I watched (or read?) the interview where he talks about this, and it bugged me. Ok Martin, you are going to portray a 13 year old getting boinked because it's "historically accurate," yet you're going to throw annoying, arbitrary misspellings like "Ser" and "Maester" at us?

Eh, if it came up in an actual discussion that's one thing, but since he was just being a dick I think it should be deleted/spoiler tagged.

Spoilers for big things seem pretty necessary just to prevent people skimming from seeing the "bad stuff."

Yeah, a lot of it is clearly about shock value, but I think he pulls off shock value fairly well. I also think it adds to the atmosphere, it's a mean setting that doesn't pull punches.

If everyone were conveniently 18 to be consistent with the standards of modern society, I'd have a harder time respecting the grit he puts in there.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have minded if the characters started in their late teens/early twenties and then ended at 25-30ish. Moreso because he decided not to go with a 5-year gap.

(Arya would still have been super-young at the end, and I wanted the "final" Arya to be like a 20-year-old ninja. A 20-year-old girl going through her kill list is hot, a 10-year-old girl going through her kill list is just laughably unrealistic.)

FYP.

I shouldn't have opened this thread. I'm only 2 1/2 books into the series. Thank you for ruining it for me.

Can a mod please clarify the thread title so others don't make the same mistake? I thought this thread was for the hbo series which only covers the 1st book?

We've put a spoiler warning on the heading of the thread. Who's going to read this thread and then not click on spoiler boxes for fear of being spoiled?

There's no point in gratuitously mentioning big shock events though, whether inside of out of spoiler boxes.

Oh, and this.

It's too bad the series has already peaked, but at least I can say parts of this show are worth watching over and over again.

My point was that the above poster just mentioned a big shock event for no purpose other than ruining it for other people. That really isn't necessary.

George RR Martin is not a historical writer lol, the closest thing he's written to history is this series.

Loved the first episode.

Spoke with some people who have not read the books and found it funny that they were all super confused during the first 20 minutes, then it all started sinking in. EXACT same thing in the books. I distinctly remember reading the prologue and being like WTF is going on!?

As for the show, the only thing I would have liked to have seen is Jon's moment of reflection when Tyrions giant of a shadow is casted over the entrance of the eating halls. I thought that was very profound in the books, though probably hard to translate to the screen.

That was my exact thought. Partly because of this image, and partly because of how the words appear on paper, the scene in the book was way more moving.

Yeah, my post wasn't in reply to you, but rather the general discussion. It seems totally out of line to mention the Red Wedding like that out of the blue. (I didn't even notice the post until you quoted it.)

I didn't feel they handled Tyrion well at all. The right actor for sure (sadly minus the ugly), but he doesn't jump out at you (like he always does in every single Tyrion chapter ever in the books). Also, there's no sense of the pain in Tyrion, generally - Tyrion is a tortured soul, that's the heart of his clown act. The show made him seem more like he had it all under control. I hope they show the cracks in his armor more clearly, otherwise certain events will make no sense to viewers.

The whore scene in the book, Tyrion seemed really sad, and Jaime seemed to pick up on that and was twisting the knife. Tyrion is desperate for real connection (obviously, given this and that).

Neither he nor Jon seemed to take the meeting that seriously. This was an intimate moment, but Jon barely seemed to care and Tyrion didn't seem invested. I don't think the emotional connections among the characters are being expressed well here. Caitlyn and Ned, nah. Ned and Bran, not really (despite the scenes devoted to that). Dany and her brother, I'm not feeling it (obviously Viserys is a dick, but the emotional impact that has on Dany isn't coming across for me). And Mormont's loyalty/dedication. Cersei and Jaime, I didn't feel. Cersei especially seemed clumsy to me - not wooden, but certainly not as slick/dark as she was in the books.

I did like how Ned and Robert related.

The show is 85 pages into the series. Tyrion's inner torment doesn't really manifest itself until much, much later.

Also, the real bonding between Tyrion and Jon happens at the Wall, right?

My gripes are:

1) The prologue changes were unnecessary. The prologue as a whole is unnecessary, if you think about it. The "White Walkers" are going to be Lost's polar bear of this show for casual fans. Seriously, the next time we see one is:


2) They should've had an extra-long premiere like Boardwalk and Walking Dead did. Or, failing that, pushed all the Dany stuff to another episode. This episode was incredibly, incredibly dense.

I was sure he did historical fiction, but I was wrong. Maybe I was thinking of someone else.

It doesn't come to a head until later, but it was strongly foreshadowed.

I'm sure they'll show it again, but as I've said that is like a top ten all-time ass scene so it might be hard to top. If you like them on the thicker side, it might be number one. Ever.

Beyond Daenerys's ass though, I just read the review in the AV Club and they said that the first episode was actually the weakest, and that you really don't get a sense of what the show is or is going to be until later.

Excellent news.

If you think about it, they had to introduce like 15 characters in 65 minutes. There are only like 5-10 more important people to introduce the whole rest of the series.

If that's the weak episode, I'm beyond excited for the strong ones, when they don't need to pack a whole chapter of characterization into one shot of Arya wearing a helmet.

I find it interesting that what now happens is:

I thought the Arya stuff was well done, btw. That little girl has mischief written all over her face.

IIRC, two of the reviews I've read called episode 2 as the weakest of the 6.

Mo Ryan's review ranked all 6 episodes on a 1-100 scale, with the 5th ep being ranked the highest, with ep 4 and 6 also scoring well.

I'm normally into skinny ass. I just posted on another forum that I've been converted into the big ass club from this episode. If I were a gay guy, that ass would turn me straight.

daenerys is 13 years old in the book, 15 in the show.

still surprised they showed her nude

I was mostly saying that given the setup in the ep itself, it wouldn't be believable. My impression from a few book spoilers was that more was done to make the girl like horse dude.