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Game of Thrones

tomahawk

Strata Poster
So I started watching the show about two months ago at season 1 and am current with where the show is, and I absolutely love it. I know a lot of people who watch the show read the books it's based off of, so my question is, if I were to start reading, should I start with book 1, or book 3? I know season's 1 and 2 were off the first two books, and this one was the first half or so of book three, so just trying to figure out if there are conflicting stories from the show to the book and stuff.

Daenerys <3
 

nealbie

CF Legend
It's good, really good. But I don't find myself sat on my sofa for a week waiting for the next episode. In fact, most of the time I'm quite happy to wait for the DVD.

The Borgias on the other hand. OMFG <3
 

Ben

CF Legend
It's AMAZING.

I haven't started season three yet, but, I have found a bit of what happened this week <//3 the Metro Newpaper actually PUBLISHED it on page three, and then because everyone had a go, they put it on the front page. Absolute ****.

I started reading the books after watching the first two seasons. I'm about to finish the first one (as in, it'll probably be today), and I can 100% recommend starting them after watching the show. It is soooo good, and a much better read than I thought it would be. It'll take me years to finish them all because they are LONG, but, excited <3

Could we try and keep spoilers in tags in this thread people? Especially when posting about the books!
 

nealbie

CF Legend
They did post it a couple of days AFTER it had aired though lol.

If they're not allowed to do that then they shouldn't publish football results from the day before or the F1 or the Queen dying because it may spoil old news for someone! :lol:

I thought the complaints the Metro received were ridiculous. It was basically people mailing a newspaper asking them not to publish news. They handled it brilliantly though. SPOILER: Sean Bean always dies, except maybe not in Game of Thrones because they're not allowed to say until they can be sure everyone on the planet has seen the finale of season 1! :p
 

furie

SBOPD
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I don't don't get Sky Atlantic and I can't be bothered trying to get the series in other ways - so I went for the the "read the book and catch up" option.

So I've spent the last two weeks making my way through the first four books (books 3 and 4 being book 3 part 1 and part 2).

The first book is almost word for word the first series. There are a very few minor differences and there's a bit more back story to the entire warg thing being fed in, but it's really, really tiny.

It#s great to read after watching the show because all the characters are known to you and they're in your head.

Book two starts to split away from the main TV series a little. Again, it's not very much, but there's more of the "magic" and "prophecy" stuff. The political machinations are slightly different, with more characters than in the TV series playing parts. The battle at King's Landing is also quite different.

Essentially though, the book ends where the series does with the characters in the same places and in the same situations - they've just been through a little more. It's good to get a bit more background on them, and some idea of what's going on in their heads and stuff. It's a bit Harry Potter 7 though with lots of meandering aimlessly in woods. camping, packing up, meandering again. I found it a lot more of a chore to read than the first one.

I bought book 3 as a single book (so parts 1 and 2 both combined) on the Kindle and finished it last night.

Because I'd already read what happened on the latest episode, I discussed the series with a guy at work. There are a lot of changes and differences between the book and the show. I don't know yet (until I get through more books), how much of an impact it will eventually have on the story in the show and how much it will diverge. I suspect that with George Martin heavily on board with the show, that he'll make sure that they still work. It will probably just end up with a few chapters of a later book vanishing.

Oddly, Monday's episode was well over halfway through the two books. So they've covered more than a book this series. Again, lots of tramping through woods, sleeping, 20 pages of text for four bits of useful dialogue, pages at times of poems and at one point, three pages of introductions of the people meeting in a large group :roll:

If I was reading it without having seen the TV series, I'd have found it much harder to work through the books. They're adequately written, but it's more the scale and brutality of the tale that is important rather than Martin's writing ability. It works much better as a TV show than a book to be honest - but the books are still well worth reading, the story is utterly, utterly fantastic. I'm certainly not one of these "I'm better than you for having read the books" people. The books really aren't that special and the TV show so good, it really doesn't make a difference - I just want to bury myself in the plot ASAP :)

There's some fantastic stuff to come for those watching the show, and the last few chapters of the third book (part 2 :p ) answer so much and offer some stuff that'll be fantastic. Can't wait to get the next book downloaded when I finish work today and nommed through as soon as I can. I reckon I'll have them all ingested in just over a week and then I'll be very sad :( :lol:
 

peep

CF Legend
I just finished Season 2 the other day. The Neil Marshall directed episode is amazing <3

I love watching the making ofs on the DVDs too, shows how much effort is put in just for a TV show. Daenerys is such an amazing character and I love watching her scenes the most.

I find Jon Snow a bit boring, I'm hoping his story gets good in Series 3.

It sounds like the books are a bit of a chore and I'm busy trying to get through a different series of books at the moment (I'm a slow reader/don't spend much time reading). Maybe one day I'll start on them.

I loathed how one of the big plot points of Series 3 was just everywhere. Not everyone can afford/wants to pay for an extra channel on Sky just for one TV show. I'm against illegal downloading too so I have to wait until the blu-ray comes out. So those saying that it's my fault for not paying stupid amounts for Sky Atlantic, watching it illegally or read the humongous books are just being d*cks.
 

furie

SBOPD
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Do you want me to spoil it for everyone John and tell them all what happens NEXT series? ;)
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
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I watched the first season of the show, before taking on the reading of the books. I can certainly recommend watching at least some of the show before starting on the books, because of the sheer number of characters (in the high hundreds already after the first book, and after the fifth the saga includes a rooster of 1846 named characters - so far). The show also simplifies some of the sub-plots, which makes them less confusing to understand when you read about them in the books - again, a ton of characters doing different things, lots of places they visit, and so forth. It's easier when you have certain images in your head before reading (not referring to all the nudity here - there's less of that in the books).

Also, Rosebud was his sled.
 

tomahawk

Strata Poster
So I'll probably start reading at the second book, just to prevent any confusion. I got a spoiler when I was looking at the books on amazon, really upset me, but I'm glad I didn't pay attention to which one it was. It really is a well done show and I find myself getting confused occasionally on who is who on the lesser characters, so hopefully the books will help, or only make it worse.

And to echo Ben, spoilers need to be hidden.
 

The Grape Wizard

Hyper Poster
I just wait for the boxset to be released whilst trying to avoid all spoilers haha.

Season 2 was so much better than Season 1.. and that was brilliant. The last episode of Season 2 was very well done, I like the 3/4 different endings to each storyline. I was on youtube the other day and saw all these 'Red Wedding reaction' videos so I cant wait to see what happens in that episode.
 

Ben

CF Legend
nealbie said:
They did post it a couple of days AFTER it had aired though lol.

If they're not allowed to do that then they shouldn't publish football results from the day before or the F1 or the Queen dying because it may spoil old news for someone! :lol:

I thought the complaints the Metro received were ridiculous. It was basically people mailing a newspaper asking them not to publish news. They handled it brilliantly though. SPOILER: Sean Bean always dies, except maybe not in Game of Thrones because they're not allowed to say until they can be sure everyone on the planet has seen the finale of season 1! :p

When you factor in the vast amount of people who watch it on catch-up, record it or wait for the DVD, then no, it's not alright to spoil it. I can't find any figures for it at the moment, but, I would wager about half the viewers don't watch it straight away. It's an entertainment show where a large part comes from the surprise of it; now all those people have lost out on the experience of being surprised when it happens.

If you didn't want to know the football results, you'd avoid all media outlets, that's fine. It's not something you expect to have to do with a television show though, and therefore, it's dickish. All it needed was NOT to print a huge picture of it, and put a spoiler warning. Reporting what happens in a TV show isn't news like "real life" sporting events are, come off it.

The fact that it caused the outrage it did showed people were pissed. I'm pissed. Because I don't have Sky I deserve not to enjoy it as much as everyone else? Arrogance, that's all that is.

If it was on BBC it'd be a bit different, but, a premium channel that a lot of people don't have, you should not spoil. And then to react to the complaints by putting it on the front page...?

But, what do you expect from a paper that's the free version of the Daily Fail.

Finished the first book last night, sooooo good.

Deanerys Targaryen is literally, my favourite person in the entire World ever.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT646cr9erY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOUZP1tNZY[/youtube]

Also,

Renly_profile.jpg


Renly Baratheon <3
 

gavin

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peep said:
I find Jon Snow a bit boring

How dare you?!

Ok, so his storyline's not the most exciting in Season 2, but he's fit as ****. There needs to me more of him, regardless of whether he's doing anything interesting or not.
 

peep

CF Legend
Haha, I introduced the parents to Season 1 tonight. They haven't said so but I think they may have already caught the bug.
 

tomahawk

Strata Poster
^My parents aren't "technology smart" enough to use HBOGO to watch Season 1 on demand, as in, they don't know how to turn on an Xbox, err refuse to learn how to. They've heard how great it is, but that's all that is stopping them from watching. That's their excuse at least.
 

gavin

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I've watched the third series now.

Hmmmmm, it was all a bit slow apart from a couple of moments around the middle of the series and the last couple of episodes. I suppose it was bound to happen at some point given the amount of ground they're going to have to cover if they're doing the entire book series, which I assume, given the ratings, will be happening. It just all felt a bit "filler" though.

I was tempted to read the books before I started watching the first series when it first came out, but it just seemed like too big a commitment. I enjoy watching TV/film versions of books that I've read, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy doing the comparisons the other way around. I've never tried it that way, admittedly, but I just can't see myself getting much satisfaction out of a book if I know what's going to happen.
 

Ben

CF Legend
^If it helps, I'm doing in that way and LOVE the books. I'm halfway through the second one and it's soooooo good. I would fully recommend it.

Although there's not enough Daenerys in the books <//3
 
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