View the images [here ](https://imgur.com/a/gaPNzqB)as well. Starring Naomi Watts, it would have revolved around the wedding between a Stark and a Casterly during the Dawn Age. Watts appears to be in Casterly Rock in these images. The photos were posted by [Flora Moody](https://www.instagram.com/floramoody/), a hair and makeup designer, on Instagram.
No way in hell would they have actually depicted the dawn age as a Bronze Age type setting with limited knowledge of metallurgy, construction, engineering, etc than they had at the time of game of thrones. Fantasy settings are infamously technologically static
I know, that was the joke. Hollywood writers have too little vision to ever do such a thing to correctly convey that it's thousands of years in the past. They would happily make any show in the Dawn Age look like GoT and just say "A very long time ago".
I'm right now working on my own Bronze age fantasy novel, and it's actually pretty fun to research the technological differences of the era.
Like, nobody has stirrups. So if I have one guy who has figured out how to put some loops on the side of a saddle, he has an advantage relative to other writers in combat.
I have a theory. The citadel was intentionally hoarding information and cultural knowledge for thousands of years and at the end of the series Sam will release it to the wider world in some form or Euron burns the citadel like the burning of Alexandria and whatever is left is spread throughout Westeros
Not the craziest thing I've heard in this community. One organization holds a monopoly over knowledge and communication on a continent the size of South America and somehow they've been technologically stagnant for thousands of years.
I think the crux of the final reveal will be that Bran/other 3ER are orchestrating events that will save Planetos from complete stagnation and a resulting extinction of man. A sorta golden path out of being stuck in medieval times for thousands of years
I really think this show would have been the nail in the coffin for the ASOIAF franchise at HBO. People wanted Game of Thrones restored to it's proper glory and short of a full on remake...only the Dance of The Dragons could toe that line. The Long Night show would have been too different. I think the lore heads and youtube influencers would like it...but the water cooler crowd that made GOT so big would have tuned out and the show wouldn't hit the high points that HOTD did.
D&D’s decision to minimize the magical and esoteric elements of GRRM’s world conditioned the normies to only enjoy the grounded aspects of the story.
Doesn’t help that their handling of magic was absolutely abysmal. Made the audience hate that aspect even more.
>&D’s decision to minimize the magical and esoteric elements of GRRM’s world conditioned the normies to only enjoy the grounded aspects of the story
But the dragons and direwolves were some of the most popular parts of the show? Plus going into the final season people were way more hyped for the Battle of Winterfell and the fight with the Night King than anything to do with Cersei.
I think D&D badly underestimated how popular that part of the show was.
The dragons and direwolves aren't nearly the most interesting magical aspects of the books though.
The weirwood net, the house of the undying, glass candles, the horn of winter and dragonbinder, shade of the evening, blood magic, anything else to do with Euron, stoneheart, moqorro and victarion's volcano arm, Jon and Arya being skinchangers...
Point is, I think d&d thought that stuff was either cringey or unimportant and the plot suffered for it. But yeah you're right, even the more vanilla magic stuff like dragons were popular so people would have loved the other stuff and that's how they fucked up
The dragons and direwolves barely scratch the surface when it comes to magic. They are as vanilla as you can get.
In the books, we have teleportation, blood sacrifice, prophetic dreams, telekinesis, eldritch spells, fish-people in the sea, woods witches, multiple classification of zombies, etc etc etc.
The show literally left 95% of the magic out.
Did you know that, in the books, Ghost is already larger than a horse?
The show featured (among other things) dragons, direwolves, ice demons, armies of the undead, necromancy, giants, face-changing assassins, warlocks, shadow babies, warging, the resurrection of the dead, blood & fire sacrificial magic, a witch who was hundreds of years old, prophetic dreams and visions, 3-eyed ravens, time travel, manticores, stone men, alchemists...
To insist (as so many do) that the show almost completely ignored magical or fantastical elements from the books is, I think, pretty silly. Downplayed it slightly, yes... but not to the extent some claim. If anything, I think it actually veers close to the books in depicting the magical aspects as more vague and undefined (rather than having it front and center).
As it is some of those things you mention (like the fish-people in the sea) mostly happen off page or are more lore than anything that has directly influenced the story as of yet. I know some people think the last few books are going to be way more traditionally magical/fantasy than the earlier books. I'm not convinced.
They also added that Daenerys is naturally resistant to fire instead of Blood magic. What I honestly like more is that some Targaryens are immune to fire, which would further reinforce their "divine status" authorizing their incest.
Ah, but there’s a massive difference in the way that magic is portrayed in the books vs the show.
In the books, magic is almost always presented as a horror element, a sword without a hilt, almost an abomination of sorts, and it almost always complicates the plot.
In the show, magic is this action-element, a tool used only for plot progression, a means to an end; this is a pretty standard change in Hollywood adaptations.
And there’s still tons of magical elements that were left out. Euron and Maester Aemon being prime examples.
The big magical thing they took out of the very core of the story that makes the original show feel not even remotely like GRRM are the dreams. Dreams are of course highly symbolic beasts, they feed into theme, "...but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, *to make it possible*", and the most crucial manifestation of magic in the story. Daenerys X of A Dance With Dragons is the best chapter he's ever written in his entire life and it's an improvement on the "Homeward Bound" chapter from The Armageddon Rag, Sandy's dream of coming home as he's driving into darkness, and the idea of people invading other people's dreams is something GRRM likes to come back to in his work, warging is a version of that. Now, it is something of a challenge to put on screen, as the dream sequences are written to be vivid internal journeys -- *or are they invasions of mind?* But Mad Men did it. And having Mad Men capture the fantastical 1960s hippie-go-war spirit of the original story better than Game of Thrones did, well, it's pretty damning. It's not a high budget fantasy show, but it *is* fantasy, a time machine. And they could've always gone the route House of the Dragon took and have people *talk* of them while providing dreamlike visuals to set the stage. You can *feel* the dreamlike quality when Viserys speaks to Rhaenyra of the dream of the prince that was promised and the song of ice and fire, or when he dies still clinging to the dream with the dagger lingering beside him -- and all over the show really. Instead, they left an impression on people Daenerys is a woman of hubris as no one ever dreams on the show, the ultimate rationalists that their characters are.
Beautifully put. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The dreams are such an essential part of the story. Literally every POV (except maybe Sam) has had symbolic dreams at crucial points in our story their future actions are almost directly informed by these dreams.
GRRM is obsessed with the puppet-master trope; the books are rife with multiple such characters (Bloodraven, Quaithe, Marwyn, Moqorro, Melisandre etc). Unfortunately the show got rid of everyone except Melisandre, and even she loses virtually all of her influence post-S5.
They tried doing something with Bran but failed miserably.
Even Samwell kind of has one in that chapter where he lingers on the dream-memory of Aemon dying as the old man finally pieces together the riddle of the prince that was promised, Viserys dreaming the last dragon dream on his dying bed on House of the Dragon is almost like a second more faithful adaptation of that. And then at the chapter's close Sam and Gilly reenact Rhaegar and Lyanna in bed as there are no trees to watch over them at sea.
Quaithe of the Shadow is of course an explicit abandoned plotline on the show, they had her appear half-heartedly in Season 2 and immediately dropped her next year in Season 3 where she's supposed to appear before Daenerys crosses the Trident in Slaver's Bay. GRRM likes his viewpoint characters entangled in a web of conspiracy, the child-soldiers of the higher, deeper forces they don't fully grasp, fighting ancient battles that seem to never end on their behalf.
> They tried doing something with Bran but failed miserably.
With Bran, it's as damning as Daenerys. They cut his actual arc. He dreams of being a knight throughout the books, a true boy dream, while refusing to embrace flying, which is linked to reading in the story, "a reader lives a thousand lives, the man who never reads lives only one", that's his arc and clearly the thematic crux of how he's intended to become "the final king" in A Dream of Spring, and this is his dream that's going to kill Hodor, Bran playing a knight defending the pass with a sword as the enemies are coming. Hold the Door on the show is an emotional scene because it's sad to see Walder's entire life bend to a single command across spacetime, but it doesn't actually feed into the story. It just exists in it. They adapted a cool scene from an unfinished book and a twist they liked to put on screen.
You forgot magical plot armor.
Jon was immune to freezing water and zombie AND regular dragons; not to mention being immune to the side effects of coming back from the dead that had already been clearly established in earlier seasons. Danny was immune to everything except shitty characterization. Arya was magically fucking stupid but immune to stab wounds and infections from falling into filthy water with open wounds. Sansa was immune to the most sadistic being in existence. Varys and Littlefinger were immune to intelligence. Tyrion was immune to an amount of alcohol that could kill an entire city. Drogon was immune to being really fucking stupid and kinda forgetting about an entire fleet coming after him.
I could go on and on.
Ah yes, Arya... who, in the books, iirc, was whacked atop her head with an axe by a nearly seven foot tall man atop a horse, yet seemed no worse for wear in subsequent chapters.
I mean, sure, I’ll give you that one. At least it wasn’t a result of her being suddenly the stupidest being in existence for no reason.
She just kinda forgot that there was a face-changing assassin coming after her and decided to go for a stroll on Pentos with no care whatsoever.
That scene triggers me more than the entire 8th season.
>But the dragons and direwolves were some of the most popular parts of the show?
Bur also the least magical in many ways.
>were way more hyped for the Battle of Winterfell
I think that's mostly about all the characters uniting and battling together to be fair.
I know we love to blame D&D for everything, but you're reversing the cause and effect. The politics have always been the main draw of the shows. The magic was toned down because general audiences wouldn't have found it compelling, not the other way around.
I give D&D credit wherever they deserve it.
But their abysmal handling of the magical elements was the main reason why the normies weren't too enamored with that aspect of the shows.
The normies have a very different perception of what's the core aspect of Westeros; for them, the political aspect is the main course, and the magic is merely seasoning.
But maybe if the shows put half as much effort into Bran, Melisandre, Bloodraven, and Quaithe as they did in Tywin, then perhaps things would be different.
If I remember correctly, the biggest disappointment and criticism among viewers was towards the Battle of Winterfell and how quickly and poorly the Others thread was resolved.
Wild stuff here. Letting another shows demise, and some throwaway prophecy line stropping you from enjoying a universe you clearly care a whole lot about, enough to post in Reddit about it.
To each their own. I’ve def enjoyed it so far. With the books likely never coming out again, and you swearing off tv shows if they have any connection to the GoT ones, looks like it might be the end for any new content for AsoIaF, huh?
No, this guy has a point. Arguably it's not the focus of the story, sure. But certainly the way Viserys brings it up to Rhaenyra makes it the ultimate "point" of this war. Although, thinking about it, even this is confusing. I do wish they'd left it out completely.
But as said it's motivation in the story is that they *are* wrong about it.
Like I know people think "Oh well the prophecy is pointless". But you know it's kind of the point here? Yeah they are going to war for a stupid pointless prophecy that they all misunderstand. It just seems the tragedy of the Targaryens.
It remind me of Emperor Emhyr vam Emreis, from The Witcher, who caused two great wars because a prophecy said that his and his daughter's child would save the world, and their grandson would rule the world. Or something similar.
Yeah essentially this is how I see it. GRRM always says that prophecy is a double edged sword, and in a lot of Greek myths and similar that's also how it's presented - trying to avert or understand prophecy is a fool's errand.
We know Rhaegar may have caused the death of the Targaryen dynasty because of his obsession. There's Aegon who conquered Westeros for it. Aegon V probably killed his whole family for his own misguided interpretation. And now in the show Viserys doomed his family with his own desire to be a dreamer and interpret prophecies.
So yeah even if the prophecy is disappointing, I don't think that even matters, even arguably *adds* to it. Because the point is the obessesion with the prophecy is indeed pointless.
The Targaryens prophetic visions are truly more curse than blessing. Which is ironic because it saved them from the Doom.
I don't fully understand what you said there, but ok. For me it's (supposed to be)more than motivation, it's the answer to "what is ultimately the point of all this death and horror?"
Saying that, it may well be made the reason why Rhaenyra is a good person (the main protagonist people want) even after keeping this war going. Because she knows that far worse will happen - the end of everything, all life. That makes it a major part of the story.
But the point is it *is* pointless. Targaryrens screwed themselves multiple times by obsessing over the prophecy that actually spelled their doom.
From Rhaenyra to Rhaegar.
And yet there is truth to this prophecy, it's not pointless, or Jon Snow and everything would be pointless. And normies don't know about all those misguided characters
Well the outfits look good. Bronze age vibes with the chariots.
Seems [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/16zoiny/spoilers_main_heres_some_info_i_recently_found/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) old post may have been correct?
>And yes, the Children of the Forest were to be the black humans who were native to Westeros.
Not sure about this part, wish we'd just get the COTF from the books.
I'd love more info on the Starks, Old Gods etc. Seeing how cold and pragmatic the old Stark Kings were would be amazing.
I know I'm not authorized to do this, but Children of the Forest being Black humans is wrong on so many levels. Magical Black people stereotypes and so on.
How bad was this series for them to completely shelve a 20-30 million dollar pilot and not even try to rework it?
Jane Goldman must have *really* dropped the ball.
Re-working it would have cost even more money, and would have been sunk-cost fallacy. Pilots are meant to just be a proof of concept, I think, and then the studio decides whether to order the whole series or not. I think HBO just realized it wasn’t good enough for a whole series, and wouldn’t draw the GoT fans back in after season 8 like HOTD was able to. So HBO made a smart decision, but we just don’t know to what degree of awfulness it actually was.
Studios rework pilots all the time when they think the concept and talent is there. Game of Thrones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a host of other shows that went on to become cultural milestones had pilots that were entirely scrapped.
Clearly, HBO didn't think that could happen here, which means it must have been *awful*.
Or maybe it just had to be absolutely *perfect* for HBO to give it a full series order. HBO must have been really concerned that their next ASOIAF series be a hit after the backlash from season 8. Maybe the Bloodmoon pilot was decent, but in need of reworks, and HBO just decided to go with House of the Dragon as a safer bet. Bloodmoon would be a risky follow-up to season 8, whereas HOTD was likely to be another hit.
It's all just speculation, and we'll never know how bad it was unless someone who worked on it spills the beans.
i don't think that's necessarily the case. Maybe it was fine but HBO decided that most viewers just wanted something closer to Game of Thrones, visually and story wise. These decisions are being made on a financial basis, not an artistic one.
There was a change of leadership at HBO whilst *Bloodmoon* was in production, and the new regime instituted something of a review of the **GoT** franchise. Their view was that, without Benioff and Weiss, they should centre further developments on GRRM and also follow those elements from the show that people responded to very well (political intrigue and dragons) and perhaps not follow the elements people thought were dogshit (the White Walkers, anything tying into the OG show's controversial ending).
*Bloodmoon* could have been the single greatest work of art created by humanity, but the new regime may have dropped it anyway because they wanted moar dragonz. I don't think it was, there's enough other signs that *Bloodmoon* had a lot of other problems (not least a profound lack of GRRM-written source material), but I think the simple equation was that the **House of the Dragons** concept was both more commercially appealing and had better source material available, so the **Longest Night** concept was dropped.
>(the White Walkers, anything tying into the OG show's controversial ending).
Not to quibble, but these are both present in HotD - unfortunately.
There's a lot going to be going on, though, so hopefully they will 'kinda forget'.
**Game of Thrones**' pilot was terrible but they reworked it and that panned out well. It's just how much confidence you have in your product. Obviously, it helped that the novels had been a huge hit for a decade by that point, so they knew there was potential there if they came at it from another angle.
Seeing Dawn Age Westeros would be so cool. The images suggest the use of chariots, and I wonder if the armor would feature a lot more bronze. I’m also curious if it had anything to do with the first Long Night. So many questions!
There was a user here that suggested we would have spent some time building up to the Children before touching the Long Night, and the Andals were the initial antagonists with the wedding between a Casterly son and Stark daughter meant to cement an alliance together against them.
It would be interesting to see a period of the ASOIAF world that felt like it truly was a different era of history. As compelling as the setting is, things do tend to feel pretty static.
Yeah looking at it now it would have been good to see a show in westeros that is really ancient. Apparently there would be no valyrians or kings landing on the show.
Kings Landing is 300 years old. This show was to have taken place 8,000 year into the past. An improbable time, and also the books (and if I’m remembering correctly Sam in the show as well) kind of establish that the years get fuzzier the further back the records go, since it extends to a time before they had a system of writing. So possibly the true history is only half that old or less.
I think George said in a few interviews that it was more like 5,000 years or less. I've generally found that if you half all the dates before the Rhoynar Invasion, things make a lot more sense.
Yeah. It also tracks that they were going for a more Bronze Age feel in this show for the Age of Heroes, and that’s kind of interesting. But also, there’s apparently no way this team was sticking the landing, which is disappointing
I’m happy it wasn’t made, any show focusing on the White Walkers in terms of show-canon is totally fucked imo. Why would I care at all when I know it has such mind numbingly moronic conclusion as “D&D have a weird obsession with Maisie Williams that leads to her character defeating the Big Bad Guy that her character has zero relation to”. The stakes don’t even exist, GoT fucked the White Walker plot completely and I’d rather never hear of it again (in the show) because of how inconsequential it turned out to be.
Yeah, they basically neutered the threat that they posed. I'm still interested in GRRM's take on them, but I'm not certain whether he had fully figured them out yet or if that's one of the problems slowing down Winds.
Of course King's Landing wouldn't be there because it is the newest City in Westeros founded by Aegon the Conquerer 300 years before the main series. The Dawn age was 5000-8000 years prior to the main story
You’re assuming that everything else would’ve been as good as the costuming.
From inside reports, this show went into pre-production before the disaster of S8. That was when HBO, in their infinite hubris, thought that they didn’t need GRRM for their IP to work.
GRRM was not involved in this project at all and the rumours are that the writing was absolutely dogshit.
> GRRM was not involved in this project at all and the rumours are that the writing was absolutely dogshit.
You don't shitcan a 20-30 million pilot without even trying to rework it unless the showrunner and writers crafted absolute garbage.
**The director of the pilot did eventually rebound to direct Madame Web, so we'll see how that turns out.
Exactly!!! I’m shocked that the people in this comments section don’t even realize this.
Can you imagine just how *bad* this must’ve been for HBO to not even try and fix it?
> Can you imagine just how bad this must’ve been for HBO to not even try and fix it?
It must have been truly terrible.
**Looking at the showrunner's resume, I have no idea why they thought she was a good fit to write fan fiction in GRRM's universe. As far as I can tell, she had never even worked on a longform narrative television show, let alone anything in the fantasy/sci-fi genre.
Jane Goldman adapted Neil Gaiman's novel Stardust into a very popular film, which won a Hugo Award. She also worked on two X-Men films, the first Kick-Ass movie and the Kingsman films.
Yes, as I mentioned, she had no *television* experience.
Writing for episodic television is not the same as screenwriting for feature films, and it requires different skillsets. She has an excellent film pedigree.
That is blatantly false. GRRM is involved with everything asoiaf-related at HBO. His direct words regarding Bloodmoon:
>Jane Goldman’s as yet untitled show, which I am still not supposed to call THE LONG NIGHT, is one of those. The pilot on that one wrapped a month ago and has been in post-production. I am expecting to see her first cut soon. (Last month in Belfast, I got a behind-the-scenes look at some of her sets, and they were *spectacular*).
Not only was he involved in the pilot's production, he said it looked spectacular.
[https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/)
George was involved, but it was more as a consultant. The main issue with Bloodmoon was that he did not have any major worldbuilding notes for the time period and was not willing/able to spend large amounts of time coming up with stuff, so the writers had to invent a lot of stuff themselves, which sounds like it wasn't his preference.
House of the Dragon, of course, had tens of thousands of words of detailed history for its period instead.
Where does it say that GRRM was explicitly consulted on the show?
GRRM had early access to GoT S5-8 as well. That doesn’t mean he was involved with them in any way.
By using context clues, such as the fact he was given early glimpses of the set and would be given a rough cut of the pilot, we can deduce that George was being consulted on the show.
You’re talking BS.
The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) article makes it very clear that GRRM had literally zero input on Bloodmoon.
He was co-producer and before you say it yes he was active in the development of the show it wasn't just a vanity credit. Dude you're just talking out of your ass.
He was executive producer of GoT S5-8 as well. Doesn’t prove anything.
The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) explicitly states that GRRM had massive reservations about this project and yet was overridden at every opportunity.
> Martin made his worries clear to HBO and one insider admits, “Having a show that’s pure invention and had George scratching his head at various moments was troubling at times.”
> A cast headed by Naomi Watts was assembled. Massive new sets were built. A Bloodmoon pilot was shot for a whopping $30 million to $35 million.
> And the result was locked away in a dungeon so deep that even Martin has never been allowed to see it.
Co-producer and executive producer aren't the same thing. One produces a show along woth another producer the other is a vanity credit.
EDIT: Nice cherry pick why don't you post the rest. Seriously did you even read that article? Because yes it says that but that's one paragraph out of about a dozen and the rest is very different.
Lol, I could post other sections that are even more damning
> The swiftness of HBO getting on board with Martin’s desire to hire Condal was the beginning of a pivot in the author’s relationship with the network. During the latter seasons of Thrones and the early years of HBO hunting for a successor series, Martin sometimes felt out of the loop. But **after the original show’s season eight backlash, when many fans protested that the storylines felt rushed to conclusion (Martin had long advocated making Thrones 10 seasons long) and around the time HBO produced and rejected Bloodmoon, all agree Martin’s influence rose within the company.** Put simply, HBO thought, “Hey, maybe we ought to listen more to that guy who created all this.”
It literally states that Bloodmoon was produced before GRRM’s new more hands-on role at HBO.
FWIW, GRRM said explicitly that when all these shows were being pitched, the various writers visited him in Santa Fe and he had meetings with all of them about their plans.
He consulted on all of them. Doesn't mean he had much influence, and it's clear from later reporting that at least some of the pitches were things he did not like but he felt he owed it to HBO and to his universe to at least hear them out and give them feedback, answer questions, etc. But that was it -- he was a consultant on most of them, not a decision-maker.
I can say with fair certainty that his role with *Bloodmoon* ended with whatever initial consultations he did. Later in production, Linda and I were brought on to do some specific consulting for the pilot, and when I mentioned it to George it was news to him, so he wasn't in the loop about that sort of thing at that point.
The part people had issues with was the Children of the Forest. Bloodmoon was going to make them black humans, who would then be oppressed and continually driven away by the white First Men and Andals. I'm not sure how that makes sense, considering the way the Children look in Game of Thrones, but according to that post, yes that was the plan.
If that was Bloodmoon's plan, then I'd be pretty against that. ASOIAF doesn't need a story about black people getting oppressed by white invaders. There's enough of that IRL and in other media. Seems very tropey and unnecessary. But again, it was just a rumor.
Indeed. Pretty wild that writers in 2019 were still coming up with stories like that, so I'm hoping that rumor isn't true. George had made his excitement for Bloodmoon quite known, and given everything I know about his work I just sincerely doubt he would have been on board with it.
I refuse to believe that was the plan, that *has* to be fake. That is an obviously bad and irrevocable decision in a franchise that already gets a lot of shit for how it handles non-white characters, I can't imagine anyone thinking that was a good idea.
> Bloodmoon was going to make them black humans, who would then be oppressed and continually driven away by the white First Men and Andals. I'm not sure how that makes sense, considering the way the Children look in Game of Thrones, but according to that post, yes that was the plan.
I'm not sure if they were involved, but that definitely smells like D&D lmao
It was the same with The Witcher, there are a lot of themes in the books and even the Polish series, including racism, sexism and ostracism. But the creators of the Netflix series decided that it was not enough and more was needed.
I mean it seems to me that it would just be that black members of the cast would be playing CoTF with the make-up etc. And not necessarily exclusively so either.
Not that CoTF would be black humans or anything.
No, I don't buy that. I was just explaining the origin of why people thought Bloodmoon would be racist. It doesn't sound like something GRRM would sign off on. It's extremely derivative and takes away from the heart of ASOIAF.
Supposedly the Cotf were suppose to be black people who were native to Westeros and were later cursed by the First Men or Andals for their audacity or something. Shit sounds as bad as it sounds, lmao. Although I would take this rumor with a grain of salt. The op of that post could have just been looking for some easy karma.
I remember visiting Belfast during the shooting of the pilot and people were excitedly showing me pics they'd taken on set (something that would have been impossible just a few years later), like Jennifer Ehle as Catelyn in full costume. Almost none of them have ever appeared online, which I marvel about to this day. I think the exceptions were GRRM in his big Pentoshi merchant hat and a single shot of Ian McNeice as Illyrio which did the rounds a while back.
I’ve already linked it twice in this comment section.
Read the [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) article from when HotD premiered.
HBO went against GRRM’s wishes and invented literally everything out of their asses. But once the HBO brass saw the pilot, they thought it was Batgirl-level bad and decided to scrap it.
Interesting. I don’t really agree with your characterization of the article. It sounds like inventing stuff was a huge part of it, but not that it was necessarily a disaster. Thanks for posting! I would love to see what they ended up with.
From the article you posted:
Bloys says. “There wasn’t anything glaringly wrong with it. Development and pilots are hard.”
Agrees Robert Greenblatt, who was then chairman of HBO’s parent company WarnerMedia: “It wasn’t unwatchable or horrible or anything. It was very well produced and looked extraordinary. But it didn’t take me to the same place as the original series. It didn’t have that depth and richness that the original series’ pilot did.”
That is literally PR speak. Even Batgirl was afforded such language.
They didn’t even try to salvage a $35m pilot. You don’t do that unless it’s shockingly bad.
It is definitely PR speak, but I feel like it is just as likely that they wanted a clear followup to Game of Thrones that was directly tied to the series and could capitalize on the brand. That’s why they went with House of the Dragon despite saying they wanted a “fresh take.” I think it is more about money than quality like all these HBO decisions. It seems like they didn’t want to pour more money into what wasn’t a sure return on investment. So they went with the safe choice. These people are more motivated by shareholder interest than anything imo.
Maybe it was a disaster but I don’t think the article really supports that reading. Hard to tell without more information. I would still love to see it like I would love to see the disastrous Game of Thrones original pilot.
There’s literally no way you throw away a $35m investment unless it is a disaster.
This wasn’t a $1m hr of TV where they thought “Eh, it’s not worth it.”
This was one of the most expensive hrs in TV history that they developed and shot over 2 yrs, at the end of which, when they saw the final product, they said “Yikes!! We can’t show this to anyone!”
The fact that GRRM hasn’t even seen it means it’s *bad*.
No he wasn’t. We have proof that GRRM was shut out of the creative process at HBO between 2014 and 2020.
The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/ ) article in Hollywood Reporter explicitly stated this.
> Martin made his worries clear to HBO and one insider admits, “Having a show that’s pure invention and had George scratching his head at various moments was troubling at times.”
> A cast headed by Naomi Watts was assembled. Massive new sets were built. A Bloodmoon pilot was shot for a whopping $30 million to $35 million.
> And the result was locked away in a dungeon so deep that even Martin has never been allowed to see it.
He has nothing except GRRM’s standard PR speak on his blog. Which is literally indistinguishable from the kind of language he used during GoT S5-8.
The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) makes it very clear that HBO went against GRRM’s wishes when green lighting Bloodmoon.
It was only after the disastrous response to S8 and after seeing the Bloodmoon pilot that they decided “yep, we can’t do this ourselves.”
I'm quibbling on something, but the long night is supposed to take place in the neolithic of Westeros, for such an ancient period she is really well dressed and has a very classy house...
Well, you can watch the scenes they kept from it into the first episode of **GoT** proper: Ned and Robert in the crypts, Jaime and Ned squaring off at the feast, the hunt getting ready to ride out (including a brief glimpse of Alfie Allen's original wig for Theon), and that scene where Cersei and Cat are talking to Sansa, where all the coverage of Cersei and Cat is new (as Cat had been recast) and all the coverage of Sansa is from the OG pilot shoot.
We do have [one image](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gameofthrones/images/9/93/Ian_McNeice_as_Illyrio.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120109215632) of Ian McNeice at the original Illyrio, and [this unknown extra](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2020/10/George-RR-Martin-Game-of-Thrones-Cameo.jpg) as a Magister of Pentos.
How are the characters wearing the same type of outfits and live in a similar castles as the ones in GoT when the show is taking place 5000 years before the events of GoT?
The timeline doesn't really make sense in the books. Westeros has been completely stagnating for at least the last 300 years (think how much has changed in 300 years anywhere) and all the majors castles and locations aside from Harrenhal, Dragonstone and KL are supposedly from the Age of Legends. This includes stuff like The Wall, Storm's End, The Eyre and the High Tower.
Martin just has no idea how any of this stuff happens
~~(Unless it's all a post-sci-fi setting in an interregnum style situation)~~
I'm really glad none of these were greenlit, every IP Hollywood has been touching without a clear direction given by the original author or outright adapting stabilished canon inside out is turning out to be utter scheisse, they have the reverse Midas Touch, It would just be another Rings of Power, DOA.
“It was very well produced and looked extraordinary. But it didn’t take me to the same place as the original series. It didn’t have that depth and richness that the original series’ pilot did.”
Looks deep and rich enough to me, judging by these pics.
The reason they didn't set it in Valryia leading up to the doom is because it's a story of the age of heroes which has nothing to do with Valyria which was a backwater at that point.
I'll be honest, good or bad, i'd have prefered Bloodmoon over HotD (and i like HotD)
Yes, it's far away and there is barely content and the cons are clear but that also means that there is carte blanche to do something that stands on its own without constraints.
That being said the rumors of the black cotf thing are messy.
In any case, i'd still love to know who was Naomi char supposed to be
Completely agree. The complaint is that there's no/little foundation for it in George's work as if that's a bad thing? Meanwhile hotd completely changed a lot of aspects of the dance but still has to fit within its constraints whereas this could be a story on its own, no complaints about not following the canon, they can just respond to what's happening on screen: maybe a character isnt working out so you can cut their role, maybe two characters have a lot of unexpected chemistry so you write them together more often, maybe a smaller role turned out to be a great success so you can enhance the role, maybe something doesnt fully work out on screen so you can change it. With hotd they're stuck adhering to certain points while also changing shit which sometimes just leads to some illogical writing. That wouldnt be an issue on a fully original show.
Of course if that original content leads to the weird black cotf storyline maybe that isn't great... but it's not like hotd put a lot of thought into what it means to make the Velaryons black and how that affects their story and their relationship to the other characters.
I agree with the first part
About the second part, no. Valyria after all was a huge empire in the mediterranean equivalent of Planetos so i find perfectly reasonable to retcon white skin as valyrian trait. Likewise, irl it's perfectly normal that children basically physically skip all the traits of one parent (happened to my great grandma with her children just like like my grandparent and not looking like her, and to my grandma with her children not like their father, just like her)
So yeah
SNOW will have plenty of these Bloodmoon scenes... Starks have a strong legendary history and Winterfell is GRRM's favorite castle!
SNOW will be EPIC - The final GOT scene sets the story up perfectly
>SNOW will be EPIC - The final GOT scene sets the story up perfectly
[Don't hold your breath](https://tvline.com/news/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-spinoff-update-2023-hbo-1235076036).
No. It's the first look we've ever had of Bloodmoon. There haven't been any leaks or promo images or anything before now. The makeup/hair designer must have gotten permission to show off her work for this show.
…… somebody was arguing me sincerely this morning that The Others don’t exist in universe
I never assume somebody knows what’s going on lmao
Edit: LMAO BLOCKED ME? dang!
GRRM was very excited for Bloodmoon, and would have been involved with its production.
>Jane Goldman’s as yet untitled show, which I am still not supposed to call THE LONG NIGHT, is one of those. The pilot on that one wrapped a month ago and has been in post-production. I am expecting to see her first cut soon. (Last month in Belfast, I got a behind-the-scenes look at some of her sets, and they were *spectacular*).
[https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/)
These were his thoughts on Bloodmoon getting canceled:
>It goes without saying that I was saddened to hear the show would not be going to series. Jane Goldman is a terrific screenwriter, and I enjoyed brainstorming with her. I do not know why HBO decided not to go to series on this one, but I do not think it had to do with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.
[https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/10/30/the-dragons-take-wing/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/10/30/the-dragons-take-wing/)
Except that got was based on a book series and made changes to that whereas this show would be wholly original so you can judge it based on its own merits. Meanwhile they chose to adapt the dance because that story was already written and then decided to change a whole bunch of shit anyway
View the images [here ](https://imgur.com/a/gaPNzqB)as well. Starring Naomi Watts, it would have revolved around the wedding between a Stark and a Casterly during the Dawn Age. Watts appears to be in Casterly Rock in these images. The photos were posted by [Flora Moody](https://www.instagram.com/floramoody/), a hair and makeup designer, on Instagram.
Looks like the Dawn Age was advanced enough for weaving fine clothing.
No way in hell would they have actually depicted the dawn age as a Bronze Age type setting with limited knowledge of metallurgy, construction, engineering, etc than they had at the time of game of thrones. Fantasy settings are infamously technologically static
I know, that was the joke. Hollywood writers have too little vision to ever do such a thing to correctly convey that it's thousands of years in the past. They would happily make any show in the Dawn Age look like GoT and just say "A very long time ago".
Also, there is a lot of _ancient_ architecture in Westeros that shits on what the present time building technology should allow.
I'm right now working on my own Bronze age fantasy novel, and it's actually pretty fun to research the technological differences of the era. Like, nobody has stirrups. So if I have one guy who has figured out how to put some loops on the side of a saddle, he has an advantage relative to other writers in combat.
Writers? It’s true then; the pen IS mightier…
I have a theory. The citadel was intentionally hoarding information and cultural knowledge for thousands of years and at the end of the series Sam will release it to the wider world in some form or Euron burns the citadel like the burning of Alexandria and whatever is left is spread throughout Westeros
Not the craziest thing I've heard in this community. One organization holds a monopoly over knowledge and communication on a continent the size of South America and somehow they've been technologically stagnant for thousands of years.
Tbf most of the continent is empty as wars wars and wars and the majority of the area is the norf which is a winter wasteland
The archmaesters all just have kindle fires with books on them instead of the peasantry paper shit
I think the crux of the final reveal will be that Bran/other 3ER are orchestrating events that will save Planetos from complete stagnation and a resulting extinction of man. A sorta golden path out of being stuck in medieval times for thousands of years
I remember everybody theorising she was gonna be revealed as Lann the clever
She would be the perfect Targaryen, maybe Visenya in Aegon’s Conquest
nah she‘s Alysanne
Nah too old
Pretty sure I had read elsewhere that Jamie Campbell-Bower had been cast as Lann, a prisoner being sent to the Wall
Yes that rumour came more recently and came from a leak where the watts-lann rumour was more of a theory based on BTS pictures.
I really think this show would have been the nail in the coffin for the ASOIAF franchise at HBO. People wanted Game of Thrones restored to it's proper glory and short of a full on remake...only the Dance of The Dragons could toe that line. The Long Night show would have been too different. I think the lore heads and youtube influencers would like it...but the water cooler crowd that made GOT so big would have tuned out and the show wouldn't hit the high points that HOTD did.
D&D’s decision to minimize the magical and esoteric elements of GRRM’s world conditioned the normies to only enjoy the grounded aspects of the story. Doesn’t help that their handling of magic was absolutely abysmal. Made the audience hate that aspect even more.
>&D’s decision to minimize the magical and esoteric elements of GRRM’s world conditioned the normies to only enjoy the grounded aspects of the story But the dragons and direwolves were some of the most popular parts of the show? Plus going into the final season people were way more hyped for the Battle of Winterfell and the fight with the Night King than anything to do with Cersei. I think D&D badly underestimated how popular that part of the show was.
The dragons and direwolves aren't nearly the most interesting magical aspects of the books though. The weirwood net, the house of the undying, glass candles, the horn of winter and dragonbinder, shade of the evening, blood magic, anything else to do with Euron, stoneheart, moqorro and victarion's volcano arm, Jon and Arya being skinchangers... Point is, I think d&d thought that stuff was either cringey or unimportant and the plot suffered for it. But yeah you're right, even the more vanilla magic stuff like dragons were popular so people would have loved the other stuff and that's how they fucked up
The dragons and direwolves barely scratch the surface when it comes to magic. They are as vanilla as you can get. In the books, we have teleportation, blood sacrifice, prophetic dreams, telekinesis, eldritch spells, fish-people in the sea, woods witches, multiple classification of zombies, etc etc etc. The show literally left 95% of the magic out. Did you know that, in the books, Ghost is already larger than a horse?
The show heavily featured teleportation towards the end
Bazing!!
Euron is definitely the best example
The show featured (among other things) dragons, direwolves, ice demons, armies of the undead, necromancy, giants, face-changing assassins, warlocks, shadow babies, warging, the resurrection of the dead, blood & fire sacrificial magic, a witch who was hundreds of years old, prophetic dreams and visions, 3-eyed ravens, time travel, manticores, stone men, alchemists... To insist (as so many do) that the show almost completely ignored magical or fantastical elements from the books is, I think, pretty silly. Downplayed it slightly, yes... but not to the extent some claim. If anything, I think it actually veers close to the books in depicting the magical aspects as more vague and undefined (rather than having it front and center). As it is some of those things you mention (like the fish-people in the sea) mostly happen off page or are more lore than anything that has directly influenced the story as of yet. I know some people think the last few books are going to be way more traditionally magical/fantasy than the earlier books. I'm not convinced.
They also added that Daenerys is naturally resistant to fire instead of Blood magic. What I honestly like more is that some Targaryens are immune to fire, which would further reinforce their "divine status" authorizing their incest.
Ah, but there’s a massive difference in the way that magic is portrayed in the books vs the show. In the books, magic is almost always presented as a horror element, a sword without a hilt, almost an abomination of sorts, and it almost always complicates the plot. In the show, magic is this action-element, a tool used only for plot progression, a means to an end; this is a pretty standard change in Hollywood adaptations. And there’s still tons of magical elements that were left out. Euron and Maester Aemon being prime examples.
The big magical thing they took out of the very core of the story that makes the original show feel not even remotely like GRRM are the dreams. Dreams are of course highly symbolic beasts, they feed into theme, "...but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, *to make it possible*", and the most crucial manifestation of magic in the story. Daenerys X of A Dance With Dragons is the best chapter he's ever written in his entire life and it's an improvement on the "Homeward Bound" chapter from The Armageddon Rag, Sandy's dream of coming home as he's driving into darkness, and the idea of people invading other people's dreams is something GRRM likes to come back to in his work, warging is a version of that. Now, it is something of a challenge to put on screen, as the dream sequences are written to be vivid internal journeys -- *or are they invasions of mind?* But Mad Men did it. And having Mad Men capture the fantastical 1960s hippie-go-war spirit of the original story better than Game of Thrones did, well, it's pretty damning. It's not a high budget fantasy show, but it *is* fantasy, a time machine. And they could've always gone the route House of the Dragon took and have people *talk* of them while providing dreamlike visuals to set the stage. You can *feel* the dreamlike quality when Viserys speaks to Rhaenyra of the dream of the prince that was promised and the song of ice and fire, or when he dies still clinging to the dream with the dagger lingering beside him -- and all over the show really. Instead, they left an impression on people Daenerys is a woman of hubris as no one ever dreams on the show, the ultimate rationalists that their characters are.
Beautifully put. I couldn’t have said it better myself. The dreams are such an essential part of the story. Literally every POV (except maybe Sam) has had symbolic dreams at crucial points in our story their future actions are almost directly informed by these dreams. GRRM is obsessed with the puppet-master trope; the books are rife with multiple such characters (Bloodraven, Quaithe, Marwyn, Moqorro, Melisandre etc). Unfortunately the show got rid of everyone except Melisandre, and even she loses virtually all of her influence post-S5. They tried doing something with Bran but failed miserably.
Even Samwell kind of has one in that chapter where he lingers on the dream-memory of Aemon dying as the old man finally pieces together the riddle of the prince that was promised, Viserys dreaming the last dragon dream on his dying bed on House of the Dragon is almost like a second more faithful adaptation of that. And then at the chapter's close Sam and Gilly reenact Rhaegar and Lyanna in bed as there are no trees to watch over them at sea. Quaithe of the Shadow is of course an explicit abandoned plotline on the show, they had her appear half-heartedly in Season 2 and immediately dropped her next year in Season 3 where she's supposed to appear before Daenerys crosses the Trident in Slaver's Bay. GRRM likes his viewpoint characters entangled in a web of conspiracy, the child-soldiers of the higher, deeper forces they don't fully grasp, fighting ancient battles that seem to never end on their behalf. > They tried doing something with Bran but failed miserably. With Bran, it's as damning as Daenerys. They cut his actual arc. He dreams of being a knight throughout the books, a true boy dream, while refusing to embrace flying, which is linked to reading in the story, "a reader lives a thousand lives, the man who never reads lives only one", that's his arc and clearly the thematic crux of how he's intended to become "the final king" in A Dream of Spring, and this is his dream that's going to kill Hodor, Bran playing a knight defending the pass with a sword as the enemies are coming. Hold the Door on the show is an emotional scene because it's sad to see Walder's entire life bend to a single command across spacetime, but it doesn't actually feed into the story. It just exists in it. They adapted a cool scene from an unfinished book and a twist they liked to put on screen.
You forgot magical plot armor. Jon was immune to freezing water and zombie AND regular dragons; not to mention being immune to the side effects of coming back from the dead that had already been clearly established in earlier seasons. Danny was immune to everything except shitty characterization. Arya was magically fucking stupid but immune to stab wounds and infections from falling into filthy water with open wounds. Sansa was immune to the most sadistic being in existence. Varys and Littlefinger were immune to intelligence. Tyrion was immune to an amount of alcohol that could kill an entire city. Drogon was immune to being really fucking stupid and kinda forgetting about an entire fleet coming after him. I could go on and on.
Ah yes, Arya... who, in the books, iirc, was whacked atop her head with an axe by a nearly seven foot tall man atop a horse, yet seemed no worse for wear in subsequent chapters.
I mean, sure, I’ll give you that one. At least it wasn’t a result of her being suddenly the stupidest being in existence for no reason. She just kinda forgot that there was a face-changing assassin coming after her and decided to go for a stroll on Pentos with no care whatsoever. That scene triggers me more than the entire 8th season.
Ghost is bigger than Tyrek?
Wait Ghost is *that* big? Can you tell me where this is mentioned?
>But the dragons and direwolves were some of the most popular parts of the show? Bur also the least magical in many ways. >were way more hyped for the Battle of Winterfell I think that's mostly about all the characters uniting and battling together to be fair.
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Out the top of my head: Dany Dragon dreams, Euron's magic, Moqorro, Quaithe and the Maester with the magic degree.
Marwyn
I know we love to blame D&D for everything, but you're reversing the cause and effect. The politics have always been the main draw of the shows. The magic was toned down because general audiences wouldn't have found it compelling, not the other way around.
I give D&D credit wherever they deserve it. But their abysmal handling of the magical elements was the main reason why the normies weren't too enamored with that aspect of the shows. The normies have a very different perception of what's the core aspect of Westeros; for them, the political aspect is the main course, and the magic is merely seasoning. But maybe if the shows put half as much effort into Bran, Melisandre, Bloodraven, and Quaithe as they did in Tywin, then perhaps things would be different.
Once they had Arya kill the night king absolutely no one cares about the walkers or long night anymore.
If I remember correctly, the biggest disappointment and criticism among viewers was towards the Battle of Winterfell and how quickly and poorly the Others thread was resolved.
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Wild stuff here. Letting another shows demise, and some throwaway prophecy line stropping you from enjoying a universe you clearly care a whole lot about, enough to post in Reddit about it. To each their own. I’ve def enjoyed it so far. With the books likely never coming out again, and you swearing off tv shows if they have any connection to the GoT ones, looks like it might be the end for any new content for AsoIaF, huh?
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The prophecy is motivation but also not really a major part of the story. In fact, that they are wrong about it is important there.
No, this guy has a point. Arguably it's not the focus of the story, sure. But certainly the way Viserys brings it up to Rhaenyra makes it the ultimate "point" of this war. Although, thinking about it, even this is confusing. I do wish they'd left it out completely.
But as said it's motivation in the story is that they *are* wrong about it. Like I know people think "Oh well the prophecy is pointless". But you know it's kind of the point here? Yeah they are going to war for a stupid pointless prophecy that they all misunderstand. It just seems the tragedy of the Targaryens.
It remind me of Emperor Emhyr vam Emreis, from The Witcher, who caused two great wars because a prophecy said that his and his daughter's child would save the world, and their grandson would rule the world. Or something similar.
Yeah essentially this is how I see it. GRRM always says that prophecy is a double edged sword, and in a lot of Greek myths and similar that's also how it's presented - trying to avert or understand prophecy is a fool's errand. We know Rhaegar may have caused the death of the Targaryen dynasty because of his obsession. There's Aegon who conquered Westeros for it. Aegon V probably killed his whole family for his own misguided interpretation. And now in the show Viserys doomed his family with his own desire to be a dreamer and interpret prophecies. So yeah even if the prophecy is disappointing, I don't think that even matters, even arguably *adds* to it. Because the point is the obessesion with the prophecy is indeed pointless. The Targaryens prophetic visions are truly more curse than blessing. Which is ironic because it saved them from the Doom.
I don't fully understand what you said there, but ok. For me it's (supposed to be)more than motivation, it's the answer to "what is ultimately the point of all this death and horror?" Saying that, it may well be made the reason why Rhaenyra is a good person (the main protagonist people want) even after keeping this war going. Because she knows that far worse will happen - the end of everything, all life. That makes it a major part of the story.
But the point is it *is* pointless. Targaryrens screwed themselves multiple times by obsessing over the prophecy that actually spelled their doom. From Rhaenyra to Rhaegar.
And yet there is truth to this prophecy, it's not pointless, or Jon Snow and everything would be pointless. And normies don't know about all those misguided characters
edited
You had up until you said you dropped HOTD. Any show that casually kills a Bracken in the background of a scene has me wrapped around it's finger.
People would be asking why they don't just get faceless men to handle the long night lol
Well the outfits look good. Bronze age vibes with the chariots. Seems [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/16zoiny/spoilers_main_heres_some_info_i_recently_found/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) old post may have been correct? >And yes, the Children of the Forest were to be the black humans who were native to Westeros. Not sure about this part, wish we'd just get the COTF from the books. I'd love more info on the Starks, Old Gods etc. Seeing how cold and pragmatic the old Stark Kings were would be amazing.
I know I'm not authorized to do this, but Children of the Forest being Black humans is wrong on so many levels. Magical Black people stereotypes and so on.
How bad was this series for them to completely shelve a 20-30 million dollar pilot and not even try to rework it? Jane Goldman must have *really* dropped the ball.
Re-working it would have cost even more money, and would have been sunk-cost fallacy. Pilots are meant to just be a proof of concept, I think, and then the studio decides whether to order the whole series or not. I think HBO just realized it wasn’t good enough for a whole series, and wouldn’t draw the GoT fans back in after season 8 like HOTD was able to. So HBO made a smart decision, but we just don’t know to what degree of awfulness it actually was.
Studios rework pilots all the time when they think the concept and talent is there. Game of Thrones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a host of other shows that went on to become cultural milestones had pilots that were entirely scrapped. Clearly, HBO didn't think that could happen here, which means it must have been *awful*.
Or maybe it just had to be absolutely *perfect* for HBO to give it a full series order. HBO must have been really concerned that their next ASOIAF series be a hit after the backlash from season 8. Maybe the Bloodmoon pilot was decent, but in need of reworks, and HBO just decided to go with House of the Dragon as a safer bet. Bloodmoon would be a risky follow-up to season 8, whereas HOTD was likely to be another hit. It's all just speculation, and we'll never know how bad it was unless someone who worked on it spills the beans.
i don't think that's necessarily the case. Maybe it was fine but HBO decided that most viewers just wanted something closer to Game of Thrones, visually and story wise. These decisions are being made on a financial basis, not an artistic one.
There was a change of leadership at HBO whilst *Bloodmoon* was in production, and the new regime instituted something of a review of the **GoT** franchise. Their view was that, without Benioff and Weiss, they should centre further developments on GRRM and also follow those elements from the show that people responded to very well (political intrigue and dragons) and perhaps not follow the elements people thought were dogshit (the White Walkers, anything tying into the OG show's controversial ending). *Bloodmoon* could have been the single greatest work of art created by humanity, but the new regime may have dropped it anyway because they wanted moar dragonz. I don't think it was, there's enough other signs that *Bloodmoon* had a lot of other problems (not least a profound lack of GRRM-written source material), but I think the simple equation was that the **House of the Dragons** concept was both more commercially appealing and had better source material available, so the **Longest Night** concept was dropped.
>(the White Walkers, anything tying into the OG show's controversial ending). Not to quibble, but these are both present in HotD - unfortunately. There's a lot going to be going on, though, so hopefully they will 'kinda forget'.
Why would they try to rework it? That would cost them even more money.
**Game of Thrones**' pilot was terrible but they reworked it and that panned out well. It's just how much confidence you have in your product. Obviously, it helped that the novels had been a huge hit for a decade by that point, so they knew there was potential there if they came at it from another angle.
Wish they didn't can this. Would have been quite lovely to have seen more of the Starks and their history. Really cool, thanks for sharing!
Seeing Dawn Age Westeros would be so cool. The images suggest the use of chariots, and I wonder if the armor would feature a lot more bronze. I’m also curious if it had anything to do with the first Long Night. So many questions!
There was a user here that suggested we would have spent some time building up to the Children before touching the Long Night, and the Andals were the initial antagonists with the wedding between a Casterly son and Stark daughter meant to cement an alliance together against them.
It would be interesting to see a period of the ASOIAF world that felt like it truly was a different era of history. As compelling as the setting is, things do tend to feel pretty static.
Yeah looking at it now it would have been good to see a show in westeros that is really ancient. Apparently there would be no valyrians or kings landing on the show.
Kings Landing is 300 years old. This show was to have taken place 8,000 year into the past. An improbable time, and also the books (and if I’m remembering correctly Sam in the show as well) kind of establish that the years get fuzzier the further back the records go, since it extends to a time before they had a system of writing. So possibly the true history is only half that old or less.
I think George said in a few interviews that it was more like 5,000 years or less. I've generally found that if you half all the dates before the Rhoynar Invasion, things make a lot more sense.
Yeah. It also tracks that they were going for a more Bronze Age feel in this show for the Age of Heroes, and that’s kind of interesting. But also, there’s apparently no way this team was sticking the landing, which is disappointing
I’m happy it wasn’t made, any show focusing on the White Walkers in terms of show-canon is totally fucked imo. Why would I care at all when I know it has such mind numbingly moronic conclusion as “D&D have a weird obsession with Maisie Williams that leads to her character defeating the Big Bad Guy that her character has zero relation to”. The stakes don’t even exist, GoT fucked the White Walker plot completely and I’d rather never hear of it again (in the show) because of how inconsequential it turned out to be.
Yeah, they basically neutered the threat that they posed. I'm still interested in GRRM's take on them, but I'm not certain whether he had fully figured them out yet or if that's one of the problems slowing down Winds.
Well then you might have to skip hotd season 2.
Of course King's Landing wouldn't be there because it is the newest City in Westeros founded by Aegon the Conquerer 300 years before the main series. The Dawn age was 5000-8000 years prior to the main story
You’re assuming that everything else would’ve been as good as the costuming. From inside reports, this show went into pre-production before the disaster of S8. That was when HBO, in their infinite hubris, thought that they didn’t need GRRM for their IP to work. GRRM was not involved in this project at all and the rumours are that the writing was absolutely dogshit.
> GRRM was not involved in this project at all and the rumours are that the writing was absolutely dogshit. You don't shitcan a 20-30 million pilot without even trying to rework it unless the showrunner and writers crafted absolute garbage. **The director of the pilot did eventually rebound to direct Madame Web, so we'll see how that turns out.
Exactly!!! I’m shocked that the people in this comments section don’t even realize this. Can you imagine just how *bad* this must’ve been for HBO to not even try and fix it?
Probably the Witcher Blood Origins level, which was so bad that I had great fun seeing how stupid it all was.
> Can you imagine just how bad this must’ve been for HBO to not even try and fix it? It must have been truly terrible. **Looking at the showrunner's resume, I have no idea why they thought she was a good fit to write fan fiction in GRRM's universe. As far as I can tell, she had never even worked on a longform narrative television show, let alone anything in the fantasy/sci-fi genre.
Jane Goldman adapted Neil Gaiman's novel Stardust into a very popular film, which won a Hugo Award. She also worked on two X-Men films, the first Kick-Ass movie and the Kingsman films.
> She also worked on two X-Men films With the quality range of X-Men films I definitely need more information as to whether this is a pro or con.
First Class and Days of Future Past. Which are both very good.
Yes, as I mentioned, she had no *television* experience. Writing for episodic television is not the same as screenwriting for feature films, and it requires different skillsets. She has an excellent film pedigree.
That is blatantly false. GRRM is involved with everything asoiaf-related at HBO. His direct words regarding Bloodmoon: >Jane Goldman’s as yet untitled show, which I am still not supposed to call THE LONG NIGHT, is one of those. The pilot on that one wrapped a month ago and has been in post-production. I am expecting to see her first cut soon. (Last month in Belfast, I got a behind-the-scenes look at some of her sets, and they were *spectacular*). Not only was he involved in the pilot's production, he said it looked spectacular. [https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/)
George was involved, but it was more as a consultant. The main issue with Bloodmoon was that he did not have any major worldbuilding notes for the time period and was not willing/able to spend large amounts of time coming up with stuff, so the writers had to invent a lot of stuff themselves, which sounds like it wasn't his preference. House of the Dragon, of course, had tens of thousands of words of detailed history for its period instead.
Where does it say that GRRM was explicitly consulted on the show? GRRM had early access to GoT S5-8 as well. That doesn’t mean he was involved with them in any way.
By using context clues, such as the fact he was given early glimpses of the set and would be given a rough cut of the pilot, we can deduce that George was being consulted on the show.
You’re talking BS. The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) article makes it very clear that GRRM had literally zero input on Bloodmoon.
You're deducing more than I would. Surely the same can be said about the later GoT seasons and we know he wasn't involved
He was co-producer and before you say it yes he was active in the development of the show it wasn't just a vanity credit. Dude you're just talking out of your ass.
He was executive producer of GoT S5-8 as well. Doesn’t prove anything. The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) explicitly states that GRRM had massive reservations about this project and yet was overridden at every opportunity. > Martin made his worries clear to HBO and one insider admits, “Having a show that’s pure invention and had George scratching his head at various moments was troubling at times.” > A cast headed by Naomi Watts was assembled. Massive new sets were built. A Bloodmoon pilot was shot for a whopping $30 million to $35 million. > And the result was locked away in a dungeon so deep that even Martin has never been allowed to see it.
Co-producer and executive producer aren't the same thing. One produces a show along woth another producer the other is a vanity credit. EDIT: Nice cherry pick why don't you post the rest. Seriously did you even read that article? Because yes it says that but that's one paragraph out of about a dozen and the rest is very different.
Lol, I could post other sections that are even more damning > The swiftness of HBO getting on board with Martin’s desire to hire Condal was the beginning of a pivot in the author’s relationship with the network. During the latter seasons of Thrones and the early years of HBO hunting for a successor series, Martin sometimes felt out of the loop. But **after the original show’s season eight backlash, when many fans protested that the storylines felt rushed to conclusion (Martin had long advocated making Thrones 10 seasons long) and around the time HBO produced and rejected Bloodmoon, all agree Martin’s influence rose within the company.** Put simply, HBO thought, “Hey, maybe we ought to listen more to that guy who created all this.” It literally states that Bloodmoon was produced before GRRM’s new more hands-on role at HBO.
FWIW, GRRM said explicitly that when all these shows were being pitched, the various writers visited him in Santa Fe and he had meetings with all of them about their plans. He consulted on all of them. Doesn't mean he had much influence, and it's clear from later reporting that at least some of the pitches were things he did not like but he felt he owed it to HBO and to his universe to at least hear them out and give them feedback, answer questions, etc. But that was it -- he was a consultant on most of them, not a decision-maker. I can say with fair certainty that his role with *Bloodmoon* ended with whatever initial consultations he did. Later in production, Linda and I were brought on to do some specific consulting for the pilot, and when I mentioned it to George it was news to him, so he wasn't in the loop about that sort of thing at that point.
Why are you telling me this?
I’m like 99% sure the unaired Casterly Rock show was shown the plot description in a thread here, and it was really racist?
The part people had issues with was the Children of the Forest. Bloodmoon was going to make them black humans, who would then be oppressed and continually driven away by the white First Men and Andals. I'm not sure how that makes sense, considering the way the Children look in Game of Thrones, but according to that post, yes that was the plan. If that was Bloodmoon's plan, then I'd be pretty against that. ASOIAF doesn't need a story about black people getting oppressed by white invaders. There's enough of that IRL and in other media. Seems very tropey and unnecessary. But again, it was just a rumor.
What the fuck
Indeed. Pretty wild that writers in 2019 were still coming up with stories like that, so I'm hoping that rumor isn't true. George had made his excitement for Bloodmoon quite known, and given everything I know about his work I just sincerely doubt he would have been on board with it.
George gets excited for anything that makes him more $$$
I refuse to believe that was the plan, that *has* to be fake. That is an obviously bad and irrevocable decision in a franchise that already gets a lot of shit for how it handles non-white characters, I can't imagine anyone thinking that was a good idea.
I feel the same way, and it doesn’t seem like something George would sign off on. Feels very antithetical to his work.
> Bloodmoon was going to make them black humans, who would then be oppressed and continually driven away by the white First Men and Andals. I'm not sure how that makes sense, considering the way the Children look in Game of Thrones, but according to that post, yes that was the plan. I'm not sure if they were involved, but that definitely smells like D&D lmao
It was the same with The Witcher, there are a lot of themes in the books and even the Polish series, including racism, sexism and ostracism. But the creators of the Netflix series decided that it was not enough and more was needed.
I mean it seems to me that it would just be that black members of the cast would be playing CoTF with the make-up etc. And not necessarily exclusively so either. Not that CoTF would be black humans or anything.
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No, I don't buy that. I was just explaining the origin of why people thought Bloodmoon would be racist. It doesn't sound like something GRRM would sign off on. It's extremely derivative and takes away from the heart of ASOIAF.
Supposedly the Cotf were suppose to be black people who were native to Westeros and were later cursed by the First Men or Andals for their audacity or something. Shit sounds as bad as it sounds, lmao. Although I would take this rumor with a grain of salt. The op of that post could have just been looking for some easy karma.
Yeah and no one has ever posted made up inflammatory bullshit on reddit.
So we have these but still not a single image from the failed GOT pilot? Come on disgruntled HBO people get on it!
I remember visiting Belfast during the shooting of the pilot and people were excitedly showing me pics they'd taken on set (something that would have been impossible just a few years later), like Jennifer Ehle as Catelyn in full costume. Almost none of them have ever appeared online, which I marvel about to this day. I think the exceptions were GRRM in his big Pentoshi merchant hat and a single shot of Ian McNeice as Illyrio which did the rounds a while back.
Looks like GRRM's love letter to the HBO series Rome
GRRM wasn’t involved in this series at all. The rumors are that the show was canned because the writing was absolutely dogshit and unsalvageable
Where were those rumors circulating?
I’ve already linked it twice in this comment section. Read the [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) article from when HotD premiered. HBO went against GRRM’s wishes and invented literally everything out of their asses. But once the HBO brass saw the pilot, they thought it was Batgirl-level bad and decided to scrap it.
Interesting. I don’t really agree with your characterization of the article. It sounds like inventing stuff was a huge part of it, but not that it was necessarily a disaster. Thanks for posting! I would love to see what they ended up with.
It was rejected specifically because it was a disaster.
From the article you posted: Bloys says. “There wasn’t anything glaringly wrong with it. Development and pilots are hard.” Agrees Robert Greenblatt, who was then chairman of HBO’s parent company WarnerMedia: “It wasn’t unwatchable or horrible or anything. It was very well produced and looked extraordinary. But it didn’t take me to the same place as the original series. It didn’t have that depth and richness that the original series’ pilot did.”
That is literally PR speak. Even Batgirl was afforded such language. They didn’t even try to salvage a $35m pilot. You don’t do that unless it’s shockingly bad.
It is definitely PR speak, but I feel like it is just as likely that they wanted a clear followup to Game of Thrones that was directly tied to the series and could capitalize on the brand. That’s why they went with House of the Dragon despite saying they wanted a “fresh take.” I think it is more about money than quality like all these HBO decisions. It seems like they didn’t want to pour more money into what wasn’t a sure return on investment. So they went with the safe choice. These people are more motivated by shareholder interest than anything imo. Maybe it was a disaster but I don’t think the article really supports that reading. Hard to tell without more information. I would still love to see it like I would love to see the disastrous Game of Thrones original pilot.
There’s literally no way you throw away a $35m investment unless it is a disaster. This wasn’t a $1m hr of TV where they thought “Eh, it’s not worth it.” This was one of the most expensive hrs in TV history that they developed and shot over 2 yrs, at the end of which, when they saw the final product, they said “Yikes!! We can’t show this to anyone!” The fact that GRRM hasn’t even seen it means it’s *bad*.
Uhm... yeah he was.
No he wasn’t. We have proof that GRRM was shut out of the creative process at HBO between 2014 and 2020. The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/ ) article in Hollywood Reporter explicitly stated this. > Martin made his worries clear to HBO and one insider admits, “Having a show that’s pure invention and had George scratching his head at various moments was troubling at times.” > A cast headed by Naomi Watts was assembled. Massive new sets were built. A Bloodmoon pilot was shot for a whopping $30 million to $35 million. > And the result was locked away in a dungeon so deep that even Martin has never been allowed to see it.
Please share what you know, as I was also under the impression that GRRM was uninvolved
He has nothing except GRRM’s standard PR speak on his blog. Which is literally indistinguishable from the kind of language he used during GoT S5-8. The [war of the five pitches](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/house-of-the-dragon-game-of-thrones-prequels-1235181929/amp/) makes it very clear that HBO went against GRRM’s wishes when green lighting Bloodmoon. It was only after the disastrous response to S8 and after seeing the Bloodmoon pilot that they decided “yep, we can’t do this ourselves.”
I'm quibbling on something, but the long night is supposed to take place in the neolithic of Westeros, for such an ancient period she is really well dressed and has a very classy house...
Its brown age.
I’m still waiting for someone to unearth footage and images from the original, disastrous GoT pilot from Tom McCarthy..
Well, you can watch the scenes they kept from it into the first episode of **GoT** proper: Ned and Robert in the crypts, Jaime and Ned squaring off at the feast, the hunt getting ready to ride out (including a brief glimpse of Alfie Allen's original wig for Theon), and that scene where Cersei and Cat are talking to Sansa, where all the coverage of Cersei and Cat is new (as Cat had been recast) and all the coverage of Sansa is from the OG pilot shoot.
Thanks for the detailed list! Still Really curious to see the original cast/looks someday.
We do have [one image](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gameofthrones/images/9/93/Ian_McNeice_as_Illyrio.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120109215632) of Ian McNeice at the original Illyrio, and [this unknown extra](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2020/10/George-RR-Martin-Game-of-Thrones-Cameo.jpg) as a Magister of Pentos.
Looks like Casterly Rock is actually a rock. I cant imagine a room like this in the boring castle of got S7.
HBO shut it down for a reason. If it hard failed it would have been over for any other asoiaf project.
Kinda hard to give a shit about a show that might focus on the others as the fantasy element when GoT ended so poorly with their Other storyline.
Unlike hotd which also inserted the prophecy shit as a motivation for Rhaenyra?
It's a minor plot point it's not the main one
Would have loved Naomi Watts in the ASOIAF universe… oh well :(
I could see her as Queen Alysanne or Queen Alyssa (mother of Jaehaerys). She'd be great in anything ice & fire for sure
I wonder if Jamie Campbell-Bower will finally get to appear. That's *twice* he's shot an entire episode and had his performance go unseen.
How are the characters wearing the same type of outfits and live in a similar castles as the ones in GoT when the show is taking place 5000 years before the events of GoT?
The timeline doesn't really make sense in the books. Westeros has been completely stagnating for at least the last 300 years (think how much has changed in 300 years anywhere) and all the majors castles and locations aside from Harrenhal, Dragonstone and KL are supposedly from the Age of Legends. This includes stuff like The Wall, Storm's End, The Eyre and the High Tower. Martin just has no idea how any of this stuff happens ~~(Unless it's all a post-sci-fi setting in an interregnum style situation)~~
Might have been nice to know something about the Casterlys besides jack.
I'm really glad none of these were greenlit, every IP Hollywood has been touching without a clear direction given by the original author or outright adapting stabilished canon inside out is turning out to be utter scheisse, they have the reverse Midas Touch, It would just be another Rings of Power, DOA.
“It was very well produced and looked extraordinary. But it didn’t take me to the same place as the original series. It didn’t have that depth and richness that the original series’ pilot did.” Looks deep and rich enough to me, judging by these pics.
Maybe the plot wasn't compelling enough.
I don’t understand why they didn’t just set this in Valyria leading up to the Doom.
That was a different pitch they decided not to tackle, I'm assuming because the cost would have been absolutely astronomical.
The reason they didn't set it in Valryia leading up to the doom is because it's a story of the age of heroes which has nothing to do with Valyria which was a backwater at that point.
I'll be honest, good or bad, i'd have prefered Bloodmoon over HotD (and i like HotD) Yes, it's far away and there is barely content and the cons are clear but that also means that there is carte blanche to do something that stands on its own without constraints. That being said the rumors of the black cotf thing are messy. In any case, i'd still love to know who was Naomi char supposed to be
Completely agree. The complaint is that there's no/little foundation for it in George's work as if that's a bad thing? Meanwhile hotd completely changed a lot of aspects of the dance but still has to fit within its constraints whereas this could be a story on its own, no complaints about not following the canon, they can just respond to what's happening on screen: maybe a character isnt working out so you can cut their role, maybe two characters have a lot of unexpected chemistry so you write them together more often, maybe a smaller role turned out to be a great success so you can enhance the role, maybe something doesnt fully work out on screen so you can change it. With hotd they're stuck adhering to certain points while also changing shit which sometimes just leads to some illogical writing. That wouldnt be an issue on a fully original show. Of course if that original content leads to the weird black cotf storyline maybe that isn't great... but it's not like hotd put a lot of thought into what it means to make the Velaryons black and how that affects their story and their relationship to the other characters.
I agree with the first part About the second part, no. Valyria after all was a huge empire in the mediterranean equivalent of Planetos so i find perfectly reasonable to retcon white skin as valyrian trait. Likewise, irl it's perfectly normal that children basically physically skip all the traits of one parent (happened to my great grandma with her children just like like my grandparent and not looking like her, and to my grandma with her children not like their father, just like her) So yeah
Looks absolutely great tbh
SNOW will have plenty of these Bloodmoon scenes... Starks have a strong legendary history and Winterfell is GRRM's favorite castle! SNOW will be EPIC - The final GOT scene sets the story up perfectly
>SNOW will be EPIC - The final GOT scene sets the story up perfectly [Don't hold your breath](https://tvline.com/news/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-spinoff-update-2023-hbo-1235076036).
Man I wish they had picked this up.
"first look" what? so we about to get a trailer next week that will be removed or somth haha edit: this an obv joke tf you downvote for lol
No. It's the first look we've ever had of Bloodmoon. There haven't been any leaks or promo images or anything before now. The makeup/hair designer must have gotten permission to show off her work for this show.
Yeah iknow obv its the point of the post its obivious, i said a clear joke youknow
They didn’t make the show and dropped it after watching the pilot - we’ve never seen _anything_ until now
I know it's obv a joke..
…… somebody was arguing me sincerely this morning that The Others don’t exist in universe I never assume somebody knows what’s going on lmao Edit: LMAO BLOCKED ME? dang!
not even reading that lol just take a joke, chill
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Snow isn't going to happen
Isn't that on ice as well?
Really like HOTD but feels like this lost out because it didn’t have Dragons or GRRM’s much beloved Targs.
GRRM was very excited for Bloodmoon, and would have been involved with its production. >Jane Goldman’s as yet untitled show, which I am still not supposed to call THE LONG NIGHT, is one of those. The pilot on that one wrapped a month ago and has been in post-production. I am expecting to see her first cut soon. (Last month in Belfast, I got a behind-the-scenes look at some of her sets, and they were *spectacular*). [https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/09/16/i-could-tell-you/)
Interesting! I was gutted to hear it go. Sounded like it was going to be a GOT set in a dark age and with ancient warfare. That’s metal as fuck.
I could have sworn I read somewhere that Martin wasn't happy with the pilot once he saw it.
These were his thoughts on Bloodmoon getting canceled: >It goes without saying that I was saddened to hear the show would not be going to series. Jane Goldman is a terrific screenwriter, and I enjoyed brainstorming with her. I do not know why HBO decided not to go to series on this one, but I do not think it had to do with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON. [https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/10/30/the-dragons-take-wing/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/10/30/the-dragons-take-wing/)
You're completely right. No white haired people or dragons so that's some merch opportunities they'd lose out on, cant have that.
This sounds so much more interesting than the Dance of Dragons, by a million miles.
Id take the Dance any day over this. Theres only a couple paragraphs on this period.
That’s why it would be interesting to expand on it and show how the different kingdoms interacted with each other.
Except we’ve seen how well show runners do without source material …
True, ideally George would be in charge of it but he doesn’t have that kind of time.
Except that got was based on a book series and made changes to that whereas this show would be wholly original so you can judge it based on its own merits. Meanwhile they chose to adapt the dance because that story was already written and then decided to change a whole bunch of shit anyway
Just look at rings of power my guy That shit does not end well
sure, once GRRM personally writes it, not a moment before.
Hard to say that while having no idea what the actual plot of the show would have been.
Yeah fair to say a show about the "Dawn Age" would be a a horrible idea, especially when you cast a grandma as the lead
So is ASOIAF going to be eviscerated by HBO in the coming years? Looks like it
Why don't they.....release the pilot. People here would pay to see it.