[amphibian]

The following is actually kind of on topic, so here goes

Tattersail_, on 15 July 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:

That is awesome. I bet you are very pleased you got to do that. Have many other people? You think anything else will come of WoT?

Terez is something like the fourth biggest WoT fan in the world. This is quantifiable and she really is that deep in the WoT world. I respect her considerably for putting in that much work and being friendly around here and elsewhere.

Werthead is pretty deep in the ASoIaF world, not quite as deep as Terez is in her preferred milieu, but enough to work tangentially with GRRM on a couple projects.

What this kind of points to is that there is a small to largish group of people who see the "behind the scenes" stuff and have some small input on what goes forwards and out to the public for our consumption. GRRM's is kinda big in comparison to RJ's or Erikson's. I'm curious as to what the alpha/beta group looks like for the writers of the show, as they have far more human moving parts and considerations to deal with than GRRM.

Is there a possible ASoIaF guru for the show that could be influential in the determination of what gets chopped out from the books and what goes on-screen?

[Terez]

amphibian, on 15 July 2014 - 01:39 PM, said:

Terez is something like the fourth biggest WoT fan in the world. This is quantifiable...

Who are the first three?

amphibian, on 15 July 2014 - 01:39 PM, said:

Werthead is pretty deep in the ASoIaF world, not quite as deep as Terez is in her preferred milieu, but enough to work tangentially with GRRM on a couple projects.

Oh, I don't know, he's deeper than I am in many respects. He founded or cofounded the Wiki and he's been on con panels with celebrities. Brandon shouts me out every now and then but I've never been on a panel with him, and when RJ died I had never even been to a con. I only started reading WoT in 2001, and I didn't discover the internet until late 2004. I just absorbed WoT really quickly and intensely. Many had done the same before me; it's difficult to keep up for more than, say, 5 or 10 years. There's a famous programmer named Erica Sadun, for example, who used to be in the top handful of WoT fans back in the day; she eventually found better stuff to do. Leigh Butler is from that same era, and when she came back to WoT for the Tor reread, she had forgotten a lot.

One interesting thing I saw in RJ's personal notes, a to-do list of non-work-related stuff, was that he wanted to find some books on script-writing. That was in the late 80s, I think; by the time Universal bought the rights, he had probably given up on that idea.

amphibian, on 15 July 2014 - 01:39 PM, said:

Is there a possible ASoIaF guru for the show that could be influential in the determination of what gets chopped out from the books and what goes on-screen?

Wertsignal engaged.

[End of Disc One]

I'm not expecting much from season 5, honestly. There's not a whole lot of awesome scenes left to pull from the books. And D&D, while they are really good at some of the changes they make, they tend to make some nonsensical decisions when given too much freedom. Plus we lost Charles Dance, who probably had the best stage presence of any actor in the show. His absense will leave hole.

[Brujah]

My memory isn't great, but this is an older posts from 2 years ago with theory on who Jon's parents were.

Brujah, on 13 June 2012 - 03:42 AM, said:

Spoiler

Some of this theory is derived from when Ned is thinking back to what is called The Tower of Joy scene.

http://awoiaf.wester...hp/Tower_of_Joy

I can also remember this evolving on other forums until we get R+L=J.


Some of it is deduced from when Ned tells Jon, right as they part ways when Jon leaves for the Wall, that "You are a Stark. You may not have my name, but you have my blood." This is where we get that he may not get his stark blood from ned, but from possibly llyanna. There's also the story of the swapping of babies, just like what happens to Aegon, who is supposedly killed. I'ts rumored that Jon isn't Ned's at all, but Llyannas, and he took blame for it after Llyanna killed herself.

So here is a basis for the rumors.

Brujah, on 13 June 2012 - 10:48 AM, said:

Yeah, so many possibilities.

Spoiler

I mean we always get the wording when talking or describing Ned as the type of guy who would NEVER do that(have a child outside of marriage). So perhaps he never did. He could of just made it all up and took Llyanna's baby.

Another one is that Ned really did have a child with the Dayne Lady(or someone else) and Jons mother is a Dayne, but some say it's more likely that if Ned did father a bastard, that for some reason he switched babies. I'm trying to get the basis for that one, but it was founded in "somewhat" text. Supposedly there was the possibility Ned let someone else take his bastard child, and he took Llyannas, etc...So many variations.

In fact Im not sure how old Darkstar is, but its rumored somewhere that Darkstar is Ned's real bastard child, whereas Jon was R+L.

Crazy.

Then there was , I believe, the posts about Dany seeing the Blue Rose blooming from Ice when she was in the house of the undying, which some said this could mean Jon was Lyanna's, since she was given blue roses by Rhaegar at the tourney. I can't remember exactly.

This post has been edited by Brujah: 15 July 2014 - 04:46 PM

[Terez]

For the record, Darkstar is too old to be Ned's. GRRM confirmed he was late 20s, and Ned was mid-30s when he died. Of course, he was aged up in the show as his children were.

[Spoilsport Stonny]

Terez, on 15 July 2014 - 02:17 PM, said:

Leigh Butler is from that same era, and when she came back to WoT for the Tor reread, she had forgotten a lot.

Well this solves my own internal mystery of whether or not Terez is Leigh Butler.

One of my favorite ASoIF theories is that Oberyn had already poisoned Tywin long before Tyrion shot him on the shitter. Here's a great link to some of the evidence (and I recommend bookmarking that website cuz its awesome and the guy's a HUGE Bowie fan).

Also, I posted this link in another post, but I'll do it here too because it also is awesome. But this motherfucker has written some damn fine essays on ADwD that completely turned around my previous (read: very unsatisfied) impressions of that book. If they can replicate some of the concepts that are clearly spelled out there on the show, then I could definitely enjoy the Meereen plot, and would love to see some of it unfold in S5, at least up to the point where Quentyn gets fired and Dany takes a ride out of there.

This post has been edited by Spoilsport Stonny: 15 July 2014 - 08:39 PM

[Werthead]

Quote

Is there a possible ASoIaF guru for the show that could be influential in the determination of what gets chopped out from the books and what goes on-screen?

Not really. GRRM has his say and Ran and Linda (from Westeros.org) have theirs, but D&D tend to go with their own decisions on what stays in and what goes out, even when that backfires (like we saw in Season 3 with the sudden introduction of Brynden and Edmure and the back-pedalling on the Tully storyline because D&D hadn't introduced them earlier). Someone who is quite important in that process is Bryan Cogman, the co-associate producer and a writer on the show who carries out the initial summarising of each book and doing the breakdowns of what plot elements should be in and what should be out. D&D have the final say, but Cogman is highly influential. It's also worth noting that he tends to focus on bringing backstory elements and doing things that flesh out the world and cultures to the fore, and his episodes tend to be great for that kind of stuff whilst not going overboard on exposition.

[Terez]

Apparently I'm not the only one thinking about Bran's potential. From an interview with Sean Bean in Vulture:

Vulture said:

Vulture: Since you're almost done shooting Legends, that might mean you have a window in your schedule if Game of Thrones needs you back. There are flashbacks that they could be doing for season five ...
Bean: [Excited] Are they? Really?
Vulture: I could be wrong, but I think they might show flashbacks via Bran's connection to the heart trees.
Bean: Oh, yeah, yeah! And I'm his father, so that would be great fun! Just to go back to that for a while, it would be such fun to do. It would be great! It would be bizarre, but it would be great! So I guess if they're going to do flashbacks, then yeah!
Vulture: Well, it's just my theory ...
Bean: But it's a good theory! And that should happen, shouldn't it? I've definitely got some unfinished business that needs to be resolved there. I'm obviously not Jon Snow's dad. And you need that to be revealed at some point, don't you? So Bran would kind of be the one having the flashback, and he would see Ned praying, right? And revealing those things? You never know what those guys are going to do with that. It's got to be something special. But I'm into that. I certainly would be into that. Print that! Give them a nudge. [Laughs.] Hopefully I'll get a call soon.

Of course, they're probably going to want younger actors for any flashbacks.

[Abyss]

Terez, on 18 July 2014 - 05:39 PM, said:

Apparently I'm not the only one thinking about Bran's potential. From an interview with Sean Bean in Vulture:

Vulture said:

Vulture: Since you're almost done shooting Legends, that might mean you have a window in your schedule if Game of Thrones needs you back. There are flashbacks that they could be doing for season five ...
Bean: [Excited] Are they? Really?
Vulture: I could be wrong, but I think they might show flashbacks via Bran's connection to the heart trees.
Bean: Oh, yeah, yeah! And I'm his father, so that would be great fun! Just to go back to that for a while, it would be such fun to do. It would be great! It would be bizarre, but it would be great! So I guess if they're going to do flashbacks, then yeah!
Vulture: Well, it's just my theory ...
Bean: But it's a good theory! And that should happen, shouldn't it? I've definitely got some unfinished business that needs to be resolved there. I'm obviously not Jon Snow's dad. And you need that to be revealed at some point, don't you? So Bran would kind of be the one having the flashback, and he would see Ned praying, right? And revealing those things? You never know what those guys are going to do with that. It's got to be something special. But I'm into that. I certainly would be into that. Print that! Give them a nudge. [Laughs.] Hopefully I'll get a call soon.

Of course, they're probably going to want younger actors for any flashbacks.

If they brought back Sean Bean, he'd probably die again.

[Coco with marshmallows]

Abyss, on 18 July 2014 - 06:00 PM, said:

If they brought back Sean Bean, he'd probably die again.

This time by being fired from a catapult - don't think he's died that way yet.

[Werthead]

Casting news:

Jonathan Pryce will play the High Septon. And Alexander Siddig will play Prince Doran Martell (amongst other casting announcements, check the link).

A massive change to the story:

Spoiler

Trystane is Doran's heir, which apparently eliminates both Quentyn and Arianne from the story in one fell swoop. There are also zero signs of Jon Connington, Young Griff, Euron or Victarion being cast. This heavily suggests both seven seasons and a substantial streamlining of the story.

[Terez]

Oh dear.

[amphibian]

It's now shooting, so unless they move Connington/Young Griff to people wandering around Westeros, they're out. Wow. That doesn't bode well for how the TV writing staff/decision makers view large pieces of Dance of Dragons.

I still think Martin takes eight to finish.

[D'rek]

Maybe they'll just cut out Connington/Griff ever being on-screen in Esteros and ever meeting Tyrion or other main characters, but Connington/Griff will suddenly show up in Westeros with an invasion force in season 6. Basically, they cut out all the talky slow-reveal bits in Esteros and thereby can delay casting and paying those characters by a season...?

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

D, on 26 July 2014 - 06:53 AM, said:

Maybe they'll just cut out Connington/Griff ever being on-screen in Esteros and ever meeting Tyrion or other main characters, but Connington/Griff will suddenly show up in Westeros with an invasion force in season 6. Basically, they cut out all the talky slow-reveal bits in Esteros and thereby can delay casting and paying those characters by a season...?

In some ways I don't think this is entirely a bad thing. From memory (only read it once, and some time ago) nothing much happens in their Essos chapters

Spoiler

except the reveal of him being Aegon

- if they're trimming the fat for the show so to speak I don't think it needs all those dialogues. Maybe Illyrio will drop hints to Tyrion as a forerunner for them showing up in Season 6?

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 29 July 2014 - 07:26 AM

[Terez]

I'm wondering if Illyrio will even be cast this season. They made no mention of him, and I don't think we have seen Illyrio since season 1, so it should warrant an announcement of a returning actor or a recast.

I am guessing they're saving the Griff plotline for season 6. It would be very odd for them to cut it altogether, especially seeing as how Aegon's importance is as yet unknown. At least with Quentyn, we understand that it's not a terribly crucial plotline. Maybe after the Myrcella thing falls through, they'll send Trystane after Dany's hand? Apparently Cersei sends Jamie to Dorne to fetch Myrcella...but if Trystane dies, then Doran has no heir, since they apparently cut both Arianne and Quentyn.

[Gothos]

I'd be very disappointed if the Kingsmoot and Euron are not in the series. I'm a fan of House Greyjoy, and I don't much like only including Theon and Asha...

[Terez]

I am not a big fan of House Greyjoy, but I do like Victarion. He's like the puppydog of the Greyjoy family. Also, his story seems to be important, and while it's possible he's fated to be a dud like Quentyn, the whole everyone-is-chasing-Dany theme does add a certain gravitas to her situation.

[Terez]

Bran will not be in season 5:

https://au.news.yaho...themed-dj-tour/

Cersei's walk of shame will be in season 5, after a battle with the Croatian government:

http://www.idigitalt...onal-pressure-0

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

So, guess no flashbacks, even through weirwood.net?