GoT book/show confusion

It's lonely and unrewarding to choose the path of the loyal purist.

When I watched the hobbit unfold in the theater I was beside myself.

I know it's an unpleasant pill to swallow but the average bird on the street does not read much more than the back of a beer bottle.

I think the only way to make sense of the situation is to not take it personally and just hope that whatever comes from the television series will entice a small percentage of the fans to start reading something other than tweets and texts.

 

Season 5 is definitely the worst of the lot so far, so if you were to quit at any point, quitting at the end of season 4 is the best time I guess. It's still worth watching though, I think. Plus one of the episodes in S5 is amazing and definitely a must watch.

 

this basically accurate.

GRRM has given the show detailed notes and outlines on where he wants the show to go plot and character wise.

Whether he takes the books down exactly the same path remains to be seen.

 

Did you enjoy the books?

 

I gave up on the books when A Feast for Crows was soooo boring I accidentally read it twice. Years had passed and I thought I'd return to reading GRRM's tale, pick it up from where I'd stopped; so, I ordered the book and, not kidding at all, I was halfway through it before I remembered I'd already read it. That's how tedious and unremarkable it was.

I'm perfectly fine finishing out the tale via the HBO version.

 

Just to add my opinion, I totally understand that there's no way that a show can follow the intense and complex storylines of the books, and that's not a jab at the average viewer (god knows I am one sometimes). It's just that there is SO much put into the books that they could never include it all in a show without it being 20 episodes a season and having an unending budget.

But, I do feel that there are certain things that need to be kept the same. Like Stannis for example. (Die-hard Mannis loyalist right here) I feel that his character is far more complex in the books than in the show. He is a very grey character in the books, whereas the show often makes him out to be more a villain than a hero, due to the writings ultimate love of Dany, which I'll never understand.

The show's writing is also very weak in Season 5. The whole Dorne plotline serves no purpose what-so-ever. It takes a whole season to establish what could have been done in a 5-10 minute scene. Characters act completely out of character, simply for shock value. And a lot of characters don't progress at all! Like one character does nothing all season until the last two episodes! And it's infuriating.

But anyway, rant over. GoT season 5 is the reason that I have come to be the ultimate skeptic on TV/Film adaptions of books. And the Seventh Son film, but don't get me started on that piece of sh*t.

 

Season 5 is great in spectrum of film, but not strong and riveting in story.
Also I think they tried to spice up the season with shock. (Sansa's consummation and Shireen's end.)

I hope the show writers can keep the drama up without having to resort to stupid plot twists.
With the original writer writing the scenes, he keeps all the rules straight, all the action pure. But when you get secondary writers writing the story, they can twist the story into meaningless random encounters and gratuitous sex scenes.

I liked the "snow Sn..."I mean "Sand Snakes". But other then killing off a character in front of her father, the Dorne section only showed the royal family is as much in turmoil as all the kingdoms. It also will lead to more conflict when Cersei finds that her daughter was killed on her way home.

 

Thing to keep in mind is GRRM was a scriptwriter for a long while. Most of his published works, prior to Game of Thrones, were either collaborations or strung together novellas.