Game of Thrones (TV, fantasy) Thread

[XJDenton]

I apologise, I wouldn't have classed anything I said as a spoiler personally, though I shall be more careful from now on.

On the subjects of the books though: GRRM just finished Dance with Dragons. https://www.towerofthehand.com/blog/2011/04/27-dance-with-dragons-is-done/index.html

[The King in Crimson]

Episode 2 was excellent. The series is really clipping along at a nice, fast past. I'm pretty surprised at how far they've gotten in just two episodes. The kid that plays Joff is too good at being a stuck-up douchebag. Actually, so far, I've pretty much liked every casting choice, except for Ilyn Payne. He looked nothing like what I'd imagined him as.

One little nitpick I had: we only see Ghost in like one, brief shot. Maybe they're waiting for the next episode before giving a proper introduction? Also they cut out Bran's dream sequence. I'm not surprised, it's pretty odd and I'm not sure anyone could do it 'justice' without resorting to heavy, mind-altering drugs, but considering it's importance to Bran's story, I wonder how they'll fit all of it back in?

Also, I felt so bad for Nymeria and Lady. Poor, giant, man-eating direwolf pups.

[The Degenerate]

Regarding Bran's dream, I imagine they'll either

1) Open the third episode with it
2) Keep it cut completely - kind of sucks, it was one of my favorite chapters, but it'd be cheesy on TV, and just have Bran explain it vividly through words
3) Maybe save it for Season 2 when the Reeds show up and they have a potentially bigger budget, Bran doesn't have much else to do until Theon comes knocking anyway

I can't see them cutting it completely, Three Eyed Crow seems too important to Bran's story...

[soundgarden]

2nd episode was better.  Peter Dinklage is fucking OWNING Tyrion.  Jaime, Arya, Jon, Cersei, and Ed are being played perfectly. 

Besides Dinklage, the guy they chose for Sandor Clegane is perfect!  He truly looks horrifying!

People should really not throw around details like that without using small font.  This is the TV thread, not the books thread.  Give the people who haven't read the books a chance to not come across any spoilers, no matter how vague.

+1  Spoilers are pretty big deals with this story. 

[The Degenerate]

[Super Dude]

Love.  That kid is a bitch.

[kala1928]

Thoughts on episode 2:

More boobs.

More f***ing.

Interested in seeing more.

[Summers]

I'm impressed with Maisie Williams as Arya.  I usually get really irritated with kid actors but she is really pulling it off well.  She's going to be a great actress I think. 

[The Degenerate]

I think all the child actors are great. The only one that gets on my nerves is Sansa... and she's supposed to

[XJDenton]

Yeah. One thing you can say is that there isnt a weak actor in the bunch.

[skydivingninja]

Any way to legally watch this online?  Don't have HBO and I like what I've read of ASOIAF.

[Super Dude]

Well I'm personally hoping Hulu picks it up eventually.

[YtseBitsySpider]

Any way to legally watch this online?  Don't have HBO and I like what I've read of ASOIAF.

Episode 2.

Legal tv?
Wuzzat!

torrented tv ftw.

[GuineaPig]

Well I'm personally hoping Hulu picks it up eventually.

I don't know if any premium cable channels stream through Hulu.

[faemir]

Hulu will never carry it. You can see it online on HBO Go, what ever that is.

Just "acquire" it, then buy the dvd/bluray boxset to finance futher seasons - it's the norm with premium cable series :S

[The Degenerate]

Yes buy the goddamn DVDs when they're out that's one of the things HBO looks at when considering how long they'll support a series

[XJDenton]

This will be a Blu-ray purchase for me.

[The Degenerate]

Some Petyr Baelish up in this bitch tonight

[Sigz]

I still need to watch this.

[kartmaze2]

Awesome series so far! Pumped to see ep. 3! I hope someone beheads that sleezy prince kid... 

[The Degenerate]

God I love this show.

[Metabog]

I like it. I don't mind the sex at all, and I love the gratuitous violence but I think they could skip some of the walking around naked scenes and sex scenes to add more story content, or at least create some sort of emotional involvement, because so far I don't think I really sympathize with any character, and the ones I kind of do sympathy with (Ned's wife, the bastard son, etc) I mostly sympathize out of pity, and judging from the general tone of the show I doubt there's anything good going their way.

I've never read the books by the way, but I'm a huge fantasy fan and have been waiting for a show like this for a long time. What I'm really waiting for is a bit of irony/dark humor just so I don't feel like killing myself or going to sulk in a corner after every episode. I've always liked high fantasy more than dark fantasy generally, I'm more in the Forgotten Realms kind of group, while GoT reminds me more of something like Dragon Age but even darker.

Overall pretty good so far, just getting ready to get some food and watch the new one.

[Super Dude]

I've decided trying to compare this and LotR is an apples and oranges deal.  GoT is from the looks of it, as Metabog said, a dark fantasy and LotR a high fantasy.  But there's more to it than that: I feel like one is meant to take GoT as sort of "the historical account of this land," where as LotR may even be taken as "the mythologized history" which is meant to be embellished with a glorified heroic cast.  LotR is the epic of Beowulf; GoT is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (and of course each of these I've heard were based on both of those real-world works respectively).

[yorost]

A Song of Ice and Fire is not only undoubtedly high fantasy but falls into the same common subclassifications as Lord of the Rings.  That is, they're both epic sagas and take place in worlds separate from ours(possibly ambiguous as histories or futures).  If you're going to call them apples to oranges you really can't compare many books/series at all.

[Super Dude]

That's why I said GoT though; I've never read the books.  I was merely comparing the series as it stands so far to the LotR movies.  Although LotR itself is modeled in some sense after Beowulf and the Bible, so it is meant to have that sort of feel of "this is not the historical account, but the mythologized history passed down and now recorded."

[chknptpie]

Just watched the two episodes yesterday, definitely looking forward to more.

[Summers]

[faemir]

A Song of Ice and Fire is not only undoubtedly high fantasy but falls into the same common subclassifications as Lord of the Rings.  That is, they're both epic sagas and take place in worlds separate from ours(possibly ambiguous as histories or futures).  If you're going to call them apples to oranges you really can't compare many books/series at all.

The differece is that LotR is written in an old english style, whilst Fire and Ice most certainly is not.

[Super Dude]

*funny pic*

For some reason this reminds me of that Steve Jobs-Bill Gates meme.

[yorost]

A Song of Ice and Fire is not only undoubtedly high fantasy but falls into the same common subclassifications as Lord of the Rings.  That is, they're both epic sagas and take place in worlds separate from ours(possibly ambiguous as histories or futures).  If you're going to call them apples to oranges you really can't compare many books/series at all.

The differece is that LotR is written in an old english style, whilst Fire and Ice most certainly is not.

...so?

[faemir]

A Song of Ice and Fire is not only undoubtedly high fantasy but falls into the same common subclassifications as Lord of the Rings.  That is, they're both epic sagas and take place in worlds separate from ours(possibly ambiguous as histories or futures).  If you're going to call them apples to oranges you really can't compare many books/series at all.

The differece is that LotR is written in an old english style, whilst Fire and Ice most certainly is not.

...so?

There is a distinct difference in their categorisation - LotR is pretty alone by itself - I don't know any other books that are written as 'old epics', whilst Fire and Ice can be lumped in a category with hundreds of other books.

Whilst both are fantasy, within the fantasy genre, they are utterly distinct, just like Opeth and Metallica are.

[abydos]

Loved the third episode. Arya is awesome, perfectly fits and portrays her character. Still can't believe how great the casting for the series is - how did they manage to find all those characters who look and act so well, just like in the books?

The more I look at Ned the sadder I get. SB is so awesome as Stark, I really wish he wouldn't die in the stupidest way possible.

As for genre classification I always took Fire and Ice to be more of a medieval fiction novel with very little fantasy in it. If such a book was written but it didn't portray things happening in a medieval world but in current times it would probably be put with thriller books with some supernatural shit going on.

[yorost]

A Song of Ice and Fire is not only undoubtedly high fantasy but falls into the same common subclassifications as Lord of the Rings.  That is, they're both epic sagas and take place in worlds separate from ours(possibly ambiguous as histories or futures).  If you're going to call them apples to oranges you really can't compare many books/series at all.

The differece is that LotR is written in an old english style, whilst Fire and Ice most certainly is not.

...so?

There is a distinct difference in their categorisation - LotR is pretty alone by itself - I don't know any other books that are written as 'old epics', whilst Fire and Ice can be lumped in a category with hundreds of other books.

Whilst both are fantasy, within the fantasy genre, they are utterly distinct, just like Opeth and Metallica are.

You can categorize almost any series apart from one another if you want.  Of course they are different in many major aspects, but they still fall into the same most commonly used genres and even subgenres.

[Super Dude]

I mean I remember watching this doc about the writing of LotR and Tolkien was apparently compelled to write a mythology due to Britain's lack of surviving legends from before the Norman Invasion (the Normans burned it all...'cept Beowulf).  He meant for it to be Britain's lost legend, based on a wealth of early pre-England Germanic and Saxon sources.

I don't think most fantasy writers in the modern era can make the same claim, as most of them are probably inspired by cinema and even by LotR itself.  From what I can tell from the GoT show, it's a different beast entirely, mostly because it's try to tell a different kind of story in a different kind of way.  Like I said, if LotR is Beowulf, GoT is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (granted for a fictional world seemingly based on pre-Norman England).

Fake edit: Plus as many have said, LotR relies heavily on fantasy elements and apparently GoT does not, or at least not as much.

[yorost]

FYI, A Song of Ice and Fire draws from the War of Roses, loosely at least.

I never said Tolkien and Martin aren't different, of course they are.  What they are not are wildly different works that you can't even compare.  An art instruction book is wildly different than LoTR.  Romance novels are extremely different than Tolkien.  If you want to get closer than Martin to Tolkien you're starting to get into the realm of looking for Tolkien clones.

Tolkien did have the intention of it becoming a new mythology, but that doesn't change that it was in fact it is still what we consider high fantasy.  If those exact books were released today nobody would even bat an eye at lumping it in with the rest of high fantasy without consideration of the author's intent.  It is impressive and noteworthy, but it isn't odd for a series to have some special meaning beyond the story.

Fake edit: Plus as many have said, LotR relies heavily on fantasy elements and apparently GoT does not, or at least not as much.

...and also as many have pointed out A Song of Ice and Fire slowly unveils the fantasy elements of the series.  Some of it is present immediately without being obvious.