Reply With QuoteJust a heads up....if you have problems with the suspension of belief when it comes to the smoke baby, you might as well turn the tv off now because magic becomes even more pronounced as the series goes along. Save yourself the heartache right now.
Totally.
Just a heads up....if you have problems with the suspension of belief when it comes to the smoke baby, you might as well turn the tv off now because magic becomes even more pronounced as the series goes along. Save yourself the heartache right now.
THAT IS TOTALLY NOT WHAT POGO SAID
Does anyone know if the magic gets more pronounced later in the series?
Doesn't matter, because the fantasy parts of my fantasy show ruined watching a fantasy show for me. Also, I fear lady parts.
Yo dawg, I heard you like magic...
I didn't actually think people would start to put on pointy hats and start shooting lightning bolts. Not sure where DrDel stood.Originally Posted by Razgon
Yeap, the marketing and presentation has been part of it, and up until now (as said before) the magic hasn't been so directly transmutative.
Indeed. I don't think anyone is going to be walking away from it, though. I don't even think that DrDel is going to actually put this series down.In other words, instead of throwing up your hands at the smoke baby and saying "that's it, can't handle that in my story!", perhaps take a moment and try to think what the implications of it are, given all the other things that have been hinted at so far. Regrettably, a lot of what I'm asking is a lot easier for readers than viewers, because of cursory nature of much of the backstory and history in the TV series. But elements of it are there.
Right, but the thread title says "how do you not destroy a TV series with mystical reveals", citing the smoke baby.
It looks like we're in agreement, then, that the TV series hasn't been destroyed. Yay!
Further, I'm positing that the mystical elements, of which the smoke baby is certainly the most direct, have been woven through the entire series all along.
Pogo, you must recognize that these lines you have drawn between that set of supernatural events and this set are completely in your head. Yes, it's an escalation. There might actually be a good story reason for that though. Just saying.
He says it's destroyed, but I don't believe he's not going to watch the next episode. I did read the rest of your post and understood all those mystical elements. The directness was what gave some pause and/or "ruined" the series.
I'm grateful for the directness. I want to SEE what the hell is going on. Due to budget related reasons I understand they can't show everything they want, but I want them to show what they can, the crazier the better.
That scene had an impact because I was gobsmacked as much as Davos because I was seeing what he was seeing as he was seeing it. It's like the first scene with the dragons, as an audience member I was seeing her walk out of that fire with dragons just as her people were seeing it. It's immersive to me, it doesn't take me out of the story so much as it makes me feel I'm in it with them.
One of the best uses of "is it magic?" was in the first season of the original Fantasy Island.
(pauses for the laughter to stop)
A lot of people remember the later seasons where they openly resorted to magic potions and gimmicks to shore up weak stories, but early on it was a lot smarter. Putting people into morally challenging situations and playing out the results was the norm, with the boundary between what money could do versus "Hm, not sure money and planning could do that."
I remember what a letdown later seasons were when they went full-on mystical.
Shut your mouth. Roddy McDowell as the Devil was awesome.
I thought about this and it may actually be some postmodern meta-commentary that some people reacted to that scene the same way Davos did. He really nailed the look of horror and confusion and amazement all at the same time.
Thinking back now, I believe I felt that way too at the time. But in retrospect I think it was meant to be jarring. I think Martin was trying to drive the "magic is back" point home for the reader. After all, Martin could have had this scene take place "off screen" like other events. It would have even lent an air of mystery to the events that followed. So why did he include them? To highlight the fact that with the return of the Dragon, magic is back in the world.
The people of Westeros, from the Magisters and Nobles, down to the commoners, believe (know!) that the Dragons are all gone, and that magic disappeared from the world ages ago. We as a reader (or viewer) only know this isn't so because Martin showed us the Dragons hatching, and the shadow creature being born in first person.
Last edited by Alex2000; 04-27-2012 at 02:08 PM. Reason: additional thoughts...
I hated that part so much when I read Clash of Kings last year. I haven't read Dance yet, but nothing since has annoyed me on such a level as the shadow monster. Everything else always seemed better balanced with consequences and conditions which made it acceptable to me, while the shadow monster came off as a lazy way to get from point A to point B.
I always assumed the cost for the shadow monster was Stannis losing his heir. I never got the feeling that she conjured the monster completely from nothing, but that she sexed up Stannis (even though the books never explicitly state the two are having sex, it always felt to me that they were) and got pregnant, and then she sacrificed the child to have the shadow monster to perform it's deed in an attempt to secure Stannis the throne.
I felt that as well in one mind, but in another mind I think we also haven't seen the last of that kind of magic. It's pretty clear that the magical element is ramping up in the books.
But I can appreciate that some people were thinking they were settling into a nice "realistic" kind of imaginary War of the Roses type of thing, purely about intrigue in a gritty realm; and this might feel like an intrusion. But as has been pointed out, it was unambiguously established right from the first episode that this is high fantasy, with magic as a real (albeit rare) force in the world. I think the grittiness and "realism" are meant to make you feel the force of the magic even more ("what if magic were real?").
(What I find interesting is that characters in the book are well aware of charlatanry, and that charlatanry co-exists with the real thing - e.g. there's the "flaming knight's" trick sword, but then there's a real magic sword too. That's a nice, subtle touch of Martin's.)
Even if that were the case it was dispelled in the very first scene of the first episode of the series. That whole scene is...There's some weird shit going on here people!
It certainly says something when a parody of the show handles the smoke-baby scene better than HBO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X30KV...layer_embedded
Keep swingin', Del.
Well, I thought it was pretty damn funny.
Haha. You are funny.
When I started the first book I was expecting a realpolitik medieval kingdom vs zombie invasion story. I have to say the smoke monster bummed me out too. Honestly, a lot of the stuff the fans seem to like about the series are the things that just piss me off.
If someone had asked me how big a deal a smoke baby monster in a medieval fantasy show would become for people on the internet, I wouldn't have guessed very much. Man, would I be wrong, holy shit...
Well, it bugged me in the book too.
It's cool, it just sort of spells the end of the 'low fantasy' part of the series.
[spoiler]Argh! The smoke monster has screwed things up again! GRR Martin has made the smoke monster too powerful.
If he can slither into a tent and kill (King) Remi then what is stopping it/him from killing all competitors for the throne and Stannis becomes King?
Game Over. Series Over. The next episode should be Stannis' appointment to the throne.
No need for anymore books.[/spoiler]
Last edited by DrDel; 04-30-2012 at 08:49 AM.
Is this the spoiler thread? Fuck me.
Uh... now imagine what will happen in a few seasons with the baby dragons At some point they will be big meanie dragons!
Maybe we will have aerial dogfighting with dragons, above a battlefield!
Not exactly low fantasy. But I think we still have lots of realpolitiks!
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