As a non reader I didn’t really find it that difficult to keep up. There was enough “he’s the queen’s twin brother” type dialogue that it mostly was easy to keep straight. The sons all kind of blended together but you get that effect anytime you have a group of similar looking characters, with little screen time to differentiate themselves.
The lure for me is the promise of what’s to come. When I first saw the wall, or should I say The Wall, I figured it’s not just there because it makes an interesting looking background. Then there are all these amoral characters, it’s always interesting to see amoral characters run amok(The Sopranos is a good example). Then there are the sympathetic ones that I want to see make their way out of the mess they’re in, such as Emilia Clarke’s character. If she doesn’t get some serious payback I’m gonna be unhappy.
So yeah, I’m hooked cause there’s a lot of stuff I’m looking forward to seeing. I’m currently trying to decide between just Wikipediaing everything or reading the books, because I also want to know all the details on the backstories.
With all the blonde people, my wife didn’t recall that Cersei and Jaime were twins so she wasn’t immediately disgusted when she saw that scene. I think that had to do mostly with the sheer amount of characters being introduced. Overall, the first episode makes me want to read the books.
I think they did the best job they possibly could have. I stopped reading the first book after a hundred pages or so, because I didn’t see what the big deal was. If I hadn’t gone back to it a month or two later I’d have missed out on what is probably my favorite fiction series.
The initial part where the board is being set up just isn’t very interesting, but it looks like they’re going to blow through that by the end of the second episode.
So, maybe this has been covered elsewhere, but aren’t there supposed to be 2-3 more books in the series? Martin doesn’t look to be in great health, and he hasn’t put out a new GOT book in what? 5 years? 6?Is there any timeline for the next book release?
Next book (A Dance with Dragons) has been set for release in July (publisher confirmed).
After that 2 more books were planned. There has been much discussion on the topic of Martin’s health, outside commitments, tendency towards procrastination and the sheer size of the remaining books making completion of the series unlikely. You can join in the discussion in the thread for the books found here.
Here’s my basic, preliminary map of things, based on the first episode, and a non-reader of the books. I know this is probably overly vague and full of omissions and inaccuracies, but it’s sort of my basic takeaway, which I’ll refine as new episodes roll in.
1.There is a landmass.
On this landmass there are various population centers.
In one of these population centers lives a King, and his Queen. The King likes drinkin’ and eatin’ and whorin’. The Queen likes her brother. In her pants. She and the brother also seem to like treachery.
The King’s Right Hand Man/First Officer just died of a totally natural and innocent fever OR MAYBE NOT DUN DUN DUN (see treacherous Queen and Brother above). The King needs a new Right Hand Man.
Way north of where the King and his dead right hand man live, lives Sean Bean. He’s tough but fair. He has a lot of kids who are kind of interchangable so far except for the precocious one who probably should go to a nice women’s college when she gets older, the other precocious one that got thrown out a window, and the Bastard one.
Sean Bean is in charge of a population center that sits near a very big Wall. Guarding the Wall is a big deal. On the other side of the wall is snowy wilderness and apparently Ancient Dismembering Evil the likes of which has not been seen for a thousand years but is probably nothing, don’t worry about it.
Cute wolf puppies for everyone!
Women in this society mostly make good fodder for marriage-based political alliances. They also provide boobs.
There is Peter Dinklage who likes drinkin’ and whorin’ and bein’ clever and perhaps slightly cynical and bitter about the status of little people in this society.
The King, I may be wrong about this but I’m pretty sure, became King by slaughtering blonde elfy looking people, who now are all dead, except for two, a brother and sister who live across the sea someplace that looks quite lovely and Mediterranean, as guests of some dude I remember from Speed Racer.
Blonde elfy looking brother is planning going to take an army back to reclaim his kingdom. This army will be composed of the only brown-ish seeming people we’ve seen thus far, who culturally seem to be kind of a cross between Klingons and Ku Klux Klan literature about protecting the flower of southern womanhood. The army will be paid for by whoring out his sister to the king of the Klingons, Conan “Guyliner” Mandingo. Elfy Brother is very creepy.
I haven’t read the books but watched it with someone who has read them and I enjoyed it. The world seems more mundane than I expected, but I’m not sure what I expected to be honest. I do know that I was able to get into it almost immediately and the time flew by.
I like that I’ll be able to watch it and The Killing on the same night.
So I have time for one show right now (I very rarely watch tv, and so if I’m going to watch anything it’s during downtime and on the net)… Walking Dead or this?
-edit Hmm… Probably should have posted this in the main thread.
I see I’m not the only one who calls the character Sean Bean.
Never read the books, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode and watched it again tonight. Went into it thinking it would be like LOTR, instead it reminded me more of a darker Suikoden with its large cast. Been craving something like this.
I kind of want to watch this, given the quality of other HBO series and the fact that I’ve read the first three books several years ago and thought they were pretty good. But I kind of don’t, because I don’t want to lose my mental image of what all the places and people look and sound like. Not that it’s a great loss in all cases, I think Sean Bean is bound to be a great Eddard Stark. But I just know that as soon as I see Peter Dinklage as Tyrion I’m not going to be able to find my mental image of him, I’ll always see him that way. And I’m kind of geek enough to miss my own story when it’s gone.
So, the book series isn’t done? Uh, oh, is this going to be another Wheel of Time-like situation where the author dies on us before finishing?
I’ve enjoyed other things by Martin in the past (his wonderful story Sandkings, and the SF novel about a guy working for very tall alien overlord types who have enslaved humanity (he wrote it in the 80’s and the title escapes me). Is this Game of Thrones series worth getting a Kindle for, even if it’s never finished? I just watched the first 15 minutes of the TV series and I’m intrigued.
Just saw this yesterday, and wanted to check out newbie’s reactions here, but I just gotta say something that bothered me tremendously. One post in this thread (maybe two), I won’t even say which because it would be aggravating the error, is GIANT DOUCHEBAGGERY. Seriously. Non-spoiler threads aren’t “let’s tantalize newbies with suggestive hints we know something they don’t aren’t we clever wink wink nudge nudge”. I don’t mind spoilers myself, but I’d like to think we respect other people’s opinions well enough to not pull any driveby “SNAPE KILLS BLABLABLA” bullshit.
so, yeah. first episode was amazing, and I’m already bummed out that I won’t be able to watch the second one next week because my wife is away and I had to promise to watch it with her.
As someone who has read the books, I love hearing what people think about the series when they first read it/see the shows. Hold tight to those assumptions!
OK, I’ve reread every post in this thread two or three times now and I’m not seeing any spoilers. All the information in this thread is pretty much straight out of the first episode. There are a couple of posts at the very start of the thread that pretend to be spoilers, but don’t listen to those guys.
On a related note, Hugin’s post makes me happy. =) He’s pretty much nailed it, so my fears that non-readers might be turned off or confused by what’s happening would seem to be unfounded. Several other folks have also posted opinions that reinforce this feeling, so thanks everyone for making me a little less nervous about the future of the show.
