Commentary on "Fire and Blood"

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

I too have felt the books have been going down-hill for sometime. The last was particularly bad and slow moving. Looking forward to the next book though, it is a huge tome and some good characters are back.

On the tv series, I've liked it more than the books. Easier to follow, wonderfully acted in most parts, good fights, the music was used in a stunning fashion--really draws you in.

Good point on picking up how inept it portrayed Tyrion in combat against the Northern forces (but not against the raiders). I do remember he did well in the books, and was not just knocked out and then mocked by Bronn. An opportunity missed there. And they were doing so well with Tyrion (how perfect is Tywin in the series?).

"Roz the Magical Exposition Whore." Lol, awesome title.

If they play their cards right (directing cards that is), they can cram the boring parts of the books into a smaller space, or skip many of them entirely. The merits of a show over a book I say.

Now that season 1 is done, I actually plan to run a D&D game where the players are Lannister guards. There are more than a few things they can get involved in, and influence. Or maybe Jory/Ned/Robb's men will just kill them.

 

[RandV80]

The verbal sparring between LITTLEFINGER and VARYS was a sheer pleasure to behold. The two spymasters one-upping each other on what they know the other knows verged on poetry. For that scene to be reprised in "Fire and Blood" was wonderful, and set up perfectly how the machinations of these two will continue in the second season.

This is one of those things personally I wasn't sure about. Oh their bantering was great, but it's how you put it, the two 'spymasters'. This is exactly the way it comes off in the show, but Littlefinger isn't a spymaster he's the master of coin. Sure he'll have his own spy network, but Varys is the real spymaster with knowledge that borders on black magic, and a master of disguise too boot! Littlefinger is the schemer who you give two gold coins to rub together and two more will fall out. The show sets them up as Spy vs Spy, but in the source material it's more Wall Street vs CIA. It's not that big a deal really, it just bothers me a little because having Littlefinger as a spymaster too kind of makes Varys redundant. Not only can he do The Spider's job but he's the pimp daddy of Kings Landing to boot!

As for the show, this about sums it up for me.

Spoiler

10/10!

 

[El_Ganso]

@Noelveiga: have you read the books or are you just passing judgement on them based on a TV adaptation? because if you have read the books then okay I can entertain your points and have a discussion on them, but if you haven't then all I can say is "Don't judge a book by it's TV adaptation".

I'm an avid reader, I have more books than I have time to read them, but I have to say that A Song of Ice and Fire took my cynical "I've seen it all" attitude and gave it a slap so hard that I can't do anything but applaud GRRM for being such a great story teller and say "Well Played". I believe, and frankly I think a lot of the hardcore GRRM fans would agree, that Book 1 of A Song of Ice and Fire has enough material for a 20 episode season, but what we got in these 10 episodes is so good that we actually feel grateful that they tried so hard to be so true to the source material on such a low budget and time constraints.

Anyone that wants to have a real opinion about GRRM should go read the books (there's a reason English teachers want their students to actually read a book and not just the cliffnotes)


Anyway, I have to add a few things to the general discussion: There are 3 main things I feel the TV series missed out on.

1.- Sansa betraying her father's plan to Cersei to accentuate in the future just how misserable Sansa's life has become.

2.- The Hound taking the mantle of King's Guard but not taking the oath: Cersei pretty much turned the King's Guard into a laughing stock when she dismissed Ser Barristan, but then when they offer a position to The Hound and he says "I'll wear the cloak but I will not take any vows" to the council's face and they just sit there and take it, that gives a whole lot of insight into just how bad things are getting in the capitol and the disdain Sandor has for the nobility.

3.- When Daenerys first asks the Dothraki for their Blood Oaths and they refuse her: At Drogo's pyre Daeny wants to rebuild the khalasar and she asks her remaining riders to be her Blood Riders, but they all refuse her because she's a woman and thus weak, but after she comes out of the fire with three baby dragons they can't fall fast enough to their knees, and this is something that serves to illustrate just how every other man of power treats Daeny when they first meet her: try to bed her cause she's hot, but then fear her cause she commands some Dothraki barbarians and she has 3 dragons.

 

[fulano]

"Historical accuracy" is used because they are researched and intended to be historically accurate to medieval customs. That's why. It's not some kind of "nerd delusion." That's just ignorance speaking on your part.

This. Fantasy is always stronger to me when it has real-world analogues, and Martin does that expertly. This is the reason I prefer playing D&D with rules that adhere to how humans actually lived in history, rather than supermen with super human powers at level one. And it's why Game of Thrones resonates with so many people, especially me.

Wait, what? It's a fantasy story, it's no more historically accurate than Star Wars. Going back to Dune, yes, it was loosely based on Lawrence of Arabia, but that doesn't make anything "accurate" in it. The thought that Game of Thrones conveys anything real about any time period is ridiculous. That doesn't make it bad or less enjoyable, but it's certainly giving it waaaay too much credit as a history lesson. It's fantasy and escapism, as it should be.

That doesn't mean it doesn't feel plausible. It does. It has its own internal sense of logic that makes it feel like it's grounded in *a* reality (well, most of the time, I have quite a few gripes on that area), but it's certainly not our reality at any point in time. And maybe "nerd delusions" is a bit strong, but it's certainly extremely nerdy to not realize this. It's close to comic book geeks talking about what happens to Superman as if he were a real person. Case in point: " Tyrion defeats one knight and takes another hostage in the battle. He is no great warrior, but he holds his own, and I don't think the show really did Tyrion justice."

Who have you been talking with, then? Nobody has been making it up to be as something groundbreaking and original as you were expecting it to be. Those particular plot strands, especially, have been around for thousands of years and you could fill the back of trucks with all kinds of different stories about the same thing. JRRM just does it exceptionally well, that's all.

This from Greg in last week's post:

"Martin rips away Stark's duty and honor, and kills him off anyway. This scene is what sets Martin's story apart from all the fantasy that has come before. Sure, Gandalf dies, but he comes back again. Snape kills Dumbledore, but that's kinda what he wanted. None of these compare to the pathos behind the death of Ned Stark."

TV.com about this week:

"That may sound like a whole lot to keep track of, but somehow?and I'm still trying to figure out exactly how?Game of Thrones has managed to take this complex web of stories and make it easily digestible. Just step back and consider of how many things are going on, how many characters you've met, how everything is interconnected, and how far you've come to understand this world that is now impossible to remove from your imagination. It's a universe so rich and deep, with even its smallest parts described in the most specific detail, yet it's just getting started. And the real mind-blower is that it all came out of just one person's brain. Spring 2012 can't come soon enough!"

So, yeah. And that's just the professional writers, not even the unwashed masses of nerds.

Wait, wait...what? Are you implying that JRRM actually invented the whole damn thing? Sorry, but no. Just no. There's a bunch that is actually borrowed.

He did not invent a lot of the customs, societal mores, cultural norms, war strategies, tournament rules, etc., etc., etc. Whether the story is ficticious or not is of no consequence to it being historically accurate in function of our own world. That's, well, I'd think it was just obvious but apparently I was way wrong. Hell, in his homepage JRRM pretty much says so himself, and posts a bunch of links he used to do actual research for the books, making huge emphasis on medieval culture.

Also, those quotes? They don't really further your argument. Read them again. Nobody is calling the series an unseen, unique kind of drama. All they are saying is that it is expertly crafted. You are extrapolating way too much.

 

[Rusman]

I agree wholeheartedly, my friend showed me the first episode and I was instantly hooked. Ended up reading the first and majority of the second book before the series was finished and now cannot wait for spring to starts seeing some kings clashing.

There was a couple of additional things that annoyed me in the series though, drawing on your disappointment of Tyrion not getting to kick a little bit of ass in Tywin's battle I thought that they seemed to gloss over the entire battle and the whispering woods fight. It would have been nice to see a little bit more action especially as that is quite a major climax section in the books.

Also in the last episode, the scene with Catelyn and Jaime doesn't happen until the very end of the second book, and is quite different (bare in mind I haven't finished book 2 just yet) as I saw it, the scene finishes with Catelyn taking her guards sword and possible killing Jaime which would make sense as

She thinks that Bran and Rickon have been killed by Theon

Just seemed a little odd to put it in so early...

 

[RandV80]

Thank you for the thoughtful and contagiously giddy commentary throughout the season, Mr. Tito, I've greatly enjoyed it. I've yet to catch the final episode, knowing all too well the inevitable, inexplicable emptiness I'll feel once it's over and the credits roll. I'm sure I'll be better served by savouring it for when my mood is perfect, and I have a whole evening to properly absorb it.

Funny thing is, before this series started, I did not count myself a great Martin fan, having found the latest title lacking, but now my excitement has been ignited yet again, and I am eager to consume the newest title. Hopefully, it will be more focused than Feast and prove that Martin actually knows where he intends to take this jumbled narrative.

Well keep your expectations in check, early previews suggest Dragons is paced similarly to Crows. Which makes perfect since actually, since they're really intended to be a single book in the series but it got too convoluted and Martin had to split it into two. The good news is instead of Cersei/Jamie/Brienne getting the bulk of the chapters it will be Jon/Dany/Tyrion. Also once they're caught up to speed to where Crows was in the latter half of the book the story will proceed ahead. And finally, while these two books took 10 years for GRRM to write, there were only 2 year waits for Clash and Storm. So now that he's over the hump you can be cautiously optimistic that book 6 will only be a 2-3 year way.

 

[MatsVS]

Thank you for the thoughtful and contagiously giddy commentary throughout the season, Mr. Tito, I've greatly enjoyed it. I've yet to catch the final episode, knowing all too well the inevitable, inexplicable emptiness I'll feel once it's over and the credits roll. I'm sure I'll be better served by savouring it for when my mood is perfect, and I have a whole evening to properly absorb it.

Funny thing is, before this series started, I did not count myself a great Martin fan, having found the latest title lacking, but now my excitement has been ignited yet again, and I am eager to consume the newest title. Hopefully, it will be more focused than Feast and prove that Martin actually knows where he intends to take this jumbled narrative.

Well keep your expectations in check, early previews suggest Dragons is paced similarly to Crows. Which makes perfect since actually, since they're really intended to be a single book in the series but it got too convoluted and Martin had to split it into two. The good news is instead of Cersei/Jamie/Brienne getting the bulk of the chapters it will be Jon/Dany/Tyrion. Also once they're caught up to speed to where Crows was in the latter half of the book the story will proceed ahead. And finally, while these two books took 10 years for GRRM to write, there were only 2 year waits for Clash and Storm. So now that he's over the hump you can be cautiously optimistic that book 6 will only be a 2-3 year way.

Fair points. However, I remain cautiously optimistic concerning Dance, if only because Martin decided to rewrite nearly the whole thing. Hopefully, he saw what we all did; that he was skirting dangerously close fantasy-soap-Jordan-esque territory.

As for the next instalment, I can only hope you're right. History does indicate as much.

In any case, I am more than happy to allow the woefully under-appreciated R. Scott Bakker to continue to dominate my fantasy-reading habits, as he has for the past few years. My love for him is several degrees beyond practically everyone else, with only a few exceptions.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Well at least this was a hell of a lot better than the adaptation of the Sword of Truth novels. That really screwed the pooch when it came to storyline and books.

 

[MetalDooley]

Great ending to a great series.I'm delighted with the dragons as if they had looked shit then it could have spoiled the final episode.Roll on July 12th because I need my next fix

Well at least this was a hell of a lot better than the adaptation of the Sword of Truth novels. That really screwed the pooch when it came to storyline and books.

Agreed.I hope the people responsible for Legend of the Seeker watched Game of Thrones and feel ashamed of themselves for what they did to Terry Goodkind's work

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Great ending to a great series.I'm delighted with the dragons as if they had looked shit then it could have spoiled the final episode.Roll on July 12th because I need my next fix

Well at least this was a hell of a lot better than the adaptation of the Sword of Truth novels. That really screwed the pooch when it came to storyline and books.

Agreed.I hope the people responsible for Legend of the Seeker watched Game of Thrones and feel ashamed of themselves for what they did to Terry Goodkind's work

What did you think of the Gars in the series? I thought they were an awful product of the series low budget. I thought they should have looked like this or some sort of thing like a Zangoose pokemon with wings.

 

[MetalDooley]

What did you think of the Gars in the series? I thought they were an awful product of the series low budget. I thought they should have looked like this or some sort of thing like a Zangoose pokemon with wings.

Yeah they looked crap,the pic you posted is pretty much how I imagined them too,but that was more to do with the effects budget than anything else.What annoyed me was how much of the story they blatantly changed/omitted/invented.There was whole episodes that had absolutely nothing to do with the books.It's like they had no respect for the source material at all

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Yeah they looked crap,the pic you posted is pretty much how I imagined them too,but that was more to do with the effects budget than anything else.What annoyed me was how much of the story they blatantly changed/omitted/invented.There was whole episodes that had absolutely nothing to do with the books.It's like they had no respect for the source material at all

Yeah the Jensen and Parentage of certain characters did really piss me off. They skip and mixed in so many books in the two series.

 

[tzimize]

A glimpse of Jaqen..... I am so pissed I have to wait for more!!!!!!

I wonder who will play the Onion Knight, and Briene the Beauty. Those are my only worries for the second season.

Great recap.... but I have to ask...

I even thought that Robert Jordan's successor did a better job keeping my interest, which sounds like blasphemy but it was true.

What does that mean?

The new books are amazing... we all know Jordan had his wife write the last few books anyways, eh?

Would you rather the series never be continued?! Or did you miss the 700 page woman's circle talk?

/half kidding

I worry about the casting of Brienne too. I'm afraid she wont be ugly enough. Brienne looks awful in my head and I'm really scared she will be prettied up for television. Like ugly betty style....ooooh shes so "ugly" in her glasses and braces and "WOW" suddenly she is beautiful!

Make her suitably ugly and mannish please. Not a sexy tomboy :<

 

[fulano]

SNIP!

I don't think we'll come to an agreement. We're coming from two different places, I think.

Nice chat, though.

 

[fulano]

SNIP!

I don't think we'll come to an agreement. We're coming from two different places, I think.

Nice chat, though.

Yep. Agreed on all counts

I just want to clarify that I do like Game of Thrones. I just don't think it's a TV or fantasy revolution in any way. It's... competent. I watch it. Gladly. It's just not the first thing on my weekly to-watch list.

Fair enough.

Whether it is revolutionary depends on how you look at it. As it stands, it is one of the first fantasy series of this generation to treat the situations that present themselves in a serious manner beyond what had been the staple of the genre; but yes, we already saw this kind of treatment, but with a sparser and more to the point prose, in Dune a good, good while back before it became "cool."

As for it being a TV series, it could be said that it is groundbreaking, thematically speaking, if only because they succeeded in portraying the content so successfully, and so far nothing of that scope was ever attempted. The closest thing I've seen to this thing has been the first Dune mini series, which I absolutely loved (way closer to the source material than the abomination David Lynch churned out).

But I guess it all gets down to taste. I'm much more enthusiastic to digest this sort of thing as it seems to be the first time where I'm actually having a bunch of fun with an unabashed Fantasy series that treads on grounds that I do not find annoying, for the most part--it's just a bunch of dumb, backwards people fighting for what an uncomfortable chair represents while being totally obvlivious of the massive clusterfuck of brick-shitting proportions that is heading their way. On the otehr hand, you may already have had more experience with the genre than I do and are, likely, more familiar with the tropes being played.

 

[fulano]

SNIP!

I don't think we'll come to an agreement. We're coming from two different places, I think.

Nice chat, though.

Yep. Agreed on all counts

I just want to clarify that I do like Game of Thrones. I just don't think it's a TV or fantasy revolution in any way. It's... competent. I watch it. Gladly. It's just not the first thing on my weekly to-watch list.

Fair enough.

Whether it is revolutionary depends on how you look at it. As it stands, it is one of the first fantasy series of this generation to treat the situations that present themselves in a serious manner beyond what had been the staple of the genre; but yes, we already saw this kind of treatment, but with a sparser and more to the point prose, in Dune a good, good while back before it became "cool."

As for it being a TV series, it could be said that it is groundbreaking, thematically speaking, if only because they succeeded in portraying the content so successfully, and so far nothing of that scope was ever attempted. The closest thing I've seen to this thing has been the first Dune mini series, which I absolutely loved (way closer to the source material than the abomination David Lynch churned out).

But I guess it all gets down to taste. I'm much more enthusiastic to digest this sort of thing as it seems to be the first time where I'm actually having a bunch of fun with an unabashed Fantasy series that treads on grounds that I do not find annoying, for the most part--it's just a bunch of dumb, backwards people fighting for what an uncomfortable chair represents while being totally obvlivious of the massive clusterfuck of brick-shitting proportions that is heading their way. On the otehr hand, you may already have had more experience with the genre than I do and are, likely, more familiar with the tropes being played.

Well, it's closer to being a first in doing the scope and the tone *for a fantasy setting*. It's just that there's a ton of other stuff (a lot of it on HBO, to be fair) that is very close in many ways. Rome was all for the frontal nudity and backstabbing political intrigue, Boardwalk Empire is close in tone, the Sopranos comparisons started before the show did.

It just so happens that HBO has decided to do one of these very tonally specific shows actually set in a fantasy universe rather than a historical period.

And yeah, like you said, not even the first go at that. Even less so if you count fantasy and sci-fi as the same genre and start thinking about BSG and Walking Dead as well. So unique? Not quite, but definitely... well, rare.

That is not a fully positive thing, at least for me. There's this weird uneasiness I get when people are too caught up in the fiction (like I said above, talking about historical accuracy or referring to the characters as if they were real people). I guess it's residual nerd shame but, deep down, I'm not entirely sure that anybody should be taking the process of hatching dragon eggs this fucking seriously. Really, a naked woman wrapped in dragons spawned out of the ashes of her dead lover? And that remote, shit-bricking-proportioned threat you talk about? It seems to be a straight-up zombie horde. Which exists in the same universe as the naked dragon lady. Somebody somewhere should be acknowledging the silly in that concept, and nobody is.

That may well be what prevents it from getting me excited past the "yeah, it's ok" mark. The continuous geekgasm induced by everybody involved with the production taking these concepts so damn *sternly*, if that makes sense. I mean, the protagonists are called "the Starks", for God's sake.

Abso-damn-lutely. I, personally, joke with my brother about the Fast-Zombies-with-Swords. For some reason, I'm taken way back to the time when BSG was still on the air and people were shunning the show as 'good' but not 'good enough', and then came this how and everyone began lapping it when the tropes they are lauding now are kind of repeated anyways.

As a drama, it is a solid one, but it's not like it hasn't been done before. But, at the same time, I try to look at it from a glass half-full perspective. I'm just happy I'm getting a fine story and don't care too much if it isn't too ground breaking as long as it is finely crafted, and A Song of Ice and Fire definitely is expertly so.

And as for the process for taking the hatching of dragon eggs so fucking seriously, well, I'll play the contrarian here: Them Dragons are the equivalent of fucking Drones for backwards, medieval twats. I'm finally starting the third book of the series and so far people always tell the stories about how when dragons were unleashed in the battlefield as if it was some kind of reenactment of showering dudes with napalm.

I mean, jeez, imagine if you could tame Assault drones that spewed napalm and farted mustard gas. That would be pretty rad.

The concept in itself is pretty fucking silly but nevertheless fun and meaningful when taken within the context of the story. A good example would be how The Nights Watch aka The Border patrol are not supposed to have kids because of something or other having to do with fucking duty, and still it somehow carries a sense of pathos for the characters.

I just take the good with the bad and enjoy the ride.