Game of Thrones derive back for its second time of year on April 1 , and there ’s just one motion on everybody ’s thinker : Can this show keep up the surprisingly high standard it set in its first season ?
We ’ve figure plenty of shows rock out in year one , only to hit a soph falling off . Plus A Clash of Martin Luther King , the second book in George R.R. Martin ’s serial , face immense challenge for anybody trying to brawl it into a ten - instalment television show . Here are some intellect why Game of Thrones time of year two could have hassle … plus some cause to have religious belief that they ’ll pull it off .
Major plunderer for the first few books in A Song of Ice and Fire ahead . badly , if you have n’t take the first three books , stop reading now .
With Game of Thrones coming back in just a few week , it ’s fair to say that we ’ve been ghost over the expectation for Year Two . We ’ve been re - learn Martin ’s A Clash of Kings , rewatching the first season — which hold up astonishingly well — on DVD , and trying to visualize how this is going to make for . One affair ’s clear : It ’s hold out to be a bastard .
No undivided clear - cut arc
Game of Thrones season one had a fairly clear storyline , even if it engender loads of complexity and include net ton of intense backstory . You could pick out to see Ned Stark as more or less the main character , with Ned ’s assignment as Hand of the King pose in motion an arc that ends with Ned ’s death , and then we see the consequences of Ned ’s dying . You could also view time of year one as largely about the Starks versus the Lannisters , with King Robert caught in the middle — and a few eccentric , such as Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen , for the most part off in their own level .
But Clash of magnate is where the titular “ game of throne ” starts acquire an superfluity of players . The war of the Five Kings , vaguely modeled on the War of the Roses , involves King Joffrey , his two ( supposed ) uncles Renly and Stannis , plus two regional “ male monarch ” — Robb Stark and Balon Greyjoy . To some extent , the tale of Clash of Kings revolves around Joffrey triumph the two strongest claimants to his can , Renly and Stannis . But meanwhile , the story of Robb and Balon have very short resolution in the second book .
Plus the magnificent Nicolaj Coster - Waldau has to expend basically the whole time of year locked in a keep , alternatively of pretend sexy - time or being a blade - wave whoreson .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNLc5Nf9YxA
And meanwhile , a bunch of the most interesting stuff in record book two involves questions over how to order — in special , Tyrion Lannister spends a heap of time trying to “ do justice ” as the new Hand of the King , which take outmaneuvering his sister and toss away at stratum of depravation . There are some great conversations about the nature of statecraft in the leger — in particular , too soon on , Varys poses ariddleto Tyrion : a King , a non-Christian priest and a rich serviceman each overlook a sellsword to kill the other two — who does he obey ? In other discussion , where does authority fare from : money , religion or political king ? ( And it ’s a nifty sign , as Alyssa Rosenbergpoints out , that this conversation appears in the season two preview . )
birth
Meanwhile , we see first Bran Stark , and then the interloper Theon Greyjoy , trying to be the Lord of Winterfell , and command the respect and obedience of the masses there . At one point , Theon muses that it ’s better to be thought vicious than a fool — soon before he ’s made an out-and-out fool of . Plus we do n’t just see the brutal linguistic rule of King Joffrey — we also see the cruel leadership of Vargo Hoat and Roose Bolton , and the brutality of Ser Amory Lorch ’s raider , among other thing . We see masses trying to wield index at every level , and we see how seldom it really works .
But one major difference of opinion between the first and the second book is : The first book gives some sort of answer , or a major turn full stop , to almost all of its fibre towards the end . The second book , meanwhile , leaves some important characters in the middle of a storyline , without any clear turning point having been reached . True , there are some resolutions : Jon Snow give an significant decisiveness , Daenerys leaves Qarth in her three boat , Tyrion has a major modification in his fortunes , Arya adjudicate to fly Harrenhal , and it appear that Catelyn Stark has made a decision about Jaime Lannister ( though we do n’t know what . )
But in at least some font , the book stop with cliffhangers that do n’t feel entirely different than some of the cliffhangers in the middle chapter . And that , in spell , makes it tough to badger out a satisfying arc for a 10 - episode telecasting miniseries .
The structure opens outwards
In many mode , A Game of Thrones is the most unrepresentative of the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series . At any throw time , there are only a smattering of position in Westeros that we ’re succeed in the first Holy Scripture , plus of course the Dothraki Sea . In the 2nd book , though Martin starts in earnest to keep abreast his strategy of splitting up his characters as much as possible , opening outwards until there are characters scattered all over the Seven Kingdoms , and none of them ever run into each other .
As Martintold us in an interview last summertime :
George R.R. Martin explicate why we ’ll never encounter any god in A Song of Ice and Fire
This is the ongoing problem with all of the book . The history pop fairly tight in , with all the characters in the same place . But as the books go on , the characters spread apart into smaller and smaller groups , that break asunder . You get more and more localisation , more and more lowly characters . It sort of deltas out . Eventually , they will turn around and start delta - ing in again , but we have n’t quite reached that breaker point in the account book . This is something the show is going to have to deal with , which is going to be a challenge .
Even apart from the logistics of creating a dozen unlike distinct locations , there ’s also the problem of switching back and onward between several dissimilar storylines , all of which could be subplots or main plots , depending on your point of view .
But also , the bully persuasiveness of Martin ’s record book as they go on is the extent to which they create a sentience of the vast chimneysweep of Westeros , as a complex and intractable political entity — and finally , you get a sense of just how ungovernable and weird this place is . There ’s increasingly an element of travelogue in the fact that we follow so many characters , going to so many different places , from the Iron Islands to Storm ’s End .
More magic , more weirdness
The other matter that starts to happen in A Clash of Kings is that illusion becomes a major plot twist in the serial . Not only do Daenerys ’ dragons start growing big and attracting more attention , but also magic is creeping back in almost everywhere . And weirdly , even though the second volume is even less “ heroic ” and thus more realistic than the first ( see below ) , the timbre also shifts noticeably towards the mystical .
And I ’m going to be transfixed to see how the television receiver show pulls off the shift towards eminent - phantasy haggle . Among other thing :
Arya falls in with Jaqen H’ghar , an assassin who can change his fount using magic .
Melisandre , a priestess of the Red God , give birth to a living fantasm that kill Renly , and later the castellan of Storm ’s End .
Tyrion ’s defence mechanism of King ’s Landing count on pyromancers , who create a kind of aliveness fire call wildfire ( which we glimpse in the trailers . )
Daenerys goes inside the House of the Undying , the home of a radical of wizard with blue mouth , and sees strange visions of the past , time to come and times that never were . She ’s almost trammel , until her firedrake Drogon saves her .
Almost all of the Stark tyke get down explore their “ Warg ” major power , colligate to their direwolves in a way that becomes more than just a matter of find through their eyes .
Bran Stark begin having prophetical dreams , and meanwhile Jojen and Meera are straight - up image the hereafter in their dreams .
And that ’s just the crest of the iceberg — it ’s go to be interesting to see how all this clobber is conveyed and comprise on blind , especially alongside the fairly low-key tone the show otherwise go for .
But most of all , this is where things get vile
All of the above problem are totally surmountable — but the biggest challenge of turn A Clash of big businessman into 10 hours of telly might be finding ways to get our hopes up without really get our hopes up .
Let me excuse . You might have matte as though there ’s a bit of a soul - crushing letdown in the first time of year or Koran , when Ned Stark seems to come tantalizingly close to unravel that whole nasty Lannister confederacy . And then instead , he fumbles the bollock and pay with his life sentence . In both the Bible and the TV show , it ’s made pretty well-defined that Ned never really came that close to winning , but at the same metre , it ’s hard not to get your hope up . Ned comes within shed space of the brass ring .
In the second book , there are lots of little instant where you bug out to trust that things will work out for these quality . Maybe Robb Stark really will be able to hold his alliance together , in spite of everything . Maybe Arya Stark will finally reach one of her father ’s bannermen that she can trust , and get reunited with her mother and King Robb . mayhap Jon Snow will make it out of Wildling territory with his accolade integral . perhaps Theon will come to his green goddess . Maybe Sansa will really scarper with Ser Dontos , the drunken knight . Maybe Tyrion will really outwit his sis and save the city . And so on . There ’s never really one especially groovy hope for redemption dangled in front of us — it ’s more that every now and then , you may just glimpse how things could take a routine for the better .
This is crucial for two reasons : first , because if there ’s no intimation of Bob Hope from time to metre , then the story becomes so relentlessly desolate that the readers all commit aggregative suicide before making it to the end . And second , because we ca n’t experience the full extent of soul - squash despair that this book mostly service up unless we occasionally lift our expectations a bite . So the TV show is going to have to rule way of life to dangle the possibility of redemption and escape , in ways that are just as insidious and fleeting as what the book serves up .
Thinking about the construction of Clash of Rex some more , it seems as though two kinds of ruination materialise towards the end of the book : Winterfell is junk , and Tyrion ’s face is destroyed . Both of these things happen roughly around the same metre , in chapters 66 and 67 . And they interpret two dissimilar kinds of nonstarter .
Winterfell has remain a symbol for everything that was noble and great about the Starks , and both Bran and Theon have been trying to stand in Ned Stark ’s place as Winterfell ’s lord . When Winterfell is finally sacked , it ’s as a result of both Bran and Theon neglect to protect Winterfell ’s legacy .
Meanwhile , Tyrion ’s deflower face comes as a unmediated solvent of his failure to set himself up as a young power player in King ’s landing place , supersede subversion with honesty and a modicum of concern for the common mass . Tyrion gets betrayed by one of Cersei ’s cronies , Ser Mandon Moore , and does n’t even get any of the quotation for hold open King ’s Landing from Stannis .
A Clash of Kings is full of mass who aim to wideness , or whom the reader hope for with child things from — only to be somewhat disappointed . After all that hooey about Arya learning to exert a sword in the first al-Qur’an , you half gestate her to become a knight , alternatively of a bitter mouse who memorise a list of people she wants dead , and gets an bravo to do her dirty work for her . You desire that Jon Snow will finally fall into his own as a great leader , but instead he ’s forced to do something near - unforgiveable to survive . Theon Greyjoy , meanwhile , get more dire loathsome the more he seek to prove himself a hero .
It ’s like watch your best friend hurl a grip of alive cats off a rocky cliff over and over again — and each sentence , you hope your admirer will at long last have a modification of heart .
understanding to believe this will work
Still , you ’d be a fool to bet against producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss , after the awesome business they did with the first season — at least in some parts , the TV show works even better than its informant material . And at the very least , the show ’s first season pull off to chip at out its own identity while sticking surprisingly close to the Good Book .
Here are six rationality to have faith that the show can pull off a 2d miracle :
1 ) The amazing power of Peter Dinklage Seriously , if anybody can make a story about courtyard intrigue and backroom maneuvering utterly entrancing , it ’s the Emmy - make headway Peter Dinklage . And you could easy see Tyrion being this time of year ’s Ned Stark : like Ned , he becomes the King ’s Hand , then go up against Cersei and basically loses . Of all the reference in the second book , Tyrion depict the most actual valor , and his is the openhanded triumph and the greatest fall from seemliness . To the extent that the show beefs up Tyrion ’s screentime , it ’s middling much secure to forge .
2 ) We can see Robb ’s romance play out on concealment . Indeed , I think there ’s a glimpse of it in the preview embedded above . A major weakness of the volume is the fact that a whole bunch of important , biz - changing stuff and nonsense happens to Robb Stark , and we mostly do n’t see it happen — we hear about it afterwards , in A Storm of Swords . Martin apparently does n’t want to make Robb a standpoint lineament , and no other viewpoint character is present for Robb ’s romance with Jeyne — but that ’s not an obstacle for the show , and maybe Robb can have a strong arc on screen .
3 ) They already started expanding some support character ’ roles . The first season bear several scenes that are n’t in the books , mostly involving side characters like Littlefinger , Grand Maester Pycelle and Varys . At first , I thought it was a misapprehension to waste CRT screen time on these reference — but in retrospect , it feel like a adept move . Both because it permit the show to lie more groundwork for later developments involving those characters , and because we ’re already habitual to take care lashings of scenes involve characters who are n’t Starks or Lannisters , talking about stuff . And the show ’s already rise that viewers will hear to any amount of exposition , if it ’s delivered in the form of a lecture to a nude lady .
4 ) Episode 10 will be all backwash We ’ve already been told thatepisode nine is the Battle of the Blackwater , and it ’s being written by Martin himself . That leaves a whole installment for the aftermath — which immensely increases the chance of a satisfying arc . instalment nine will be a huge logistic nightmare , and probably shatter the show ’s budget forever and a day — but episode 10 will be the really hard part , where a couple XII characters have to be send on their measly way , with what feel like a modicum of resoluteness . Which brings us to …
5 ) They can borrow from book three . The show ’s already determine a precedent for this — some of the scenes in instalment 10 of the first season actually come from the second record , including Arya confluence Hot Pie and the rest of the prospective Night ’s Watch appendage . I would expect a few big chunks from tempest of Swords to turn up in the time of year finale — admit perhaps Jaime ’s fate at Catelyn ’s hands , Daenerys ordering the ships to change class , and the wound Tyrion coming together with his father . Plus maybe Arya ’s surprising victory over some of the Bloody Mummers ?
6 ) Edited to add : They can do a lot of reworking to make “ instalment . ” Also , one major cause for confidence from the show ’s first time of year is the skill with which the Godhead move stuff around so that subplots that sprawl throughout the al-Qur’an are mostly pore in a individual sequence . They ’ll have to do a tidy sum of this to make something like Theon ’s change of heart finger less like a subplot that abruptly becomes major — but they ’ve shown a lot of skill at this already .
In any character , we ’re on the edge of our seats , waiting to see just how Game of Thrones season two rise to the challenges of turn the grievous Clash of Kings into ten sparkling hours of television . After all , if the show manages to adjust Clash of King successfully , then after that , it ’s all plain sailing for season three and beyond . Right ?
BooksD. B. WeissDavid BenioffGame of ThronesGeorge R.R. MartinTelevision
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