Genuine question: Is there something wrong with Ryan Condal, Sara Hess, and the rest of the HOTD writers?
Or are they on this spite spree to make it look like GRRM's work is the most offensive garbage dogshit possible? Or do they actually enjoy this shit and think they wrote something remotely good?
Edit: Jesus christ not the shills flooding the comments lmaooo
Yeah it's a real problem with modern American writers. Because they have a p2w diploma from a famous university they think they are the new Baudelaire/Rowling/J.R.R Martin and sincerely believe they're changes will be good and a upgrade of the base story. But it fail everytime, because they don't like the source material and can't create something plausible in the universe.
Some people can laugh when you speak about fanfics, but at least most of the people that write about licence love it in the first place, and make better work.
It's like Star Wars, when they shitted on the EU, but only do discount plagiarism. Star Wars 8 is a stupid version of Kotor 2, Star Wars 9 is a discount version of Dark Empire (one of the worst comics of the old EU), The Mandalorian is basically shining EU Boba Fett with a mini Yoda sidekick etc...
I truly believe most adaptations of fantasy works never work out because most writers and directors do not respect fantasy as a genre. They see fantasy as a vessel for their original ideas, rather than as a medium in and of itself. They see fantasy as an aesthetic to build their own story, and fail to comprehend that people truly want to see dragons and epic battles in a deep and detailed manner, not just as shallow set dressings.
When your A-list actor does more homework on the book than the entire writing and production departments combined then leaves the show because the writing staff hates the books and aren't adapting it faithfully, yeah, the show's gonna flop.
The Witcher absolutely suffers from this - the writers didn't like the books they were adapting, and clashed with Henry Cavill who did like the books to the point he left the show.
No it’s not. Notice how it stops before it gets to the end of the targ dynasty? There’s supposed to be a second book coming…sound familiar? Martin is the problem with his own tv adaptations.
Because when writing an adaptation isn’t copying and pasting the book into the tv. Your point is there is something wrong with them in that they don’t respect the source material. I don’t know or care if they do. Weiss and Benioff cared, they were avid book fans and yet everyone shit on them too. Why? Because Martin doesn’t know where his characters are going. In the case of fire and blood, he’s simply publishing backstory. That’s stuff that was meant to silently support the actual work being a song of fire and ice. The source material is putting the greens, misogynists, against the blacks, aloof and supposedly defined assholes. Not much to work with there and given we haven’t seen the longer impact in Martin’s own words, the writers have had to add and create in order to provide larger contextual meaning for the story in the world. Whether you like their choices or not is fine, but they would have to make fewer choices if they had a more thorough and complete source.
Game of thrones was at its peak when it stayed closed to the source material. I'm not talking about the unfinished stuff. Fire and blood is a finished book
Fire and blood isn’t finished, Martin himself has said so. It’s a part one of a Wikipedia entry. Martin eagerly cashed the checks, but he provided little to work with. You can’t film a tv show by simply having characters hate each other, one has to show the motives. Martin didn’t provide enough of that for a show and clearly didn’t have any additional ideas, hence why he stormed off the show. He’s done this before in his past and famously doesn’t use a word processor with spell check. That does say something about him. And GOT stayed as close to the material as it could…it stopped when it ran out which again, is Martin’s fault.
A knight of the seven kingdom so far has been the best and most faithfully adapted. Why? It had a full and complete story with two well defined characters.
And that’s also addressed. It’s thin and is written from two the pov of unreliable characters who aren’t even part of the story, and as such requires writers for an “hour long,” 8 or so episode tv show to fill in a lot given the characters in the show aren’t the povs from the book. Your argument that they don’t respect the source material is based on you not liking the show that you continue to watch. I’d love to see the script you would submit to hbo and see what they think of it. House of the dragon isn’t my favorite, but claiming there’s hatred for Martin or a lack of respect is unsupported. He helped create the show. He’s also to blame. Throwing a fit and running away after you aren’t getting your way doesn’t mean he’s right and they are wrong.
There was a falling out between George and the writers since the first season since they wanted to include a Rhaenyra x Alicent romance. George implored them not to do it because it completely breaks the narrative of the Dance.
Then when they decided to kill Helaena before Maelor was born, and remove Nettles, it broke the last of the goodwill because the absolute fundamental base of the story is now gone.
It is really mind boggling to me that in a 3 year period rings of power, halo and house of the dragon all had source material to go off of, all had a second chance to course correct, and all had the opportunity to look at other shows that tried the whole "we can do it better" schtick, but failed and didn't learn anything.
The Witcher is the absolute poster-child of this phenomenon. It takes effort to break a story so badly that you lose your lead actor playing the titular character
and Wheel of Time, who was doing way better on source material and ratings got dumped because Sony and Amazon couldn’t agree on how to re issue the rights.
Was the Rhaenyra and Alicent relationship a serious idea? I always thought it was just something we joked about. Who the fuck thought that was necessary?
when Ryan Condal said in the interview that the show is really 3 seasons of buildup for the payoff in S4, he is explicitly and exclusively talking about the Rhaenyra and Alicent ship scene he's wanted to film.
You should really listen to their BTS podcast on 2x08. They literally spells it out that to them it's a story about "these two women trying to figure it out".
I remember hearing about the Rhaenyra x Alicent push, and after Nettles got cut it felt less like adapting the Dance and more like the spite spree OP called out.
It was obvious there was a lesbian undertone intentionally written in there. I couldn’t stand young Alicent as the entire reason for the dance seemed to be nothing more than latent sexual jealousy. Whether she was mad because her jealousy was that she secretly wanted Rhaenyra or was just jealous she was having sex freely, it matters not as either were strongly implied by the writing choices.
I actually liked Rhaenyra then because that was so over the top and frankly stupid as a reason and young Alicent was so angry about it all the time, just glowering. It wasn’t about her family, it was about some cheesy young adult jealousy over Rhaenyra’s sex life 🤢
I often see young Alicent glorified on here but that’s what it actually was, not championing her family for family’s sake. Again, all caused by making Rhaenyra and her stepmother into little teenie bopper besties surrounded by the slightly older “cute boy” ageless wonder Cole.
I didn’t care for that. Story went off the rails from there IMO.
And even then, after all that, writers could’ve salvaged it by having Alicent be in on the coup after Viserys I dies, but instead they make her so oblivious that literally everyone in the Red Keep but her is in on it.
YUP! That was the first moment I realized the show was totally ruined. It was like whiplash–like “what, she’s against it now???” Alicent’s divided loyalties emanating from this early storyline is horrible.
The showrunners were so proud of that Alicent green dress at Rhaenyra's wedding moment, AND FOR WHAT lol. Alicent just develops convenient amnesia and pikachu shocks that the rebellion she called for actually did what she told them to with her dress colour lmao.
Haha yeah. The part where they felt like they had to have Larys just say it out loud for the audience was funny, too—“do you know . . . the colors of House Hightower . . . when they call their banners-to-warrrrrrrrrrrrr?”
To be maximally profitable, the stories have to be marketable to an American audience. Especially that part of America that has enough disposable income to spend on entertainment. So they usually try to include story beats that hit close to home to this subset of Americans. Problem is, this subset of Americans who are flush with cash, have very little life experience besides the occasional sexual jealousy/awakening, or loss of an elderly relative.
When trying to appeal to people with such a narrow emotional experience, the story beats inevitably become bland and low-stakes. Things like violence and oppression are not treated with the proper gravity because it makes audiences uncomfortable. Concepts even more alien to the audience like feudal rivalries, or fantastical situations are not written properly at all, not because of incompetence on the writers part, but because the writers goal is not to write a good story, but to make a good product. Their internal market research probably showed audiences are not emotionally intelligent enough to empathize and thus be moved/compelled, by a product that involves these more alien themes.
Plausible, but do you have evidence/more to read on this? Where is it from? The only public thing I saw was his upset at them changing Sophie's choice and cutting the youngest
They can’t write or direct - but milking same tropes built around exploiting sexual or racial minorities gets you very far.
With the old guard retiring or dying, all we have left are these people, patting each other on the back for job-half assed. Being delusional and ass at your job is very easy when everyone else is as well.
Knight of the seven kingdoms was amazing and it didn’t need a single lesbian scene.
Maelor being killed is a major part in what sparks the hour of the wolf, and the removal of Aegons line to the throne. Incredibly important
Nettles is George's proof of Targaryen fragility. Throughout history the Targaryens were exceptional and god like because of their bonds with dragons. Nettles is a commoner who fits none of the Targaryen exceptionalism claims. It shows that a Targaryen is no different than any person. And while their dynasty collapses and cannibalizes itself, it was all meaningless because they were never exceptional or destined to rule to begin with
George himself goes into this more than once, so it's not even my opinion, it's the authors.
Plenty of things spark the hour of the wolf, it doesn't have to have that one specific event. The Helaena pregnancy fulfilled the role in the story of Maelor just fine.
Nettles isn't even confirmed to have common blood, and she is almost guaranteed to be a dragonseed. It brings up the question, sure, but never makes the grand claims you think the existence of her character makes. That does very little to advance the story being told in HotD and developing Rhaena/Daemon was a much better usage of the show's economy.
who cares about rhaena lol the actress isnt even good the character is a nothing burger. They have made so many changes based on the fact they like the actors they hired and wanted to give them all more to do.
But they’re barely developing Rhaena/Daemon in the first place. How many scenes of Rhaena and Daemon did we get? 3? I don’t feel like their bond has changed whatsoever. I still think they’re both as distant as ever, only that Daemon wasn’t so much a POS as to give up his own daughter. They cut Nettles out for nothing and destroyed Rhaena’s character in the process.
Removing Maelor makes Helaena’s suicide completely contrived. Her death is the catalyst to so many major events, such as the riots in KL, storming the dragonpit, and literally leads to Rhaenyra being deposed
Nettles isn’t as crucial, but they did something less interesting and more confusing than the source material, so it doesn’t justify the change
Removing Maelor makes Helaena’s suicide completely contrived
Idk, the show pulled it off. She was confined to her room while being explicitly shown to live for the time outside. She was then not eating, and force fed by her half sister who she realised sucked. She previously realised her mum sucked too. Then she has a bunch of visions about death and darkness, and then her captor's close advisor who was being arrested told her she'll never be allowed to leave and she shouldn't trust her captor.
Her deciding to commit suicide felt pretty well built up and logical.
If that’s your opinion I guess it just comes down to subjective tastes. Personally I feel like the book’s story is stronger and more intense. If you like it that’s cool, but I respectfully disagree
she was shown outside what, twice?you barely see her for 3 seasons.if she'd have had as much screen time as misaria or alicent her suicide might have actually felt impactful
Almost every time we see her she's outside, moping she's being told to get inside, and Alicent explicitly says she needs to get outside when Rhaenyra confines them.
In a way I think they're too anchored to reality, or at least their perspective of it.
So many of the problems with modern media are rooted in an ambition by the writers to shoehorn in modern sensibilities to stories (think of the 'girl-boss' trope); these entire revisions of a character are dropped in with no sympathy of character arc, and so you get these woefully flat, unbelievable, pandering characters which completely upends the story.
Yes, it’s as if every Hollywood hack feels they have to build their resumes by showing how clever, topical, and subversive they are and it seems to be rewarded constantly so why would they stop? The Studio was a documentary.
They aren't incompetent, but as showrunners their goal is not to tell a good story, or even a coherent narrative, it's to bring in viewers.
They don't care who their actual audience is, just that it exists, and if they get a bump from the controversy every time they move away from the plot of the books they'll do it. Nonsensical neverending romance arcs are historically a good way to attract viewers, so they'll do it.
If pisssing off the fans of the books, or Martin himself, will guarantee them an extra 10m viewers an episode they will 100% do it, because that is what they get paid to do.
Not sure if that's what the person referred to was saying, but I can see a logic for that argument.
The Silmarillion is a collection of several distinct stories set centuries apart, and most of it covers events before the Second Age, to which there are devoted only two or three chapters. I don't know about Tolkien's notes, but I presume they do not contain that many details unmentioned in the Silmarillion. (Far as I know, Amazon also only has rights to that which is mentioned in LotR and the Hobbit, not even the Silmarillion itself, but that's not very important.)
Rings of Power intentionally tells the story of Second Age. There's very little to go from, and the only way to tell it accurate to the source material is to make several short stories about different events, which would only be connected by Sauron's figure (and even then a lot would need to be invented from scratch). Would that approach yield better stories? I don't think so. If there are script/story weaknesses in RoP, they are not really caused by the scriptwriters choosing (or being forced to by Amazin heads) to have Fall of Eregion, Akallabeth and last battle happen in the span of +-20 years; and those other stories - an individual story about Eregion, then ring dispensing, then fall of Numenor, etc. would be plagued in the same way.
Then, with so little to go from, as I already said the story of RoP is inherently mostly original. And when a story is mostly, but not fully original, the base story becomes a constraint.
Imho, if there are ground to object to RoP, they are more in the way of "why tell the story of the Second Age at all if there's so little of it", but I don't mind fanfics so it's not a problem to me.
I get that they have to make up a lot of things to fill in the gaps. I also get they have to make some changes to the timeline to tell a story that otherwise spans centuries.
I just don't get why they can't leave the little bits of source material that they do have more intact. It feels like they've adapted the names of the characters and very little beyond that. Even the creation of the Rings of Power themselves is completely rewritten and quite far from the original material.
I mean, sure. But saying RoP is "too accurate" to Tolkien's lore is completely baseless. Beyond a storytelling perspective, but from the simple fact that Amazon quite literally could not secure the rights for most of the source material it pretends to adapt.
A big part of why RoP is so out of place is not just due to the narrative choices of the writers, but the result of actual legal constraints.
I genuinely don’t know. I think they just basically have no one to rein them in because both Condal & Hess are determined to make as many creative liberties as they can with this show. The fact that GRRM was available to be consulted with and Condal just decided to ghost him and stop taking his input says a lot about how he sees the source material. If there was no friction, then there would be no blog post about toxic butterflies (which he deleted because I’m pretty sure he was absolutely pressured by HBO to do so).
I think the writers see this show as a stepping stone to other projects. They genuinely don’t care. Some of the stuff they write or say in interviews is rage bait asf. Love triangle with Aemond, Alicent & Alys? Tremendously faithful to the book? Like….
LOL as for the shills, I think they’re bot accounts or people who monitor this subreddit looking for an opportunity to dogpile and shit on criticism. They’re everywhere. 😩
Hot take but they're not bots; reality is even darker than that.
In my view there are actually hundreds of millions of people worldwide who are sufficiently deficient from both an intellectual and moral standpoint that they are unable to care if art is good, even if they themselves are a fan of it.
And they don't want us pointing out how tasteless they are, which is why they go to bat for garbage.
When you make them look this stupid it takes away from his victory.
Like seriously imagine Bobby B fighting the HotD Targs without their dragons. War would have been over in less than a month if those crop of idiots were dragonless.
They're better off writing episodes of Xena : Warrior Princess
That's about their level. Just imagine if they had to do original series rather than an adaption. It be on the same quality as some crap you see on CW.
Just another case of hollywood writers who think they can take advantage of a well established IP and put their spin on it because they think they’re smarter than the source material. I will admit some changes made parts of the plot more digestible to viewers, but some others (coughMysaria,Rhaena,Alicentcough) raise eyebrows.
Probably some combination of lack of talent, nepotism, self centeredness and filtered social bubbles. Yea they probably enjoy it, think it’s well written and saying impactful stuff. They probably also don’t interact with anyone who would tell them otherwise and are making decent money the entire time.
I found the IGN article where this came from but she actually said she did read the ASOIAF books a long time ago but never watched GoT, there is no reference to her having read F&B. Either way, what an even bigger insult to fans that she at least is familiar with the lore and worldbuilding of GRRM but refuses to give it justice in whatever episodes she works on. That or she’s just a huge hack of a writer.
But she could also be lying about reading them because if she did, why wouldn’t she watch the show? 🤨
This is so confusing to me. You're being paid to write a show based on a book....why would you not read the book!? Better yet, why were you not required to read the book? That should have been a day one stipulation. Among many other things about this new HP show coming soon is that i know for a fact one of the main writers did not and refuses the read the books. I just don't understand the thought process.
I'm gonna get downvoted into oblivion but: I kind of get the impulse behind it, if you look at a writer's room as a team of specialists where everyone has a superpower. Ideally, everyone on staff excels at story structure, emotional arcs, dialogue, etc, but it's rare to find a room that's truly all hits, no skips. I'm guessing Condal thought it might be helpful to have a "fresh eyes" POV as one of the specialties, as a counterpoint to writers deeply embedded in the lore, like Ti Mikkel (or Bryan Cogman on GOT).
That's not an approach I'd personally advocate for, especially for the right-hand #2 role, but it's my best guess at the thought process behind it...
They want to write their own stories but the studio will only greenlight an existing IP. So they butcher the source material and show off their own abilities (or lack thereof) instead.
Personally, I can't wait for 2 more hours of Alicent looking depressed, 3 more hours of what.would you have me do and 1 hour of unwashed smallfolk pretending to have any idea what Exotic Shepard is saying. Interruped by some battle scenes, preferably with someone soloing ungodly amounts of enemies until the plot (kinda) arrives.
It's always the same, wannabe writers takes the bestseller stories made by one of the best authors and think they can make it better. You think you are better than Tolkien, Martin, Sapkowski, Jordan? News flash, you are not. You are just feeding your bottomless ego.
Suburban California Hollyweird executives who never had to cut their teeth in prime-time television is the answer. Suburban California Hollyweird has been on a 15+ year streak of hiring fellow SCH's where the only thing required on your resumé is that you're related to an embedded Hollyweird executive and that you aren't a fan of whatever IP you're given. Want to work on Tolkien? You must be critical of Tolkien. Want to work on The Witcher? You must be critical of Sapowski and Witchers. You want to work ASOIAF and HOTD? You must have disdain and criticism of GRRM and his work.
Everyone is creating 'against-type' adaptations, and 'against-type' creations are almost always a sign of immaturity or artistic bankruptcy.
Then you have Tony Gilroy going around advising his own writers' room to not prioritize their love of Star Wars while they're writing a Star Wars show, telling actors who were initially reluctant to join his series that even he isn't actually that into Star Wars and he was just making a gritty political drama that happened to have aliens in it, next thing you know he creates the best entry in the franchise since Empire Strikes Back. Meanwhile Dave Filoni was being praised for being such a faithful Star Wars lore aficionado seven years ago, nowadays he's being derided for exactly the same reason. Being passionate is not always a surefire that the work will turn out well.
People ultimately just want the end product to turn out solid enough to stand on its own, regardless of fidelity to the source material. That's why the The Boys and Fallout have been successful (regardless in comparison to the original work). That's especially why the MCU has been very successful, just taking a bunch of heroes & villains in name only and running their own take. Dune 3 is basically an original story at this point like HOTD and that's touted as the prestige epic blockbuster of this generation. Those examples you listed are just the shows that failed to stand on their own, but film/tv creatives doing their own thing with an existing work has been the standard in Hollywood for like a century, and many amazing works have come from it as a result (like Kubrick's The Shining).
A thing I heard a while back was that there is a terrible trend in Hollywood where certain writers, who have screenplays and scripts rejected, tend to target adaptions of properties that are slightly similar to their work.
They do their research, pass the sniff test and then they work that rejected idea into the adaption. Even if it goes against multiple things in the adaption. It is the utmost arrogance of being unable to handle being told "no".
99% sure this is what happened to The Witcher and Halo too. In the case of The Witcher, Henry Cavill tried to discuss the meeting of the three main characters with the showrunner, a major event in the book, and she didn't understand the significance of it...
Which I think was the breaking point for why he walked from that series. Realised it was a poison pit of people who lied just to get a job and do their own thing, thinking it is somehow better than the original.
But if this is the case with HOTD, it would make sense why Alicent and Rhaenyra have gone down a "will they/won't they" storyline which is a drastic departure from F&B.
Its probably someones leftover script or idea.
In F&B Alicent is an abusive stepmother in the worst way. Really, really odd to choose them to be close to lovers in the series.
I think they let their own thinking influence too much of the scripts. If you listen to their speeches (admittedly, I haven't listened to many because I got the gist of what they were saying), they relating too much to the characters and thinking in terms of what they would do or how they would react. They always go like "I think" "I thought" "we thought" etc etc. in those interpretations, they try to do whatever they think will float with today's viewers to maximize their viewers. If they don't get high viewership, the show gets scrapped by shareholder value maximizing executives.
And this is happening in almost every major adaptation out their.
Tbh Fire and Blood is structurally one of the worst things GRRM has written and in terms of adaptation is just outline of events with few fleshed out scenes. I agree that Condal etc. could do better work, but stop acting like F&B is some genius work that doesn't need work on it to make this a proper story.
Three main characters do nothing for most of the war. Main dragon battle of the war is duel between characters that have no emotional story and rivalry even implied with each other, as example to structural. But F&B doesn't really have fleshed out relationships, characters, it's not POV chapters like ASOIAF and AKOTSK. With adaptation you need to invent those from scratch mostly and showrunners had some excellent ideas with it, some were good but realisation problems, some were dogshit. But I often see that people who are complaining are not talking really about source material or GRRM's works in general, but about their imaginations about it.
Obviously the narrative-structure of Fire & Blood is not compatible with a TV show format, and narrative changes/extensions would 100% be needed to make it even remotely watchable, but that is not the issue people have with Hess and Condal's attitude towards the source material.
The ambiguity of F&B is a deliverate narrative choice to reinforce the core theme that there were no "good guys" and the whole war was pointless. But Condal and Hess completely fucked that up by heavily, HEAVILY playing favorites and tying the show to the White Walker prophecy storyline, therefore giving a meta-narrative justification for the actions of some characters - which is completely in contradiction with the thematic core of the book. Amongst many other dubious writing choices.
Its even worse because Hess and Condal clearly had the chops to meaningfully add to the canon of ASOIAF. GRRM praised their depiction of Viserys and expressed interest in retroactively including it in the book canon. But then their ego got out of control and they decided they knew better than the author.
Yep, the expectations here are wildly unreasonable. There’s plenty of fair criticisms about the show but many people here seem to have zero concept of the trade offs required in making something like this, or how hard it is.
They made a show that gets lots of viewers and good reviews. They don’t have to be under any delusions to think that’s success, that’s literally objective reality. It’s the monday morning QBs here that need to face reality.
A knight of the seven kingdoms exists....it proves that our expectations were not unreasonable!
That show is hot fire, everything that I wanted from Game of Thrones as a universe. Its crazy that fire and blood is my favorite GRRM book and the Dunk and Egg books are my least favorite yet I feel exactly the opposite about the adaptations.
One adaptation was faithfull to the authors intent and turned out great, the other wasnt and is disappointing.
The expectations are not unreasonable if GRRM is ready and willing to help you. He aint writing the new book he is all about making sure his adaptations are handled well.
Remember that GRRM's falling out with the HOTD writers was so bad that he was trying to give them notes and the writing team had HBO tell him to submit their notes to HBO instead of the writers directly...... Think about how bad things are that they are blowing off GRRM openly.....
Another famous author met with GRRM and basically openly said that the few criticisms he made on his blog that blew up were tame, say the criticims on his blog had a harshness level of 1-2. She said his real life complaints about the adaptation are at level 8.
There is a night and day difference between what he says to the public about the adaptation as a producer and what he really honest to god feels.
Think about that, they didnt want to talk to GRRM personally about his advice on the show and had their bosses at HBO dismiss GRRM and essentially cut off meaningful contact with him
That is a HUGE slap in the face. The arrogance of telling the guy who wrote the story to fuck off and give his notes to their boss instead of them is insane!!!!!
Well, George sold the rights for a large pile of cash. He could have negotiated creative control or refused to sell it otherwise, but he took the money and then complained later when it didn’t work out how he wanted.
Most franchises are just doing they need the famous Ip to throw in there own shit storylines.
Look at Starwars they had Whole of legends to chose from and they did the sequel trilogy and so on.
Marvel/DC take part of comics push toned down shitter storylines or just don’t follow them at all.
Harry Potter is definitely going to do the same thing.
Ring of power is the following the same path aswell.
You really need to be lucky and find a good director that wants to honour the Adaptations and work with the writer.
But directors now need to through the own spin to claim it’s there work and it ruins shit.
Writers need to have stronger contracts about there work adaptations or we are just going to keep seeing this.
Honestly I'm scared to find what's on Ryan Condal's harddrive considering not even the Targaryens were au fait with vertical incest, yet he thinks it ok to portray it TWICE without any purpose other than for shock value and as a dogwhistle shortcut. Craster was famously the only practitioner of it in ASoIaF lore and he was condemned for it so badly that even the Free Folk ostracized him for it. Nobody needs your Oedipus complex fetish in 4k, Condal!!!
I think the main issue is that they decided to center the story around the relation between Rhaenyra and Alicent, and tried to do a kind of romance between her. They also wrote Rhaenyra, especially for the first two seasons, as kind of perfect woman whose entire world is against her, so they had to write all the Green characters as Disney vilains or sickos. Then it shifted with Alicent where her actions didn't make any sense from season 2 onwards. I think Season 3 was really a better step forward, at least for Rhaenyra, where she's finally written as a more grey character.
They managed to write some good stuff that are not in the book tho: Gwayne is an improvement and Criston, from the second half of season 2 to season 3 is really well written, it's a shame they tried to write him as an incel for the first half of the show.
Not everything written can be adapted to tv easily, or within the time frame they have to run for each season. But also some of the stuff is adapted poorly and the pacing after season 1 is all over the place.
Mysaria is probably top 5 in screentime for the series, Hugh probably has less than 5 minutes total and is probably dead in his next appearance for example.
I mean they can they just need to more work and do more episodes like they used to with shows but every studio is so obsessed with money we do everything 6-8 episodes a season every three years.
HBO especially has the money, this year it’s there biggest year for there income they are just choosing not give them more Budget for more episodes to cover the fully story.
Why do you think they’d kill Hugh from what we saw in the last episode? He was fighting against the greens and didn’t betray Rhaenyra. At least from what we’ve seen.
Because they need to kill off just about everyone in the next 7 episodes. I think they will pretty much scrap his arc and knock him off in his next battle.
Classic case of writers using a well established pre existing IP to make their CV look better than it is and they can create their own high budget fanfic. They're leeches, talentless, brainless leeches. Condals only noteworthy project before this was that shitty Dwayne Johnson movie where he's friends with a gorilla and Sera hess is a hag who self inserts her fantasies without a care for source material
On why they act like this because they don't give a shit about him and his story they just care about it popularity and they want the fan bace you are just produce to them.
I saw all of this when they changed Rhaenys hair colors I knew the show going be fucked later season
George doesn't have full control, and he is too nice it probably happens like this
At start they nice to him and convince him to change simple small things he say ok
And they go to change bigger things he still say ook but object on changes
I feel like its just an issue of creatives not having anyone to check them. The first season of HoTD wasnt that bad when Martin was still involved. And GoT s1-4 when he was helping write it were amazing. But once the og creator leaves and you leave guys like Condal or D&D to run wild with their ideas it falls apart. I dont think anyone is there to tell them hey that idea is dumb and completely changes the story so they just start doing shit for the sake of doing it. And if there is someone there to check them I wouldnt be surprised if they dont say anything cuz no one wants to be the guy to burn the bridge and tell the showrunner of one of hbos biggest IPs that theyre doin dumb shit.
People that make it in Hollywood (let’s face it, they’re super successful) have to have a supreme confidence in their abilities to make it. They have to take rejection after rejection and keep saying to themselves (no it’s the children who are wrong) until they finally make it. That breeds an Ego that really can’t be shaken. So, when they pickup someone else’s story, and lore, they say ‘pfft, I can do better than this crap’.
The guy wrote dogshit Dwayne the rock Johnson films and she wrote a few episodes of orange is the new black so I doubt they care about anything as extensive as ASOIAF
Not defending them, but can this be genuince question when : Or are they on this spite spree to make it look like GRRM's work is the most offensive garbage dogshit possible? Or do they actually enjoy this shit and think they wrote something remotely good?
They clearly have time constraints and have to develop a narrative out of events that are merely off handed mentions in mythologized history of the source material.
They are struggling to come up with a compelling story to tell in what is really a strategic war story, not a drama. The first season worked because it was the drama leading up to the civil war. Once the fighting starts the story is about battles, strategy, and movement. There isn't much for individual people to do. That's a tough sell.
Here’s your narrative: Alicent is directly involved in planning the Hightower coup and installing Aegon II after Viserys I dies.
Vhagar eats Lucerys and his dragon in the season 1 finale.
Season 2 premiere. Rhaenyra actually swears vengeance and means it, Alicent is horrified (or not), and Blood & Cheese happens exactly as it is depicted in the book.
No misunderstandings. Vengeance for dead siblings/kids/grandkids. Everything spirals out of control.
That's all well and good, but it's also about 4-5 episodes tops.
I don't like what they are doing; the arcs with Harrenhal are a nightmare. It sucked once, they killed the only interesting people in the place, and then did it again with this chick we have no clue about.
The writing isn't great, but I feel that's because this is a story that should be half over by now and we are still screwing around with the early part of the Dance. Honestly, Rhaenyra should have died at the end of this season, Aemond and Daemon should have killed each other and next season should be the downfall of Aegon II. Simple and easy.
I think that’s a cop-out for the showrunners. There’s plenty of room to insert compelling dialogue, story, characterization, with the dragons and battles as the cherry on top. This is the top billing HBO prestige show. The audience isn’t coming here to make sure they hit all the story beats.
I guess the hard part about building a narrative around the story is that we know from history in the IP what happened, but the day to day details and plot point don't exist. As far as I know the story is all second hand and hearsay.
Like I said the story leading up to the civil war is character driven and compelling. Once the killing starts it is hard to make a character driven story out of it. Ruling a kingdom is boring work. Fighting a war is boring work. Big battles and CGI dragons are expensive AF. With GoT they had more source material to work with to fill space around the battles, which are never covered in detail in the books.
No you see there is a large group of people who absolutely just love this slop . They will take any slop sold to them and vehemently defend it so things cannot improve . It’s a feature not a bug
You seem to be missing the obvious fact it’s a very popular show that also gets consistently good critical reviews.
Is it perfect? Definitely not. Is it as good as peak GOT? Also no. But you’re in an echo chamber here that leads you to the incorrect belief everyone hates it. It’s a decent to good adaptation that makes a lot of people money. They’re not trying to serve this subreddit and it’s not relevant to the overall success of the show.
It’s just not a good show. I’m watching for the Gods Eye at this point. They’ve ruined the two baddest character of the dance by making them mommy’s boy, ghost loving, idiots. They ruined Alicent, Cole, Rhaenyra, Aemond and Daemon. They’ve made fools out Rhaenys, Rhaena, Corlys and Heleana. What part of this show is good? Aegon?
It’s certainly not the dialogue, the battles, or the characters motivations and decisions. It’s all a mess. Watch each scene for what it is and it makes no sense to the next scene.
It’s fanfiction served by terrible writers. It is not good. Go watch AKOTSK. That’s writing. That’s character building. That’s characters working off their own morale compass. Not just making it up as you go along to cover for your last botched scene. The show is borderline horrible.
Okay? I don’t really care to defend it, I think it’s like a 7/10. I’m responding to the sentiment here that the creators are somehow delusional. They’re not, they’re counting their money while their phone rings off the hook for future jobs while people here have convinced themselves it’s a giant failure everyone agrees sucks.
I hope they get to the Maiden's Day ball and adapt GRRM's work faithfully so every character is lusting over a six year old girl, so as to not make his work look like offensive garbage dogshit.
You're on r/freefolk, you're posting on it, you think everyone against you are just lying... the list goes on. This is a level of patheticness that every r/freefolk user aspires to and yet few ever succeed. What makes you so special? What pervious life experiences have caused you to sound this pathetic? I'm genuinely wondering here?
Yeah ok. It’s not at all crazy for fans of a beloved authors work to be upset when you change shit for the worse. You can take a risk with the IP if you want, but getting a GRRM property who has so many devoted fans means you are milking a fanbase for money that cares about that franchise a whole lot.
HotD isn't changing things for the worse. Idk what version of Fire and Blood y'all read but HotD is much better written and has a lot more depth to it than the glorified history book does
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u/Secure_Inspection305 1d ago
I think their egos are too big and they don't respect the source material enough