HBO Game of Thrones

[ioana]

I was wondering about the characters, Allen. It seems like that type of show where a lot will die.

It turned into a running joke with fans of the series..."every time someone asks George about a release date for his next book, one of the 'good guys' dies." I thought the series was very well done, but I did have to do quite a bit of explaining about who was who and how they were related since I had read the books and the two friends I was watching with did not.

For example, it might have been easier to show all three Lannister siblings together in King's Landing and then separate them, instead of introducing Tyrion later on. Minor gripes aside, Northern Ireland's forests look stunning in this . Also, Joffrey Lannister did look his age, unlike Jon and Rob Stark

Spoiler

so he wasn't quite as much of a 'latent threat' as I expected him to be based on the books

.

[danceronice]

I was wondering about the characters, Allen. It seems like that type of show where a lot will die.

You haven't read the books, have you.

Don't get attached to ANYONE. Even if you think they have plot armor. Just don't. Game of Thrones starts bad, and the following books are textbook examples of It Got Worse. After, what, three books, now, there are MAYBE two or three characters I'm fairly sure aren't going to die horribly. But it's entirely possible I'm wrong.

[Satellitegirl]

Hahaha, nice. And no I haven't read the books. I've only started the first one and I'm a few chapters in.

[emason]

OT question for Hedwig: I'm just curious, did you read the books translated into German or did you read them in the original English? I guess what I really want to know is whether people who speak more than one language routinely read in the other languages or do they more often choose their native tongue.

Back to discussing Game of Thrones: there are 4 characters on my list who might make it to the end. Everyone else is fair game for killing off. This is a brutal series.

[allezfred]

The casting is FANTASTIC. Whoohoo.
Loved it. Am gonna watch it again in an hour or so, just the time for me to shower a bit.

TMI.

[dinakt]

My only nitpick is that they did not show Drogo waiting until Dani said Yes- as it is important for their future relationship and the arc of the story. Otherwise, perfect. Love the way everybody is cast, but particularly Lannisters. Tyrion, Cercei, Jaime- just how I saw them in my mind. Tyrion, particularly- young, smart, attractive face, just as it had to be. Arya is great, as well; and Dani is close to perfect. I would have had her younger, but the whole "face of a child, body of a woman" is just right

[rfisher]

Is Dani the blonde married to the Klingon?

[ioana]

Is Dani the blonde married to the Klingon?

Yes - at the summary. She's also from the House of Targaryen, who ruled King's Landing before the Lannisters took over.

[dinakt]

Is Dani the blonde married to the Klingon?

She sure is.
But I think of the books as "the Other Middle Ages", and Khal Drogo is close to how Genghis Khan might have been, so no complaints there. Just wish they had shown him gentle as well as violent. Not to reveal too much, but Dani has to be in love with him pretty soon, and he has to treat her well, even though their lives are nomadic and hard.

[Yehudi]

Is it wrong of me that I now want to watch this because of the possibility of dwarf-on-dwarf public sex after a beheading where it's revealed that they could be related?

I'm imagining a V.C. Andrews take on it: A Game of Dwarves In the Attic. That would be AWESOME.

Dani and bro definitely had a Dollanganger look to them

Spoiler

interesting since it was tradition in their family for the King to marry his sister

[dbell1]

So the blondes and the Klingon with Boromir by their side will be fighting the child killing incestuous sibs?

[danceronice]

So the blondes and the Klingon with Boromir by their side will be fighting the child killing incestuous sibs?

If only it were that simple. (Unless they grossly simplified it for TV.)

And I am following my usual rule

Spoiler

of getting totally screwed because Sean Bean never makes it out of a movie I like alive. Goldeneye, LOTR, though in fairness in that case and this it's not like I don't know it's coming. At least The Tudors has numbed me to beheadings.

[MarieM]

The casting is just fantastic.
Jamie Lannister ? WHOHOO Yum yum !
The stark are all spot on.
Cersei ... I will love hating her.
Daenerys is fantastic, as her "husband". And the no he says are so what I imagined LOL !

The king ... Well he doesn't matter to me so I didn't pay that much attention to him.

And the "dogs" whooooooohooooo.

I loved it ! I have to watch that again tomorrow.

[Hedwig]

Very happy!

I am of course nitpicky as my fandom for A Song of Ice and Fire is only surpassed by my fandom for figure skating and that only slightly. (to put things in perspective for you )

The only thing that really annoyed me was that Catelyn (wife of Ned Stark) tried to persuade him NOT to be hand of the king when in the books it was her and her ambition for her children that tried to persuade Ned to go. But I guess they did it in order to show how much she loves him and it would have been confusing for the viewers otherwise.

Other minor critisicms:
Tyrion is not ugly enough (no mismatched eyes etc) but him being the dwarf and his struggles with it are seen easily enough.

Robb and Jon are too old. I can see why they went with boys older than 15 but they look like they are in their mid-twenties and that is too old. Some of their more childish struggles may in the future seem a bit weird...but we will see.

The dragon eggs were a disappointment. They are described as breathtakingly beautiful in the books but they were quite ugly.



Loved Arya (who is my favourite character in the books anyway along Tyrion, the Imp).

Daenerys and Drogo were of course a bit wrong. In the book, he is gentle to her for hours and massages her neck etc until she is ready for him. But in a way I found this take of the situation more real. I cannot imagine any scared 14 year old girl who is married to a savage stranger to be ready for sex even after hours of being massaged by said stranger.

hmmm, I try not to say too much that might give something away so I have to stop here.

[Hedwig]

I have read part of the first book(in the middle of reading it), and thought they did the opening scene very well, although they left out the fact that he climbed a tree. Poor guy getting beheaded just because he was scared and ran .

Yeah, no one believed him.

I was sorry they cut one of my (many many) favorite lines from the book.

Bran (the little one) asks his father afterwards that Robb (his older brother) had said that the man had died bravely and that Jon (his bastard brother) had said that the man had been afraid.
"Can a man still be brave if he is afraid?"
Ned Stark:"That is the only time a man CAN be brave."

Klingon.

We had HBO free this weekend and I normally love things like this, so I was happy to tune in. Have never read the books and had no idea there's a cult following and 7 seaons planned. After HBO and their co-funders cut "Rome" after 2 1/2 seasons due to the cost, I have no hopes for them to film all 7 seasons. Hopefully I'm wrong. They seem to be pulling out all stops for marketing this one - maybe it'll go the distance?

Thought the opening credits were visually stunning - I smell an Emmy for cinematography. Those winter zombies are pretty freaking scary. Tomboy sister showing up younger brother with the bow and arrow was funny. Gasped out loud at the ending scene (which I'll wait for Hedwig to see so I won't ruin it). Fuzzy little wolf puppies - I want one.

Sean Bean is looking haggard, but still hot. White blond sister doesn't look happy to be married off to King No. Still trying to figure out names and stuff - these characters really need name tags.

I'm now going to order HBO.

Question for the book fans - are you excited or annoyed so far?

I am very excited so far. I think it shows that the author (George RR Martin) is heavily involved in the script writing so I think that they don't go too far from the storyline without him pulling a stop.

The ending scene was not surprising to me. I don't lie when I say that I know the books nearly by heart. My boyfriend is reading them just now and when he says he is there and there I always shock him by answering with exact citations and details.

OT question for Hedwig: I'm just curious, did you read the books translated into German or did you read them in the original English? I guess what I really want to know is whether people who speak more than one language routinely read in the other languages or do they more often choose their native tongue.

Whenever I can I try to read books in their native language. In English it is a no brainer as it is as easy for me to read in English as in German. For a book the size of AGoT I have to look up maybe two words or so. And that is more than overcompansated by all the little things that cannot be translated to another language like games with words or words that have a slightly different meaning in one language than in the other and so on.
One example: Wolverine in German is directly translated to "much-eater". In the books, Arya has the saying: "Fierce as a wolverine" which sounds pretty cool in English. In German "Fierce as a much-eater" sounds very stupid and not very fierce.

Other languages are harder. I try to read in French but my French is not good enough to really enjoy it. But on the other hand, this was how I mostly learned English so I keep on trying...

[rfisher]

Rats. Now I'm going to have to read the stupid books. I couldn't get past the 3rd book in the Wheel of Time series. Loved LOTR and read/listened to it multiple times. I hope this is somewhere between the two.

[Hedwig]

Rats. Now I'm going to have to read the stupid books. I couldn't get past the 3rd book in the Wheel of Time series. Loved LOTR and read/listened to it multiple times. I hope this is somewhere between the two.

I promise you a great experience!!

And a great frustration after you have read the then last book A Dance with Dragons as the series is not finished yet. (pulls out her hair in frustration)

The wait for the Harry Potter books was nothing in comparison!!

I also loved LOTR but ASOIAF is much much better IMO.

[dbell1]

Hasn't book 5 taken 5 years for him to write? At this rate, he'll be dead before book 7. I'll be ordering the books this payday, but...

For LOTR, I will say that FOTR was really weak with the 'Bombadil prancing in the forest' crap. Happy that was cut from the movie. But I HATED how they tried to show Aragorn as torn between Arwen and Eowyn. I actually read the books in between movies 2 & 3 and spent most of movie 3 going 'nope, nope, WTF, nope'... Wonder if I'll be doing the same with SOF&I?

[Hedwig]

Well, one thing is certain and that was so from the beginning: No tv series can ever be as good as the books.
All the internal struggles and nuances cannot be brought across in the tv series. So whoever has read the books or will read them, there will be instances when one is "No way!!!"
But so far, they have done a great job in trying to get the feeling and the characters across. Some come about absolutely the opposite compared to the books but one of the things I love about ASOIAF is how multi-dimensional the characters are. You love them on one page and then you hate them on the next. So maybe they try the same with the tv series and some of the characters will evolve.

And dbell, yeah, your fear worries me too. GRRM is already so damn old. And he takes ages to write.
I hope there is another parallel to Harry Potter. JKR said many times that the middle of the series was hardest for her. But once she had all laid out, the last two books were easy to write.
Hope dies last and Gods be good ( a saying from the book), it will be the same here...

I wonder how you will like the books! Keep us informed, you and rfisher both!!

[ioana]

I think Martin made it a point to explain the last books have been outlined and he already has notes on what should happen to the main characters. Don't know whether or not that's his idea of reassuring fans...It would be nice if the last two books in the series take slightly less than 5 years each . In his defense, some of the other series he's writing like Dunk and Egg are somewhat related to ASoIaF, but take place a few hundred years before.

And for everyone who's reading the books after the HBO show. I was hoping that would happen and it's nice to see it actually has.