Game of Thrones TV Thread **HBO-Purists ONLY**

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From the sound of it, the history before GoT started sounds better than the GoT time. I would love for the show to have started with some of the Targaryen ruling stuff and ended with Robert's Rebellion and fallout. It sounds like there were good guys on all sides, really great drama, and some awesome fighting

Uh.. sounds like the Game of Thrones we have...

[wufwugy]

Uh.. sounds like the Game of Thrones we have...

Well, duh. My point is that the history sounds better and could be woven together more tightly. Maybe it couldn't, I don't know that much about it.

It's like how we hear all about Selmy's great battles in the past, but the story we have has nothing to do with them. Selmy wasn't even the greatest. Ned Stark's greatest battles were pre-GoT. Same with Jaime's. Just about everything in the GoT timeline looks like it was better during the preceding 20-40 years. I have a feeling the ending of GoT will not culminate to something as powerful as the Robert vs Rhaegar thing would have been. Tywin's diplomatic battles with Aerys sound way better than anything Tywin has done in the show. Ser Arthur Dayne vs the Smiling Knight sounds even better than Oberyn vs the Mountain. Some of the stuff Ned did after the fallout with Robert sounds awesome

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Well, duh. My point is that the history sounds better and could be woven together more tightly. Maybe it couldn't, I don't know that much about it.

It's like how we hear all about Selmy's great battles in the past, but the story we have has nothing to do with them. Selmy wasn't even the greatest. Ned Stark's greatest battles were pre-GoT. Same with Jaime's. Just about everything in the GoT timeline looks like it was better during the preceding 20-40 years. I have a feeling the ending of GoT will not culminate to something as powerful as the Robert vs Rhaegar thing would have been. Tywin's diplomatic battles with Aerys sound way better than anything Tywin has done in the show. Ser Arthur Dayne vs the Smiling Knight sounds even better than Oberyn vs the Mountain. Some of the stuff Ned did after the fallout with Robert sounds awesome

Meh, it's a rich backstory, and maybe you're enthusiasm for the current arcs is waining, but I just see you saying the same thing if you had only heard about Oberyn vs The Mountain but were shown the fight between Dayne and the Smiling Knight (who.. what..?). That's the thing with literature vs film-- with the backstory your imagination can make it as awesome as you want, while film is much less open to imaginative embellishment. You can see this if you look to any continuum which has a heavily built up back story. For example, Star Wars-- I always felt the way you do about the GoT back story towards the Clone Wars. Then we got the prequels and, well, you know how that went...

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Meh, it's a rich backstory, and maybe you're enthusiasm for the current arcs is waining, but I just see you saying the same thing if you had only heard about Oberyn vs The Mountain but were shown the fight between Dayne and the Smiling Knight (who.. what..?). That's the thing with literature vs film-- with the backstory your imagination can make it as awesome as you want, while film is much less open to imaginative embellishment. You can see this if you look to any continuum which has a heavily built up back story. For example, Star Wars-- I always felt the way you do about the GoT back story towards the Clone Wars. Then we got the prequels and, well, you know how that went...

The Star Wars problem was something else. Lucas tuned out. The prequels never had a chance even if they were the greatest story ever

My guess is that the way GRRM writes history is different than the way he writes the present. It isn't so much that the world isn't overall a just place, but that nothing so far has been remotely just. It's as if GRRM intentionally wants to break a mold with his storytelling, yet doesn't have incentive to do that when constructing history. Breaking the mold isn't always good.

The GoT present appears to be about what's the most surprising or unpleasant. It also appears to use more literary thematic elements. I tend to dislike those because I think plot is more important and they detract from plot. GoT history appears to be less engaged in themes and more engaged in compelling plot

It's not really something that can be debated from either side. It's subjective and I know very little about the history, but some of it I do know is somewhat spoilery.