[Game of Thrones] Season 2

And less beard. Based on the previews so far though, Renly looks much closer to how he was written, as opposed to last season.

They did a really nice job of ugly-ing up Brienne.

 

Completely agree. I figured HBO with their sex/nudity-quota for every show would tone down the ugly.

Also agree that Stannis looks wrong. Not just the hair, but the size; I pictured him bigger. Liam Cunnigham (Davos) looks closer to how I pictured Stannis. Mellisandre seems too young.

 

I agree and I think he looks too old to be Davos, I always imagined him to look more about 40ish considering the age I imagined his children.

 

I just finished reading CoK and now I can't wait for the new season! I read GoT after watching the season one and was impressed by how closely they followed the book, even with much of the exact same dialog. I will probably start SoS next week. I thought CoK was better than GoT and with out going into detail there seemed to be a lot more 'Oh ****!' moments. My favorite being when Theon see's his sister for the 1st time in a decade.

 

Wow, that looks amazing! Has to be some of the most difficult filming conditions ever taken on by a production company, considering the budget, and that it's produced by a cable network. I spent a brief time in Iceland in 1971, when my Icelandic Air flight to Luxembourg stopped there for a few hours. This was at the beginning of March, and man, it was cold. Got lucky because it wasn't snowing. Just clear as a bell. I'd love to go back someday and really see the country.

Thanks, Commodore.

 

I did the same thing. I'm around 1/3 of the way through SoS.

 

I stand corrected. They did a good job.

 

As always props to HBO for spending the cash to get it right. Looking forward to seeing Iceland on film in April.

 

I totally agree on the Davos-Stannis thing. You could almost just switch the two actors -- just in terms of looks -- and be better off.

I definitely pictured Stannis as older, balder, and more bitter-looking. Davos as somewhat younger.

 

The threw the Baratheon look out the window in season one. Renly is supposed to be Robert when he was younger, who was supposed to be this huge warrior. Instead we got effeminate for one and chubby for the other(not big gone soft), both smallish. Pretty much smashed the idea that Stannis would fit his description for me.

 

Liam Cunningham (Davos) just turned 50. Davos had 7 kids in the book and they were old enough to fight in the war. How young did you really think Davos was supposed to be? He is described as "slight with a common face and brown eyes and hair with a beard peppered with gray." I think he's a perfect casting.

As far as Stannis goes, Stephen Dillane is a fabulous actor. His performance as Thomas Jefferson in "John Adams" was spectacular. I do wish he had a beard, though. I can deal with the lack of balding, but whatever.

 

All of the ages are off on the show. The children, including Rob and Jon as well as Daenerys, are all under 15. Robert and Ned were both supposed to be 35 when they died. Stannis is supposed to be 2 years younger than Robert.

I have no idea how old Davos is supposed to be but he was old enough to have 7 sons. I'd imagine him to at least be around the same age as Ned and Robert (who each had at least 6 children including bastards) if not a little older.

 

I am sure he is a fine actor. That doesn't mean he looks like the Stannis described in the books.

 

Neither did Jon Snow or Robert Baratheon, etc, but it turned out great. So I'm going to trust it will work out fine.

 

I thought Jon looked about right? I may have to do a re-read. My feeling was that Sean Bean didn't have anything resembling the "Stark look". Of course, that ended up working out fine.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. Tywin was supposed to be bald with bushy sideburns, but Charles Dance did a brilliant job portraying him so that's pretty much how I now picture TL.

From what I've see so far, it actually looks like they did a much better job with Renly this season.

 

One thing about the TV series that really surprised me was that Loras Tyrell (the Knight of Flowers) and Renly are portrayed as a gay couple.

I am currently 2/3rds through "A Feast for Crows" and I don't remember anything that indicated their gayness in any of the previous books.

Did I simply overlook this fact, or was this just a new twist that was added for the TV show?

Not that there's anything wrong with it... it just caught me off guard to see Loras shaving Renly's armpits sensually before kneeling down to give him a full-fledged BJ.

 

It was subtly hinted at, but not overtly stated.

http://www.angelfire.com/ma4/mlarchives/faq/lorasrenly.html

 

Interesting. Seeing all that info compiled into one page makes it seem almost obvious.

 

Also, on a different matter altogether, concerning the Clegane brothers...

Spoiler

Was anyone else disappointed that both the Hound and Ser Gregor were killed off? The story seemed to be building toward a dramatic clash between these two, but before you know it they were both killed off by other, entirely unrelated, incidents. I was really rooting for the Hound to take down Gregor and get his revenge.

I did enjoy the Red Viper vs. Gregor battle immensely, though, even if the final outcome was easy to predict.