Game Of Thrones[SPOILERS]: The "Not the Books" Thread WITH HUGE SPOILERS

[Necropolis 763]

Sandor: Lay your dead children at someone elses doorstep.

[Teto 2609]

Red Wedding (book version) quote - Necro + others reading the books: if you want to actually read the scene for yourself, then don't open this.

This is like right at the end, the last paragraph of the scene, from Catelyn's perspective. So it's a big deal what is about to be written here.

I hope to god if you're opening these spoilers that you even actually know what the red wedding actually is and that you're not just being dumb and reckless.

But yeah, here's the last bit right after Robb is killed, and Catelyn's cut the throat of Lord Frey's halfwit grandson Aegon, aka Jinglebell. It's just sad and good, and I like her last thoughts a lot.

It hurts so much, she thought. Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes. Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb... Robb... please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting... The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Ned had loved. Catelyn Stark raised her hands and watched the blood run down her long fingers, over her wrists, beneath the sleeves of her gown. Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes. It tickles. That made her laugh until she screamed. "Mad," someone said, "she's lost her wits," and someone else said, "Make an end," and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she'd done with Jinglebell, and she thought, No, don't, don't cut my hair, Ned loves my hair. Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.

[emsomniac 239]

Spoilers for last ep of season 3

 

http://youtu.be/Bl15LNf4miU

[Necropolis 763]

Storm of swrods is really good. Got ir monday and I've already peeled through half of it. The pacing is exceptional

[Necropolis 763]

I finished storm of swords. Sweet Jesus....

[Teto 2609]

Season 3 episode 3

If it wasn't for the goofy Bear and the Maiden Fair music starting in the credits, Jaime getting his hand cut off would have been one of the rare points of the story that was actually better in the TV show than it was in the book. In the book all you have to go on is that his captors (The Bloody Mummers in the book, though I guess the TV show just thought they were too colourful and wanted to be all bland and gritty to fit the TV show) cut off hands and feet infamously, and that you know that a blade came down on him and that he screamed. The show did it suddenly and plainly, and so it was better. And then ridiculous rock music started playing like the end of some 90s teen comedy and drama levels depleted greatly.

 

Season 3 Episode 4

Dany taking over the Unsullied and kicking ass was also better in the book, believe it or not. It wasn't hard to guess what her plan was if you gave it a little thought, but the execution of it was much more beautiful in the books than in the TV show. In books you're left in doubt as to what Dany's up to until the very last second, and everything comes to light immediately and brilliantly when she comes back from making her round, making sure the Unsullied are truly hers, and the slaver complains that the dragon wont listen to him, and she says "He is no slave" and orders Drogon to burn him there and then, gives out her orders and kicks a lot of ass. While in the TV show, her intentions are made clear slowly, and all the great drama that came from "He is no slave" to the subsequent killing of the slaver prick is separated by a bunch of talking. She just says "he is no slave" over her shoulder and then the slaver stands there stupidly holding Drogon until she comes back to order his death. It just didn't have the same feeling of satisfaction at all, and I was actually pretty disappointed to be honest. It just stripped another good scene of what I loved.

 

At least it wasn't as shitty as what they did to Arya's Harrenhall storyline. I can try and be nice and say that the TV series can be excused for it's changes because of the fact that it's written for TV and not the pacing of a book, but man. So much of it isn't meeting my expectations. The battle on the Blackwater also sucked in the show, cut short, over quickly. Pure shite.

 

I'm just disappointed and irritated because I want to enjoy this with everyone else, but I can't because they saw a different story than I did. They watched a different story, and I'm just an outsider peering in on another world where my views aren't really helpful and don't add anything to the enjoyment of the people being subjected to my trivia. I want to be a part of it, but now I can't be, because I chose the lesser traveled route, and everybody else is following along on another road. Like if you've ever skipped ahead in anything in life, and behind you you've left all your friends. You want to get to the destination, but what's the point in getting there when you've not got people to share it with? I know I do have people I could talk to it about, but they're few, and we're all at different points. Those behind can't talk about some things, and people ahead can only offer "yeah I liked that part". I've lost out on the social aspect of it by reading ahead, and I can't go back and experience it first hand with everybody else anymore. That's done, and all I can do now is enjoy the books alone. I'm a bit petty and needy in that I don't like doing anything unless it'll get me some sort of social interaction, so part of me wonders what's the point of reading all these books if I don't have anybody to enjoy it with. I don't doubt that's a pretty common motivation for a lot of people though.

 

Then again, if I watched the show and didn't read the books, I'd probably not talk to anybody about it anyway. The books are better, and I enjoy them more than the TV series. I think I should probably just separate myself from the TV series completely so that I can just stop feeling miserable and isolated whenever I remember how much everybody is enjoying it together. Again though, probably the case that a lot of people don't really discuss the show. I'm just bitter about how people get excited about stuff on social media sites, all joining together over the results of an episode, if only to just confirm that everybody else saw it and felt what they felt. Feeling connected to other people in that knowledge.

[Necropolis 763]

I understand what you're feeling. I've thought about it quite a bit since I started reading the books. I only did because I had been spoiled to the red wedding, and decided NEVER AGAIN, as I stated in my status some months agoI watched the show until about epiaode 4 of season 3 before reading the books, but now that i've read storm i'm afraid i'll compare everything negatively to the book, much as I did with The walking dead, which I read in anticipation of the show. Its a quandry. Will have to disagree with you on the battle of blackwater though. It is my single favorite episode of a televosion show, and I think it more than does justice to the scope, build up and tension of the book.

[pheonix561 2080]

There's a side of game of thrones that a lot of people I talk to about this that haven't noticed, and it's not the whole Jon Snow thing. You know the Mad King? Remember how he was all hearing-voices-totally-insane? The one thing he wanted to do was burn down the whole everything. And he was hearing voices telling him to do it. "Burn them all" and so on. Why has nobody made the connection between that and the fire god? Isn't that how all his followers know he's talking to them? Voices and fire and shit? So whats it say about the fire god when he wants to just puppying kill everyone everywhere? I feel like everyone is going to want to turn to the fire god for guidance and protection when the white walkers come, but that wont go well for them.

[Cirt 612]

My dad bought Season 1 and 2 on DVD, and when I went home briefly on Friday I managed to snag season 1.

 

I watched the puppy out of that season. HOLY SHIT is it good. I literally finished it in a day. granted, it is only 10 eps but goddamn. then I went on amazon and bought the four book series for my kindle for like $16.

 

i wish i'd grabbed season 2. I had no idea this show was so good

also for the record I have not read any of this thread. i did have some things spoiled from me already just because the internet is the internet, so like I knew about the dragons and who khaleesi was. but everyone else, it's been fun seeing who they are and how they are all related. 

[pheonix561 2080]

It's a lot better around the second time. Once you finish the third season, if you go back and rewatch the first and second, a whole lot more makes sense. I remember sometime in early season one, Thoros of Myr is mentioned, who isn't introduced until season 3. It was a detail I completely overlooked until I knew who thoros was. That's just one of the many examples. It makes 1,000% more sense the second time around.

[Cirt 612]

Yeah, I imagine that will happen. but I am reading the first book and it's confirming the things that I missed or speculated in the first season. I am so surprised, and impressed, and pleased about how well the series sticks to the books. I mean, seriously copy and pasting dialogue from the books into the script. there are a few minor changes, but none that really mess with the flow or have any significant consequences. there are a few times where the series explains something in a different way than the book (almost delayed) but it makes sense. the characters' ages are off a bit, but it's actually more logical in the series. like jon snow and robb are supposed to be 14 in the first book. I mean lol no. also, robb, sansa, bran, and rickon are all supposed to look like Tullys (redheaded) with only arya and jon snow looking like ned. 

[Necropolis 763]

Catch up on the show Asap. You might be able to avoid the thing, like eveyone gets spoiled to.

[Agent Zako 153]

Glad to see people enjoying the books and the show here. I'm caught up both on books and the series. Guess I might as well list my favorite characters too, although this list is likely to be different every time I think of it because of the sheer amount of good characters:

 

1. Jamie

2. Sandor Clegane 

3. Brienne

4. Jon Snow

5. Barristan Selmy

 

Season 4 might be my most anticipated season so far. Considering the events from Storm of Swords that season 3 didn't get to, season 4 will likely be nothing but one intense, jaw-dropping paradigm shift after the other.

[Teto 2609]

There's a side of game of thrones that a lot of people I talk to about this that haven't noticed, and it's not the whole Jon Snow thing. You know the Mad King? Remember how he was all hearing-voices-totally-insane? The one thing he wanted to do was burn down the whole everything. And he was hearing voices telling him to do it. "Burn them all" and so on. Why has nobody made the connection between that and the fire god? Isn't that how all his followers know he's talking to them? Voices and fire and shit? So whats it say about the fire god when he wants to just puppying kill everyone everywhere? I feel like everyone is going to want to turn to the fire god for guidance and protection when the white walkers come, but that wont go well for them.

 

I like to think that the whole series is leading up to, or in fact already is, a face-off between the servants of Winter and Summer, R'hllor and the Other, Ice and Fire. It would then make sense that the book series is called A Song of Ice and Fire, and it being suggested that the book series is that song. More time goes on in the series, the more real the gods seem. Originally, with a name like Game of Thrones, it felt like medieval politics, and I would forget that it was a fantasy series, and so it was always strangely surprising when fantasy elements are real and seem to have power. Legends and magic, often talked off as children's stories by the characters in the series, are asserting themselves more and more, and it's not really realism and politics like it first seemed.

 

I've just started on Book 5 Part 2 by the way.

[pheonix561 2080]

Yeah, I definitely think "A song of ice and fire" is talking about the entire series, and the inevitable face off between the ice deity and the fire deity. And it seems like one of those things where no matter who wins, everyone loses. The thing I love about it is that, at least looking ahead from the current place in the TV show standpoint, that situation seems utterly helpless. Neither of the gods is the benevolent protector of the people every pantheon seems to cherish. Both of them literally want to murder the shit out of all the humans on the planet. Whats more, all the other stories where the endboss is a god, there's always some way to stop them or kill them. Some Godslayer weapon or something. And then everyone stops and wonders "golly what was the difference between men and gods the whole time? power? Where does someone become so powerful that they're not a man but a god?" and so on. There's nothing like that for GoT. There's literally no way to kill any of the gods. Maybe they could genocide and persecute all of the followers of the fire god, and maybe they could bolster their knight's watch to stop the others, but there's no way for them to stop the war for good without picking a side and committing to it. And how would they even pick a side?