I would be on board with just watching the show and saying fuck the books if the show hadn't been complete garbage last season
Eh, we'll just have Brandon change the names around a little. Tyrone, Bram, Juan Stork, etc. Totally legal...no issues...
I thought Brandon did a good job under tough circumstances. I know your post was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there are parallels in the two situations.
I agree with your observation...but there has to be an expected amount of compromise between the written and electronic medias. i could rationalize those compromises for the first 3 books. But, the book plots really got weird after The Red Wedding. When the HBO show was announced, my first thought was "How in the world do you handle the complex gods/religions/etc. subplots in a mini-series, especially after the Red Wedding?" That remains a big question. Overall, I've been impressed with how close HBO has been able to stay near the main story lines. Sure they have strayed, but they haven't strayed as far as I thought they would. I hope the next season doesn't mar what they have accomplished this far.
The problem isn't that they had to make changes, it's that the changes they made were fucking stupid and nonsensical. Littlefinger giving Sansa to Ramsey, the entire Dorne plotline, everything with Brienne, and the list goes on. Turning Stannis, the most brilliant military mind in Westeros, into a complete imbecile was the last straw for me.
I agree, there were no reasons to make most of the changes that were made. The whole Sansa/Ramsey thing they did for shock value and nothing more. Brienne plot line was so far off the story it was a joke. The only one that really didn't matter was Dorne.
Hard disagree. Jaime in the Riverlands is some of the best stuff in the books, especially when it comes around to his redemption arc and learning that he's more than just a great warrior.
while that is true and it was a great read it would not make for good TV so I can see why they tried to change dorne.
I can see being upset by that, but please fill me in by what right Stannis has to be considered the greatest military commander in Westeros. Here is what I remember of his greatest military accomplishments from first to least: 1) Won a big naval battle in which he had a superior number and quality of ships and those ships and sailors were at his disposal by virtue of being his older brother's Master of Ships. 2) Was able to defeat a large Wilding "army" that while having larger number was completely outclassed in weaponry and training and that he caught completely by surprise by virtue of the fact that they did not know he even existed until he attacked. 3) He leads his forces along with a reinforcement of Northern Clansmen in taking Deepwood Motte from a small force of Ironborn. Deepwood Motte is not a very impressive defensive fortification and both the clansmen and the idea of taking the castle in the first place as a likely easy target were Jon's ideas. 4) He was able to survive a siege of a castle that has never been captured in history by eating rats. His loyal mad Davos saved his ass here. Oh and by the way the idea for number 2 above was Davos' as well. Here is I remember of his greatest military failures: 1) After not be able to assemble much of an army himself he used magic to eliminate his brother through assassination. After the assassination he was able to absorb his younger brother's military forces by default which his brother had assembled through well worked alliances and strength of personality. He then led these forces in an attack on King's Landing where he ultimately got his ass handed to him by a defense led by Tyrion and a counter attack from the Lannister and Tyrell forces. 2) He then limped back to Dragonstone. He stayed there licking his wounds and despondent until his loyal friend Davos convinced him to go north. 3) His army was last seen cold and starving in the snow on top of a frozen lake. This may be preceding some great future victory that has not been written yet or is written but as yet unpublished or maybe not. When taking into account all of the information above I find it very difficult to see how Stannis (even to those that like to refer to him as the Mannis) could be considered the greatest military mind in Westeros. Maybe I am missing something. Can someone please submit a logical argument of how Stannis could possibly be considered the greatest military mind in Westeros based on his resume to this point?
Stannis even being a good military mind seems debatable at best, though I expect the battle of Ice to end up being his greatest victory. I also don't think the show made him into an imbecile. Plus, since we know he eventually burns Shireen in the books, He may meet a similar end in the books as well. This is the problem, though. Everyone agrees that massive changes must take place in order to turn the books into a TV series. Everyone still gets upset with every change that's made, without being able to offer an alternative change which reaches the same goal.
Uh, yeah bro. It's all about that shock value now bro. You know, you gotta get those gasps and be trending in order to know it's a good show or not bro.
That's what has me worried about this next season. All the dumb shit on the show is from the writers trailing off of the source material. To be fair though, at least now we won't know the differences so I guess ignorance can be bliss.
It makes a ton of sense from a show perspective besides upping the dramatic stakes and shock value. What do you do with Sansa in season 5? Just have her chilling in the vail? Ignore her altogether? Introduce and cast several new characters for the Harry the heir plot line which nobody knows where it even goes? Then there is the issue of Winterfell, what do you do there? Cast and introduce a ton of new characters for the fake Arya plot line? Jeyne Pool had 3 lines, show watchers have no connection to her and won't remember her. That's a disaster for a weekly series. Plus it doesn't give Theon's redemption arc the same kind of weight that a rescue of Sansa did. Having Sansa in Winterfell made sense for multiple reasons aside from being shocking. It's just that book readers want a pure adaptation and totally ignore the challenges of turning this into a TV series that can be entertaining to anyone who hasn't already read the books.
I didn't love it, but I understood it just like I understood the changes with Brienne's story. Briennes show story is the one change I may prefer over the book, especially if they include the Riverlands/Gravedigger stuff this season that I think might happen. I also understand why they needed previously established characters in Dorne, but I think the shows Dorne story was horrible and execution even worse. Ramsey's 20 good men was lazy and stupid too. The show runners have definitely made mistakes.
I'm not a Martin apologist in the slightest bit, but I do believe in karma. I hereby make a Motion to amend the thread title to something a little more kind.
Well, he set up that wedding and then made Cersei name him "Warden of the North" if he could have the Knights of the Vale recapture Sansa and retake Winterfell. So it makes sense for him to do it in order to get the Lannisters to turn on Roose and gives him more titles and power. Plus, I'm assuming the Boltons compensated him in some way for setting up the marriage initially. I don't remember what that compensation was, though.
We don't know this. And even if he does, it definitely won't be on a random whim. It was horribly done on the show. And it did make him an imbecile. Burning his daughter in front of a bunch of sellswords with questionable loyalty was stupid, letting Ramsey infiltrate his camp somehow was stupid (although he had the magic of nonsensical plot devices working against him), and going to attack Winterfell without any sort of conceivable formation and no outriders was stupid. How is it possible that he was surprised by Bolton's forces in a battle he was riding towards? It's ridiculous.
Spoiler IIRC GRRM confirmed that the Shireen getting burned was the first true instance the show spoiled the books
Didn't confirm that it was by Stannis. And even if Stannis does it, the circumstances in which he burned her in the show were stupid and weak. Show Stannis burned show Shireen because the script called for it. There was nothing established in the show that would give Stannis sufficient motivation to do that. It was dumb as fuck
We do know she's burned in the book and we know Stannis sanctions it. I wouldn't be shocked if the burning of Shireen leads to his demise in the books too, but obviously the circumstances would have to different. The 20 good men part was fucking horrible, no argument there. I still didn't see Stannis as stupid, just misguided by Mel and betrayed by his army. The last battle sequence was poorly done, though. Seems silly to have him unprepared for them going on the offensive, but I think they were trying to spoon feed the betrayal to viewers.
He's called a brilliant military mind by characters in the first book, obviously referencing events prior to ASOAIF, if I recall my reading correctly.
I don't know if it worked sufficiently or not by the reactions on this board, but they did attempt to his army trapped and starving in the snow. That was the motivation for him burning Shireen. Of course most people would never have sufficient motivation to burn there own daughter, but in Stannis' mind it made sense because in his mind he is supposed to be the rightful king and savior so anything is justified to keep that dream alive.
The way it was shot definitely made it look incredibly stupid, but Tywin Lannister and the Tyrell's did catch him by surprise at the Battle of the Blackwater. Thus it wouldn't be the first time for an enemy action to keep him off guard. It seems that strong military intelligence was not one of the ways in which Stannis was a great military commander.
I don't hold that against him as much as I do letting Tyrion and Cersei destroy his entire fleet. He had no reason to suspect Tywin/Tyrells would even be able to make it to KL, and they had prior knowledge of Tyrion's chain and plenty reason to suspect a trap. Plus, one of the major issues was the one Tyrell kid wearing Renly's armor. They were so confused his soldiers started attacking each other. Prior to that they still had a chance to overrun the advance.
Tyrion's mountain clanmen were killing Stannis's scouts which made him effectively blind to what Tywin was doing. The Blackwater wasn't as much a Stannis blunder as it was a crazy fortunate Lannister victory
If they were capturing Stannis' scouts and turning them into double agents then that might be a good excuse. If a good commander sends out scouts and then does not hear back from them when he supposed, then he should suspect there is potentially a big problem.
He did. He suspected that Tyrion Lannister was having them ambushed and he was correct. How you'd expect him to use that to predict an unexpected and improbably fast journey south by a preoccupied foe escapes me though.
Granted it's been awhile since I've done a series read, but where do y'all get that we know stanis burns his daughter at the stake? I don't remember that at all. And sansa's story made much more sense in the books than littlefinger giving her to the Bolton's.
I want to say GRRM confirmed the burning, but I'm not 100%. LF giving Sansa to the Boltons is so retarded, it's not even worth discussing.
It hasn't hapoened in the books yet, we just know it happens in future books from the show creators talking about how shocking it was finding out (from GRRM's outline), and the challenges of showing the desperation of Stannis. I'm not sure anyone would argue that Sansas show story makes more sense than the books.
I just see no way Stannis actually burns her. The quote from the show runners isn't very specific. It's something like "When George told us about this." I think Shireen likely dies because the narrative has been building towards that. But I'd be shocked if it's a Stannis decision, especially since she's currently on the Wall and he's trapped in a blizzard near Winterfell. It would be a very GRRM thing to do to have Stannis obsess over kings blood, use it to his advantage, then have it come full circle on him when Mel burns his daughter. That makes way more sense than Stannis killing her.
http://play.hbogo.com/extra/urn:hbo:extra:GVW442wI3M5-CwycJAAAF "when george first told us about this, thats so horrible and so good" in reference to shireen getting killed. to me it seems in line with his character, i think some people have a hard time believing it just because the show did it first. if it was in the books before the show everyone would be clamoring about how dark and genius it is.
book Stannis doing it just doesn't make sense to me. he was devoted to his daughter. Selyse or Mel I could see though.