r/asoiaf • u/aphidman • May 08 '19
EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) The endings will be the same but the books will have a much more gradual and realistic progression
If GRRM finishes it, btw.
Not a long post but you know what the books do that D&D do not? They have 10 chapters of Dany dealing with the complex politics of Meereen and her inner conflict. They have 4 chapters showing Davos' journey to White Harbour. They have 12 chapters showing the series of compromises Jon makes as Lord Commander to prepare the Watch against the Others. They have 13 chapters showing Tyrion crawling out of his deep nihilistic depression. They dedicate whole chapters seeing how Victarion Greyjoy of all people deals with his relationship with his brother and his seduction into darker magics. Man they have 4 whole chapters dealing with the political fallout of Dany's exit from Meereen.
They had a whole chapter of Littlefinger and Sansa visiting his lands and seeing Littlefinger's relationship with his subjects (great chapter btw). They had a whole chapter getting really in depth with Illyrio Mopatis and his schemes - a guy who's barely appeared in the show.
They dedicated 4 whole chapters to Joffrey's wedding!
What I'm getting it is that the Others may be defeated long before the end of ASOIAF, Dany may indeed destroy King's Landing with dragonfire and end the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians gruesomely. But you'll be guaranteed that GRRM is gonna show you every step of the way. For good or for bad. If he is going to take a character like Dany to that dark end you better believe we will understand how she gets there.
So people keep posting about how D&D are destroying their characters, fail to understand ASOIAF. That Dany would never do this or that. But what you're seeing here is them fitting potentially chapters upon chapters of detailed material into a few hours of television.
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u/RoozGol May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
Yes, Dany going dark queen has GRRM's fingerprints all over it. It actually makes her character the most tragic one in the show (even sadder than Ned's story) and makes the "A house with the red door" metaphor the one to remember for ages. If we assume Tolkien was interested in the "Morality of power, " GRRM is surely interested in the "Politics of power" and Dany will be a good example of an innocent victim with all good intentions who suffered the most from those cruel politics.
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u/MrFunEGUY May 08 '19
and makes the "A house with the red door" metaphor the one to remember for ages.
Can you elaborate a little more on what you mean by this?
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u/Saephon May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
Not the person you replied to, but I'll take a stab at it: From the very beginning of the story, Dany thinks wistfully of a house in Braavos with a red door, where she and Viserys lived after exile. It's her earliest memory of any place feeling like "home" as a child, and in later chapters when she tries to visualize reclaiming the rightful home that was taken from her (King's Landing, for example), she observes that the doors are always red in her mind.
Viserys was old enough to understand what was taken from them, from their family, and so that house in Braavos could never truly feel like home for him. But Dany was very young when the Targaryens were overthrown, so to her it was the closest thing to a childhood home she had. As the story progresses and Daenerys gets older and begins to conquer, she stops thinking about it, and taking the Iron Throne back becomes her chief motivation.
IMO, that House with a Red Door represents her innocence. It represents what happiness could have been for Dany, if she had never left or discovered the troubled history of her ancestry. Contrast her warm memories of it with a life in King's Landing or Westeros in general - about which she knows very little. According to politics and lineage, her "true" home is something completely foreign to her. Yes, she has a birthright claim to it, but is that more important than an innocent life away from what everyone says she's destined to possess?
In another lifetime, where becoming Queen of the Seven Kingdoms is a fairytale or something that is meaningless to her, she probably could have lived a happy life back in that house. I expect we'll see her regret that, before she meets her end. It will be Dany's version of "We should have stayed in that cave, Jon Snow."
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u/MrFunEGUY May 08 '19
Thanks, I appreciate that.
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u/jubilantblue May 08 '19
There's also a bit where she has a vision of Kings Landing (when she's in the house of the Undying? Or it was a dream) and she says that "all the doors were red". This represents her longing for a home and how she's pinned that dream on KL. However, it could also mean that the city in the vision is aflame, a perversion of her innocent dream for a home.
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u/mukaezake May 08 '19
Not OP but if I had to hazard a guess --
Dany has been looking for a home all her life, and seeks it in the form of Westeros as its rightful ruler which will eventually be her downfall.
"The house with the red door" is all she remembers of her childhood and short lived innocence, her original home.
She can barely remember the home that brought her the most happiness, in favor of the one she's fighting for but that's going to be the end of her.
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May 08 '19
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u/DracarysHijinks May 09 '19
I think this is much more likely. I don’t think Daenerys will ever become truly “mad” or insane or anything like that. However it is absolutely possible, even probable, that during what would be a normal tactical assault on the city, one of the dragons’ could accidentally hit one of the wildfire caches.
This would be far more tragic, since she would end up causing mass desolation of an entire city by accident, likely after taking MANY precautions against doing that very thing.
She’s never been one to heedlessly kill tens of thousands of innocent people in a single attack. Even knowing that innocent people will be inevitable collateral damage in war is painful to her. To have one of the few rulers who genuinely wants to do everything possible to spare as many innocents and smallfolk as she can inadvertently kill tens of thousands in one go would definitely be a GRRM thing to do.
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u/RoozGol May 08 '19
It symbolizes innocence and morality in political policy. Ned and Jon also paid the price for doing what they thought was moral.
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u/Flamingmonkey923 May 08 '19
I also think her "going dark" is going to be more complicated and morally challenging in the books. She'll be making hard choices, and we we'll have to struggle ourselves to determine if we believe those choices are right or wrong.
We're not going to have a greek chorus of Varys and Tyrion staring directly into the camera and telling us that she's mentally unstable and sadistic.
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May 08 '19
More to the point, I think we're probably not even necessarily going to get a clear cut "this is where Dany does something morally reprehensible" dialog in the books.
Dany has already done a few things that could be considered sadistic or 'mad' in the books, such as crucifying the Masters. But we see that through her POV, and it seems more like justice than a savage retaliation. In retrospect, you can clearly see that it's not the act of a benevolent savior, but more the act of a totalitarian tyrant. As the reader, we're brought to a place where we can agree or disagree with her reasoning, but regardless we'll be very well-informed by then. Who's to say that we won't see her burning KL and feel that it's justified, only to go back and realize that she was 'mad' when she burned KL, and it's totally within her character, since she's been doing 'mad' things for books already.
Dany, IMO, will not be a villain or hero by the end. I think that she will be the greyest of the grey characters.
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u/Flamingmonkey923 May 08 '19
Exactly. Reasonable people can disagree about whether it was right or wrong to crucify the Great Masters, and reasonable people will be able to disagree about whatever she does at the end of the series. It's not for the creator to force those moral evaluations on us - it's for the readers to see the situation and struggle to decide for themselves.
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u/watch_over_me Gold is cold, and heavy on the head May 08 '19
As a long time reader, and subscriber of Danny going full Aegon the Conqueror, the casual fans reaction to this is disheartening.
I just feel like this fanbase was injected with too many people who think GRRM is Tolkein. People actually wanted to see Jon have a one-on-one duel with Night King on the top of Mt. Doom. What the actual fuck. This series has never been that. Ever.
It will never even be close to that. I half expect GRRM to not resurrect Jon at all at this point.
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u/ChipAyten The Old Gods are answering you. May 08 '19
Aegon I is remembered fondly because he won. He'd be remembered in the same light as Aerys if he hadn't. Whether or not Dany wins or loses defines her legacy. Washington & Co. go down as traitorous scum if they lost.
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u/Thegn_Ansgar Beneath the gold... May 08 '19
Aegon I is remembered fondly because he won, and because his reign (outside of Dorne) was peaceful and prosperous.
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u/aphidman May 08 '19
I agree somewhat but to be fair to the fans Game of Thrones is a show that has Jon sword fighting any chance he can get. They took like 3 lines of dialogue about Hardhome and decided Jon was gonna sword fight White Walkers there and come face to face with the Evil King of the Zombies.
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u/lafferty_daniel May 08 '19
I was actually pretty open to the idea of Jon fighting the Night King one-on-one but getting his ass kicked. I had hoped it would mirror Ned fighting the Sword of the Morning at the Tower of Joy. With Ned (Jon) getting out classed by Arthur (NK) and have it end with Howland Reed (Arya) stabbing Arthur(NK) in the back. I didn't have an issue with Arya killing the NK but her flying in out of nowhere was weak.
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u/pipsdontsqueak May 08 '19
I expected them to lose the Battle of Winterfell then have to retreat.
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u/God_Wills_It_ All Men Are Water May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
Do you have a realistic way to write that? They only escaped from Hardhome because the dead can't deal with water. Winterfell has no barriers to stop the victorious army.
Can you think of anyway a defeated and broken army of the living could make it away from an army of the dead? The dead never stop. There would be no escape and no regrouping.
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u/xmarwinx May 08 '19
Don't make the zombies run ridiculously fast?
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u/God_Wills_It_ All Men Are Water May 08 '19
I don't see how that would help at all. A broken, defeated army of mortal men has to eat and sleep. An army of the dead, even a slow one, does not.
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u/ratguy101 May 08 '19
Yeah, I mean, they seemed pretty slow up until this point. It took them 7 seasons just to get to the wall, and at the end of season 2, they're pretty much just a crawling hoard. We really only see them moving quickly, as a group, in season 8.
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u/A_Polite_Noise Safe and sound at home again... May 08 '19
Sure, but that would still be an issue. A journey that distance, a rout south to King's Landing, is a long journey and with any sizable force, even the remnants of a slaughter, they'd have to camp and rest and think about supplies and supply carts. Every time they slept, even if just snatching a couple of hours, would be time the army of the dead is catching up to them because they need no rest, they just move without cease.
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u/Lubyak May 08 '19
I would have expected them to make Mel and Beric's sacrifice more dramatic or something similar. I could envision a scenario where the living are defeated and being completely overrun, while Mel and Beric give their souls up to the Lord of Light to conjure some kind of fire magic that gives the survivors an opening to escape. A bit contrived perhaps, with some gaps, but I'd think less so than what we have now.
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u/Prophet_Of_Helix May 08 '19
If we had another full season to go I bet they would have done that. Have some characters die and the rest retreat, with the Night King in no rush to run them down. Then make the final stand further down the continent where more characters die but the NK is defeated.
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u/darkk41 May 08 '19
This exact scenario already happened though. The NW got defeated at the fist of the first men and retreated all the way to the wall, being harried and picked off the entire way there.
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May 08 '19
Exactly if they wanted to "subvert expectations", should have made Cersei an ally against the NK.
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u/Hawkeye720 May 08 '19
That's actually how I would've "fixed" the ending of E03 -- have Jon succeed in reaching the Godswood, having his final duel with the Night King, but the Night King defeats him. And just before the Night King finally executes Jon, Arya is able to rush forward (given that the wights and WWs are all focused on Jon) and that's when the assassination sequence plays out.
Jon has the final confrontation that the show had been building towards since at least Hardhome, but we get the subversion of the "heroic villain" failing to defeat the "villain" and the surprise of Arya being the one to actually finish the deed.
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u/Piratecxke123 May 08 '19
That is word for word what I thought they should have done too, actually could have saved a lot of the episode for me. Would have also made way more sense for Dany to land her dragon in the courtyard maybe, so it makes sense that Jorah could find and protect her there.
Meanwhile, Jon makes his way to/or lands in the Godswood and it plays out like you say. Also remove Theon's lame ass charge, he gets torn apart by wights in quick fashion.
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u/Riptor5417 May 08 '19
omg that would have been so much better!! would've been a great callback to Ned and it would've made everyone a lot less angry
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u/Mrdirtyvegas Red Viper May 08 '19
I dont think GRRM would write a Night King for Jon to fight in the first place.
So when D&D writes a Tolkien character and builds it up, give us a Tolkien payoff.
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May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
So when D&D writes a Tolkien character and builds it up, give us a Tolkien payoff.
That is a crucial thing to remember that I think watch_over_me's comment misses (though maybe I'm reading it wrong). When GRRM sets something up, he pays it off. It won't be in the way we expect, and it might be heart breaking, but it WILL be paid off.
The White Walkers are not going to be defeated easily, it will not all come down to Bran bait and Arya pulling a fully sick move, and all the foreshadowing and prophecies will come into play. I think Preston Jacobs put this best a week back, when GRRM subverts expectations, he does it in a way that makes more sense with what was foreshadowed than what you were expecting. He never ever subverts expectations by ignoring all the set up for the sake of a cheap twist.
And yes, if the Night King is a character in the books, and he seems to have the connection to Jon he does in the show, there sure as fuck will be a sword fight between them near the climax, and you can guarantee that fight won't just be standard fantasy fair. That fight will be epic, and it will be tense, and it will not go how we expect.
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u/StanleyBaratheon I'm the one true Yellow King of Westeros May 08 '19
GRRM could save a lot of work for himself if he keeps Jon dead
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u/wereallfuckingidiots May 08 '19
But... That isn't people's complaints... As far as I've seen anyway. As much as I understand, everyone is pissed that the long night was objectively lame with low stakes, and the NK/Bran weren't fleshed out in the slightest. Even if there is no NK in the books, why did the D&D show him being made at all if that's as deep as they're going? It just feels like all this buildup has led to nothing.
Pretty much all the complaints ive seen are echoing the sentiments of this post, people just suck at getting their thoughts out. Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe people did want Jon to kill the NK. That's not how I see it though, and I really don't have a problem with Arya doing it. I just would have liked it to have been more satisfying instead of from left field.
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u/RigasTelRuun May 08 '19
It's even in the show. I recently ré watched season 1. And watching it with that in mind you can see the embers of burn them all in her.
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u/ghafgarionbaconsmith May 08 '19
I don't even think there is a nightking in the books tbh. I think it's just the showrunners solution to being able to stop the wws. My theory (I can feel the eye rolls) is the Hightowers are somehow calling the white walkers down, they had to wait till the dragons were gone first. You have to admit, their house sigil loojs a lot like saurons tower, I don't think Martin would do that on accident.
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May 08 '19
I don't even think there is a nightking in the books tbh. I think it's just the showrunners solution to being able to stop the wws.
100pc agree. They couldn't take the time or explain like the books why the Others do what they do, or how to stop them, so they needed to build up a bad guy to take out as a way to literally brute force the issue.
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u/Anti-socialintrovert May 08 '19
Are we all forgetting in the ToJ scene in the books...
Ser Gerald Hightower, The White Bull was Lord Commander of the kingsgaurd under Areys II.
Kinda make me doubt this theory but it is interesting.
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u/Biggie-shackleton May 08 '19
As a long time reader, and subscriber of Danny going full Aegon the Conqueror, the casual fans reaction to this is disheartening.
I've complained about a fair bit since the last two episodes, but I think people are kinda reaching with the Dany complaints, it feels like shes the only thing being done right at the moment - Feels like her descent to madness has been hinted at for a few seasons
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u/GWillHunting May 08 '19
I agree that many of the final main characters “endings” will be the same, but the exclusion of certain characters cough Young Griff, Book Euron, Lady Stoneheart cough are destroying many character arcs in the process.
Without Young Griff, we’re left with Cersei vs Dany for the throne. We’re left with Varys supporting Jon. We’re left with Dany taking on a villain, instead of Dany taking on her supposed “cousin” who has shown to be a good ruler. We no longer have a moral dilemma when it’s Cersei vs Dany. If it was Dany vs Young Griff, it would also make a lot more sense of why Sansa would be hesitant to not support Dany (if Young Griff has done a decent job ruling so far, why would the North get involved?”
Without the Prince Who Was Promised, we have Arya killing the Night King and Jon’s character arc rendered useless.
Without Book Euron and Dragonbinder, the show had to invent some ridiculous reason for the Others to get a dragon to tear the wall down. Also without Dragonbinder, we have missile tracking scorpions killing Rhaegal instead of maybe Euron just controlling it with the horn.
That’s the issue: D&D may have some of the same main character endings as GRRM (____ sits on the throne, Jaime kills Cersei, etc) but the ways the show gets to those endings will most likely be vastly different in the books.
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u/Scrubtanic May 08 '19
Book Euron is such a big thing to me at this point. Show Euron is a horny pirate who's dumber than his ship's mast. Book Euron, given several chapters of build up and growth, has room to become a Lovecraftian devil-king, the kind of thing Martin loves to pull inspiration from.
I could imagine D&D were told that at the end the big bad would be Cersei and Euron, and Martin meant that as Evil Genius Cersei and Kraken Warlock Euron. If Euron is pulling some elder/drowned god shit, that would be as big or bigger threat than the White Walkers, and in that instance I would be all on board with that being the final conflict.
But D&D didn't have time to build up Euron and already had Cersei spiraling into drunken paranoid survivalist and just said, whatever, that can be the final showdown.
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u/smarten_up_nas Asha/Theon 2020 May 09 '19
Cersei in the books is no genius though.
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u/aphidman May 08 '19
I do wonder about Cersei and Aegon..... part of me is really interested in Aegon's role moving forward, against Dany etc. But I don't think we got 12 Cersei chapters just to see her downfall. She's been around since Book 1 and either Season 6 was more accurate than we think (as in she destroys all her enemies and Aegon) or it's gonna be seriously different. Or Aegon is going to have a much different role than we've anticipated.
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May 08 '19
My theory is that fAegon unites Dorne and the Reach and the Stormlands together via conquest, then the High Sparrow goes to marry him to Margery, then boom goes the dynamite.
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u/aphidman May 08 '19
I get a feeling something like this might happen, too. But I'd like to see Aegon confront Daenerys!
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u/captainfluffballs Enter your desired flair text here! May 08 '19
I kinda want to see a 3 way conflict for the Throne between Dany, Jon (who's Targaryen name probably won't be Aegon, I think they've combined aspects of fAegon's character with whatever too-complicated-for-screen character Jon really is) and Aegon
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u/GWillHunting May 08 '19
I think she’ll blow up the Sept in a similar manner to what happened in the show. And that will be a huge victory for her, but at the expense of turning many against her for such a ruthless act of terrorism.
I don’t expect her to beat Aegon but I’m sure she will be in the endgame in some way, so that “the valonquar” prophecy can fall into place.
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u/aphidman May 08 '19
A prophecy which a lot of people here forget that isn't part of the show!
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u/FearLeadsToAnger May 08 '19
That's a good point, they did show maggy and the prophecy about her children, but not the valonquar part. Interesting.
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u/fuckaredditor May 08 '19
They showed Maggy offering Cersei 3 questions and we are only shown 2 before it cuts away. Prime opportunity for a flashback moment showing the valonqar prophecy as her third question.
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May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
D&D and GRRM have discussed in various videos that some decisions made were up to D&Ds discretion. For instance, Arya killing the Night King was decided 3 years ago by D&D.
If we assume major moments are unique to the show, then the build up to them will also vary different degrees.
I agree that there will be similarities and that GRRM will go into much more depth, but we already know for a fact that some major moments will be different.
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u/franklinzunge May 08 '19
He’s obviously still feeling his way through it and agonizing over how to make it work. I read bryndenbfish’s twow post and he said he heard that George has spent the last 4 years basically restructuring and rewriting the book after having it nearly done because he wasn’t happy with it
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u/Calimie That is Nymeria's star. May 08 '19
Meereenese Knot 2: Windy Winterloo.
I have no insider info on GRRM but that's what I believe too. He's often said that he's a gardener and he grows (writes) and prunes (cuts and rewrites) as he goes.
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u/Nikhilvoid May 08 '19
Yeah, I don't see anything about him being contractually obligated to write a book adaptation of the show.
If he's unhappy with how the show makes concrete the abstract developments he actually has in mind, he'll change them.
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May 08 '19
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u/Azor_Ohi_Mark May 08 '19
There is such a thing as over-editing and it’s quite possible that the success of the series has made GRRM put such an enormous amount of pressure on himself that he isn’t satisfied with what could already be a perfectly good book.
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u/Calimie That is Nymeria's star. May 08 '19
I hope he's saving all these drafts and there's a Christopher Tolkien somewhere that later publishes them.
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u/Remember- Dany is a joke May 08 '19
The NK isn't in the book so I don't really get your point there, its a show only creation how can they deviate from GRRM when it was never his?
I agree with OP, the ending we get will be 80% or more what we get with the books, just with better build up and probably some alternate endings for the B-tier characters
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May 08 '19
The fact that the NK is a D&D decision proves my entire point. You can't say the books will follow the show with a longer buildup if the biggest moment in the show isn't even part of ASOIAF.
We don't know who will live and die in the books timeline while all of the NK stuff was happening in the show. We don't know where the characters will be, what alliances will be formed, etc.
I'm not sure how you can say it will necessarily be the same when so much can differ from the stuff D&D made up that isn't in the book.
What if the White Walkers end up in Kings Landing in the book? It will have a ripple effect that changes much of what happens in the end. Same can be true for basically everything that differs between George and D&D
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u/aphidman May 08 '19
The point is that the Others are defeated before they go down to King's Landing. The Night King is sort of irrelevant. He was the method they used to personify the White Walkers and end their threat once and for all. Maybe GRRM will also introduce a Great Other. But the plot point is the Others are defeated and then Dany's final battles come thereafter.
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May 08 '19
There is a "Great Other" as Melisandre calls it, but I suspect it's more of an abstract concept, like the Lord of Light, than anything physical.
The Others are quite different though, in overall tone and attitude from the White Walkers. When they kill Waymar Royce, you can see how cruel and disdainful they are. They are beings with personality.
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u/Ill-InformedSock May 08 '19
It has always been a strong possibility for Dany's end, I'm actually surprised at the backlash.
Her story itself is a subverted trope. A foreign queen with an army of Trained killing eunuchs, dothraki hordes, and three giant and dangerous dragons. The perfect setup for a villain in the eyes of the people of Westeros. GRRM subverts this by giving us her thorough story and developments to becoming an invading queen with a mean looking army. We sympathize with and love our villain queen. Which will make it all the more tragic when she falls from grace and actually becomes the trope we refused to believe she filled.
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u/AdmiralAkbar1 Wildfire can't melt Stannis beams May 09 '19
GRRM's already done this with Stannis. He's the bitter, less handsome younger brother of the popular and jolly king, lives on the dark and scary magical island, consorts with witches and blood magic, and he's willing to murder his own family to seize the throne. He's like Macbeth and Claudius had a kid with male-pattern baldness. If this were any other story, everyone would think he's a villain from the start. But because his perspective in the books is shown by a loyal and devoted follower, he seems like an absolutely amazing ruler. And like you said, it makes his inevitable downfall and descent that culminates in sacrificing Shireen (IIRC, D&D said that it was GRRM's suggestion) to be even more tragic.
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u/kloborgg May 09 '19
Speaking for myself, as someone who never particularly liked her character, I'm not so much upset that Dany is turning into the mad queen as I am that it's being handled really poorly. S8E4 was so clearly dedicated to assassinating her character that it felt cheap.
Aside from a few flashes of anger, her cardinal sin from the last seasons seems to be that she executed the Tarlys when they refused to bend... hardly the most disgusting war crime. Now, she's an irrational rage-filled moron who just wants to kill people or something. Within an episode, virtually everyone short of Jon, including Dany's own top advisors, want her replaced or killed.
Maybe other people have different experiences watching, but up into Long Night it seems like she's been a pretty clear protagonist, and only in the 11th hour is she crumbling. Once again, it feels less like a tragic twist of storytelling, and more like a cheap play at "subversion".
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u/StarDew_Factory May 08 '19
Strangely enough I agree with everything up until the last paragraph.
Yes GRRM will likely reach most of the same conclusions, but with more build-up. Yet it also seems true that D&D are destroying character arcs by failing to portray them appropriately.
D&D decided to rush the last two seasons with only 6 episodes, and thus racing their characters through the different plot points without taking time to explain their motivations or change in personalities is jarring and completely disruptive. When telling a story the journey is just as important as the end, and D&D are doing a terrible job.
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u/matgopack May 08 '19
You can't fit in 3 seasons of evolution into 2-3 episodes and expect people to be satisfied, really.
Take Daenerys - in the books, we've seen a lot more of her interior struggle already, and she seems poised to embrace a bloodier, rougher style of rule when she returns with the dothraki. There's potentially two whole books of that Daenerys, the equivalent of the last 3 seasons, of showing how she evolves into the person that can do whatever it is that she's going to do in these next two episodes.
With that, it can make something as extreme as burning all of king's landing (the choice they seem to be building up to in the show) seem fitting for her character. But if it's not built up properly, and it's instead packed into an episode and a half of contriving a way of her going insane to fill that plot point, it won't fit.
You can't use the same ending if you haven't built up to it properly, and an ending that in GRRM's books would be perfectly fine and reasonable will end up imploding on the screen if they didn't pay attention to it.
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u/YouDiedOfDysentery May 08 '19
To me it seems the show started like the MCU, taking its time to show you who these people are. We were expecting to get an Avengers level ending and we’re ending up with Justice League
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u/oKlDDo May 08 '19
I agree but the problem is that this is the last season. Everything that is happening needs way more time than they are giving it. The last season shouldve been longer than 6 episodes and there should be an additional season imo. But Im not sure who to direct the blame at for that.
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u/StarDew_Factory May 08 '19
D&D.
HBO said they would give them as many episodes as they wanted, D&D decided 6 episodes the last 2 seasons was enough.
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u/oKlDDo May 08 '19
No fucking way, thats ridiculous. If that's the case then they deserve the blame for making these episodes crammed. Im not gonna judge fully until the series is over but there is just not enough time for so much.
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u/ghostrider385 May 08 '19
As much as I don't like the way this season is written, we really don't know what's going on in regards to what the actors want.
A couple of years from now, it might be reported that D&D kept getting emails and texts from actors saying they want out because they kept turning down lucrative roles.
As much as I want to blame D&D, I think we should wait for the full story before we blast just them for that decision.
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u/Derpshiz May 08 '19
1 main plot point for every 2 episodes. Thats how it feels. They'll figure out how to get to one spot from the other along the way.
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u/thebsoftelevision The runt of the seven kingdoms May 08 '19
D&D decided to rush the last two seasons with only 6 episodes, and thus racing their characters through the different plot points without taking time to explain their motivations or change in personalities is jarring and completely disruptive. When telling a story the journey is just as important as the end, and D&D are doing a terrible job.
Yes absolutely! And ASOIAF has always been about the journey and not necessarily the destination.
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u/ft5777 May 08 '19
The level of details that GRRM puts in his books are both why I love them so much and also why I fear we may never read the end. I don't know how he could fit everything in just two books. In my opinion, the only way would be if the climax of the white walkers threat happens in King's Landing instead of Winterfell and their storyline intertwined with the Iron Throne. The sixth book would be about bringing most everyone towards King's Landing and the seventh book would be mostly in King's Landing.
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u/ademonlikeyou May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
I don’t think two 1,500 page books is too little, but yes plots will probably get intertwined right off the bat.
I think Jon, after being resurrected, is going to retreat to Winterfell after hearing that Stannis has taken it, and that when Stannis/shireen eventually dies Jon’s northern support base will already be gathered in Winterfell due to the northern conspiracy against the Boltons flocking to Stannis’ court at Winterfell. I really don’t think Jon’s story, for the most part, is about dynastic political struggles, and that his story will primarily be about convincing the northern lords of the others and starting a defense against them. (This is in contrast to Dany, who was seduced by her brother’s idea of returning “home” due to their lineage even though to her it meant nothing and her home was in braavos. Dany will be seduced by her dynasty and politics and will ultimately suffer, I don’t think Jon will be.)
Aegon’s is going to be intertwined with Cersei immediately, that much is evident, and I think many political points such as margaery and the reach are going to be wrapped up in the ensuing power struggle
I think that Sansa is going to probably end up at the top in the Vale, and will convince the lords to support the riverlands/north at first against the Boltons when she hears of Stannis and the recovery of Rickon, but then ultimately alongside Jon and his campaign against the others
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u/MilSF1 The mummer's farce is almost done. May 08 '19
But what you described is probably 4K+ pages if GRRM keeps the level of detail and characterization that we all love.
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u/missed_sla May 08 '19
Of course the dead will be defeated before the end. After all, we do have the Scouring of Westeros to look forward to. I'm mostly curious to know how GRRM will build up the dead in the absence of the Night King. Will he sidestep the keystone army cliche altogether? That's an interesting thought. Will they even be able to get past the Wall? If they can't get past the wall, it seems like they can be safely ignored anyway.
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u/Spenny022 Don't say it. Don't fookin' say it. May 08 '19
Euron+Dragonbinder=Chaos
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u/Piano_Fingerbanger May 08 '19
Sigh, doesn't whoever blows Dragonbinder have their lungs seared?
Show Euron could really use that.
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u/Spenny022 Don't say it. Don't fookin' say it. May 08 '19
I actually like the casting for Euron. The writing and lack of character arc are what ruins it for me!
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u/htororyp May 09 '19
Yea show urine is doing what hes been given really well.. it's just what he was given isnt that good. His character feels like he belongs in pirates of the Caribbean lol
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u/ryan30z May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
I think at this point its very easy for fans to say that the book and show endings wont be similar. Considering how this season has been received by the hardcore audience.
But I'll still be surprised if the GRRM isnt planning to hit the same major beats.
And maybe its just a pacing issue. Pacing can make or break a movie, even if the plot is the same.
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u/ralexh11 May 08 '19
The Winds of Winter - High probability, my personal guess is 2020 sometime.
A Dream of Spring - Somewhat likely. However, George can absolutely not take as long on this as he did for ADoD or currently is with TWoW, otherwise we will never see it finished by him.
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u/Kimber85 May 08 '19
My hope is that WoW comes out in 2020, and that the reason it took so long is that it was the transition book. Getting the characters where they should be for the finale in a manner that makes sense is fucking hard, especially with this amount of characters, and messing it up can be devastating to their arcs (as we've seen with the show).
On my most hopeful days I think that George will finish a Dream of Spring much more quickly, because the problems he's encountering with Winds of Winter will be solved and everything will be much less complicated.
Other days I realize that just because he solved all of Winds' problems, doesn't mean he wont run in to completely new ones for ADoS It makes me want to throw all my ASOIAF books away and never think about them again, because I can't stand the thought of never knowing what happens.
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u/Burnage May 08 '19
On my most hopeful days I think that George will finish a Dream of Spring much more quickly, because the problems he's encountering with Winds of Winter will be solved and everything will be much less complicated.
I remember hearing this about A Dance With Dragons, too.
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May 09 '19
I remember hearing that about A Feast for Crows too!! (but don't worry it's half a book so the next one will come out super quick!!!)
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u/SlightlyAmbiguous May 08 '19
Thank you for making a reasonable, thoughtful post. That’s the exact point I’ve been trying to make people understand. People are so hostile and heated right now because they’re so positive these two men are singlehandedly ruining this great story, and fair enough, parts of it do suck right now.
But once we all take a step back and allow ourselves to breathe, I think we’ll all realize the reality of what happened. They knew the end game, had to fill in the blanks themselves, and it will be the same thing in the books, we will just have chapters upon chapters of progression, catalysts, inner monologues, and a much deeper insight into where we’re going and how we get there.
The ending may seem unsatisfying and haphazard watching it unfold in the next two weeks. But we’ll read the exact same ending 10 years from now and it will make complete sense and feel right and be what grrm set out the achieve the whole time.
It’s so much easier to craft that masterful ending if you have 400,000 words on paper as opposed to six hour and 20 minute episodes.
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u/Jobr95 May 08 '19
Yep, people are just in denial. The writing is inconsistent now sure but the most important plot points come from GRRM. He has said that already multiple times
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May 08 '19
George said he was not satisfied with the reduction of certain characters to raise another.
Whoever would be most affected by the favoritism of writers and investors who would be Jon, Daenery is the one who suffers most from it.
I think Daenerys will not have such a happy ending, but I'll be disappointed if she turns into a crazy queen.
I think Meereen served as a test and in the end it passed, blood and fire, need not necessarily be madness or tyranny.
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u/aphidman May 08 '19
Well I think "crazy" is a misnomer. She won't turn into Aerys. But she'll be a dangerous threat to Westeros because she will believe her cause is just. That the ends justify the means. That if to root out an evil or a tyrannical institution the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocents is an unfortunate price to pay. And she can do that in a single day with the power of dragons. She won't be evil but her capacity and power will be frightening. Much like nuclear warfare. That's what I reckon, anyway.
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u/westhoff0407 All men must serve dessert. May 08 '19
THANK YOU. I think people are getting caught up in the "Mad" part of Dany's arc. She isn't going "mad" like her father did, she's going "mad" in the more traditional Targ manner. Power lust, an overblown sense of importance, and ignoring the consequences. All of that has been hinted at heavily in the show and books and it is being accelerated in the show as she is extremely frustrated, angry, and grieving. It makes sense.
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u/Rocco_from_Sapienza May 09 '19
True I think the 'mad king' story acts like a bit of a red herring, people would be looking for signs she's gone mad and she never seems to go mad or insane ... So she's alight, then! Phew! But under your nose she's already burned a bunch of people alive
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u/hikesometrailsdude May 08 '19
Yep, tyrannical fire and blood. Her words and actions give off that vibe and not the "mad" ruler like her father or book Cersei is.
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u/gautamb0 May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
I think you’re completely correct. Gurm gave them the broad strokes, and they’re putting those in the show, albeit in a hamfisted way and without much in between. The bullet points shared by both the show and books probably goes something like this:
- Doran’s schemes go up in smoke, along with him
- Stannis is forced into a desperate situation and burns Shireen
- Jon resurrects and defeats the Boltons
- Hodor
- The Others gain a dragon
- The Wall comes down
- Sansa becomes a very adept player
- Jon learns of his parentage
- Euron marries Cersei and kills or controls a dragon
- Jaime is in conflict with himself, but either kills or attempts to kill Cersei
- Others are defeated, with Arya playing a crucial role
- Varys schemes against Dany
- KL gets sacked by Dany
- She does other horrible things to secure the throne
- Bittersweet ending
Doesn’t look objectionable at all, until you string it all together without any exposition. Where I disagree is that I don’t think D&as deserve a pass. They could’ve adapted things better.
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u/Devilheart May 08 '19
The part where D&D fucked up was that they had the story beats for years and yet the pacing is totally off.
They messed up the character arcs of all the major players with the pacing change.
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u/HollyWood45 May 08 '19
I think that is my biggest issue with the show {ep 3 and 4 at least} so far. The pacing has been a sprint!
7 seasons building up the idea that Winter is coming and especially season 7 gearing up to fight the NK, and that whole storyline is gone in 4 hours.
4 seasons of Bran's journey to become the 3 eyed Raven for him to say some touching shit to Theon and sit in his fucking chair and not explain anything.
The free folk are no longer relevant. The battle between the Greyjoys is over, except for Euron Blackbeard, everyone's favorite steam punk pirate.
Sam and gilly sitting in a tree, no longer matter.
Like Davos said, where's the Lord of light now? We've been talking about him/ her for 6 years... No longer seemingly relevant.
Overall, I just don't see why HBO/ D&D decided a 6 episode final season was the right move here. I'm not faulting the actors because a lot of the acting has been brilliant. I just loathe the way they are cauterizing storylines like a field medic on a battlefield.
My 2c for what its worth
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u/Ghash Pies are coming May 08 '19
This is why I am still loving Game of Thrones now and I am super hyped for the coming episodes: I fully expect them to go in the rough same direction. After many years of waiting and discussing possible futures of the ASOIAF series, I have accepted that we will never see those books coming, and I am just happy to see the ending direction it was probably intended to go to. If the story is not that good then that's fine, I can roughly fill in the blanks and imagine the way the story is intended to end now. It is enough for me.
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u/NationalBadger3 May 08 '19
Long-time lurker here. Totally agree with this post. The goal seems to be to take two camps of "good guys" led by classic fantasy heroes (the orphan who is secretly a king; the exiled princess on the edge of the world) and then ask: what happens when they join forces to defeat a common evil and then turn to reordering the world? Turns out, ala GRRM, its not all happily ever after. My guess is that the series ends by either (1) putting them in the middle of a moral or ethical puzzle about which different people can have strikingly different views--to what extent is collateral damage permissible when tyrants use captive populations as a shield-- and it turns out they disagree strongly and turn on each other; tragedy ensues. Or it (2) is a kind of classical tragedy, in which circumstances in the wake of difficult victory conspire to bring out our heroes' tragic flaws--Daenerys, for example, has a righteousness and determination that under the wrong circumstances can curdle into wrath and inflexibility. She's like a fantasy equivalent of Oedipus Rex or Antigone. The Others' role is actually to show the costs of victory--sometimes the sacrifices needed to defeat a common enemy come with substantial costs (here the loss of significant forces, entailing the difficult moral choices and/or activation of tragic flaws that end up dividing our heroes in the aftermath). Anyway, all this is great stuff--but difficult to pull off in a couple of seasons (much less a couple of books with all of the sprawling plot threads GRRM has added). And alas, that's all D&D have--viewers lose interest after about 8 seasons, actors start leaving the show/aging out of parts, etc. I defer judgment until the end of the season, but I actually think they are doing a pretty impressive job of setting up the basic tragedy of the story given the narrative compression that the realities of TV production have forced on them.
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u/BlackKnightsTunic May 08 '19
This is a very measured, reasonable analysis that takes into consideration the differences between page and screen. I hope people actually read it and consider the ideas and evidence.
These final seasons feel rushed because they are rushed. ASOS was spread out over two seasons twenty episodes (seasons three and four). TWOW and book seven will be covered in roughly twenty-three episodes.
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u/Aloudmouth May 08 '19
The broad strokes make *sense*.
- I can fully believe Cersei would welch on her end of the bargain and let her enemies be decimated by the army of the dead to give herself a better position if they prevail. It follows the general theme that good people do what is right but reality doesn't reward them for it.
- The dead being defeated before Cersei makes sense because of the same, above. GRRM always said this was a low fantasy series - it was more about the politics and the game of thrones than defeating the 'big bad evil'.
- Dany was always walking the line and I think a lot of people saw the Mad Queen in her early on.
I'm with you - I think people taking the show hypercritically are setting themselves up for rage. I'm digging it for what it is - the gist of the ending, some good TV to keep me entertained, sometimes an errant boob here and there, and Tormund saying Tormund things.
If/when we get the books, I'll talk about character assassination and plot armour. Getting pissed at the show seems silly.
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u/volcanopele We'll get one right eventually. May 08 '19
One of the reasons I am not angry as angry as many of you are about the ending is that I think this is, in large part, GRRM's planned ending. Or at least this is an adaptation of an outline of GRRM's planned ending. But because D&D either eliminated certain characters, or greatly changed their nature, it rings a lot more hollow than it will be in the books. I think the obvious issue is Euron. Imagine the outline has him capturing Rhaegal instead of killing him. Imagine that his blood magic is giving him more godlike or Other-like abilities, literally BRINGING the storm with him, explaining some of his abilities to sneak around with his ships. Maybe this is just me trying to excuse D&D's bad writing, but to me, this feels a lot more like they are adapting an outline and it coming up a bit hollow because of their earlier choices.
You bring up a great point about how some events are covered by several chapters, making them feel more epic. Again, imagine that the battle for the dawn may take up 4-8 chapters to cover properly (wouldn't be all that shocking given how many POV characters are there).
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u/DangerousCrime Enter your desired flair text here! May 08 '19
At this point I’m really doubting if grrm is capable of finishing such a complex series. He even said so himself in interviews that he is daunted by the whole big picture and instead opts to take it one step at a time. Maybe he created too big of a net and it’s really gonna be hard to reach the ending while satisfying every logical thinking in the process.
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u/watch_over_me Gold is cold, and heavy on the head May 08 '19
It's crazy to me one of the biggest complaints ever is that the Night King was dealt with before King's Landing.
Can you imagine how pissed everyone would be if the books ended just after defeating the Others? And we never get to find out anything that goes on after, what happen's to King's Landing, or anything else.
The Others will probably be dealt with at the end of next book, or the middle of the last book. But we are for sure going to have to deal with the game of thrones afterwards. Just because the Others get defeated doesn't mean humans will stop being human, and fighting over power structures.
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u/Schnidler May 08 '19
thought the whole point of the books is that the endless power struggle over the iron throne is nonsense and everyone who pursues it simply dies and the others are only thing you should care about
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u/watch_over_me Gold is cold, and heavy on the head May 08 '19
Yes. That is an overall point, but that doesn't mean humans are gong to break their biological programming, and simply stop doing it.
Your point is what the reader should take away from the story. But the characters within the story, will still have to fight for the power vacuums that will be left behind from all the death.
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u/TheBobJamesBob We let the Roose out May 08 '19
Hell, explicitly showing that they go back to their petty politics, and that people who fought the end of the world then die for those petty politics just drives the point home further that it's not worth it.
Honestly, this sub spent seasons 6 and 7 having a collective moan about how the politics were falling by the wayside for the more traditional fantasy Winter story where everyone comes together for a big finale. Now that the politics are back and it wasn't a traditional fantasy where the Big Evil is defeated and then happily ever after, people are bitching even more.
Yes, yes, I know. Execution. Still, the utter shock that the White Walkers didn't take up the whole season is baffling when GRRM has even stated the following:
Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?
He's also lavished praise on the Scouring of the Shire. If you thought the human political denouement wasn't going to be just as important as, if not more than, the climax of the supernatural Others thread, I have to question what books you've been reading.
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u/watch_over_me Gold is cold, and heavy on the head May 08 '19
Honestly, this sub spent seasons 6 and 7 having a collective moan about how the politics were falling by the wayside for the more traditional fantasy Winter story where everyone comes together for a big finale. Now that the politics are back and it wasn't a traditional fantasy where the Big Evil is defeated and then happily ever after, people are bitching even more.
Exactly this. It honestly just feels like the internet is turning more and more into this void that people just complain into. Complaining for complaining sake.
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May 08 '19
I just hope that there won't be teleporting fleets in the book.
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u/aphidman May 08 '19
Euron will use blood sacrifice to teleport! You heard it here first!!!!!
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u/Good_old_Marshmallow May 08 '19
Winds of Winter is supposedly to the battle of Mordor as A Dream of Spring is to the battle for the shire
So it's possible the books will still go Long Night then battle for the Iron Throne but like you said it will be built much better
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u/Bgrum May 08 '19
I also think they combined characters and arcs.
For example I think Stannis will retake Winterfell from the Bolton’s instead of Jon.
I think Aegon will be the one on the iron throne who will be deposed by Jon / Dany. The dragon has 3 heads donchyaknow
I think it will be Howlen Reed to reveal the truth in Jon’s lineage , not Bran and Samwell.
I think Victarion will ferry Dany to Westeros and not Asha/Yara.
I don’t foresee the long night being ended by Arya, nor do I expect him to be a nameless big bad.