A Song of Ice and Fire [2]

I found this Sophie Turner q&a quite interesting.

Q.
Congratulations are in order.

A.
Lucky me.

Q.
Ramsay has been the most reprehensible guy on this show. When you heard that you were marrying him, what was your reaction?

A.
Well it’s like from one monster to another. She had Joffrey and then Joffrey died off, so they were like, “We’ll give her the second best. We’ll give her Ramsay.” I don’t know. If anyone can deal with these kinds of people, it’s Sansa.

Q.
Just because she has the experience of dealing with monsters?

A.
Yeah, she knows how to tiptoe around psychopaths.

Q.
She’s the monster whisperer.

A.
It’s like Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Sansa the Monster Whisperer. But obviously it was heartbreaking. When I got the script, I was shocked to my core. Because I was just like, is this really going to happen for her again? It’s really quite devastating. It is “Game of Thrones,” but when you had the moment at the end of Season 4 you think, “Oh her life is going to get better. She’s going to take matters into her own hands and she’s gonna be this powerful woman and liberate people and manipulate people.” And then it was just kind of like, “Oh.”

Q.
Does returning to her home mitigate the other part at all?

A.
Getting married to Ramsay Bolton can never be salvaged.

Q.
So it’s not like, at least I get to sleep in my old room.

A.
Yeah it’s more devastating than anything. And she’s kind of wanted to forget about her roots. Even through her clothing you can see it. She’s got the black dress, the black hair. She’s getting away from her Tully and Stark roots completely. I think she wants to forget about that rather than go back and become the Lady of Winterfell or whatever.

Q.
Why do you think she wants to get rid of those roots?

A.
When people think of the Starks, they think of them as very easily manipulatable. She really wanted to create a house of her own.

Q.
Her relationship with Littlefinger is complicated, but there did seem to be a sort of bond there. Do you think she accepts that this is part of a larger plot or does it just seem like pure betrayal?

A.
I think she would’ve put up more of a fight if she thought it wasn’t part of a big plot by Littlefinger, because he is the master of manipulation and he knows what everyone is doing at every moment of every day. So I think she does kind of go with the flow.

Q.
So is she going to be joining Ramsay on any of his hunts?

A.
Yeah she’s the new hunting partner, for sure. [Laughs.] We hope not. She’s not going to turn into a psychopath, too.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/game-of-thrones-interview-sansa-ramsay

And this tumblr post.

That’s not why i’m angry.

I’m angry because D&D looked at multiple chapters from Arianne Martell’s pov (powerful strong female heir of Dorne!!) and decided to skip that entire story. I’m angry because they looked at multiple chapters about Lady Stoneheart (strong powerful mother on a revenge act!!) and decided to skip that entire story. I’m angry because they found a minor plot about an underage girl being brutally raped and tortured by a psychopath and THAT’S THE STORY THEY DECIDED TO KEEP. i’m angry because, after this sin, they made the decision to give that plot to a female character who, after 4 seasons of abuse, was supposed to be in a position where she was able to gain more agency, by learning how to play the game and by making friends and feeling relatively safe while STILL being in a dangerous situation. I’m angry because they decided to do this while they were ALREADY heavily criticized for the way they treat their female characters and handle rape/nudity and abuse in the show.

but lmfao what would game of thrones be if the story actually was about its female characters becoming more powerful instead of being random plot devices for more nudity, shock effect and violence, to be moved around for the development of (often minor) male characters??!

that David Benioff even has the NERVE to say Sansa is a character he cares about ‘almost more than any other’ while they prioritize Ramsay’s story above hers honestly TERRIFIES me cause it truly shows how completely ignorant they are. and even scarier: how they don’t even CARE.

http://jaimelannister.tumblr.com/post/117519559546/i-love-how-the-latest-got-episode-turned-into-this

Which leads neatly into this mini-essay which I think raises some important points.

http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/117645193922/got-meta-depiction-vs-endorsement-and-sexism

And it is something that bothers me. And as Eldo noted above,  

Eldorion wrote:For all the criticism the books sometimes get about its treatment of women, minorities, bastards, dwarfs, etc., I think that said treatments take place in a plausible context that reflects the biases and problems of the society that surrounds them.  The show is clearly not endorsing these social ills either, but they make a bit of a thematic mess of things through the various anachronisms they introduce into the social attitudes.

while the world of aSoIaF definitely is misogynistic, among a whle lot of other not so good things, I always feels that depicted as part of the world, never endorsed. As it is a part of the world we live in too.

I'm not saying the show endorses these kinds of views, but they definitey showcase some strange oppinions whne it comes to these sorts of things. Just to take this episode as an example, compare Tommen and Daenerys wedding nights and how Tommen is somehow portrayed as lucky, look at the ditching of Sansas journey to serve the storylines of more or less minor male characters and look at Tyrions scene in the brothel in Volantis.

I don't know, I don't want to give any condemnations and I don't have any definite answers, but how the show handles some of these themes trouble me.

I still don't think the show is endorsing sexism -- that implies something a little more active/conscious -- but I think the tumblr person (does she have a screen name other than "GOT GIFs and Musings"?) is correct that the show reflects various sexist assumptions while the book does not.

I think GOT has some unusually strong and unique female characters. I don't have a problem with any of it, considering the Mediaeval world they live in. Sansa was a lost little girl who is still a little girl in season 5 but is slowly becoming more canny and less rabbit-like. Her basic character is not as strong as Arya so she suffers more than Arya in some ways she cant change her fundamental goodness to become a killer like Arya or Brienne. I find these female characters nuanced and full of shades of grey and I don't get the sexism charge. certainly not from Martin and D&D.

GOT GIFs and Musings person made another comment about PJ understanding Tolkien so I left a comment on her tumblr about this. The comment box has a low character limit and doesn't allow posting of links but I tried to touch on the major points. Curious for her response, if there is one.

So I guess everyone who said that

GOT s5e4 spoilers:

Now I know how the Unsullied felt through the last four seasons.

The Unsullied are shit at fighting in tunnels.

Yeah, that was kind of weird.

I'm still trying to figure out why the Sand Snakes took the ship's captain out to the dunes and buried him in a hole and then killed him. Like what was the reasoning behind that at all.

didn't like the Sand Snakes very much. I think the thing I am missing this season is a sense of epic journey. everyone seems to be doing a lot of sitting around emoting. Only Tyrion is actually going or doing anything. everyone is weirdly static. Dany is just sitting around, Cercei is generally sitting around being a bitch, Jon is sitting around punctuated by chopping heads off, Melisandre is trying to sit on Jon, Arya is sitting around Sexy J, Jaime is sitting around looking broody in leather. Everyone else is dead. cumon people! do something epic!!!!

I think there had to be a breather after the crazy events towards the end of A Storm of Swords (which in the show took up basically all of season 4). I don't think their gap is going to take as long as the books' did. I was really hoping for the Battle of Meereen in this season but the way things are going I don't think the battle will happen at all. I'm expecting Dany to start flying back to Westeros by episode 10.

It's odd isn't it, how, when they claim to be streamlining and cutting out less interesting parts of the story they end up making it duller and less interesting. And considering their original writing so far, I'm not sure the thought of them going off book in season 6 is all that appealing.

it seems weirdly depopulated this season..wait...everyones dead that's why

I think that's a very good point. They have struggled to cover the loss of several strong characters and actors from last season. Kings Landing which last season was chock full of acting talent and compelling characters is now down to Cersei and Lena Heady. A further problems is that the way the boks solved this, by introducing new storylines and characters that could collide and influence the existant character to a large degree is dropped. And when they have tried it, with Dorne and the Sand Snakes, they've messed a compelling storyline form the books up beyond all hope.

I don't know. I'm already at the point of trying to make sense of what went so completely wrong this season. It seems to me that they lost themselves, the characters and the storylines in trying to make a streamlined version of Dance and Feast for a single season, and I can't help but think that that feeling that seemed to grow out of the LotRs movies, that you should tell your own story and you should value your sensibilities over those of the author, plays a role here. They feel the need to tell their own story, they feel they know better how to tell the story than George. It would seem so much easier for them to actually follow Georges lead, because while those books might have their issues they don't have major failures in storyline coherency, characterization. And it did, in my opinion, manage to tell the story in a compelling fashion. The problem with the tv adaptation is that they've simplified, and in some cases completely cut, the compelling parts. Ah, well, at least they are mucking up their own creation. We still have the books.

I did talk to them about it. I gave some arguments of my own why I thought Barristan was kind of important in Daenerys’ story, important enough that he should stay in Daenerys story, and he didn’t.“ The actor continued, "At the end of the day, it’s up to Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff]. Their decision was a lot of what happens to Daenerys in this series is sort of predicated a bit on what happens to Barristan, so there you go. It’s their call at the end of the day, so you kind of have to accept whatever the decision is, but I did certainly sort of ask them further about it. —

Ian McElhinney

Q: When you got the script, did you think it was over for your character?

McElhinney: Well, it seemed like it, you know? And if that’s the case, well, that’s the case, but I was surprised because I was expecting – because I knew the books – I was expecting to have more to do than in the story because that’s what happens … so it was a surprise. Isn’t two ways about it. It was a surprise.

How did you find out?
It proves you should probably not read the books. Ive read the books. So I thought this season I was going to have more to do, and I was really looking forward to that. And then I got my dates from my agent and I thought, That doesnt tally. Because there was no way if they were sticking to the books that I should be in for that number of weeks. It seemed to me they must be writing me out. So I had a word with the line producer and said, Can you corroborate that theyre writing me out? Then the [showrunners] rang me and told me, Your time is up in this series. So perhaps I took them by surprise that I knew.
What would you say to book-reading fans that are upset that Ser Barristan is no longer with us?
Im disappointed. But I think you have to acceptas I have acceptedthat the demands of TV are different than the demand of book writing. With TV theres a pressure to create a number of high points. One of the big things about this seriesits true in the books and even more true in the seriesis the surprise element, the shocks. Theyve got to keep that up because people expect that. You cant predict anything but what you can predict is that there will be surprises.

D&D's (not the game) reaction.

“Second, they once more talk about death of characters, and about one from the coming season (around 1 hour 13 minutes in). Usually the actors take it well when they are informed, usually by a phone call before they receive the script, but this year the actor in question did not think their character’s death was a good idea and even wrote a long letter explaining why that is. In Benioff’s words that “made them want to kill that [character] that much more.”

Says it all..

its certainly not as compelling as the last two seasons, the killing off of so many fascinating characters is hurting them and making it seem like a run of the mill fantasy series. its static and empty feeling. I miss the cast of thousands even though its confusing for non book readers it has that chaotic lively lifelike feeling, and I miss that. if they kill anyone else off the box is going to start to rattle empty in the wind. I want to know what happened to characters like Blackfish Tully and Gendry, small characters but interesting ones.

Yes, I think they have shot themselves kind of in the foot with this. By one, cutting storylines, the introduction of new characters and stories, that could have been compelling. And cutting and simplifying the ones they have included to a degree that leaves them feeling flat and boring. It does really feel like we're rushing through the story at this point, not really taking the time to create any atmosphere.

The silly thing is, if they had stuck closer to the book you would have seen a lot of those characters you're thinking about again. I for one think sending Jamie to Dorne, and using the time and resources on the half baked version of Dorne their including, instead of sending him to the Riverlands will turn out to have been a major mistake.  

But the show has so many problems at the moment, particularily with characterisation, that I don't know what could have saved it.

That's not to say adapting aFfCs and aDwDs for a single season is an easy task, even if they decided on the single season part themselves, and I'm not really sure of the best way to do it. Just that this is not it.

yep I am not convinced by Dorne either.

I don't mind them cutting out storylines so much as abandoning them midstream.  I'm on record as being bored stiff by most of the Iron Islands material, but if you're gonna introduce Balon Greyjoy and make his invasion of the North a major part of the seasons two and three, then you kinda need to give some sort of resolution there.  I agree with Mrs Figg about the Blackfish and Gendry.  Especially Gendry, who was an important recurring character for a long time.  It's possible he'll crop up again, and I'll be glad to see him if he does, but unless they tie him in with the endgame I don't think he will.

I think this is a fairly common problem in big epic fantasies.  Authors/creators introduce a ton of characters early on but then a lot of them just disappear by the end because it's too hard to balance them all for so long.  I don't know if GRRM's way is better given the pacing issues in the last two books, but if nothing else I think this shows a lack of long-term planning during the early seasons of the show.

I think I agree with that. You don't need to include Aegon and the Shy Maid, you don't need to include Dorne, or the Iron Islands, although as you point out that's different as it's already been established, and seemingly dropped mid sentence in the show. You don't have to include anything, but there is still the underlying propblem here that with the death of so many compelling and important characters in season 4 there was always going to be a need to fill the hole they left.

Now, there are of course different ways to do that. Reintroducing strong characters like the Blackfish and Lady Stoneheart and storylines the audience had an emmotional connection to, as in the Riverlands as a whole, seeing the destruction and suffering the war left, Jamies arc, with the blackfish and the siege of Riverrun, Briennes arc, and those colliding at the end. There's a lot of good basis for a story there. Even I, as someone who admittedly love the Dorne part of the books, can't claim the Dorne story they are bringing to the screen serves any simmilar purpose. Another choice is to introduce new characters and storylines like George did which impacts the existing ones.

It does seem like they purposefully are leaving out the characters that could have had that function, Manderley, Lady Stoneheart, Doran, if he had been presented as in the books. Instead they choose to merge storylines, and cut the introduction of even tertiary new characters, outside insurgency/harpy leading whores, let's not even get into the fact that Olyvar now is a series regular with more screentime than many central characters to the story. Where is Cerseis new Small Council, where is Daenerys Mereeneese court. Such small things adds so much to the feeling of the internal world of the story. And that feeling is equally lessened by only already established characters being allowed to play any significant part in the story. The feasibility of new characters playing significant roles must have been proved beyond doubt by Oberyn last season, if, and that's a big if, the character and story is strong enough.

I think that undeniably leaves the story weaker. And as I said, when their prefered solution is to include a half baked version of Dorne.. I struggle to see what they are thinking. Have they just lost the plot completely?

The leaving storylines hanging in mid air thing is a lot more troubling though, I agree. There is so much unresolved seeding, laying the groundwork for something and then dropping the storyline later, in this show that it really fees jarring. It can't be just laziness can it?

Will Baelon die in his sleep after reaching a 100 and will Stannis renounce the faith of R'Hlor after Mellisandres leach failed?

How much effort would it have taken to solve small things like that?

I think really the underlying problem is that they didn't get the point of aFfCs and aDwDs. The storylines in those books were never meant to continue the momentum of the first three books and the first four seasons, they were meant to be moments of reflection, I think it was Georges opinion that no story can take what happened in the first three books/four series in their stride, you need to see the consequenses, but that seems what they are trying to do. And, in my opinion, it's not really working.

I find it funny, and a bit sad, that we're already at the point of discussing what went wrong.

Eldorion wrote:GOT GIFs and Musings person made another comment about PJ understanding Tolkien so I left a comment on her tumblr about this. The comment box has a low character limit and doesn't allow posting of links but I tried to touch on the major points. Curious for her response, if there is one.

Oh. Did you get a response? It is one of those things that sounds pretty odd, because the statement "Peter Jackson understood the spirit of Tolkiens story." kind of falls at the first hurdle. Peter Jackson read the book once, maybe twice(?). He in no terms had some great insight into the work of Tolkien. Did Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh understand the spirit of Tokiens story? That also is a really problematic statement, although at least factually more correct, because there were major issues of continuity and characerization that impacts the spirit of the story in such a way that it's very difficult to claim that they understood it. Frodos lack of agency in Fellowship, Frodo choosing to live at the end.  

What I think they are getting at is two things. (And I kind of stole one of these points form you.) One, the superficial changes to Tolkiens story is not what really is problematic with regards to the spirit of the story. I think these superficial changes are what they are refering to when they say they don't arbritrarily critisize changes in adaptations. Secondly, what Jackson, Boyens and Walsh managed, somehow, one might say after seeing the Hobbit movies, was to capture the feeling of Tolkiens world. The films to a large degree managed to purvey the feeling of Tolkiens world from the books. And it managed to tell a story, not necessarily Tolkiens story, but a story, and a mostly coherent one at that, despite the changes. When that is the case I think people are willing to forgive a lot, and overlook a lot of other problems the adaptation might have as long as it feels right. That's my theory anyway.

What I think is rather ridiculous about the statement is that, to my eyes at least, Game of Thrones falls straight into the fantasy adaptation tradition that Peter Jackson started with the LotRs movies. And the adaptational problems in the LotRs movies, although smaller there, can be seen coming to a head both in the Hobbit movies and, to a larger and larger degree as the series progresses, in GoTs. It's the attitude that the adapter know best, as in better than the writer, how to tell his story. It's the attitude that you must make your own decisions and tell your own story, not the story you are adapting. The adapted material is as best an inspiration, a rough guideline.

In that way the success of this approach with the LotRs movies could be said to have laid the groundwork for the failure of both the Hobbit movies and Game of Thrones.

Some very interesting posts here, Blue. I enjoy reading your bit essay-ish thoughts on GOT. I agree with most of what you say about pacing and storylines in the present season.

Bluebottle wrote:Oh. Did you get a response? It is one of those things that sounds pretty odd, because the statement "Peter Jackson understood the spirit of Tolkiens story." kind of falls at the first hurdle. Peter Jackson read the book once, maybe twice(?). He in no terms had some great insight into the work of Tolkien. Did Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh understand the spirit of Tokiens story? That also is a really problematic statement, although at least factually more correct, because there were major issues of continuity and characerization that impacts the spirit of the story in such a way that it's very difficult to claim that they understood it. Frodos lack of agency in Fellowship, Frodo choosing to live at the end.

No, unfortunately they didn't give a response. I dunno if sending questions from an account so they can give private responses increases your chances of hearing back (I don't use tumblr myself so I sent it anonymously), but my question hasn't shown up among her public Q&A responses.

What I think they are getting at is two things. (And I kind of stole one of these points form you.) One, the superficial changes to Tolkiens story is not what really is problematic with regards to the spirit of the story. I think these superficial changes are what they are refering to when they say they don't arbritrarily critisize changes in adaptations. Secondly, what Jackson, Boyens and Walsh managed, somehow, one might say after seeing the Hobbit movies, was to capture the feeling of Tolkiens world. The films to a large degree managed to purvey the feeling of Tolkiens world from the books. And it managed to tell a story, not necessarily Tolkiens story, but a story, and a mostly coherent one at that, despite the changes. When that is the case I think people are willing to forgive a lot, and overlook a lot of other problems the adaptation might have as long as it feels right. That's my theory anyway.

I agree that PJ and Co. managed to tell a mostly coherent story, albeit one with a lot of plot holes and gaps in internal logic. Whether or not it conveyed the feeling of the books is entirely subjective, and I'm not sure how many people would agree about what the feeling of the book is in the first place. Basing the visual style of the films on that of established Tolkien artists obviously went a long way and I do think that's a big part of the reason so many people are willing to overlook deviations in the films. I actually don't think that PJ made all that many superficial changes to the books though; he left that mostly intact. I think much of the criticism but also the praise of the films focuses on superficial stuff at the expense of more important story elements, though. I actually just wrote a post about this over in the Hobbit subforum.

http://www.hobbitmovieforum.com/t1122p60-battle-of-the-five-armies-extended-edition#171925

Anyway, I do disagree with him that directors feel compelled to make adaptations of absolute fidelity. The fan-creator dynamic he describes is absolutely a thing, but the insistence upon fidelity almost always focuses on the most superficial shit. Like, he's right that people would have gone apeshit if there were fewer than 13 dwarves, but the dwarves in the book were totally interchangeable and such an alteration would have very little impact on Tolkien's story. But there are thousands of people who will actively defend PJ's changes to the tone and themes of The Hobbit. This is a problem with critics as well as fans; the praise LOTR got for being oh so faithful mostly focused on the superficial details that were carried over, and the few criticisms that are common even among fans of the movies are uniformly superficial. Like people freaking out over Arwen replacing Glorfindel, rather than the complete lack of agency for Frodo in that part of the movie. Or being mad that Frodo sent Sam away but overlooking Sam's bizarrely violent behavior and the fact that his self-justification seemed to be copied from a PSA about domestic abuse (and that he was nonetheless still portrayed as a hero).

What I think is rather ridiculous about the statement is that, to my eyes at least, Game of Thrones falls straight into the fantasy adaptation tradition that Peter Jackson started with the LotRs movies. And the adaptational problems in the LotRs movies, although smaller there, can be seen coming to a head both in the Hobbit movies and, to a larger and larger degree as the series progresses, in GoTs. It's the attitude that the adapter know best, as in better than the writer, how to tell his story. It's the attitude that you must make your own decisions and tell your own story, not the story you are adapting. The adapted material is as best an inspiration, a rough guideline.

In that way the success of this approach with the LotRs movies could be said to have laid the groundwork for the failure of both the Hobbit movies and Game of Thrones.

I'll have to think on this a little more before I can say if I agree or not. I do think there are some similarities in that neither PJ nor D&D seem to be as big fans of the source material as a lot of the fandom want to believe, and both seem to feel that they know better than the author (and some people might legitimately agree with that assessment, though I do not). Generally speaking I'm not much of a stickler for faithfulness in adaptations -- Tolkien stuff being something of an exception -- but here I just don't think the D&D-created stuff is as effective as what it's replacing. Changes that create inconsistencies with other, more faithful elements of the adapted story or that just generally seem to cheapen the world, I'm not a fan of. But I do my best not to just knee-jerk against the idea of changes, because I recognize that GRRM is not flawless and the books have plenty of issues themselves.

I think they seem to have a fascination for introducing new lands just for the sake of novelty, but they don't give us anything deeper than a few sweeping pretty shots. At least in Winterfell it felt like a real home and I was gutted when it got burned to the ground. Dorn seems shallow in comparison. ok the garden palace is stunning but the rest seems to be sand dunes with silly women in leather bikinis being 'badass'. There are some characters I really liked from seasons 1-4 but we never find out what happened to them all though they seemed significant, like Gendry, and the immortal guy and his group, and that's what its strength was, all the secondary characters were just as interesting as the main ones. If we as an audience don't feel emotionally invested in the characters because they are superficial or badly acted they are going to have a big budget turkey on their hands. they have to stop killing characters people have gone on a journey with and they have to reintroduce some life and the chaos of a mediaeval world, its now too plodding and sanitised.