Interesting Links for 12-05-2019

[andrewducker]

Why the last two seasons of Game of Thrones feel so different

(tags:tv books gameofthrones writing )

Change UK have given a masterclass in how not to launch a political party

(tags:politics uk epicfail viaDanielDWilliam )

'Reconstruction' begins of stone age lands lost to North Sea

(tags:prehistory uk europe )

Revoking article 50 is the only action acceptable to the British public

(tags:europe uk polls )

Comments

[calimac]

"Revoking article 50 is the only action acceptable to the British public" and it's the only thing Theresa May won't do, so there you are.

"Change UK have given a masterclass in how not to launch a political party" and I read this and remembered what I've read in the past about the launching of the SDP, and they pretty much did all the things that Change UK have neglected to do.

Why the last two seasons of Game of Thrones feel so different

[jack]

Hm. I think everything he says is true, and it's a REALLY good explanation of plotting and pantsing that prioritises both as different strengths without saying one is right, but something still feels incomplete.

I haven't seen s7 and s8 yet but I know the general outline. My theory would be that the first two books got a lot of polishing pre-publication. Then GRRM ran into the too-many-plates written-yourself-into-a-corner problem with the next few books, but the shows, able to pick out and build on the best bits of the books, got to improve on them.

Then they ended up trying to do the last series with only a plot outline, but without being able to see all of GRRM's character work and see what worked and what didn't.

I think this means a lot of their big moves were reasonable, but it was harder to make the characters work.

Like, it sounds like in both show and book Tyrion was supposed to end up in the same place, but the books had a longer detour where he fitted into other side plots. But the show neatly snipped those out, and in terms of plot it worked fine.

But the show has been struggling worse with "is Tyrion supposed to be a good adviser with occasional flaws, or an adviser who used to be good but is basically ruined with self-doubt, self-indulgence and hatred". And the mistakes there seem like just... not enough polish. If they wrote down "how should the character of tyrion appear" and "what are all the decisions tyrion makes in the next three seasons", they could easily say, "Oops, he's supposed to be growing into an adviser role while simultaneously falling apart in some other way. We need to show that everything went wrong DESPITE his good decisions, while showing him failing in other ways." Or vice versa. That's not that hard to fix if you know what you want to achieve, but is really hard when you're juggling hundreds of different plates and don't know where you want them to end up.

Similarly, Dany seems increasingly inconsistent. They could justify that if they'd deliberately showed her having flashes of rage which she struggles to bring under control, like many Targyarens. But it feels more like "she has a redemption arc, and then a falling into madness arc, and then just keeps vacillating".

Those are the mistakes that happen when you don't pay enough attention to the characters, but it seems like they have more than they NEED to have, it's like they gave up making the characters consistent.

[andrewducker]

And it still didn't work (although it clearly worked _better_) because launching a political party is really hard.

Re: Why the last two seasons of Game of Thrones feel so different

[andrewducker]

I think the main issue is that they aren't spending quite enough time on the characters. More little moments.

Although, actually, Dany has had a ton of little moments. I think people have been actively avoiding putting together to see the big picture.

[calimac]

Their ultimate failure had nothing to do with their launch, which worked nearly to perfection. What's really hard is cracking the FPTP barrier. But they were perfectly positioned to give it a try.