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A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

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    #51
    A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

    I'm really enjoying the HBO series, but last night (s2 ep2) saw a return of gratuitous sexytime overload. It's only rarely necessary to further develop viewers character insight - and means I can't comfortably watch it with my (just) teenage daughter.

    I've already had a moan about sky's ad-breaks, but stretching a 50mins show to 80 with 4 sets of bleedin' sponsors messages is a real turnoff.

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      #52
      A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

      We ended up watching s1e1 for the first time round at my sister's place this weekend, after failing to agree on a movie. Typical of these box set oriented series really, another character-driven soap saga with the odd shocking revelation thrown in now and again. It's already given us a new catchphrase, though. Who was the beardy King of the Savages? The one who's given the blonde princess in the translucent gown as a new bride? Whenever the answer to a question is in the negative, the correct respone is now a gutteral "NOH!"

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        #53
        A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

        uber slacker, i suggest you pack your daughter off to her room before settling down to watch s02e04.

        enjoying this second series, but likewise i can't see them actually completing it without extending these series beyond 10 episodes. the cast will start to die off. especially if GRRM doesn't get off his hole to finish the books in the next couple of years.

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          #54
          A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

          Seriously, what is wrong with you people watching this with barely teenage children? Even without the gratuitous sex, which I'll grant is getting particularly silly, it's very much an adult show. If you wouldn't be comfortable with your children watching an 18 rated film featuring graphic sex, torture and dismemberment, don't let them watch this.

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            #55
            A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

            enjoying this second series, but likewise i can't see them actually completing it without extending these series beyond 10 episodes.
            Well they've already started cutting out and conflating significant chunks of the story. Compared to the first series, which was almost scene for scene faithful, the changes this time round are huge.

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              #56
              A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

              the books are so long and i read them so fast that the precise order of events has faded somewhat in my mind - what big changes have you noticed so far?

              IIRC the renly/loras affair is only hinted at in the book, and i don't remember the tent scene with margaery explaining the situation to renly. the book margaery is a bit of a cipher actually, i prefer the cynical TV version. also the scene with robb and the medic woman, have they dispensed with jeyne - was that her name? actually i'm not sure there was the scene with littlefinger visiting catelyn at renly's camp either.

              littlefinger is a good character in the TV series.

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                #57
                A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                also the scene with robb and the medic woman, have they dispensed with jeyne
                I noticed that. The thing is they can't remove that character if The Big Event is still going to happen in the next series. It's a domino effect that has to start with her.

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                  #58
                  A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                  Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's only hinted at in the books that has been made explicit in the show - Loras/Renly, Craster's sacrifice of his sons to the Others. That's not so huge, although it does mean that scenes have to be invented or altered. But I'm thinking about (highlight to see spoliers) things like the dead city being omitted entirely, Tywin substituting for Bolton at Harrenhall, the apparent omission of the siege of Storm's End and the conflation of Renly's assassination with Cortnay's.

                  the book margaery is a bit of a cipher actually, i prefer the cynical TV version.
                  Plus, Natalie Dormer.

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                    #59
                    A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                    also the scene with robb and the medic woman, have they dispensed with jeyne
                    Apparently not, according to the internet. There's a reason for that scene.

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                      #60
                      A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                      For those of us who haven't read the books this series is starting to become incoherent.

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                        #61
                        A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                        Any particular points? It's hard to judge, having read most of the books, but I can see a few points so far that would be pretty confusing at first but should become clear later on. I suspect the best way to watch the show for non-readers, as it were, is to marathon it.

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                          #62
                          A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                          Principally the introduction in the early episodes of s02 of several new characters/families whose connection to those already established is, to me at least — and I've watched every episode — unclear. There's the pregnant red witch woman and her hubby. The "king" with the son returned from the sea after being abandoned/exiled. The bloke on the other side of The Wall who fucks his daughters and leaves his baby sons to die. At the moment its unwieldy and feels like an assemblage rather than a story. It could sort itself out as things progress, as you say, but if the show continues to generate characters, without any substantial development of them, at the rate it's doing at present it's likely to lose me.

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                            #63
                            A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                            Ah, fair dos. Certainly it's a problem with the format that they can only do so much character exposition/development in a single show, so there's a strong element of jumping from one to the next without a great sense of how it all fits together. There'll probably be quite a few more characters introduced in the next couple of episodes, but that's mostly it for the rest of the series, and already it looks like they've cut out quite a few.

                            The pregnant witch woman is Melisandre a high priestess of the new monotheistic religion that's encroaching into Westeros, and she doesn't have a hubby. The dude she's fucking (again, strongly implied in the books but nowhere near as explicit) is Stannis, Robert Baratheon's younger brother and Renly's older brother, hence rightful heir to the throne. Or as rightful as it gets in this universe anyway.

                            The king with the sun returned is Balon Greyjoy, ruler of the Iron Islands - basically fisher-Vikings who worship the Drowned God. His son was a ward (aka hostage) of Ned Stark and Baylon and all the other Iron Islanders think he's gone soft as result.

                            Craster's a wildling, who is apparently as friendly to the Night's Watch as wildlings get - his father was a member.

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                              #64
                              A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                              AdeC - i guess the TV series is beginning to reflect the problem with the books, which is that it's an expanding universe that just keeps expanding. very addictive to read but you do wonder how these ever-multiplying divergent strands are going to reunite and resolve, at least within the human lifespan of the author. maybe tyrion will wake up and realise it was all a dream.

                              of course in the books it's much easier to get an immediate sense of who these characters are, not least because it's easier to remember names you read than ones you hear (at least, it is for me). there's also room for more detailed exposition and at least with the POV characters, what's going through their heads. actually i thought the TV series was doing it pretty well, though there were some things, like the bag of fingerbones davos seaworth wears, that i doubt i would have understood if i didn't already know what they were about.

                              GY - who can you think of that they've cut out?

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                                #65
                                A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                The format works against it certainly, 2–3 hour segments would maybe be more satisfactory. Season one wasn't really a problem: you had the resilient/decandant north v south thing happening, plus the sexy savages in the desert on the side. That worked within the time frame and I was looking forward to seeing how the characters evolved. But Tyrion — who's excellent BTW — is really the only fully realised on-screen presence at the moment which is a concern. Does the mad breastfeeding queen reappear at some point? I imagine she does but if it's not until s06 I'll probably have forgotten who she is.

                                Having whinged on it must be said that it's chewing up the ratings over here so there's no danger it's likely to be cancelled. And by any standards it's light years better than the execrable Camelot to which it's was sometimes advantageously compared here.

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                                  #66
                                  A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                  highlight to reveal spoilers

                                  GY - at first i was unsure what you meant by the conflation of renly's assassination with cortnay's, then i remembered that perhaps it's not actually explained what has killed renly when you read it, it kind of comes out of the blue, though you know it's something supernatural. then the pieces fall into place in that later scene, the one with davos, which i had forgotten preceded the death of another character entirely.

                                  the dead city i don't remember, was this something danaerys' crew stumble across?

                                  i forgot arya was roose bolton's cupbearer, not tywin's - that is quite a big change.

                                  i suppose the medic woman is not necessarily a major change because the whole robb storyline is more or less new, he doesn't appear directly in the second book.

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                                    #67
                                    A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                    s02e05: wot, no sex?

                                    And despite a few deaths, not too much gory violence either, as the story concentrated on setting up the power plays and the options the lead characters had to forge/swerve alliances with others.

                                    I noted the use of another old rocker (Eddie Ten Pole Tudor) as a street soap boxer, following Wilko Johnson as the executioner in s01.

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                                      #68
                                      A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                      It must be a nightmare to adapt the later books, two of which carry parallel plots.

                                      This means you get references to the activities and fates of people you have already been introduced to with no explanation as to what happened to them until you read the next book. It makes it hard to link up the narrative.

                                      Then you lose an unusually high percentage of the established characters and have to process many new ones. I love it, but it is hard work.

                                      I cannot imagagine the TV series lasting long enough to reach the end of the saga (if the books ever do).

                                      Anyone know when the next one is due out btw?

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                                        #69
                                        A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                        Just catching up, after missing 3 on the trot and seeing them all in one go.

                                        Only one critical thing to say, where were the bloody rainbow cloaks of Renly's Kingsguard?

                                        I always had this image, from the books, of San Fransisco/Castro style rainbow flag colours as the Knight of the Flowers and his cronies pranced around.

                                        Some of the new, to the screen which were not in the book, scenes such as Tywin's conversation with Arya worked very well, good acting and atmosphere.
                                        Plus I used to nod off reading about Dany and her trudge across the desert lands; but it it is being handled quite well on screen, and been nicely trimmed down.

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                                          #70
                                          A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                          It's been suggested on another forum that since they didn't bother with the white cloaks for the real Kiongsguard, the rainbow cloaks would just look weird to people who didn't read the books. Alternatively, given that they've made the Renly/Loras stuff explicit, it might have seemed to be over-egging it.

                                          Plus I used to nod off reading about Dany and her trudge across the desert lands; but it it is being handled quite well on screen, and been nicely trimmed down.
                                          Yeah, I'm really hoping they cut out big chunks of Arya's and Brienne's trudges across Westeros. They really start to drag in the books.

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                                            #71
                                            A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                            I started watching this again this season and have given up. I just can't seem to muster the needed attention to keep track of all the characters with similar names and faces and plots that aren't going anywhere soon. The only interesting characters are the blond young woman with the dragons and Peter Dinklage. His character isn't even that interesting. He's just a good actor.

                                            Can anyone explain why I should keep up with this?

                                            Having said that, I might read the books. I find that lots of different plots and characters are easier to follow in books.

                                            AdC, Camelot got cancelled. I'm slightly disappointed. It was nonsense, but I enjoyed it.

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                                              #72
                                              A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                              It was nonsense, which is fine. But the casting was just preposterous, particularly Bugs Bunny playing Arthur. The idea that anyone would follow such a doe-eyed rodent into battle, or that a hot babe like Guinevere would give him a second look was plain laughable.

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                                                #73
                                                A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                                Reed John wrote:
                                                Can anyone explain why I should keep up with this?
                                                I can't really Reed, I read the books so I just want to see it in glorious HD I suppose.

                                                I actually felt it was starting to get up the required head of steam in Episode 5, so it would be a shame if you gave up too soon.

                                                I know what you mean with the characters being similar, I read on another TV review site, "yet another white, middle aged guy with a strange name was introduced". having read the books , you kind of auto fill on the names (except when they change it)

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                                                  #74
                                                  A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                                  charles dance is good as tywin. i like his cold gaze.

                                                  some minor spoilers for later books -

                                                  the bits i used to nod off at were those involving bran and in the later books arya. the supergrass compared arya's wanderings to the witterings of that moron tom bombadil in LOTR. as for all the supernatural shit with bran, get to the fucking point!

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                                                    #75
                                                    A Song of Ice & Fire on HBO

                                                    Arghh now I 've got the sayings of Tom Bombadilo as earworms - "and his boots were yellow etc".
                                                    (Trouble is I get them mixed up with the Tom/Tim in the Harvard Lampoons' Bored of the Rings - so trippy, maaaaaan).

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