oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT
oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.
SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)
so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!
so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.
the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!
now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.
here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.
but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.
so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.
anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.
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as the tumblr's resident snuffy expert I have to ask you what you think snuffy and lorenzo's actual legal relationship is (like did he take on the role of his guardian or is he technically more of a sponsor) and furthermore what you think their dynamic is like behind the scenes. like even if you accept the idea that snuffy is more of a father figure to lorenzo than an employer there's no way that this guy who was a homeless orphan until he was a teenager and the man who took him in *on the basis that he be athletically successful* have like. a normal unremarkable parent-child dynamic
Thanks for the question, sorry about the yapping
I'm torn on how to answer the legal relationship question. To me, it depends on how old you think Lorenzo is during the flashback. I always thought he was around 15-16, so I rarely consider an option where Snuffy isn't his legal guardian. However I could see some PIFA fuckery involved to avoid any legal trouble in the case he didn't have a legal guardian involved before becoming an adult legally.
Even then the process for getting gold teeth takes more than one day (all the visits you need to get your teeth properly checked for the procedure, the healing process takes months and more visits, etc) and he was near death so I'd like to think he was taken care/supervised of by Snuffy during that time (which is why Lorenzo's so attached to him). (the amount of care is up to interpretation bc it's hc territory anyway)
After that, when Lorenzo started playing football, *then* it's more of a sponsor/employer/advisor?/mentor? situation that occasionally bleeds into guardian-adopteé territory but never completely. I think they had something similar to how Ray Dark ended up dropping Kaiser at the BM dorms, except I think Snuffy directly had a hand in training/teaching Lorenzo before and still kept somewhat in contact during. I also like to think he got him a tutor or something, but this is more so I can sleep well at night. Snuffy IS the "what will you do when football's no longer an option" guy anyway so it's not unrealistic.
I need to add somewhere in this post that I believe/know in my heart that Snuffy picking up Lorenzo happened a bit after Mick died (months, maybe a year max) and specifically because of it. Comparing dead Mick & almost dying Lorenzo was super common when ch. 229 came out so I won't elaborate much on it, I just wanted to mention it.
Dynamics wise... There's too much going on for them to be in a normal boss and employee situation, Snuffy isn't fazed by Lorenzo's antics at all, Lorenzo goes up to Barou* to convince him to succeed Snuffy while also bringing up Snuffy's promise to Mick and also just everything about Lorenzo's reaction to Snuffy going back on his retirement, he literally told Barou he loved him & offered him a gold tooth. I don't think he says that to anyone yknow
*and by the way this interaction always stands out to me, since the timeline of events is not clear at all. all bc the fucking blue lock building is built like a prison and idk what time it is. I think Snuffy&Barou´s conversation happened at least some hours or a day after the Ubers introduction bit. During Lorenzo's backstory dump they're wearing pajamas but then Snuffy tells them it's time to train, so I assume it's the morning after that. Anyway I wonder if Snuffy just told him about it or if he directly asked him to talk to Barou. I feel like it's the former (given their reactions to Barou accepting Snuffy's deal) but the setup kinda makes it feel like the latter. whatever it was I think it's evidence for me to say that Snuffy trusts Lorenzo.
And I feel like there's nothing direct I can point to to say they're close enough to have a regular parent and child relationship. Still I feel like just by having Lorenzo be a NG11 and the fact that he enjoys football and doesn't scream cry and throw up when he loses or when he is inconvenienced (THE BAR IS ON HELL) makes me think Snuffy is mostly a positive influence on him. I like to think Snuffy does care a lot about him but he's the type of guy that shows it by meddling (kinda like Reo or younger Sae (who wasn't much of a meddler iirc. this makes sense in my mind)) and just isn't that visibly affectionate with anyone anymore.
More about the father and son thing. This is also headcanon territory I'm sorry. I don't think they, like, go out fishing as a bonding thing or anything like that. but I do think they don't go a week w/out talking bc I think Snuffy's a bit neurotic about how the people he cares about are doing because of reasons and Lorenzo loves talking people's ears off about everything and nothing. I think Lorenzo tried giving him an expensive gift with one of his first paychecks and mentioned "paying back his debt bit by bit" as a joke that wasn't really a joke and Snuffy's face twisted & he said something along the lines of Lorenzo not owing him anything and it was awkward between them for a while after that. I think its fucking WEIRD but they care abt each other and that's what matters
TL;DR: I think there had to be a point where Snuffy was his legal guardian or at least acted like it to some degree. In regards to their dynamic behind the scenes, that is not a father that is a grieving tutor-guardian-mentor-advisor-employer-professional football player and his renowned domesticated possum employee/adopteé who is soooooooo normal about worth.
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OC SPEECH MANNERISMS.
i was tagged by @indorilnerevarine @nuclearstorms @liurnia @morvaris and @swordcoasts thank you so much beloveds, ily!!!
tagging: i feel like this already made the rounds so i’m tagging whoever wants to do this <3
BASICS
NO. OF SPOKEN LANGUAGES >> 1 / 2 / 3+ (english, french, spanish, sign language + can understand a bit of italian since she can speak spanish)
TONE OF VOICE >> high / average / deep
ACCENT >> yes / no
DEMEANOR >> confident / shy / approachable / hostile / other (polite, stoic)
POSTURE >> slumped / straight / stiff / relaxed
HABITS
head tilting / swaying / fidgeting / stuttering / gesturing / arm crossing / strokes chin / er, um, or other interjections / plays with hair or clothing / hands at hips / inconsistent eye contact / maintains eye contact / frequent pausing / stands close / stands at a distance
COMPLEXITY
VOCABULARY >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚪️⚪️
EMOTION >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚪️
SENTENCE STRUCTURE >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚪️⚪️
PROFANITY
FREQUENCY >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️
CREATIVITY (in regards to profanity) >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚪️⚪️
BOLD THAT APPLY
arse / ass / asshole / bastard / bitch / bloody / bugger / bollocks / chicken shit / crap / cunt / dick / frick / fuck / horseshit / motherfucker / piss / prick / pussy / screw / shit / shitass / son of a bitch / twat / wanker
THIS OR THAT
straightforward or cryptic? / finding the right word or using the first word that comes to mind? / masculinity, neutrality, or femininity? / formalities or with abrasiveness? / praise or equivocation? / frankness or lies? / excessive or minimal hand gestures? / name-calling or magnanimity? / friendly or blunt?
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
DO PEOPLE HAVE A HARD TIME HEARING OR UNDERSTANDING YOUR CHARACTER? almost always / frequently / rarely / never
DOES YOUR CHARACTER’S POINT COME ACROSS EASILY WHEN THEY SPEAK? almost always / frequently / sometimes / rarely / never
WOULD YOUR CHARACTER INITIATE CONVERSATIONS? almost always / frequently / sometimes / never
WOULD YOUR CHARACTER BE THE ONE TO END CONVERSATIONS? almost always / frequently / sometimes / rarely / never
WOULD YOUR CHARACTER USE ‘WHOM’ IN A SENTENCE? yes / no / only ironically
YOUR CHARACTER WANTS TO MAKE A COUNTERPOINT. WHAT WORD DO THEY USE? but / though / although / however / perhaps / maybe
HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER END CONVERSATIONS? walk away / ask if that’s everything / say that’s everything / give a proper goodbye / tell their company they're done here / remain quiet / they don’t
WHAT SOCIAL CLASS WOULD OTHERS ASSUME YOUR CHARACTER BELONGS TO, HEARING THEM SPEAK? upper / middle / lower
IN WHAT WAYS DOES THE WAY YOUR CHARACTER SPEAK STAND OUT TO OTHERS? accent / vocabulary / tone / level / politeness / brusqueness / it doesn’t
BASICS
NO. OF SPOKEN LANGUAGES >> 1 / 2 / 3+ (italian as mother tongue, english + can understand spanish and even say a few lines)
TONE OF VOICE >> high / average / deep
ACCENT >> yes / no
DEMEANOR >> confident / shy / approachable / hostile / other (polite, stoic) + way too smug for his own good
POSTURE >> slumped / straight / stiff / relaxed
HABITS
head tilting / swaying / fidgeting / stuttering / gesturing / arm crossing / strokes chin / er, um, or other interjections / plays with hair or clothing / hands at hips / inconsistent eye contact / maintains eye contact / frequent pausing / stands close / stands at a distance
COMPLEXITY
VOCABULARY >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚪️
EMOTION >> ⚫️⚫️⚪️⚪️⚪️
SENTENCE STRUCTURE >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚪️⚪️
PROFANITY
FREQUENCY >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚪️
CREATIVITY (in regards to profanity) >> ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️
BOLD THAT APPLY
arse / ass / asshole / bastard / bitch / bloody / bugger / bollocks / chicken shit / crap / cunt / dick / frick / fuck / horseshit / motherfucker / piss / prick / pussy / screw / shit / shitass / son of a bitch / twat / wanker
THIS OR THAT
straightforward or cryptic? / finding the right word (just to say something wrong to piss off someone lmao) or using the first word that comes to mind? / masculinity, neutrality, or femininity? / formalities or with abrasiveness? / praise or equivocation? / frankness or lies? / excessive or minimal hand gestures? / name-calling or magnanimity? / friendly or blunt?
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
DO PEOPLE HAVE A HARD TIME HEARING OR UNDERSTANDING YOUR CHARACTER? almost always / frequently (sometimes he expresses himself with italian sayings translated in english that...ofc don’t make much sense to anyone that doesn’t know about them) / rarely / never
DOES YOUR CHARACTER’S POINT COME ACROSS EASILY WHEN THEY SPEAK? almost always / frequently (but with same problem as above sometimes) / sometimes / rarely / never
WOULD YOUR CHARACTER INITIATE CONVERSATIONS? almost always / frequently / sometimes / never
WOULD YOUR CHARACTER BE THE ONE TO END CONVERSATIONS? almost always / frequently / sometimes / rarely / never
WOULD YOUR CHARACTER USE ‘WHOM’ IN A SENTENCE? yes / no / only ironically
YOUR CHARACTER WANTS TO MAKE A COUNTERPOINT. WHAT WORD DO THEY USE? but / though / although / however / perhaps / maybe
HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER END CONVERSATIONS? walk away / ask if that’s everything / say that’s everything / give a proper goodbye / tell their company they're done here / remain quiet / they don’t
WHAT SOCIAL CLASS WOULD OTHERS ASSUME YOUR CHARACTER BELONGS TO, HEARING THEM SPEAK? upper / middle / lower
IN WHAT WAYS DOES THE WAY YOUR CHARACTER SPEAK STAND OUT TO OTHERS? accent / vocabulary / tone / level / politeness / brusqueness / it doesn’t + rudeness sometimes
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talking about impenetrable accents/dialect just reminded me. when I was in Milan a couple of years back I was staying in this little rathole hotel and I had the biggest fucking migraine, so I was like non c'è problema I'll just go buy painkillers. of course every pharmacy on the map in a three block radius was closed, so my stupid ass just starts wandering around trying to figure out on the fly if you can get OTC from supermarkets in italy.
I walk into this little everything store (to my foreign eyes the kind of place that back home could sell you a bunch of carrots, a 6-pack of beer, pantyhose, bleach and a screwdriver set) and I see some household basics in the back but not what I need. with the confidence of a person who is only in the city for 3 days because he got bored and packed a bag and booked the cheapest flight available the week before (<= MENTAL ILLNESS), I was like no worries I know some italian, I can just ask.
I grab a bottle of water, walk up to the counter, and I'm like Ciao, hai il paracetamolo? And the guy is like che, and I'm like paracetamolo. Per la mia testa. And he's like che?
This is where I would have said 'aspirina' except I can't take aspirin for medical reasons, or 'antidolorifico' except I don't know that word and I've got no phone data for google translate and also I'm stupid. So in my fucked up leith-glasgow-italian accent I'm like paaa-ra-cetta-mollll-ooo. He's like ohhh bene, bene, and he calls another guy out of the back and asks him to go get something. Other guy then walks out of the store into the street, and before I can be like hey, che la fuck, he comes back and hands me a huge bundle of herbs.
At this point I'm like okay this entire interaction has been a bust, but these guys have been very nice and patient and they're both smiling happily at me because they've been of service, so I'm like ahh perfetto, grazie, pay them a couple of euros and leave.
EVENTUALLY I find a pharmacy that's open, and my head is fucking killing me, and my phone still isn't connecting, and now I have this small shrubbery poking out of my coat pocket, so I don't even bother looking around the shelves. I just walk straight to the counter and I'm like uhh ciao, scusi. And hearing my nightmare of an accent the guy answers in english and I'm like thank christ, do you please have paracetamol. Not aspirin, I can't take aspirin. And he's like yeah yeah hold on, goes into the back, comes out with what I need.
Only when he comes out he gives me this look, and then he starts laughing. And then he pretends he's not laughing and rings me up and I pay, and as I'm leaving I can see him losing it. But I don't care, my head is going to explode, I'm going back to the rathole to close the blinds and fall comatose for four hours.
When I get back to my hotel room I take off my coat and remember the huge bouquet of herbs in my pocket. They smell amazing, and I'm like I'm pretty sure this is parsley in which case I can just get some tomatoes and mozzarella later and make it work. but since I have no idea what that interaction was, I want to make sure. I bring out my phone to get a visual reference of what parsley leaves look like, and because I was using it for google translate earlier I put 'parsley' in the wrong box like a dope and translate it to italian.
prezzemolo
I wish I could have been the pharmacist in the moment he looked at my tired pissed off anglophone ass, heard me say 'paracetamol' in my fucked up accent, and turned around saw what was in my pocket. I'd have lost my shit too.
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