2x4: The Red Dragon and the Gold In Rhaenyra and Daemon's absence, Rhaenys tries to steady the Black Council as Cole mounts a campaign into the Crownlands.
The writers have a massive hard on for making Aegon look as incompetent as possible. TGC said that they wanted him to flop around looking like he didn't know how to ride a dragon, all while book readers know that his bond with Sunfyre was legendary. These clowns are writing fanfiction and it pisses me off so much.
The book is not fact. It's a 100 year old accounting based on various journals written from recollections after the fact that were based on how so and so chose to frame a person and event from their specific point of view. That person could and did change details to suit their take on the situation or knowledge. Thus why there are different versions of so many bits of "history" in the book.
Many who have issues with the differences between F&B and HOTD seem to miss that George RR Martin is co-listed as executive producer with Ryan Condal.
And we know that executive producers have no say in writing. From one of George R. R. Martin's blog posts:
"Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and “make them their own.” It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone. No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it. “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own.
They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.
Ignore everyone else I wrote, and the regular praise he lays upon it. The bottom line is that F&B is not a factual history. It is a 100 year old collation based on biased journals written by people, primarily men, in a highly misogynistic society.
That doesn’t mean “the show is the true version, and any differences from the book is because the historians were incorrect.”
ie, certain stuff that was incontrovertible fact in the book (how many children Aegon and Helaena have) is different in the show.
Also, GRRM is probably listed as executive producer because he’s the author of the books, but that doesn’t mean he’s super involved in the show. When he talks about episodes it’s like he’s seeing them for the first time, not that he was in the writing room.
"We're taking more of the approach [of] playing with the history as it was written. Essentially, saying that this is the objective truth that happened," Condal says of the show.
According to Ryan Condal they do pretty much say that.
Condal has also said “Maelor does not yet exist on this timeline because 30 years is compressed into 20 years” which suggests the book and show are in different realities.
this makes literally zero sense in the context of the show vs the book. there is no way that three different people somehow misremembered that alicent was a decade older than rhaenyra and they were actually friends. there is no way three different people misremembered that the green king had a whole second son. there is no way three different people misremembered that rhaenyra's third son was born about a year after her son, and that her two youngest children were 9/10 and 7/8 when the dance happened. this excuse is becoming more and more ridiculous. it's okay to just say the showrunners are doing their own thing.
Oh a book purist, lol, I've read the book too, and if ever there's a book fit to be modified when adapted, it is this one, one that clearly tells the reader that it is not accurate history, but instead a collection of biased accounts, from different writers saying different things even about the same events.
Aegon has been humanized plenty on the show, and he wasn't flopping around on sunfyre, so what's the complain?
The complaint is that they're portraying Aegon as incompetent and a fool. There's no reason why they couldn't have the battle be an orchestrated attack by Aemond and Aegon together, but instead they chose to create a sibling rivalry that only weakens the Greens. Sure they're shitty people, but at least make them fight as a team and not only for themselves.
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This version just weakens Aegon and Rhaenys' characters IMO.
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...granted its out of Aegon's inability to learn High Valyrian but like. You know.
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Many who have issues with the differences between F&B and HOTD seem to miss that George RR Martin is co-listed as executive producer with Ryan Condal.
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"Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and “make them their own.” It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone. No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it. “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own.
They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.
Source: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/05/24/the-
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ie, certain stuff that was incontrovertible fact in the book (how many children Aegon and Helaena have) is different in the show.
Also, GRRM is probably listed as executive producer because he’s the author of the books, but that doesn’t mean he’s super involved in the show. When he talks about episodes it’s like he’s seeing them for the first time, not that he was in the writing room.
https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/07/05/blood-cheese-and-grief/
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According to Ryan Condal they do pretty much say that.
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Oh a book purist, lol, I've read the book too, and if ever there's a book fit to be modified when adapted, it is this one, one that clearly tells the reader that it is not accurate history, but instead a collection of biased accounts, from different writers saying different things even about the same events.
Aegon has been humanized plenty on the show, and he wasn't flopping around on sunfyre, so what's the complain?
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The complaint is that they're portraying Aegon as incompetent and a fool. There's no reason why they couldn't have the battle be an orchestrated attack by Aemond and Aegon together, but instead they chose to create a sibling rivalry that only weakens the Greens. Sure they're shitty people, but at least make them fight as a team and not only for themselves.
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