HBO: A Game of Thrones (ASOIAF)

[holy king]

hm, gonna wait till the whole season is out and then give it a try...

 

[Kraznaya]

Spoiler :

One last bit, the Daenerys scenes were just like the Daenerys chapters in the book - distracting from the main story. I'm also interested to see why they had her marry in Pentos and not in the Dothraki Sea. Drogo was a little too - it's been said above - camp for my tastes. On the other hand, I think Viserys was portrayed quite well ... he's not a macho type in the books, rather a weakling that can afford to be cruel because he gets pampered by Illyrio and his only target is a little girl.
.

Kind of disagree with this as well - Viserys was obviously talented enough to keep both him and his sister alive in the Free Cities when Baratheon wanted them dead, and managed to forge enough alliances with enough powers-to-be that they weren't doing all too terribly, despite the awful hand he had to play so divorced from his support base, "Begger King" and all. Remember that for the Targaryens genius and madness are two sides of the same coin, and it's a shame that only one side of the coin showed for Viserys after the marriage because it was more convenient for Dany to be the last remaining heir, and to possibly be dependent on certain Jons and Quentyns () in Westeros.

 

[Scratch]

They also made Daenerys a few years older for the HBO portrayl as compared to her age in the book when she was married.

 

[Kraznaya]

Yeah, else they would've have legal issues...

 

[NovaKart]

I pictured Viserys would be a macho type because lots of macho types are actually pretty weak inside but have a front. He should come across as more menacing and instead he comes across as a girl which makes it hard to take him seriously in the role. I guess I'm just also tired of effeminate men always cast in a negative way. At first I thought he might be a eunuch since he looks like he's never had to come near a razor. Anyway this is my interpretation of the character so I'm not saying that anyone else is wrong.

Spoiler :

He'll be dead soon enough anyway so it doesn't matter much in the long run.

It does make sense that the kids are older or else they would run the risk of some of the actors maturing too quickly.

 

[Leoreth]

There were a few corruptions of very important things that happened in the books. For example, when the Starks find the direwolf pups, Jon's role is slightly reduced when it is Theon Greyjoy who suggests he takes Ghost rather than himself. All of these are subtle details - but I came away from the scene in the book very impressed with the Jon as the archetypical boy hero with a silver tongue, and I didn't get that from the HBO scene.

Good point. They still have a lot episodes to make up for that though, and personally I don't care if characterization happens on different occasions as long as it happens at all. I have to add that I'm in the camp who considers Jon as too much of a designated hero in the books though.

It seems to me Dany's marriage was obviously downscaled in scope because they couldn't afford the scale of 40,000 dothraki, and I agree that the Dothraki portrayal was terribly campy, not in the least because they couldn't afford to portray the sheer scale of their numbers. And obviously Dany's POVs are a distraction from the main story - GRRM is a master troll, and he cuts away on cliffhangers just because, and events on Essos give him a huge excuse to do so.

Being a troll is kind of necessary for efective dramatic writing

But I don't buy the crowd scenes argument. Basically the same scene could've been filmed in the Dothraki Sea environment, with some aerial establishing shots showing the whole khalasar and then focusing on the couple of people directly around Drogo and Daenerys. They seem to have wanted to have the marriage earlier, either to contract it with different events like Daenerys meeting Ser Jorah or to give her whole appearance in the pilot a "point".

Kind of disagree with this as well - Viserys was obviously talented enough to keep both him and his sister alive in the Free Cities when Baratheon wanted them dead, and managed to forge enough alliances with enough powers-to-be that they weren't doing all too terribly, despite the awful hand he had to play so divorced from his support base, "Begger King" and all. Remember that for the Targaryens genius and madness are two sides of the same coin, and it's a shame that only one side of the coin showed for Viserys after the marriage because it was more convenient for Dany to be the last remaining heir, and to possibly be dependent on certain Jons and Quentyns () in Westeros.

I didn't get that impression. Viserys has no meaningful alliances to speak of, they live only on the sufferance of Illyrio, and his cunning plan seemed to consist of "I marry off my sister -> Drogo does what I command". He claims to be able to scheme all the time (it's good they showed that "I know how to play Drogo" scene), but it's made obvious very quickly that he even lacks basic knowledge of the Dothraki mindset to be able to pull this off.

And as far as meta-interpretation goes, I guess Martin intended Viserys and Daenerys to be one side of Jaehaerys' infamous coin, respectively - Viserys' smug self-overestimation is only there to showcase Daenerys' (later) prudence.

 

[Leoreth]

I pictured Viserys would be a macho type because lots of macho types are actually pretty weak inside but have a front. He should come across as more menacing and instead he comes across as a girl which makes it hard to take him seriously in the role. I guess I'm just also tired of effeminate men always cast in a negative way. At first I thought he might be a eunuch since he looks like he's never had to come near a razor. Anyway this is my interpretation of the character so I'm not saying that anyone else is wrong.

I can see where you're coming from. They didn't have to show his character as effeminate, but he's definitely a weak personality, so this comes together as an unfortunate implication.

Personally I think they wanted to show his Targaryen-like difference from other men by using the elven archetype: slender, long-haired, clean-shaven.

 

[Truronian]

I've never read the books; thought the first episode was excellent. Consider the number of characters they had to introduce it says a lot that I can remember pretty much all of them without the show compromising on plot progression to introduce them.

 

[Yeekim]

I've never read the books.

Do you intend to?

 

[Leoreth]

I've never read the books; thought the first episode was excellent. Consider the number of characters they had to introduce it says a lot that I can remember pretty much all of them without the show compromising on plot progression to introduce them.

That's interesting to hear, because that's difficult to judge when you already know every character and plot point.

 

[Kraznaya]

Spoiler :

Good point. They still have a lot episodes to make up for that though, and personally I don't care if characterization happens on different occasions as long as it happens at all. I have to add that I'm in the camp who considers Jon as too much of a designated hero in the books though.

Jon is an archetype, and he's a rather well written version of it - people complain because characters they may like better are in more dire straits, but that's to be expected. Personally, I think the rather long length of real time since we last saw Jon: that being his triumph and ascension to Lord Commander in a Storm of Swords, in contrast with his previous struggles with the Watch and wildlings, also contribute to the view of him being an unparalleled Gary Stu success without flaws.

But I don't buy the crowd scenes argument. Basically the same scene could've been filmed in the Dothraki Sea environment, with some aerial establishing shots showing the whole khalasar and then focusing on the couple of people directly around Drogo and Daenerys. They seem to have wanted to have the marriage earlier, either to contract it with different events like Daenerys meeting Ser Jorah or to give her whole appearance in the pilot a "point".

Yeah, in any case, the Dothraki portrayal for me was very negative. They even renamed the khals "tribes," as if the HBO audience was too dumb to comprehend neologisms. Of course the greatest crime is Others -> White Walkers. How is the R'hllor vs Great Other dualism going to work now? "White Walkers" also sounds like the least ominous thing ever.

I didn't get that impression. Viserys has no meaningful alliances to speak of, they live only on the sufferance of Illyrio, and his cunning plan seemed to consist of "I marry off my sister -> Drogo does what I command". He claims to be able to scheme all the time (it's good they showed that "I know how to play Drogo" scene), but it's made obvious very quickly that he even lacks basic knowledge of the Dothraki mindset to be able to pull this off.

And as far as meta-interpretation goes, I guess Martin intended Viserys and Daenerys to be one side of Jaehaerys' infamous coin, respectively - Viserys' smug self-overestimation is only there to showcase Daenerys' (later) prudence.

I don't deny that everything Viserys did with regards to the Dothraki post marriage was unspeakably stupid. But consider what he achieved before then. He managed to navigate the free cities with his sister despite the entire loss of the Targaryen revenue postbellum, and the Illyrio alliance with all the wealth and power it provides was a great move (This is despite arguments of who is using whom in the Illyrio-Targaryen alliance. Even if Illyrio believes himself to be using the Targaryens, his contributions are unspeakably useful to them), especially because Viserys was able to broach the inherent risk that an alliance with the Targaryens would have for any member of the Free Cities (remember the Blackfyres?). And of course, there's his secret understanding with the Dornishmen that isn't realized until much later. Sure, if you read of how stupid Viserys was post-marriage, it is conceivable and even probable that his early actions were accomplished by dumb luck. But it doesn't have to be read that way. Viserys's flanderization is an unsettling trend for GRRM's crueler villains - just look at Cersei and Joffrey. It seems like it's either that or a descent from magnificent bastardry to a heel face turn of wretchedness (just ask the Lannister brothers), and that's a shame. Littlefinger's the only magnificent bastard left, and I really hope he stays magnificent.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Dude, spoilers.
You just mentioned stuff from the ending of book four.

 

[Kraznaya]

Tch fine, I'll spoil my posts for the unwashed masses HBO audience.

 

[Leoreth]

Spoiler :

Jon is an archetype, and he's a rather well written version of it - people complain because characters they may like better are in more dire straits, but that's to be expected. Personally, I think the rather long length of real time since we last saw Jon: that being his triumph and ascension to Lord Commander in a Storm of Swords, in contrast with his previous struggles with the Watch and wildlings, also contribute to the view of him being an unparalleled Gary Stu success without flaws.

Well, I actually like Jon and think he's far from being a Gary Stu character, but I think his detractors have a point. But you're right, his arc ending with ascending to Lord Commander and then being effectively left out of AFFC contributes to that perception. I doubt this will come to an short end now that he has to deal with Stannis, Melisandre and the Boltons in ADWD.

Yeah, in any case, the Dothraki portrayal for me was very negative. They even renamed the khals "tribes," as if the HBO audience was too dumb to comprehend neologisms. Of course the greatest crime is Others -> White Walkers. How is the R'hllor vs Great Other dualism going to work now? "White Walkers" also sounds like the least ominous thing ever.

In the khalasar case, I hope they just figured that it would be too clumsy to introduce the term and explain it right afterwards without good reason in-universe.

For the "White Walkers" - doesn't that term occur as a synonym for the Others in the books as well? Anyway, I see their point there - you can't capitalize words on TV to show it's a proper name, so the audience could be asking "what others?". I fell for that trap while reading AGOT in German (where capitalized words are not that outstanding) for the first time as well, to be honest. But "White Walkers" is still a pretty lame name.

Spoiler :

I don't deny that everything Viserys did with regards to the Dothraki post marriage was unspeakably stupid. But consider what he achieved before then. He managed to navigate the free cities with his sister despite the entire loss of the Targaryen revenue postbellum, and the Illyrio alliance with all the wealth and power it provides was a great move (This is despite arguments of who is using whom in the Illyrio-Targaryen alliance. Even if Illyrio believes himself to be using the Targaryens, his contributions are unspeakably useful to them), especially because Viserys was able to broach the inherent risk that an alliance with the Targaryens would have for any member of the Free Cities (remember the Blackfyres?). And of course, there's his secret understanding with the Dornishmen that isn't realized until much later. Sure, if you read of how stupid Viserys was post-marriage, it is conceivable and even probable that his early actions were accomplished by dumb luck. But it doesn't have to be read that way. Viserys's flanderization is an unsettling trend for GRRM's crueler villains - just look at Cersei and Joffrey. It seems like it's either that or a descent from magnificent bastardry to a heel face turn of wretchedness (just ask the Lannister brothers), and that's a shame. Littlefinger's the only magnificent bastard left, and I really hope he stays magnificent.

Good points, although in the case of the marriage to Dorne a lot of credit certainly goes to Prince Doran as well, but you're right - scratching it all off as good luck on Viserys' part seems far-fetched.

I never found Joffrey's characterization anything else than static - he seems to have been an ass right from the beginning (remember the kitten incident?). But Cersei's flanderization really was awful, especially that Martin found it necessary to contrive additional motivation for her behavior when she was really well-rounded before.

 

[Truronian]

Do you intend to?

Probably not. I'm not a big reader, and my free time is limited.

 

[NovaKart]

I've only read the first 2 books so spoilers are good for me if you're discussing the later ones.

 

[nato2101]

Are these books worthwhile in English? I read a few of them in Italian and wasn't too impressed but that might have been the translation.

Spoiler :

especially seen as my favourite characters kept getting wiped out (Starks)

Also a question

Spoiler :

does Sansa ever get her comeuppance for betraying her father?

 

[NovaKart]

They also made Daenerys a few years older for the HBO portrayl as compared to her age in the book when she was married.

Maybe if it was a French series it would be OK.

 

[Supr49er]

Spoiler :

Everyone seems older than in the books. Robb Stark is supposed to be 14 I think.

 

[Leoreth]

Are these books worthwhile in English? I read a few of them in Italian and wasn't too impressed but that might have been the translation.

Spoiler :

especially seen as my favourite characters kept getting wiped out (Starks)

Difficult to judge without knowing the quality of the Italian version - there's a lot of wit in Martin's writing that might get lost without a decent translator. If you don't like the major storylines at all, that won't save the books for you though.

Spoiler :

And btw, for me the fact that the house built up as protagonists suffers the most is one of the best aspects of ASoIaF. I've never read a book that's so harsh to its (sympathetic) main characters before, and I also had to get used to it - while clinging to stupid hopes like "oh certainly some magic will fix up Bran's legs" that naturally won't come true. I guess the reason for that is that most authors are cowards ... they grow so fond of the characters they invested so much time in to make them likeable that they don't dare to kill them. I knew I held a great series in my hands when

Spoiler Really DON'T read this if you don't know the ending of AGOT :

Ned got beheaded and all hopes of pardon or rescue in the last moment were disappointed

Most books have the reader go "oh, like you would really do it" whenever a main character is in danger. In Asoiaf, (almost) anyone can die.

Also a question

Spoiler :

does Sansa ever get her comeuppance for betraying her father?

Spoiler :

Directly? No, no Stark ever learns of it - not that they're much left in the end anyway. But Sansa definitely has to go through some gruesome things that I personally think she's learned her lesson.