[BobM]

Late to the party but I tried to watch the first episode from the first season. Not sure what the attraction is, but this genre does nothing for me. Unlike Breaking Bad, which was pretty amazing right from the opening scene, I couldn't even finish the first episode of GoT.

Well, that's why TV now has 1000+ channels to choose from.

[Chazro]

I think it would be wrong to dismiss GOT as just another addition to a certain genre.  I mean, are we talking sword & sorcery?  Anyone that thinks GOT and let's say, Lord Of The Rings, are coming from the same place couldn't be more mistaken.  I understand how seeing armor, swords, castles, Kings, Queens, and dragons could lead one to think it's all the same stuff.  It's not!  I've read all the books and seen all the video for both GOT and LOTR and it's truly an apples vs. oranges argument.  GOT is NOT a book or show that I'd want children to experience, although I'd strongly recommend it when they got older.  The core attraction of GOT is that it's just an amazing, well written tale.  I'd say it's for anyone that into quality, intelligent storytelling (is that a genre?)

[Rob Babcock]

In GoT the story is almost an afterthought; really it juggles a lot of pretty pedestrian fantasy cliches.  The characters, that's the strength of the show.  They have cast some brilliant actors and given them well written parts to play.  The show is a great character study and a good examination of human nature.  In some ways it surpasses anything on TV in the last couple decades.  I mean, could they kill Tony Soprano off at the end of season one and still continue without him?  GoT is amazing in the level of cold blooded disregard for any of its characters.  The show will go on but no character is safe.  It more effectively trashes expectations than any program I've ever seen.

[Chazro]

Hey Rob!  I agree with you....I think.  You started off saying the story's an afterthought, but then you go on to praise how well-written the characters are!  So I'm guessing you're a fan.  BTW, about the story being a cliched afterthought, couldn't disagree more.  I've read the entire series, twice!  It's a great story.  Luckily, the TV show has remained fairly faithful to the book.  It speaks volumes about the show that even though I know what's going to happen it's still so satisfying to watch!  BTW, if you haven't read the books, lemmetellya, these last 2 episodes are gonna be killa!;)

[Rob Babcock]

Well, it's JMOHO.  I never read the books but I've been an avid/rabid AD&D guy since the invention of the game.   As a kid I was huge into fantasy books.  To me GoT throws too many random fantasy elements in willy nilly...what is it really about?  Dragons?  Zombies?  The 'clash of kings'?  It seems like Martin just dumped every fantasy trope he could find into a blender!   So to me there isn't much 'story' in the sense of it being about anything, or what story there is mirrors every 12 year old kid's first D&D game back in the 70's.

Now, the great characters- I don't know if that's Martin or the creators of the HBO series, and I have to give a lot of credit to the set designers, visual artists and critically to the fine cast of actors.  Some of them take very slightly written parts and make them memorable.

Yeah, I'm a fan of the TV show.  It's not my favorite show in history but it's one of the very few shows where I don't always know what's going to happen next.

[BobM]

I never read the books

And there lies the problem.

George pretty much developed and exploded the relatively new genre of hyper-reality fantasy. Yes, it is high fantasy, with dragons and some magic, set in a realm of swords and horses. But it also blurs the typical lines of good vs evil, or of the hero overcoming overwhelming odds to survive all that is thrown at him/her while mastering some arcane magical concepts. Martin did indeed follow the Tolkein path and created a rich history and land to work with his story, which I only wish more authors cound do. But the draw is that he takes these things and presents them in a very new and unique way - typical cliched fantasy it is not.

There are other authors (notably Joe Abercrombie or Patrick Rothfuss or Mark Lawrence) who have taken this path even further, with some seriously gruesome results. They don't have the tact and finesse that Martin has and seem to portray brutality for shock value rather than forwarding the storyline (yes, all of Martin's suprises have a reason).

Rob, please read the books, then come back and tell us what you think. There is so much more depth to the books than the show, though HBO is doing an amazing job with their writing and cinematography. You seem to be a fantasy fan, but you also seem to be looking for something different from cliched high fantasy. GOT is just as unique as some others that fall into the fantasy genre but also transcend it, like Dune, or Thomas Covenant, or Jhereg, with writing as rich as Guy Gavriel Kay. 

[Rob Babcock]

In what sense is GoT 'hyper realistic'?   The dragons?  The ice zombies?  The carnage?  If anything it's even less realistic than the fantasy books I grew up (Weiss, Hickman, Knack, Goodkind).  It's basically genre fantasy with Showtime/Starz/HBO T&A thrown in to make it more 'adult.'

I really don't have any interest in the books, either.  Roughly 99.99985% of the time fans of a book say the movie/TV show isn't as good.  In a way that's true- a book can spend a thousand pages on something if it needs to where a movie or TV show has to condense things.  Heck, I used to say the same thing.  But over the years I've come to accept that books are books and films are films.  No matter the original inspiration a show/movie has to stand on its own merits.  If I need to read supplemental material to 'understand' a show then that show has failed.  I can't stress enough that it has to be self contained.  Taken to the extreme that's why we see Bruce Wayne's parents die and Superman's planet destroyed every ten years or so.

I'm sure the books are great, and I'm not knocking them.  I just don't think GoT has shown me anything I haven't seen in 35+ years of gaming and reading fantasy.  It's just more of the same with bewbs.  Still it's enjoyable!  Not nearly enough fantasy on TV.

[BobM]

Hyper-reality means depicting the cruelty and gore in all it's realistic glory; not pulling any punches as is done in most other traditional fantasy novels. As I stated, there are many other relatively new authors who are taking that to even more of an extreme than Martin did, but he was the one who first popularized it.

As for your opinion on whether it is worthy to be read ... to each his own. As for me, these books are probably some of the best fantasy I have ever read, and I've been through most of them.

[Rob Babcock]

It reminds me of Stone of Tears (which came out the same year) with regards to violent and sexuality.  I guess both authors take it farther than CJ Cherryh and Piers Anthony did.  I though the series Avatars of Immortality by Anthony was perhaps the most original work of fantasy I've ever read.

At any rate I have no problem with GoT and I imagine the books are good- they have a huge following.  Mostly I just don't read much fantasy anymore.  Sadly most of my reading lately is for school but I read mostly history and philosophy in what I laughingly refer as my 'free time.'  My favorite fiction authors are Nabokov and Dostoevsky, FWIW.

[jqp]

When I first read the books (after seeing part of season 1 of the show) I felt that it was a very realistic look at the middle ages...magic and dragons were mentioned but there was no real evidence for them. Then a little more magic and dragons entered into the story until it did not seem out of place. If it had been all magic and dragons at first (what I would have considered "fantasy genre" I am not sure I would have read the books.

The HBO producers however have made sex and to a lesser extent violence ? much more gratuitous. The blond had to announce she was doing no more nude scenes once she was an integral part of the show to avoid what we would consider as exploitation. Plenty of others willing to be exploited.

The story is like the old fairy tales and songs where violence was a part of the entertainment.


There were two sisters came walkin’ down the stream
Oh the wind and rain
One came high pushed the other one in
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

Johnny gave the youngest a gay gold ring
Oh the wind and rain
He didn’t give the eldest one  a thing
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

She  pushed her into the river to drown
Oh the wind and rain
And watched her as she floated down
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

Pushed her in the river to die
Oh the wind and rain
And watched her body go floatin’ by
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

Floated ’till she came to the miller’s pond
Oh the wind and rain
Father, oh father there swims a swan
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

The miller pulled her out with a line and  hook
Oh the wind and rain
Brought  that fair maid from the brook
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

Left her on the bank to dry
Oh the wind and rain
When a fiddlin’ fool come passing by
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

Down the road came a fidder fair
Oh the wind and rain
Took thirty strands of her long yellow hair
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

And he made a fiddle bow of her long yellow hair
Oh the wind and rain
He made a fiddle bow of her long yellow hair
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

Made fiddle pegs of her long finger bones
Oh the wind and rain
Made fiddle pegs of her long finger bones
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

And he made a little fiddle of her little breast bone
Oh the wind and rain
With a sound that could melt a heart of stone
Oh the dreadful wind and rain

But the only tune that the fiddle would play
Was oh the wind and rain
The only tune that the fiddle would play
Was oh the dreadful wind and rain


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2SIbH1ycXw

[ctviggen]

I personally thought most of the nudity/sex was completely unnecessary, though I only saw the first season.  As for the books, the first three I thought were good, the fourth was bad, and the fifth horrible.  The fifth was so bad, I'm not reading the sixth.  If you kill off enough people, there's no one left, and I found at the end of the fifth book, there was no one I cared about left. 

[Rob Babcock]

I personally thought most of the nudity/sex was completely unnecessary, though I only saw the first season.  As for the books, the first three I thought were good, the fourth was bad, and the fifth horrible.  The fifth was so bad, I'm not reading the sixth.  If you kill off enough people, there's no one left, and I found at the end of the fifth book, there was no one I cared about left.

That's kind of how the TV show is getting.  If there are no characters left to care about the story itself better be amazing...and in GoT the story is not amazing by any stretch. Still, there are a few great characters left.  At least for a couple more weeks.

[Woodsea]

I refuse to read this series...I read at least 2 books (differing genres, history and fiction) at a time and 6 in a month.  I loved being surprised by the wedding and now fretting about Tyrion's lot in life. 
Would I like it if they made other series into books, like the Wheel of Time?  Not until they can do it justice. 
I have heard that the 4th and 5th books are trudging reads, but at least they are in the same time frame?!.  That way HBO gets to use its well payed writers to make each scene count, and keep me glued to the boob tube.
Exploitation?  What do you think the 'middle ages' were?  Elizabethan times?  It was a hardcore mini ice age with little wars and pillaging, with a freshman knowledge of medicine and a seniors apathy for death.  Women and children were not, except for ruling royals, treated as equals to men.  The 20th century came along to help both their causes.  So, gratuitous nudity and violence in today's cinema reenacting a pseudo middle ages storyline is a misnomer.
Please don't fluff up and make pretty the past, it makes forlorn historians wanting the 'good 'ole days'.

[Rob Babcock]

Exploitation?  What do you think the 'middle ages' were?  Elizabethan times?  It was a hardcore mini ice age with little wars and pillaging, with a freshman knowledge of medicine and a seniors apathy for death.  Women and children were not, except for ruling royals, treated as equals to men.  The 20th century came along to help both their causes.  So, gratuitous nudity and violence in today's cinema reenacting a pseudo middle ages storyline is a misnomer.
Please don't fluff up and make pretty the past, it makes forlorn historians wanting the 'good 'ole days'.

Very true.  Yet I don't think they had breast implants back then!   I'm agnostic re implants; I prefer a natural body regardless of size and shape.  It doesn't bother me if a woman wants "enhancements" but it kind of bursts the suspension of disbelief to see a medieval wench with implants.

[Chazro]

I'd agree that books 4&5 aren't as good as the earlier books in the series.  4&5 were supposed to be one volume but Martin introduced so many new characters and locales IMO he lost his way.  The books feel bloated.  As I mentioned before, I've read the series multiple times BUT...after the 1st time when I revisited 4&5 I skipped the chapters with the new stuff and it actually felt much more cohesive and tight!  IMO 4&5 were desperately in need of some heavy editing! 

Here's something to consider.  It's taken HBO 5 seasons to get through the 1st 3 books.  At this rate, it'll take another 4 seasons just to get through book 5!  Historically, to date, HBO has never gone past 7 seasons on ANY of its shows.  Martin isn't anywhere near finished with book 6, let alone wrapping up the series.  Besides being a notoriously slow writer, many (including myself) don't feel his health will ever allow him to finish it! 

I've read that Martin has laid out plot outlines to the producers kinda/sorta with the endgame in sight.  I wonder if it's Martin's intent to wrap up the tale via television!

[BobM]

It would suck if we got to see the ending on TV before the books were completed, but I've also heard that martin has told the show writers what his intended ending is. They might be the only 3 people in the world who knows where this is going.

4 (especially) and 5 - IMO those tertiary families are trying to move themselves up in the world, and mostly getting squashed. There were so many previously unknown characters introduced, then lost, that it made the books hard to follow. Was this necessary to the story line? Probably not, it stopped the main storylines dead and made for a long and trudging read. Hopefully we will see book 6 resolve a few things and taper out the unnecessary characters.

[Rob Babcock]

I was a little disappointed with 'Watchers on the Wall.'  It wasn't bad but it's a shame they devoted the entire episode to something that doesn't feel all that important or interesting.  It kind of dwelt on the least interesting characters and didn't do much to advance the story.  The loss of some of the upper tier of the minor characters felt perfunctory, as though they're just ticking off the "killed off important characters' box so they could get on to the next thing.  Not boring but not all that interesting, either.  My brother noted too that the giant/mammoth thing looked like they ported it directly from Skyrim.

[JoshK]

I didn't read this thread too carefully on purpose to avoid spoilers.   I am on S4E3 (after I post this). 

I saw how the Author was saying that he doesn't use the usual tactic of the good guy always wins, so that the reader/viewer actually feels loss when the characters dies, and in that you are engaged and care as opposed to hollywood where it is expected and accepted that it is ok for peripheral characters to die with no real feeling from the audience.

[John Casler]

Just finished watching all 4 seasons from beginning to the present and waiting for the finally.

Not sure how this is possible but click HERE to VIEW them

[neobop]

In GoT the story is almost an afterthought; really it juggles a lot of pretty pedestrian fantasy cliches.  The characters, that's the strength of the show.  They have cast some brilliant actors and given them well written parts to play.  The show is a great character study and a good examination of human nature.  In some ways it surpasses anything on TV in the last couple decades.  I mean, could they kill Tony Soprano off at the end of season one and still continue without him?  GoT is amazing in the level of cold blooded disregard for any of its characters.  The show will go on but no character is safe.  It more effectively trashes expectations than any program I've ever seen.

That's pretty much it, for me.  It's like an epic tale with far too many main characters to conform to "traditional" drama requirements.  What would Aristotle have said?  Where's the tension laden struggle of the main character, to persevere?  That's what makes it good.  It's refreshing to see characters die off in a way that's more like real life.  Some of the younger ones are left and the legacy of the dead is seen for what it is.

Gratuitous nudity is just a bit of eye candy to keep up...interest.   At least breast enhancement is tastefully done and not of the porn star watermelon variety.  But what's with the author's fixation on castration and penile amputation?  I don't object, it's just that he doesn't seem to know much about the subject.  Why in the World, any world, would the army of the Unsullied be castrated, to make them less affective fighters?  The severe reduction of testosterone would be akin to an athlete taking an anti-steroid, continually.  I suspect the author has emotional issues with this.

I don't know where it will go from here, although I can guess.  The introduction of numerous new characters seems tedious.  The series could have ended with last night's episode - the younger Stark girl riding off into the sunset and Blondie being eaten by one of her dragons.
neo