I’m tired of clicking all the boxed spoilers in the other thread and have started this thread to discuss the upcoming season premiere. I’d link to the HBO site but it uses some sort of fancy-dancy Flash that my job has not updated to.
As I have mentioned spoiler-style in another thread, this looks to be the last interesting season for GOT. After this is the books begin a long slog where you can read for hundreds and hundreds of pages and absolutely nothing happens. Nothing interesting, anyway. Well, except for Cersei’s story.
Is Bran’s long, boring trek through the snow to meet his woodland friends going to be condensed (and shifted way forward) into the first episode of this season? Will Joff’s wedding be in the second episode? After that will they stretch Tyrion’s imprisonment through the whole season or will we be subjected to his long and boring trip in a wine casket, big-assed moving feast and long, boring boat ride?
Will we watch Dany and Jon rule terribly for a whole season? Stannis sit on his ass after saving the day at the wall?
What will be the highlights of this season, do you think?
I doubt Jon will get much chance to rule, the vote might be a last episode kinda thing. This season we will get the wildlings attacking castle black and then the defense of the wall. Joff’s wedding is definitely the second episode. The mountain vs red viper duel is episode 8 or 9, at best we will get Tyrion making his escape and that’s it.
Oh wait, I did totally skip interesting stuff that’ll happen this season. Sansa and Baelish’s trip to the crazy house and Brienne’s traisping throuh hill and dale looking for Lysa’s stepdaughter.
Sansa was never Lysa’s stepdaughter (or did you just buy into Littlefinger’s deception?).
I’m very interested to see how this season plays out. There are an awful lot of really major plot points coming up pretty quickly, not least of which is the Purple Wedding, which looks to be Episode 2. I’ve seen elsewhere that Coldhands is not in the show, so if that’s true Bran’s journey north probably will be shortened/summarized. We’l probably see his eventual destination by the end of this season.
If the episode titles are any indication:[ul][]I expect we’ll see Brienne set off on her journey, but probably will not see much detail of it.[]Dany will take Meereen and decide to stay awhile.[]Tyrion will spend most of the season in the dungeon, and I wonder whether or not we will see him escape this season.[]The Wildlings attack the Wall and are repelled by the Night’s Watch aided by Stannis’ forces.[][]The Red Viper battles the Mountain in Tyrion’s trial by combat.[/ul]I wonder how much of Dorne will make it into the show at all. We’ll have Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand, but the Sand Snakes? Prince Doran? Will we see little Myrcella in Dorne at all?
Yes, I’ve read through 5 thousand pages and totally forgot that Sansa is one of the last remaining Starks, that Brienne is out searching for Littlefinger’s bastard daughter and that Lysa is so bugnut looney she didn’t recognize her own neice. Or, alternately, my facetiousness was not as transparent as I thought.
Oh, and I enjoyed Brienne and Big Dick’s adventures.
Season 4 has potential to be quite lean if they cut all the Dorne and Iron Islands stuff (and most of Brienne’s pointless trek). We’d be left with Cersei goes crazy, Jaime in the riverlands, and Arya with the killer monks.
Though Lysa being “so bugnut looney she didn’t recognize her own neice” is not at all a stretch for that character.
I found Brienne’s search interesting, and I wonder whether we’ll see a changed dynamic between her and Pod in the show, given Pod’s prior bedroom prowess (on the show). The fight scene at her journey’s end in the book may or may not make it into this season, as Martin still hasn’t revealed what exactly her “final” word was.
We won’t make it that far. They are only doing the season until the end of book three, which is when Tyrion kills his father and runs away.
Tyrion will get imprisoned at the end of episode two after the purple wedding. Penny is supposed to be at the wedding, but I have not heard of anyone cast for that part so I don’t know what they’ll do with that. Tyrion will then go through the trial, everyone will laugh at him, and he’ll stay in prison until the end of the season, when he escapes.
I am most curious about how they’ll handle Shae’s betrayal. In the book it was obvious she had no real feelings for Tyrion, but Tyrion wanted to believe in the fantasy. The character in the show seems like a good person, even helping Sansa a few times at great risk to her life. I can’t imagine the TV show character being as callous as the book character.
In the book there is also a great scene where Shae reveals to everyone at Tyrion’s trial that she calls him her “giant Lannister.” I don’t remember her saying that to him that in the show, so I’m curious to see how she’ll humiliate him during his trial.
Like I said in the other thread, I don’t think the actual plot of books 4 and 5 is that boring. Martin is just long winded. He will spend pages describing the food served at banquets or musing on some trivial detail, such as the make and state of various pieces of armor and whatnot. Or he’ll spend pages upon pages world building for no other reason than to have a more complete mythos.
I have a feeling after the books were commercially successful, his editors started giving him more leeway when in actuality what he needed was someone to keep his narrative focused.
In addition, some of the plot developments in AFFC and ADWD are so incredibly subtle, in written form, it’s almost impossible to notice them when they are buried under an avalanche of description.
Example: When Brienne arrives at Quiet Isle and meets all the monks, if you blink, you might miss that one of the monks bears a striking resemblance to Sandor Clegane. It’s never explicitly stated, but if you infer from the details we know about the Hound’s unruly horse, the wounds he has sustained and his height, then the only conclusion is Clegana survived his final encounter with Arya and is currently seeking some form of redemption for his acts.
There’s tons of moments of subtle plot development like this in the books, but it’s not obvious since it’s not a visual medium.
I have every hope the books will translate much better on screen than in print.
Considering she shows up in Book Five in the Riverlands to meet Jaime, I think it’s safe to assume she choose the ‘sword’ option.
I’m still hoping they’ll deviate from the books and come up with a more satisfying way for Geoffrey to die. Or maybe kill him off as written, and then ressurect him so they can kill him again…and again. Maybe end each episode with a new and more painful way for that little shit to die…
I suspect we could see her as an introduction scene, in the same she appears in the book, during the hanging of the Frey guys.
Count me amongst the people who found the last book boring. Characters just roam around doing nothing of any signifiance for the story. Tyrion get captured/escape/get captured/escape/get captured… and nothing of what he does matters. Oh! and he demonstrates his talent at playing chess. There’s the Dornish guy we follow chapter after chapter for a while until he reaches his destination just in time to be roasted by a dragon. So, several chapters of complete irrelevance. Daenerys sits in her throne room trying to hold on her city, which is again of no importance for the story as a whole. Bran spend forever finding his raven and then looks around caves. The supposed Targaryen roams around doing nothing like everybody else. Brienne goes on a wild goose chase for several chapters. A dornish girl spend her time imprisoned in a tower. The Bolton bastard abuse women. The fat lord marches north. Stannis reflects on his next moves. And I could go on.
There are some element that advance a bit (Cersei storyline, Littlefinger storyline, for instance) and certainly many others are interesting in themselves. But still, I expect a story to progress. I’d rather have Martin finish this damn thing and write sequels, prequels, parrallel stories, etc… if he wants to add material.
It’s quite striking when you consider how many questions are yet unanswered and how long away we seem to be from a resolution. If I didn’t know better, I would assume that he intends to publish a dozen more books before the end. I truly wonder if he won’t end up at the contrary completely rushing things in his last books.
Fortunately, the show will have to cut through a lot of this crap.
What I found most frustrating was watching Brienne follow up leads that we, the readers, knew to be dead ends. It all felt so pointless to me. I like where it ended up (so far) but so much of that journey could have been cut down pretty dramatically.
I’m really hoping this is the “wow!” moment at the end of the season similar to how it is at the end of the book. The online roar will be insane.
Ah, sorry, I meant season 5 of the show, book 4 of the series. But I expect them to mix the first half of book 5 in season 5 so there will be plenty of material even without the Dorne and Iron Islands subplots. Hopefully they’ll completely nix Quentyn since it ends up a dead end. (although I enjoyed his journey, it is superfluous)
I guess we do need a little Iron Islands to at least introduce Victarion as a character? He is going to be rather important in getting Daenerys moving I expect?
That reminds me, what do you think Martin’s solution to the “Meereenese knot” is? I assumed the Meereenese knot problem was that all these plots are coming together in Meereen, where Dany is ruling, and what is going to be her actual motivation to head for Westeros?
If that is the case, we’re still kind of in the middle of it. Dany has been presumed dead, reunited with a dragon briefly, and then met by Dothraki.
In addition to that, the knot would be Quentyn, Tyrion, and Victarion all arriving to woo Dany to Westeros. So I’m guessing the unraveling of the knot is Quentyn’s death, Tyrion’s news about Young Griff / Aegon, and Victarion provides transportation via the Iron Fleet with the plague rampaging through Meereen to provide extra motivation to get out. I am SO looking forward to Daenerys and Victarion’s conversations when they meet, those will be hilarious.
I have no idea how the Dothraki will factor in though.
I’m wondering how will they will space out all the major book revelations in the TV show. Since the show is more condensed, it looks like Tywin’s death, Lady Stoneheart, and “Only Cat,” will have to been done in the last episode. That is a lot to take in for one episode.
My guess is they will mess with the book timeline a little bit and reveal each event at the end of each of the last three episodes.
