What has GOT got that WoT's not?

[Chivalry]

On 3/15/2022 at 11:57 AM, William Seahill said:

At least Rosamund Pike’s performance  as Moiraine made her seem warm compared to what she’s like in the the book.  So, it’s not all bad, right? 

I like book Moiraine, she and Verin are definitely my favorite AS. I appreciate Rosamund Pike's performance, but I can't help but feel that characters like Moirane and Lan are weirdly diminished in the Amazon series. I'm sure some of that has to do with the WOT team trying to ramp up the uncertainty and tension, but I, for one, appreciate how the books built up these major characters.

 

In the books we knew that Moiraine was one of the most powerful AS in the White Tower. When she then confronts the Forsaken at the EOTW, the power differential hits hard. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I felt this was an important part of the story.

[Andra]

35 minutes ago, Chivalry said:

I like book Moiraine, she and Verin are definitely my favorite AS. I appreciate Rosamund Pike's performance, but I can't help but feel that characters like Moirane and Lan are weirdly diminished in the Amazon series. I'm sure some of that has to do with the WOT team trying to ramp up the uncertainty and tension, but I, for one, appreciate how the books built up these major characters.

 

In the books we knew that Moiraine was one of the most powerful AS in the White Tower. When she then confronts the Forsaken at the EOTW, the power differential hits hard. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I felt this was an important part of the story.

I agree with this.  Moiraine knew she was comparatively strong among living Aes Sedai.  Finding out how little that meant was very powerful to her story.

But I would also say that I liked that Moiraine and Land weren't "warm" in the books.

 

They had both spent the last two decades of their lives committing literally everything to their mission, with the clear knowledge that the Shadow would destroy them without a thought if it found out what they were doing.  And knowing that the only other person in the entire world they could trust not to help destroy them was the Amyrlin.  Who faced at least as much risk as they did.

 

That doesn't make someone emotionally "warm."  Quite the reverse, you would expect.

 

[Cauthonfan4]

On 3/21/2022 at 6:46 PM, Mailman said:

A lot of issues where present before the final 2 episodes regardless such as the writing which was substandard through the entire series, and was not affected by the problems post covid filming.

and the writing in the finale was...downright awful.

[DavyDrones]

GOT is the same as LOTR if we exclude the 6th and 7th season. We don't talk about those. WOT is a pure fabrication and is in the same category as season 6 and 7 of GOT.

[Juan Farstrider]

3 hours ago, DavyDrones said:

GOT is the same as LOTR if we exclude the 6th and 7th season. We don't talk about those. WOT is a pure fabrication and is in the same category as season 6 and 7 of GOT.

My favorite parts of season 6 was the youtubers who were ripping it apart each week. It was cathartic. The end though was painfully bad. Who has a great story takes "she has a tell" and runs with it, off a cliff. Luckily, for WoT to run with "she has a tell" would make it a comedy-- but my dreams of Lanfear's voice being done by Kristen Schaal regardless of who acts her might come true. I might even watch it just to hear "Raand" 

But the idea that Winter is coming, meant to the Bahamas will never stop pissing me off. 

[Revenant13]

On 3/29/2022 at 10:30 AM, Juan Farstrider said:

My favorite parts of season 6 was the youtubers who were ripping it apart each week. It was cathartic. The end though was painfully bad. Who has a great story takes "she has a tell" and runs with it, off a cliff.

someone i can relate to (i can't breath right now i laughed so hard) xD

if it was any more true i thought u were reading out of an encyclopaedia. 

On 3/29/2022 at 10:30 AM, Juan Farstrider said:

But the idea that Winter is coming, meant to the Bahamas will never stop pissing me off

Edited April 1, 2022 by Revenant13
added info

[Juan Farstrider]

@Revenant13 Thank you very much! 

[Zimri Lim]

One was a labour of love, a creative endeavour that lost its way because the author couldn't be arsed to finish the story, the other is simply content, it is a product, it is an IP hijacked for the purpose of promoting a political agenda. In this case the author's work is simply an inconvenience to expelling their warm, insipid diarrhoea written by talentless hacks.

 

The motivations of the two productions are entirely different and it shines through every single frame and every tortuous second you endure this absolute abomination of a show. Even at its very worst with the S8 debacle, it is still better than WOT.

 

WOT is another classic example of modern entertainment, we do not care what you want, we do not care whether you like our show or not, we are telling our own (terrible) "stories" and you will shut the hell up and consume. You will consume the Bobba Fett disaster as we make him a background carachter in his own show, ditto Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, ditto Master Chief in Halo - and ad infinitum other TV shows and movies.

 

You are wrong, we are right, you, the audience is the problem now shut your goddamn mouths and give us money.

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Zimri Lim

[Pukel-man]

Game of Thrones became a phenomenon, one of a few media/arts things that widely penetrated mass popular culture. It was able to do that because it was outstanding writing. At least, so far as they used Martin's content. The show tanked precisely where Martin's content ran out. GoT plays on the greed, righteous but impolitic stands, and infidelity of its characters.

 

WoT has weak writing, much more internally inconsistent, poorly developed, and inexplicable actions (not talking about "delayed payoffs" but just head-scratcher moments). One of the weaknesses of the WoT series is that they try to make the original WoT content more like GoT with heroes that have deep character flaws (see the Mat thread) and ambiguity between the good/evil conflict. WoT book story is more traditional good/evil, and GoT is much more infused with the inherent blackness of human failings on every side.

 

It's possible to have popular success with either path, but WoT fails in part because it tries to graft one approach onto the other. I think the WoT writers/producers should have let WoT be WoT, and not try to make it something else. Rafe Judkins clearly isn't half the storyteller that Robert Jordan was.

[RGD 675]

What GOT has over WOT is as simple as one word - FIDELITY ! ! !

 

[SinisterDeath]

4 hours ago, RGD 675 said:

What GOT has over WOT is as simple as one word - FIDELITY ! ! !

 

Nope.

Tons of actors with wrong color hair, eyes, accents.
Skipped entire plot arcs, changed dialogue, motivations. It was similar, but in no way was it one of the most "faithful" adaptations ever made.

[DojoToad]

8 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Nope.

Tons of actors with wrong color hair, eyes, accents.
Skipped entire plot arcs, changed dialogue, motivations. It was similar, but in no way was it one of the most "faithful" adaptations ever made.

Read and watched GoT. May not be the most faithful, but 100x more faithful than WoT. 
 

and the acting was so well done, that I didn’t even notice small things like hair color, eyecolor, and accents.

Edited April 26, 2022 by DojoToad

[Rmp]

While it certainly started going it’s own way (dramatically so after season 4), season 1 of GoT was as close to a 1-1 adaptation as could have been done.

 

Hell, even the shit that they added in was good. The Robert/Cersei conversation was made up just to kill time basically.

 

Whatever the secret sauce was that made early GoT so great, the stars will probably never align for WoTshow to ascend anywhere close.

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, Rmp said:

 

Whatever the secret sauce was that made early GoT so great, the stars will probably never align for WoTshow to ascend anywhere close.

The secret sauce was that they followed the map they were given instead of going bushwhacking. 

[WoTwasThat]

On 2/28/2022 at 6:29 PM, William Seahill said:

Thank you.  And thank goodness Randland isn’t at all like the Seven Kingdoms. 

Yeah… ok I guess. GOT’s “bleakness” never bothered me (well the whole killing babies sure did), because the story of the first 5 seasons was damned near perfect. But I can understand why people would want a series that’s not that grimdark. By the same token, though, WOTTV kinda went a bit too far in the opposite direction. The looks and writing are more toward the YA end of the spectrum. 

Edited May 2, 2022 by WoTwasThat

[WoTwasThat]

On 3/1/2022 at 5:37 AM, wastingtime said:

I said it in a different strand on here at some point, but I don't reckon WOT can ever match GOT in terms of twists, turns, unexpected main character deaths, moral shades of gray, good people doing dumb things, terrible people occasionally doing noble things etc that was really what made GOT so much more than just a niche fantasy and elevated it into must see viewing enjoyed by the wider public as a whole.

 

This is extremely well put, and precisely why GOT (well the first five seasons) was excellent TV. 

 

On 3/1/2022 at 5:37 AM, wastingtime said:

That doesn't mean [WOT] can't still improve to be top level TV - if the writers actually manage to give us characters well written enough to care about and form some kind of emotional attachment to - just that even best possible WOT will still be quite a different 'flavour' to best Possible GOT.

Sorry, but I think you’re giving Amazon, Rafe, and the writers too much credit. What did you see in Season 1 that actually gives to optimism about where this is headed?

 

Let me put it this way: The Eye of the World was a layup. And they didn’t just miss the layup - they somehow got their foot snared in the net, pantsed themselves, and the ball ricocheted into the other goal. 
 

They Dark Tower’d this thing. They took a great story basically made for screen adaptation and decided they could tell a way better story instead of just telling The Story.

[WoTwasThat]

On 4/16/2022 at 10:24 AM, Zimri Lim said:

One was a labour of love, a creative endeavour that lost its way because the author couldn't be arsed to finish the story, the other is simply content, it is a product, it is an IP hijacked for the purpose of promoting a political agenda. In this case the author's work is simply an inconvenience to expelling their warm, insipid diarrhoea written by talentless hacks.

 

The motivations of the two productions are entirely different and it shines through every single frame and every tortuous second you endure this absolute abomination of a show. Even at its very worst with the S8 debacle, it is still better than WOT.

 

WOT is another classic example of modern entertainment, we do not care what you want, we do not care whether you like our show or not, we are telling our own (terrible) "stories" and you will shut the hell up and consume. You will consume the Bobba Fett disaster as we make him a background carachter in his own show, ditto Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, ditto Master Chief in Halo - and ad infinitum other TV shows and movies.

 

You are wrong, we are right, you, the audience is the problem now shut your goddamn mouths and give us money.

 

Dayyum…. Bringing the HEAT! But I think there’s a lot of truth here. 

[WoTwasThat]

On 4/25/2022 at 8:00 PM, SinisterDeath said:

Nope.

Tons of actors with wrong color hair, eyes, accents.
Skipped entire plot arcs, changed dialogue, motivations. It was similar, but in no way was it one of the most "faithful" adaptations ever made.

Come on now…. Hair and eye color? I watched the first few season of GOT before I picked up the books. After the reading the books I realized that the screen adaptations were remarkably faithful. You can split hairs (or hair colors) as much as you want, but I don’t think you can seriously contend that the WOTTV adaptation is even in the same universe as early GOTTV vis a vis faithfulness to the books. 
 

Have any of the WOTTV fans picked up EOTW since Season 1 ended? I have. It’s depressing, and angering how far they missed the mark. 

Edited May 2, 2022 by WoTwasThat

[JaimAybara]

They required too much budget too soon and everything suffered just ever so slightly for it. In GOT they were able to front load on location and costume design as primary budget requirements, and when they got to later seasons they could focus larger portions of the budget on CGI etc. (on a side note I personally wish they incorporated more practical effects on certain things as well). The costume design was good, but not quite as spectacular as I thought it would be. 
 

The character shifts made me irate, it is what it is. Particularly Perrin, Mat, Rand, and Loial’s character development, but I begrudge no one who enjoyed it. To each their own. To me this wasn’t a new turning; it was one of those portal stone realms that was off, or had a wrongness to it. Still going to watch because I love the property and I’ve got a whole crew reading the books now. It’s been fun talking about and having dinner parties, which is also what I love about this fan base in general. Good vibes. 

 

 

[DojoToad]

2 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

They required too much budget too soon and everything suffered just ever so slightly for it. In GOT they were able to front load on location and costume design as primary budget requirements, and when they got to later seasons they could focus larger portions of the budget on CGI etc. (on a side note I personally wish they incorporated more practical effects on certain things as well). The costume design was good, but not quite as spectacular as I thought it would be. 
 

The character shifts made me irate, it is what it is. Particularly Perrin, Mat, Rand, and Loial’s character development, but I begrudge no one who enjoyed it. To each their own. To me this wasn’t a new turning; it was one of those portal stone realms that was off, or had a wrongness to it. Still going to watch because I love the property and I’ve got a whole crew reading the books now. It’s been fun talking about and having dinner parties, which is also what I love about this fan base in general. Good vibes. 

 

 

Portal Stone Realm - a much better description than 'adaptation' or 'based on'.

 

In the books, the portal stone worlds contrasted with the 'real world' in such a way that I couldn't wait to get back to Randland.  Unfortunately, being in a portal world full time was too much for me.  Glad you're able to enjoy it though @JaimAybara.

[SinisterDeath]

9 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

Come on now…. Hair and eye color? I watched the first few season of GOT before I picked up the books. After the reading the books I realized that the screen adaptations were remarkably faithful. You can split hairs (or hair colors) as much as you want, but I don’t think you can seriously contend that the WOTTV adaptation is even in the same universe as early GOTTV vis a vis faithfulness to the books.

Note how you latched on only the one part of what I said was inaccurate about the GOT tv show? Glossed completely over the part where I said they removed several plot lines? Like Lady Stone Heart? Completely changed whatever the hell was going on with the guy claiming to be Daenerys's relative? Created New characters, New dialogue, merged characters, shifted events around, etc.
Changing Daenery's Hair & Eyes was just the tip of the iceberg....

GoT wasn't anymore faithful of an adaptation then the WoT TV show was.

Sure, lets whine about me nitpicking & splitting hairs over the GoT adaptation, while ignoring your own nitpicking and hair splitting over WoT.

 

 

9 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

Have any of the WOTTV fans picked up EOTW since Season 1 ended? I have. It’s depressing, and angering how far they missed the mark. 

Yes actually.

But you won't hear about that in an echo chamber.

 

 

[Terry05]

26 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Note how you latched on only the one part of what I said was inaccurate about the GOT tv show? Glossed completely over the part where I said they removed several plot lines? Like Lady Stone Heart? Completely changed whatever the hell was going on with the guy claiming to be Daenerys's relative? Created New characters, New dialogue, merged characters, shifted events around, etc.
Changing Daenery's Hair & Eyes was just the tip of the iceberg....

GoT wasn't anymore faithful of an adaptation then the WoT TV show was.

Sure, lets whine about me nitpicking & splitting hairs over the GoT adaptation, while ignoring your own nitpicking and hair splitting over WoT.

 

 

Yes actually.

But you won't hear about that in an echo chamber.

 

 

Man I remember Westeros going OFF. A big one was after ep 5 when Ned held his own against Jaime. Book purists had a field day

[DojoToad]

38 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Note how you latched on only the one part of what I said was inaccurate about the GOT tv show? Glossed completely over the part where I said they removed several plot lines? Like Lady Stone Heart? Completely changed whatever the hell was going on with the guy claiming to be Daenerys's relative? Created New characters, New dialogue, merged characters, shifted events around, etc.
Changing Daenery's Hair & Eyes was just the tip of the iceberg....

GoT wasn't anymore faithful of an adaptation then the WoT TV show was.
 

 

 

I read GoT at least three times before seeing season 1 of the show.  I noticed changes, additions, deletions and etc.  I had no problem with them - just as in Jackson's LotR movies vs. the books.  Difference is that GoT (and LotR) did a much better job when they were unfaithful to the source material.  The changes made sense and worked (for me).  Same for changes from book to screen in Dune 2021 and Ender's Game.

 

Rafe and company blew it - in my eyes.

[SinisterDeath]

11 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Rafe and company blew it - in my eyes.

And that's a perfectly valid opinion.

 

11 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

I read GoT at least three times before seeing season 1 of the show.  I noticed changes, additions, deletions and etc.  I had no problem with them - just as in Jackson's LotR movies vs. the books.  Difference is that GoT (and LotR) did a much better job when they were unfaithful to the source material.  The changes made sense and worked (for me).  Same for changes from book to screen in Dune 2021 and Ender's Game.

Personally, I think LoTR was closer to a 1:1 adaptation then GoT or WoT, combined.

It's inarguable that GoT was closer to a 1:1 adaptation than WoT. I'm merely pushing back against the idea that GoT was this ultra faithful 1:1 perfect adaptation.

If I were to rank the 3 adaptations mentioned + the Witcher on faithfulness to the source material based on what's released right now.

LoTR 60:100 (Adaptation:Source)

GoT 20:100

WoT 15:100 (This includes the animated shorts)

Witcher 12:100
 

[DojoToad]

24 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

And that's a perfectly valid opinion.

 

Personally, I think LoTR was closer to a 1:1 adaptation then GoT or WoT, combined.

It's inarguable that GoT was closer to a 1:1 adaptation than WoT. I'm merely pushing back against the idea that GoT was this ultra faithful 1:1 perfect adaptation.

If I were to rank the 3 adaptations mentioned + the Witcher on faithfulness to the source material based on what's released right now.

LoTR 60:100 (Adaptation:Source)

GoT 20:100

WoT 15:100 (This includes the animated shorts)

Witcher 12:100
 

Gotcha.  GoT is definitely not 1:1, I just liked how they adapted it - Jaime/Ned swordfight aside... ?