Nope, anger over not knowing what's coming. They claim they don't know, they're annoyed, and it's harder to follow.
My issue is that the show writers aren't as subtle, intelligent, or funny as George R.R. Martin and the story isn't made better by their changes. It is still very good though and I'm still watching.
Did not take your post that way, at all. I'll list (with spoilers for the folks that don't want to know) the types of changes I'm referring to that, in my opinion, have hurt the story: Spoiler: Jaime/Cersei/Tyrion People really want the first 3 books to be about the Starks, but they aren't. These books, and the subsequent two are about the battle for Jaime's soul. When the series starts, Jaime has very few, if any, redeeming qualities. The only one that seems to actually think there's something to him is Tyrion. Later, Brienne becomes the foil that lets us see Jaime as more than just the bad guy. Martin does a masterful job of fleshing all three of these characters out, but Jaime's arc is incredible. Now cue the writers of the show and they have Jaime rape Cersei. There is absolutely no good reason, and many, many bad ones, to make this change. Frankly, this one incredibly shitty change has ruined one of the main plot points in AFFC and DoD. Again, this story is in large part about the battle for Jaime's soul and if he can become a better man. We find out why he killed the king, we find out that there's more to him than the spoiled child. We find out he really loves Cersei - only to find out in the end that she will never love anyone but herself. Hence, the most powerful scene when she sends the note saying 'I need you, I need you, I need you' and Jaime tossing it into the fire. Would a rape victim send that note to her rapist? I doubt it. Total plot line killer. Spoiler: Jon's Election What the show did a horrible job of, unless they were trying to emulate the end of 'Rudy' is show just how Jon became the Commander. This storyline was all about Samwell, and showing what a badass he could be when he had to. So far, he's nothing more than the fat incompetent friend, but this storyline showed his true measure - and the storyline that follows - Sam going with Aemon and Gilly to the Citadel makes a hell of a lot more sense if you realize that he's the one that made Jon commander behind the scenes. He was a tremendous political animal, threatened, cajoled, and lied for Jon to become Commander. Now? He's the simpering friend that nominated his friend and they had the 'public' vote with Aemon breaking the tie. Very trite and hackish and totally lacking in the necessary character development. Spoiler: Brienne If the writers are going to keep her in the show, the least they could do is not make her look like a complete retard. Her main function was as a foil to Jaime, to help him develop to become the man that sees Cersei - and himself - truly, and make the necessary changes. However, she also has another function. She's the only one that has never sullied her honor with a political choice. She gives her word to Lady Stoneheart to find Sansa and Arya. While the storyline at times was boring - at least it made sense. Why did it make sense? Because she was forever looking and never finding them. She never meets Arya or Sansa to date in the books. In the show? She's now met them both, they want nothing to do with her (which is a bullshit twist, because both of them were dying for someone to take up their cause and help them in the books) so now she's what, exactly? Her whole storyline is shot. She's superfluous. She's going to walk around still trying to keep her word to Lady Stoneheart even now? And further, her storyline intersects with Jaime's, to quite the cliffhanger at the end of DoD. Which brings me to... Spoiler: Jaime Goes to Dorne? What the fuck were the writers thinking? This one has obvious written all over it. In the book, a different Kingsguard goes to Dorne and has an affair - that tears him up - with one of the SandSnakes. Does this storyline have the same power with Jaime? Not at all. He's not falling from grace. It appears (and this is probably why I'm done with the series) that they are setting this up for Jaime to have the affair in order to create bullshit tension between Cersei and the Sandsnake. What makes Jaime's storyline so powerful in the books is the fact that he doesn't run to anyone else - he rejects Cersei when he finally faces what she is. Now it's going to be a love triangle? Blech. Furthermore, now we don't get to see the changed Jaime go to eh Riverlands and negotiate peace and actually become the man Tyrion always thought he could be. We also don't get to see the devastation that the wars have wrought on the common people, which was the whole fucking point of books 4 and 5. Spoiler: Margaery Not quite sure why her character has been treated the way she has been. She is very astute in the books, and is the main conflict for Cersei, instead, they've turned this into some Dynasty bullshit where they're probably going to do a 'Housewives' reunion show. The power struggle, that at the end of book 5 Margaery appears to win with the imprisonment of Cersei and impending trial, just would seem to come out of nowhere now because they've done a piss poor job of setting up. Maybe they'll do so later, but I'm not optimistic about it. They've totally taken all the wind out of the sails of this character. Speaking of ruining female characters... Spoiler: Dany's Line A seemingly innocuous thing, but by changing the ages (ostensibly so they could show her tits) - the writers have ruined this storyline. Why? In the books Dany is very young. She is trying to find her way, and she makes lots of mistakes. The books keep you enthralled because in the back of your mind you think 'well, she's really young, and trying to figure it out.' In the show? She's clearly old enough to know better and comes across with a false bravado and just generally looks like a fucking idiot because anyone her age in the world created Martin should damn well know better than to do the shit she does. Now, I will certainly agree the storylines in Books 4 and 5 are not nearly as exciting as prior books, clearly Martin is setting up the end game. By changing so much, not really sure why I'm supposed to care (based on the TV writers) what the endgame is now. Hence, why I'm not interested in the show anymore, because the parts of the story that I found so engaging have been changed. Yes, they hit the high points, and it comes down to this: some people like the end result - i.e. Jon becomes Commander. And yes, in the show, like the book, he does. But some people - and me - care just as much about the story of how we got here - and in that regard, the writers have done great violence to Martin's work, basically destroying the wonderful interconnected tapestry he wove for easy bullshit motivations that don't do the characters justice - in my opinion. If you like the show, great! I wasn't kidding when I said that I hope you all continue to enjoy it. But for me? It's not the story I loved, and it has nothing to do with me not knowing what's coming next. I actually like that, and would have happily continued to watch for that reason alone. The problem is the damage done to the main characters is too great for me to give a shit about any of them. If you still care about them, again, great. Not every show is for everyone. And my only point is the brilliance of Martin's writing, the subtlety, the humor, the conflicted motivations and self reflections of some of the best characters created in generations, have been done away with for reasons that don't seem to advance the story. And once it got to that point - and for me, that was last night's episode, - I have to say 'Ok, I'm done here. I no longer care.' Doesn't mean YOU shouldn't care, it just means I don't.
I think you're being really harsh VI. It sounds to me like you fell in love with the book story, pinned all of your expectations on that and now you can't stomach any deviations. Spoiler Jaime - The books are not just about this character. He's a major player among several others. Most importantly he didn't rape Cersei in the show. That was just confusion from the audience. Believe me, if that scene was supposed to be a rape they would have followed up with some serious repercussions with the relationship between those two characters. What you're looking for can still happen with this character. You're jumping the gun and all of your critique is based off a misinterpretation. Jon's election - I somewhat agree here, but you have to be realistic and accept that to squeeze all the material in the books some things are just going to get left on the cutting floor. Samwell isn't one of the most important characters, and they've established he's not just a dimwitted weakling with his protection of Gilly in earlier episodes. I liked that plot line, but I can live with the adjustment. Brienne - I don't man, I think you're alone on this one. Remember that story line from books 4 and 5 that everyone absolutely hated? The endless never go anywhere meandering all over the fucking realm? If anything needed to be changed this was it. Jaime goes to Dorne - All of your complaints are based on things that haven't happened yet. Let's see how it actually plays out before we rip it to shreds. And I thought the kings guard didn't have an affair with a sand snake, it was Arianne. Margaery - See, what I remember from the books is we actually get to know a lot less about this character. She doesn't get very much screen time, and fleshing out her actions and personality is something we are undoubtedly see more of in the show. Cersei's imprisonment is already being set in place. After all she armed that fanatic cult, and we can already see it biting her in the ass. In the end it's not so much Margaery outmaneuvering her as it is Cersei fucking herself. ] Dany - In the show she's still a teenager. They just added 3 years or so. This isn't the pinnacle of wisdom and intellectual development we're talking about here. Besides, look at the stupid shit characters twice her age do. Oh my God she's 18, or maybe even 19! How could someone with such a wealth of experience make mistakes? In short, you're really reaching on this one and this is just criticizing for the sake of criticizing. I find it kind of funny because while I'm trying to refute your objections here, there was one very important change so far this season that really bothered me, and it's one you left out.
Let's keep any further spoiler talk to the book/tv thread so people aren't even tempted to be spoiled. I understand some of Vi's complaints, it's just not all of that was possible in a TV show. But in terms of the show, and not comparing it to the books. It is pretty damn exciting.
In a word, no. This is precisely why there is a spoiler function. If adults can't contain themselves from clicking it here, what's going to prevent them from doing so in the book thread? We're all big boys and girls. Sometimes you need to reference something that may happen in the future, especially when a show makes changes to source material. It's all fair game, so long as it's spoilered for those who don't want to know.
All I know is I can't wait to see VI's 14 page reviews of every remaining episode of this season... Which he is only continuing to watch to compare with the books later, of course. For real though, do the books show more of Melisandre's tits than this??? Because this is some straight up bullshit. Get me Martin on the line, stat.
I definitely don't remember last season's random bathtub scene with her and Stannis' bitch wife in the books. Thank the lord that actress doesn't give a fuuuuuuck, cause she has nice titties. I also stood up and cheered during Furious 7 when I realized the inexplicably hot hacker girl was Dany's slave girl who exposed her grade A tits for Grey Worm. I really don't remember that storyline at all and must have been added by a brilliant producer who wanted to see that actress nude or to make up for the lack of random handmaiden banging by Dany which is lacking in the show.
This last episode was awesome. This is what I was kind of hoping for in episode 2, but they had to set the table some more. Jon being the emo badass that he is, also Samwell having a little weight to back-up Jon. Arya, Arya, Arya, motherfucking badass in training. Having Jaqen back is way more exciting than the old guy in the books. Same general beats, welcome change. Also forgot how fucking interesting Roose Bolton is, really reflective of how Martin doesn't really want to make people seem evil, just ambitious. Now there is Sansa, Littlefinger, Ramsay, Theon, and Roose all under one roof. This shall be interesting, to me it looks like Theon is a little less broken and more aware of is situation. Hopefully he can become a man again.
I'm really disappointed in the lack of creepiness Baelish is displaying toward Sansa. I mean, he's actually acting like he's her caring uncle...total bullshit. On the other hand, it's incredibly exciting to watch the show now. I have no idea what's going to happen, and it's awesommme. Now the books AND the show are gonna be new and weird and part bad part good. Yay!
Sansa: Yes, he chose her...and then he kidnapped her and raped her. Baelish: ...*shifty eyes* Now that my favorite part of the show has been commented on, holy crap, I literally jumped forward at the end thinking Barristan was going to eat it. This show is getting awesome. Now I finally feel all the excitement non-book readers have been feeling. WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENINNNNG. Also, Jamie and the sword-catching hand. Priceless.
I love how the Stone Men thing finally paid off. Also, SO fucking excited have had that visual experience in Valyria. Not going to go too deep into the show, but holy fuck they killed it with the cinematography.
Pretty much my suspicions on Jon Snow's "background" has been confirmed via entirely through foreshadowing and facial expressions. It's always fun watching Tyrion passive-aggressively crawl under someone's skin. He's always thinking two steps ahead of who he's talking to. And please don't let Jorah go down like this. It sucked enough we lost an awesome knight like Barristan. Stannis' bitch wife needs to be thrown from a horse head-first into jagged rocks. She exhausted her own use as a character her very first scene on this show. Dragons should dine on her instead.
I loved that episode, but now that everyone is caught up please tell I'm not the only one finding the Sansa/Ramsay storyline completely ridiculous. It's entertaining, but there's no way Sansa goes through with it even to this point. Nor, have they really even tried to make sense of it beyond some half assed speech from Baelish.
Yeah, I think the only thing that they've done to even attempt to make this storyline plausible was Baelish telling her that she'd "learned how to maneuver from the best".
It seems that simply using the line "You are my son" has a LOT of stroke when you are either Charles Dance (Tywin) or look a lot like Charles Dance (Roose).
As creepy and believable when torturing people that actor hasn't been pulling off the rest of what they are trying to do with his character now in my mind. His stand up doggystyle scene with the kennel master's daughter was drawn out and hilariously awkward.
Well, a lot of story-lines and characters from the books got dropped, but I am enjoying seeing the awesomeness play itself out. Watching Viserion and Rhaegal eat a schmuck was awesome.