HBO's Next (I Hope) Great Drama

I’m really going to have to reread these books – I read the first three, and have the fourth one kicking around, but I was at an age where I had read Lord of the Rings and the books were suggested to my parents at the book store as the next logical step (which was a dangerous suggestion considering the dropping median age of LOTR readers considering ASoIaF’s HBO-style content, but that’s neither here nor there), and I don’t quite think I was ready to really confront Martin’s material. However, I got through three of the things, so I’d tend to think that there’s something intriguing to go back to when I get the chance in the Fall, hopefully coinciding with HBO’s decision to make the series – its potential as TV series is certainly something I remember.

It’s a great series, and would make for great TV.

There is the small problem of the delays the books have faced recently. It’s been nearly four years since the disappointing A Feast For Crows, and we still haven’t gotten the fifth book. GRRM apparently wants to be pretty involved in the TV series too, which could cause greater delays in the future books. Still, I hope the series is picked up.

The biggest problem with this series is that the HBO run would probably end before Martin ever finishes the books. It was supposed to be 7 books originally (I think), but the fourth book got so long his publishers split it in two. Book 5, the second half of book 4, is going on two years overdue at this point… I think the first book was published over a decade ago at this point.
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I know nothing about how much these things cost, but since there isn’t a whole lot of mysticism and magic and so-forth (though ***spoiler I guess*** it does come back into play somewhat), I can’t see it costing more than a lot of CGI-heavy shows. I guess it depends on where and how they film it.

Re: delays in the books series–it’s a concern, but the flip side is that it will take HBO a while to put the existing books on the air (assuming the series stays mainly faithful to the books and does one per season). Assuming it does get picked up to series, season 1 couldn’t get on the air until 2010 at least, and I’d guess 2011; and HBO will space seasons of dramas a year apart or more depending what it has in the can. (Remember the long layovers between series of The Sopranos, or even Curb Your Enthusiasm.) So I doubt that would be a dealbreaker.

I’m very hopeful for the pilot production. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the showrunners, have been solicitous of fan input at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum, and seem to be very sincere in their regard for GRRM’s writing. It’s also a great place to discuss the series and the various rumors and dribbles of news (a lot of people scanning Twitter religiously, as a number of actors have tweeted their attendance on casting sessions).

The largest challenge for casting, it seems to me, is the children. George has found them difficult to write, especially Bran I think. All the characters are being aged up a little bit (a couple of years in most cases), but this still leaves characters like Arya and Bran as needing good child actors to pull them off. That said, I think the first season very much hinges on Eddard Stark, and their casting is probably much more important. The actor for that role will be have their work cut out for them if the show gets a season order.

The rumors regarding potential budgets don’t sound like they’re planning a ROME-sized budget. That said, ROME incurred very high costs for its massive set and shooting on-location in Italy. HBO and the BBC — who are partnered in this project — have secured what looks to be like a sweetheart deal with the Northern Ireland government involving the use of their massive Paint Hall facilitiy and apparently some major tax concessions. So perhaps even with a lower budget than ROME, it’ll still look just as spectacular.

Let me preface this by saying that when I was reading the books, I was Seriously thinking about them – and you’ve dealt with me enough to realize the amount of detail that entails (I had suspected timelines written out for all the major characters through the end of the series). It’s also been years since I’ve read them, and have forgotten quite a bit – especially which events took place in which book. So I shall try to be careful:
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The biggest challenge is costs. Now, I take it from the above that you have only read the first book. Outside of a couple location shots dealing with Daenerys, most of book one takes place in the same couple of castle locations. So a Tudors-ish budget.
Starting with book two, however, costs explode – there are a number of serious battle scenes in book two (one involving a massive naval engagement as well). The fantasy elements, while still not in the foreground, do make a more serious appearance as well. There’s also significant “ruined countryside” that will either have to be prepared or whipped up with CGI. Various major characters suffer serious injuries that will need to be covered with either CGI or prosthetic makeup work for the duration of the series. All in all, Season One will have to be a massive success before HBO will be able to sign off on the CGI budget Season Two will require.
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The second biggest challenge is sexism (perceived or actual). If one listens to the layperson’s (generally teenage/twenties males, given the genre) complaints about the first book, the biggest is that the female characters (Sansa, Catelyn) are largely ineffectual. Part of this is the setting – women only had power behind the scenes. And part of this is by long design: Martin tends to make his males instant badasses (Jon, Robb, the tomboyish Arya), but the womens’ rise to power is all the more impressive because of their low beginnings: Catelyn is in quite a different position now, and Sansa is apparently on track to take out the biggest villain in the series and rule half the land, even if she took four books to get there.
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The third biggest challenge is getting Peter Dinklage to play Tyrion. Which, even if they screw up every other part of the adaptation, marks it as a success in my book.

@Tom Shaw: I purposely skimmed through yr post to avoid spoilers, but you raise a good point about female characters. I have only read the first book, but Cersei is a sexually manipulative, cunning she-bitch out of central casting… then again, she is so in much the same way as Rome’s Atia was, so I’m not sure HBO has a problem with that. And, of course, we can’t assume that the books will be gospel; True Blood (I understand) goes far afield from the Sookie Stackhouse books.
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The question is how much of the gender differences is the honest characterization of women’s roles and socialization in this society (as opposed to some reflection of an author’s gender bias about women’s nature). Take Deadwood–they didn’t feel obligated to pretend that women had a wide variety of career options in the Old West outside the whorehouse, teachers, or exceptions like Calamity Jane, but within those parameters Milch created compelling female characters (aided by great casting, inc Kim Dickens).
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BTW, Daenerys is an interesting variation, in that (mild spoiler, I guess) she starts out as a victim and kind of a ninny, and becomes wily and fearsome (but, again, have only read book 1).

@Tom Shaw: I thought Dinklage was already cast. I’m pretty sure it’s official, and it’s wonderful, because Tyrion is by far my favorite character.
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I love these books, even the last one that people kinda bagged on. I’m very worried though that GRRM is going to Robert Jordan on us, that is die after we’ve already read thousands of pages. I read somewhere that he goes out of his way to hide his notes so that no one can pick up his series if he dies. That’s frightening. I have a brother that read the first book, loved it, and refused to read the rest until the series is finished because he’s so afraid it will never end.

I heard awhile ago that “A Song of Ice and Fire” was slated to be made into a film series. I was initally scared that it would be crap. Now that its going to be a TV series/miniseries. It has greater potential to be AWESOME than if it was on the big screen. But it is very true that the scope of the books would require a hollywood sized budget which makes me nervious. Either way, stay true to the best you can to the books and I might add HBO to my cable just for this. Was if Jordan or Martin that died recently before finishing the epic series? I think it was Jordan.
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“The Lord of the Rings—Martin’s characters, even the best among them, are flawed, ambivalent and deeply fallible.” And die regularly. New characters are introduced to the reader, cherished and pivotal characters and then Martin kills them. But it works and its not haphazard.

Oh, one other consequence related to Tom Shaw’s interests: we would have another TV serial involving a sinister, feared group called The Others.

@Rorschach: My phrasing wasn’t clear. Let me try again.
Before he was cast, the third biggest challenge was getting Dinklage; now that he has been cast, the project is an automatic success.
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@James: Dany is kind of an outlier. By and large, her actions over the next books are that of a king on the throne: she decides, but all the action is accomplished by her proxies.
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In regards to gender bias: It’s a complicated assessment. Again, I feel that various female characters are initially drawn as weak, even in the context of their society, such that their later accomplishments are all the more striking. But at the same time, Martin will write some bits that seem expressly designed for titillation (three words: lesbian sex scenes). With half the books still unread, I am unable to pass judgment.

I am so excited about the possibility that Game of Thrones might be made into an HBO series! I have already promised myself that if HBO does indeed pick this up, then I will immediately shell out for digital cable and HBO. You hear that, HBO?!?! Money in your pockets!
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Yes the scope of the books is intimidating and will probably necessarily have to be judiciously trimmed (raising howls of displeasure from many quarters, no doubt) but the central thrust of the narrative (Stark family gets caught up in political maneuverings, scattered to the winds, will they survive?!) is so compelling, and the characters so wonderfully flawed, that this just has to happen. I’m really ignorant when it comes to things like costs and budgets, and of course I would hate to see a cheap and fake-looking world on the screen, but I would rather that some liberties be taken with the plot/setting in the interest of saving money if the alternative is that the series becomes unsustainable due to outlandish costs.

Catelyn Stark is, I think, one of the great female characters of the fantasy genre. Her role defined for her as a mother, she carries it out with conviction. She is somewhat controversial in this regard, but that just makes great drama.

I think she’s certainly a character who should be very appealing. I hope the actress for her can pull it off.

With any great adaptation it depends on the casting. They’re already off to a great start with Peter Dinklage as Tyrion. For A Game of Thrones they really need to nail the right actor to play Eddard Stark and to a slighly lesser extent Robert Baratheon. They also have to find a great couple of actors to play the incestuous twins Jaime and Cersei. Ever since seeing Polly Walker in Rome I’ve always envisioned Catelyn looking like her — not sure why, but it always stuck with me.
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I’m definitely hoping this pilot goes to series. It would be something wholly different than what is currently anywhere on television, and HBO for that matter.

I cannot believe you did a post on A Game of Thrones this afternoon. I came to the blog this morning and was going to mention that I came across you twitter page via a post from Matt Roush concerning the series. I had written into Matt Roush’s Ask Matt column a couple months ago back with Peter Dinklage was cast. In fact, I first heard of the series from that same column nearly two years ago. That really shows how careful HBO has been about this show’s development.
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http://www.winter-is-coming.blogspot.com is a website that is following the development of the pilot. And they have a post about all of the critics supporting the book series and getting the word out.
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One last thing. The script for the pilot leaked onto the internet a few months back. I read it and I must say that it was very faithful to the series.

[...] HBO’s Next (I Hope) Great Drama I didn’t end up watching a tremendous amount of TV on vacation, owing to (1) staying in a beach house without a [...] [...]

What…no remote? Manually (no pun intended) go to the Logo channel. I’m pretty sure that’s right up your alley (no pun intended…again)!

I wish more book series like this would be made into TV shows rather than movies. It seems to me that modern serial dramas are so much better suited to the task of adapted a good, plot-heavy novel than a movie. Can you imagine a “True Blood” movie? Though I haven’t read the books, I definitely hope the series gets picked up.

@James Poniewozik: “The question is how much of the gender differences is the honest characterization of women’s roles and socialization in this society (as opposed to some reflection of an author’s gender bias about women’s nature).”
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First off, you’re great simply for the fact that you posted this article, even though it won’t get any coverage today. Hope you keep up with the production, it needs people who’s opinions “count.”
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But, wow, I don’t see how you can miss the fact that Martin’s female characters are anything but perfect archetypes trying to wade their way through his universe. Cate is the dutiful wife and mother, later simply mother, who cares only about protecting her family.
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Cersei’s everyone’s favorite villain (don’t worry, she’s still alive to hate, so far anyway), but to me she’s one of the most tragic characters: a) she can NEVER be with the one person she loves, publicly anyway, b) she’s forced into situations she doesn’t want (her marriage the centerpiece, so to speak), and therefore thrust into the game, c) she has children (SPOILER: not her husband’s), d) having been corrupted by the game she seeks power, pleasure and her children’s security. She’s vindictive, sure, but can you really blame her? (Sort of SPOILER): Cate certainly gets vindictive later, and I wish her nothing but the blood she craves.
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Dany’s just a kid. Abused by her brother/guardian, sold by the other guardian she trusted, and the man she was “given” to? A giant killer from a foreign, brutal society that can’t even speak to her. Then, once she finally bonds with him and feels comfortable for the first time in her life, he gets killed.
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Also, she’s the true heir of all Westeros, but can’t have any more children.
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And…she’s the mother of the only three dragons on the planet, which haven’t existed for centuries. I wouldn’t trust a 14 year old girl to watch my turtle for a few hours, but people expect Dany to make rational decisions? To rule the world? I’d cry if I could just stop laughing.
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As far as the series goes, it’ll be a shadow of the books, undoubtedly, because you can’t put Martin’s writing on the screen, no matter what you do. Scope will be an issue as well, of course, trying to compete with my imagination, not to mention the other couple million fan’s.
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That said, it is conceivably the greatest achievement in television history. (Apparently, television wouldn’t be considered “motion picture history,” even though television is nothing but projected moving pictures. If I buy Michael Jackson’s theater at auction, and watch the show on a giant projected screen, what then?)
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The Wire is the greatest television show ever made, not because of its plot dynamics, direction, acting, comedy, or even its writing, all of which were golden, and couldn’t be done without. The true greatness of the Wire is that it captured reality, of a scene, of a city. Game of Thrones has a chance to transcend that, to make an unreal world real.

[...] With the pilot for George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones currently entering production in Ireland, Time magazine entertainment writer, James Poniewozik, practically begs HBO to pick up the series. [...]

[...] From Time: For starters, the sprawling plot—about the rivalry among noble (and ignoble) houses for a mythical kingdom—offers a gripping, intrigue-filled basic story that’s like Fantasy Rome (complete with abundant blood, sex and kinkiness). That’s probably what attracted the network in the first place. [Update: Also—perhaps thanks to the fact that Martin has worked as a TV writer—the story is broken down, and the plots interwoven, very much like those of a cable drama. For first-time readers of this blog, I mean that as a compliment.] [...]

[...] From Time: For starters, the sprawling plot—about the rivalry among noble (and ignoble) houses for a mythical kingdom—offers a gripping, intrigue-filled basic story that’s like Fantasy Rome (complete with abundant blood, sex and kinkiness). That’s probably what attracted the network in the first place. [Update: Also—perhaps thanks to the fact that Martin has worked as a TV writer—the story is broken down, and the plots interwoven, very much like those of a cable drama. For first-time readers of this blog, I mean that as a compliment.] [...]

[...] From Time: For starters, the sprawling plot—about the rivalry among noble (and ignoble) houses for a mythical kingdom—offers a gripping, intrigue-filled basic story that’s like Fantasy Rome (complete with abundant blood, sex and kinkiness). That’s probably what attracted the network in the first place. [Update: Also—perhaps thanks to the fact that Martin has worked as a TV writer—the story is broken down, and the plots interwoven, very much like those of a cable drama. For first-time readers of this blog, I mean that as a compliment.] [...]

[...] From Time: For starters, the sprawling plot—about the rivalry among noble (and ignoble) houses for a mythical kingdom—offers a gripping, intrigue-filled basic story that’s like Fantasy Rome (complete with abundant blood, sex and kinkiness). That’s probably what attracted the network in the first place. [Update: Also—perhaps thanks to the fact that Martin has worked as a TV writer—the story is broken down, and the plots interwoven, very much like those of a cable drama. For first-time readers of this blog, I mean that as a compliment.] But great HBO series are about more than plot and skin; they’re about great themes, which Martin’s story has aplenty. In the tradition of HBO’s antiheroes and antiheroines—and unlike the protagonists of The Lord of the Rings—Martin’s characters, even the best among them, are flawed, ambivalent and deeply fallible. He constantly forces you to question whether the “honorable” resolution to a conflict is the best in the long run. The saga is littered with fallen heroes and shattered myths, as well as apparent villains and rogues who make surprising turns. [...]

[...] of Time Magazine has just started reading the series and he’s rigid with expectation: From Time: For starters, the sprawling plot—about the rivalry among noble (and ignoble) houses for a [...]

[...] http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2009/07/06/hbos-next-i-hope-great-drama/ [...]

I’m nervous about this being made into a series. I think the scope is huge and there is the potential to end up with it looking second rate if budgets are tight.

If done correctly, I believe this is the ideal TV show as it has a great balance of character driven plots and action and more twists and turns than I can recall.

I hope that HBO really invest into this, it will come with a strong fan base from the start and only if the production values are low will it lose some of that fan base.

I also hope it succeeds as it will take Martin’s work to a greater audience for them to enjoy.

The miraculous potential of a TV series or movie is that they can take a crappy book and rewrite it to have great drama.

Game of Thrones is just such a crap book.

Honestly, read your own praise for it and ask yourself, just when did any character in the book have a thought? Or utter something that was not a cliche?

Having “flawed” characters doesn’t make it worth reading. In fact, it makes it even more second-rate and tiresome.

The prose style is bland. There is no memorable culture or interesting outlook on the world, no linguistic invention, in a word, no beauty. It’s a shame to even mention the name Tolkien in the same sentence – unless to say that’s the only other book you read.

Leaving only plot and suspense to market the book on. (Let’s face it, the sex scenes are the worst writing of all.)

Which is where TV writers come in. The book and its world is a second-hand canvas, pre-stretched. It will be taken down and completely repainted to have drama, character revelation, and a point, expressed in 13 hour-long units.

I think the most important thing for HBO to do is to cast good actors, they don’t have to be well known actors. See Battlestar Galactica, they got a couple of big names and a whole bunch of relatively unheard of, but amazing actors and the series has been a huge success as far as I am concerned. I believe the story will sell itself and already has done so very well as books. To really get this story onto our screens and to keep it there it will need great performances from versatile actors.

I may be a bit saturated with Battlestar Galactica right now as I just pretty much watched the first two series back to back (out of work, plenty of time to kill whilst I wait for responses to job applications). However I believe, that HBO could do a lot worse than Edward James Olmos as Ned Stark and Tricia Helfer as Cersei Lannister, “frack it” they could just try and bag up as many of the cast of Galactica as possible, as far as I’m concerned. The series just finished airing and I’m not seeing a lot of new projects on some of the better characters’ IMDB pages yet. Also worth bagging is whoever did their camera work and directing, it’s “fracking” amazing!

Anyway, time for Series 3 for me…

^_^

W.R.T. female characters and sexism discussion between Tom Shaw, James and brandonstark –

It’s always seemed to me that much of the sexism surrounding this series is from the audience and not the author. There are a few irritating aspects of the text itself: the lesbian sex titillation, the greater prominence of beauty and appearance when writing female characters in comparison to male characters, the arguable marginalization of older/adult females, the relative lack of (non-titillating) female-female interactions. Martin isn’t perfect, to be sure.

But there is also a difficulty authors face when writing about deeply sexist cultures wherein they have to make it clear when they are describing and when they are prescribing. This particular difficulty jars with the tendency of many genre readers to regard plot success as the key indicator of a character’s merits. A world that makes it harder for women to succeed can hardly be called a level playing field, yet many genre readers, so far as I can tell, don’t implicitly have this in mind when they read. In my opinion, Martin doesn’t obstruct such a reading, though he doesn’t always make it as clear as possible either, particularly when it comes to women who occupy more ambiguous power v. gender constructs such as Catelyn Stark and Cersei Lannister. I often feel that Martin’s female characters suffer because of their fine subtlety, which seems to me like being penalized for being well written and challenging to convention.

That aside, there are times when it feels like Martin makes the world harder on his women than need be if he was drawing inspiration from real Medieval times, especially when it comes to power: competent women like Asha Greyjoy and Catelyn Stark are kept from power via complicated intersections of social dynamics, yet women who are slightly off their rocker like Lysa Arryn and Cersei Lannister are allowed to cook in their own stew. Only Daenerys mitigates this pattern, and the fact that she is divinely gifted with dragons severely mitigates how well she can act as commentary on the gender roles of the society (this doesn’t wholly invalidate her value as a character, though).

It is, in my opinion, more accurate to say that what Martin is writing about is gender in writing conventions — he is writing about the way gender has been written about in the romantic, poetic and heroic traditions of the past, more so than drawing straight from history. Cersei is the belle dame sans merci, Sansa is the innocent damsel, Lyanna is the tragic muse, Arianne the exotic temptress, etc. There are more modern types as well (Arya the plucky tomboy, Asha the tough chick) as well as characters who exist to oppose narrative conventions (Catelyn the anti-fantasy woman, Lynesse Hightower the prize who ran away). So while I’d agree that there’s something quite archetypical to the female characters, by including such a variety of them and interconnecting their motifs and relationships, I think Martin is able to offer commentary on them instead of playing them totally straight.

It’s just too bad the female characters don’t get to interact with each other as much as the male characters do. That’s one thing I like about what we’ve heard of the scripts so far: Cersei and Catelyn actually are able to speak to each other. In fact the only thing I haven’t liked about it is the obnoxious assholification-disguised-as-badassification of Ned Stark.

Ergh, sorry, I forgot to add one thing to my comment above — let’s not forget that some of the male characters incorporate archetype too, whether relatively straight-up offerings (Jon Snow the farmboy hero) or permutations (Jaime Lannister the fallen Lancelot). It might be true that archetype is more prominent in the female characters’ design, though.

I’ve been reading GRRM since the mid 1970s, know his work and know how epic the Song of Ice and Fire is now and will be when/if he ever finishes it. Cinematically it’s definitely a series, not a movie or mini-series; whether television can bring to life its complexity is doubtful. There are too many characters and too many story lines to flow into a series simultaneously – heck, even in doorstop book length where readers have ATTENTION SPANS versus the average or even above-average TV viewer, this series is challenging. All that said, I’ll be interested to see what shows up on screen (and what doesn’t).

But above all, I just want Mr. Martin to keep on writing it until it’s done. You say you haven’t read the whole published parts yet, Mr. Poniewozik – I have, but I’m going to have to re-read most of it whenever Dances With Dragons gets finished, just to remind myself what is going on. Mr. Martin writes extremely well, but slowly.

Not going to parse the journey at all, except to say that your references to LotR are completely off-base; this is NOT that type of fantasy at all. In strict terms, GRRM’s invented world is more SF than fantasy, given the reality of the climate on this harsh, obviously alien, planet.

(I’m a subscriber to Time the printed magazine for decades, and just will add a note that I’ve enjoyed your writing in print too, Mr. Poniewozik – regular readers of Time and Atlantic and National Geographic are also regular readers of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Cemetery Dance and Ellery Queen too; which is to say your readership can be wide as well as deep {g}!)

I am very excited for this series. I’ve been eagerly awaiting each book as it came out and from everything I’ve read about the production of the pilot I think the biggest obstacle would be the scale as each book is converted. The Scale of Ice and Fire reminds me a lot of the Lord of The Rings movies in which each one ended with a bigger battle scene. Ice and Fire goes from a skirmish in the woods to, well, bigger. Ice and Fire goes from essentially four locations in the first book (Winterfell, Castle Black, King’s Landing and the Dothraki Sea) to a lot more. Essentially as each book is brought to the screen the budget will have to grow.

Still I don’t think the budget will be an overwhelming problem. After all, Martin has a huge, frothing at the mouth fanbase who are champing at the bit for the next book, I would wager to guess that not all of these fans have HBO and a good portion of them would probably get it to see this show.

To address the issue of sexism I think that is something that will only come up in the first season. Yes the male characters look a lot stronger and more influential than the femal characters do in the first book but I think they develop a lot more. Martin knows all of his characters very well and he seems to take perverse delight in not only torturing the readers with unanswered questions but also in taking a seemingly two dimensional villain like Cersei and giving her a persepective that almost makes her sympathetic. Almost.

Also I’l warn you right now and this is a little spoiler, Martin has a quick had with the axe. He is not afraid to kill off main characters. Just make sure they’re really dead.

I loved Rome, I’ve read the Ice & Fire series half a dozen times and I’m currently listening to the audio books.

HBO are the only ones who can do ASOIAF any justice, I just hope they don’t get to creative with the script and hire the very best actors for the job, rather than big names.

Although the first book doesn’t focus that much of them, the key casting in my view are Catelyn, Jon & Daenerys.

Tyrion is my favourite character but I’m not certain about Dinklage, I’ll have to wait and see.

Last I heard Sean Bean had been chosen to play Ned Stark for the series. He would be best known as 006 in Goldeneye (Alec)

In regards to HBO and A Game of Thrones I simply hope:

1. They do it justice in the way Peter Jackson did LotR. Converting something of this magnitude to TV would be a major feat. The devil will be in the details and there are LOTS of them.

2. They finish it if they start it. I was a big fan of Deadwood and very disappointed when they did not pick up season 4.

HBO is like Pixar in the sense of when they get it right they really get it right. Rome, Six Feet Under, John Adams the Sopranos and, yes, even an unfinished Deadwood are television at its best.

These are my favorite books, and I would love to see an HBO adaptation. I only trust HBO too. Rome and True Blood are incredible shows. The great thing about the series is that it gets better and better as you read them, and just when you seriously can’t see them getting any better, they do. Avoid spoilers!

Peter Dinklage is a great choice for Tyrion. Not that it’s like to happen, but I would like to see Viggo Mortensen as Eddard Stark (maybe people would disagree, but I see Ned a lot like Aragorn). Ellen Page as Meera Reed, Michael Fassbender (300) as Jaime Lannister, Ed Harris as Tywin Lannister, Jared Leto as Loras Tyrell, James Purefoy as Victarion Greyjoy, Logan Lerman as Robb Stark, or perhaps Jon Snow. Anyway, just how I picture some characters. Oh and Liam Neeson would make a great Brynden (The Blackfish) Tully. But like I said, it’s just wishful thinking. I still trust HBO over any other producers.

Now realistically. If they get a number of no name actors (talented though) like Rome, I would think that the budget would be surprisingly low since even some of the major characters will only have a few scenes in an entire season. If they use CGI and use existing settings in Europe rather than build settings from scratch, they should be alright. Not to mention (seeing the success of True Blood) they can guarantee huge success in the long run. They could stay far more loyal to these books than they did for True Blood. Ice and Fire seems set up for TV already.

Someone above mentioned there will be a problem with sexism. Now perhaps I missed your point, but I don’t see a problem. Dany, Sansa, Arya, and Brienne are perfect examples of women accomplishing good things and displaying power in a good way. Cersei and and Catelyn not so much in a good way, but there were no problems with that in Rome. Besides, if someone watches this or Rome and says “this is awful. that is so sexist.” then that is their problem. Such complaints should be ignored by HBO and mocked by us. It’s fantasy, it’s entertainment. Don’t take it so seriously. I personally find religion influencing politics far more disturbing than anything else in the story, but I still love the series. Art should never be limited or censored, and that’s why HBO is so great.

[...] to link to something that seems likelier every day, and makes me hope it would really happen: a HBO series based on A Game of Thrones. (The only reason I even dare to dream is that apart from the Illuminatus! trilogy most of the [...]

Actually, he’s probably best known as some Boromir fellow from some movies about rings and lords or some such.

;)

yes!! i have always thought this would make it good on screen. the usual stuffs when translating a book to moving picture will of course be lost but other aspects will be enhanced. and it will reach a bigger audience, an audience that i think hunger for a more complex morality matrix, not just good and bad.

i hope and plead with you james!!

also, i read that someone makes a reference to battlestar galactica and i cant agree more. BG and ASOIAF both stand out uniquely in their genre. and if BG could draw a mainstream audience, ASOIAF certainly could aswell.

@dweebazoid; I think that the sexism critiques are overblown, even on the examples that you provide – the more ‘solid’ case of sexism, if you will.

The _two_ lesbian sex scenes are not, to my mind, sufficient to support a claim that they were inserted for titillation only. They are both very tame. They are also well balanced with incestuous sex, incestuous sexual interaction, bisexuality and male homosexuality, amongst other even less savory but arguablly ‘titillating’ sexual scenes. It is hard to deny sex is part of the human condition, and it would be harder still to accept the world as realistic if female-female sexuality didn’t exist anywhere.

I’m not sure exactly how it is that female characters are supposedly portrayed as more beautiful than male characters. Is it that there are insufficient numbers of female characters who are described as plain or ugly? Because to that, off the top of my head, amongst the more major characters, you have Arya, Brienne, Ygritte and Lysa – and that’s discounting the minor characters such as Lolys, Shireen and uncountable Freys. Or is it that there are not sufficient male characters described as attractive? Because again, you have Loras, Renly, Beric (at least to start…), Oberyn and, perhaps the most blatant example, Jaime. Even Joffrey is often described as beautiful, though that is generously salted with his inner hideousness.

As to marginalization of adult females, I think there is also ample evidence to the contrary. Catelyn, Cersei, Lysa, Melisandre, Brienne and the Queen of Thornes all play pivotal and powerful roles. While these characters will alternately be portrayed (often dependent entirely on who is narrating) as simpering, craven, maniacal, idiotic or downright evil, they aren’t marginalized by the narrative itself, only by the world described by the narrative. In fact much of their narrative arcs describe their personal battles against that marginalization – which is the essence of doing anything but marginalizing their characters to the reader. There are also countless smaller-role female characters that all have pretty profound effects; Septa Mordane, nearly any female from Asshai, the lady Mormonts, the Sand Snakes, and so on.

Finally, there is the charge of lack of female to female interaction, ‘especially non-titillating [examples]‘. I will concur that there are fewer female-female interactions in general, but I don’t think it’s out of proportion to the overall described population. There are many more male characters in the story – helpful, actually, given their higher mortality. Further, the interactions between females are rarely titillating. The sister-sister interactions are pretty awesome; Lysa and Catelyn (though indirect/in the past), and Sansa and Arya for example. But there are also great interactions between the Queen of Thornes, Margaery and Sansa, between Daenerys and the Maegi, between Cersei and Sansa, between Lysa and Sansa, Catelyn and Jeyne Westerling, Brienne and Catelyn, etc. I do not think that, as a whole, the series lacks for powerful female interactions.

If anything, I think these examples speak directly to your point; the female characters are subtly described. On the whole, they are no less successful than their male counterparts (can you name a male character who achieves their goals for more than a few moments?) – and arguably more successful. I think it is hard to support the claim that Martin is harder on them than on the male characters; they rise and fall just like the rest; just like the rest they are usually solitary islands in a sea of opponents. I think this is a strength of Martin’s writing, not a weakness, that the women are treated the same by the author, if not by the world narrated.

For that reason, I think that the charges of sexism are overblown – and perhaps more a measure of the sexism of the readership than of the author, as you say. Even the best counterexamples of this are weak at best.

I am actually in the (very small) minority of people who absolutely hated the books. And I LOVE almost all books and Fantasy and SciFi in particular. It should be right up my tastes, but despite this it turned out to be only the second book/series I’ve ever started and simply not finished because I thought it sucked so hard I can’t describe it once I got to book 3.

Now that I’ve read about Martin’s background in TV writing I have a sneaking suspicion that’s exactly why I didn’t like it.

But for what it’s worth I do think it’s an obvious TV series – and it could be done amazingly on TV. I’d definitely give it a view, and I did like the first book anyway – that’s before it went downhill for me.

Yes please! The books are among my absolute faves (and the few that I have from the fantasy genre) and definitely lend themselves toward a film interpretation.

Regarding the worries about the depiction of female characters: as a woman myself, I think — as mentioned above — Martin’s development of characters such as Catelyn and Sansa are accurate. In such a society, women would have to maneuver more behind the scenes and in less obvious ways than men. And anyway, there are no dearth of strong female characters — Arya, Catelyn, Danerys, Melisandre. In fact the women are often the ones driving the action, even if they are not out in the field themselves.

/grin. YAY.
GRRM reader for years! This is fantastic news! As are most of his fans, I am eagerly awaiting the next installment of the Fire & Ice books… having a HBO series to look forward to is even better. I’ll leave all the
casting and logistical challenges to the professionals… just know there are many who will enjoy this series whether they’ve read the books or not… and for those of you reading the comments who’ve not read the books… skedaddle hop yer arse on over to the bookstore or library… quick! Grats George!

Just read GRRM’s blog about casting, they seem to be doing a fine job, but I have to say I have my fingers crossed for Clancy Brown to play The Hound. He’s big, he has a deep voice, he can pull off a huge guy with a sword (i.e. the villain in the other-wise ridiculous Highlander movie), and his eyes…he was who I pictured when reading anything in the books about The Hound. As a fan, I’m definitely frothing at the mouth, and this show might finally get me to pick up HBO.

Looking at Game of Thrones, there’s one story in particular that could ace the first season and make for a spectacular inaugural.
The retelling of the ancient battle, The Field of Fire.
Told in flashback by the character Tyrion Lannister, it is a vista of huge armies clashing on the battlefield and three giant dragons simultaneously unleashed to incinerate enemy troops by the thousands.
Well handled CGI could make for something truly spectacular, just as long as the live action component isn’t assembled too much on the cheap.
Technically it’s a minor scene that could be done entirely as a long slow zoom into Tyrion’s face as he tells the tale, but if it were actually put on the screen it would provide something visually extraordinary from the first book.
Now THAT I’d like to see.

They better not mess it up, for it will be jet another shatterd universe, and a magnificent one… I don’t like the idea, and probably will not watch the series. I like the world in my head much more, and television is no match for it. At least it will get more people interested into G.R.R.Martins books. The news is a disappointment to me.

[...] Time's James Poniewozik has written, "Thrones" is the kind of complicated, richly appointed, adult drama that HBO [...]

[...] contributed a little to that premature buzz myself, I'll point you to my original argument why HBO needs to make this series. I've since read all four of the novels in print so far now, and I'm only more convinced. (Not that [...]

[...] magazine TV critic, James Poniewozik, posted a very earnest blog entry in full support of the project. The blog post is a glowing report on Martin’s books and their potential as an HBO [...]