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A Song of Ice and Fire -- **Unmarked Spoilers For All Books including ADWD**

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Mordeccai

Member
I like how the Red Wedding and Melisandres magic was discussed just a couple of posts before and then someone bursts in, claims to have only watched the TV series and asking for clarification on it.
Talk about dodging a minefield.

Murphy's law or some such.

Dude dodged a bullet, hope he didn't scroll up or back a page.
 

Fiftyeight

Neo Member
just finished season 2 a couple days ago. That White Walker at the end >>>>

btw, how closely does the tv series follow the books. i may start reading.

Season 1 follows along almost too well. You're simply missing each character's inner monologues that add a ton of depth to each scene.

Season 2 strays a bit. It's not so much different as it is extremely condensed. Minor characters are either scrapped or merged into one singular character; others end up in locations where they weren't in the books simply to give them more context and development. Other characters that will play greater roles later weren't even introduced when they should have been. It's really hard to tell where they're going at this point.

Also, I'd stay out of this thread if you don't want major spoilers to hit you.
 

Lirlond

Member
Re-reading the books I missed all the Riverrun stuff in the show. Also all the subtle hints about how Jeyne set up Robb are amazing. Spicer getting a lordship was hilarious in that Jaime chapter.
 

tmdorsey

Member
Damnit, I need that 6th book! This wait is already terrible and it hasn't been a year since I finished ADWD.

EDIT:

Re-reading the books I missed all the Riverrun stuff in the show. Also all the subtle hints about how Jeyne set up Robb are amazing. Spicer getting a lordship was hilarious in that Jaime chapter.

What subtle hints? Refresh my memory.
 

Arnie

Member
dont sweat it. i just wanted to ask a question where people actually knew the answer. didnt feel like looking for the TV thread.

Season 1 followed very closely, season 2 began to deviate in minor plot points and I'd imagine that trend will continue on a linear path up until where we are now. Now return to the TV show thread before you spoil yourself on the juicy goodness to come.

Oh and if you're looking for a recommendation, read the books, they're fantastic.
 

NoTacos

Member
I like how the Red Wedding and Melisandres magic was discussed just a couple of posts before and then someone bursts in, claims to have only watched the TV series and asking for clarification on it.
Talk about dodging a minefield.



Heh. Just as I posted too. Seriously, this is the unmarked spoiler thread for the whole series. As for your question, S1 was almost 1:1 with the book, but S2 wasn't. The broad strokes are there, but some storylines were changed a lot.
Season 1 follows along almost too well. You're simply missing each character's inner monologues that add a ton of depth to each scene.

Season 2 strays a bit. It's not so much different as it is extremely condensed. Minor characters are either scrapped or merged into one singular character; others end up in locations where they weren't in the books simply to give them more context and development. Other characters that will play greater roles later weren't even introduced when they should have been. It's really hard to tell where they're going at this point.

Also, I'd stay out of this thread if you don't want major spoilers to hit you.
thanks to you both.
 

Lirlond

Member
Damnit, I need that 6th book! This wait is already terrible and it hasn't been a year since I finished ADWD.

EDIT:



What subtle hints? Refresh my memory.

Her mother making her tea, Grey Wind disliking the Westerlings, Tywins quills and paper line.
 

Tacitus_

Member
Her mother making her tea, Grey Wind disliking the Westerlings, Tywins quills and paper line.

There's also a theory that they've swapped Jeyne with her little sister and she's escaped with the Blackfish. This whole theory is based on the different descriptions of Jeyne given by Jaime and Catelyn. Catelyn describes her as having good birthing hips while Jaime says she has narrow, girly hips.

Personally I don't believe in it. It would be too perfect to have Jeyne escape with an heir in her belly.
 

Massa

Member
Personally I don't believe in it. It would be too perfect to have Jeyne escape with an heir in her belly.

I think that's highly unlikely since her mother was giving her anti-birth medication. Besides the kid would be so young to make a difference in the world it would probably just be used as another character for that sadist GRRM to kill.

Were there any other hints of the RW other than Grey Wind not liking the Freys and the bride crying and looking sad?
 
I think that's highly unlikely since her mother was giving her anti-birth medication. Besides the kid would be so young to make a difference in the world it would probably just be used as another character for that sadist GRRM to kill.

Were there any other hints of the RW other than Grey Wind not liking the Freys and the bride crying and looking sad?

There was the house of the undying, patchfaces song, the weird dwarf woman's prophesy. Not sure if those are what you were looking for though

I also liked it in ACOK when one of the freys was complaining that he wasn't going to get to marry a princess anymore, and Arya said that she didn't care about his stupid princess or something, and Aryawas actually the princess he was talking about
 
Correlation is not causation. I'm inclined to believe Mel saw their deaths in the flames, and used that knowledge to make herself seem more powerful, not that she had any impact on their deaths.

Agreed.

I seem to recall the Iron Bank guy being awesome. I wish there were more awesome/smart people.

The Red Wedding was kind of sad, but I don't really understand who would like Robb or Catelyn. I hardly remember anything about Robb except for him being off somewhere fighting battles most of the time, and Catelyn was stupid/annoying (and then stupid/evil as Zombie Catelyn).

My main concern about the Red Wedding was that Arya was going to die too, but that didn't happen.

Robb is the shit, and he represents the North in both ideals and the actual fight against the southern houses. In one fell swoop, the Red Wedding ends the Northern Kingdom, and the fight against the Lannisters, with the faction that most people are pulling for is basically completely destroyed in a matter of minutes.
 
Do you mean in this thread? I personally think that anyone interested in the books shouldn't be online snooping about for details on the series. Can't really place the blame on other people discussing the books (especially in this thread) when the person who clicked into here was you. That being said, even off of the internet, I have seen people spoil the Red Wedding, so I guess its not exactly hard to be spoiled on that moment.

God damn at the Stannis leeches thing. I remember him doing that too but never picked up on the kings blood thing. And all three of those died... shit, this just reinforces my love for Stannis.

My secret hope for TWOW is that his entire host will freeze (especially that annoying guy from the Iron Bank) and Stannis will just say fuck it, storm Winterfell by himself with Lightbringer, and destroy everything.
Actually, it was brought up in the GoT Season 1 thread. It was behind spoiler tags, but the person tagging didn't specify that these were book spoilers,

Not like I was actually spoiled in any case.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Stannis has three leeches full of his blood. He throws them one by one into the fire, while uttering a name with each throw. Joffrey Baratheon. Rob Stark. Balon Greyjoy.

Also, Melisandre warns him that it will both work, and not work.

It doesn't end any of their monarchies.
 
As someone who has watched the first two seasons of Game of Thrones, but not read any of the books, would it be easy for me to pick up and read the book series starting with book three?
 

Massa

Member
As someone who has watched the first two seasons of Game of Thrones, but not read any of the books, would it be easy for me to pick up and read the book series starting with book three?

You should start with book 2, though I'd really recommend the first one too. But ACoK is a must before ASoS.
 

Iksenpets

Banned
As someone who has watched the first two seasons of Game of Thrones, but not read any of the books, would it be easy for me to pick up and read the book series starting with book three?

No. Read the whole series. Book one will drag a bit because it follows the show pretty closely, but it also sets up a lot of important things. Book 2 is pretty different from the show, so skipping it would leave you pretty lost. There was at least one fairly major book 2 event I can think of that seems to have been pushed to season 3.
 
There was the house of the undying, patchfaces song, the weird dwarf woman's prophesy. Not sure if those are what you were looking for though

I also liked it in ACOK when one of the freys was complaining that he wasn't going to get to marry a princess anymore, and Arya said that she didn't care about his stupid princess or something, and Aryawas actually the princess he was talking about

She also says "I hope your princess dies", unwittingly wishing her own death.

Her mother making her tea, Grey Wind disliking the Westerlings, Tywins quills and paper line.

I believe it was only Rolph Spicer that Grey Wind disliked. He was fine with the rest of them. Rolph Spice was definitely heavily involved in the plan given that he was granted Castamere.
 

Matt

Member
Heh. Just as I posted too. Seriously, this is the unmarked spoiler thread for the whole series. As for your question, S1 was almost 1:1 with the book, but S2 wasn't. The broad strokes are there, but some storylines were changed a lot.

That's funny.
 

Levi

Banned
"Lem" is slang for giving up a book, an in-joke from an online book club I'm in. Saw this posted there. Pissed me off so much I had to share.

I don't like lemming a book, I see it as a shame on the books side, as well as letting myself down from a readers perspective.

I had to lem A Feast for Crows recently, I'm a huge ASOIAF fan and was disappointed that I couldn't get through it.

Of course this twat has HBO GoT art as his avatar. He's a "huge fan".
 
What's so egregious about that? Someone can't be a fan of the show and the first three books and then set aside the mediocre AFFC? He even says it was a shame in that post. Is this just a "he can't call himself a fan unless he loves everything ASOIAF" thing?

Is that from goodreads?
 
"Lem" is slang for giving up a book, an in-joke from an online book club I'm in. Saw this posted there. Pissed me off so much I had to share.



Of course this twat has HBO GoT art as his avatar. He's a "huge fan".

There are plenty of people who were disappointed with AFFC long before the series was even announced. General consensus is it suffers heavily from being the denouement to the considerably more explosive SoS, and that it gains considerably on a reread. However, a person who finds it too slow and trudges through it or puts it aside early is obviously not going to be eager for another go at 500 pages.

The "us vs. them" sort of mentality one sees when the book fans engage with the TV show is a little ridiculous. Fans who were brought in through the TV show can have an opinion on the books too.
 

Levi

Banned
I find it annoying a self-described "huge" ASOIAF fan can't be bothered to even read the books.

I mean, I know it's wrong to try and impose rules on who gets to call themselves an ASOIAF fan, but ffs can we not at least agree that reading the books is a minimum requirement?

He's not calling himself a Game of Thrones fan who couldn't read the books. That wouldn't bother me. This shouldn't bug me either, but it does.
 
I find it annoying a self-described "huge" ASOIAF fan can't be bothered to even read the books.

I mean, I know it's wrong to try and impose rules on who gets to call themselves a fan, but ffs can we not at least agree that reading the books is a minimum requirement?
The series existed for a decade before AFFC was released. So yeah, you can be a fan of the series and then be disappointed with AFFC and put it aside. It's not like he watched one episode of a TV show, getting to that point requires reading millions of words and spending many hours.

This whole "true fan" thing is silly. Who cares if he started with the Tv show, most of the fanbase for ASOIAF came to the series later on.
 

Tacitus_

Member
There are plenty of people who were disappointed with AFFC long before the series was even announced. General consensus is it suffers heavily from being the denouement to the considerably more explosive SoS, and that it gains considerably on a reread. However, a person who finds it too slow and trudges through it or puts it aside early is obviously not going to be eager for another go at 500 pages.

The "us vs. them" sort of mentality one sees when the book fans engage with the TV show is a little ridiculous. Fans who were brought in through the TV show can have an opinion on the books too.

I really, really liked AFFC on a re-read. I pin it on skipping most of the Brienne chapters. Most of them should've been left in the editing room since they do practically squat to advance... well, anything. All they do is retread the Arya chapters from the previous books - yup, the smallfolk still have it bad and war is horrible for them.
 

Levi

Banned
The series existed for a decade before AFFC was released. So yeah, you can be a fan of the series and then be disappointed with AFFC and put it aside. It's not like he watched one episode of a TV show, getting to that point requires reading millions of words and spending many hours.

I liked Harry Potter, but found the later books horribly tedious and I had to force myself to finish Deathly Hallows. I don't go on message boards and claim to be a "huge fan". (I also finished the fucking books).

It's dumb of me, but I'm offended that this guy thinks reading 3/5s of ASOIAF makes him a huge fan. He can not like Feast, who cares, but abandoning it and its sequel means he isn't even a casual fan of the series, much less a huge one.

Maybe he thinks ASOIAF refers to the HBO show, in which case I retract all my commentary. I didn't even consider that, as I use ASOIAF exclusively to refer to the books.
 
Getting this hung up over this just makes you look like an irrational fanboy. There really isn't anything in that post that is offensive or even really all that critical of the series. He even says he is letting himself down by not finishing it! You seem to have some assumptions about the TV viewers and are projecting it onto this person, someone who never even mentions the show.

If you claimed to be a Harry Potter fan. I don't think anyone would care enough to rage about it on another message board.

And you never said, is that from goodreads?
 

Pecan1

Banned
I just put down AFFC in my sort of re-read. I say sort of because I started w/ CoK in anticipation for S2 and just kept that crazy train arollin right through SoS. But seriously I dragged through that prologue in the time it had just taken me to read 100 pages of CoK or aSoS and after that getting thrown into a Greyjoy chapter I put it down and decided to start GoT.

To be clear I didn't dislike FfC the first time I read it and I will prob get around to it this summer, but it is def a good place to take a break.

So w/e I seriously doubt thata the vast majority of asoiaf readers have been around since they started coming out.

What editions of the series do most of you guys have??
I originally read them on the iPad(pretty steamed that the spellchecker has iPad in there) reader except for Dance it was only out in hardcover orig. A while back I found the cheap paperback copies that have the HBO series along the top but like helmets and shields on the front. They're not bad except for my FfC is the small version and its just a pain.

Anybody got any old editions or something cool??
 
What editions of the series do most of you guys have??
I originally read them on the iPad(pretty steamed that the spellchecker has iPad in there) reader except for Dance it was only out in hardcover orig. A while back I found the cheap paperback copies that have the HBO series along the top but like helmets and shields on the front. They're not bad except for my FfC is the small version and its just a pain.

Anybody got any old editions or something cool??

I have a weird and ill fitting collection.

AGOT - US paperback
ACOK - US hardcover
ASOS - UK hardcvoer
AFFC - UK hardcover
ADWD - ebook only
The dunk and eggs stories are in different hardcover anthologies.

The UK editions used to be published several months early, so I ordered them from amazon.co.uk. I ran out of room for books and have switched to digital only, so I didn't care to get a physical copy of ADWD.
 
I got into ASoIaF through the TV show and it fascinates me how differently I perceive the series to book fans. I've listened to a lot of the earlier episodes of APoIaF as well as some of the more recent ones and the reactions of that guy Chase seem to mirror that of a lot of GAFers - the urge to shout at the screen because of deviations from the source material appears to be a common factor.

As someone for whom it was a surprise to find out that Danaerys has purple eyes, that Tyrion was ugly, that the Baratheons had jet black hair and that everyone was younger than their on-screen counterparts, I find the changes people complain about to be trivial. Changes happen in any adaptation and my attitude is that as long as the players get to where they need to go and when, I'll give the makers the benefit of the doubt.

Was I disappointed when none of the Harry Potter films delved into the Gaunt backstory, but does it diminish the films? I would argue not on the basis that they are different media and there are more important things to get worked up about.

I do find some of the casting choices jarring on occasion, but that's just on account of the dissonance between my imagination and the actor and usually disappears upon seeing the actor actually perform.
 

Kipe

Member
I got into ASoIaF through the TV show and it fascinates me how differently I perceive the series to book fans. I've listened to a lot of the earlier episodes of APoIaF as well as some of the more recent ones and the reactions of that guy Chase seem to mirror that of a lot of GAFers - the urge to shout at the screen because of deviations from the source material appears to be a common factor.

As someone for whom it was a surprise to find out that Danaerys has purple eyes, that Tyrion was ugly, that the Baratheons had jet black hair and that everyone was younger than their on-screen counterparts, I find the changes people complain about to be trivial. Changes happen in any adaptation and my attitude is that as long as the players get to where they need to go and when, I'll give the makers the benefit of the doubt.

Was I disappointed when none of the Harry Potter films delved into the Gaunt backstory, but does it diminish the films? I would argue not on the basis that they are different media and there are more important things to get worked up about.

I do find some of the casting choices jarring on occasion, but that's just on account of the dissonance between my imagination and the actor and usually disappears upon seeing the actor actually perform.

Fan disappointment with adaptations happen all the time. ASoIaF book series has a very devoted fanbase so of course they're going to nitpick everything.
 

Levi

Banned
Anybody got any old editions or something cool??

My paperback editions of the first three books are from 2000 or 2001, which is when I got into the series. I like the cover illustrations from then a lot more than the minimalist modern versions, but that's probably just nostalgia.

Not like it matters. I do all my rereads via ebook or audio these days, though, and have never owned a physical copy of Dance.
 

Ikael

Member
I got into ASoIaF through the TV show and it fascinates me how differently I perceive the series to book fans *SNIP*

I got into ASoIaF trought the books (way before ADWD was written) and my view of the show is quite similar to yours. People got extremely riled up with even the most minor changes, and book - GAF has shown an appalling lack of understanding about what an adaptation is. Not to say that the series is untouchable (it has many flaws and people do have legitimate criticisms too) but the fact that a big part of the book fans consider the first season superior to the second is quite telling, really, when the one and only thing that has over the former is the fact that it follows the books more closely, go figure.
 

suzu

Member
It is a popular series that has been going for a long time, so of course there will be shit from the fanbase. I just dislike when people lump all the criticism together and dismiss it. The complaints about Jon's and Arya's ACoK arcs are pretty legit and up for discussion, in my opinion.

I'd say most book fans are still enjoying the show and won't be giving up on it, despite the criticisms.
 
It is a popular series that has been going for a long time, so of course there will be shit from the fanbase. I just dislike when people lump all the criticism together and dismiss it. The complaints about Jon's and Arya's ACoK arcs are pretty legit and up for discussion, in my opinion.

I'd say most book fans are still enjoying the show and won't be giving up on it, despite the criticisms.

If nothing else it'll be worth it to stick around for the hilarity that will ensue when we get to the AFFC/ADWD seasons.
 
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