# Game of Thrones: Are the TV writers worse than GRRM? \[boxed book spoilers, open TV spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373 "2016-06-14T20:38:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/21 "2016-06-16T00:46:03Z")
Jon returned meeker and less sure of himself. Which makes sense but also makes him boring. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/22 "2016-06-16T07:00:44Z")
One thing that’s been obvious for a while now is GRRM has not got a clue how to put all the characters and situations back in the box now that he’s taken them out and scattered them over the floor. He probably has an ending in mind, that only requires 5-6 of his key players, and D&D can’t do anything good with the remainder because George himself can’t do anything useful with them. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/23 "2016-06-16T08:05:11Z")
Are the TV writers worse than Martin? Easily, yes. It’s incredibly obvious that where they largely deviate from the books and do their own thing, the result is horrible… I agree that last season’s Dorne plotline was utter dreck. When looking at places where they stayed somewhat true and tweaked things, it also commonly feels not as good. Examples would be the Littlefinger/Sansa plotline (where Littlefinger is either willing to sacrifice Sansa, or incredibly moronic when it comes to knowing Ramsay, neither of which ring true) or the incredibly undercooked Kingsmoot scene. I also feel like they really missed the ‘point’ of what made certain characters interesting like Stannis, Euron, Ramsay, and Loras, to name a few. Pretty much the only real change I like from the books so far was getting the Hound/Brienne duel. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/24 "2016-06-16T08:35:49Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#): > > One thing that’s been obvious for a while now is GRRM has not got a clue how to put all the characters and situations back in the box now that he’s taken them out and scattered them over the floor. He probably has an ending in mind, that only requires 5-6 of his key players, and D&D can’t do anything good with the remainder because George himself can’t do anything useful with them. This is not true. He has a plan. From the very beginning he knew how the game would play out. If you’ve read any other of Martin’s books, you 'd know this. In interviews, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss discuss meeting with Martin in 2013 to discuss how the show will diverge from the books and how, even though both have very much the same feel and general story, the show will not spoil the books. So both the TV show and the books have had their endings planned since at least 2013. From what I understand, GRRM has had the end in mind from the very beginning. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/25 "2016-06-16T08:58:31Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > This is not true. He has a plan. From the very beginning he knew how the game would play out. There is a 0% chance that, when GRRM was writing the first book, he thought to himself “I’ll introduce a random Dornish character in book 5, devote a good chunk of the book to him, and then I’ll kill him off in the same book”. That’s what I’d call “scattering characters on the floor”. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/26 "2016-06-16T09:06:59Z")
I must start by saying that I’m not a huge admirer of Martin’s style. On the overall until this season, I thought that the showrunner had done a great job, especially by cutting the fat : the books would benefit from _a lot_ of trimming, in my opinion (especially wrt the latter books, as already mentioned) . There were differences, of course, and I regreted some changes, eliminations of events or characters, but on the overall, I was pretty satisfied. The exception was the treatment of Dorne, which has been a disaster (and that despite the fact that I didn’t care for/like this part of the books, either) The season, were the show writers had mostly free reign is…different. It’s not just a matter of Arya. Since the very first episode, the behaviour of characters in general has been inconsistent with their established character, or hardly credible in general. I had one issue or another with pretty much every single scene of the two first episodes, for instance. Characters’ actions and events seem to be mostly driven now by dramatic efficiency. So if it serves drama that an army of widlings led by a giant comes unnoticed knocking at the gates of Castle Black, or that Seaworth doesn’t manage to know what happens to Shireen (or even to care much about it) over the course of weeks or months, so be it. On the other hand, the pacing is faster. In fact, too quick at times. Even the show suffered from lenghty segments at times during the previous seasons. It’s more pleasant to follow now. On the overall, I wish the producers would pay more attention to the characters behaving consistently (or at least to explain away the inconsistencies), but I’m not terribly disapointed and I like the show as much as I did previously. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/27 "2016-06-16T09:27:24Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > There is a 0% chance that, when GRRM was writing the first book, he thought to himself “I’ll introduce a random Dornish character in book 5, devote a good chunk of the book to him, and then I’ll kill him off in the same book”. That’s what I’d call “scattering characters on the floor”. Knowing how the story will play out is not tbe same as knowing each and every scene or event. GRRM suffers from falling too far inove with his world and the sound of his own (writrerly) voice. He is in desperate need of a firm editor… Just because he likes to take leisurely strolls down long and sometimes boring dead ends doesn’t mean he doesn’t know where he’s going. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/28 "2016-06-16T10:49:21Z")
For me, ultimately it’s about artistic integrity vs. box office. And I’m starting to doubt. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/29 "2016-06-16T17:59:37Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > For me, ultimately it’s about artistic integrity vs. box office. And I’m starting to doubt. I don’t think that particular brand of cynicism really makes much sense here.I find it much more plausible that the drop in quality in season 6 (which I very sadly agree is there) is due to time pressure, or poor leadership, or just plain fucking up; than a demand from above saying “hey, you know how you’ve made a massively popular show for 5 years? Well, we think we know how to make it even MORE popular… here are a bunch of notes…” It would be one thing if suddenly we were seeing nothing but dragons and battles and tits, or something like that, but that’s certainly not what’s been going wrong with the show. I mean, I guess you could imagine that the showrunners initially intended that Arya’s wounds be clearly and obviously nonfatal (stabbed in the shoulder and hand, or something), and then Michael Bay came in and said “punch it up! punch it up! make those sheep think she’s almost dead to make sure they turn in next week!!!”, and then what was supposed to be a game of cat and mouse chase involving a lot of subterfuge and disguise got similarly turned into a weird terminator-y footrace. But I honestly think that fails Occam’s razor. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/30 "2016-06-16T18:11:00Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > And Dany’s boobs are only integral to the plot to the extent that GRRM could not _possibly_ have anticipated the implications of his storyline of a hot young queen who is impervious to fire in a world that does not have flame-retardant clothing. Do not forget Pod’s encounter with a couple of prostitutes. I agree with the poster saying the show lurches from one extreme to the other. I still do not know what _Podrick and his magical cock_ brought to the series. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/31 "2016-06-16T18:32:31Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > …I still do not know what _Podrick and his magical cock_ brought to the series. Knowing the internet, some creepy, creepy fanfic. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/32 "2016-06-16T18:42:51Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > I still do not know what _Podrick and his magical cock_ brought to the series. I think the scene when he gets back from the prostitutes and talks to Bronn and Tyrion shows insight to his character. He’s modest and a bit shy and I would say gentle. Traits to show that he is genuinely one of the good guys, like Brienne, and he is a perfect match for Briennes’ personality. To contrast, you know if Bronn had the prostitutes refund his money because he was so good that he would come into the room with a roar and his dick in his hand waving it around and say, “Take a look boys. Dick so good pussy be free!” ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/33 "2016-06-16T19:29:09Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > This is not true. He has a plan. From the very beginning he knew how the game would play out. If you’ve read any other of Martin’s books, you 'd know this. Indeed. Regardless of whatever meandering roads he took, at the end of A Dance with Dragons, he has just about all of the major characters in close proximity with another major character (Arya, Dany, and John are a bit by themselves in the same way the show had them roughly by themselves at the end of last season). And has three major convergences lined up (and cliffhangered). ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/34 "2016-06-16T19:51:39Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I mean, I guess you could imagine that the showrunners initially intended that Arya’s wounds be clearly and obviously nonfatal (stabbed in the shoulder and hand, or something), and then Michael Bay came in and said “punch it up! punch it up! make those sheep think she’s almost dead to make sure they turn in next week!!!”, and then what was supposed to be a game of cat and mouse chase involving a lot of subterfuge and disguise got similarly turned into a weird terminator-y footrace. > > But I honestly think that fails Occam’s razor. Okay, it’s just something I have in the back of my head. I guess I’m just trying to find a _home_ for the stupid Jason Bourne foot chase /Waif thing, and all the other stuff that isn’t quite the GoF we’re come to know. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/35 "2016-06-16T23:29:18Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > I think the scene when he gets back from the prostitutes and talks to Bronn and Tyrion shows insight to his character. > > He’s modest and a bit shy and I would say gentle. Traits to show that he is genuinely one of the good guys, like Brienne, and he is a perfect match for Briennes’ personality. > > To contrast, you know if Bronn had the prostitutes refund his money because he was so good that he would come into the room with a roar and his dick in his hand waving it around and say, “Take a look boys. Dick so good pussy be free!” Maybe, but it’s based on the soft core premise that whores like being whores and you get a refund if your good at teh sex. It’s a 14 year old boy’s idea of sex slavery, which reminds me of this skit: [http://gawker.com/5902076/snl-explains-the-nudity-in-game-of-thrones](http://gawker.com/5902076/snl-explains-the-nudity-in-game-of-thrones) ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/36 "2016-06-16T23:59:23Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > It would be one thing if suddenly we were seeing nothing but dragons and battles and tits, Sounds good to me. ---
**Author:** ![Goofus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7feea3/32.png) [@Goofus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goofus)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/37 "2016-06-18T04:14:44Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > There is a 0% chance that, when GRRM was writing the first book, he thought to himself “I’ll introduce a random Dornish character in book 5, devote a good chunk of the book to him, and then I’ll kill him off in the same book”. That’s what I’d call “scattering characters on the floor”. That sounds exactly like Ned’s arc in Book 1. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/38 "2016-06-18T14:13:56Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Knowing how the story will play out is not tbe same as knowing each and every scene or event. GRRM suffers from falling too far inove with his world and the sound of his own (writrerly) voice. He is in desperate need of a firm editor… Just because he likes to take leisurely strolls down long and sometimes boring dead ends doesn’t mean he doesn’t know where he’s going. He also suffers from a disease that’s becoming epidemic in modern fantasy: too damn many characters. I need a flowchart to keep track of who’s who and where and what they’re doing from book to book. I long for the days when writers would just focus on one or two of the main people that all the action swirls around and not give every single background character their own long-winded story arc that’s only tangentially related to the most important plot. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/39 "2016-06-18T15:21:51Z")
> [@Goofus](#): > > That sounds exactly like Ned’s arc in Book 1. No. Ned was an enormous boulder dropped into a pond, and we’re still watching the ripples. Dorne was like stopping at one of those roadside attractions, “Dinosaur Caverns” or “World’s Largest Ball of String”. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373/40 "2016-06-19T18:11:13Z")
It’s hard to say without seeing how the book series ends. As of the last two books, it’s pretty aimless and meandering. It’s easier to set up a story than to give it a satisfying climax and conclusion. So while there’s definitely a decline in the show writing this season, and to a lesser extent last season, there was also a decline in writing in the 4th and 5th books, and who knows about after that. I think through the first four seasons, they actually told a better story than the first three books. They chopped off a lot of stuff, paced it well, developed a lot of characters better, and pretty much all of their added scenes were top notch. A lot of my favorite scenes that really fleshed out the characters were made up from whole cloth. Between Robert and Cersei, the Tywin/Arya scenes, and a whole bunch of others. It’s hard to compare directly, because a book is simply the product of a writer and editor, whereas a show is a huge collaborative effort between writers, directors, cinematographers, effects people, set builders, etc. But I think the first four seasons of the show told a story more skillfully than the books did. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-are-the-tv-writers-worse-than-grrm-boxed-book-spoilers-open-tv-spoilers/757373.md?page=3)