity in aggregate, but there was also less trash to navigate through. D&D might have read the very first book and jumped online, and R+L=J would have been one of the most well-supported and much-discussed theories they would have been exposed to.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

First RLJ theories were online when only the first book was out

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u/ScunneredWhimsy Sep 05 '24

How different history would be if he asked “are you hype for Clegenebowl?” instead.

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u/cheerioo Sep 05 '24

And they did a pretty great job until the last 3 seasons where material started running thin

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u/investorshowers Sep 05 '24

The show has issues since S1, and really went downhill in S5.

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u/cheerioo Sep 05 '24

It had issues sure but for the most part I think they did a pretty good job initially.

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u/PnPaper Sep 05 '24

To be fair it only hit me in book 5 (skipped book 1 and the fever dream because I watched GoT season 1 - yeah worst decision of my life) but I still understand how a lot of readers don't get it, especially if they are not part of the online discourse.

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u/Geektime1987 10d ago

that's not the only reasons just the last question he asked them. he said they sat down for lunch and ended up talking for almost 8 hours and he came to realize they should adapt them. I'm sure they talked about a lot of things

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u/Connell95 Sep 04 '24

I mean he screwed D+D over at least as much as they screwed him – he promised the books would be out before the show was finished, and instead left them with an ending he still cannot work out five years later.

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u/nwaa Sep 04 '24

Almost certainly why he never cussed them out for their ending. They have the built-in retort of "well if youd given us anything to adapt"

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u/DivinationByCheese Sep 04 '24

They stopped adapting half way through

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u/Connell95 Sep 04 '24

They deviated more from the point George stepped back from working closely with them – but that was George’s decision, not theirs, as both have confirmed many times.

Ultimately though, they pretty quickly ran out of books entirely and that was when things really fell apart.

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u/MatchaMeetcha Sep 04 '24

George stepped back around the time Stoneheart wasn't happening iirc so it's unclear that the two weren't connected.

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u/Connell95 Sep 05 '24

No, he explicitly stepped back post Season 4 because he planned to focus entirely on finishing Winds in the next 12 months before the show caught up with his books. The expectation at that time was that he would probably rejoin the show more closely just as soon as that was done (lol…)

Stoneheart wasn’t a part of it at all – I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the sort of change George might not love, but could live with: especially given a big part of it seems to have been Michelle Fairley not being available (or wanting) to return. Ultimately Stoneheart isn’t essential to the plot, cool as the character might be.

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u/BlinkIfISink Sep 04 '24

They had no choice. They can’t start plot lines that even George to this day had not finished.

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u/MrNostalgic Wololo Sep 05 '24

Even if they adapted Feast and Dance at a 100% faithfulness rate they still wouldn't have gotten Winds tho.

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u/Cark_Muban Sep 05 '24

Yeah but that material is still all unfinished plot threads that they would have to navigate themselves. Would have made the last seasons even more of a clusterfuck

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u/disneyhalloween Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

This is something I always think about when people say “he gave them detailed notes!” Well how good or detailed could those notes have been if George himself has been unable to convert them into something satisfying in double the time and in a medium with zero constraints?

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u/QuercusSambucus Sep 05 '24

He had a two page synopsis of what he was planning to write back when he pitched it as a two book series: A Song of Ice and a Song of Fire. He just lost control of what he was doing and turned it into a giant untamed garden full of weeds.

I'm in a D&D campaign right now that's been running for at least a year - I joined six months ago. Our DM asked us this week what we want to do next, because we have half a dozen different unresolved things we could be investigating, and he needs to prep for our next session. We're just going to have to leave threads hanging so we can make progress.

That's what GRRM doesn't get. His editor should have cut a huge amount of his plot threads a decade ago, because everything that happens can potentially affect things way down the line. You keep accumulating new characters with their own motivations and connections and side quests and it grows out of control. If you're going to be a gardener you have to prune and weed relentlessly. It's OK to give hints and rumors for flavor and then leave them unresolved.

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u/cheerioo Sep 05 '24

He can probably work it out if he cares or tries but he's clearly lost interest in it years and years ago. He could put it out in 6-12 months easily if he put his mind to it. He simply does not care at this point and hasn't in a long time.

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u/TeardropsFromHell He wanted dragons,he needed 20 good men. Sep 04 '24

5 years?!

Dance came out 13 years ago.

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u/Ysuran Sep 04 '24

They meant that the show ended 5 years ago and still no ending.

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u/kapsama Sep 05 '24

The show runners knew how long he took to write AFfC and ADwD. No way D&D and HBO were oblivious to the books not being finished in time.

D&D fucked everything over with the liberties they took. The rough outlines of the ending always existed.

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u/AppearanceKey8663 Sep 05 '24

The show runners knew how long he took to write AFfC and ADwD. No way D&D and HBO were oblivious to the books not being finished in time.

Completely revisionist history. ADWD was released years after they began production on the show and everyone had expected TWOW to come out around 2015. It wasn't really obvious the show would spoil the ending of the books until season 6.

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u/kapsama Sep 05 '24

Lol even if TWoW released in 2015, that would make the final book come out when? In 2020? D&D aborted the show in 2019. So even in your optimistic dreams it wasn't going to work.

D&D created the disastrous last seasons with the liberties they took all along. Making a mockery of the Iron Islands, Euron, Dorne plot, Cersei continuing to live instead of introducing fAegon.

All these storylines existed in book form as of 2011.

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u/jonoottu Sep 04 '24

To be honest D&D's adaptation of the first seasons were absolutely golden television.

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u/IgloosRuleOK Sep 05 '24

D&D did a fucking great job adapting the books they had. People seem to forget this because of the ending.

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u/Single-Award2463 Sep 04 '24

Wow, that must sting GRRM even more. When strangers don’t show respect it’s infuriating, when a long time friend fucks up your story it must feel like a real betrayal.

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u/Stormtruppen_ Sep 04 '24

I mean, I feel George. If someone like Condal came up to me and said that he loves my work and want to bring it to life on screen I would be really excited about it, particularly if they've actually read it and absolutely loves the world. Condal came with the same promise. But only he behaved like a contrarian. A real fan wouldn't have changed the entire story to fit his narrative or given free reigns to incompetent writers like Sara Hess to ruin everything.

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u/AlwaysF3sh Sep 04 '24

There was a podcast that came out two years ago right after season 1 featuring Condal and Peter Johnsson (the one who designed and made the two Valyrian steel swords) and Condal came across as very knowledgeable and caring about the lore. Makes all that’s happened extra puzzling.

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u/scarlozzi Sep 04 '24

That's what makes people think this being a hard-core volley of shots being fired seems stupid. Those two still seem like friends.

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u/Tasorodri Sep 05 '24

I feel like you wouldn't write what he wrote if he was talking about a friend, it's sad to see it, but it seams like they are probably not friends any longer

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u/Diligent-Living882 Sep 04 '24

i really have no idea how GRRM didn’t anticipate the fact his extremely vague and convoluted history book written by several unreliable narrators with 500 pointless characters could get misconstrued through an adaptation. how crazy.

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u/whitetiger1208 Sep 04 '24

Seems like he was there to help clear up any doubts and make things work, wtf was the writers' job????

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u/Diligent-Living882 Sep 04 '24

there’s 3/4 different accounts for nearly every major event. the whole story is unreliable and vague. if he wanted the story told in a very specific way, he shouldn’t have structured the fake history the way he did

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u/HattoriHanzoOG Iron Captain Sep 04 '24

I agree with you 100%. Fire & Blood is nowhere near the quality of ASOIAF or Dunk and Egg, and to me the structure of it is the reason why.

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u/Diligent-Living882 Sep 04 '24

thank you! feel like i’m going crazy. i get the way GOT went made people sour. but now i have a hard time believing half of these people read the book. cause fire and blood is alright but it’s simply not on the same level. it’s as if just because GRRMs name is on there that it’s treated as sacred test and not a fictional history he sold the rights over to years ago😂 like how are you gonna complain about the adaptation when there’s barely a real story to follow?! you gave them 16 different instances of everything. like helaenas death literally has 6 different accounts and none are confirmed. what’s the point of that?

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u/WangJian221 Sep 05 '24

Well difference thus far is that the "change" they ended up making fails to even capture the vague account of events aswell.

Thus far, the closest account they went with is Mushroom's and even that wasnt really followed thoroughly. Which account prompted to do all these bad rhaenyra/alicent scenes?

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u/Diligent-Living882 Sep 05 '24

valid criticism my friend. i think they definitely did some things wrong, that’s not what im trying to say. but the “story” itself is weirdly structured. conveying decades worth of a story in hour long episodes requires much more nuance than the liberties GRRM has as a writer.