"Official" Game Of Thrones Discussion for those who have read the books.

Thank you for starting the thread. I have been looking forward to this. I am a huge fan of the novels and the previews look as if HBO has another winner on their hands. I am curious how people will react to this, usually swords and sorcery are not mixed up with so much depravity and political intrigue. I wonder if the average non nerd be able to get past the swords, magic etc?

Which book had "The Red Wedding"?

I knw this is a thread made specifically for people who've read the books, but since I can't seem to stay away from any material about this show (especially on these boards) and I'm in the middle of book 3, would it be possible not to talk about stuff that isn't gonna happen on screen for at least a couple years?

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Originally Posted by RodofWar 

I knw this is a thread made specifically for people who've read the books, but since I can't seem to stay away from any material about this show (especially on these boards) and I'm in the middle of book 3, would it be possible not to talk about stuff that isn't gonna happen on screen for at least a couple years?

You could make yourself a third thread for people who have read to the middle of book three.

rod, that is funny. I hope your not serious.

Um, I know you guys want to be able to discuss the books here, but I am not finished yet and have no self control, therefore I want to you to all edit your discussions keeping me in mind. I have no will power and cannot help but view the thread.

Under that reasoning, all message boards regarding this series should be removed and the wiki pages destroyed, because you might also view spoiler material there in a moment of weakness.

And jakob, I believe the red wedding occurs in clash of kings.

No you guys are right. I was just hoping the later stuff would be kept to a minimum. I'll just stay in the other thread til I'm caught up (which actually won't be too long.)

The Red Wedding is in Storm of Swords.

I dont think we need three threads about this show. This discussion, and the other thread you created can just be moved into the main thread that already exists.

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Originally Posted by 3nnui 

Thank you for starting the thread. I have been looking forward to this. I am a huge fan of the novels and the previews look as if HBO has another winner on their hands. I am curious how people will react to this, usually swords and sorcery are not mixed up with so much depravity and political intrigue. I wonder if the average non nerd be able to get past the swords, magic etc?

The story is probably the best fantasy story to bring in others who would normally not be interested in fantasy epics. The magic doesn't really start until the second book, and there's enough interesting drama that transcends the setting to bring in people who just like good drama. If this fails, I doubt there will be another fantasy series to go along with LOTR to gets it fair due in film and TV.'

Yeah, I'm really interested in the talking points for those that haven't read the books.  Will they be more interested in the plot threads or will they be discussing the more fantastical elements?  Like kerr implies, I think this show will be a big landmark for fantasy works - succeed for fail.  If it draws ratings the whole season, expect a flurry of activity among producers looking for the next big fantasy series (ala the boost in interest in children's fantasy after Harry Potter).  If it doesn't draw, it'll be a long, cold period for new, decent fantasy series on television.  I'm buoyed by the success of Walking Dead in bringing in non-genre fans, and of course Lost was the gold standard for years, so the potential is there for non-fantasy fans to embrace an episodic fantasy story.

Thanks to Romero, zombies are now considered an acceptable vehicle for societal commentary. Genre fiction is actually quite useful in laying out a set of circumstances to make your points regarding the behavior of people and societies.

The days when Asimov, Herbert and others explored politics, society and religeon through science fiction were certainly a treasure. Now it seems I don't find the deeper more analytical works in science fiction (maybe I just dont know where to look). But I have found through Martin and R. Scott Bakker that people are creating challenging and ground breaking work in the fantasy genre.

There's already a whole bunch of TV fantasy series on the boil--Ron Moore's developing something (I think he called it "Harry Potter for adults"), there was some talk of a supernatural legal drama (sounded a lot like Season 5 of Angel if Wolfram and Hart wasn't evil) and the just-announced American Gods. Which I assume is due to anticipation of GoT being a hit.

The cool thing about fantasy is that unlike a lot of other genres, you can have several shows jumping on the bandwagon and they don't all seem like the same thing over and over again.

There's a bunch of urban fantasy stuff in development, but the last fantasy sword and sorcery TV show I can recall is Legend of the Seeker.

Doesn't Camelot count? I'm asking, I haven't seen it. Maybe they ditch all the magical stuff.

Generally speaking, swords 'n sorcery type fantasy has always been pretty rare on TV, usually relegated to syndicated mid-90s stuff.

Oh yeah, forgot that had started to air. There's Merlin too, though it kinda underplays the epic fantasy stuff.

SPOILERS FOR SoS--YES I KNOW BUT I DON'T WANT TO STEP ON ANYONE'S TOES

I was flipping through Storm of Swords last night and it occurred to me that there's actually quite a bit that could be shuffled around. The big action battle climax at the wall, believe it or not, takes place something like 5 chapters before the end of Jon and Sam's storylines--the rest is taken up with that stuff about the election and figuring out what to do with Stannis and Melisandre. Personally, if I was adapting the series, I'd move that stuff to the beginning of S4--there'd probably be room for it, since Jon is hardly in the fourth book (B&W have said they're going to mix the storylines from books 4 and 5 together to make seasons 4 and 5, so no, we're not going to get a Jon, Dany, and Tyrion-free season) and it feels more like an "early in the season" story anyway. I mean, having the season end with that gigantic battle, that's only logical, yes? And that would help trim down the amount of stuff that needs to be packed into the 3rd season. Though I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to pad it out to more than 12 episodes as well.

Since I think there's a lot in book 4 that could be cut or compacted, I actually think it might be easier to pack this into the requisite amount of seasons than people seem to think.

Back to the TV show and the books: I've read all the books (more than once), but have only caught the initial 15 mins online (legal!). They seemed to have really changed the white walkers, or conflated them with the wights, or something. The white walkers seem decidedly nonhuman, and are, well, white. The wights are dead humans (or nearly dead ones) animated/controlled* by the walkers, and have a freezing touch and glowing blue eyes. The prologue for the series, based closely on the book (though in the book there wasn't snow) except if I watched correctly, the white walker wasn't white and had the glowing blue eyes. I guess in some respects it's not a big deal, as the walkers haven't really been onscreen since in the books. But it bugged me.

*"Blackhands", who might be Benjen Stark, seems to be an exception.

I don't think we need to bother with spoiler tags. The thread title does it for you. You come reading this thread, you're on your own. (Which is why I don't read the WALKING DEAD comic thread. Haven't read it, and won't, and don't want to be spoiled for S2 of the series.)

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Originally Posted by MichaelM 

Back to the TV show and the books: I've read all the books (more than once), but have only caught the initial 15 mins online (legal!). They seemed to have really changed the white walkers, or conflated them with the wights, or something. The white walkers seem decidedly nonhuman, and are, well, white. The wights are dead humans (or nearly dead ones) animated/controlled* by the walkers, and have a freezing touch and glowing blue eyes. The prologue for the series, based closely on the book (though in the book there wasn't snow) except if I watched correctly, the white walker wasn't white and had the glowing blue eyes. I guess in some respects it's not a big deal, as the walkers haven't really been onscreen since in the books. But it bugged me.

 

*"Blackhands", who might be Benjen Stark, seems to be an exception.

My guess is that they wanted to make the White Walkers more of a threat, like changing zombies from shufflers to fast moving.  Slow walking, creaking, shimmery-armor-wearing walkers probably would have been a little too devoid of scares and expensive to pull off.  That's alright if that's the way they are going.  They could all be wights though, and maybe they're saving the actual Walkers for a later reveal, maybe when Jon and co range beyond the wall.

I literally had forgotten all about the entire subplot surrounding Catelyn's crazy sister.  

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Originally Posted by Ratty 

I literally had forgotten all about the entire subplot surrounding Catelyn's crazy sister.  

It's a great one, though. You're almost glad later on when Littlefinger tosses her out the Moon Door.

Littlefinger better get barbecued and eaten by a dragon by series' end, though. Hate that plotting, betraying fucker.

but that is the great thing about this series, Little Finger has just as good a shot as anyone to wind up on top.

Though my personal prediction is tht Daneary's shares the throne with her half brother John Snow when all is said and done.

Jon and Dany ruling seems to be the obvious ending, but I agree Littlefinger's a likely candidate. He's playing everyone against each other without any of them knowing he's the one nudging events.

With the most recent developments re: Cersei, I kind of have Littlefinger pegged as the series' main villain. Um, who isn't an undead ice creature.

Speaking of which, I'm not seeing where this big change from the books is re: the Walkers. Both the Wights and the Others have blue eyes, right? And we haven't really had a good look at the Others in the books yet, have we? As I said in the other thread, I wasn't even clear that the Wights and the Others were two different entities until late in Storm of Swords.

I hope this doesn't come across as snobby as it might sound, but I'm finding it fascinating reading the reactions of people that haven't read the books, and seeing some of their predictions/expectations, etc....

And noting how utterly, completely off-the-mark they are.  Or more accurately how much they're expecting the story to cling to well-worn fantasy cliches instead of skewering most of them.

I just checked the book. I was wrong. The Others also have the unearthly blue eyes.

My bad.

I also just watched the episode. Wow. They nailed it. I'm still a bit on the fence about a couple of the casting choices - Headey as Cersei being the main one; I dig her but she seems physically completely wrong for the part - but it's really impressive what they've done. Almost all of the changes are for the better, I'd say (as well as allowing for a limited budget).

Can't wait for the next one.

They do seem to be taking a slightly different angle with Cersei, at least early on here.  Seems she's more on a "slow burn" than a "wildfire."  As someone said in another thread, I was expecting more outward bitchiness from Cersei.  Then again, Cersei didn't come across as all that bad in the earliest chapters of the book up to the Jaime/Cersei reveal.

Really not sure why they added the Jaime/Cersei scene early on (while Jon Arryn was lying in state)...didn't add anything to the story and the reveal at the end is better if you REALLY don't see it coming.  I suppose they were worried people might complain that there were NO hints, and they wanted to introduce the "villains" a touch earlier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmacq1 

I hope this doesn't come across as snobby as it might sound, but I'm finding it fascinating reading the reactions of people that haven't read the books, and seeing some of their predictions/expectations, etc....

 

And noting how utterly, completely off-the-mark they are.  Or more accurately how much they're expecting the story to cling to well-worn fantasy cliches instead of skewering most of them.

Yes and no. I'm thinking in particular of one post which praised Sansa's attraction to Joffrey for bucking the cliche of "hateful arranged coupling," when in actuality that's exactly where their story ends up going.

But yeah, it's fun reading those speculations and seeing how close they can get to the books.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmacq1 

I hope this doesn't come across as snobby as it might sound, but I'm finding it fascinating reading the reactions of people that haven't read the books, and seeing some of their predictions/expectations, etc....

 

And noting how utterly, completely off-the-mark they are.  Or more accurately how much they're expecting the story to cling to well-worn fantasy cliches instead of skewering most of them.

It's not snobby; it's observing how predictable Hollywood has made storytelling. The X-Files almost never had any actual tension for when Mulder or Scully were in trouble because if they died or were incapacitated, the show's done. Martin knew that readers would expect Ned to live and be the hero, for instance. Assuming that the series stays fairly faithful to the books, four major characters (at least) will be dead after just ten episodes. And it'll help make the stakes in the story that much higher and all the more real.

Other than the Red Wedding, the death I dread most is Oberyn Martell. Martin completely sucker punched the readers with that one.

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Originally Posted by Sherman Davies 

Yes and no. I'm thinking in particular of one post which praised Sansa's attraction to Joffrey for bucking the cliche of "hateful arranged coupling," when in actuality that's exactly where their story ends up going.

 

But yeah, it's fun reading those speculations and seeing how close they can get to the books.

 

Well, I've seen several posts on other sites to the effect of, "I totally knew the kid was going to die...."

I admit that was a large part of what brought my fascination on.  But yeah, I saw that post and kinda snickered too.  That and someone commenting about Sean Bean not being killed in the first episode....

Question guys, how do you feel about the fact that they did not keep it a mystery about who pushed Bran like in the book?

The book did NOT make it a mystery. It was very clear to the reader who pushed Bran out of the window. The mystery was only to the characters, since Bran was first comatose and then couldn't/didn't want to remember what happened.

I assume the series will at least roughly follow the books, in that Catelyn, Ned & Co. will not know who pushed Bran or why.

Yeah.  The whole reason Bran gets tossed in the books is that he finds Jaime and Cersei fucking.  Hello.

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Originally Posted by DerekT 

Question guys, how do you feel about the fact that they did not keep it a mystery about who pushed Bran like in the book?

 

I don't know why but I've seen multiple people make this mistake on various forums that I visit.

Have people been reading the books not knowing that Jaime pushed Bran? His identity is revealed literally a few paragraphs before the fall.

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Originally Posted by Joseph P. Brenner 
I don't know why but I've seen multiple people make this mistake on various forums that I visit.

 

Have people been reading the books not knowing that Jaime pushed Bran? His identity is revealed literally a few paragraphs before the fall.

Yep, while his name isn't explicitly stated, Martin writes: "The queen.  And now Bran recognized the man beside her.  They looked as much alike as reflections in the mirror."  No mystery there.

...and I only remember this because I re-read that chapter yesterday.
 

http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/04/hbo-renews-game-of-thrones-for-second-season/

Isn't the hound completely bald in the books? I wasn't digging the way he looked on the show, but I supposed I'll get used to it. He seemed more menacing in my head all bald and half crispified.

I like Sean Bean as Eddard so much I want them to fuck everything up and change the ending. How much would that shock everyone?

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Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 

I like Sean Bean as Eddard so much I want them to fuck everything up and change the ending. How much would that shock everyone?

A whole hell of a lot I'd imagine....

But without Eddard being killed, things would turn out SO much differently that it's almost impossible to envision.

Yeah, not killing Ned would be the Mother of All Dominoes, plot-wise.

They'd end up having to basically rewrite the series, then...an interesting idea. Unlike WALKING DEAD, though, they have a better base of source material, and I hope they stick with the main plot threads from the books.

It's one of the most memorable things about the first book, they won't touch it. The big changes they've talked about from the source material would be condensing characters and battles starting with the second book. It was in the io9 interview. A cast as large as the one in the second would be beyond their budget.

I liked this a lot, although my expectations were a tad too high--after reading pretty much every review I guess I unconsciously expected the characters to be rendered completely in every detail from the novel, head to toe. As it was, some of the elements--the Dothraki, the expositional nature of the dialogue--seemed disappointingly similar to what'd you find on other genre shows and movies, specifically scifi and fantasy. But of course this is a setup episode. The acting and casting were excellent. And although sex is a big part of the novels, if I hadn't read them I would have interpreted most of the nudity as included for the presumed tastes of the audience, not always because it told the story (Sean Bean and Michelle Fairey received the letter in the night fully clothed, I would presume because they're less curvy).

I was really commenting to bump the last comment out of the top spot, as its first sentence was visible near the top of the TV page with a big spoiler clear as day, but it already got bumped.

Sean Bean costs money, people!

Why, you may be asking, did I spoilerize that? Because I've noticed something unfortunate: the first few sentences of the latest post is always visible on the main forum page. Which means that it might be possible to accidentally spoil people just for entering the Television forums. Just a heads up.

Had a thought for casting Brienne: Zoe Bell. What do you think?

Relieved that cumulative ratings turned out pretty good, and overseas ratings seemed to be stellar.  HBO must be absolutely relieved because it seems a second season pickup would have always needed to come early on such a large, complex production such as this.  Hopefully it'll grow its audience ala True Blood, and to hear critics tell it the upcoming episodes really kick into gear.

ETA:

Make it happen!

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Originally Posted by The Prankster 

Had a thought for casting Brienne: Zoe Bell. What do you think?

http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/01/casting-season-two-brienne/

Gwendoline Christie

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Make it happen!

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Originally Posted by Joseph P. Brenner 

http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/01/casting-season-two-brienne/

 

Gwendoline Christie

BRENNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But seriously, that might be some good casting right there.  6'3" and decked out in a full suit of armor is going to look bananas on screen.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph P. Brenner 

 

http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/01/casting-season-two-brienne/

 

Gwendoline Christie

Someone in that article is seriously suggesting Katee Sackhoff?  That's laughably out of touch for that character.  I even think Zoe Bell is too attractive to play Brienne; Martin goes out of his way in describing how mannish and fuck-ugly she is.  

Eva Damen looks pretty much like how I imagined her.