Game of Thrones - series 5

[BritishHobo]

Some beautifully refreshing quotes from HBO programming president Michael Lombardo in this article, regarding the length of the show:

"We'll have an honest conversation that explores all possible avenues," Lombardo says. "If they weren't comfortable going beyond seven seasons, I trust them implicitly and trust that's the right decision—as horrifying as that is to me. What I'm not going to do is have a show continue past where the creators believe where they feel they've finished with the story."

HBO isn't keen on a Thrones film even if it's a potential box office blockbuster, however, because the format switch could be construed as snubbing their loyal subscribers. (The showrunners won't comment on the matter.) "Certainly there have been conversations where it's been said, 'Wouldn't it be cool to do that?'" Lombardo said. "But when you start a series with our subscribers, the promise is that for your HBO fee that we're going to take you to the end of this. I feel that on some level [a movie would be] changing the rules: Now you have to pay $16 to see how your show ends."

There's a reassuring level of confidence from both HBO and the showrunners about not letting it run too long. There's some discussion in the article of a Breaking Bad/Mad Men style season-split - an idea that I'm surprised hasn't been prominently suggested before now - but overall it seems they've got it all mapped out from here, which is great to hear given the ambiguity that comes as a result of overtaking the books.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

What day of doom for him: 'We only got 7 seasons out of that expensive difficult to make show'.

[phantom_power]

You're only as good as your last hit though so it is understandable if they want to milk the cash cow, and brave that they seem to be not doing that

[NoSleep]

Although Breaking Bad has raised the bar considerably towards going out on a high.

[The Duck Man]

A game! Predict five characters you think will die in the new season. Obviously I'd prefer if known book-readers stayed out of it. I've only read the first one, but I'll put my guesses in spoiler tags anyway.

So, not actual spoilers...

Spoiler alert

Varys
Barristan Selmy
Ramsay Bolton
Roose Bolton
Selyse Baratheon

[close]

Your turn!

[Bizarro Mark Bosnich]

Apparently,

Spoiler alert

a major character is going to die in the series, one who's still alive in the books. The actor had this to say (anonymously) in Entertainment Weekly

[close]

:

Spoiler alert

"It proves you should probably not read the books. I thought this season I was going to have more to do, and I was really looking forward to that. And then I got my dates from my agent and I thought, 'That doesn't tally.' Because there was no way if they were sticking to the books I should be in it for that number of weeks. It seemed to me that they must be writing me out. The showrunners rang me up and told me, 'Your time is up in the series.' I'm disappointed but you have to accept that the demands of TV are different. I find myself being quite emotional about it. I'm going to miss it. Never mind being a professional, they're very nice people."

[close]

Spoiler alert

From this, I don't think the major character who's on the chopping block is Tyrion because I'm quite sure Dinklage once admitted that he hasn't read the books and doesn't want to read them while he's still working in the series. "You have to accept that the demands of TV are different" sounds like it's coming from someone who's more used to working in film. I know this does not discount Dinklage. Maybe it's Lena or Nikolaj?

[close]

Spoiler alert

But the death will be "heartbreaking" for viewers, which makes it seem like it's going to be Tyrion anyway.

[close]

[mothman]

Spoiler alert

Jamie Lannister, I reckon. Just because that quote above seems overly formal, as if English isn't his first language, so might be NKW; plus I think they've run out of things for him to do now he's not a complete bastard anymore.

[close]

[Bizarro Mark Bosnich]

Spoiler alert

Jamie Lannister, I reckon. Just because that quote above seems overly formal, as if English isn't his first language, so might be NKW; plus I think they've run out of things for him to do now he's not a complete bastard anymore.

[close]

Spoiler alert

Good call, unless the interview was edited to look that way before printing to misdirect amateur sleuths.

[close]

[Gurke and Hare]

Spoiler alert

I think it will be either Jamie or Brienne - one person is enough to have meandering aimlessly around the Riverlands.

[close]

[NoSleep]

Spoiler alert

I'm not looking under those spoilers you bastards

[close]

[DJ Solid Snail]

Benioff and Weiss confirm the TV show will overtake the books.

I suppose it was inevitable, given how much of a money-generating machine Game of Thrones is, and you can't exactly put it on hold for a year or two once the wheels are in motion. I know GRRM gets his cut, and it's hugely in his interest that this adaptation exists and continues to be successful, but considering how much the novels rely on plot twists and expectation-subverting, it just seems mightily disrespectful to spoil the rest of the series for book fans on his behalf. Yes, you could just not watch it, but the show's too big to avoid spoilers for it, not to mention all those TV fans who've been previously spoiled themselves by cunty book fans and will be out for revenge.

It saddens me to think that the first the world will see of the big developments at the climax of this epic series will be a heavily watered-down and clumsily-written version of events. All I can hope is that GRRM has devised some Littlefinger-esque long con in which he's told the showrunners a completely different ending, in order to protect the impact of his own.

Edit: Apologies for sounding like a massive Book Wanker _{(but they are loads better honestly)}

[NoSleep]

I suspect he will steer the books (or TV series from hereon) down another course to keep the book-people happy. I can't see anything else working very well.

[NoSleep]

It also means he can delegate more creative control for the TV series to the makers and concentrate on completing the books, which are at risk of never being finished were he to drop dead, which can't be discounted.

[Gulftastic]

sky Atlantic had coverage of the world premier last night. Sadly, Sue Perkins is now playing the 'super-fan' on their channel.

The woman who plays Brienne has a very loud and daft laugh.

[wooders1978]

Does this mean we might finally be getting: Winter, dragons and a game of thrones?

[BritishHobo]

I wonder how Martin feels about it. He pulled a lot of last-ditch ideas out of his bum recently - take the show off-air for a 'break' until he catches up, pad it out by doing a couple of seasons of prequel stuff, round it all out with movies that would take long enough that he'd have a chance to publish book seven.

I've always been a bit wary of that oft-repeated story of Martin sitting down with Benioff and Weiss and giving them all the details. I don't want to seem like I'm accusing him of maliciously stiffing them, but he's previously gone on record as saying he doesn't want anyone to finish the books if he dies, so I keep thinking he'd want to be the one to give his ending to his series, and if that means providing them a different ending, so be it.

But, while I wanna provide a different perspective to DJ Solid Snail as a book wanker who prefers the TV show, I'm unsure how things are going to be once the writers lose the steady ground of the books, and have to improvise 100%. We'll see, I guess. We'll all see...

[Hangthebuggers]

There's enough deviations from the books to suggest it may very well be going its own way - I like to think GRRM has told them the basic ending, allowing them to write along a certain path - allowing the author to continue finishing the books as he chooses, maybe he's bluffed the producers enough to justify two seperate entities of the same story.

Jaime for example

Spoiler alert

Is going to Dorne in the show (with Bronn), however in the books he's by now restoring peace to the Riverlands, negotiating with various Lords, ending a long siege and basically acting how a decent Knight/ Lord should. Also there's the whole Lady Stoneheart plot which involves Brienne, Pod and ultimately Jaime. With LSH excluded from the show, it's enough of a deviation for me to be happy now.

[close]

I generally think that some things may now be spoiled, but ultimately in the long run, both mediums will offer something different.

The books seem to be of grander scope (ice and fire, conspiracies, prophecies, much more backstory) whereas the show seems to be focused on the power struggle of the Iron throne (mostly).

[Jake Thingray]

Wouldn't watch the actual GoT thing if you paid me. But;

Sue Perkins is now playing the 'super-fan' on their channel.

So Sue is, however peripherally, involved with a programme that employs porn stars? Hmmmm..........

[mothman]

I'd say being involved in the direct promotion of the show is more than just peripheral. Why, does she have some thing against (oh, settle down at the back!) porn stars?

Is it just me or do they deliberately try to minimise the paranormal/supernatural/whatever elements of the show? On the one hand when such elements do appear, they're almost matter-of-fact - like Bran being able to do something wibbly-wobbly with people's heads and control them, or Danny just having to have a trio of dragons, or the fact the White Walers turn up every so often and collect babies. I'm probably not making myself clear here, it happens (even when I don't have cold). It's either not a part of what;'s going on, or when it is it is what it is, no-one's standing around saying "Fuck me, zombies!" So the scene with the skeletons at that tree attacking Bran & co was almost jarring because it wasn't what we're used to. Is there going to be more of that sort of thing as the show progresses? Have they preferred to stick to the sex & violence up until now to build a more-mainstream audience? Can I have some more paracetamol now?

[Gulftastic]

[NoSleep]

Is it just me or do they deliberately try to minimise the paranormal/supernatural/whatever elements of the show?

I wouldn't say they've minimised those elements so much as isolated them from the general perspective of the show, personified by Tyrion's down-to-earth attitude towards things magical. Stannis' arrival at The Wall marks the recognition by an important character (who has already been employing magic) that magic is a force to be reckoned with in this world.

The series started as the tide began to turn after magic had receded for several centuries, so the slow appearance and realisation of its return makes sense.

[Jake Thingray]

I'd say being involved in the direct promotion of the show is more than just peripheral. Why, does she have some thing against (oh, settle down at the back!) porn stars?

If you're unaware of this, and I can quite understand if you are, I desperately lust over the bespectacled Sapphist Radio 4 fixture, have improbable fantasies of her turning, and therefore am desperately clutching at the straw of her being connected to porn, however tenuously.

[Mobius]

That's not Sansa is it? Jeeeesus....

[BritishHobo]

I don't understand why the DVDs for this show hide subtitles for the Dothraki dialogue in the normal English subtitles. If you don't have them on permanently then you end up having to pause and rewind and switch them on, or just miss a whole conversation entirely.

You'd think by season four enough people would have pointed this out for them to do something about it.

[DJ Solid Snail]

Have you not learned Dothraki yet? Fucking lightweight...

[BritishHobo]

And sometimes there's bits that weren't even subtitled on HBO, because they're irrelevant, but there's no way to tell the difference. Big Valyrian speech at the end of episode 2, then I switched the subtitles off, then episode 3 starts with a Valyrian conversation between him off The Mimic and her off Hollyoaks so I rewound and turned 'em on, but it just says '(SPEAKS VALYRIAN' so I switched 'em off again and then there's another big fucking speech in fucking Valyrian. I hate the Daenerys scenes enough already without being required to actively participate in order to understand what's going on.

Commentaries are weirdly stilted so far too. Dan, Dan and Pedro Pascal barely talk on the first one, and the second one's a mish-mash - Alex Graves, Grr Martin, Anne Boleyn and Joffers, but they don't really say much either. Grr Martin just keeps talking about how different everything is to the book, and Joffers barely says a word. No commentary on episode three - perhaps wisely, otherwise somebody'd have to talk about that sex scene.

[Spiteface]

I don't understand why the DVDs for this show hide subtitles for the Dothraki dialogue in the normal English subtitles. If you don't have them on permanently then you end up having to pause and rewind and switch them on, or just miss a whole conversation entirely.

You'd think by season four enough people would have pointed this out for them to do something about it.

Yesterday I came to the end of my season 1-4 boxset,  after blitzing through the latter half of season 4 rather than sticking to my 1 or 2 episodes a day schedule. I am stuck waiting in real time.

Anyway, the Blu Ray version's default setting is to flash up subtitles just for Dothraki stuff. Don't know how the DVDs work, but you'd think they'd put in a subtitle track that just does the bits that are in a different language like that.

[TheFalconMalteser]

It saddens me to think that the first the world will see of the big developments at the climax of this epic series will be a heavily watered-down and clumsily-written version of events.

I appreciate you're no doubt a fan of the books - but having read them all myself by this point they are pretty substandard fiction.  From what began as a fairly well constructed bit of political intrigue, not a million miles away from In the Name of the Rose or House of Cards... jesus, it's a shocker by this point.  Whole books pass where bugger all occurs, in the last two books I can only think of the Cersei plot line that is interesting.  Characters are thrown across the globe without any sense of purpose.  New people are introduced by this point, again with fairly aimless goals and characters.

So - I suppose I'd say be happy that it has been taken up and there is at least a likelihood of the plot being resolved.  It would be very surprising, wouldn't it, if he lives to complete it?  Probably doing him a massive favour as my own guess is he hasn't the foggiest how to complete it in a satisfactory way.

[NoSleep]

A good thing that was all put behind a spoiler seeing this is the TV series thread (as good as we've come to expect from Borboski).

[TheFalconMalteser]

Oh jesus, where is the spoiler? That I don't think the books are very exciting?

We know that the tv show is deviating from the books, it certainly has from S1 is terms of pacing which is a large part of why the tv show has stayed engaging beyond that first series.