This is basically why I gave up watching the tv show ages ago.
Books A Song of Ice and Fire (Books) | TV show? What TV show?
- Thread starter Massive Spanner
- Start date
To be fair, while it makes some valid points, it's also heavily selective. I mean, it's criticism of show Tyrion is that he's always drunk, but this pretty much defines book Tyrion in ADWD as well...only in the books we get a shitload more angst and self-pitying from him.
Don't get me wrong, I did really enjoy his book arc and the gradual descent into darkness and self-hatred was the natural path for his character to take, but the show made decent changes: he's now already in Meereen and has met Daenerys, while he's now largely ruling alongside Varys, with whom he makes a good combination. Not to mention that some of his scenes with Jorah (like Jorah finding out his dad died), were all interesting as well.
A lot of the changes have been poor, and they've got a point regarding guys like Jaime and Stannis, but it's really selective. Sansa is called a victim in the show, presumably because she's not directing her own actions, but then book Sansa is still utterly at the whims of Littlefinger too, and she's getting married to a guy who - while not on the level of Ramsay - is known as a bit of a womaniser and could be a shite husband for her. She's hardly some manipulative, calculated character, yet that's what some show fans would rather she was. Despite the fact it'd be really unrealistic.
Aye, it's exaggerated and cherry picked for comedic effect, but it's still close to the bone.
True, plenty of valid complaints.
Do you live in a place with a lot of snow?
Where I grew up, we might get 3 feet of accumulated snow in the entire winter, and we would have piles of snow 10+ feet deep every couple of driveways from snow plows.
Now imagine a castle, where not only is snow drifting up against the walls (that's going to be 10+ feet alone just by itself), but the snow on the battlements getting dumped over the side on top of that. They are not going to be dumping it inside the castle. It's all going outside against the walls.
As a teenager, for shits and giggles me and my friends used to climb up onto the roofs of our houses and jump from 1-2 stories into the snow banks that would pile up from snow sliding off the roofs + the driveway pile.
Totally implausible into less than 10 feet of snow right? The last one is from the 5th floor and into no more than 6 feet of snow.
It was better explained in the books. The thaw on the day of the battle was badly timed in the show.
It had been winter for months by that point in the book and the snow being piled dozens of feet high was fairly well established. The main danger in the books was seemingly from freezing to death
250ft drop in to snow:
350ft but not on purpose!
Bonus extra:
350ft but not on purpose!
Bonus extra:
More like a drop into a frozen lake in the series i think.
When arya is in the dungeon and she hears two people talking and saying "if one hand can die why not another?", who are the two people? I'm about halfway through book 1
Varys and Illyrio Mopatis if I remember right.
Varys you son of a bitch.
Correct.
Varys and eddards relationship in the book was very good actually.
Dont remember if it carried over that well in the series. They had a weird mixture of disdain and respect for each other.
Dont remember if it carried over that well in the series. They had a weird mixture of disdain and respect for each other.
I thought it was done fairly well. They had a good conversation about honour, the realm etc, Varys kinda told Ned he did respect him but wouldn't die for him, and convinced Ned to confess. I thought they got across well that he had a certain level of respect for him.
I just realized upon googling that this line is referring to JonCon and not Jon Arryn. Mind blown!
Why did renly bail on Ned?
Ned refused his offer because of his 'honour'.
From what I remember, renly wanted ned to imprison cersei and declare himself king but ned the idiot wanted to openly discuss his plans with her regarding stannis.
I am. I don't think it's worth watching the show first considering the quality of the previous seasons. What I got annoyed with was mostly not due to book changes so I don't see the next season being any better.
Nah. Renly wanted to declare Joffrey as king and name Ned as hand/regent while getting rid of the Lannisters.
Ahh alright, knew renly wanted him to support someone. Just forgot who, still ned was an idiot.
No doubt about that!
An honorable idiot.
He was a good 2nd in command potentially and I think everything thats happened since kind of reflects well on Robert Baratheon
If he left when he said he would (before Robert died) things might have turned out very differently, he seemingly did a good job holding the north.
He could have just sat up there until the dust settled in the south (with his family).
Maybe he was just muscle though and after the injury fighting Jaime he lost that. He was a good character, I miss ned ....
One down
You're overall view now of the 1st season compared to the books?
Hard to say really since it's been a number of years since I watched the first season. The first season was very difficult to follow in the show, much better in the books though I suppose that comes with the territory.
I felt like the first scene was the most difficult to initially follow when I had no idea what was going on, but on rewatches it's probably one of the more easy ones to follow since there are less characters than there would be in the following seasons.
I'm downloading the audiobooks as I type. I just need more of this world in my life, reading theories and articles on Watchers on The Wall dot net isn't enough. I've read the first 100+ pages of A Game of Thrones but I just can't be arsed to read anymore. It doesn't grip me like it used to which is a shame because I used to love reading autobiographies and such.
The recent casting "speculation" has me overly excited for characters I've only heard mentioned once or twice in the show.
I'm pretty caught up most theories like R+L = J, Gravedigger, Azor Ahai etc and stuff book fans where disappointed over being excluded LSH being the biggest one, although tbh, I don't like the sound of that as it cheapens that characters death, imo.
The recent casting "speculation" has me overly excited for characters I've only heard mentioned once or twice in the show.
I'm pretty caught up most theories like R+L = J, Gravedigger, Azor Ahai etc and stuff book fans where disappointed over being excluded LSH being the biggest one, although tbh, I don't like the sound of that as it cheapens that characters death, imo.Such a nerd.
But LSH is a different person once resurrected. Though I'm not sure what her endgame is beyond Brienne and Jamie. Trying to reread the last book.
Holy flying spaghtetti Monster. Never even thought that was the case.
Idiot is too much IMO. Is something that should be reserved for the likes of Robb Stark.
Ned just was a shit player, mainly because on his ming he wasn't playing the game of thrones but was just doing the honorable thing.
Expand please. Robb's dumbest decision iirc is marrying the chick but wasn't that because of honor too. He popped her cherry or something.
That was dumb and pretty much lost him the war (when he was winning it). Killing the Karstark lord was even more idiotic though and pretty much confirmed both his dumbness and defeat.
Killing the Karstark lord was a complicated decision and kinda necessary after sparing his mom. I think both choices were made because he's truly his fathers son though. Honorable but unable to understand the full weight and consequences of his decisions.
Robb had plenty of bad luck to be fair to him and had to deal with plenty of shit from everyone. His mother let Jaime go, the Karstark guy was half mad, Edmure fecked up allowing Tywin to help defeat Stannis, Theon betrayed him and he himself married Jeyne. He was fecked from the moment his lords crowned him. In hindsight supporting either Stannis/Renly would have been the better choice but then he didn't know about the incest. No character in the series was fecked over as much as him.
His mom was an accident waiting to happen, from the beginning. There was no reason at all to let her with him while he was running an army. Killing the Karstark lord was the worst decision of all, considering that if he deserved beheading then his mum deserved far worst in the first place. Karstark lord made a mistake by breaking direct orders, but that mistake in no way made Starks position weaker. On the other side, what Catelyn did was betrayel of the highest order and significantly weakened Stark's position.
Edmure didn't feck up at all. Robb forgot to tell him that the plan was to allow Tywin pass the river, not to defeat him. Edmure didn't know that. Again, Robb at mistake because he forgot to communicate with his uncle, who was also one of his main generals.
I agree about Theon, it was a risk he had to take. Bolton betraying him was something that he couldn't predict too (despite Stark-Bolton bad relations in the past).
Marrying with Jayne shouldn't ever happen. If he wanted to marry Jayne (because he is so honorable) then he should have bent the knee at the same day and finish the war. You cannot at the same time make war which affects the lives of tens of thousands of your soldiers (with many thousands expected to die for you) and at the same time make those stupid decisions.
On the bright side - maybe because in the show he's older - I forget at times that he was just sixteen years old.
Catelyn was the only reason he had the support of the Riverlands so she was pretty damn necessary. Robb was also hoping (and failing) to win the Vale courtesy of Catelyn. So really even aside from the fact she was his mother (and hence kinslaying) he couldn't possibly kill her even if he wanted to. The main difference between the two incidents was Karstark killed a hostage. A Lannister hostage at that. With Sansa still at KL, Robb had to do something. Either way, neither of these decisions made a big difference.
He wrote his death sentence when he married Jeyne, which might have never happened if Theon hadn't betrayed him. Although there is a pretty decent theory that Robb was befuddled by a love potion from Jeyne's mother....
Of course killing Cat wasn't an option. But leaving her at her father's castle was an option. Something that he did later, when she left Jaime go.
He had the Riverlunds support cause he was Cat's son and so Edmure followed him. The real power came from Edmure who was de-facto lord of Riverlunds. And IIRC, Edmure advides him to not take Catelyn with the army.
Karstark killed a Lannister hostage, and why he was important (being Kevan's son) it wasn't something that can determine the war. On the other side, Jaime capture was somethign that could give Stark's a lot of powers. He could have easily made a Sansa-Jaime swap of hostages, but not a Willem-Sansa.
Of course what Karstark did was wrong, but you don't lose 3 thousands o ro soldiers for that. At times you need to be flexible, and turn a blind eye. Which Robb didn't do, unless when it comes to his and his mother mistakes.
As bad as it sounds, he deserved what he got.
How is releasing a prisoner of war equivalent to killing two prisoners of war and two of your own soldiers?
By killing the guards Karstark left Robb no choice. How you think breaking direct orders with no consequence in a military conflict does not make Robbs position in the army weaker I have no idea. Also I think you're forgetting he told his men to bugger off in the middle of a war!