Length of book concern.

[HawkZ]

anyone feeling ambitious enough to speculate what a 12 ep season of ASoS would look like? I've been trying to think of what some break downs would be, and i've been having a really hard time...

[Brude]

If they can do book 1 in 10 episodes and SoS is about half-again as long as Thrones, then they could well squeeze Season 3 into 15 or so episodes. The final season of The Sopranos was 21 episodes long, so there is prior precedent for it.

A lot will depend on how popular the show is - if HBO deems it worth their while to spend the kind of money it will cost to do 15 or so episodes of an epic on this scale. Rome's first season was 12 episodes long, GoT at 10 is rather short. The norm is 12 or 13 for the channel.

[Lord Varys]

I imagine that season 2 is most likely getting two or three episodes more. ASoS really could deserve even more episodes (15 or 16), and AFfC and ADwD combined could either be split in two seasons or one season with 22 or 24 episodes.

Trying to make only 10-episodes-seasons would force to really drop important story lines. Especially in later books when the stories become increasingly more complex.

[MirriMaz]

The Red Wedding could either be a gripping season finale or a jaw dropping season premiere. It happens around the 4/5 mark of the novel, right?

I personally love the ending of ASOS, Tyrion's chapter is one the most shocking for me especially when he kills Shae and the exchange between him and Tywin.

I think in terms of episode number HBO are pretty flexible as long as the show is successful and it's not a quality vs quantity for them, True Blood could and should be 10 episodes only (I always feel it drags near the end) but they seem adamant on keeping the count at 12.

[Padraig]

I personally love the ending of ASOS, Tyrion's chapter is one the most shocking for me especially when he kills Shae and the exchange between him and Tywin.

I think in terms of episode number HBO are pretty flexible as long as the show is successful and it's not a quality vs quantity for them, True Blood could and should be 10 episodes only (I always feel it drags near the end) but they seem adamant on keeping the count at 12.

I do think they prefer 12. aGoT was so ambitious that they left it at 10 but i'd hope if it goes well, we'll be back up to 12 for S2.

aSoS is another story. The ending definitely is amazing with one shocking scene after another (Tyrion V Tywin, Freys v BwB, LF v Lysa). It'll be hard to actually time all those events at the end (if we get that far).