I am a Dragon

I can respect them but I certainly can't understand them

All those 10s. Am I watching a different show or something?

3/10 Amateur level fanfic

Can't wait to see how they ruin Benjen

Olly: The Lannisters send their regards Jon: Wut? [stabbing]

This season has already killed my hopes and dreams. What is dead may never die.

Can't wait to see more of Olly

9/10 Definitely the best of the season so far. Hardhome was brilliant.

The more important question is what happened to Balon?

7/10 Definitely the best of the season so far

It really bothered me that he didn't just ask Olyvar for his sword when they tried to arrest him. "Give me the command, Your Grace. The castle will be yours within a fortnight if I have to tear it down with my bare hands" - Loras "He's me. I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young." - Jaime More than half of the Dorne scenes so far are painfully obviously filmed in Ireland. Why film in Spain if they aren't going to use it?

Top quality post

Agreed

[yawning intensifies]

2/10 I'm finding this season really disappointing

Yup I agree here. None of us are bashing Martin.

Yup. We watched Blackwater just before 409 came out and my housemates automatically assumed Tyrion would escape with Varys through the tunnels.

I said "it felt almost-amateurish" not amateurish. I do like Martin; I just tend to be critical in most things. I've been quite a large fan of the series ever since picked up CoK as a child and I'm rereading the series for the umteenth time at the moment. The pacing itself seems very non-deliberate at times. This is moreso in the last 2 books. GoT and CoK feel extremely well thought out and structured. SoS is close but the pacing does seem to falter slightly towards the beginning. As for FfC and DwD, I feel the problems with pacing are quite clear. One example: The ending of Feast didn't feel like an ending in any sense; when I saw "Meanwhile, Back on the Wall", I was fully expecting a final chapter. As far as narration, I regularly get the feeling it slips into omniscient view from the established restricted PoVs. There are several passages where a lengthy description overpowers what a character would believably notice. It's not overly regular but when it does occur, it just breaks my suspension of disbelief. Anyway, just because I notice some, what I view as, faults in the writing, I still really enjoy the series.

He's not a bad writer at all but I certainly don't find him to be a great writer like Kafka, Joyce or Dostoyevsky. His pacing and narrative abilities have always felt almost amateur-ish to me. I also feel he lacks subtlety in descriptive passages; needlessly describing clothes, architecture and food in ways that feels like it slips into omniscient as opposed to restricted 3rd person. Again, this is all subjective criticism.

Cersei was the only character I enjoyed in that book. I really liked seeing things from her fucked up perspective.

I agree (assuming you are being sarcastic). Martin is far from a great writer. I enjoy the story quite a lot but damn he drops the ball so hard with his writing. Feast and Dance were a complete mess. *Just my opinion. Please don't flame me too hard.*

Good post. I don't have any problems with changes but I feel this season in particular (and Dany's arc in S2) made a lot of changes that had little to no logic behind them. "Only Cat" and Stoneheart being removed didn't bother me but the Craster's arc added nothing but a fight scene and another reunion tease. The only thing that came from it was John spitting in Styr's face. The change to have both CB battles at once was logical and worked brilliantly IMO. Asha attacking the Dreadfort did not. My problem is that they expend time and budget on stories that amount to nothing/very little and then use their lack of time/budget to justify leaving out other storylines. My nitpicks this season: Locke's kidnapping Bran (like you said) and the whole Craster's arc. Beetle convo and generally wasting Tyrion's cell time instead of using it to reintroduce Tysha or give some Tywin backstory. No Kevan Brienne vs Hound felt extremely unnecessary. Rorge and Biter - I mean, Biter just jumps on Sandor and gets his neck snapped while Rorge stands around waiting for Arya to kill him. Stannis being so passive at the IB. How anticlimatically Dany takes Mereen. We could have had a proper siege in place of Dreadfort and Craster's battles. Baelish revealing how he planned the deaths of Joffrey of Jon Arryn so early in the season (not a major nitpick but I feel it would have added a lot of weight to his final scene with Lysa) Arya and Sandor telling almost everyone who they are but not the farmer. Emilia Clarke's "acting abilities" (I know they can't recast her at this point but still...) Jon still not warging. I don't care so much about Arya's wolf dreams being cut but Jon being a warg seems quite important. I fully agree. Apart from Cersei's chapters, I really didn't enjoy Feast. Brienne is by far the worst PoV since Cat IMO.

Do they, though? Also, that's not what hypocrisy means.

Reign of Fire is fantasy? I've always just viewed it as post-apocalyptic action. I mean yeah, there's dragons but it doesn't feel like a fantasy at all. Yup, I agree with this. Ghost has really been shafted in the show. "I need him more than I need you" *hands Sam the key *Ghost kills one person and isn't seen again :bs:

5. It really seems like most of the writing staff haven't even read the source material. Well produced episode but it just felt so "not right". Hound/Brienne fan fiction really ruined it for me.