The Official Game of Thrones [A Song of Ice and Fire] Thread (includes spoilers)

[The Human Q-Tip]

It's so weird too because some of the most memorable scenes weren't from the books.

Tyrion and Varys in early seasons, like when Varys captures the Sorcerer was great dialogue. One of my favorite scenes.

The scene where Catelyn tells Talisa how bad she feels about the way she treated Jon. Great stuff.

For w/e reason they totally forgot how to write by the end?

My guess:

Those were all invented scenes that were not essential to the story, which meant there was no pressure or requirement to write them in the first place. The only reason they were in there because one of the other of the writers was struck by a particular flash of inspiration for a particular scene. So those scenes are just ones they wanted to write, and were more of less unconstrained. The absolute cream of what they could do. If the writing of one of those scenes didn't end up working out, we'd never know because it wouldn't make it to the show at all. And of course, they could take their time with those scenes because dialogue for many of the others was already in the book.

But when it came time for them to write scenes that had to be there whether they felt inspiration or not, and when there was no raw material at all to lighten the load...they just didn't have it in them.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

This is one of the more important things to me. From Weiss



One would think, if George told them that this was how he was going to get them past the wall, they'd have said as much at this point?

Yeah, that's really interesting. Do you think they 1) didn't ask GRRM, 2) did ask him but he hadn't yet figured it out on his end, or 3) That what GRRM told them did not includ "pieces we already had on the board", but they couldn't do that because they weren't going to add those pieces?

 

[Jack Brickman]

Yeah, that's really interesting. Do you think they 1) didn't ask GRRM, 2) did ask him but he hadn't yet figured it out on his end, or 3) That what GRRM told them included "pieces we already had on the board", but they couldn't do that because they weren't going to add those pieces?

I'm guessing it's number three. I think the entire Wall comes down in the books but the show didn't bother with much in the way of lore for the wildlings or the Horn of Joramun (or however it's spelled).

Given that the ice dragon didn't end up actually doing anything of note on the show after taking down the Wall, I'd imagine it's probably not happening in the books, at least not north of the Wall.

 

[Rich]

Yeah, that's really interesting. Do you think they 1) didn't ask GRRM, 2) did ask him but he hadn't yet figured it out on his end, or 3) That what GRRM told them did not includ "pieces we already had on the board", but they couldn't do that because they weren't going to add those pieces?

I think...a lot of things lol.

Spoiler

I think they saw the White Walker plotline as a necessary evil and just didn't want to introduce more than they had too to get the big battle and I imagine they knew this early on. They were more invested in the political machinations than the magical ones. So, they invented the Night King to just give a face to the White Walkers and an easy thing for the audience to identify as the villain and that was sorta it.

They didn't wan magical dragon horns that may or may not kill people and they didn't want secret burning candles and ancient texts being discovered at the Citadel and some strange Faceless Man plot and all the other stuff that I believe will go into the Wall coming down.

They wanted it to be as simple as possible so they could move on to what they cared about more.

I don't think George held stuff back. I can't imagine they'd have let him.

I just think that the best explanation for why the last seasons seemed so mediocre in comparison to the first 3 or 4 was because they cared about one half of the plot and George cared more about the other.

I've said this before, but I believe they flipped the ending around. That Daenerys loses her dragon before she goes North. That she burns King's Landing before she goes North. That the fight with the White Walkers happens after the battle for King's Landing.

And that a lot of the goofiness that happened at the end was because they changed the order. They wanted Daenerys to be the Final Villain, but did nothing to actually set that up beforehand.

I'm ranting, but just seeing the way the last three seasons went, everything that happened was done to get to Big Battles. Whatever needed to happen to get to the Three Big Battles, would happen, no matter how absurd.

I think George told them about Daenerys setting fire to King's Landing and they got excited and that's the way they decided they wanted to end the show. They just...didn't think about how to set it up in the meantime.


A few reasons I believe this:

1) Maybe I'm wrong. But I can't imagine George is gonna pull the rug and make the White Walkers some secondary, afterthought of a threat. I do think they are the primary evil and will be the final fight.

2) D&D tipped their hand about not giving a fuck of what happened north of the wall when they left bran out of an entire season. And when he was reintroduced to us we got absolutely zero of the Bran we see in ADWD.

All of the visions Bran has in ADWD, all of these historical things he sees, many that we readers still don't know to this day, were out. Instead Bran was used to reveal Jon's parentage and....that was it. That was all. And then be King.

Bran is the very first chapter in AGOT. He is the most powerful character in the entire series. His chapters in ADWD, particularly his last, are DARK. He's seeing dead dreamers before him, he's eating some hallucinogenic type of paste (that may or may not contain Jojen's remains), he's having weir wood visions where he sees an ancient people making blood sacrifices to the trees and he, while he's dreaming, is drinking the blood of those sacrifices.

We got absolutely none of that.

We also got absolutely none of the shit happening in Oldtown. Burning candles and Faceless Men assassinating assistants and taking their faces. Instead, we got Sam reading one line about an annulment and that was it. That was literally it.

So, this was long-winded. But in my humble opinion what is happening in Oldtown in the books and what is happening North of the wall are the two most important things as it relates to the White Walkers, the Wall, and how it comes down and in the show we had zero of that.

So, to answer your question, I think George told them his plan, or at least some basic outline of it, and they just took bits and pieces to make their own vision work. They wanted politics to be the end point, and introducing horns and more and more magic would have distracted from what they really wanted to do.

Maybe George proves me wrong, but the fact that even in this book he apparently refers to no show scenes after "Hold the Door" I think, is telling.

Re-reading, I was actually wrong. He simply states he told D&D who would be King. He didn't actually say he told them Bran would be. So, maybe I'm reading between the lines, but I do think his ending and theirs will be fairly different.

I put my long-winded post in the spoiler.

TL;DR: I think he told them the basic outline of how it would go and they took what they wanted. I don't think they much cared for the a magical elements and personally wanted the political aspects to be the primary focus. And their goofy way of making the wall come down is result of that. They had to change and cut things to get the story to end their way, and they did a poor job of it.

 

[Rich]

My own theory for how the wall comes down:

Euron brings it down. It involves a horn, but it won't be as simple as blowing a horn and the wall falling.

We know nothin of the Horn of Joramun in the books other than it can supposedly "bring the wall down."

Then, later, we see another magical horn. One that can control dragons.

Dany has a vision of a "great stone beast taking flight" in the House of the Undying, as a part of her "Slayer of Lies" trilogy.

Melisandre has visions in ADWD about towers by the sea, crumbling, and shadows in the shape of skulls, and great winged beasts taking flight.

Now I know I'm a clown for still using the show as guidance, but I don't think they just made the whole last 3 seasons or so up on a whim.

For instance, it seems almost a guarantee in the books Euron will kill a dragon. Even before the show, that seemed likely. The show then went and had Euron kill a dragon (in the dumbest way imagineable).

So my thought is this: the Horn of Joramun is real and it does bring the wall down...just indirectly. It is horn that binds Dragons, and Dragons, in turn, bring the Wall down. And that will be Euron's ultimate purpose. To take a dragon and bring the Wall down.


There's some other loose stuff in the books that sorta play on this idea that Dragons and White Walkers are two sides of the same coin. That if Dragons counter the Ice magic, then the opposite is true too.

For instance, Bran has a vision of a man making three arrows out of Weirwood. Now, that's not a ton to go on but I believe that was Torrhen Starks brother, who didn't want to surrender to Aegon and who begged his brother to let him kill the Dragons. Three Weirwood arrows for three dragons..

 

[Ohio]

 

[Jack Brickman]

Note: Not directed at you, Ohio.

 

[Kbiz]

 

[Chris]

Hype level intensifying.

Fire and Blood was fascinating to me, and the amount of lore they can pull from for this series is huge. Potential is sky high.

Season 8 will always leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Hoping this starts to wash it away. I’m ready to return to Westeros.

 

[Rich]

Not a chance in the world.

The only way, and I mean the only way, I'd watch this is if it coincides with Martin actually releasing Winds. That would get my hype levels high enough to give the show a chance.

 

[Chris]

Sounds like it covers the dance of dragons. Which is best case scenario, as it is the most epic and interesting story in the lore IMO.

Could be really good.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I'm not inclined to get sucked into another story he'll probably never finish.

 

[Chris]

I'm not inclined to get sucked into another story he'll probably never finish.

It’s in the lore, there is already a clear conclusion to this story.

Which may somewhat limit the suspense, for some.

 

[Chris]

Not a chance in the world.

The only way, and I mean the only way, I'd watch this is if it coincides with Martin actually releasing Winds. That would get my hype levels high enough to give the show a chance.

I think we know that fucking idiot is never releasing Winds, lol.

 

[Jack Brickman]

It’s in the lore, there is already a clear conclusion to this story.

Which may somewhat limit the suspense, for some.

We knew what was going to happen for around the first five seasons of the show and it was never an issue. If anything, it made it more fun watching the show with casuals who never read the books.