Game of Thrones

[Bam]

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.

[pennydreadful]

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.

[TheBlueTurtle1]

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

[ObiWanFan4life]

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

[Bam]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

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.

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.

[pennydreadful]

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).

[Bam]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

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.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

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.

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...

[pennydreadful]

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.

[NinjaPug]

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.

[ProphetofGanja]

Season 7 Trailer

[Andrew NDB]

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.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

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.

[ProphetofGanja]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

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.

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.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ProphetofGanja

It's called "setting up the board" and it's pretty necessary after a year-long break

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.