If anyone spoils the leaked episodes before they actually air, Ill ban you for a week. That being said, Id give the premiere a B. Season openers have never been this shows strong suit, they are always relegated to skpping around to check-in with the characters in their respective story lines. Except for Bran and Hodor, I read that they are on hiatus the entire season since the rest the stories have to get caught up. I still dont care about Dany's side story.
If you download anything, via torrents. Get a VPN post haste. Or use a service like Put.io which Flat_Rate has used with zero problems. I don't think any GoT premiere has been anything higher than a B. They have to check in with 50 characters (still not getting to all of them) and reset a ton of shit. This season is going to be different than the books and I'm perfectly fine with it. It's getting double the content with the same characters you know and love.
I cannot wait for the hardcore fan butthurt though. You KNOW its coming, like winter supposedly is five fucking seasons on.
Well I know VI won't be happy. I could careless, I'm in the camp of Nett right now. I'm seeing it as two different things. And given him adding this twist to Winds of Winter, you KNOW he's going to change some shit up for the last book. I'm not enraged, I mean the characters we give a fuck about are still those same characters, I like seeing them and hanging out with them.
Whatever, as a book guy, I cannot wait to see them turn the content of this season (Books 4 and 5 basically) into something with an actual point, plot, and useful narrative that's fun to watch. Book 5, in particular, needs the kind of tightening you only see in the assholes of new prison inmates. So more power to the show; anyone who might possibly make Mereen watchable or interesting is ok in my book.
I stopped watching after a little bit into season 2 because the pacing was terrible. I also totally agree with you with regard to book 5; it's clearly the weakest book so far. If the TV show does as you're saying here, I may pick it up again.
So the Cersei flashback/witch prophecy most obviously alludes to Margeary replacing her as Queen. But Dany also fits the criteria
Pretty sure in the trailer there is a clip where it looks like they're coming back out. She just burned a "King" which means she has to release the power somehow. Probably going to involve them coming out.
I thought that was a great episode. So glad they brought Bronn back into the picture, he and Jaime will be an awesome team because of their combination of cockyness and epic one-liners. Jacken. YES. My favourite character from season 2, Arya always has great team-ups but this one I looked forward to for years. Is Dani going out of her way to shit the bed for this season? Cersei is a cunt, cunt, cunt, cunty fucking cunt. Jesus the combination of losing Tywin while "gaining" more of her is as fun as being a patient during amateur eyeball surgery. The small council is a pale shadow, now run exclusively by hysterical dingbats. There's no fucking way they're stopping Stannis when he marches on them.
She did make a tough call, but I think it was the right call. If she doesn't enforce the rules, no one will respect her. Even if the people of the town are going to rebel and a lot will probably die because of it. I like how Jon Snow got voted to lead the nights watch. I wonder if he will get them to fight with Stannis.
Yeah, unfortunately this show became what I feared it would last year when they started deviating so greatly from the books. By doing so, they put themselves into a corner, and now have to continue absurd storylines. Last night was a great example, as now half of the storylines are completely made up. And even the ones that are in the books are increasingly done in an absurd fashion - like Jon's 'Election' -, I suppose to make a better viewing experience. In short, I'm out. I get that a lot of people really like the show, and it's well done, no doubt. Unfortunately, the storylines are becoming of poor quality (hackish, obvious and absurd) when compared to the books, and it's tough for me to pretend they are as good. They aren't. Anyway, have fun with the show kids. I'll wait for the books.
Well, we're here folks. This is officially the point where the book readers really have no fucking clue HOW certain things are going to go down. There are still some big WHAT items we know have to get checked off, but somethings were bigger deals in the books now made small (like Jon's election) and vice versa. All the changes make sense based off the fact you can't have 1 million characters and you want people to remember shit. I'm slightly disappointed in this episode only because I thought with all the things they were moving fast with, they'd do more with Arya's story and/or get balls deep in Dorne. They still hopped around a lot moving everything just a little bit. Good to see Jaq'en comeback because the old man in the books was kind of boring. At least we'll have his funny way of talking.
Was Jon's election that much different in the books? Sam had a bigger role behind the scenes but it basically played out the same way no?
It wasn't that different, just spread out over a longer period, and Janos Slynt was actually nominated. I've seen a lot of book readers huff off all whiny, and I actually find it isn't usually "they changed it! Argh!" As it is "you mean I can't lord my knowledge over show watchers anymore? This is BULLSHIT!" I've literally heard book readers say they stopped watching because they hate that they don't know what's coming. How fucked is that? Edit: didn't want to come off like I'm accusing VI of quitting the show for that reason. Not my intent, he just reminded me of convos I've had with other book readers recently.
Well for the record, I'm not the above. I'm enjoying not knowing. I understand MOST of the changes, but I'm just annoyed in the pacing. If they're going to run, I want them to run with the exciting shit. I hate we only got 5 minutes of Dorne. Rather go balls deep or wait until you're ready. I just hate being teased.
I think to stop watching the show because it deviates from Martin's plot is doing the show a disservice. I think HBO deserves more credit than that. They rarely make a shitty original show. I think book readers should be more excited because it means they can actually feel tension and suspense like the rest of us.