Mothering for Those Terrified of Children - Excitment and Concerns for Game of Thrones

Sean Bean as Eddard Stark = perfect casting

Let me preface this by saying that A Game of Thrones was the first book I read for fun that made my brain hurt. Keep in mind that I was twelve and just getting into reading, and that while I got all the sex, murder and intrigue on some level, I was coming off of Tamora Piece’s excellent (but oh-so-fluffy) teenage heroine fantasy quartets. They... aren't the same.

So I didn’t really get how good these books were until I was older and re-read them. At that point, I began to understand exactly what the novels were about. Not huge cool wolves and dragons, but an intriguing and wide-sweeping political drama told through a multitude of narratives and in a ‘fantastic’ setting. It was still cool, but it was also a lot more meaningful than it had been back in the days of, ‘Yay! Magic stuff!’ (I repeat – I was a bad-ass back in the day.)

Point is, I have a soft spot for these melodramatic, emotionally pulling books of epic proportions, so you can imagine my delight (and slight terror) when HBO announced that they were bringing them to the small-screen on April 17^th. Delight because one of the most epic series of books to be made during our time is going to be put in just the visual medium it was meant for (movies are great, but for something like A Song of Ice and Fire? TV is so much better), with competent people in charge and a kick-ass cast.

Terror because if they mess it up I will be traumatized for life.

Before I descend too deeply into my neuroses, I must first say that I was able to watch the 15 minute sneak-peak of the show earlier this week and that it was awesome. Scary and skillful and epic, even in the first few minutes, and I’m so excited for more. But I’m also crazy, and incredibly attached to this book series. Remember that I’ve been reading A Song of Ice and Fire for about as long as I’ve been reading Harry Potter, the major differences being that A Song of Ice and Fire is waaaaaay more adult far from finished and being adapted into a TV show rather than into movies. And we all know how much I love TV.

Point is, I just want to see my baby do well, you know? So let the concerned mothering begin! (Seriously. This must be a pale imitation of how parents feel about sending their kids off to college. Talk about stressful.)

Some of the problems with “Game of Thrones” as a live-action-anything are the problems inherent in any adaptation. How do you transfer a text from one medium to another without losing out on the intricacies?

In terms of narrative, A Song of Ice and Fire is a series to be reckoned with in regard to complexity, scope and innovation. In any one book, Martin has at least (let me emphasize this – at least) four different plot-lines being progressed simultaneously through the point of view of upwards of fifteen characters in up to six different landscapes. In a book, all of that is cool. In terms of producing a coherent narrative as a TV show, that’s damn near impossible to pull off. There are major characters in the books who have never interacted, locations that are as different as night and day being represented at the same time, and whole entire novels where we just don’t see what’s going on with certain players in the plot. Again, you can pull that sort of thing off in a novel without alienating your readers (maybe pissing them off on occasion, but not alienating… *grumble*). With a TV show? You need to condense a lot more, and as such, do a lot more hand-holding with your audience. And paying for all those different sets? No easy task, I’m sure, even for HBO.

Luckily, after looking over the details for the production of the show, I’m only vaguely concerned with these narrative issues. With a solid group of writers for the series – including George RR Martin himself for one of the episodes – and genuine fans in charge, I think that the integrity of the text will be preserved. Less certain are the visual aspects involved in Martin’s epics. Given the fantasy bent of the books, it would be very easy to make light of the series and turn the whole enterprise into a campy mess.
                           

I hate to say it, but there is just no classy way to make a CGI dragon. Or huge freaking wolves. Or a giant wall of ice. Or a throne made out of swords. Even if Martin’s books are about as low-key as fantasy could possibly get, they’re still fantastical in nature. There’s something otherworldly about the settings, something spectacular. In novels this is hard to pull off, but ultimately much simpler than producing something in a studio. After all, a writer has to write engaging descriptions and let readers’ imaginations do the rest.

But creating physical manifestations of these imaginings is a lot more difficult, involving a myriad of people throughout a ton of departments, and if one thing looks slightly off it can downplay the sophistication of everything else going on in the show. This is also true of any war epic, which is arguably a more important aspect of the series than the fantasy. You’re just not going to take a national war seriously if it looks like there’s a bunch of styrofoam being thrown around while dudes trip out of the scene. This is even more vital when you have one-on-one fight scenes, when your eyes are literally glued to every movement happening between two people in front of you.

Now add swords, axes, and bows and arrows.

Old school fantasy done sloppily doesn’t just look bad, but downright mockable.

Granted, with another series, none of this would be such an issue. I love camp. I look at television shows the same way I look at books. I critique the crap out of them, judge everyone involved, evaluate the skill with which everything is executed, and base my satisfaction ultimately on how happy the whole thing makes me at the end of each episode. Clearly, this is a frivolous way to go about judging things, and any logic inherent in the initial process is lost in the sea of squee at the conclusion that pretty much rules any opinion I develop. (This will make grad school very hard, should I ever attend. Squee is a valid form literary criticism, right?) This ‘squee’ factor is how I can list “Doctor Who” as one of my favorite TV shows along with “The Wire.” Does it make any sense? No. But it’s delightful, dammit and one of my charming quirks. (Yes. Charming.)

But A Song of Ice and Fire (aside from being called ‘a song of ice and fire’… really, Martin? Really?) isn’t a campy series. If you don’t take it seriously, it just isn’t going to work. Happily, HBO rarely half-asses anything, and I suspect that even if the final results for the show aren’t perfect, they’ll be damn-near close.

But I’m a worrier. So I’m going to write a review of each episode on the Monday or Tuesday after it airs. So I can be judgey and squeeful and make sure those bastards aren’t hurting my baby.