Me and the wife watched the whole first season this past weekend On Demand. Being totally unfamiliar with books it was a pleasant surprise, even though the first few episodes were a bit of a slog just because I wasn't even sure what kind of series it was outside of the time period.
yea basically the first few episodes everyone that hasn't read the books was over inundated with details, names, story arks, etc... It was a bit hard to remember and follow everything. Honestly the entire season I was hoping they would delve into the Wall more and show us the whitewalkers or w/e they are called. I was so hooked from the first five minutes of the first episode just because of those scenes. They were sick!
I had a very vague idea of what it was about but my wife didn't, think she was kind of ready to give up after the first 2 episodes but I'm glad she kept with it. Esp. as the episodes went along.
Yep. And I missed a lot of little nuances like that which could've been covered in perhaps a sentence or two on the show. That's why I'm reading the first book, despite having seen the TV series.
I would assume most non-book-readers are still fuzzy about the details of the war against the Mad King. The show was very vague about what happened to the Stark family during this time and the Greyjoy's role during this period. The books were much clearer on this topic.
I'm a couple of chapters into A Feast for Crows. Hopefully I can finish it by Tuesday. I'm probably going to have to go on a reading binge this weekend.
I hear ya. I just finished reading Game of Thrones, which I had already seen via HBO anyway, and am a few chapters into Clash of Kings. Needless to say, all I am currently thinking about while at work is reading that book. Considering I have 4 books ahead of me (I'm including Clash of Kings), it will be a very, very long reading binge for me. So much for laddering in StarCraft 2.
I must be a slow reader. 40-50 pages is a good day for me. At this rate, it will take me another week and a half to two weeks to finish A Game of Thrones. I haven't played my XBox in 2 weeks.
http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/07/new-casting-clues-from-grrm/#comments Brienne has been cast: http://www.google.com/search?q="Gwe...&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=vi
Just watched all 10 episodes for the first time this week, and I'm in love with Ice and Fire once again. It seems binge-consumption is my weakness as I can't stand waiting for the story to resume... In the summer of '01, I read GoT because I needed a new fantasy series. In a week I'd read all three novels, and waiting years for Book 4/AFfC was just hell. In the last few years, I gave up on GRRM to release ADwD as a defense mechanism after seeing what happened with Jordan's Wheel Of Time. Seeing the 'Greenlit thread' pop up last year was an annoyance because it rekindled old memories from a decade ago. But after seeing how many non-readers were posting Twitter and Facebook updates about how great this series was, my curiosity was piqued. Random thoughts (didn't read the last 40 pgs): -I love this series in spite of how much stuff is left out. Though it's been several years since I read the books, I can recall what a character on the show is thinking based on their thoughts in the books in addition to the major plot points (impending battles, surprise deaths), so I still have emotional attachment to what happens to people though they may not be on screen for too long i.e. Bran, Jory, Mycah, etc. I also recall the layout of the world, how the Wall is ~3k miles from King's Landing or where Asshai is, which non-readers might not realize if they don't research the intro map on their own. -That being said, I've forgotten minor details like how Sansa came to know about the Clegane brothers (Littlefinger vs. the Hound) so in that way I can rediscover Song of Ice and Fire like a non-reader and not nitpick too much like one who re-read the books recently. -Complaints: I wish the series had a better score like Howard Shore's for LOTR, not just an interesting intro theme. Also, many non-readers might not appreciate the scale of the world or know where various places are. Lastly, next season should split the 2nd book in two as it feels everything is rushed (months in the books = new scene in the TV show without explaining "X weeks/months later..."). Can't wait for Tuesday. I'll be reading the detailed chapter summaries in preparation :grin:
Took me about 2.5 - 3 weeks averaging about 50 pages a day also. You can only take so many wardrobe descriptions a day. There's gotta be an abridged version that nixes the paragraphs dedicated to what each character is wearing.
Lets not forget about the description of food. I recall lamprey was a favorite dish among the Westeros people. Spoiler
She needs to put on some muscle. At least she isn't pretty, Brienne was supposed to be dog ugly though.
They don't seem to care much about muscle in the show- the Baratheons are supposed to be stacked. They just flushed that down the toilet. She's got that nerd-pretty going for her, but I think her look is right. She just needs some 'goofy teeth' thrown in and she'll be perfect:
