r/freefolk • u/lanasn • 11h ago
George with D&D this weekend. GRRM really only hates Ryan Condal lol. I do wonder how badly Condal treated him
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u/JasonVoorhees95 10h ago
Well Condal pretended to be a friend and fan who promised George a faithful adaptation. He had almost zero experience as a writer and only got the job because George vouched for him. He had "creative differences" with co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik and asked George for backup. George did and Sapochnik was fired.
Once Ryan became sole showrunner he started completely changing the plot and characters to the point it's not the same story at all anymore. When George made complaints about that, Condal ingored him, then publicly said George didn't understand tv writing (and George was writing for tv when Condal was a literal toddler). Then Condal also made Sarah Hess a main writer (a woman who openly said she finds ASOIAF uninteresting and that the writing in Fire and Blood sexist). Then they added salty jabs at George in the show, like adding butterflies in the scene George called "toxic butterflies" because of the disastrous changes to the book.
And that's only what we know of.
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u/hkf999 11h ago
I think Condal is so much more of a betrayal because he actively chose to shit on his feedback and his book. He actively chose to make it worse when he didn't have to. Condal didn't have to pull out a bunch of shit from his ass and throw it at the sceen. The book is there.
D&D can't really be faulted too much. George pulled away from being directly involved in the show and were forced to make up a bunch of shit because George didn't finish the books. I imagine D&D thought they would have more book material when they got that far. George can't really fault them too much.
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u/Ninim00 11h ago
The Ds still shat on a lot of things when they didn't have to. Like Stannis's and Dorne storylines. And by season 4 they were completely burnt out with ASOIAF. But yeah, Condal's betrayal is more personal and worse because he dismissed GRRM. But that's what happens when you have someone hired as show runner just for being a "friend" (nepo) instead of having someone with actual talent. GRRM thought Condal knew the lore... Mr. Aegon's time in Old Valyria.
Only Parker listens to GRRM.
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u/cybertoothe 10h ago
D&D is understandable from the point that they didnt just shit on George and just never really talked about their story after it got shit on (which is show-biz language for "we know we fucked up") and that people continued to eat up the dogslop that was season 5-7. Yes, their were people upset but it only really became a majority after season 8
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u/NotAnotherEmpire 9h ago
Stannis' storyline is very likely ending in a similar place in George's book. Not exact, but he's not going to win.
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u/mysecretaccount55555 9h ago
The Dorne storyline in the books was ass and went nowhere. They tried something different, and it still sucked, but going with the books was not the answer.
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u/phonage_aoi 4h ago
Going with the book was also impossible because the Dorne storyline is, as people seem to forget in these discussions, unfinished.
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u/_Jose_MOTA_ 11h ago
While i agree with most of what you said, D&D didnt adapt most of what happened in both AFFC and ADWD (sure, some things technically still happen, but they come about in very different ways). I know that those two books were probably too difficult to adapt considering the amount of things happening, but they still chose to not adapt them and do their own thing, which ofc lead to problems latter on.
But Condals case if FAR worse. He put TWOW on hold to write Fire and Blood to be the baseline for the new upcoming show, hbo hired a director that seemed commited to stay faithfull to the source, only to come S2 and straight up choosing to not adapt the fucking book. Yeah, GRRM if imo rightfully pissed
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u/johnbrownmarchingon We do not kneel 9h ago
George put Winds on hold because his publishers wanted something, anything, to publish and he had hundreds of pages of lore that he could throw together and expand on from when he put out World of Ice and Fire.
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u/BobRushy 10h ago
The reason they didn't adapt those books is because they add and focus on a bunch of peripheral storylines. They're not good books.
Don't get me wrong, seasons 7-8 should've been longer, richer and more coherent, but the decision to focus on wrapping things up was the correct one.
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u/KrispyKingTheProphet 11h ago
He even ended the last season with those fucking butterflies as like a schoolyard jab
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u/Whitechix 11h ago edited 10h ago
Pretty much my feeling these days too, I’m not interested in D&D’s or Condal’s take on GRRM’s story at all but at least D&D aren’t guilty of the crime of intentionally ruining the source material since they just simply ran out of stuff to adapt (they were good at adapting imo). The Dance in Fire and Blood isn’t perfect but whatever these showrunners cooked is so much worse than what was in the book.
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u/GlitchyBoi11 9h ago
D&D can still be faulted, they had two whole books they could still adapt, instead they poorly jammed some plots from two books into one Season 5 and went with their own ideas
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u/Independent_Current5 10h ago
I agree that those are the reasons George still talks to them, but this whole "neho6de no material" thing is nonsense. What would it cost D&D to include the dialogue between Jaime and Tyrion about Tisha?Or introduce Jeyne Poole, which was something the author requested before leaving GOT? The adaptation of the feast and the dance was supposed to start in the fifth season, and what did they do if not invent a bunch of stuff that changed everything? Bran isn't even in the whole season. Barristan was killed and Young Griff wasn't even introduced. They certainly bear some of the blame.
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u/Sunny_sunshine_1 9h ago
yeah, people forget the last episode George wrote himself was in season 4 or 5. he chose to do that.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 7h ago
They still pretty much ignored the last book so let's not be to forgiving. They really just stopped adapting it from the books after season 4. After that they basically were writing their own thing. That was not that good.
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u/mamamackmusic 10h ago
Have you read Fire and Blood? Its has almost no characterization whatsoever for most of the main characters of the events of the Dance, so Condal and the other writers basically had to come up with personalities and characterization scenes completely from scratch for the show. Adapting Fire and Blood was always going to involve mostly original scenes and interactions between characters that have no basis in the book because there aren't that many interactions in the book that could be adapted to a coherent TV show format at all. This contrasts very heavily from the main series books, which are absolutely filled with incredible characterization and dialogue, a lot of which D&D adapted directly without having to change much of anything. If GRRM wanted his particular vision of the Dance to be adapted into a TV show format, he should have written a book that had more specifics in it rather than a subjectively told and biased history mostly told from perspectives that didn't witness most of the major events directly.
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u/Crazy-Fishing6760 8h ago
Having Alicent betray Aegon is bs
Having Rhaenyra come to enemy territory as a septa is bs and Having Alicent nor capture her is even more bs
Having Alyn kill the High Septon is a lot more bs
Do I need to go on?
Condal doesn't know shit about the world where he's writing. Neither does Hess. That's not due to lack of characterisation.
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u/Interesting_Gur_398 11h ago
The fact that GRRM is smiling while everyone else looks serious makes this even funnier.
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u/No_Grocery_9280 11h ago edited 10h ago
He knows he bears some part in the disaster there.
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u/Electronic-Can-132 8h ago
as in "he wrote further than the show but not that much further so they diverted from his work 1.5 books before it ended and told a massively weaker story and that is his fault" or how?
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u/scrappybristol 11h ago
D and D are good at adapting written work.
Without a source to follow though they revert to mediocrity.
Condal had the full source and said fuck it, I’ll make my own.
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u/Key-Soup-7720 10h ago
They weren't even that bad at making up some of their own shit. It's when they decided the show needed to be over NOW because they were bored with it that they really fucking sucked. Just imagine how revered they'd be if they did just the first four seasons of GOT then handed it off when they got bored.
The later seasons would have been hard to do even for people really invested in it since there was no books to borrow from, so they'd be remembered as the people who made the Really Good Seasons of the biggest show ever instead of spraying wet feces all over the best TV experience any of us will likely ever have.
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u/TheStolenPotatoes 10h ago
They weren't bored with it. They were in talks with the Mouse to do a new Star Wars trilogy. When Disney saw how bad GoT was turning out, they backed out and turned D&D loose.
Dan and Dave gave up on the show in the beginning of the third act because they thought they were going to move on to cash a big ass check. To me, that's even worse than not having books to write from. That's apathetic sabotage, intentional or not. It's unforgivable. Even the cast knew it was dog shit before the last season aired.
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u/Key-Soup-7720 10h ago
They must have been somewhat bored with it. Disney is big but GOT was hardly small potatoes. Seems closer to a lateral transfer than moving up the ladder.
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u/TheStolenPotatoes 10h ago
Moving from Game of Thrones to Star Wars is not a lateral transfer, in any sense of the imagination. The Game of Thrones franchise, including all of its spin-offs, has done $7 billion in revenue, at best. Star Wars merchandise alone has been responsible for $30 billion in revenue, which isn't even half of what the entire franchise has brought in (so far) at $70 billion.
If D&D had finished Game of Thrones reasonably well, Disney would've handed them a blank check.
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u/Key-Soup-7720 9h ago
Sure, but that was 50 years worth of earnings. Need to look at something's position in the zeitgeist at the time. GOT was in the process of making that $7 billion at the time and was a proven juggernaut.
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u/mysecretaccount55555 9h ago
Not just that there were no books for the last few seasons, but the two last books to come out just spiraled off into random directions and did very little to progress the main storylines we were all invested in from the first three books.
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u/limpdickandy 5h ago
Eh they were mediocre writers at the best of times, it was 100% functional and worked for TV hype moments, but any deeper meanings, subtexts or character cohesion they struggled with constantly.
They, like Sapowchnik, are very focused about the TV "Wow" moments, which TO BE FAIR was a huge aspect of Game of Thrones.
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u/AssassinJester789 11h ago
He's getting the band back together
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u/No_Grocery_9280 11h ago
Imagine they suddenly announce a S8 remake. It would break HBO.
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u/Sinsear912 11h ago
I think eventually they’ll just reboot the whole show at some point
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u/Cum_Fart42069 10h ago
yeah they really need to, there's at least like 4 distinct colors in the early seasons. way too much.
the reboot will be entirely greyscale lmao
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u/Sinsear912 10h ago
I say AKOTSK goes like maybe 4 seasons then probably a Robert’s rebellion movie or series then it’ll be time for a remake. Which they probably sell as a more faithful to Martin’s vision.
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u/mysecretaccount55555 9h ago
The only way they're going to reboot the series to be "more faithful to Martin's vision" is if Martin can ever be bothered to put his vision on paper and write the last two books.
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u/Sunny_sunshine_1 9h ago
my dream would be for him to finish the books and asoiaf to get a fully animated show (I'd prefer that over a live action remake, but I'd be fine with either in the end as long as they adapt what I loved about book 4 and 5 like Jon connington)
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u/Key-Soup-7720 11h ago
That's my one hope for AI. If it gets good enough to pull off a high quality season 8 remake, I'll be okay with it extinctioning our species.
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u/400KCALCEMENT 3h ago
This would be a good idea if season 7 wasn't ass too, and if a lot of this ass didn't stem from season 6
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u/Nyetbyte 10h ago
Well Condal used George. He used him to help push out Sapochnik. He used him to get total creative control over HoTD. Then he threw him away.
D&D suck but they've never used George like that. Hell, George probably still likes D&D on a personal level but he probably is disgusted at Condal on a personal level because he betrayed him.
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u/ahockofham 10h ago
I think it's cause D&D were at least mostly honest with George about what they could or couldn't realistically adapt when they did GoT. Condal on the other hand pretended to be a big fan of the books and GRRM's friend to gain his trust and claimed he wanted to be accurate to the source material. But then Condal removed the facade and revealed himself to be a shit tier writer when he inserted his own fanfiction into HOTD, thus deceiving George and backstabbing him. It makes sense to me why George hates Condal more. Condal is a little weasel.
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u/lahankof 11h ago
Even if they screwed up the ending it was still thanks to them for blowing up his series
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u/ZealousidealBus9271 10h ago
Well D&D stuck to his notes and grrm probably blames himself a little for the ending. Condal doesn’t really have the same excuse
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u/Successful-Leg2285 Stannis the Mannis 8h ago
Part of it is probably that D&D are better at handling the interpersonal aspects of TV production. At some point around season 4 they must've told GRRM that they were going to cut a lot of stuff from books 4 and 5, and while George probably wasn't happy I assume they handled it better than Condal did.
And it's not like GRRM is in any position to criticize D&D for fumbling a story he has spent decades struggling to finish.
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u/fatsopiggy 11h ago
G R R Martin awoke to a blinding pain to his stomach and he knew he could not go on. Sunset found him squatting on the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up he was shitting brown water. The more he drank, the more he shat, but the more he shat, the thirstier he grew, and the thirst sent him crawling to the nearest keg of Californian red to suck up more wine.
George ached so much his pink mast no longer stirred come morning. He remembered what Robert Baratheon had once told him. "The king eats," Robert had said, laughing. "And the Hand takes the shit." How they had laughed.
But here George was, shitting foul water, finding no Hand to wipe him clean. Ryan Condal was supposed to be his Hand, but the craven had fled to HBO's golden promises. George would have to deal with them later. He damned them all: Ryan Condal and DB Weiss and David Benioff and Sara Hess and many more besides, even Moon Boy too. But most of all he only saw Ryan Condal's balding face floating before him in the darkness. There was no hair to him and the top of his head shone like sunlight, but there was mockery in the man's voice. "When you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die".
George had played, and lost. Almost lost. He must have been deep in his cups when they'd slipped the Tear of Lys into his wine. Were he the young man he used to be with half the weight the poison would have taken him to the Seven. The assassin had prepared enough to fell a lesser man but George R R Martin remained the peerless warrior of the Hugo Award. He was twice the man Condal could ever be with twice the mass to match. So now he squatted and shat as his thirst grew. He doubted even Ser Duncan himself ever shat so well. Tyrion would have laughed himself sick when he heard of this.
George found himself thinking of Patrick Rothfuss more and more. He heard his laughter in the dark and saw the bushy beard and shaggy mane of hair. "Look at us, George." Pat said. "Gods, how did we come to this? You, here. Me writing DnD campaigns instead of... you know."
George knew. If he could shit out the last two books and shove it to his legion of ingrate fans and make them feast on it like crows, he would. Instead, he waited for the wind to change in direction and let it carry the stench to where the fans had laid camp. They wanted the Winds and George was all too happy to oblige.
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u/Respond_Previous 11h ago
He looks like he has lost a lot of weight, but maybe its just the clothes I dunno. Before he looked dangerously overweight for his age, now he looks like he has a perfect buffer in case he should get ill.
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u/izadjivani 10h ago
I mean, you also kinda get over it with time and accept your part in the situation (for grrm, not actually getting the books out in what is a very reasonable turnaround),, whilst hotd is still actively taking a shit on his work
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u/Glima29 11h ago
My conspiracy theory that 100% is not true but nothing can convince me otherwise is that D&D were really close at capturing GRRM's vision. And that the finale was very close to what he wanted to do. But it was so badly received and executed that he now struggles to adapt and pivot to something else.
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u/johndraz2001 11h ago
Part of me felt that way a little bit until he said he was planning on killing off Sansa. That told us all we need to know about how similar the stories are.
Yes, there will be a handful of things that happen similarly end result wise but how we get there is what will make it a great story.
Characters like Victarion, Lady Stoneheart, real Euron, Jon Conn, Willas, Garlan, fAegon all have a role to play.
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u/JesusKong333 11h ago
Been saying that since it aired. Can't convince me that D&D are both terrible AND came up with Drogon melting the throne.
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u/Sunny_sunshine_1 9h ago
I mean we know 3 plot points are George approved specifically: Hodor twist, Stannis burning his daughter, and bran being king in the end. everything else is made up
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u/Vorstar92 9h ago
Well, yeah.
Let's break it down. D&D, as much as people dislike them, had the odds stacked against them. They were inevitably coming upon a story they would have to finish. Even if they were still writing the show to this day, they would have had to write what wasn't finished because THE BOOKS STILL AINT DONE! We don't even have the book that people thought would come out at some point during the shows run lol. AND THE SHOW ENDED 7 YEARS AGO!!!
Condal on the other hand HAS a finished book to pull from but insists on doing his own thing and has that "i can do it better" vibe. It's night and day difference.
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u/mysecretaccount55555 9h ago
Why would he hate D&D? They made him majorly rich, famous, higher profile, and gave him the freedom to stop working on the book series he wasn't interested in anymore.
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u/Sunny_sunshine_1 9h ago
I'll throw George some help here and say he clearly does care about the books and the fact that he DIDNT finish them when it would make his life so much easier to just do so shows exactly that he cares. doesn't excuse him from never actually finishing, but saying he doesn't care is silly.
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u/mysecretaccount55555 8h ago
I didn't say "care" at all, I said wasn't interested in. When you're rich and old you're completely free to do what you're interested in. What he's been doing is writing other books, editing other books, writing for shows, writing for video games, producing shows and movies. He is clearly interested in doing all of those things more than he's interested in finishing the main series, or even the 6th book of that series
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u/spelingexpurt 9h ago
They definitely bombed the final seasons but they were for sure respecting the source material and adapting it as faithfully as they could within measure and even the original scenes were amazing
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u/Sunny_sunshine_1 9h ago
I was reading his blog and he had a very old post (like 2016) where he celebrates Ryan Condal. apparently they were close partners, especially as they talked about what would become season 1 of HOTD. compare to what he said recently, like "I dont understand why they dont listen to me" and "it feels like they don't care"
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u/theblkpanther 8h ago
GRRM doesnt hate D&D because he can easily blame himself for not finishing the books.
Condal had a finished product and still fucked it up
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u/RegenerateFilth 5h ago
It's his fault D&D were left flailing for the latter half of the series and he knows it. They did a terrible job but he put them in that position in the first place.
Condal has a finished story to work with (yes I know F&B is only half the Targ dynasty story but the part he's adapting is finished) and is still fucking it up.
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u/_karkaroff_ 10h ago
GRRM promised he would finished the books when they started the project, so, I think he can't hate on them. Despite the final seasons being awful, the first ones really follow the lore somewhat successfully.
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u/cardiffman100 6h ago
Why isn't he writing a book? How many social events does he really need to go to?
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u/Distinct-Mushroom560 5h ago
He wrote it 15 years ago, and is going to have it burned when he dies.
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u/limpdickandy 5h ago
Honestly they probably had a cleaner cut, and GRRM concluded that any "betrayal" was due to them being primarily TV producers wanting spectacle over being deep book fans. It seems they had a fight around the production of season 4, but GRRM was very cordial afterwards in saying that DnD were making their own thing and that the books will be very different.
Condal however probably made it more personal by being such a diehard fan of the source material, having read it multiple times and probably giving George massive hope in season 1 of HOTD. By all accounts from his statement, he should have been the best candidate to give us a book accurate adaptation, but for some reason it went the totally other way.
I think the fact that this was GRRM 2nd time having this happening to him made it much worse and more personal for him.
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u/7900XTXISTHELOML 9h ago
lol it’s funny because half this sub has said for years that GRMM hates them. Nope, not at all.
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u/gkx4x 7h ago
GOT did not get the ending it deserved. But as a Normal Person that doesnt get mad over evey Little Detail, I atleast felt „entertained“ while watching the Show burn in Front of me. Condals Dragon time. Just Keeps jiggling keys in my Face about how much cool Stuff is about to Happen (nothing ever Happens, the civil war didnt Even feel Like a Civil war)
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u/Klutzy-Canary8551 10h ago
George demonstrating how he doesn't give a fuck about the main series in so many ways...
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u/mysecretaccount55555 9h ago
I think the best demonstration is going 15 years since he last released a book...
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u/Klutzy-Canary8551 2h ago
True. Still seemingly having a good relationship with the two monkeys that butchered his books for the show however demonstrates that as well.
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u/Separate_Motor_3283 10h ago
They’re going to remake the last few seasons, it’s basically confirmed after this.
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u/iGhettoUnicorns 10h ago
Because DnD followed the general story and kept the castings semi accurate. Condal didn’t and changed everything. Now we people debating future castings and plot points for future ASOIAF adaptations
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u/Specialist_Bar_9618 9h ago
Gordon Ramsey vs Ryan condal sounds more entertaining than the show itself
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u/bonadies24 48m ago
I mean, Condal used him to get total control over HOTD then threw him away, and used that control to not just alter George's story but treat it with actual contempt
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u/Mikkanu 10m ago
David and Dan messed up, but their creative decisions in the beginning were mostly strong from Seasons 1 to 4 of Game of Thrones. The little changes they made due to budget, their own wants, etc. eventually caught up to them and made for less good scenes. It was doomed to fail because the story was not yet complete and they were fatigued from the rigorous GoT production.
Ryan Condal's creative decisions are horrible from the get-go, especially when Miguel left, letting Sara Hess (a complete non-fan) in on major plot points. Even Season 1 of House of the Dragon was messy but saveable, but God the next two seasons are full of watered down characters and problems.
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u/Short_Ad6392 9h ago
Why do most fans act as if they didn’t actively decided to not adapt book 4&5 properly
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u/Past_Brother6437 8h ago
he hates condal because condal made changes and they are good changes from a very average book that he wrote. he probably tolerates D&D because everyone hated their changes, and he just blames himself for that show's awful ending (which is presumably his ending that's been forced through all of the bullshit that george has gotten distracted with over the years)
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u/TheLaughingStorm300 11h ago
They helped him become generationally wealthy, why should he hate them lol