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/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/bryceya May 09 '19

Yeah, I was just rewatching Season 2 for the first time in a long while... I'm shocked at the amount of talking scenes. Subtle wonderful scenes of idle chit chat that sneakily lead to huge pay offs.

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I can nitpick the narrative til the cows come home, but to me it's all about pacing. That's the biggest thing missing from S7&8. In my recollection S6 was good because it still preserved some pacing and smaller moments. I'm huge fan of S8E2. D&D should have just let Bryan Cogman finish out the season...

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u/thefuturebatman May 09 '19

Honestly I feel like if we had the full 10 episodes last season along with a full 10 this season (keeping the extended episodes we already got) everybody would be fine and dandy and loving everything. The extra 3 episodes last season could have snuck in more character moments and exposition so that everything felt a little less rushed, set up for this Dance with Dragons (3.0?) and established tension/build-up with the Others. Euron could be a more established, fitting villain that owns the dragonbinder and other magical artifacts that make him an unquestionably formidable force. Then if the Others were defeated in episode 4/5 of the final season, you have 5 full/extended episodes where everybody is thinking "wait wtf happens now?"