Will you be watching S6 even if it spoils TWOW?

[NorthGirl]

I won't be wtaching but that's because I genuinely believe it will a terrible mish mash of them trying to tidy up the mess they created last season and basically going back in time to start storylines that are 2 years late because Sansa had to get raped first. I might watch season 7 if people I trust give me the all clear but the bad writing of last season was just offensive to me.

I honestly only think Dany and Jon's storyline will be proper spoiled but those are the two most predictable (and the two I give fewer shits about wrt the characters concerned) so I think it will be a lot less dramatic than people assume, especially if there is an eighth season. Then again, I care about the journey way more than the end game and my favourites will probably die anyhoo.

[NorthGirl]

2 hours ago, Orphalesion said:

I 'm really getting sick and tired of the spoiler fetish a huge chunk of humanity seems to have. Why by all the gods, real and imagined, above, below and sideways, would knowing plot points in advance lessen my enjoyment of a story in any way?

And since I still enjoy the show, despite its various shortcomings (it's not like the books are perfect) and we still don't have any word on WoW I see no point of depriving myself of the show, only because the books have (predictably) fallen behind.

I won't discuss any events from season 6 in the book forums of course, but I will watch it.

This. I find the whole spoiler trend to be obnoxious, I have spent years not watching a bunch of TV programs, and if I don't know about them and hearing some passing info on a character in their fifth season will hardly ruin a show for me because I won't remember jack shit about a tiny mention in the ocean of cyber chatter. I find it funny that with the emergence of the spoiler tags, media outlets suddenly felt the need to discuss and title things centred around the twists when before there were reviews and you could read them or not but there was no need to title the review after the twist.

1 hour ago, FuzzyJAM said:

Suspense is a pretty normal element to be appreciated in a narrative.  By no means is it the only element - people can watch 100 different versions of Shakespeare, after all - but it can add to a work.

Just because you apparently don't care in the slightest doesn't mean people are doing something wrong if they do.  It's definitely something Martin is trying to provide so you're the one missing out on an element of the work if it doesn't impact you at all.  

There is appreciating suspense and there is not wanting to hear anything about The Wire like the rest of the world is supposed to be frozen. I managed just fine to not hear jascksquat about the show or books in terms of spoilers for 4 years. Heck I think Peter Dinklage and the names Tyrion and Ned Stark were all I retained and I spend a LOT of time online discussing tv/books/movies. And I'm sorry, but are genre fans even pretending that there are storylines they haven't seen or heard of by now? Suspense isn't just not knowing what will happen, it's also the dreading and anticipation. The suspense can be based on the reaction to the event and not the event itself, or simply how it gets there not just the end state.

IMO, execution is what makes the difference, and if said execution solely depends on not seeing the event coming, well that says something about the storyline, especially for genre fiction which is often built around revisiting the material to get more out of it.

[TyrionsFlagon]

It's a shame that the series is so mainstream in pop culture because it's hard to avoid. I will not watch the show and try to avoid speaking about it with people who do.

I've come to despise the show and will only watch after the entire book series is finished (I know I know, that's going to be a loooong time).

[Ser Barristan the Badass]

Yeah because of all the spoilers I'd rather watch it even though I'm cringing half the time. At least it will be exciting now I guess cos I won't know what's gonna happen. I stopped watching the show a few years back cos I had enough but recently I caught up so that I can watch Season 6, as bad as the show is sometimes at least I will get some sort of end to the story, that's the silver lining. 

[YouKnowNothingJonSnow]

No, I will not watch. I was close to not watching anymore after Season 4. I had hoped they would take their time with Feast/Dance, 2 seasons worth at least, to avoid this type of problem. Or course, there are reasons to push on (those Stark kids are getting awful BIG, yes?) that I understand, but still.

It was awful shallow. Dorne sucked (You want the bad pussy!). Brienne/Stannis was bad. Littlefinger/Sansa was poor. Silly me, I thought you had to BURN wraiths, etc. Cersei's walk saved season 5 for me, or at least redeemed it some. But I'm not going to watch the show anymore. I'll watch season 6/7 after the books come out.

 

[Kaibaman]

I mostly want to see how they will let the Siege of Riverrun play out. I know everything else will be spoilery but I really want to see the Blackfish kick some Frey ass from atop the walls of Riverrun before Jaime comes to parley with him.

[The King Who Cared]

Yes, I will definitely watch. It is currently the best show on television and the books are unlikely to  be finished anyway.

[sandpiper]

I dont read as much nowadays as I once did because of lack of time. But one habit I definitely did used to follow was never to start a series of books before it was finished. because if you do, this is what happens. The song of fire and ice is particularly problematic in this regard because it is very much one huge story with somewhat arbitrary breaks. GRRM has acknowledged this in his descriptions of how stuff just gets pushed further into the future as he keeps writing.

So I don't think its worth worrying about the purity of the plotlines between the two versions. I only read my first book about 5 years ago, not long before the series began, and probably because my local library had a copy...because of the Tv series publicity. So happily I avoided a 20 year wait, and only had a 10 year one (maybe). I absolutely definitely will finish reading the books because they handle matters differently. To be pragmatic also, even if this had been a real history of some actual person, time the TV people had finished dramatising their biography it would very likely be significantly different in detail, but that does not stop people reading factual biographies of people they have become interested in because of a Tv dramatisation. The TV series has kept me interested in the books, which I would largely have forgotten for lack of anything further to read without the TV series. I know a lot more about detail of the books because of having the material presented twice in different ways, and because of the interactive debate about all this.

There has been a lot of debate over whether series 6 will completely reveal the plot of the next book. The more hints I hear about the series, the less I think this is true. It seems to me that even though series 5 went ahead of the books in some respects, in others series 6 will still be catching up with material not used from the last book. I think the end of series 6 will see us somewhere in the middle of the next book. So actually we may still be in a best of both worlds solution, where Martin can still leapfrog the series if he publishes in 2016. That would share the revelations between the two.. which both might actually like! So it might possibly be the case that Martin, his publishers and the series people are all perfectly happy with a publication date in 2016.

I know TV versions are never the same as how we imagine a book, but its fantastic that billions of pounds have been spent just so I can see a full colour, cast of thousands, all your favourite mythical beasts,  dramatisation of my favourite stories. All just for me! Churlish to complain over a few details.

[FuzzyJAM]

13 hours ago, NorthGirl said:

There is appreciating suspense and there is not wanting to hear anything about The Wire like the rest of the world is supposed to be frozen.

Good thing no one has suggested that then.  "I don't want to hear spoilers" doesn't mean "Nobody else is allowed to talk about things."  It's on me to avoid spoilers, not others.  This entire thread is dedicated to what people are going to do, personally, to avoid spoilers.  

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And I'm sorry, but are genre fans even pretending that there are storylines they haven't seen or heard of by now?

This is a really odd point.  I know that Dany will be dead or not dead at the end of the series.  Or perhaps undead.  Whatever.  But knowing potential outcomes doesn't negate the fact that you don't know what will actually happen.  

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Suspense isn't just not knowing what will happen, it's also the dreading and anticipation. The suspense can be based on the reaction to the event and not the event itself, or simply how it gets there not just the end state.

IMO, execution is what makes the difference, and if said execution solely depends on not seeing the event coming, well that says something about the storyline, especially for genre fiction which is often built around revisiting the material to get more out of it.

 

This is all true.  But literally no one is saying that plot events being hidden is the only good thing about the books.  Rather, it adds to it.  When Ned died, that shock for me was a lot greater than if I had known it would happen.  There was an effect that I experienced which was very much intended by the author and which I appreciated.  Of course, I can re-read the book, and still appreciate that scene - but not in the same way.  

You seem to be living in some weird dichotomous world whereby if I can appreciate a re-read of Ned's death, that means I can't also prefer not to know about it on the first read.  That's just not how people are and it's not how the work is written.  If you can't appreciate that element of a story then that's. . .well, whatever, people are different.  But people are definitely not doing something wrong if they read a book appreciating one aspect of it that you don't, especially when that aspect is intended to be enjoyed by the author.  Your criticism of that is just odd to me.

[TheKingoftheSevenKingdoms]

Fuck yes. I was a show-watcher first so I don't really care about it "spoiling" the book. They are completely different beasts know in their journey towards the end so it doesn't matter to me.

[Lord Friendzone]

I'll watch it. Somebody mentioned it there. If George doesn't mind that, then why should I? I want to know how things will end and either way ending will not be far away from books. Some character dead on the show might make it to the end and so on. The main ones should be very similiar. Who is willing to wait couple of years for George to finally write books.

[NoneofYourBiz]

I will watch the show and read the books...if they ever come out. The are almost like two different entities to me at this point so it hardly matters. I will watch the show to see how it all ends as I fear I may never know if I wait for George to complete the books. If they are released, I will read the books to hear the story as George would tell it.

That being said, it seems tragic that D&D will tell the story first.

[Forelver]

No.

 

[Ser J]

We don't really know to what extent season 5 has spoiled the books already. Does Stannis' path get so dark that he does eventually put Shireen to the torch? I think that it's safe to assume that Tyrion and Varys don't end up running Mereen (tv is so easy isn't it), but we generally seem to accept that the icy dude with the the Star Wars forehead is the Night's King despite the fact that there is nothing yet published that even suggests that there is a head Other or that he's somehow a 6000 year gone old enemy. So my point is we have made it this far, why stop now? The other thing to remember is that in 2024 when we're rereading TWOW in anticipation of A Dream of Spring (you know that title is going to take a pounding over the next 8 years or so) finally coming out we won't really remember all of the s how's deviations anyway.

[Blade of Sunlight]

I will watch, better to be spoiled first hand than by proxy.

The show (though the quality seems to be diminishing) is good, and it's sufficiently different to be it's own story, the biggest spoilers will likely be events so big and general that they are bound to appear everywhere on the internet, this will diminish the biggest surprises of the books, but the smaller suprisses and the exact context of the major spoilers will probably be different enough for it to still be worthwhile to read the books.

[Aemond's Eye]

37 minutes ago, Ser J said:

We don't really know to what extent season 5 has spoiled the books already. Does Stannis' path get so dark that he does eventually put Shireen to the torch? I think that it's safe to assume that Tyrion and Varys don't end up running Mereen (tv is so easy isn't it), but we generally seem to accept that the icy dude with the the Star Wars forehead is the Night's King despite the fact that there is nothing yet published that even suggests that there is a head Other or that he's somehow a 6000 year gone old enemy. So my point is we have made it this far, why stop now? The other thing to remember is that in 2024 when we're rereading TWOW in anticipation of A Dream of Spring (you know that title is going to take a pounding over the next 8 years or so) finally coming out we won't really remember all of the s how's deviations anyway.

Is one using the royal 'we'?

[Ser J]

We don't really know to what extent season 5 has spoiled the books already. Does Stannis' path get so dark that he does eventually put Shireen to the torch? I think that it's safe to assume that Tyrion and Varys don't end up running Mereen (tv is so easy isn't it), but we generally seem to accept that the icy dude with the the Star Wars forehead is the Night's King despite the fact that there is nothing yet published that even suggests that there is a head Other or that he's somehow a 6000 year gone old enemy. So my point is we have made it this far, why stop now? The other thing to remember is that in 2024 when we're rereading TWOW in anticipation of A Dream of Spring (you know that title is going to take a pounding over the next 8 years or so) finally coming out we won't really remember all of the s how's deviations anyway.

Is one using the royal 'we'?

A few of us are.

[kimim]

Of course. I disliked the last two books, so the changes the show made did not horrify me. I'm no longer sure when Winds will be published, what the quality will be like. If it follows the long-winded, unedited path of the last two novels, I might not enjoy it at all. I reread works I like all the time, and don't mind spoilers. There's literally no reason for me to skip this season.

[Good Guy Garlan]

51 minutes ago, kimim said:

Of course. I disliked the last two books, so the changes the show made did not horrify me. I'm no longer sure when Winds will be published, what the quality will be like. If it follows the long-winded, unedited path of the last two novels, I might not enjoy it at all. I reread works I like all the time, and don't mind spoilers. There's literally no reason for me to skip this season.

Same. If anything I'm sort of bummed out that D&D are backpedaling a bit and including stuff from Feast and Dance, just when I thought we were past that. 

[sj4iy]

Game of Thrones has been an annual tradition for my husband and me.  The books are okay, but the show is more important to us.  It will be nice that we will be going in blind, since that's never happened before.