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This is probably why some of the nuance and depth of the show is being left out of it. There's one or more scenes where the cut to the next scene is practically as the last syllable is being spoken, they're trying to move so fast.
Here's where I start daydreaming of a director's cut (via seamless branching on Blu-ray of course) that adds back in maybe just a few minutes of time per episode, where required, to give it a slightly less breakneck feeling... yeah, I know, it's probably unlikely. But they have to know that fans eat up stuff like that, right?

I know it's not like it would have been had it had 12 episodes, but based on what you've said I think even a small amount of extra time could probably give it a less rushed feeling, at least.

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Ran, SNAY,

(I'm spoilering this as a reply to your spoilers, but it's only about the books, not the show. I haven't been lucky enough to see any episodes so far, you bastards. :P)

I don't mind seeing a more layered Jaime, TBH. I think that because we see Jaime in the first two books through Stark-colored glasses, it taints who he actually is versus who we think he is - and we think he is a certain way because the Starks see him for that person. The Kingslayer is more of a mask that he's donned for the last 15 years, but it's not who he truly is...although he's gotten so used to wearing it that it's become harder for him to separate that from himself.

In fact, the Jaime who we're shown in the first two books is directly contradicted by the two POVs that we see him through - the Starks, and Tyrion, who for all intents and purposes, think that Jaime is a swell guy and a hell of a brother.

So in taking away our narrators, who can be swayed and unreliable in their thoughts, we're left with the full Jaime. I don't know if he's further along his arc in the beginning - he still does toss Bran from a tower - but he's fully realized, instead of a mustache twirling bad-ass. And I'm okay with that.

Mya,

The abandonement of the POV is the biggest alteration between the two mediums. And yeah, from what I saw Jaime is already being presented as a more multi-layered character, for the reasons you stated. I don't mind that he's no longer moustache twirling. But at the same time, he's lost some of his arrogance and brashness (at least I thought so). I don't think its necessarily a writing change, its just how NCW plays him. Same thing with the hound. It remains to be seen whether or not these takes are correct or not imo. Could go either way.

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The Hound's presentation is changed by the writers, clearly. The scene at the inn, rather than having the Hound confronting Ned and laughing about what he did, they've clearly directed him to just walk by without stopping and more or less treat the whole business in a detached, business-like fashion. He's just a killer who's doing a job, rather than an angry, raging dog who claims he likes nothing more than killing.

It's a rather softer Hound, by all appearances. I don't know where they're going to take him if we see him in the second season. But I definitely don't think this is just Rory McCann's doing. I can't imagine they've written enough scenes for him where his performance made them change the role (whereas I suspect Headey's performance as Cersei has probably shaped some of their approach to writing her)

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I'm not sure I agree Arya's POV.

You are right that they Arya is a POV that can be most easily condensed, without losing a whole lot. Not because little happens but that it doesn't progress her to her goal as you say. But it doesn't change the argument any. We have a bigger book, we have more POVs and the TV series is happy to focus on non-POV characters. If breathing space is a desirable aspect (and I think it is) then it is hard to argue against a 12 book series from a fan's perspective. An accountant may have a different take of course. And some people may decide that the very fast pace is desirable.

And you don't want to condense Arya too much or again she would seem to be jumping from one big encounter to the next (meet Gregor, meet Tywin, meet Roose, escape) without any of that breathing space. :) Nice to have an episode where less happens to her. (And if Arya turns into a viewer favourite, they may not want to start cutting too much).

And I would expect some tweaks to the breaking point for any S2. I'd look at moving some of Jaime from aSoS for instance. Maybe the prologue also. But aCoK is still a pretty good template for 1 season I think.

In aGoT Sansa is 11. In aFfC she is 13. The 4 books span 2.5 years roughly I think. We'd want that closer to 4 preferably. :)

The age thing is a good question for Ran. Does the time in the show seem to be going faster/the same or slower than the time in the books? The easiest way to deal with time is for S1 to span at least a year. If not a year and a half.

I used manuscript page count, which as far as I know, are set the same for each book. So we know that CoK is only 9% bigger than GoT, and SoS is 28% bigger than CoK

That's a good way to do it. :) I'd still translate that into 12 episodes for aCoK, given the breathing room argument. And 28% would translate into 15 episodes for S3. Even moving a few chapters into S2 doesn't solve that. Allowing a decent chunk of aSoS to be filmed would mean a cutting point just after Joffrey's wedding but that leaves you with a quarter of the book unfilmed. Maybe when aDwD is out, somebody can have fun and see how one can split books 3 to 5 into 4 seasons of TV.

Like stopping at the wedding is not terrible actually. Tyrion arrested, Sansa legs off with LF, Jaime leaves Riverrun, Jon arrested, Bran goes through the Wall, Arya is stranded with Sandor...although i'd put in the epilogue for laughs.

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I'm not sure the series will be on the Sopranos level of success, but I'm 99.99% certain we're getting at least season 2, probably more.

IIRC, HBO picked up series very, very early before. Rome's second season was decided almost immediately. So was True Blood. One reason to do this is because so many of the costs are upfront costs that they don't have to redo; they don't have to scout locations, rebuild sets, do costuming, do readings, etc. A lot of it is just set. Given the massive buzz this has gotten so far and the apparent uptick in HBO subscriptions, it would likely be an easy done deal. Remember that HBO doesn't care about specific show's ratings; they care about subscription values, critical acclaim, ability to do DVD sales and other promotional gains.

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IIRC, Boardwalk Empire's second season was officially greenlit the day after the first episode was broadcast. I would expect something similar for GoT (maybe not that quick, but certainly within the week).

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Given the massive buzz this has gotten so far and the apparent uptick in HBO subscriptions, it would likely be an easy done deal. Remember that HBO doesn't care about specific show's ratings; they care about subscription values, critical acclaim, ability to do DVD sales and other promotional gains.

I'm just curious. Has HBO actually indicated yet that there's been an uptick in subscriptions? I subscribed for HBO in March in anticipation for HBO, and I know others here have said they would subscribe too, so I had been wondering if there was a noticeable uptick.

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1.5 chapters in 14 minutes .... yes. 7.5 chapters in the following 45 minutes. Thank goodness they took their time introducing the Starks, because after that it takes off running. _And_ that's with non-book material shoved in there too that would have been the equivalent of an additional chapter or two.

Do you think a two-hour premiere like The Borgias would have been more effective? I don't think there was any good alternative to ending the first episode on "the things I do for love," but it's so much to cover in an hour.

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Of course, I want the second and third seasons to have as many episodes as possible, but this series should only be aiming for 7 seasons.

I agree with this. We've been talking about split seasons and so, but to be honest I don't see it being viable. 7 seasons is asking a lot as it is and with the two split seasons (ASoS and ADWD) we're already at 9, which is astonishingly unlikely. Add in the fact that certainly TWoW will almost certainly be a very busy and very long book and probably ADoS as well, and you're looking at 11 seasons. Leaving aside the fact this is extremely implausible overall, the series would end with Sansa and Arya in their mid-20s or recast, either of which would be lame.

Your plan for getting ASoS into one season (by pushing ASoS stuff into the end of ACoK) is actually quite viable. Good work there :) Then it would be relatively easy to fit AFFC and ADWD into two seasons (possibly by being ruthless towards the AFFC material, particularly reducing Brienne's adventures, Cersei's politicking and Sam's journeying and moving the ironborn chapters into Season 3, the right place in the timeline). If they do have to start thinking about splitting TWoW/Season 6, it's much further down the road, the kids won't be shooting up three inches between seasons and the popularity of the show is a much better-known quantity so HBO can maker surerer plans.

The age thing is a good question for Ran. Does the time in the show seem to be going faster/the same or slower than the time in the books? The easiest way to deal with time is for S1 to span at least a year. If not a year and a half.

One of the official episode summaries say it's a month's journey from Winterfell to King's Landing. Now, if they're talking about a fast messenger swapping horses at every castle, then yes, maybe you could just do it in that time. But they were talking about the wheelhouse, which, even given it's not the same kind of monstrosity as the book version, is still going to move at a relative crawl. So either Westeros is smaller in the TV series or they're just being a bit vague over travel times and distances. Certainly in the books I got the impression they were much longer on the road (three months, maybe?).

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I'm just curious. Has HBO actually indicated yet that there's been an uptick in subscriptions? I subscribed for HBO in March in anticipation for HBO, and I know others here have said they would subscribe too, so I had been wondering if there was a noticeable uptick
HBO doesn't release things liike that, but talking with a friend at Comcast he said he saw a lot of HBO deals going out in the last couple of months, and it's either GOT or Mildred Pierce.
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HBO doesn't release things liike that, but talking with a friend at Comcast he said he saw a lot of HBO deals going out in the last couple of months, and it's either GOT or Mildred Pierce.

I had HBO back when The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome were on but got rid of it for a time because I wasn't really watching it anymore. I just subscribed again on April 1st. I would love to see HBO survey relatively recent subscribers to ask why they signed up? Maybe they already do? I don't know. It's just that I'd bet AGOT would be a leading reason and that would bode well for renewal :)

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I think it's a great idea to let HBO know. We had a thread about this on the old board:

The capsule summary:

1) Tell your Cable/Dish/Whatever provider that you are subscribing because of Game Of Thrones

2) Visit this page (or you can just email [email protected], which is the email feedback mechanism on that page) and let HBO know that you just subscribed to HBO for Game Of Thrones.

It's easy to do and you get to feel virtuous for doing it!

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Your plan for getting ASoS into one season (by pushing ASoS stuff into the end of ACoK) is actually quite viable.

I was curious enough to have a closer look at this. Probably could move the prologue, first Jon, first Dany, first Davos, first Cat, first (and maybe even second) Jaimes all into any S2 without too much trouble. Disperse it over the last couple of episodes and you'd have 1 less episode in S3. Possible

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Just been on IMDB and there are 800 reviews on there (91% of whom give it 10/10, even the wire which has the highest ever rating only has 84% giving it 10/10) can there have been that many people who have seen advance previews or critics advance copies? or is it just fans rating the trailers and first 15 mins?

There's been 100's of votes for a while (it's 430 at the moment) so it's been mainly people voting based on the books and more recently the trailers/preview. Every now and then IMDB wipes the votes but they build up again.

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There's been 100's of votes for a while (it's 430 at the moment) so it's been mainly people voting based on the books and more recently the trailers/preview. Every now and then IMDB wipes the votes but they build up again.

This is common with IMDB... They always get flooded with 'spam' 0 and 10 reviews. They have a special algorithm that takes those factors into account when calculating an overall grade, but it may not kick in until a certain number of votes are registered.

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