1701

I guess I should have said “almost nothing interesting.” The stuff with the kid being thrown out the window and everything related is pretty interesting, but otherwise… who cares? So some prince is banging his sister, and I don’t have a reason to care about either of them. So what? So some chick gets married off to a hilariously racist caricature… again, so? They’ve introduced dozens of characters, but they’ve spent almost no time developing any of them thus far. So no, it’s not literally true that nothing has happened in the show up to this point, but as far as I’m concerned just about nothing interesting has.

1702

A Dance with Dragons is finally done. So, yeah, that’s some big news.

1703

No, I get what extarbags is saying. A lot has happened, but not much of it has been presented in a very interesting way.

Take Bran getting tossed out of the window. It’s pretty upsetting, right? Except the next episode shows him apparently peacefully sleeping in bed with nary a bruise. No one, other than the mother, seems particularly upset by his accident. No one asked any questions. No one did any checking for loose stones up there or whatever. Hell, no one apparently went and looked around in the tower until after the assassination attempt! Bran’s coma has been presented with all the gravitas of a driveway repaving.

It’s the same issue with Dany’s marriage and supposedly growing willpower.

Or Jon Snow’s decision to go to The Wall.

1704

By this point (2011) Night Court had already had an entire series run. After two bailiff changes we finally learned to love the addition of Roz. The public defender changed and as a nation we fell in love with Christine Sullivan. Judge Harry Stone found, lost, found, lost, found, lost and found love again. John Astin charmed America as Uncle Buddy. Yakov Smirnoff taught us to laugh as Soviet immigrant Yakov Korolenko! And everyone remembered the magic of the Velvet Fog, Mel Torme.

Maybe if A Game of Thrones had started in 1984 like Night Court as much stuff would have happened in it as has happened in Night Court by now.

1705

Editor says:

“No, we cut some stuff back out. Will be about as long as ASOS…”

1706

I look forward to Jon’s arrival at the Wall.

Everybody who reads the series has their own favorite, but generally speaking, the fan favorites in terms of POV characters are Jon, Tyrion, Dany, Arya and Bran.

All five of those characters follow separate plot threads in different regions of the world. By far, my favorite of all of those areas is the story at the Wall. It is, in many respects, the most traditional in terms of the novel being a fantasy with a supernatural theat. It also features the most traditional hero in the novel (Jon Snow) and includes moments of levity (Samwell Tarly who, I expect, will end up with many of Dolorous Ed’s lines as well).

All by way of saying, it is extremely hard to judge a series on what it offers when the pieces are still being introduced and the sotrylines still being put into motion.

We’re just not quite there yet.

1707

Davos is probably my favorite character. It’s easy to hate Stannis, but I love the relationship between him and his Onion Knight and the side of Stannis we see through Davos. While the second book isn’t nearly as popular as the first and third as it doesn’t contain nearly as many ‘oooooh shiiiiit’ moments (though it does have plenty of Tyrion being a fucking badass) I’m already jonesing for season 2 so we can see some Davos.

I don’t know if I’d put Bran up with Tyrion, Jon and Arya as most popular characters. He’s not as maligned as Sansa (deserved) or Catelyn (overblown) but there’s nowhere near as much love for him as there is for the big three and a whole lot more dislove. A lot of people (weasel word, not wikipedia ready) think of him as overly whiny.

1708

I think the problem is rather that too much has happened. They’re in such an all-fired rush to get every single event on the screen that they’re just sign-posting them. “Here’s this scene you remember! Here’s this one!” All the significance and emotional resonance has to come from your memory of the books; without that, it feels thin and rushed.

1709

Hopefully they can bump it up to 12 or 13 episodes next year. I agree that they need a little more room to breathe.

1710

I’m not sure that Season 2 could be accomplished (well) in just 10 episodes.

1711

If that’s really the case, then critics shouldn’t be so happy with it.

1712

SPOILER

I’m sure D&D have spent a lot of time thinking about how to break up Season 2. One thing to take into account is that they moved a character death from Book 3 to this season. If it’s who the fandom thinks it is, it could signal a significant structural change.

I’ve been wondering the reason why to move the death forward, and the one that makes sense is that it allows them to really tinker with the plot line of that region in future seasons. They could still follow the themes of the books, but do so in a way that’s more accommodating for various reasons, including budgetary and storytelling.

1713

Critics seem to have all seen the first six episodes, and the second was better than the first this way, so hopefully the later ones slow down even more.

1714

I don’t believe the “death” being moved from Book 3 to Book 1 is anything even remotely consequential.

I expect all that has happened is that Rast dies this season instead of on the Fist of the First Men. That has no consequences of any kind for the plot or pacing of the series. It’s just a very small change for dramatic purposes, that’s all.

1715

Rast doesn’t die on the Fist.

Also, confirmation

1716

Well, going by that logic almost all series fail to make us “care” for the characters, at least in 2 episodes; I can’t say I felt any interest in Tony Soprano in episode 2, or any of the multiple characters in BSG or any character in any series really.

I think people in general are being overtly critical of the series, it’s as if everyone wants to see it fail so they can go “see, told you so”.

I haven’t read any of the published books and my only complaint so far is that I think they (tv series) should devote more time to individuals, showing who they actually are, instead of introducing a gazillion characters most people will forget the names in 10 minutes. I’d say that this should be a 20 episode per season series, specially considering the amount of material they can play with.

1717

I wasn’t a fan of the Sopranos, but almost every show I’ve ever liked has made me care about what’s happening in it in the first and second episodes, because otherwise I don’t tend to keep watching.

I think people in general are being overtly critical of the series, it’s as if everyone wants to see it fail so they can go “see, told you so”.

If you sincerely believe that anyone claiming to dislike something you like is actually just covering for the fact that they want it to fail, even though they have no reason to, you might be too much of a fanboy.

I haven’t read any of the published books and my only complaint so far is that I think they (tv series) should devote more time to individuals, showing who they actually are, instead of introducing a gazillion characters most people will forget the names in 10 minutes.

Wow, that’s… pretty much what I was just complaining about.

1718

Except he phrased it as a specific complaint, rather than saying “Nothing interesting has happened”.

1719

I think that the popular guess is probably right but due to the nature of the character as portrayed in the books I think this whole thing is just a big swerve.

1720

Well, then we are jsut different I guess, most shows i’ve seen that got me hooked didn’t do it by having interesting characters or not but rather for having interesting settings/premises. I really enjoyed Walking Dead but I didn’t specially like any of the characters.

If you sincerely believe that anyone claiming to dislike something you like is actually just covering for the fact that they want it to fail, even though they have no reason to, you might be too much of a fanboy.

I never said anything about “everyone” nor did I say that the show had no reason not to fail. I just think that, perhaps because of the geek hype behind it, other people are criticizing it too much, something I didn’t see happen in lots of other series that both flopped or went to become classics (case in point, back in the day lots of critics called The Sopranos a badly hidden praise of the criminal life style and a show without any “message” besides random and senseless violence… talk about missing the point)

Also, I haven’t even read the books and just going by what other people say it seems they are filled with rape, incest, senseless violence; disliking those personally, how could I be a fanboy? If anything I think the show (and books) will have to be extra good to actually get me hooked.

Wow, that’s… pretty much what I was just complaining about.

See, after all our points of view aren’t that different.

To elaborate, I really hated Lost’s “flashback episode” routine but it did help the viewer either create a bond or learn to secretly hate a given character; that said, Lost went on for what, 6 seasons? I can only hope that GoT becomes such an hit that they actually go and make 3-4 seasons, and this hope stems from being absolutely tired of seeing yet another pseudo-CSI series, yet another pseudo-medical House drama or yet another “men are stupid” Grey Anatomy series… give me fantasy, give me sci-fi, give me historical settings.