[Book Spoilers] How many of the readers will continue watching this show after Season 5?

[Lord Eddard]

AFFC and ADWD aren't so much a mess, as much as they're designed to be something that you're not supposed to understand very well until you read The Winds of Winter.

They're still a mess then. Each book in a series needs to be able to have merits on its own, and stand on its own. To say hey, I know it looks bad but just wait 10 years after I have finished the series - then all will make sense! is just risible and bad writing on top of that.

[Langsax]

the divergence from the book is so great with Season 5, that it akin to just watching a different narrative, an alternate reality to the 'real thing', if you will. Entertaining to an extent, but lacking in so many ways.

I'll probably continue to watch the series, but I won't let these departures replace what 'really' happened in Westros

[gash is back]

AFFC and ADWD aren't so much a mess, as much as they're designed to be something that you're not supposed to understand very well until you read The Winds of Winter.

yeah cause it's really hard to understand the deeper meaning of jamie and brienne wandering around aimlessly in westeros with dany sitting on her hole in mereen.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

yeah cause it's really hard to understand the deeper meaning of jamie and brienne wandering around aimlessly in westeros with dany sitting on her hole in mereen.

It's hard when you read the letters but not the text. As it look you have done.

[hwyl]

I was first very critical of Martin's bizarre multiplication of characters and subplots - but gradually I have begun to think that it's actually a great part of the magic of the text. You read it often impatiently and wanting to go forward to themes and plots that most interest you. My first reading of the DwD was rather comical: I think I basically skimmed like 200 hundred pages - the second reading was much better, and the third reading really gave me a detailed understanding of the various situations... You might hate that sort of slowness and polyphony, and it is often maddening, but that's ASOIAF for you. As good entertainment as the show has been, it just doesn't compare with that. That is for me and many other people, but there are no right opinions about matters of taste. Such huge books are rather trying to many people and there's nothing wrong with that. But for me GoT is only a pale copy that doesn't begin to compare with the real thing.

[Gogossos]

^Exactly. I wouldn't want to presume but it wouldn't surprise me that people complaining about AFFC and ADWD haven't done a reread. The first impression when you encounter AFFC is how impatient as a reader you are to get to stuff promised by ASOS. So when you spend a lot of time with Cersei, Brienne, Dorne and Greyjoy characters instead it drives you mad. Mad enough to denounce the whole lot.

[bobbybuilderton]

^Exactly. I wouldn't want to presume but it wouldn't surprise me that people complaining about AFFC and ADWD haven't done a reread. The first impression when you encounter AFFC is how impatient as a reader you are to get to stuff promised by ASOS. So when you spend a lot of time with Cersei, Brienne, Dorne and Greyjoy characters instead it drives you mad. Mad enough to denounce the whole lot.

That was exactly how I felt. I won't deny my first reaction to AfFC was incredibly negative, and I found my eyes glazing over a bit. But once I was done with ADwD and was reading the forums, I felt like I had missed so much. So many characters being referenced that I didn't remember reading, so many small things I didn't remember catching. So I went back and I read them both again. With knowledge of where things were going and why I was suddenly in these characters' heads, I enjoyed it a lot more. How much more interesting is the AfFC prologue when you realize Jaqen is the mysterious man? How much more interesting is it seeing Arianne's viewpoint when you know that Doran has been silently plotting for years? For me those books came alive in a way they weren't before, when I re-read them and wasn't in such a rush to get to the stories I recognized and was invested in already. It's for this reason that I believe the show could have been pretty good, since a large part of the problem with books 4 and 5 is that they're a bit too long and they neglect half of the main characters. The show could have eliminated both of those problems but instead they chose....whatever it is they're doing now.

[Varys Imilitude]

I personally really liked both AFFC and ADWD. However, I read them together. I don't know how many people here are familiar with the idea of reading them as one book where you switch back and forth to preserve chronology. From what I understand GRRM originally intended it as one book, but it was too big, hence the artificial split. Readers at the time didn't have the option of reading the 2 books together, so probably have a different and more negative opinion from someone who came later, and read them united.

[Gogossos]

I never thought of switching back and forth but reading them one straight after the other is just as illuminating. Comparing Sam and Jon's viewpoints of the same day is endlessly fascinating.

[Varys Imilitude]

Here's a link to the order I used. It's not just switching back and forth each chapter as I had written before.

http://boiledleather.com/post/25902554148/a-new-reader-friendly-combined-reading-order-for-a

[Rena Melville]

Here's a link to the order I used. It's not just switching back and forth each chapter as I had written before.

http://boiledleather.com/post/25902554148/a-new-reader-friendly-combined-reading-order-for-a

Thanks for the link, i'll try that :drool:

[Gogossos]

I'll give it a go as well this summer, thanks.

[Theon'sSong]

but when something finally happens in the next book, god willing, that will redeem all those wasted pages

/sarcasm

yeah cause it's really hard to understand the deeper meaning of jamie and brienne wandering around aimlessly in westeros with dany sitting on her hole in mereen.

[Theon'sSong]

you are lucky. some of us started reading since the 90s though

Has anybody even said that? I read the books very recently (after the show first season, actually) and I think four years is enough for me to find out about Dany, Jon, Tyrion and JonCon. But that's not a reason to dislike the books. I doubt someone said "oh, this book sucks because we won't know what happens in ten years!" after Dance was released. As much, they said "it sucks that WE have to wait". No the same thing.

[Claymore]

I have no conflicting feelings regarding this. I will watch the upcoming seasons of the show and read the books as they come out.