#or the erasure of lady stoneheart

[horizon-verizon]

I stopped thinking about B&C = red wedding because it seems like a ...Misinterpretation? because I don't think that would have ever happened on the show. What made RW so terrible how was it?

Emotional component: Helaena's pain and desperation, the brutality of the election and that the children have to present that.That component is gained with a. Screen time and/or. b. memorable scenes

hotD has already mostly failed in that aspect unlike Robb and Cat who we knew for three seasons and followed their story that already had a good emotional baggage . It's also not the first time they've failed in that regard, despite having enough "character-establishing" scenes I personally didn't feel invested enough in Luke to care about Luke's death. Helaena's children had even less than that and it took away some of the trauma that happens around

-scenography: HotD has a SERIOUS pacing problem since the first season and even when I think the music choices are well made to build tension it gets lost because the rest of the scene is not up to scratch. They take things from point a to point b without time for it to build and have weight for the viewer and the characters.We don't get to "live" the feelings of the scene, it's flat.

All good, but those are problems due to the script and direction, does that mean that being better written would be what the fans wanted?

I don't think either

If you see TG's posts, the comparison comes from that moment of great horror and pain, they were preparing to recreate how horrible the death of an innocent person was, the beginning of the war and that they were attacked in an environment that is considered safe. That level of horror is surely comparable to TRW?!

except that... No

This horror that comes from the loss of customs and traditions that should have kept the characters safe and that leads to a massacre... It is the death of Lucerys. It is Lucerys who was protected by his role as envoy just as Robb and his men were protected by guest rights.

There is also a deletion of the aspects that canon!book attributed to the death of Luke/visenya to give them to the death of Jaehaerys :

The war begins with the death of Luke, not Jaehaerys, no matter what the new trailer/Aegon wants to try to say.The first child victim of the war was Lucerys/Visenya, not Jaehaerys (and it must have been more obvious because Elliott was actually old enough to look like a child).The first mother to feel the pain and loss is Rhaenyra, not Helaena and Alicent. Luke's death doesn't justify B&C, but Jaehaerys' death justifies Rhaenys' death (just as Maelor's death apparently justifies a massacre). Somehow they (TG) end up writing in a way that makes me just hear Book!Alicent saying that bastard blood doesn't matter, because instead of judging both events as the tragedies they were (because neither was good) they want the justification to be victims and have the moral ground to attack and massacre (the same way TRW's brutality justified the whole "the north remembers" plot or Lady Stoneheart/Arya's massacre).

Everything that turned TRW into the horror that it was, fails in HotD both because of the script and accumulated flaws and because of a misunderstanding of what made the scene so horrible.I'm not saying that B&C wasn't horrible, but in the case of the fan analysis I'm looking askance because, once again, I see an erasure of the pain and history of the black to give it to the greens.

This horror that comes from the loss of customs and traditions that should have kept the characters safe and that leads to a massacre... It is the death of Lucerys. It is Lucerys who was protected by his role as envoy just as Robb and his men were protected by guest rights.

You make a great catch. One small reminder: Jaehaerys' death is arguably kinslaying (another taboo act that is a break of customary protections), as he's Daemon's grand nephew, unless kin slaying is only about first cousins, child, parent, sibling, uncle, niece? IDK how far kinslaying in Westeros extends.

The first mother to feel the pain and loss is Rhaenyra, not Helaena and Alicent. Luke's death doesn't justify B&C, but Jaehaerys' death justifies Rhaenys' death (just as Maelor's death apparently justifies a massacre). Somehow they (TG) end up writing in a way that makes me just hear Book!Alicent saying that bastard blood doesn't matter, because instead of judging both events as the tragedies they were (because neither was good) they want the justification to be victims and have the moral ground to attack and massacre.

--AND--

I see an erasure of the pain and history of the black to give it to the greens.

EXACTLY! That is what it is and has been.

[artcinemas]

is the got show really that bad? I've only read the books (few as they have been... but i digress) and always thought got was an idiotic adaptation which non-reader fans still liked such as the hunger games movies

it wasn't as bad in the earlier seasons but it became objectively worse during the later seasons (season five onwards). i mean season three and four my beloveds but as someone who read the books after watching the show and then rewatched the show after reading the books...the characters seem different and not cooked properly iykwim. many people will say that grrm didn't publish winds (he hasn't yet) that's why d&d had issues...like no. remember the lady stoneheart debacle? besides even though the characters of colour in the books were subjected to orientalist tropes since the beginning, i feel they were still more fleshed out in the books than the show (*kicks the show dorne plot into hellfire*) they removed and changed so many important characters (bisexual jon snow erasure....a crime), it almost felt seeing a woobiefied fanfiction sometimes. i could go on a huge essay on how the show is messed up but i feel too lazy to write it at the moment.

[kvtnisseverdeen]

the lady stoneheart erasure in game of thrones was criminal

[tibby]

got was already shaky in s4 but it fell off when d&d decided to twist character motivations and forgo any internal logic so sansa could be raped by ramsay

yeah i was just thinking about how like. a lot of people were shocked that it turned out got was anti feminist bc of what happened to dany as if it hadn't aggressively hated women for years. like this was a show that looked at its source material (which already had. countless acts of sexual assault within it) and decided that. hm. women aren't being violently assaulted or being murdered enough. better completely change this character's storyline so now she can be raped because her actress turned eighteen. let's have one of the few male characters is the show who abhors violence towards women rape his sister. oh this actress no longer wants to do nude scenes? time to have her character tied to a bed and violently killed.

[agentrouka-blog]

How do you think Arya will leave faceless men? Do you think it will happen like show?

The tv show leaned heavily into the maternal angle with Lady Crane, most likely to compensate for the erasure of the Lady Stoneheart plot. (I made a post about it here.)

It's bound to be a little different in the books. While there is a Lady Stork (!) in the mummer company, her penchant for wine mirrors Cersei more than Catelyn, and Arya is giving us no indication about what she feels over the plot of The Bloody Hand, even though it obviously involves her own sister and the death of King Joffrey. The far more important event during her sample chapter is not the refusal to kill but the actual kill: Raff the Sweetling, personal guard to the Lannister envoy Harys Swift, master of coin, come to beg the Iron Bank of Braavos for negotiations, no doubt, as prepared in Kevan's Epilogue to ADWD.

We know the Iron Bank already has an envoy sent to Stannis, who signed off on repaying all of the loans. Has Tycho made it back? Has he written? Will Raff's disappearance influence events? Will that, in turn, cause trouble for Arya?

"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," she sang sadly. A foolish, giddy girl she'd been, but good hearted. She would miss her, and she would miss Daena and the Snapper and the rest, even Izembaro and Bobono. This would make trouble for the Sealord and the envoy with the chicken on his chest, she did not doubt.

She would think about that later, though. Just now, there was no time. I had best run. Mercy still had some lines to say, her first lines and her last, and Izembaro would have her pretty little empty head if she were late for her own rape. (TWOW, Mercy)

No matter quite what the political outcome of her actions will be, the Faceless Men are likely to retaliate against her insistence on acting as Arya Stark. They don’t like that. The last time, they blinded her. What will happen this time? A test of loyalty? A punishment that finally drops the veneer of benevolence? The revelation of their true purpose with Arya of House Stark? 

I can’t imagine they would just happily send her on her way with a pat on the head for killing the waif and asserting her identity like they did on the show. Her parting is likely to be a lot more traumatic and hostile than that. 

[alicentflorent]

Jon, Cersei and Dany took Aegon's plot. Jon took his popularity with people, Cersei took his kingship at the time of Dany's invasion, Dany took the allegiances of Westerosi houses to him. Arya took Lady Stoneheart's Frey plot, and Jon and/or Bran's Long Night (which is admitted by D&D). By this logic, D&D wanted to make Jon and Arya more important than what they will be in the books. (Tbc, I totally agree with you. Aegon/Dorne and Sansa's Vale plot was glossed over for the same reason: it required more political nuance than what "political genuis" Tyrion's funny one liners require..)

Exactly. They also basically erased Elia and her children from the narrative by making lyanna rhaegars wife and literally giving jon aegon’s name and trueborn claim. Yet there is no outrage from the fandom about aegons erasure.

[malyen0retsev]

game of thrones as a show began to fall apart when they began deviating from grrm’s books for many reasons, but one of the reasons nobody talks about enough is the elimination of the small folk from the plot

the brotherhood without banners were absolutely railroaded, this society of people who genuinely represent the small folk (they have no banners! bc they don’t have allegiance to a house or high lord!), have a system where you can be part of it whether you’re high born or low born (lord beric - highborn. gendry - lowborn, and goes on to become a knight), look after orphans, and genuinely are part of representing the small folk

arya’s book chapters are stacked full of her interactions with the small folk, and part of this is due to the brotherhood without banners i’m about to go on a millionth rant about why removing lady stoneheart from the show was so stupid unless i’m careful

and the lack of this is important and does fundamentally change the nature of the story being told - and is why that final dragon pit scene, electing a new king, felt so... flat. sam suggested the small folk being allowed to vote and they laughed. don’t get me started on the hundreds of reasons why that’s so disrespectful, but given gendry and davos were small folk for the majority of their lives it becomes even more ridiculous

the thing that the brotherhood without banners in the books did (and arya’s chapters with them, and later brienne’s) was remind the audience of who is actually affected when the highborns play all their political games. it is them who pay the price, who are dragged into wars when they have no personal grudge against any lords or ladies in particular. the brotherhood in the books are inherently good. but to show the small folk so complexly was beyond d&d, apparently.

“It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.” He gave a shrug. “They never are.”

this is what jorah tells dany in AGOT. this is something beating throughout all of the books, and is a key point GRRM is trying to make. he often speaks about how the LOTR ending left him unsatisfied, because simply saying Aragorn was a good, kind king didn’t answer enough questions for him. what was aragorn’s tax policies? what was his foreign policy? how did he deal with the leftover orcs in mordor, just on gondor’s borders? you cannot create a story about ruling, talking about whether a ruler is good or not, without that story actually looking and depicting the lives of those that rule will impact most - and that is the small folk. hell, even the two characters who are raised from small folk to lord (davos and gendry) immediately have that essentially erased from them; they are not allowed to speak up for the small folk whatsoever in that meeting. this is all lords and ladies business now. their background is removed.

that’s why the ending felt so flat. because jon is imprisoned, king’s landing has just been burned down, and there’s been no king or queen for weeks at this point - and life just?? carries on?? who’s been taking care of what’s happened to the small folk of king’s landing? what will be done to help them now their city has been burned down? bran is a wonderful character, and i will not accept slander towards him, but by just ‘dumping him’ into the king role because he would be a ‘good, kind king’ is a direct contradiction of what GRRM intended with asoiaf. none of the questions he wants to answer are addressed through the way the ending was done in the show.

the people most impacted by what has happened are the small folk. yet it is the high borns, once again, who are sat around discussing who will lead them, with zero regard for those they will actually be serving. the people who are the seven kingdoms are erased from this discussion. and the erasing of them from this plot began with the erasure of the brotherhood without banners - the real brotherhood, who would never have sold gendry to melisandre, because the whole point of the brotherhood is they do not value these games. they value the actual people who populate the seven kingdoms. 

that lack of erasure in the books will have an impact, because they will absolutely be tied to the battle against the dead and the battle for king’s landing. because we have viewpoint characters tied to the brotherhood, and tied to the small folk, who will actually be speaking not just for them, but with them. they are important. and the show completely erased them.

[kateofthecanals]

For a bit of fun, I'm curious if you could do a fix-it for GoT? I'm just so exhausted by all the rage I feel learning about the shit D&D put everyone through (both audience, cast & crew). In an alternate universe where you were hired as showrunner/writer for GoT from Day 1, what changes would you make? Bearing in mind specific things like budgeting limitations of the earlier seasons, ideal series length and number of episodes, unpublished TWOW and ADOS, etc.

Oh lordt, where do I even start????? :-o

I mean, I don’t think I would make any drastic changes, you know? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And it’s hard for me to think of stuff to cut or change because so many things lead to other things, and still more that we don’t know about that has yet to pay off. But there are definitely things I would do (or not do) if the task fell into my lap...

First and foremost, anyone adapting ASOIAF NEEDS to keep these 3 fundamental themes in mind at all times:

- Never take anything at face value; ALL narrators are unreliable.

- The Starks are the heroes, not the freaking Lannisters.

- Honor, compassion, mercy, and love are GOOD things and should be striven for at all costs.

As for specific plot/character things:

- Give Sansa’s and Arya’s respective POVs equal weight when they are first introduced.

- No unnecessary, lame “padding”, like the goddamn Littlefinger pornologue. There’s enough freaking content in the books, I don’t need to be making up my own stuff here.

- With the pornologue eliminated, we now have time for (gasp!) Sandor telling Sansa the story of his burns himself!!

- Speaking of Littlefinger, I would make sure that he comes off as a charming, charismatic chum, so that it doesn’t seem weird or ridiculous when people actually trust him. No smarmy, mustache-twirling obvi-villain, thanks.

- Restore The Jeynes -- Jeyne Westerling and Jeyne Poole. They have names, they have faces, they have stories, and they are IMPORTANT. Make it abundantly clear that Robb married Jeyne W. out of a sense of duty and honor, not because he wanted dat Volentene booty. Include Jeyne P. in important scenes in Season 1 like in Book 1; her disappearance in King’s Landing will be noted.

- THE TYSHA REVEAL, DAMMIT.

- THE UNKISS, DAMMIT. I would probably present this visually as a recurring dream that keeps haunting Sansa.

- Pretty much all SanSan content will be included and adapted word for word.

- Cast someone younger as Sandor (sorry, Rory).

- Present Sansa’s forced marriage to Tyrion for what it actually was -- Cersei tricking her, Tyrion not lifting a finger to warn her, Sansa being dragged to the sept and NOT KNEELING, etc. Not sure exactly how I would pull off the wedding night scene without compromising an underage actress, but I think it’s so so important to portray Tyrion’s unbashed lewdness toward her. Basically make it about SANSA.

- Tyrion is a rapist and a murderer. Let’s not whitewash, eh?

- Restore some of Dany’s agency on her wedding night.

- Film the Daznak’s Pit scene as written, with Dany taking shit into her own hands instead of standing around helpless waiting for someone to rescue her.

- BALD DANY.

- Make it clear what Cersei’s Walk of Shame was actually about -- not a moment of slut-shaming but of BODY-shaming... so you know maybe NOT hire a 20-something stand-in to play a woman in her 40s?

- BRAN’S & NED’S DREAMS. In a story that’s mired down in “realism”, these dream sequences would be a nice, fun break from that. An opportunity to get really creative and experimental.

- THE NORTH ACTUALLY REMEMBERS. No House Manderly erasure on MY watch, tyvm.

- FLASHBACKS. If a character is talking about something that happened in the past, SHOW IT. Or better yet, just show it without the talky-talky. Show, don’t tell.

- I would personally cut out all the Dorne stuff BUT I would consult with George on ways to move the story forward with out it.

- LADY STONEHEART.

- Tbh I’d probably reveal Coldhands to be Benjen as well, like the show did, even though GRRM confirmed it’s not him. (Unless, of course, Benjen has some other, way cooler fate yet to be revealed...)

- Make absolutely sure that it’s clear neither Arya nor Brienne are misogynists just because they don’t/can’t perform Traditional Femininity.

- Michele Clapton does not come within 3000 miles of this production. Hire a costume designer that has experience with Medieval-inspired fashion and insist on some damn COLOR.

- Cast an age-appropriate Margaery.

- I would also cast someone way more pretty boy-ish as Joffrey. No offense to Jack Gleason, but he was creepy straight off the bat. Finn Jones would have been better. Or a young(er) Cody Fern. 

- DON’T SLEEP ON AFFC/ADWD. There is so much good, meaty content there, the actors will revel in it. So what if there aren’t any huge battle sequences? There is still a lot of great writing and character development to make up for it. 

Should I run into the issue of the show catching up with the books, there are several options for carrying on without too many hiccups:

1. KEEP A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH GEORGE. Don’t ignore him when he makes suggestions. Actively seek his guidance. He has more experience with this than I do. This will come in handy later.

2. As stated above, buy more time for George by actually adapting Books 4 & 5. There is PLENTY of content there to work with while George finishes TWOW.

3. If I do #2 and he STILL hasn’t finished TWOW, then I would work closely with him on the endgame. Go through outlines piece by piece. Send him drafts of scripts for notes. Allow him to write a few episodes himself. This is HIS story, and I have been hired to tell it. In the absence of published source material, George himself is the next best resource -- UTILIZE IT.

That’s all I could think of, anyone reading this feel free to add more!

[roominthecastle]

do you find it weird that in the show the Stark kids only really mention Ned and how much they miss him but not a word about their mother? were they closer to Ned than to Cat?

I find this very ironic, anon, for two main reasons:

She’s mentioned by Petyr several times (always in a positive light), yet he’s the one repeatedly accused of having no real love for her. Meanwhile her family members either degrade her (see Lysa) or forget her after she dies.

Ned would be the one borderline horrified by his daughters’ behavior whereas I think Cat would be more “open minded”. She pulled a dagger on Petyr long before it was mainstream. She cut Joyeuse’s throat. Lady Stoneheart anyone? But why should her daughters remember her? No reason, really.

I don’t think they were closer to Ned (Jon being the notable exception for a good reason), but her erasure is not that strange when you factor in that the writing on this show is not nearly as “woke” & feminist as some fans seem to believe.