I don't understand what your argument here is... it's not the writer's fault that they can't write without whole books of source material? It's not the writer's fault that the events and dialog and characters went to shit once they had to do more of the writing?

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip -2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

You're reaching harder than Shireen looking for anyone who cares if she lives or dies.

The point is that they had the outline of what Martin wanted the story to be. At the time of completion, it had been 8 years since Martin had released a book and 4 years since they had been dependent on filling in the gaps of the outline themselves (some of Season 6 overlapped with Dance but it was mostly the Arya stuff that was clearly meandering in both versions).

The reality is that there was either a LOT more book/show than 2 doorstoppers and 4 seasons... or a lot less (that is where I tend to fall).

But yeah. The problem is the showrunners should have just done what has taken Martin at least 15 years to do at this point... over the course of a few months? And then probably tried to get the blessing of the guy who had already, allegedly, crashed out over not liking adaptation changes (and would, a decade or so later, very publicly crash out over the exact same stuff).

The Mereneese Knot is a hard problem to solve. Moreso in a way that makes both book and show fans satisfied. And there is a lot of blame to go around.

Just to elaborate to the void a bit.

From the first page to basically Nedd's death and MAYBE Tyrion's release, ASOIAF is essentially a courtly intrigue book. It then becomes a war book until... more or less where the books end. The Lannisters have already won in every way that matters and the Tyrells, who tried to bring courtly intrigue back, mostly have been superseded by The Church (and all signs are that Cersei will also demonstrate that wildfire can melt stone arches in the books too...). The Battle of the Bastards is the last REAL fight until Dany (who won her war a book or so prior?) shows up.

And... that drastically changes the pacing and structure of a series. Courtly intrigue and resulting war can more or less be told in real time. But they are past that. They are waiting for the next war to kick off. That means kingdom management with minimal intrigue (much easier to be arch when folk aren't still scrubbing the blood off their floors).

And management by necessity involves time skips. Yes, it is fun to realize that a good chunk of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is about how Guan Yu et al sucks at actual governorship. But unless you are the kind of sicko who loves to read about irrigation projects.... yeah. Which is why basically anyone who knows their Chinese History from Dynasty Warriors can give almost blow by blow details of the Yellow Turbans up to maybe Guandu. Then they get REAL quiet when you ask them why there are (generally) FOUR kingdoms to choose from or where Zhao Yun and Zhuge Liang came from or even who actually won. Because it went from "and then, in the spring, we fought at..." and became "so like five years later..." by the simple necessity of... humanity.

But Martin, and by association HBO, don't want that time skip. He wants to keep giving the play by play so that we can hear all about that irrigation project.