I wouldn't say it's been plaguing the series at all. I don't think it's really suffered from a lack of big fight scenes.

If you didn't know what happened in the book, I don't think you're hear a lick about budget impacting this show.

So sick of "it's not like it was in the book" being presented as a critique without any argument beyond that.

I mostly agree with your sentiment, but there are degrees of awesome. There are a number of examples where the show would have been even better without the budget restrictions. Things like skipping the two major battles in season one, only showing two castles, lack of animals, scaling down armies and crowds, etc. I think the scale of the Brienne fight and not giving a visual sense that Renly had 100k troops are fair example of this. Most of this stuff non readers haven't picked up on but not all, for example plenty of non-readers were upset about skipping the S1 battles.

A comparison can be made with Rome, which got a lot more crap for the lack of epicness due to budget. With that show, everyone knew the scale they "should have" had, unlike GoT where only part of the audience is aware of the source material. The same defenses have been made of both series (Rome wasn't trying to be perfectly true to it's source material, you have to have realistic expectations with TV, etc.). GoT is a much better show and doesn't need the epicness as much for a number of reasons, but it doesn't mean it's not fair to point out that it could be even better.

Yea dont think is a budget thing at all, more a time issue thing and they try and condense it as much as possible. There's nothing to be gained at all if they did a longer show of it where it starts with more people and it ends up coming down to Loras and her and they have so much to jam into a limited time frame why bother.

And obviously the show would be better if they had an unlimited budget but they're doing a fantastic job with what they have. I remember I flipped the first time I saw the S1 jousting scene, after reading how Loras comes with a horse that's basically wearing a giant blanket of flowers then seeing him come out in the show with a bedsheet with a flower print on it was like WTF but as GRRMs said again and again he wanted to create something that could never be done on TV, as long as they capture the essence of what actually matters and they really have done that so far imo.

Renly's melee made him look like a poor man's king. There was almost no audience for it, and Renly and Margaery were sitting on some piece of crap wooden dais. Even though it's hardly something that is ruining the series, I'm amazed I need to actually explain how it does hurt the show or else Dids will criticize me for complaining about book differences "without any argument beyond that."

And I don't think it would have benefited the episode to show the entire melee, but giving a grander sense of scale would have been nice. Just cgi in some more people watching it. If they couldn't do at least that, then it is due to budget restraints.

Except that you didn't explain how it hurt the show at all. I don't really buy that anybody not reading the book would get a "poor King" vibe from that scene, nor would that matter in terms of the quality of the story.

It's pretty obvious from the set-up that Renly's army in on the move- hence the tents. It's not like in that setting they'd set up a world class tournament grounds. (and even the stuff we've seen at Kings Landing hasn't look much different).

at the start of the season (just before dantos) when the hound fights another guy fully armored and pushes him down and he dies, is it just me or I doubt there would actually be blood splattered on the ground?

That scene didnt exist, we know that because there was a small audience and real kings have large audiences for their tourneys.

I wasn't even sure if the guy was dead till they dragged him away with a trail of blood behind him

And if what we've heard is any indication, the "lack of big fight scenes" will be a thing of the past once we hit the end of this season. Pretty sure they have big plans for the Blackwater chapters.

Back to this again, people are thinking the guy at 0:14 in the preview for next week is the mountain, he really does look like the guy they used for Lorch to me, seems super tall though..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqDXB...ature=youtu.be

We finally get Rooooose! (0:25)


Spoiler about an all new scene involving Joff:

Dids will probably criticize you even if you do explain what the problem is, but w/e. I don't really buy that it's a budget issue, it's that they really don't care about Renly's plot arc except for "contextualizing Renly's sexuality" and setting up Margaery's character for whatever they have in store. There's a lot of ways they could have conveyed the same ideas without some huge insane melee. In the book, they had a feast scene to establish most of their message. They could have done that, or just expanded the conversation between Renly and Cat, thrown in some lords, and had it in a pretty room.

It IS that it's a budget issue. They had the same problems in season 1. They talk about it on the bluray commentary. They talk about it in the previews for this season.

I accept that they have a budget, I just think that their decisions re: Renly were conscious choices to take the plotline in a different direction, not the result of budget constraints.

bobman- Time issues are also budget based in part, that they have to introduce Brienne and provide Renly background in the same scene is why they had a ****ty melee(which we all were like "oh it's the melee that Brienne wins" but I bet non-book watchers were like "uh, why are those dudes fighting?") instead of a tourney and a feast and all that.

I was curious if non readers knew it was just a melee tourney or if they thought it was a duel or something else.

But in general i thought they did a good job covering that scene.

Literally the only thing id have changed about the Renly story so far is that there is one shot of all his tents when Cat arrives at his encampment which shows how vast his army is, id have lingered on that a bit more so it gives a better visualisation of what 100'000 people look like in a host.