dab0neman

For REAL dawg, I've read *all* the books but I like the show better. Maybe it's my TV spoiled brain cells that make this simpler version of the story more enjoyable to me. Watching the characters interact onscreen with each other and NOT knowing what will happen is making it a good experience. First and foremost, remember this is a TV show. TV shows tweak with characters all the time. I recall that Spock was very very emotional in the pilot of Star Trek compared to his Vulcan stoicism. Sticking with the Star Trek theme, Jean Luc Picard was a stuffy fuddy duddy the first couple of years and didn't loosen up until season three. But, I know, there wasn't a "Bible" to go off of no canon to be beholden to on those shows. So the true "believers" such as yourself are horrified at what they are seeing e.g. no Reeds, no chain making, possibly no killing of the HalfHand??<<--I'm actually pretty worried about that. I don't think I can side with your opinion on this whole movie/TV show vs. Books business. Maybe the fact that you require fans of the show to read the books is too harsh? Still, I get it. This season took some adjustment when I came to the realization that things were not going to go like season one. Then, I got over it and stopped expecting things to happen like the book. So maybe I'm an odd duck and not a true fan of the books(I AM a fan) but I'm a bigger fan of the World of Westeros. I'm overjoyed that this show even exists!

This is unfair "booksnobbery." I've read all the books and I am finding that I am liking the portrayals of all the characters on the show better. Even the way the plot is progressing is fine by me. Someone does not have to read the entire suite of books to like/dislike the show and have a valid opinion. The show is its own entitiy. I think, as one who has read and loved all the books, that the books have slightly poisoned my viewing of the show now. I understand the hatred for the show because it does not follow the books word for word now as Season 1 followed book 1. We now have the unfair expectation that season 2 = book 2, season 3 = book 3 etc... Fuggetaboutit... that is NOT going to happen and can't happen. The books offer muliple parallel stories in the same time line. GRRM repeatedly warns us in each of the books after GoT that this is going on. There's no way to make the story unfold on TV like that and include everything without getting bogged down in minutia. That being said, it's very possible that since time and the stories are getting stretched out and rearranged, there are more chances to put more of the book content on screen since HBO seems to be content with keeping the show on the air for a long time. I shudder to think what will happen if HBO gets cold feet and destroys the show like they did Deadwood after 3 seasons. The horror.... A great part of me is excited to find out the new story being written in our beloved universe on the TV screen. It was the TV show that sucked me into reading the books in the first place which was a stretch for me because I too prefer watching to reading. The same happened to me with the Lord of the Rings movies, another great example of an adaptation that had to make some pretty serious comprimises in order to get the story on-screen. I wish they had 20 hours to tell the Lord of the Rings story instead of the 9 to 10 hours of all the movies. Maybe we would have seen Bombadil?? Let's set aside our snobbery and see what unfolds as I would rather have the show than nothing at all.

The reason this show *has* to be different this season and beyond is precisely what you've said: Book One largely stays in a very few locations and the stories are not so deeply intertwined and interdependent on each other e.g. the Starks/Winterfell and Dany/Kahl Drohgo. If you really think about it, there is more like 2.5 to 3 "books" so far if you consider that the events of books 2, 3, 4 and 5 overlap each other. Story lines and minor characters will, of course, have to be chopped off. I'm really liking that the overall story archs are being preserved while the characters are getting a chance to break out of their trite portrayals. Tywin is a father to three children and he's fighting a war to secure their future. I think him smiling a bit and acting the somewhat loving parent to Arya is an awesome addition to him and deepens his background. Anyone can play the sourfaced "evil king" character but when you throw in scenes like the feeding of Arya, you make him more whole and complex. The books are the books. There are time constraints as well as audience/entertainment sensibilities to consider. Not everyone has read the books and piling on character after character, plot after plot, scheme after scheme would leave the average HBO Joe scratching his head every Sunday night. I think they're doing it right by slowly progressing the main story points, hacking away the boring crap and changing it up where it would make some sense in a "real world" Weseteros. They've got a season or two more to really hook us and I hope they get as much time as they need to tell the story. Who knows, maybe we won't have to wait for GRRM to finish it, we'll see a "book 6" on screen first!