Argonath Diver

I adore FitzChivalry and Hobb for making me openly cry reading a book as no author has. I mentioned recommending TLoLL to dozens of random people not necessarily because of its correlation to ASoIaF in terms of the vastness of scope or themes, but because it's an absolute delight to read for the first time. In those easy years where it was cool to enjoy a show with dragons, tits, and corny RP English chatter, lots of my customers proclaimed, "I love the books too!". I hold fast in my little opinion that TLoLL is a rip-roarin' good time that many people who otherwise would have been uninterested in the Fantasy aisle can enjoy. I like other series more, sure, but I'd like to think a couple of the random Times Square tourists who briefly met a nerdy bartender later got to know Locke and Jean and the twins, and perhaps kept the cocktail napkin with names like Abraham and Abercrombie for later.

Fair enough. I'm not much for proper labeling. I suppose I meant that I recommend it as a modern fantasy novel to many random people (generally while bartending) who say they have only read Martin, but might balk if they attempted The Black Company stuff or the slog of slogs. The end of the novel feels pretty grim to me, regardless.

I dont assume, but I expect another 2 years for the next one and am very skeptical that he will vastly accelerate his efficiency for ADoS. I'm fine with that. As per Lynch, I do hope he can overcome the challenges he has with the series. Although I am with some other fans in that I preferred the group dynamic vs the duo, or Sabetha's baffling relationship drama. Very much hoping the fourth gets my engine revving the way I want. TLOLL might be my single most-recommended book. It's a perfect gateway drug to grimdark stuff.

Especially the spinoff online competitive card game where you're forced to drink random vials of potent liquor being spat out by a mechanism attached to your PC. Sign me up

I was the person that asked for that comparison, so thank you for that. I absolutely see where you're coming from regarding the original trilogy, and couldn't have said it better myself regarding the page-turning generated by discovery and exploration of the travelogue portions, etc. I've tempered my expectations of this one - heck, it might wait til the final novel is near release and I churn through all three.

Man, Euron's actor is terrible. At least he killed two of those even-worse sand snakes.

Sam scenes were awful (though our party did get our first "shot for the first nudity" in one. Ed Sheeran was dreadfully obvious and terrible - why not just have them fucking break out cans of Pepsi?. But Arya slaughtering an entire house was holy-shit worthy, Tormund's hilarious face was paused and re-watched at our party, and, damn, the Hound was so damn good. Give Rory a damn Emmy or a Teen Beat or something god fuck sake. Coulda been a 10, coulda been a 6. 8 for me, maybe 9 just for Arya.

I haven't been able to use the site through my phone's chrome browser for days, due to immediately being redirected to links. The current one has a fake Google Play background and a graphic saying "YOU ARE THE CHOSEN!". It's much less awful than yesterday's, which caused my phone to vibrate non-stop until I force-quit chrome entirely. The domain link is to kusvlhhquo.xyz, with part of the code saying "city=___", which is my town. So it's identifying my area, even though my GPS locator is off. I'm typing this from my PC while looking at the phone, but the generated link shows my phone service, Android OS number, and home town, so I'd rather not link the whole thing anyway. Edit: That was from my bookmark for the Literature forum. If I go simply to the home page, it immediately re-directs me to ohytx.net (again with a long string of identifying code after the domain name), and that one is the awful vibrating link. I hope whatever ad is causing this is solved soon! Good luck, guys.

I thought last episode was pretty terrible, and was holding out for some tricks out of this one to make us realize the set-up. Instead we get an even shittier episode with even more awful setups. I liked Jaime's speech except that it RUINS HIS WHOLE FUCKING CHARACTER. God damnit. Bring on more bewbs and dragons, I'm done expecting anything to make a lick of goddamn sense in this show. I'd drone on, but I'm too damn salty.

Well, I thought it was pretty terrible throughout. Upped it to a 4 because I enjoyed my ASoS-ish old wish to someday see Tyrion pet a dragon. Next stop, quidditch with dragons. The Jon resurrection scene was unbearably stupid. Damn, I want to quit the show, but I know I won't. Aw, hell.

Everything Dornish was dreadful. Other than Tyene being a stalwart addition to the "Completely Unnecessary Breast Reveals of Game of Thrones" calendar, it seems that the entire subplot is a waste of camera time. I'm mostly salty that Areo, one of my favorite minor characters in the books, went out to a little dagger - I am imagining that it had crazy instant-kill poison to justify that scene a little. I'll be very curious to see how GRRM handles Doran's death. I expect it'll have a bit more gravitas than this silly execution. I liked the bad Valyrian line, despite the scene not making a lick of sense (the Imp wants to blend in? huh?). Also liked Dany trying to stay strong, rolling her eyes at the Dothraki insults, while also showing a bit of fear and confusion. Those little scenes where she still conveys a bit of self-doubt make her scenes of strength that much better. I had remembered that line from years ago when van Houten said that Melisandre is more than 100 years old. Forgot it, now it's back in interest again. It'll be interesting to see if they go into any kind of magickal details regarding hers and Bloodraven's age-defying. I wonder if Mel will re-awaken Jon next episode, or if they'll drag it out more. Presumably Thoros was pulling Beric back from the abyss just after he keeps dying. But, as stated earlier in the thread, Jon's been a bloodless popsickle for a good day or two. 6/10, and only that high because of my tempered excitement for watching All New Stuff for the first time. Next week I will be cranky unless we get at least two or three really strong scenes.

So far, I think the acting has been superb. Just like the books, Sansa's a little shit, Catelyn is vaguely nuts, etc etc. I suppose Joffrey's actor could have looked a little more 13 than 11, to fit with Sansa looking older (she's tall as hell!), but that's a tiny nit. I think the Lannister twins have been absolutely flawless so far. No spoilers, but they've done a great job of hinting at some of the deeper plotlines going on that will continue to come to light as the series progresses. My brother watched both with me (having never read the books), and directly asked me about something we've discussed ad nauseum over the years. I disagree with the anti-Dany actress stuff so far. What a weird role to try to bring to film over ~10 minutes of screen time so far, but I feel like her interactions with Drogo, Viserys, and Doreah have been very good at developing their characters with such limited time. My biggest complaint is totally petty; I feel like the Hound should look more imposing, scratchy voiced, and brutal.