So far, everything we have heard about the script has been from people who are big fans of the books. It is good to know that Benioff and Weiss are committed to making a series that will please the fans. But HBO is going to need more than just ASOIAF fans to watch the show for it to be a success. So I was curious to find out how the script would read to someone who is unfamiliar with the books. To that end, I enlisted someone that hasn’t read the books to read the script: my wife.
Before I get to her thoughts on the script, let me just give you a little background on Mrs. Winter Is Coming. She is not a complete stranger to fantasy. She has read and enjoyed the Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings. But she is by no means a fantasy nut. I think she is a good representation of the average viewer. Familiar with fantasy, but not a total fantasy geek.
So what did she think of the script? Overall, her impressions were mixed. At first, she said that it was “weird.” She also wasn’t too thrilled with all the sex. But she started asking me questions about who this person was, and what happened to this person, etc. and I think it started to grow on her. Now she wants to read the books!
She mentioned that at first it was a bit confusing as it seemed to be jumping around from place to place with no real connection between each scene. But as she progressed further it started to come together. The one thing she did notice though was how the prologue didn’t really connect with anything else in the episode. She didn’t really get the significance of it. But even in the book you don’t get the significance of it until much later.
She said her favorite characters were Jon and Bran and that she was sad when Bran “fell.” She mentioned she wouldn’t want to watch the next episode because of that. I had to tell her that Bran doesn’t actually die and that seemed to make her more interested to find out what happens next. It may be important to have the preview for the next episode include the fact that Bran survives the fall, so that new viewers aren’t turned off.
I was glad to hear that she was able to pick up most of the back story through the script. One of my concerns was the pilot may be too confusing to viewers unfamiliar with the story. But she was able to discern the basics of the back story just from the script narrative. Robert was in love with Lyanna, Jaime slew the Mad King, Robert became King afterwards, Dany and Viserys are the last of the remaining Targaryens, etc.
She also picked up on the “Lannisters are bad, Starks are good” stereotype that was alledgedly mentioned as a concern by one of the producers. I’m not sure what Benioff and Weiss could do about that though. In only one episode there isn’t much you can do to provide more greyness to the characters. You have to establish the characters first, later episodes will provide more depth.
Overall, I was pleased to hear she was able to follow the story, and pick up on the history of Westeros. I think it is important that new viewers not get too confused or else they will tune out. Also it needs to suck the viewers in. My wife seemed to be pretty interested in what happens next so I think it accomplishes that. At the very least, most people should be willing to give it a few episodes and I am sure by that time they will be hooked. Now we just have to hope there will be a few episodes to see!
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23 Comments
If throwing a seven year old out a window doesn’t make you want to know what happens next then nothing will. That was the hook in the book once I read that it was hard to put down.
dizzyQuote Reply
poor woman!as if it was not enough to cook and wash for you,now she must work for you too.
but i think maybe she at last have fun with reading for you,and you can cook and wash.
sweetmartinQuote Reply
Your wife’s reaction seems similar to mine when I first started reading the books. My concept of the fantasy genre was LOTR, WOT, etc. Getting into ASOIAF is a bit difficult for people who don’t know what to expect (which is most people, I would think). I actually started the A Game of Thrones a few times before actually getting hooked.
I have a couple of friends that I introduced the series to and I had to tell them, “Look, I know it may be difficult to read at first but trust me, the payoff is coming.” And they’ve said that it was also hard for them to read initially but now it’s their favorite series.
I have constantly made references to The Wire in my comments on your blog and I apologize if that has gotten repetitive but in terms of scope, detail and audience expectation it’s the closest thing that I can think of, despite the completely different genres. Series creator David Simon has said that the reason The Wire got so much critical praise is the same reason that it never achieved mass popularity and that is because it asks a lot of the audience. I think we might witness something similar here. I just hope that HBO gives this series the same commitment.
OmagusQuote Reply
I think in the beginning the good Starks/bad Lannisters stereotype will be hard to avoid. But after all even in the books we start by “siding” with the Starks, since in AGoT they have half of the PoVs with only Tyrion to represent the Lannisters. I think it’ll be vital to get a good actor to play Jaime Lannister, since he’s got to turn from someone who the audience will hate to one of the most interesting characters in the story.
aikodestinyQuote Reply
This is kind of what I’m leery of, myself. My mother enjoys mainstream fantasy, and she couldn’t get into the books at all. I think she found them too bleak, too harsh. My father got to the part where Drogo and Dany have sex and he couldn’t read further because he was grossed out. Granted, I think these things will be blunted a little in a television production – if they cast a woman younger than 20 for Dany will be shocked, for instance – but a lot of the characters you will have to sympathize with eventually are very hard to sympathize with at first. The only character I identified with when I first read AGoT was Ned, and, well…
coaldustcanaryQuote Reply
You have to assume the Starks are “good” and the Lannisters are “bad” early in the books.
Jaime: throws a child from a window; incestous
Joffrey: complete and utter dick due to the fact no one ever told him no
Cersei: incestous; completely self-serving; cold
Tywin: only mentioned
Tyrion: the exception
The only Stark you would hate a little bit would be Catelyn due to her treatment of Jon. People might hate Sansa a bit too.
AnonymousQuote Reply
Completely agree about The Wire comparison. It’s the closest a TV show has come to fully representing a novel (or series of novels). That’s why I’m glad ASOIAF will be on HBO – probably the only network that would have been willing to stick with the vision David Simon had for The Wire despite poor ratings.
dholdsQuote Reply
I guess people get hooked on the books differently. The best response I got ever was when I borrowed the Game of Thrones to my cousin. Next day I asked him what does he think of it. ”Great, amazing, what a great book”. Really, I say, how much have you read?, ”Oh, I just started, king just arrived to Winterfell”.
For me, the hook was the finding of direwolf pups, but I rarely put down a book and don’t finish it so I may not be the most objective one…
gabalQuote Reply
Regarding The Wire (the best episodic TV show ever, IMO), they had a certain luxury that Game of Thrones won’t have, and that’s a relatively low budget. The Wire had low viewership, but it had enough to justify it’s cost, especially after DVD which have always sold quite well for that show (hell, I bought the set). But The Wire is shot mostly on location and the few sets they do build are not terribly elaborate or large. The most elaborate set they built for Season 3 was the Mayor’s office, Simon said in the commentaries on the DVD. GoT will spend a lot on costumes, CGI creatures, vistas, etc. and on sets. They will do what they can with existing places, but there is only so much that is possible. For these reasons, I’m praying for strong viewership.
BrudeQuote Reply
I’m glad we are getting some of the non-book fans giving their thoughts on the script as this is most likely to be reflective of the HBO execs impressions too (albeit they will think more about how profitable it will be too).
Fans need to realise that this show needs to be a BIG hit to warrant keeping it around and for that to happen it needs new fans of the series. I also hope that when it is made they wait for DVD sales of the first season before deciding on a second. I think the DVD could do better than the aired showings. I wonder if the BBC is still involved too? they usually have a good ethic with regards to letting a show find it’s fanbase and it’s non pay per view so should reach a larger audience.
red snowQuote Reply
I find it funny that your wife commented on the sex, since the overall season is front-loaded with it: the maybe (the new) whorehouse scene unlikely to be repeated, Dany’s wedding night, and Jaime/Cersi’s incest.
After that, there are perhaps three more times we would be likely to see Dany having sex (one where she’s discouraged, one after she’s had lessons, and one with her handmaidens) and the giant raping and pillaging scene. I can’t think of any other scenes with sex in the first book. I hope they don’t write more into it. It’s not that I’m a prude, but I find prolonged explicit sex scenes boring and generally lacking in plot and content based on the few bits I’ve seen of the rewritten stuff for True Blood.
Omegus- I actually find your comparing it to a more traditional epic odd. I’ve really never been able to get into the traditional fantasy epics, I usually read fantasy comedies or short stories. I picked up GRRM’s work because the reviews I was reading for ASOIAF were different. I think what hooked me was that despite it being mainly from the perspective of children, I wasn’t forced to have saccharine feelings of sweetness about any of them except Bran, and he fell off a tower, so that was acceptable to me. GRRM clearly had impressive skill to write so many characters so well. It is a different epic fantasy both because its a dark epic fantasy and because it focuses deeply on character psychology rather than archetype heroes.
The ones I identify with best in the first book are (the honorable) Ned, (the honorable) Jon, and Arya (who reminds me of myself about the time She-Ra was on TV).
world-dancerQuote Reply
“Omegus- I actually find your comparing it to a more traditional epic odd. I’ve really never been able to get into the traditional fantasy epics, I usually read fantasy comedies or short stories.”
–
I probably didn’t explain myself properly. What I meant is that *before* reading Game of Thrones, that was my concept of the fantasy genre. So, for me, getting into ASOIAF was a little bit more difficult because there was little there that held any familiarity with me.
Now, if we’re talking about the present, it’s completely different. A Song of Ice and Fire has COMPLETELY changed my perspective on the genre. It’s actually very difficult for me to get into any other series now for that very reason. Nothing else that I’ve come across has the same delicious level of detail, scope and characterization.
OmagusQuote Reply
“Regarding The Wire (the best episodic TV show ever, IMO), they had a certain luxury that Game of Thrones won’t have, and that’s a relatively low budget. The Wire had low viewership, but it had enough to justify it’s cost, especially after DVD which have always sold quite well for that show (hell, I bought the set).”
–
1) Completely agree on The Wire being the best TV show ever. And you’re right about it drawing more fans thanks to DVD sales. That’s actually how I first got introduced to it. Also, I think it’s one of those shows that is actually better viewed multiple episodes at a time, rather than in a weekly format. I think Game of Thrones might possibly be similar.
2) Good point about the relative costs of the two series. That will indeed be an enormous factor in its success. Does anyone have a rough estimate on the kind of viewer numbers a premium cable network expects for certain series? Is there a viewer-to-dollar ratio of some sort that has to be met?
OmagusQuote Reply
One quick question: how the heck is the prologue connected to the rest that happens in the first episode? The Others reappear in the second book!
Oeffinger FreidenkerQuote Reply
The prologue is connected to the politics at the wall and what happens with Jon. I believe some of that is covered in the first book.
world-dancerQuote Reply
I see the prologue to me is more of a world establising scene than anything else. It lets you discover that there are classes among the people of Westeros from thieves up to Lordlings. More importantly is set the scene right away that this is a fantasy world. I think that this scene is needed specifically because afterwards Martin takes so long to let the magic start seeping out. Its kind of like saying “Yeah there’s gonna be some hocus pocus. Stay tuned.” afterwhich Martin is able to delve into character development and interpersonal relationships so that when the magic stuff does eventually go down, in seems a whole lot more sinister and you care much more about how it will affect the characters that you have leaerned to know and care about.
LordnedsheadQuote Reply
A few comments concerning the polarization of the two main houses depicted in the series. I believe that Martin fully intended to begin the story depicting the Starks as the good guys and the Lannisters as the bad guys. He wanted to begin this way in order to give conventional fantasy story structure (good prince finds magic sword; kills dragon; saves princess; lives happily ever after) a body slam further on down the line. If he had started off with everyone “grey” I doubt that the first time reader would be as rabidly involved with the story as they are by the time things start to get more cloudy.
If the aformentioned HBO exec had read the whole series I doubt she would have even expressed the Black and White comment. If (which is more likely) she only read the first book or just the pilot, her comment would make alot more sense to her limited view of the series.
I think its very important for someone on the creative side of the project to take the suits by the hand and paint a picture of what happens in the series beyond the pilot and even beyond the first season. They need to know how dramatically everyone in the series evolves or then might never realize how great of a property they have on their hands.
LordnedsheadQuote Reply
The sex situation could be problematic in the UK. AGoT, like ROME, is being co-funded by the BBC and will likely be shown on BBC-1. Unlike HBO, which is a premium cable channel which can support even quite expensive shows which only get a viewership in the 2 million range (their new ‘hit’ show, TRUE BLOOD, is apparently in this range and was rush-renewed for a second season based on that), BBC-1 is the UK’s biggest-rated popular TV channel and in the 9-10pm slot, where they’ll probably put AGoT, can theoretically deliver audiences in the 10 million range (although more likely only 5-7 million would be needed to make the show a hit).
Whilst British audiences are, frankly, much more used to sex and violence on their TVs than Americans are, they seem to dislike it when it goes over the top. When ROME first aired in the UK, the BBC decided to edit together the first three episodes into two, frontloading the show with half a dozen or so of the most explicit sex scenes the show ever did. The result was very poor reviews and swiftly plummeting ratings. The BBC pulling the financial plug during the second season is one of several reasons given for ROME’s cancellation. Although their contribution was minor – 15% of the budget – it was still enough to push the nervous HBO execs over the edge into cancelling the show (a decision they later regretted when Season 2′s US ratings came in quite strong).
Hopefully the BBC will have learned from this and will not do the same thing for AGoT. The show is extremely marketable in the UK (they could market it as a more adult version of MERLIN colliding with THE TUDORS) and the books are very popular here and are probably a lot more well-known than in the much more crowded US fantasy literature market. But too much emphasis on the sex could have a detrimental effect.
Adam WhiteheadQuote Reply
Thanks for writing this blog, this entry was really interesting for me to read.
Also, the mere prospect of an HBO series has made it much easier for me to get my friends to read this series.
AnonymousQuote Reply
Starks = good, lannisters = bad will be hard to avoid early in the series. Another HBO show that had a very hated character that I liked by midway through season 2 was Deadwood. Ian Mcshanes’ portrayal of Al Sweringen was brilliant. If the acting is good, people will be able to change their allegiences.
AnonymousQuote Reply
“A Song of Ice and Fire has COMPLETELY changed my perspective on the genre. It’s actually very difficult for me to get into any other series now for that very reason. Nothing else that I’ve come across has the same delicious level of detail, scope and characterization.”
same here… try “the Darkness that comes before” by R. S. Bakker (prince of nothing series) that really itched the scratch while waiting for DANCE
winter is coming! cant wait for the show!!!!!
AnonymousQuote Reply
Well, I have to admit that I’d cut the prologue as well. It’s too far away from the rest of the story. I have to admit that it IS important for the story, however we just start to see it’s importance at Season 3 earliest. Therefore an option could be to leave the prologue out and bring it as a flashback in S3 – providing there is one.
AnonymousQuote Reply
Some comments on the blog here talk about the fear about sex scenes in the first few episodes. Of note in particular is the sex scene between Dany & Khal Drogo.
I have some thoughts on that but I re-read that chapter just now to ensure my hunch was right–and I think it is.
[[[SPOILER HERE... but if you haven't read this chapter in the first book what are you really doing on this blog, eh?]]]]
In reality that scene is one of the most touching and romantic in the book–rather than being disturbing. The first time I read that chapter I was really worried about Dany–after the crazy wedding scene I wonder if she was in for an unspeakable consummation. But Khal Drogo instead goes to great lengths to engage Dany verbally (he only knows the word "no") and physically. This includes the wonderful moment when he says "No?" as a question–in what was one of the most touching GRRM moments in the series… this hulking warrior who could have, and force, any woman he wants–basically submitting himself to his teen bride. Dany is won over and says "yes." The sex act happens "off screen" even in the book–so they could get away without showing much of anything here… even with Dany being an obvious teenager.
I think on HBO it could be done with class and with some sense of romance, even. The thought of this barbarian horselord and this pristine silver-haired princess having absolutely nothing in common but the word "no" was just sheer genius on GRRM's part… and I bet it turns out to be one of the best love scenes on the small screen when it actually happens.
[Although I'm putting no bets on timelines for ANYTHING that has George RR Martin's name on it.]
Eutychus BaileyQuote Reply