GoT is soooo close

[Alluveal]

YES I am starting a new thread.

View it!

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/03/03/game- ... w-trailer/

Awesome trailer--best yet so far.

April, hurry up!

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Holy shit, that was a cool trailer. It looks like they totally did justice to the books, but we'll see

[Xican]

Never been a big fan of fantasy books, for some reason. Not sure why. But I might just have to check this series out, as the trailer for the show seems intriguing.

Is it just me, or does Bean seem to almost exclusively do fantasy roles? No quarrel with it, he suits them rather well.

[Alluveal]

Xican, GRRM's Ice and Fire series has been called (by numerous reviewers) "fantasy for people who don't like fantasy."

It's also for people who love fantasy as well. =)

I highly recommend it. I think DD was going to try them out, Riggen too. They'll have to chime in when they've finished book 1.

[Ddrak]

I finished book 1. It's damn good.

Dd

[Alluveal]

It just gets better, at least through book 3. Book 4 was a bit of a lull because he'd written the dang thing so big that he had to split it in two--axing half of the character perspectives (and pushing them to book 5, Dance with Dragons).

But, that said, you really get submersed in world politics in book 4, and get into a few new perspectives that help round out the world, not to mention you get to follow one of my favorite characters in book 4). Won't spoil it, though.

In other news, I got a Kindle and just bought all 4 of the first books for kindle (released at the end of March), so I'll be rereading, I think.

Dance with Dragons has a release day in July, yay!

Who is your favorite character perspective so far, DD?

[Ddrak]

I kinda like the way he writes a chapter at a time from a different perspective, but I like Tyrion and Arya the most. Tyrion has such an awesome ambiguity to his motives.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Tyrion is my favorite character too. Jaime would be a close second.

[Xican]

I'll have to give this a look. I'm planning to head to Chapters at some point today or tomorrow, anyway to pick up the newest in the 'Conqueror' series by Conn Iggulden (which is an excellent series of books, along with Emperor, I'd highly recommend) and I'll grab the first of this series while I'm there. Hopefully it holds up to the reviews!

[Bastards Last Stand]

Arya has always been one of my favorites since, other than a fun storyline, she has a knack for running across some of the more interesting characters like Syrio Forel and Jaqen H'ghar. I'm going to be disappointed if there's no Syrio in the HBO series.

[Alluveal]

Arya has always been one of my favorites since, other than a fun storyline, she has a knack for running across some of the more interesting characters like Syrio Forel and Jaqen H'ghar. I'm going to be disappointed if there's no Syrio in the HBO series.

I love Arya as well. It's hard for me to choose just one favorite. I seem to rotate between:

Tyrion
Arya
Jaime

I do find myself very caught up in Jon Snow's POV as well.

As for Arya . . .

Hidden Information!

I always had a theory that Jaqen was Syrio. They both say "just so" in a certain way and since Jaqen is a faceless one, couldn't he look like anyone?

[Xican]

Just picked this up today and got about 150 pages into the first book. I'm not about to pass judgment just yet, as it is still very much establishing the major players. I will say however, that thus far it hasn't been too fantasy for my liking, I suspect that will change later on, though. One thing that always irks me about fantasy novels though is their insistence on creating a 'new' world. Martin uses differing words for things like alligators (at least based on the description) and trees and that just bothers me for some reason. Nothing that's gonna upset my reading completely, but certainly not something I enjoy.

I think thus far the only characters I really like are Jon Snow and Tyrion. The others (particularly the young Stark's) don't really appeal to me. I find I'm just reading through their 'chapters' purely to get to the next one.

[Alluveal]

Yeah, it's pretty low fantasy, though it does spike at the end (in a good way). And in book 2, you get a little more fantasy with the introduction of the Red Witch, but even then, it's not in your face, not blatant. It's very subtle.

Jon Snow and Tyrion are definitely two of my favorite characters. Arya becomes a favorite, especially in books 2 and 3.

Dany comes and goes for me. At the end of book 1, I was like oh HELL YES. And in book 2, her storyline kind of does some weird meandering.

The only Stark character that didn't really appeal to me was Catelyn. At times, I just found her so . . . I don't know. I pretty much read her chapters to get through them (at least at first).

It's nice because Martin opens up character perspectives as he goes. In book 2 we get two more (one new character, one character from GoT that did not have a perspective).

In book three we get one that, imho, makes the whole series. I'm sure people who've read the series will know what that means. Our dear golden hand. =)

[Xican]

I really hated Cat's story for a while, but at least it picked up a little midway through the book (where I currently am) so I can tolerate it. Bran and Arya's stories have gotten slightly better, but still don't really pull me in. Sansa I straight up can't stand. Her story is just painful. The only thing keeping me interested in Dany's story right now is that her Khal reminds me of Mongols, which I find interesting.

For me it's primarily Tyrion, Jon Snow and Ned that pique my interest right now. I get the funny feeling Ned will not be around by the end of the book, though. I'm a little over halfway through and am loving the complete lack of magic thus far. I'm really hoping it doesn't just spring up out of nowhere, though. Fantasy books always have a way of writing themselves into a corner, only to have main characters suddenly develop Godlike powers to win free of a tight situation. It always drives me nuts when that happens.

[Alluveal]

I think that's where Martin really shines is by not letting characters get instantly powerful. The magical elements that occur in (literally) the last pages of the story are wonderfully written and are, by no means, a 100% positive thing. There is always a down side from what I can see.

Yeah, Cat's story did start to pick up once she hit her sister's domain.

Jon Snow is one character that I had a very hard time waiting for it to cycle back. Love everything about what's at the wall and beyond.

Sansa, well, it shows a different side of things for certain, but man . . . she goes through some seriously intense stuff and the "relationships" she begins to foster along the way become far more important than even she realizes. I enjoyed watching her and Littlefinger. It shows just who/what kind of person he is when he interacts with her.

And not to mention Joff. Oh Joff. Yes.

Has Viserys gotten his crown yet?

[Xican]

Yeah, I read the bit about Viserys' crown, I enjoyed that quite a bit. It reminded me even more of the Mongols. Ghengis Khan did the same thing with a Chin (I believe, or possibly Arab?) King, only he used melted silver. I enjoy the Dothraki, in spite of their obsession with rape.

I've just finished the chapter where Tyrion takes part in his first battle, which I thought was done fairly well. I can't help but love the exchanges between Tywin and Tyrion both before and after the battle.

I still can't stomach Sansa's chapters, though. Even with all the intrigue now surrounding her relationship with Joff and Cersei. It might be because her views are so narrow and childish and well -- fucking ignorant at this stage.

Jon's story is just starting to get really good, in my mind. He just killed the wight and was given his sword, whose name escapes me at the moment. But you're definitely right Allu, it seems to take an eternity to circle back to his plot. It's driving me nuts.

Cat and her sister were interesting, but I'm really hoping her sister gets murdered real soon. That bitch is annoying.

I'll be done by the end of the day, likely. Probably start on the second one sometime this week, whenever I get around to picking it up.

[Alluveal]

Sansa doesn't really ever get less "narrow" in a sense, but she does start to wise up and learn to "play along" in some cases. I found her interactions with The Hound to be really interesting even though she never seems to understand so much that's going on around her. It's fun to watch other characters interact with her and around her. She's the perfect unreliable narrator. She's so naive at times that we have to read between the lines of what she's describing through her perspective to get our information. There is some really fucked up shit that goes down later on, but I won't ruin it.

Jason Mamoa will make a kickass Drogo.

Lots more John Snow in book 2. I recall more Jon Snow in that one.

Bran just becomes more and more interesting as the books progress. His "abilities" are so interesting. I also found it cool the way Martin took a boy who was crippled and turned him into a really amazing character. I think you'll like what happens in book 2 with him. I argue that he could become one of the most powerful characters in the series, but that's just me. His little gift starts to really . . . uhh . . . take off.

I've started rereading book 2 now.

[Xican]

Just finished it and I like the way the 'magic' at the end was portrayed. Martin wrote it really well, it wasn't exactly shocking what happened, but he pulled it off without going too far and the description was just enough to do it justice. I'll have to pick up the second book tomorrow, but I'm in the middle of another series right now and probably won't speed through it as quickly as I did this one.

Sansa's chapters still bore me, but they did become less tedious as she explores the interactions with Joff and the Hound, which I'm sure only get better as the story goes on. I have to admit though, I'll probably never come to truly enjoy that perspective, but not all characters will appeal to everyone, so I understand that. I didn't particularly enjoy Arya's chapters either, but felt she gets almost omitted in the end of the book. Like she was an after-thought for the other characters and possibly the writer, as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Bran develops and to a lesser extent Rickon, it hints at him having some of the same gifts Bran does, but not to the same extent. Robb and Jon of course will be really fun to follow, without a doubt as they progress, too.

Notes on the series, now that I'm familiar with the book -- I'm a little skeptical. Despite the thoroughly awesome trailer a quick perusal of imdb gives me some trepidation. I really hope imdb is wrong on this one, but it appears only 3 characters are in more than 3 episodes - and one of those is Sam Tarly, of all people. That's a little odd. But they also had Sean Bean listed at only 2 - which I have to assume is an error, as he's playing Ned who certainly deserves more than that. Haha.

I just don't know how a 10 hour season can do justice to a book this vast, where as Martin even wrote 'the devil is in the details'.

[Alluveal]

Yeah, I don't see Ned only being in 2 episodes. That seems weird to me, given that we don't even have the names for all of the episode yet. They have 8 episode NAMES and that is it. The board I visit is run by a guy who works with Martin and who has actually seen 5 episodes. I'm sure he would have mentioned the lack of "Ned."

1: Winter is Coming
2: The Kingsroad
3: Lord Snow
4: Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
5: The Wolf and the Lion
6: The Golden Crown
7: You Win or Die
8: The Pointy End

Hidden Information!

1 Has Ned (you see him in the first 15 minute preview on HBO which can be found here: LINK

It seems like a Winterfell-centric episode. I imagine the king's group will make it up at some point.
2. they're on the kingsroad. Will definitely have Ned.
3. Probably a Lord Snow centric episode but will have other "stories" as well.
4. Tyrion centric, Jon Centric
5. Kings Landing (Ned/Jaime/Cersei) Maybe Robert's death.
6. Dothraki centric (muhaha)
7. Ned's capture?
8. Arya/Needle/Ned's death
9. ?
10. Dany

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Well if they make Ned central to the whole series when he didn't make it all that far into book one then they'll lose me like the series they made from Goodkind's books. I'm really hoping to see Martin's books expressed in film and not some whole new take on Martin's universe.

If they're just milking Ned's character a little bit because they got a good actor to play him then I'm ok with that as a fan.

Honestly Martin's books are so verbose that I think there could be several seasons just if they held mostly true to the books.

One example where I think it was well done was Harry Potter. My wife isn't sure she likes how they did all the movies but on the major stuff like who lives and who dies the books and the movies are in agreement. So that's what I like to see as a fan. I understand that books don't translate 100% but pretty please keep the big things in sync!

...Otherwise there's going to be lots of fans like me that see corporate whoring of the story with little or no regard towards the artist's oringal work and we'll get turned off and go watch/read something else. So yeah, I'm crossing my fingers. So far the trailers look kick ass!