*Edited by RockHawk - Inappropriate for Lounge, changed to something slightly less offensive.

March 31st can't come soon enough

George R Martin better hurry up and write a little bit faster or the tv series is going to catch up with the books and not be able to finish itself. Still at least 2 books to go with generally 5 or 6 years between books. Great TV series, but far greater books, imo.

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The second season lost me, I'm afraid. I think the TV series is fairly good overall, but the books are just so much better, and it sort of turned me off of the TV show.

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Rzzzzz...

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

Oh, shut up. You just don't like anything American with British people in it.

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

Good for you dude... the best show on tv right now won't miss you

Have you read the books? Not bashing the show (and I dont think Peaches was either) because I enjoy it but the show is basically the Cliff Notes version of the written series.

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I've read the books and loved them. They're my favorite. Love the show. I can't imagine it being done much better than it has been.

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

After watching the first 2 seasons I wanted to know what happened so I read book 3 w/o reading the first 2. I just finished book 3 a few days ago actually but I wont start on the 4th book for a while. I do plan on going back and reading the first 2 though.

BTW so pumped for the hotness of Dany this season and the ass kicking she gives

I did the exact same thing...just finished book 4, found out I didn't download book 5...son of a...still can't wait for season 3. Dany is.....hot damn....you guys seen her w/o the peroxide? humina.
Curious how much walking dead will be left when GoT starts..(same time)
I really hope they do book 3 justice, there's some cool stuff in there.

-SH

She looks way better brunette but blonde is OK USA!!!

Anyway, read the books before you watch IF AT ALL POSSIBLE. For those it's too late for, sorry. But for the rest a ya's? Resist temptation! Read em!!!

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

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President of the Perfect Parents Society - est. 2013

lol thats funny!

I read all of the books and liked them as long as there was a Tyrion or Arya chapter on the horizon but
I like the show much better. George Martin is not a good writer, in my opinion. He is not Stephanie Meyer
bad, but he is a guy that seems to like to hear himself talk and weave this huge, aggregate mess. Robert Heinlein compared
writing to masturbation and in that sense, apologies to the great Dave Chappelle, George Martin beats his meat like
it owes him money. He's flagellated himself until there is a teeny, bloody stump left.

He's created an interesting world and story, but the guy seriously needs a editor with the balls to stand up to him.

Couldn't disagree more. Have you ever read Robert Jordan?

***IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOKS AND WANT TO ENJOY SEASON 3 TO IT'S FULL CAPACITY DON'T READ THE LAST LINE IN PEACHES' NEXT POST. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED, NOW DO WHAT YOU WILL***

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

I kinda agree with riley. I prefer the show, but mostly for personal reasons. I prefer my novels to follow a handful of characters, with a clear main character. Not saying that isn't overused or that some people may find it boring or anything, its just what I like in sitting down to enjoy a book. I tend to get REALLY attached to certain characters, so when they aren't mentioned for a whole book or half a book it makes me lose interest. Hour long tv shows don't really have that problem for me.

George Martin is a great writer however, and I think he deserves all the kudos given to him. His books are extremely interesting and I had a lot of trouble predicting what would happen next. (Which is a good thing!)

Robert Jordan... man I have such conflicting feelings on his books. He was part of what drew me in to fantasy in the beginning, and I really want to reread some of his books so I can read the new ones written by Brandon Sanderson. (who I am a huge fan of) But man I just remember them being so friggin long and meandering.

Brandon Sanderson though, boy is he an awesome writer. I've heard nothing but good things about how he has been handling the WoT that Robert Jordan left behind, which I thought would be next to impossible with how many unfinished story lines he had going. If you like epic fantasy I REALLY recommend his Stormlight Archive series, beginning with The Way of Kings. That book is a freaking masterpiece, he put the 2nd novel on hold to write WoT, but the new one is coming out in the fall. The world it takes place in is a world of insanely violent storms, so all of the plants and animals have shells they need to retract into in order to survive. I'll describe more about some of the characters and stuff too if anyone's interested, but he's a great writer, and its a very good world and story. I'm rambling, I've been a huge fan of fantasy and sci-fi novels for quite a while so I'll stop here.

blonde dragon chic is so hot >;)

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"Are we rockin' and rollin' or what?!''

-- Seattle coach Pete Carroll, celebrating with his coaches after the Seahawks pulled off a trade with the Jets, netting running back Leon Washington on Saturday, via Seahawks.com

I watched the first season with my wife and as I going through all the books she would ask.... how is this person doing or this one or this one and my answer was usually dead, Dead and DEAD

The books would kinda lose me for a chapter or two as it would focus on characters I was not all that intrigued by or introducing new ones, but overall I loved the books.

Season two is growing on me, some of the characters are not how I had envisioned them when reading the books. But its better then I remembered season 1.

I have been alternating between GOT and Deadwood lately so im quite done with season 2.

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http://personal-spectrum.com/

C'mon, Ben. Don't bugger it up for everybody.

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

I can't help it, Michael. I am who I am.

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Rzzzzz...

You can help it. You chose not to, and I respect that about you.

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

FBFFLB

Facebook Friends For Life, Brah

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Rzzzzz...

Peaches is posting from San Francisco right now...

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Is that what it shows? I'm at work. I always thought our network went through Alpharetta, GA.

Anyway, you shut up.

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Rzzzzz...

Sure "your network goes through Georgia," NinerLifer

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Shhhhhhhhh! goddammit, you want to get us all killed?

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Rzzzzz...

f*** my life. I just read Peach's spoiler ridden post.

Dammit.

Oh well. I still cant wait til the show starts back up.

I've got Shameless, Southland, Boston's Finest, House of Lies, Walking Dead, and other shows to keep me entertained far past the 31st.

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Man, I'm sorry. (I'm not)

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Rzzzzz...

I've never understood why people would want to spoil things like that. Any chance I could convince you to explain?

Because I can. Because it provides me some mild amusement. Because I dislike the general public.

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Rzzzzz...

I find that so odd. It's a series of books that you claim to love, yet you go out of your way to make sure that other people don't enjoy it as much as you did.
Also, don't you think the agony of that event being a surprise is better than, I don't know, whatever it is you just did.

To each his own, I guess. Luckily, I don't have anyone like you in my life.

Anyway, back to the original topic of this thread.
I'm a big fan of the books as well.
I like the show, but I wish that I could see it as a non-reader. I agree that there isn't really much of a better way they could've done the show, but I still find myself nitpicking quite a lot of things.
Season two had some pretty major departures from the books. In some cases, this worked really well. In others, I think it weakened the story.
A small example would be the scene where Jon is sent to execute Ygritte. In the books, he makes the decision to let her go. In the show, she escapes and Jon looks like a bumbling idiot. It's just a change that I don't understand.
Season three should be quite good.

Geez, my Niners fan joke was being too kind, what a dick.

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LargentFan, you just described some of the main reasons why I dislike the show now. The departures from the book were completely unnecessary in my eyes in the second season. First season was fantastic. I just got disillusioned with season 2 and don't really care to watch season 3.

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Rzzzzz...

Peaches,
That's just a dick thing to do. Seriously. I've never seen the series, but I still think it was a dick move. It looks like someone removed it, and I'm hoping it was you. You jump into troll posts claiming to do so at the betterment of our community, but then loose all credibility by directly giving the same community the bird with this.

Don't pull that kind of shit around here, please.

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Aye, alright. I didn't remove it, for the record, but I'll not do that sort of thing on here in the future.

And my troll bashing is absolutely for the betterment of the community, but I still have to live up to the custom moniker you felt compelled to bestow upon me.

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Rzzzzz...

I think your new moniker should be Spoiler Alert.

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

Season 2 did indeed have many departures from the books, but I was able to see a reason for them pretty much every time.

The Jon Snow/Ygritte one served to drastically shorten the time needed to put Jon with the wildlings, and find a halfway plausible reason for him to whack Halfhand . . I wasn't entirely happy with it, as it does make Jon look like a bumbler, instead of just a naively honorable young boy, and also mucks up the motivation for his travels with the wildlings.

Was more disappointed in the Dany in Qarth changes . . no prophecies in the house of shadows, and come on . . stole her dragons?
I see why tgey did it, just the marriage customs of Qarth and the trip thru the house of shadows could easily burn an entire episode, but the things she sees in the house have ahuge impact thru the series, I find myself referencing that chapter quite often in the later books.


Oh, and on a different note . . how about that Ygritte, eh? She is way way hotter than what was in my head from the books . . vows or no, I woulda hit it early and often!

There was just no need to change Jon and Ygritte's story. The reason for him to kill Qhorin was already there, Qhorin told him that he HAD to go over to the wildlings, and him killing Qhorin was to prove that he had truly turned coat.

As for the Dany stuff, they pretty much screwed everything about her up in the second season. No need for it, either. As you said, leaving out the prophecy kinda screws everything up for the later books with her.

it just seems like HBO wants to put as many tits as possible into it and doesn't care so much about the story. That might work for most of you, but I just don't care for it.

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Rzzzzz...

I didn't even want to touch on the Qarth stuff...they permanently changed a LOT of things that can't really let it come back around to where she is in the books.
Short list...
Dany comes to Qarth as a celebrated "Mother of Dragons," not a beggar who can't even pronounce the name of the city. The various factions vie for her favor while trying to scheme how to use her and her dragons to their own ends. Her dragons are never stolen...
Xaro told her to leave Qarth, but never openly betrayed her. They maintained a cordial relationship later.
Doreah, her handmaiden who taught her how to hump, also never betrayed her. She died in the desert and it was a very sad moment for Dany.
Pyat Pree...well...other than the look of the character, very little was even close to the books. He never died in the book, though one could argue that he isn't dead in the show. He certainly wasn't some shadowy assassin guy.
The 13...yeah they're alive still in the books...
Anyway...I don't see how they can repair that story line.

Yep this is the gist of it for me also.

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http://personal-spectrum.com/

This kinda cements my viewpoint that a lot of the book reader's are just whiners and don't have anything of real substance to complain about.

Those all are differences between the books and the tv show yes... but I'm struggling to see how any of those changes will have a negative impact on the series as a whole and how many of them weren't just changes for minor reasons. IE: who cares if Dany's handmaiden dies in the desert or she betrays her?... both endings for her character are fine imo.

Go back and read the first two books. They've left out or altered massive chunks of Dany's story, and have now minimized her character's impact in the series as a whole. Major plot points are now missing, and will affect major plot points later in the series. But she's hot, so that's all that matters, right?

I'm not even that picky. I had no real beef with them leaving out the Reeds, even though they are pretty major characters in my opinion and are fairly important to some plot points with Bran's story, I could see how leaving them out wouldn't do any detremental harm to the series. The same can't be said for what they've done to Dany's story. I was ok with the changes made to Robb's story, again, not too terribly integral to the plot, same with playing up the homosexual relationship between Loras Tyrell and Renly Baratheon. It was only vaguely hinted at in the books, but completely overt in the show. None of those changes ruined the plot at all. Dany's story is now in tatters, and it's going to take some more convoluted changes to resolve it all.

Whiners my arse...

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Rzzzzz...

I was just giving examples. Not all of them bear the same weight.
Obviously, the handmaiden bit is less important, but without getting into spoilers from later books, her relationship with Xaro is irreparably destroyed in the show and the governing body of a major city is now dead. Those two concepts have major repercussions on later events.
For the most part, when making changes, they have been able to bring things back around. I hope they can find a way to do it with her story as well.

Anyway, I really wish you would stop whining about how book readers notice differences and discuss them.

Oh come on, you can never have too much tits in the show

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"Are we rockin' and rollin' or what?!''

-- Seattle coach Pete Carroll, celebrating with his coaches after the Seahawks pulled off a trade with the Jets, netting running back Leon Washington on Saturday, via Seahawks.com

Case in point.

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Rzzzzz...

George Martin, who made up the entire story, has approved every single change, and probably even decided some, most, if not all of them. We all like the books better. That's the way that works.

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"

I love the books. I love the show too but not to the level of the books. There's so much in the books, so many important charachters, so many story lines, that it would have been virtually impossible to incorporate it all into the show, but overall i think they're doing a good job.

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I agree that they are doing a great job. But I also enjoy talking about it and the differences. Ways I think it would have been better, ways it improved on the books. Stuff like that.

For the record, grrm does not have approval rights to anything in the show. They could change it in any way they want to and there isn't anything he could do about it, other than complain. Luckily, the show runners have a good working relationship with the author.
He has said in the past that he approves of the changes, and in some cases prefers them, but I highly doubt he is happy with every change. I am sure he understands them, but likely prefers his own version of several things.

Notable changes he has mentioned liking, off the top of my head:
Ned sending Yoren to the statue of Baelor when he sees Arya there. I liked this as well. Ned's last heroic act.
The confrontation between Bronn and Sandor in the tavern. Bad day for Bronn if that had come to blows.
Robert and Cersei discussing their marriage. I actually didn't like this one. It helps Robert look like a dick, when in truth, he was just an irresponsible drunkard.

On a separate, but related note, do any of you collect any of the merchandise based on the book or show?

I want to collect some of the merch but I haven't seen much that really caught my interest. Mugs and patches and stuff. I like the idea of collecting the weapons, but I can't really justify spending that kind of money, what with all this back child support that I never plan on paying.

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Tanzania¹² "ALERT THE LEGION!!!"