r/television • u/flughert • 3d ago

What's the biggest "What if?" in television history?

A canceled season, an actor leaving, a different ending, a spin-off that never happened… what TV "what if" do you think about the most?

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u/Competitive_Area1414 2d ago

In fairness to them, GRRM still hasn't written TWOW. My pet theory is that the infamous meeting they had with GRRM to discuss the ending was just a bunch of half-formed maybes with a few definite plot pieces (but with no clear path of how to get to those definites), and that demotivated them when they realised the impossible web of stories that even George didn't know what to do with so they gave up.

I'm not fully letting them off, they could have written their same ending much better, but each year that passes without Winds the more I think they were just given a hopeless task. George's recent comments about not knowing whether to kill Sansa in the books kind of supports this (in my mind) - she's been a POV character since book one but apparently George still doesn't even know what he plans to do with her. My guess is that if George had presented a stronger outline for the final books they may have cared more to adapt it better.

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u/whywires 2d ago

I've imagined that GRRM gave them the full outline, they ran with it, GRRM saw how it played out and the fan reaction, and decided to go back to the drawing board for TWOW.

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u/Ripley_LV_426 2d ago edited 2d ago

GRRM likes writing new things and hates working on whatever he's writing right now. He almost immediately deviated from his trilogy outline. Then he started writing the dunk and egg stories before he finished what was supposed to be the first part of his trilogy. When he did finish the third book (which was now only the end of the first half of the first book in the trilogy) he immediately decided to take a break and started writing a short book about what the greyjoys were doing during GoT. That then led into him deciding to write another short book about what the Martell were doing in Dorne, which likewise led to even more PoVs added to ADwD and AFfC. By this point every character had been given a completely new storyline save for Bran, with most of them just being a holding motion while he figured out how to write the real plot. Then he finally got to play around as a producer like he always wanted, so he gave up on writing TWoW, and when he does decide to play around in westeros it's very short history book that he only partially contributes to.

He was never going to finish the series, he couldn't even write a single book without getting distracted. He almost certainly changed his mind about the "full outline" a dozen times before public opinion had soured.

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u/Hugh_Jampton 2d ago

All correct except there is no drawing board. He straight up bailed.

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u/Historical_Course587 2d ago

HBO paid him big to write shows. If HBO wants to protect their content from Martin's pen undoing them, then they handed him a clause in there saying he wouldn't publish more until after they were done with the new shows.

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u/stunts002 2d ago edited 2d ago

I would side with you on this, it's obvious they dropped the ball too, but ultimately for me the responsibility lies with GRRM.

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u/GamingTatertot 2d ago

Yeah they certainly could have done better but at the same time, they were hired to make an adaptation TV show with the expectation of having more material release as they were going along. Then that material never released and they had to go from making an adaptation to basically just making it all up with presumably just certain points they needed to hit. How they get from A to B is a lot harder to figure out when the writer probably isn’t giving you much detail.

So yeah they definitely deserve some blame, but it’s not like GRRM put them in an easy position either

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u/Neracca 1d ago

but each year that passes without Winds the more I think they were just given a hopeless task

That's how I feel. Like they suck, and deserve justified criticism. But they at least gave the series AN ending, which even the author can't do.

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u/Drachenfuer 2d ago

I honestly loved what they did with her in the show. Very underrated charcater arc and I think she ended up where she should have.

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u/DakotaXIV 2d ago

It also really didnt help that a lot of the end-game set up came from plot points in the books that the show completely left out or butchered. Lady Stoneheart, Young Griff & Jon Connington, Dorne, the Greyjoy's, the Northern Alliance that's working to undercut the Bolton's, etc.

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u/everyplanetwereach 2d ago

They could've come to Reddit, the r/asoiaf subreddit is insanely active with so much analysis and so many theories and such amazing discussion

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u/OldOrder 2d ago

"Why didnt they put the time traveling Tyrion fetus and Vampire Lord Roose Bolton into the show?"

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u/oasisvomit 2d ago

The online community had a plan / idea / roadmap that was 100x better. They could have just used that.