Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Falconer wrote:Jaqen is nice, Tryion and Varys are nice, Jaime and Bronn are nice, Asha and Theon are nice, Beric and Thoros are nice, Sandor is nice… isn’t everyone just nice who isn’t cartoonishly wicked (the assassin chick, Ramsey, Cersei/Gregor/Qyburn, the Freys)?

Fatigue.

I don't know about GRRM readers, but if other viewers are like me, then they're over the whole "got ya!" trick. I appreciate Martin's initial efforts, but the repetition of "got ya!" moments over such a long time loses its impact. HBO may be settling the characters down so as to just get on with it already. Okay, Martin wanted to create tension for his readers by making them think no character is safe. Roger! Got it! Now, let's just "get on with it." Kill who you like, it doesn't matter any more.

He should have stuck to a trilogy. The jarring (not always, or ever, nice) characters are only effective for so long, or for so many times.

I'm still amazed at how much material from the 4th and 5th books they're using after flying past it last season.

Especially in Jaime's case, where they went on that whole made up Dornish side quest only to forget about it this year. Cersei still wants revenge on Sansa for Joffrey, but has apparently completely forgotten about Myrcella's killers? Huh? It's also weird that Tommen seems to be completely oblivious of his sister's death.

It's probably all just way too much material for only 10 episodes a year. It's crazy though, if the Dorne adventure wasn't in the books, that they'd actually add something as new material into an already slightly confusing, limited-episodes TV series.

TRP wrote:It's probably all just way too much material for only 10 episodes a year. It's crazy though, if the Dorne adventure wasn't in the books, that they'd actually add something as new material into an already slightly confusing, limited-episodes TV series.

Something like the Dorne adventure did occur, but it was completely different characters and it ended completely differently... Myrcella, Prince Doran, and Trystane are all still alive. The Sand Snakes are loyal to Doran and doing his bidding in various plots. Dorne is essentially building itself up to be the safe landing spot for Dany's army.

Well, I think we can safely say that although they revealed a lot of secrets/resolved a lot of mysteries this season, nothing fucking happened. In fact, it looks a lot like they are rewinding to the end of the last book, which was where we were at the end of last season. Not that I can say that I am surprised. Oh well, enjoy it for what it is and keep waiting for the next book ...

Yep, it’s A Feast for Crows with a few yowzers thrown in that GRRM may or may not have told them about.

I don’t know what I’d do, in the showrunners’ place. GRRM is the one to blame, ultimately, because of course if he would just write, the show wouldn’t be in such a jam. The sad part is, of the original “trilogy” of the proposal, only Book 1 has been written (published as Books 1-3), and the original Books 2 and 3 of the proposal’s trilogy supposedly map to the upcoming Books 6 and 7. I have zero illusions that it’s going to be that easy.

But, things being what they are, they should not have shot this season. There’s no shame in acknowledging that it’s an adaptation of a book series, and no books means there’s nothing to adapt. They could have let the show’s legend grow rather than letting it devolve into soap opera. I think I would have done like Sherlock and released three episodes per year — think what an event those episodes would be! Bring GRRM on board to write them, so that they serve as more official “sample chapters” of his books.

I think I would still go that route. I know there are expensive realities about casting and sets and costumes and all, but, the show is such a phenom, I should really think it would pay for itself. The problem is that GRRM seems to be against the show, now. Differences from the books (esp. characters dead or never introduced) are starting to snowball, so it’s by no means clear they could mine the books even if they materialized.

I think the show runners should have just done their own thing. Divorce it from where Martin was going entirely and make the best tv show they could with the materials they had at their disposal. They absolutely had the acting talent and the budget to do so.

That's how I felt they were going in the first couple episodes, resetting things a bit to give the show runners a chance to go their own way. But then they just went into their, "oh yeah - that book we sort of skipped over" phase, which feels more like a stalling device than an attempt to add integral elements to the plot. Stalling. Waiting for the next book.

Why else would they be having Tyrion sit around and have uninteresting conversation for show after show? Why waste Peter Dinklage so badly? Or completely rehash the church vs. Cercei conflict, when the whole conflict with Dorne is just hanging there?. Or give us that one Tower of Joy flashback that was from the first freaking book, when so much of the rest of the world's history could be explored? Or have Dany give yet another rousing, "I'm going to totally take back my homeland," speech that was more or less identical to speeches she's given in each of the 5 previous seasons, when she could - I don't know - hop on her dragon and go burn the usurping king in his bedchambers. [And why the fuck is it that the only person with a flying mount in the whole show seems to be the only person in the whole show that has problems getting from point A to point B?!?!?!]

So far we've got - Jon is alive (which was a pretty safe assumption), Sandor is alive (which careful book readers already knew), and "Hold the door." That's the new material we've gotten in the first 8 episodes of season 6. Edit to add - Benjen = Coldhands, which many had already guessed.

I think the show runners have been told by Martin how it ends, but they're having just as much problem as Martin is in figuring out how to carry the plot from where it is now to that ending. Which would be all the more reason to scrap whatever direction Martin is taking things and just do something fun.

rogatny wrote:So far we've got - Jon is alive (which was a pretty safe assumption), Sandor is alive (which careful book readers already knew), and "Hold the door." That's the new material we've gotten in the first 8 episodes of season 6. Edit to add - Benjen = Coldhands, which many had already guessed.

We had a few big reveals but they were just dropped in without significance or impact or being woven into any sort of story.

Jon’s dead. Psych! Nah, he’s fine.
Hold the door, yep, some random door.
Coldhands! Is Benjen! Okay, umm, maybe we’ll get back to that next season.
Melisandre is old! Such a non-sequitur that you didn’t even remember it.
How the Others were created. Now you know, in case you were wondering.

rogatny wrote:I think the show runners have been told by Martin how it ends, but they're having just as much problem as Martin is in figuring out how to carry the plot from where it is now to that ending. Which would be all the more reason to scrap whatever direction Martin is taking things and just do something fun.

It seems to me they’re trying and failing. If they were doing their non-GRRM thing and it was a blast, I’d be all for it.

I don't think this writer's prediction on Arya's ultimate fate is as "out there" as the writer herself believes it to be. As tea leaf reading, tin foil predictions go, it's a good one.

Enjoyed last night's episode - what about you?

@TRP: That is a fun theory. I hope it's true.

Chainsaw wrote:Enjoyed last night's episode - what about you?

I was too annoyed by both Jon's and Ramsay's incompetence. To reconcile the distance between the Eyrie(sp?) and the the north and Little Finger's negotiations with Sansa, Finger would need to have marched his army north. That would mean he kept an army, of thousands, within short notice forced march of Winterfell, for at least weeks, and neither Jon nor Ramsey detected it.

Also, Jon and Ramsey were just plain crap military leaders. In that way, I suppose a smaller force led by a buffoon could defeat the greater force led by a bigger buffoon.

TRP wrote:

Chainsaw wrote:Enjoyed last night's episode - what about you?

I was too annoyed by both Jon's and Ramsay's incompetence. To reconcile the distance between the Eyrie(sp?) and the the north and Little Finger's negotiations with Sansa, Finger would need to have marched his army north. That would mean he kept an army, of thousands, with in short notice forced march of Winterfell, for at least weeks, and neither Job nor Ramsey detected it.

Also, Jon and Ramsey were just plain crap military leaders. In that way, I suppose a smaller force led by a buffoon could defeat the greater force led by a bigger buffoon.

Right, but nonsensical logistics and bad writing has become par for the course in this show, no? I thought the battle itself was fun to watch and I enjoyed the ending.

TRP wrote:

Chainsaw wrote:Enjoyed last night's episode - what about you?

I was too annoyed by both Jon's and Ramsay's incompetence. To reconcile the distance between the Eyrie(sp?) and the the north and Little Finger's negotiations with Sansa, Finger would need to have marched his army north. That would mean he kept an army, of thousands, with in short notice forced march of Winterfell, for at least weeks, and neither Job nor Ramsey detected it.

Also, Jon and Ramsey were just plain crap military leaders. In that way, I suppose a smaller force led by a buffoon could defeat the greater force led by a bigger buffoon.

seconded.

I was thinking there were two ways for Ramsay to end. One was the Bolton way but I don't think there is any other House in Westeros that would do that...well maybe the Greyjoys, the second was what they did.

I liked the editing and sound mixing of the scene where Jon was getting trampled enough that I didn't get hung up (too much) on dubious tactics or other logical inconsistencies