THE GAME OF THRONES/ASOIAF SPOILER THREAD (WARNING: SPOILERS)

it kinda makes sense, particularly if they're gonna do the jon snow is dead + jon snow is (presumably) resurrected thing at some point. if they start killing people are bringing them back from the dead left and right it kinda kills the stakes to a degree for the viewing audience. the show's reputation is that they don't pull punches and zombie characters might feel like a pulled punch.

oh i didn't realise this was the spoilers thread. that's quite the opening post.

Haha, right at the top there? Yeah that got me too back in the day.

Prepare for the biggest head-exploding-in-shock moment "Game of Thrones" has ever served up.

Bran Stark and Hodor reportedly won't appear in "Game of Thrones" next season. The two were a part of a major storyline from last season as they ventured beyond The Wall and met The Children.

In a recent interview with Yahoo, Kristian Nairn, who plays the silent Hodor, said that both he and Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran) won't be returning for Season 5.

"We have a season off and we have a year's hiatus, solely because I imagine our storyline is up to the end of the books," he said. "So, I get my year off now to do Rave of Thrones and gallivant all over the world."

That's great that Hodor gets to keep busy DJing awesome raves, but seriously, what does this mean for "Game of Thrones"?! Dan Weiss and David Benioff couldn't have left their story at a more jarring point in Season 4.

HuffPost reached out to HBO, but the network declined to comment.

That's interesting, but hardly head-popping. I also don't think a lot of fans are going to be terribly disappointed, if this is a real thing.

Maybe in their place we'll be getting Rickon and Osha?

Bran is gonna be old as FUCK by the time they come back. Although I guess he is a tree now or whatever

They are waiting for enough advances to be made in CGI so that they can de-ageify actors

They are waiting for enough advances to be made in CGI the narrative so that they can de-ageify actors

We're probably gonna get more Dorne than anyone really wants.

Aw, I like Dorne. Better than the Iron Fucking Islands anyway.

No way I want to see Victarion's crazy squid helmet and tentacle cape.

Really both the Dornish and Ironborn plots in AFFC essentially come down to 'Yeah, we're sending a dude to get Dany'.

Dornish case was more, "We're sending a dude to get eaten by a dragon."

now shut up and eat your olives

or now shut up and drink your seawater

I'm quite intrigued as to what they'll do with the Dorne-plot. Because, yeah, the whole point of book four was that Oberyn had been sent to get Dany, but then book five followed him from much earlier on. Like, in a streamlined timeline he will only be revealed after he has already proposed to Dany. And an episode later he is eaten.

Just occurred to me that show only people have no idea she thinks of herself as 'Dany'.

I bet the way they do it, it will take way too long for that guy to be killed by the dragon. Plus there are a bunch of other sub-plots with the princess and the king's guard dude and the gout-y dad.

there has been no mention of Quentyn in the casting for the new season btw

Oh, Quentyn, that's right, Oberyn is his uncle. Man, I cannot remember who is who. Well, that puts a stop to what can happen in the Dany storyline this season. People will love that after all the excitement that was her in season four.

When do the zombies fight the dragons

All the dragons die of a surprise dragon virus on the way to fight the zombies at the start of book seven, the zombies wander around aimlessly in the North, remainder of the final book is Littlefinger, Lady Olenna and Prince Doran discussing heraldry atop the wall.

On the one hand I feel the zombie/dragon battle will be held to the last possible moment, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure he'll need a couple hundred pages to describe the courses at the victory feast.

don't forget the description of Dany's outfit and underclothes during the Dany/Jon Snow sex scene

Amidst all the liberties HBO's Game of Thrones has taken with the source material so far, and despite the promise that beloved characters alive in the books will die in the series, fans might have hoped that there was enough time not to spoil the novels. But we all saw this coming. In a recent appearance at the Oxford Union, showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff revealed that upcoming seasons of the show will have to start outpacing the books. That means that major developments author George R.R. Martin hasn't had time to write will show up onscreen first.

During the talk, Benioff reiterated that they've been talking with Martin about the story for years, and this was always a possibility. Still, it's a difficult move to make. "I kind of wish that there were some things we didn’t have to spoil," he said, "but we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. The show must go on, and that’s what we’re going to do."

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/23/8276911/game-of-thrones-hbo-dan-weiss-david-benioff-spoilers

they don't HAVE to spoil anything, they could stall with a season or two about rickon

A whole season devoted to Bran covering Darkthrone, Emperor and Immortal

would be interested to know if the show spoiling the books actually bothers any of the book fans here

Not really. But I'm notoriously not bothered about that kind of thing. I actually like knowing what's going to happen in novels.

I'm just as home reading asoiaf.wikia.com at this point if it means skipping all the chaff about what people eat and what they wear

I think I stop caring at some point in the last year. Maybe this is growing up

The timing
The structure
Did you hear
He fucked her

lol how this guy just cannot write the book he does not want to do it

he complained recently that he is having to cancel hanging out with hunnies at cons so he can write it, give the poor guy a break

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch

would be interested to know if the show spoiling the books actually bothers any of the book fans here

― Roberto Spiralli

Nah, happy to get the plot in visual form. Watching the show is more fun than reading the books.

I'm curious what impact it would have on the books if the show wound up pulling way ahead. Would Martin be stuck with the slog of repeating scenes that everyone already knows? Or would he concentrate more on filling in stuff that didn't make it into the show? It'd be a bit like becoming an expanded universe writer in your own universe.

Nah, happy to get the plot in visual form. Watching the show is more fun than reading the books.

With the books, I can imagine all the lady characters nakked, just speaking for myself, brah.

Unfortunately all the lady characters are 11 years old in the books.

hmm

Bump.

ok so here i will vent my impending horror about most likely having to see sansa the fates of jeyne poole/fake arya as depicted in dance with dragons.

aaaaaaaaaaauuggghhhhhhhh

(to be clear it'd be awful to see anyone undergo such a thing on film, this is not character favoritism

Yeah, that made me uncomfortable too -- are they going to substantially alter that story line? They've already changed Theon's sister's motive for returning to the mainland ... and then there's the Stannis group, but I imagine that this season all those things will happen

so that one of the climaxes of the season will be all those parties converging

for real wasn't one maniac sadist enough

(apologies repetitive post for those who've read nonspoiler thread where i posted this before I knew this one existed) interview w/ alfie allen strongly suggests that scene is happening - saying things like "there's a scene so disturbing i could barely finish filming it/it will make people be more revolted by ramsay and me (theon) than they were by joffrey"

on the other hand i would not be surprised if sansa takes baelish's admonition to heart and gets revenge on ramsay for that (and yknow for his general existence)

they seem to have totally shitcanned the iron islands stuff for now, which to some extent makes sense but it'd be cool to see more asha/yara greyjoy

i have been enjoying the season so far. i am fully on board with widening deviations and moving past the books. having said that, everything has been within the bounds of reasonable expectation so far, no apple carts upset, so we'll see what happens if they really change something. sansa to winterfell is so obvious it makes me wonder if it was GRRM's original intention before he started fucking around and what the hell he is doing with her otherwise.

one thing i will say about this season is that the tension between the widening scope of the story and the vehicle of intimate one-on-ones and character development scenes is starting to show strain. throughout the show there have been scenes where you wonder how they can burn 10 minutes on a given scene with so much else going on, particularly egregious when things were being dropped from the books left and right, but somehow it seems even worse as the narrative gets broader and less focused.

there are definitely things the show is doing better than the books in terms of moving the plot forward and adapting it for television, like eliminating fake Sansa and having Bron go to Dorne instead of the white knight dude whose name I forget. I think the only major divergence is Littlefinger sacrificing Sansa to Ramsey, where in the books I don't think he would do that.

i think that yes, sansa is going to suffer horribly at the hands of ramsay, but they will stop short of everything that happened in the book. Also think that in the end sansa will engineer ramsay's destruction and basically come out halfway to being miss littlefinger coldheart w/maybe an icier core than even arya has.