Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Looking past "A Storm of Swords"

Warning: Contains spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire" books and HBO episodes. 

By now we know that HBO has decided to split "A Storm of Swords" for the filming of season three and four, since the novel is just too large to cover in ten episodes. Several interesting questions about the future of our favorite "A Song of Ice and Fire" TV adaption arise from this anouncement, especially since it has become clear that the split of "A Storm of Swords" won't arise roughly in the middle of the text, but rather at about two-thirds. The third season will, therefore, clearly incorporate the Red Wedding. I don't want to delve too deep into the question where exactly the split will be, since Winter is Coming does this satisfactory, but rather guess a bit in which direction the series will develop. It should have become sufficiently clear to everybody by now that we can't expect a 1:1 conversion of the books to the small screen, a thing that I continue to argue is good. So, where do the big issues lay?
Why, here, of course.

In fact, the biggest problem for the show is how to tackle the exact same question Martin faced when he split "A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons" in two, seperating not so much the story but the storylines, a decision that didn't work out that well since you essentially need to read both books parallel to grasp all the themes and interwoven aspects - a case Sean T. Collins and I constantly make and which I`m too lazy to link to just now. Performing the same kind of split for seasons 5 and 6 there won't work. It seems like the creators came to the same conclusion, since the rumor machinery has it that elements of "A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons" are already in season 4, providing us the reason for the 2/3 split of "A Storm of Swords". More than half a year ago, I already predicted that "A Dance with Dragons" and "A Feast for Crows" will most likely be condensed into one season, but today I`m not so sure. 

We'll get more of this. Note: not the cleavage.
The thing is, "A Dance with Dragons" and, to a lesser extent, "A Feast for Crows" received massive criticism about being boring and pointless, just letting the characters wander around. Now, this is certainly not the case, as both books explore major issues that clearly head in a certain direction if you put them next to each other, but this only appears in hindsight - and you can't build on that when creating an entire season. While by now there should be some experience with pointless storylines (Qarth, anyone?), it seems rather unlikely that the show will remain as close to the books with these two as it did with "A Game of Thrones" and "A Clash of Kings". Instead, I would guess much material will be cut and many scenes newly invented.

I can see her storyline basically intact, however.
The most obvious theater for changes is Essos. The storylines there have already been altered more than the Westeros storylines, which have mainly been streamlined, and it's likely that "A Storm of Swords", a.k.a. season 3 and 4, will add to these changes. Speculation tells that Dany will visit only one slave city, which seems to make sense - it spares us the battle and lends more weight to the turning of the Unsullied. From there, almost anything can happen, and before we can speculate on how Dany's storyline will be handled in seasons 4 and 5, we need to see season 3, so I will stop right here. Tyrion is another matter: his road trip along the Rhoyne requires massive sets and provides nice background info, but surely nothing substantial that couldn't be done elsewhere. Most changes will be in that department, I guess. 

Of course, I could end just like this with all my predictions.
The main challenge will be the sheer number of seasons, however. There aren't that many drama series around that reach a season number of 5 or 6, and from there, we still have two more books (and seasons to go). Even if they do what I suspect and condense both books into seasons 4 and 5 somehow, that still leaves them seven seasons in total. You need a large audience to keep the budget, and you need to keep them long. The conversion of "A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons" will give D&D some nightmares, I'd wager. If they really make two seasons out of it, not only would the counter reach eight at the end, there is also a serious risk that the many expectations not kept (Dany returning to Westeros, primarily) will build frustration with an audience that isn't used to Martin's deadline policies. 

Seriously, he put the "dead" in deadline.

9 comments:

  1. Its highly unlikely he'll finish the last book by the time D&D had used up all the material anyway.

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  2. Yes, but D&D already have the outlining from George.

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    1. Grrm would be an absolute fool if he didn't have it contracted so that D&D weren't allowed to give out major spoilers to unpublished material.

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    2. So he'd be a fool to let them script later seasons based on his outlines? That means they'd be forced by GRRM to write their own conclusion, which seems much more foolish.

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    3. I'd guess his intention is finishing the series in time. If he doesn't succeed, they can use his notes - there's no way around it. By then, the differences will be great enough to make the books still interesting enough even with spoilers from the series. All this provided they even get a run long enough to encounter these problems.

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  3. I think Feast/Dance will have to be two seasons which I actually think will be almost a perfect fit. You only mention the Dany/Tyrion stuff here but what about all that gets covered with Jon and Stannis, Sansa and LF and Arya? Tough to stuff all of that into one season IMO. I agree audiences may struggle with it a bit and I figure maybe at the end of season six (if we make it) we'll get some of the early resolutions from Winds (Victarion arriving, Bolton Vs. Stannis battle, etc.)

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    1. All stuff Jon, Stannis, Arya, Sansa&LF I see as no-brainers. They won't pose a problem for the show. The problem will be the East, because they constantly introduce new elements and drop the old ones. Look at Westeros - these seasons will let the audience return to the Wall and Winterfell (Jon, Stannis and Theon), to the Vale (Sansa and LF), King's Landing (Cersei, Jaime, Tyrells), the Riverlands (Jaime). Arya is in a weird new environment, but it's Arya`s story, and it doesn't really matter because it simply works anywhere. Tyrion, however, is sailing down a big river and then sailing some more. Daenerys sits in a weird-ass city talking weird-crazy shit, and the dragons are gone, and man, nothing of consequence happens. Obviously it does, but will the audience grasp it before the seasons are through, or ever?

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    2. I wonder if there was a better way to communicate to viewers that they shouldn't wait for Dany to get to Westeros. We as book readers know by now that it's going to be an endgame thing, but judging only from the show (or from the first two books) you might think it's the midpoint of the series.

      If Feast and Dance are going to be two seasons, the writers would have to work to find something that's season finale worthy and provides some kind of tangible progress. Which is not the strong suit of these two books. Maybe drag the (inevitable?) Winterfell Battle into season 6? But what about season 5?

      Content-wise I can see how Feast/Dance could easily make two seasons of television. But structurally, you'd have two seasons worth of setup, bridge storylines, some filler material... And in addition to that, the supporting cast would have to be enormous to actually do all those storylines. (And, as Stefan pointed out, the Essos stuff won't make for the most compelling episodes unless they change or condese it.)

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    3. Yeah, that's a lot to chew on...

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