Game of Thrones
 

Anyone else here watch Game of Thrones? I'm getting ready to do a big marathon to prep myself for season 5. My favorite character is Tyrion, but my favorite house is Bolton. I'm looking forward to being emotionally devastated by future episodes.

No book spoilers please. I'm only on A Clash of Kings.

I watch it as well; I'd have to say my fave character is Brienne, closely followed by Daeny.

I've got to be honest, I did find the format of the books very frustrating - by which I mean the constantly changing POVs, and the fact that no sooner do you get attached to a character than GRRM kills them off. It's something that I find easier to roll with in the tv series than the books; I'm able to keep a bit more emotional distance with the tv series.

LOve it, one of my fav shows, can't wait for season 5. Yes Tyrion rules!

I adore the Show, I've wanted to read the books, but they're the size of phone books.

Yeah, after reading the first book, I'm honestly happy that I watched the show first. I feel more of an emotional impact from the show. But the books provide more information and help to understand the characters better. I just wish I had more time to read them.

Brienne is a really great character. I lover her. All the female characters are really fantastic.

I'm actually very fond of Cersei as well.

It's going to be interesting to see whether GRRM ever actually finishes the book series - I know he's said he's going to but let's face it, he's 67 and not in the best of shape. Truthfully, I don't think it's going to happen. It's actually made me extremely reluctant to continue reading the novels (well, that and the fact that I find his books very hard work as I'm just not a fan of his particular writing style).

I actually really like Cersei too. She's a great character, but people seem to hate her.

Yeah, considering the books started when I was a child and there are only 5...I don't really have high hopes of seeing them end. I'm sure that he has some kind of notebook full of spoilers just in case. And the HBO show will do it own thing, so there's that.

I think Peter Laird and GRRM get together in a pub somewhere and knock back ales as they laugh at their fans who desperately wait with bated breath for conclusions to their stories. :tsad::tcry:

In all seriousness, though, I loved Daenerys and Tyrion... Jaime is also badass. The books seemed to get really tedious though around Book 4 "Feast of Crows" and I started skipping whole sections... too many new character introduced around that time. I still don't understand all of the Sand Viper girls and that whole family/clan...

Love it. My favourite character is either Daeny or Arya - such strong female characters which is a rare thing.

That's not the first time I've heard someone say that about A Feast for Crows. Makes me worried. I really do want to read all the books. I love reading, but it's just taking me forever. I'm around page 600 on the second book and I've been reading for over half a year. Gah! I usually read really fast, but it's just hard to find the time. And sometimes I just get to a character I just don't want to read about and stop for a while. Like, Bran's parts really drag for me.

Has anyone else played the Telltale games?

He's basically said that if he dies before he finishes the book series, whatever unfolds in the tv show will be the official wrap-up for the story.

I view the books and the show as two very different animals anyway, so it doesn't particularly bother me. They made a hell of a lot of changes in the show - bringing in new characters that weren't in the books, not killing off characters who died in the books, leaving out literally dozens of characters from the books and leaving out numerous sub-plots and storylines entirely, making characters more sympathetic in the tv series than they were in the books, characters who were unattractive in the books are more attractive in the tv series etc.

Ordinarily that kind of departure from the source material would drive me wild, as I'm a dyed-in-the-wool book snob, but I think that if the changes hadn't been made to both streamline the narrative and make the world appealing to the viewer, it wouldn't have nearly the success that it does. Let's be honest, there's a lot of people who had never heard of the books and would never have picked them up if it weren't for the tv series. IMO, the tv series is a rare instance of the adaptation being better than the original novel(s).

GRRM is that interesting animal that I refer to as The Good Bad Writer. He has some very interesting ideas, and a great skill for constructing a unique and detailed world which makes the reader want to know more. Conversely, he does have a tendency to get bogged down in those same details (which results in chapters upon chapters of dragging exposition and set-up), and he falls prey to a great number of tropes which, to be fair, are fairly endemic across the fantasy genre (and are also present in the show). I think that the scope of what he has created has grown to the point that it now works against him and he's lost his way and doesn't know where he's going or what he's doing. The tv show has been able to trim things down and tighten the pacing of the storytelling, which most people would agree does drag significantly in the last two books.

I'm also going to flat-out say that GRRM's sex scenes are just butt-clenchingly ghastly. I think a lot of people glom onto his novels because they're excited that he breaks a lot of the fantasy novel traditions - in particular, his fondness for exploring the horizontal mambo in lurid, sweaty (and often rape-tastic) detail while at the same time using odd, awkward, flowery prose*. Unfortunately, when you get to one of those scenes in a GRRM book (or when he feels the need to throw in a description of how a character's breasts are moving under their clothes in the middle of a paragraph), it throws me right out of the scene and I just feel like I'm reading something written by a dirty old man (and trust me, I've read everything Richard Laymon has ever published, and that guy redefines "shoe-horning squicky personal fantasies into his work"). Ultimately, I'm never 100% sure whether he's writing these scenes in because they're part of his world, or if he's just trying to titillate himself and his readers.

* The author has not yet been spawned who can get away with referring to a character's male member as "The Gift" without resulting in me immediately heaving a jaded sigh, rolling my eyes skyward and reaching for the nearest bottle of absinthe.

I find it really odd that he's okay with the show wrapping up the canon story when he's so against fanfiction.

I can't really give in my full two cents until I catch up on the books, but this has me slightly apprehensive. Not that I'm not going to stop reading or enjoying them. I'm just going to have higher hopes for the show than the books. Most of what I've read so far has not strayed too far from the show.

Identify your favorite characters and plot lines, then skip everything else. That's the only way I made it through Books Four and Five. And I am a fanatical reader who has been reading since I first read a +400 page chapter novel in preschool. Yeah, I'm an addict to good storytelling. :toops:

Oh, man, I don't know if I could do that. Skipping parts in a book just feels so wrong to me. But I guess it depends on how frustrated I get.

Believe me, I was not thrilled about doing it and I still feel a little guilty. But my brain was trying to escape out one of my ears from sheer frustration, so I did what was necessary. :tlol:

Ah yes, the old "I don't agree with fanfiction morally (because I'm scared someone will do a better job of writing my characters than me)" line. It worked out so well for Anne Rice!

The thing with the books is that GRRM originally only intended for it to be a trilogy. And by the time you hit book 4, it shows. My suggestion is to just stick with the first 3 books, otherwise you will inevitably feel that you're reading the others out of a sense of begrudging obligation. I know I did.

But Book 3 does not at all end all--any--of the plot lines. How would sticking with the first three books be a more palatable reading experience?

I think that the first three books have a higher quality of writing, so I'm talking about it in that context. You've said yourself, by the time you hit book 4 you were skipping entire chapters. *shrugs* Just IMO.

Ah, for a quality reading experience. Gotcha. Definitely agree.

Well, for the moment, GoT is more or less a bunch of different stories collected together... there isn't a whole lot to tie some of the different character arcs together yet until certain characters join somebody out in Westoros (avoiding spoilers)...

Started my episode-a-day run to prepare myself for Season 5. The hardest part will be watching only one episode at a time.

I feel ya - I binge-watched Season 4 again a few weekends ago. ;)

The is the first time I've rewatched and it's blowing my mind. So strange to go back, knowing what is known.

Was anyone else a little disappointed with season four? I'm not sure exactly why, but I didn't find myself as invested in it this time around. Maybe I'm just getting used to the plot mechanics, but there were several moments during season four in which I knew intuitively what was going to happen before it unfolded... and it just kind of took the fun out of watching.

There was one episode that I found really, really tedious (which I won't be specific about, out of respect for others who have yet to catch up). The entire episode was one long, grueling battle. Usually I'm an insanely patient person, but even my limits were tested. I found myself thinking, okay, I get the idea... let's move on... but it kept going. And going. And going.

Random thoughts:

I do like that Sansa is finally participating...

Dany seems to be making a whole string of bad decisions, though she believes that they are wise decisions...

I loved the Moon Door scene! You know the one of which I speak...

Lastly, for the first time this season, I thought that there were a few instances in which the gore lost all shock value and became completely redundant.

Are you thinking of the episode that was just the battle at the Wall? Episode 9, I think it was. They usually move and cover different characters, but that one was 100% Wall.

The only thing I found tedious was Tyrion's trial. Not the actually scene, that was amazing, but I felt they drug out the whole ordeal just to make it all last longer. There were also certain book spoilery details that I had already spoiled myself on and was looking forward to, only to have them leave them out.

Bam, yes- the Wall episode. I wish that episode had been something more along the lines of 70% Wall and 30% other characters/plots. Or maybe more of a half and half kind of thing, but perhaps the show creators were just trying to emphasis the importance of that battle by having it take up the whole episode. Or maybe they didn't want to break the momentum of it up by cutting away to other things. I've purchased some of the books but haven't read them yet, so I'm not sure how significant this battle is to the overall story.

I'm in agreement with you about Tyrion's trial. I too felt that it was dragged out a bit. And speaking of elements that are left out thus far, I've heard about a certain character named Lady Stoneheart (might be spelling her name wrong)... I hope that she isn't left out of next season.

I'm bumping this because it seems to be a general Game of Thrones discussion thread

HBO Eyeing Multiple Game of Thrones Spinoffs

Cool :tcool:

George R.R. Martin Talks Game of Thrones Spin-Offs, Confirms They’re Prequels
Read more at http://www.comingsoon.net/tv/news/84...MvXkB156cH6.99

lmao @ Dick Direwolf :lol:

Hmm. I was hoping that at least one of these "successor series" was gonna be set after the events of Game of Thrones but oh well. It's interesting that he confirmed that Dunk & Egg and Robert's Rebellion will not be explored. I guess I'm glad about that though, both of those events are pretty well covered already.

I'm most curious about the statement that not all of these series will take place in Westeros. More exploration of Planetos would be very cool

No live action adaptation of Robert's Rebellion because there won't be anything to be explored once the next two books are out?

**** off GRRM. First, we both know you'll never release Winds of Winter or A Dream of Spring. Second, what does knowing information about it have to do with making a live action adaptation? It's no different than the actual series currently airing on HBO.

Season 7 Trailer

Season premiere was LAME! Isn't there only like 7 episodes this season? It took all of the "players" and moved them exactly like one inch.

I agree with the exact opposite of this statement.

It's called "setting up the board" and it's pretty necessary after a year-long break, reminding everyone of where the various characters are and what they're trying to accomplish.

But I agree, I wish we could have gotten to see more happen in the first episode. There have been worse season-openers though.

Not really... Showtime replayed all the last season's episodes right before it came on. And the first five minutes of the episode LITERALLY recap the last season finale. It's one thing if this was a standard season... but it's like 7 episodes! They don't have time to putz about.

And all that talk about "we need to delay production to wait for snow," there's a grand total of like 2 scenes in this episode with snow. And one of them I'm pretty sure is largely FAKE snow/heavily CGIed.

If anyone is interested in all the big spoilers for the rest of the season, check this out:
https://www.techworm.net/2016/11/spo...ed-online.html

It was posted last November and, now with episode 3 done, appears to be completely accurate so far.

So what did everyone think of the season?

There were things I liked but I thought this season was really poorly written/plotted. The whole plan to get Cersei to call a temporary truce so they can fight the Night King was one of the dumbest things I've seen. I think that was the only thing they could come up with to get Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Cersei, etc. in one scene together. They just wanted that scene to happen even if it didn't make narrative sense.

The Sansa/Arya stuff was just nonsense to give those actors something to do all season leading up to the finale.

Thought the season was simply lazy writing just to get to the payoffs.

This season was alright. Not a whole lot I really sunk my teeth into, though. Glad to see Jora make it out alive another season.

Everything outside the initial meeting between Jon and Dany I couldn't stand. It just felt so rushed and forced and on the verge of pandering.

Sansa was a boring disappointment this year. And for all of Little Finger's treachery and misdirections, I felt he never really had a real big moment yet since season 1. So his demise felt either premature or long overdue.

I agree. Arya did nothing all season. Very disappointed.

Overall, this season was pretty meh. Considering the shortened episode count I was hoping for intense, amped up storytelling but instead it almost seemed to go the opposite way.

She killed all the Freys and killed muthf***ing Littlefinger. That counts for something, doesn't it? She did way more than, say, Varis. Varis literally did nothing except have 1 tiny scene where he had to kind of defend his loyalty for some reason (wasn't he already vetted?).

My season 8 predictions (*spoilers*... maybe):

* Cersei miscarries. Almost right off the bat. Goes into a rage. "Nothing left to lose" mode.
* Theon almost certainly dies rescuing his sister or during the escape.
* Jon Snow has "the talk" with Sam and Bran. Mind is blown. Maybe he keeps this under his hat for a while, though, at least from Daenerys.
* Jaime joins up with the combined Unsullied/Dothraki/North army just in time for the big battle. Brienne and Tyrion all vouch for him, that he's not just some mole.
* The great big White Walker battle. Lots of death. At some point, though, Jon (or someone) gets through to the Night King. We learn they want something other than just to wipe out the living. A truce/understanding (or something) is struck. Or maybe Daenerys kills the Night King and becomes the Night Queen to control all the army of the undead!
* Tyrion turns out to be a Targaryen, rides the other dragon at a critical moment.
* On their return back south, here's the big Lannisters vs. everybody that's left battle. It looks bad but... here comes the Night King (or Daenerys as the Night Queen!) and the White Walkers to help!
* During the battle, Daenerys goes a little too nuts. All that stuff they keep repeating over all the seasons about, "I'm NOT like my father, the Mad King!" turns out to be foreshadowing for, well, her becoming exactly like her father, the Mad King, and then she starts wiping out even Lannister civilians, children and all. She has to be stopped, but the Dothraki and Unsullied remain loyal to her... so they all become the enemy.
* If Daenerys becomes the Night Queen, Jorah or Jaime will be the one to kill her.
* Cersei gives up the crown willingly after, #1) Learning/growing a lot from recent events, #2) Hearing and acknowledging his right to the throne, leaving Jon Snow the King at King's Landing. Maaaybe even takes him as her husband... but that seems super weird. But maybe they're going for super weird.
* Sansa becomes officially the Queen of the North.
* Arya has a final visit from the faceless man Jaqen. Turns out he's been with her since the beginning, even using the face/name of Syrio Forel when he trained her during season 1.
* Happy ending for Tormund and Brienne. Probably.
* At least one more big time loop thing with Bran. I want the "Bran = Bran the Builder" theory to be true, but I don't know. Maybe he is the one that whispers in the Mad King's ear in the past, at least. *shrug*

Whatever happens, it won't just be as simple as... you know, Jon and Daenerys fight and defeat Night King, then go and fight and beat Cersei with her surprise reinforcements and probable surprise reinforcements for Daenerys (Daario does have to show up at some point, though... I expect "the Han Solo Save" at some point with him, no matter what happens, with the leftover armies Daenerys left across the sea), cue the happy ending. No way. Martin said the end will be "bittersweet."

I've also read compelling theories about "Arya was killed by the Waif, and the Waif has been masquerading as Arya ever since," but I don't think so. There is no good reason the Waif would bother to get revenge on Walder Frey.

So... between her first scene of the season and the last 15 minutes of the finale, you agree she did nothing then. You could also make the argument Little Finger's death was more something Sansa did than Arya (something she even states afterwards.)