None of the deviations really bothered me that much.
Kinda glad Tyrion and Jaime parted on good terms. I hated Tyrion's bitching and moaning in ADWD about Jaime.
Skeleton Warriors guarding that tree honestly I thought it was pretty cool. That whole scene gave me a warm tingly feeling, I was geeking out at how they said fuck it lets go all Conan and Dungeons & Dragons mode
Jon, Davos, Stannis and Mel Jon cremating Ygritte
Is it me or has Ciaran Hinds aged drastically since S3? his cheeks were all sunken in.
Qyburn treating The Mountain and Oberyn's poisoned spear YES!
Brienne vs. The Hound didn't bother me that much, like I said in the other thread my issues with that scene were down to horrible fast cuts spoiling my enjoyment of the duel.
Arya not treating The Hound, hmm I'll allow it. Makes sense considering where her arc goes.
Tyrion's scene with Tywin was perfect. Tyrion's scene with Shae was a little disappointing, it was better in the book IMO.
Cersei saying no to Tywin lol, that would never happen but Lena was good in the scene so I'll give her credit.
No Balon death. No Yara. No Theon, Ramsay or Roose. Actually I am fine with that cause S5 will probably be pretty heavy with those three.
No Eyrie eh makes sense I guess. It just means Sith Sansa is our last image of her arc from S4
No Tyrell's, hell have they even featured since Joff's death?
Dany's scenes were really strong. I liked seeing her struggle with the dilemmas of ruling a city.
Locking away her children in the catacombs
Again I thought the finale was one of the best in the entire series. It redeemed some of the bizarre decisions D & D have made this season.
About Tyrion's scene.
First of all, we cant blame people that didn't read the books
for misunderstanding that scene, D&D had acces to the source material and knew about Tyrion's intent,
then they proceeded to change the scene into something else entirely.
In the books he clearly murders Shae because he was pissed, the same with Twyin, in the show they changed that,
first with Shae going for the knife, so Tyrion could justify it be saying he was triying to defend himself, even
if not everybody agrees with this - i myself think it still doesn't justify the murder -, it is still a acceptable
interpretation of the scene, without Shae going for it, it would be more clear that tyrion was going to murder her anwyay.
The same with Tywin, his disregard for shae "justifies" tyrion shooting him, except it doesn't, but D&D and the
director tried to make it so anyway.
I think the big difference here is that though in the books both chracters gave Tyrion plenty of reason to be even more mad and frustrated than he alreay was it still didn't try to somehow give a more acceptable justification for his murders, the book puts Tyrion murdering them because he was pissed off and that's it, the should tried to, somehow, make the viewers think that "it wasn't that bad", "she was going for the knife", which just muddles the fact that his anger and frustration drove him to murder, and tries to make it acceptable, which is really not.
Dolan, I always thought that the Tyrion/Shae/Tywin scenes would be tough because in the book A LOT is going on in Tyrions head as the events play out. What we saw on the Tv show was good, but I agree it was a bit rushed, I feel they could've brought back the Tysha story from season 1 and then wrapped up the injustice Tywin has done to Tyrion all this life. Providing a stronger trigger / motivation for the murder.
I think that is the inherent problem with the show ( which will get worse as we go along ) too many characters and not enough time, so something will suffer as all these balls in the air, some will get dropped.
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"Robert was never the same after he put on that crown. Some men are like swords, made for fighting. Hang them up and they go to rust.” -DN
My main beef with the episode is the Tyrion scenes. They were so soooooo rushed!!!!! They lacked an ounce of the emotional ressonance they had in the books. As a fan of show!Shae I was expecting to be crushed Oberyn style with her death, and yet I was left completely cold. The "tyrion wakes up just as jaime comes to save him" convo was terrible. Didn't that scene deserve a bit more buildup, more tension? And the death of Tywin was one of the scenes I anticipated the most watching, but onscreen seemed so much blander... I was bummed at how that played out.
And then... WTF with the POTC skelletons and the videogame fireballs? How is that intriguing, eerie, or anything to add and not sustract from the whole cotf/bloodraven convo? I can even forgive them the unimaginative make up on them both. But the walking skelletons? the fireballs? if they were going that route, they should've just had some strange hands coming from the lake, pulling them down and fully pulling jojen. But seeing them fully fledge, all strings attached, it was comical. I fully expected a western style pianola to start autoplaying some catchy tune and them to start dancing.
-- Edited by Tir Airgid on Monday 16th of June 2014 02:04:58 PM
agreeeeeeeeeed missy! This show really doesn't know how to spend its money, I'm sure those skeletons costed a million of dollars and then they put the fucking dude in a tree without any CGI. This scene would have been so much better with a few hands out of the ground and finish it off with an ubercreepy Bloodraven. GRRM always tooke pride in writing horror and what he wrote was quite good, this what HBO did was no horror but just some cheesy shocktactics ugh. I did like how the Children looked, but those fireballs . And then Bloodraven was an epic letdown "shit we're out of money, one too many running skeleton!"
And I was glad they didn't skip the Poopkill, but goddamn it was underwhelming. Could we have had 5 more minutes please? People were freaking out how Tyrion would save his ass this time and all we got here was some checking boxes, no emotional impact whatsoever. Badbadbadbad.
I remembered this. WHAT THE FUCK IS MAH SHIREEN DOING IN CASTLE BLACK????
WHAT THE FUCK?
Edit: btw I don`t want answers talking about the blood of bladiblah SHUT UP.
-- Edited by andrea on Tuesday 17th of June 2014 10:41:59 PM
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"I´d not prolongued the chewing up, Doc. Nor the being spat out. Not go out a cunt. It´s the dispatch I find inglorious. The whole delusory fucking self importance.". Al Swedgin ;).
The Brienne/Hound showdown was an example of very smart plot culling and merging. Having Brienne be the one that whoops the hound instead of some no-names that I don 't remember from the books, worked amazingly well.
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"Robert was never the same after he put on that crown. Some men are like swords, made for fighting. Hang them up and they go to rust.” -DN
The Brienne/Hound showdown was an example of very smart plot culling and merging. Having Brienne be the one that whoops the hound instead of some no-names that I don 't remember from the books, worked amazingly well.
Hmm that's debatable. The scene was good but again just like Hot Pie divulging information it felt like fan service to me. Wasn't it Poliver or the Tickler's gang that wounded the Hound?
Speaking of the Tickler I am still fuming about D & D robbing Arya of killing him. That moment was so chilling in the books when she kept stabbing him and reciting his torture technique back to him.
I wont be too specific with lines of dialogue 'cause i'm too lazy for that so i'm just gonna list some stuff they cut from it that really improved the plot, in my opinion. The cut most of the gloat from affc, and there was a lot of that in there, gurm's writing is so fat!
No L.S. I really like her, but don't think she's necessary.
They reduced rorge and bitter to a minimum of time screen (and added an awesome homage in the process)
They fast-forwarded Bran's plot, removing Coldhands, and showing us how white-walkers come to existence.
Two battles at the wall becomes a big awesome single battle, and fast-forward to Stannis saving the day, plus no slynt taking over.
So yeah, most of the improvements were the result of budget restrictions, and might not have been there if the writer's hands weren't forced, but it still makes for a far more concise plot, less stale and more dynamic, with a lot less overuse of repetitive stuff.
And thank god for not "wherever whores go" next season.
Wasn't it Poliver or the Tickler's gang that wounded the Hound?
See? YOU don't even remember who the hell injured the Hound, the Tv show sure made it memorable didn't it?
I am glad that I have not read the books again since finishing ADWD, my memory is decent but it has faded a little after 3 years so I don't knitpick ( boy did I knitpick season 2 like crazy ).
I enjoy it more now that the facts are becoming more hazy.
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"Robert was never the same after he put on that crown. Some men are like swords, made for fighting. Hang them up and they go to rust.” -DN
You do realize that the majority of S4 was still ASOS? so we won't really see what's been cut from AFFC and ADWD until S5 and S6 have aired.
I disagree about Stoneheart and Coldhands. Stoneheart would of generated an incredible water cooler moment for unsullied and book fans alike. Introducing Coldhands would of vastly improved Bran's arc and frankly would of been more interesting than the whole Craster's Keep pit stop.
Rorge and Biter's scene was awful, just awful. They stole one of the few exciting moments in Brienne's arc to fluff up Arya and the Hound's arc this season.
The Wall stuff was common sense. Nobody was expecting a scene for scene adaption, only a movie directed by Peter Jackson could achieve that.
I do agree about ending Tyrion and Jaime's relationship on good terms, that's a rare example of D & D improving on George's work.
Hey Al, we're never going to agree on this, so i'll just not keep arguing, if you're really think the last two books were any good, i really don't think we're going to be on the same terms on whatever discussion that stems from them. I just think D&D have a hard work ahead of them and will need to improve on the crappy source material they have, which at this point is just book five, they covered most of book four already, except dorne if i remember correctly. Then, in 2016, they'll have to write mostly new stuff since gurm will probably not have finish book six by then, choo choo motherfucker!!!
Hey Al, we're never going to agree on this, so i'll just not keep arguing, if you're really think the last two books were any good, i really don't think we're going to be on the same terms on whatever discussion that stems from them. I just think D&D have a hard work ahead of them and will need to improve on the crappy source material they have, which at this point is just book five, they covered most of book four already, except dorne if i remember correctly. Then, in 2016, they'll have to write mostly new stuff since gurm will probably not have finish book six by then, choo choo motherfucker!!!
Don't get me wrong I think parts of AFFC and ADWD are good but I do agree they are poor in comparison to the previous novels. I read all five books back to back so perhaps that's why I didn't have such a strong reaction to them like some fans did.
It's D & D going oh I wonder what would happen if so and so crossed paths. And then they poop all over it with poor execution.
Disagree...Brienne's wild goose chase while looking for Sansa was one of the worst parts of book 4, I am thankful D&D nutted up and threw that shit out and streamlined it...elegantly in fact. The Hotpie scene and the Hound Vs Brienne scene are PRIME examples of how by simply by cutting, combining and bypassing bloat they will fix the issues of the awfulness that was book 4.
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"Robert was never the same after he put on that crown. Some men are like swords, made for fighting. Hang them up and they go to rust.” -DN
She was, but don't tell Andi her rants make my day!
Noone is going to touch her right?
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"I´d not prolongued the chewing up, Doc. Nor the being spat out. Not go out a cunt. It´s the dispatch I find inglorious. The whole delusory fucking self importance.". Al Swedgin ;).
honestly I thought it was pretty cool. That whole scene gave me a warm tingly feeling, I was geeking out at how they said fuck it lets go all Conan and Dungeons & Dragons mode 
Jon cremating Ygritte 
if they were going that route, they should've just had some strange hands coming from the lake, pulling them down and fully pulling jojen. But seeing them fully fledge, all strings attached, it was comical. I fully expected a western style pianola to start autoplaying some catchy tune and them to start dancing. 
but don't tell Andi her rants make my day! 
