Maybe I’m not communicating this clearly enough, or maybe you guys just aren’t bothering to read what I’ve written. Let me be crystal clear:
I AM NOT ARGUING THAT SEASON THREE WILL CONTAIN ALL OF STORM OF SWORDS.
What I was saying is that it is interesting to speculate on what bits of SoS might be contained in the remaining two episodes and what will be left for Season 4. What I can say for an almost certainty is that Season 4 will not simply be “the second half of Storm of Swords” which is what many people seem to think. By the end of Storm of Swords you get timelines for various characters that start to divirge pretty dramatically (Sansa and Petyr for example), and in Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons you have two novels that happen at the same time to two different sets of characters. This makes it impossible for HBO to continue with the “Season X is Book X” theme, even if they split Book X into two seasons. Are we really going to not see Tyrion for an entire season simply because his character wasn’t featured in Feast? Of course not.
Starting next season it’s going to be challenging for the show producers to sift all the content of Swords, Feast and Dance and replot them in a more linear fashion that plays better for television. I’m confident they are up tot he task, but readers who haven’t finshed the books by then could end up spoiled as Book 4 and Book 5 stuff “leaks” into Season 4 along with the remainder of the Book 3 stuff.
See what I am saying?
Pretty much not what you said earlier.
I had a conversation today with a woman in my office who just finished Storm of Swords so that she wouldn’t be spoiled as she watched the last two episodes of this season. It’s been awhile since I last read SoS, and the books tend to blend together in my memory, so she raised the point that there is pretty much no way that they can cram everything that happens by the end of SoS into the next two episodes. We had some fun trying to guess what would make the cut and what would not.
Now it would make a bit more sense that such a learned individual as yourself would speculate as to what they could cram into the last 2 episodes of season 3 knowing that SoS certainly doesn’t end with the end of the season, but this was only slightly (and very slightly) hinted at in your post and hence Point A could not reasonably be linked to Point B.
— Alan
eh: Now that I re-read it again I suppose you do make that point a bit better.
Given that the link I provided has GRRM basically saying that, yeah, “season 4 will more or less be the second half of Storm of Swords”, you can say with certainty that this won’t happen, but I’m not sure what you’re basing that on. Now after that, sure, things get sketchy. They’ve thrown the Theon stuff in this season, and as you say I don’t see them cutting loose a big part of the cast to focus on a subset of the cast. It will be interesting to see what happens. But in the meantime HBO has made no secret of their plans for seasons 3 and 4.
MikeJ
4684
To be pedantic, he said that Season 3 will cover more or less the first half of Storm of Swords. That doesn’t rule out some material from later books making it in to Season 4.
Sure, that’s where the more or less comes in. Like I mentioned, they’ve crept in some Theon stuff that wasn’t in the books, and some other stuff that deviates a bit. But it looks like the broader plot strokes are going to break down fairly neatly into two halves for two seasons.
Yeah, I totally could have written that clearer in my original post. What I was going for was that she, as a new reeader, was observing that there was no way it would all fit in this season. Then my memory of where each book ends and the next begins is often fuzzy, so between us we were speculating what might make it in the next two episodes and what would be better left until Season 4. The point was that it was fun to make such speculation, especailly with someone fresh off of reading Storm of Swords for the first time.
Anyway, as for Season 4, I think there isn’t nearly enough “stuff” left in Storm of Swords at this point to flesh out another entire 10 episode season. They’re going to have to pull some Feast and Dance stuff into Season 4, especially given how the television show seems to condense much of the book content into far fewer and more focused scenes. Even with the new stuff (like Theon) that they’ve added it seems like they’re going to be a few episodes short on content for Season 4 if they only use Swords.
The real Big Question in all of this isn’t what they do in Season 4. The pressing question is what they do in Season 5. That’s where all of this may hit the fan. The writers are going to have to significantly depart from the source text in paring down and completely editing out plot threads which do not make for good television. At the same time, they are going to end up creating entirely new plots – let alone new scenes. Television has different commercial realities. It is not possible for HBO to park actors for three years and then expect them to be available for work several years in the future without giving them something to do in the meanwhile.
In short: in seasons 1 through 4, those seasons have shown (and will be showing) a high budget television drama which closely follows the source material. With Season 5 and beyond? All bets are off.
Emos
4688
Aren’t books 4 and 5 happening in the same timeline except with different characters. All that HBO would have to do is combine the two into one timeline, this no actors would have to sit out for an entire book. Agreed though that some of the plot lines in those books are a bit of a snoozefest compared to the previous installations.
Yes, 4 and 5 occur at the same time and are simply presented through the viewpoints of different sets of characters. Thus HBO will need to do some creative scripting to merge the two books into multiple seasons where the events from both books occur concurrently in the show. There will even be a little of that next season I suspect, as early chapters from both Feast and Dance will have events that make it into next season.
It’s going to be interesting to see what plotlines form Feast and Dance stay and what gets cut. There are some rather tepid plotlines from both books, but then again even the most boring have events that do have some effect on the overall disposition of Westeros and the major players within it, so cutting out giant chunks of plot wholesale isn’t likely to happen. I am looking forward to having the major plotlines from both books happen together in linear fashion as I think that will be far more entertaining than in the books where we were forced to wait TEN FREAKING YEARS before we could find out what happend to some of our favorite characters.
There’s more left than what’s been shown in season 3 so far. You have the wedding feast, Tyrion’s trial, the Viper-Mountain fight, the wildlings attacking the wall/Castle Black, Stannis’ surprise arrival and the battle that routs the wildlings, the death of Theon’s father, unCat’s appearance, Coldhands taking Bran north of the wall, Jon’s election to commander, Tyrion’s murder of his father, Littlefinger’s “only Cat” move, etc. Hell, far more than what’s been shown in season 3. But I think they could easily dip into book 4, introduce the Dornish, have Arya make it east and begin her training, that sort of stuff.
I think they are going to jettison huge chunks of book story. The Dornish? I bet that gets gutted to the bare minimum, that Viper guy and that’s it. All the shenanigans with the secret mission? No way that makes the tv show. They’ll probably blend Stannis in with the wilding attack all in one episode. That entire Theon’s dad subplot with the uncles and whatnot? Lopped off, who really gives a crap? Theon will see his sister again, I think that’s as much Greyjoy stuff we see, just enough to explain how that happens.
Unless they are planning a 10 season show they have to cut cut cut, otherwise they have way too much stuff to deal with already. For instance, they’re going to want to milk Tyrion’s path in as much detail as possible, seeing how popular he is with the tv audience. They’re going to want Dany’s dragons as big as possible ASAP now that her character has momentum.
Yeah, I agree. It’s ok for a book to start off with some characters who fade in and out of focus as new characters are introduced, but for the TV series, the Starks, Tyrion, Cersei, Jaimie, Theon and Dany are the first main characters TV viewers saw, and the only ones they are ultimately likely to give a crap about - their fates have to be resolved. And now that the Starks are going to be whittled down to a mere nubbin, people are going to be all the more keen to see some resolution for the remaining ones.
Frankly, even in the books, GRRM has often tested my patience with the introduction of endless new characters. If it weren’t so damn well-written and page-turny overall, it could be called … er, messy.
When I step back a bit from my love of the books, I see that he could easily have done it as a Trilogy, but as a stout, working-class American decided to milk it for all it was worth while he had the chance. (Sorry, in a cynical mood this evening for some reason - I hope he surprises us all with a grand tying together of all the loose threads in the last book!)
Vesper
4693
I think there’s plenty of material for 10 episodes in the remainder of Storm of Swords already. You people are crazy if you think there’s not enough left.
Major Plot items
- Fallout of red wedding - impacts to Starks, the Northern army, politics, etc.
- Joffrey’s wedding and death
- Wildling attacks on the Wall
- Sansa’s escape
- Bran/troupe going under the wall, meeting Coldhands
- Tyrion’s trial by combat
- Jaime’s homecoming, gold hand
- Big wildling attack and Stannis joining the battle
- Jon as Lord Commander
- Arya jumping on a ship for the East
- Death of Tywin
- Dany’s wandering around and getting to Mereen - Kicking out Jorah
- Sansa going to Eyrie, Lysa dying, reveal about Jon Arryn’s murder
- Undead Catelyn
That’s just a quick perusal of chapter summaries in the remainder of the ship. There’s tons more detail in there - this could easily last 10 episodes and setup a merged Dance with Dragons/Feast for Crows season 4.
Goddamn. I said goddamn.
I guess that answers some of the questions people had.
Wow.
But now the rains weep o’er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o’er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.
I knew it was coming but that was really awful to watch. Ugh.
… aaand they skimp on the direwolf. Again.
That was a very stressful episode to watch…knowing what was going to happen.
Even for book readers, there was still a surprise.
Red Wedding
Holy shit at the wife’s belly stabbing.
Yeah…wow. That wasn’t in the book right? I normally watch GOT first and then do a rewatch with my wife later in the week (who is four months pregnant). However, tonight we watched it together. Not good. I remembered she died, but that was not good.
