Dropped plot lines from the TV show

[viZion]

http://io9.com/5-game-of-thrones-book-plots-were-glad-the-tv-show-is-s-1691715991

I read this article today and I think it's pretty interesting. I also agree with it completely. Probably could have gotten rid of an entire book by dumping these five plot lines which really add no value to story. My opinions on each:

1) Actually, this one isn't *too* bad since it's so heavily foreshadowed in the books. Still though, it's probably going to end up adding extra pages that need to be resolved for very little payoff. Can we just fight the Others already instead of each other?

2) I guess it was cool to look into the culture of the Iron Islands but really not very relevant to advancing the plot. The end result is that Victarion goes to meet Dany. Definitely could have gotten there without spending so many chapters on it (see #5).

3) Quentyn is completely pointless, especially after he dies. Maybe he's still alive? Who cares? I feel like GRRM threw this guy in there simply to get back to his killing ways of "major" characters. Spend a lot of chapters on a person and then kill that person thereby SHOCKING the reader. Meh. Could have cut him out completely and done the same thing to an already established character and saved a bunch of pages to, you know, advance the plot.

4) I counted two entire Tyrion chapters in ADWD that could have been cut out completely with no loss. He really should have moved that along much more quickly. The Tyrion chapters in ADWD are Robert Jordan-esque. I'm sure some of you remember the bloat of Crossroads of Twilight where Elaine spends THREE STRAIGHT CHAPTERS talking about taking a bath. And then she takes a bath. These epic fantasies would be a lot better served with a strong editor willing to tell the authors to cut that crap out and get on with the story.

5) Cut out the rest of the Iron Islands stuff and just keep this in and it works fine. Euron wins the Kingsmoot, Victarion is a jerk, and he's off to find Dany.

What do you guys think? Would you rather this stuff stayed in and sacrifice progress in the series which is where at now? Anything else you think should have been cut from the books?

 

[Koopa]

I counted two entire Tyrion chapters in ADWD that could have been cut out completely with no loss. He really should have moved that along much more quickly. The Tyrion chapters in ADWD are Robert Jordan-esque. I'm sure some of you remember the bloat of Crossroads of Twilight where Elaine spends THREE STRAIGHT CHAPTERS talking about taking a bath. And then she takes a bath. These epic fantasies would be a lot better served with a strong editor willing to tell the authors to cut that crap out and get on with the story.

What?! Those 3 chapters of Elaine talking about taking a bath. And then her taking a bath sounds like a classic book in and by itself. Forget everything else. He should have spun that for at least 6 chapters. (upon re-reading this, my sarcastic comments seems unintentionally sexually tinted... ah well)

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

riiight... unintentionally.

As for the subject matter, and that article, I found very little to agree with. Yes there were some chapters and some story arcs that seemed superfluous, but what you need to keep in mind is that every chapter that doesn't seem to advance the plot, is there to advance the character. Maybe Martin goes a bit far with his character development but that's one of the things that appeal to me. You are probably right about Tyrion's chapters, I can think of one or two that did nothing to serve the plot, but every time I turned the page and saw "Tyrion" in big bold letters, marking the beginning of one of his chapters, I was happy, because he is my favorite character. And that is probably why Arya wasn't mentioned in this article. Her story arc so far has been pretty pointless, but because she is awesome, it doesn't matter.

I guess I just don't understand articles like this that seem to treat reading a book (or watching a show) like a chore that you want to get over with as quickly as possible. Does it matter to the plot what Tyrion ate for dinner? probably not, but it matters (to me) that he did eat... and crap, and sleep, and hope and have sex, because that's what makes the characters seem real. That's what makes you care about them.

 

[viZion]

I guess I just don't understand articles like this that seem to treat reading a book (or watching a show) like a chore that you want to get over with as quickly as possible. Does it matter to the plot what Tyrion ate for dinner? probably not, but it matters (to me) that he did eat... and crap, and sleep, and hope and have sex, because that's what makes the characters seem real. That's what makes you care about them.

I love this series but to me it is a chore to read and read and read and read and get nowhere. I was an AFFC defender but I don't think I can do the same for ADWD. It's possible to build characters and advance the plot at the same time. I don't believe I need an entire chapter devoted to Tyrion's dinner to make me like him more or make him seem more real. I would never have even gotten that far in the first place if I wasn't already drawn into the story. I agree with the article that a lot of these plot lines could have been heavily edited with no detriment to the story, world-building, or character-building. The first three books moved along just fine and we still got to know and love the characters very well.

 

[Boaz]

I agree with Arsten. For the purpose of the show, dropping the five is probably good, but I'm glad they're all there in the books (the real story as far as I'm concerned).

Tyrion's ADWD chapters up until Volantis are intimately tied up with Faegon... even the time he spends with Illyrio. I forget who came up with the theory, but Faegon is probably Illyrio's son and it is all laid out in those Pentoshi chapters. So for the purpose of HBO, eliminating Faegon eliminates Tyrion's early ADWD chapters. But this still does not really show the amount of time that Tyrion needs for his initial processing of his double homicide of his father and his lover, his escape of execution on trumped up charges by his sister, and the discovery that Jaime lied about Tysha! Seriously, all that went down in about an hour... anyone one of which is a life changing experience. How would you cope with all that? Running off to become Dany's Hand is not the answer... all that emotional baggage would still accompany him...

As for the other three... the Greyjoys, Victarion, and Quentyn... HBO has steered wide of prophecies, dreams, and history in general, so the exclusion works. But they could have tried harder to include these if they gave us less non-book scenes (all of Renly's, Loras', Margaery's, Stannis', Robb's, and Roz's sex scenes and most of their scenes in general).

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

I agree with Arsten. For the purpose of the show, dropping the five is probably good, but I'm glad they're all there in the books (the real story as far as I'm concerned).

Tyrion's ADWD chapters up until Volantis are intimately tied up with Faegon... even the time he spends with Illyrio. I forget who came up with the theory, but Faegon is probably Illyrio's son and it is all laid out in those Pentoshi chapters. So for the purpose of HBO, eliminating Faegon eliminates Tyrion's early ADWD chapters. But this still does not really show the amount of time that Tyrion needs for his initial processing of his double homicide of his father and his lover, his escape of execution on trumped up charges by his sister, and the discovery that Jaime lied about Tysha! Seriously, all that went down in about an hour... anyone one of which is a life changing experience. How would you cope with all that? Running off to become Dany's Hand is not the answer... all that emotional baggage would still accompany him...

As for the other three... the Greyjoys, Victarion, and Quentyn... HBO has steered wide of prophecies, dreams, and history in general, so the exclusion works. But they could have tried harder to include these if they gave us less non-book scenes (all of Renly's, Loras', Margaery's, Stannis', Robb's, and Roz's sex scenes and most of their scenes in general).

Bolded part never happened in the show. I'm still salty about that.

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

I love this series but to me it is a chore to read and read and read and read and get nowhere. I was an AFFC defender but I don't think I can do the same for ADWD. It's possible to build characters and advance the plot at the same time. I don't believe I need an entire chapter devoted to Tyrion's dinner to make me like him more or make him seem more real. I would never have even gotten that far in the first place if I wasn't already drawn into the story. I agree with the article that a lot of these plot lines could have been heavily edited with no detriment to the story, world-building, or character-building. The first three books moved along just fine and we still got to know and love the characters very well.

I will admit that Martin does go a little far with his characterization, but I would still prefer it this way then the other extreme. you are right that in the first 3 books, plot development and character development happened at a more balanced pace and I definitely had no qualms with those books. and now plot progression has slowed while characterization has expanded, and I can see how it might be a bit frustrating, but we also have to understand that we are now dealing with character growth. in the beginning, Martin could just say "This is how this character acts" because we were just being introduced to them. But now, if martin wants a character to act differently, or make choices that seem out of character, he needs to set up circumstances to justify a character's changing personality.

as has been pointed out before, we also need to keep in mind that much of what is happening in the story currently, and for the last 2 books, was supposed to be happening during a 5 year plot jump. Martin decided (and, IMO, rightly so) to not jump the plot ahead because it didn't make sense to the story. Cersei was supposed to rule in KL for 5 years without incident? impossible. so instead, things are happening a bit sooner but most characters still need to get to where they would be if the plot DID jump 5 years, which was why we get chapters about Arya training, and SOO many chapters in aDwD about people traveling. It's almost like, instead of characters having 5 years of development that we don't see, they are getting one year of condensed development before we can move the plot forward.