Here’s that GRRM quote about not being able to release Winds of Winter before Season 6 comes out, the spoiler section:
This is a good reminder that I’m already starting to forget events in Book 4 and 5, since I’ve only read them once. Come on GRRM! Hurry up, or I’ll have to re-read Book 4 and 5 before I get to Book 6.
Meanwhile, it’s time to watch the last 10 minutes of Season 5 tonight and start Season 6. I’m very excited.
I’ll have to reserve judgement on this. I really enjoyed the Mereen portion of Book 5. When at the end of Book 3 Dany decided to stay in Mereen and actually rule and deal with the tough problems there, this is exactly the type of hard decisions full of no right answers that I was hoping to read about. Yes, it’s complex, maybe overly so, but in a book we can deal with that. I agree that it would have been inappropriate for the TV show though. For a visual medium you can’t get mired into that type of stuff unless you’re willing to devote a LOT of air time to it, which the show can’t afford.
This is a good example of the digressions and narrative sprawl that have plagued Martin after book ASoS. He lists these characters as if they are important to him and to readers. Let’s go down the list:
Mago - some Khal, who gives an F
Irri - Dothraki handmaiden, who gives an F
Rakharo - I can’t even remember which generic Dothraki this is
Xaro Xoan Daxos - good F’ing riddance
Pyat Pree - who?
Pyp - OK I like Pyp, but he’s a minor tagalong character
Grenn - ditto (also Grenn’s death in the show in place of the Baratheon blacksmith was an improvement IMO)
Ser Barristan Selmy - I’ll give Martin this one; Martin used Selmy to good effect in ADwD and the show gave him short shrift
Queen Selyse & Princess Shireen - meaningful characters but their deaths were well handled in the show
Princess Myrcella - a near non-entity in the books but used to fairly good effect in her brief appearances on the show
Mance Rayder - I’ll give Martin this one; Mance is much better in the books and the show wasted Ciaran Hinds. Sad.
King Stannis, major character; I was actually a bit disapointed in how his death was handled in the show
Overall about half of that list are “who gives an F” type characters and it saddens me that Martin cares about them. Of the other half, most were well handled by the show. The only characters mentioned where the show did not do them justice relative to the books were Stannis, Mance and Selmy.
Bottom line: if only Martin could have focused himself down to the important characters and plot elements, books IV and V would have been much better. But b/c Martin gives an F about Mago and Irri and Rakharo et. al., books IV and V wandered all over fictional purgatory. I mean, really, who gives an F about Mago and Irri and Rakharo?
<queue someone popping in to say “I care!” - if so please justify your position with 50 to 100 words. This is a test.>
I’m tempted to write I care 25-50x, just to be that guy. :D
I can’t say I disagree with not being invested in these minor characters. It did strike me as odd at the time that GRRM would react to Mago’s death on the show (probably the first time the producers truly deviated from the text, and alarmed GRRM that more might be coming. . .bet he never expected just how much the show would stray far afield, because from the sounds of it he definitely seemed fully under the impression that the show was going to be highly faithful to his baby).
Stannis and Selmy were mishandled to a criminal extent IMO. I loathe when characters act out of character in obvious need of script servicing. Both the show and books had established Stannis as a battle commander to be feared. Selmy was arguably the biggest bad ass of his generation (GRRM once said it would be anyone’s call between Selmy and Arthur Dayne).
I disagree with Shireen because something is up with Patchface, king’s blood, and the witch, and it won’t be her parents suddenly feeding her off to some named eastern god in the hopes of it producing direct military results for them. GRRM has foreshadowed this stuff pretty heavily, so it’s going somewhere and just because we haven’t seen it yet to judge the arc makes me hesitant to hand-wave it off. Same goes for Myrcella, who is tied heavily into the Golden Company and fAegon.
I was quite shocked by the whole thing with Stannis and his wife and his kid. It just… is the weirdest fan fiction yet. At least with some of the other fan fiction aspects of the show, it’s something you desire should have happened instead, at least a lot of the times.
But I think they did it for the fact of getting the wish fullfillment of Brienne getting to finally avenge someone. In that way it was kind of a wish fullfillment, fan fiction type of thing to do.
Same with Ser Merin, I think his name was. The first person on Arya’s list. She gets to kill him in Braavos on the show. Why is he not on the list? Did he die in the books and I just don’t remember? That was a very fan-fictiony, wish-fullfillment type of death too.
I think that was pretty true to a Book 6 sample chapter with Arya and Meryn.
The show creators indicated that that came from Martin himself.
Not to be pedantic, but that was Raff the Sweetling in the sample chapter that she kills.
Yeah, you’re right.
That could mean Stannis will die in Book 6. However, his daughter wasn’t with him in the book in the battle for Winterfell. And neither was the red woman. So it certainly didn’t happen this way.
No, I mean Shireen’s fate came from Martin. I’m sure the details of how she arrives at it are different, but the end will be the same.
The murder of Roose Bolton by his son in Season 6 Episode 2 (Home) left me feeling nothing in particular. I think this is one of the major differences between the book and the TV series. In the book, you feel that menace every time they talked. You could feel that Bolton the father was in danger, being a moderating voice of reason for his son. But then to die suddenly on the TV show, I felt nothing. It’s a shame. Now I’m beginning to feel like I’m doing a disservice to my future self who will be reading Winds of Winter, knowing the broad strokes of events that will be coming already. Maybe it will blunt their effect in the books as well.
Shireen’s fate, by contrast, was pretty well done on the TV show. But that was blunted by the fact that she didn’t go on that battle with her father, so it didn’t feel real, so to speak.
Hopefully the further away I get from the events of the book, the more this feeling will go away.
I got to the episode that explains why Hodor says Hodor all the time. It’s been blowing my mind all evening. That is so cool. So GRRM had this scene in mind right from the beginning of the saga, that means. So good.
Ok, so back to the thread topic: commenting on the differences between the show and the books again. So even though we’re supposed to be past the events of the Five books in Season 6, we’re still catching up on certain events it seems.
For example, unlike in Book 4, where Jaime was sent to take care of Riverrun, which had been taken over by the Blackfish, he was instead sent to Dorne on the show. But now in Season 6, he’s finally going to be sent to Riverrun to take care of that problem. So we’re not completely caught up with the events of Books 4 and 5 yet it seems.
Also, in the Show, Balon Greyjoy was the last of the 5 kings still alive, but he finally died in the same way as in the books. But the Kingsmoot was different. For one, the priest brother was not vying for the Throne. But Euron still won the Kingsmoot. But then, in the aftermatch, Theon and his sister still made off with all their ships, so Euron is going to have to build a new fleet for his plan to go to marry Daenarys. I lke how he implies that this will be quickly accomplished because all the ironborn will chop down trees and make sails.
The third thing that’s still kind of a holdover from the books is the idea of going to smaller tribes in the North to unite against the Boltons and Carstarks. Jon Snow helped Stannis do that in the books, but he didn’t in the TV show. But now that Stannis is dead, Jon and Sansa are the ones trying to do that now on the TV show.
But certainly the biggest place where the TV show seems to be behind as of Season 6 episode 6, is that Jaime is just going to be sent to Riverrun now to take care of the Blackfish. That’s something he finished doing by the end of Book 4.
Another thing that’s different between book and TV series is that in the books, not much time has passed from Book 1 to Book 5. Maybe a year or two? But of course, the actors got 5 years older by Season 6, which is especially relevant for younger actors.
I do like how the show tried to draw attention to that in Season 5, putting in numerous references to how “years” have gone by. Sansa reminisces about the day they left Winterfell, and says it was many years ago.
Of course, it makes no sense for it to be years later in many of the stories. But hey, I’m willing to let them get away with that one. I like how Bran got suddenly older looking in Season 6, which would fit if he got up to the 3 eyed crow in the North and then spent years there.
I have no evidence for this but I always assumed that they covered a longer period. All the travel had to require more time than that (in the book). But I don’t really recall GRRM referencing the passing of time in a calendar way in the book.
The only one I vaguely remember was Arya. I think in Book 4 or 5, when she’s in Braavos, she’s thinking back to when she left Winterfell, and I think she says it was around her 8th name day and by now it might be her 9th or 10th. But my memory of the book details is already fading, since it’s been almost a year since I finished.
Here is the best timeline I can find, put together by the fans, based on events in the books. It goes from year 297 when Dany gets married, through 298, 299, 300. Most of 297 happens before GoT, the first book.
So we are looking at 2 1/2 years, plus or minus?
Just about, yeah. Dany’s story about 3 years, everyone else about 2.5 years.
I think in his original plan he had planned to leap forward in time at some point, based on what he sent to his publisher. But that never happened. I wonder if he can even do a leap forward in time anymore, with so many things going on.