Getting the thread ready. The new season is starting this Sunday!

In the meantime, have an honest trailer for the series:



EDIT: Oh yeah, some rules for the thread. No need to spoiler tag content up to the current episode (unless for some reason you've seen it in advance of the broadcast), people checking the thread are expected to be up-to-date on the show. On the other hand, discussion of future events from the books (or even past events that happen differently in the books) should of course be spoiler-tagged, and you should note which book(s) your spoiler concerns above the tag.

[Morri's edit: breaking these rules may result in suspension or a ban! Don't be a dick, people.]

After putting it off for a long time and ignoring pressure from my girlfriend, I watched the first three seasons over the course of about 10 days (watched the last one yesterday). She has read the books and has her opinions so I had hoped to consume it in solitude, but what can you do? Looking forward to watching the new stuff as it comes out with her and friends.

Not really sure who to root for, there aren't many likeable characters, which I guess is part of the idea. Hoping against hope that Jorah gets some righteous moments and doesn't die/betray/get betrayed by Daenerys. Naturally I wish the best for Tyrion and Arya.

I came into the show fairly ignorant with some expectations, and while it's a bit soap opera-esque I still dig it. I was kind of hoping for sweeter fight scenes/choreography but I trust there is more to come. Most of the action has been large scale or people just getting owned without much of a fight, or so I have perceived it. I want more 1v1's like Bron vs that one guy and The Hound vs that one guy.

Anyway, looking forward to more.

OBERYN!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait!



Also the funniest video ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Krz-dyD-UQ

I'm merely guessing here so this MAY turn out to be spoiler, but probably isn't: We find out who Jon Snow's mother is....

R+L=J has been a common theory for the books since a long, long time (and IMO it's not so much a theory as ironclad fact but I guess I can still be proven wrong), and I think its discussion is irrelevant to the TV show, who barely mentioned either L or R by name. So.... yeah. Besides, [all book spoilers]

I was under the impression that this hypothesis wasn't such a common idea. I need to re-read the books, I powered through the books when I had some time and I've seemingly dumped all the information out since. I'm working on the 3rd after I finish some of the Richard Dawkins books I've started.

very spoiler



Anyways, it's gonna be interesting watching this season as it'll be the first time I've watched it having read all the books. (read them all last summer after the end of season 3)

us simple folk that don't got no HBOs gotta wait till they spill them episodes on the internets or I make friend with one who has access to those fancy premium channels.. I got sucked into this show last year and it's really grown on me since. Re-watching season 3 solidifies how much of a badass Tywin Lannister is, that scene in the last episode where he just tells Jauffre to go to bed..

I'm not even that excited. I was super psyched for S3, and it ended up being all over the place and cutting corners to make room for titties and the adventures of Leisure Suit Podrick.

im not too interested in this series but I'll watch the season premier.

and that honest trailer could not be more spot on. i remember about 10% of the names of characters, the books are so bloated with random trivia about the middle ages (likely Matirn's way of flaunting how much he knows about the era, or hes just looking for cookie points from historians), and if not for tyrion, id be significantly less interested in the show

Weird, I could name them all without even blinking...


Um.. no?

And no again.

Anyway, this thread isn't about bitching (or theorizing) about the books, but about the show, so let's get back on topic. Jaime Lannister's new haircut/shave, yay or nay?

(The correct answer is, of course, a resounding NAY. Worst season ever!)

Maybe they want the character to look less cocky and arrogant (just like he's supposed to be after what happened to him...and his hand) but yeah, he was way sexier before. He looks like he's ten years older now I guess he seems more serious with this haircut...
Season 4

VS

Season 1


It's all about this guy anyway!!!! (sorry, huge pic)

There's one subtle R+L=J hint in the show. It might be a stretch.


As for Jaime's new haircut, it does show him as a new man. Less of fairy tale "heroic"-looking knight and more of a Lord Commander of some of the fiercest knights in Westeros. Much more intimidating.

Pfft, fuck that, I want my fanservice, you guys have so much of it and now we straight girls have none anymore now that Jaqen is gone and Jaime took a trip to blandville.

I won't be satisfied until he has a miniscule, two-inch-long ponytail. That's what turns me on.

recently watched all three seasons so far, and i am stoked for what is next!
damn, if i told a chick i have 'to leave..', and she shoots arrows at me to say goodbye, some tough love..

Just a quick question for book readers. Where is this season expected to end?
[massive book 3 spoilers]

[mild book spoilers]




He says he hopes to be done "soon"... So in short, who the hell knows?

Got these ready for tomorrow:



Last year I went to BevMo and World Market looking for the first Game of Thrones beer on the very same day that the third season premiered. Nobody had it. Stoked that I found this one for the fourth season premiere.

Hey, there's still Jon Snow, recasted Daario, Gendry, Loras, uh... Theon?

Meh, meh, meh, ew, ewwww

Hey now, Reek is a looker!

Looking forward to this, but I'm most interested to see how they start handling stuff from book 4+5, whether that begins near the end of this season or at the start of the next. Book 4+5 just do not have the same momentum as ASoS, so I'm curious to see how they remedy that in the TV show, because they've set the bar pretty high for themselves. I think most of the divergences they've taken have been reasonable enough in the interest of TV drama and simplicity, but I was actually happy to see the way they started handling Theon, because that was always something I found a bit underwhelming in the books, although it is something that is easier to explain via film than first person narrative. I think the general viewer population might start to wonder what the point of his storyline is if they keep up on his current situation for an entire season though haha.

I'm not a book reader here, but if the next couple books are slower-paced, there's always the (fairly high) chance that Benny & Dub might write in some completely extraneous battle/assassination/rescue/romance sidequests just to spice things up (Jorah/Stannis/Melisandre love triangle? Littlefinger raises an army and invades Dorne for no reason? Podrick charged with seducing Daenerys???)

Does anyone know what time the episode will be on Hbo go? I had always thought that you had to wait until the show was over to view it on hbo go, but someone told me that they changed it so it comes up the same time that it airs on TV.

That was a great episode. Starts out with the obligatory nudity, but quickly moved on to the actual drama with Oberyn and his hatred of the Lannisters, which was very well done. And the final scene, while of course different from the books since the Tickler was already dead, was handled quite brilliantly. I had a huge fangirl grin on my face after watching Arya be such a badass. And Polliver's split second of shock when he recognized his own line being thrown back to him was awesome.

Finally, some more mentions of Rhaegar Targaryen! I bet the TV viewers are all going "...who?". But they need to reinforce this mythical character more for sure.

Also, Jaime.... well at least he's still funny even if he looks all ordinary now. His exchanges with Tywin, Cersei and Brienne all had me smirking inside. When Tywin asked him what he wanted, you could tell he just wanted to say, "fuck my sister, of course". And when Brienne asked him to look at her in the eyes and tell her Sansa was safe in King's Landing... and he averted his eyes, haha, that was gold.

Edit: oh and Ser Duncan the Tall shoutout! <3

[The Winds of Winter spoilers! from that latest preview chapter]

First episode was good; not amazing or anything, but good enough. Always nice to see Arya slake the bloodthirst, and also good to see she hasn't aged awkwardly since last season (though it remains to be determined whether the same can be said for Bran...). Is it just me, or should there be more lopping of limbs in The Hound's fight scenes? Combat choreography was a lot better this time, though.

Oberyn seems like a welcome addition to the story and the cast, though his positive points were counterbalanced by the lamery of Daario . What the hell, man. Why Michiel Huisman? I don't have anything against him, but he just seems ridiculously wrong for the role. And Daenerys' storyline is just... fucking inching along. God. I'm not sure her arc is this tedious in the books, but fuck.

yea. which house is that? I try to remember and I just start thinking of The Wheel of Time.

...House Targaryen? I want to say, "the longtime-deceased brother of Daenerys Targaryen", but you probably think her name is Khaleesi.

(Sorry, I had to.)

This was very good episode, but do you guys feel introducing new characters was a bit far-fetched? Oberyn is cool, but I find it funny how within >5min we find out he's bisexual, has open relationship with bastard woman, hates Lannisters and wants to revenge to them.
I think they should've left him a bit mysterious until The event, now it's obvious next episode or one after it will deal with The Mountain, those burning fields at the end foreshadow it. I hope this final actor portraying The Mountain will be good.
Thenns seem like aliens, I can't remember much about them from the books, except they're really from far north and can't speak Common tongue. Too bad they didn't make them speak some strange language, like we can hear Dany constantly using Valyrian. Again, portraying them as cannibals in >3min was shocking and far-fetched imo, I can't remember Wildlings being cannibals?

I like how they returned Dontos and Polliver, I was afraid they might try to invent some new characters here and really diverge from the books, this way they made Arya so badass, I like it.
My favourite moment was with child-slave milestones, too bad they didn't try to make it graphically more shocking, that little finger pointing to Mereen...

Also, for book readers:

"You're a talker.. Listening to talkers makes me thirsty." The Hound is quickly becoming a favourite character of mine.

Don't you think people will find it more weird if his character was kept in the wraps until, as you say "the event"? Like, "who dafuq is this guy and why is he pissed off at the Lannisters?" With the way that it was presented, TV watchers know his background already and even gave a bit of a revelation on Rhaegar and Lysa Stark.




Some tribes of wildlings are cannibals as the book has mentioned in passing. But I don't recall t Thenns being one and don't recall them being this frightening.

[/quote]

I guess, though I still find this too straightforward, but I guess they needed Oberyn to fill up HBO boobs and minge quota. But yeah, that is Oberyn in nutshell, he doesn't need much more characterization, I guess he'll introduce audience to story of Rhaegar, Lyanna, Elia and others.
I wonder how long until TV viewers get to R+L=J?

On a sidenote, is anyone afraid this season might spoiler Winds? Book spoilers

Even though I haven't read the books, it's great because I always watch the new episodes with a group of friends, some of whom are book-readers, and some of whom aren't. It makes for good discussion and at any time someone is able to "request a pause" so that we can stop for a second and get filled in on supplementary lore behind certain characters/families/other history from one of the book-readers. This is really helpful and I also sometimes look stuff up online, but I'm wary of doing that because I'm afraid of stumbling upon spoilers. I agree that the show could have done more to introduce us to some of the mythical characters that died before the events of the show began, especially because some of their stories are epic.

I thought this episode was good but was actually kind of surprised more shit didn't go down for a season premier. I was a bit thrown off by the stuff in the East; man, that new actor doesn't even look remotely similar to the old one, and is it just me or did his relationship with Danny just seem... different? I dunno, I'll wait for a few more episodes for that to get fleshed out. I was also kind of taken aback by everyone's disdain towards Jamie. The entire last season was building up to him returning to King's Landing, and now every member of his family doesn't even seem to care that he made it? I guess these are Lannisters, after all, and that was a typically great scene with Tywin.

They totally messed up the Thenns. They could've picked ANY other clan of wildlings and the tv-portrayal would have been closer than motherfucking THENNS, who were easily the most sophisticated and disciplined of the northern bunch. Thenns have laws and a sensible hierarchy. This looked like the writers were trying to point out that the other wildlings are worse than Tormund and his lot. Well maybe you shouldn't have fucked up Tormund's character in the first place.

Other than that, solid episode.

Yeah, the Thenns are not cannibals. The ice-river clans are the cannibals, but they're just mentioned in passing in the books. The Thenns are the most "Westeros-like" clans really, with a hierarchy, a "lord"-like leader and customs, disciplined warriors, etc. Now they merged them with the more feral clans and made them into creepy brutes? Eh, whatever, it's different but I'm not that attached to the Thenns I guess.

Pretty happy with this episode. I don't care much about the fact that they took some liberties with one wildling tribe. No need for absolutely slavish consistency with every little detail of the books. The series Thenns have the proper effect. I have more of an issue with the new guy portraying Daario. Just liked the old dude more, he had more... swagger and cocksure charm about him. Anyone know why he was replaced? Eh, but no biggie.

For some reason I really liked the scene where Janos Slynt tries to laugh off Jon's mention of giants, followed by nobody even so much as flinching and him awkwardly glossing it over like someone who made an unfunny joke at a party.

Ed Skrein left to do Transporter 4. Don't know if that was the best decision, but yeah.

Can't help but feel proud of the now 2 Dutch actors in GoT though.

Well, in some kind of fit of madness last week I started watching the show.
It seems more attractive than the books because I wasn't that into Martin's writing when I started the first book years ago, and anyway the casting in the show is really good.

So I've just about finished the first season now. It's pretty enjoyable, mostly for the cast and characters. Plotting...not so much. I've already found about four separate things that bug me, and my friend tells me that some things I'm wondering about are still not resolved even now. heheh
I'll probably keep going with it, though..it's quite entertaining at least.

Very good opening episode. So far I enjoyed the portrayal of Oberyn, and really liked that they started adding some Rhaegar backstory. Oberyn was a pretty cool character in the book, but as has been said he doesn't need much characterization. He's essentially 3 things: Great warrior, Lannister hater, and sexual deviant (or at least sex addict?) I think they've done him that much justice in his opening scenes, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else they do with him throughout the season, especially that one scene all us book readers are anticipating. The opening with the forging of the two swords from Ice was a pretty strong scene I thought. As far as the Thenns, I don't really mind. It's just a name really, and "ice river clan" or unnamed peoples from Skagos don't sound as powerful or definitive as Thenn. I think on the whole the show has done a good job depicting the nature of the Wildlings (on the whole) as brutal and untamed, but also a free and admirable people. I still don't like their version of Mance though. The ending was awesome, they handled that perfectly even without the Tickler. In fact, I almost think this works better as far as the show. It was hard to show the psychological trauma that Arya went through because really the Tickler didn't do anything to her directly. On the other hand, on screen Polliver seems like a better nemesis and target of her hatred. It seems like they're going to take a lot of time this season stretching out the Arya and the Hound plot line, and I'm perfectly fine with that even if it is filler (for non-readers, that scene was one of the final Arya chapters from book 3, there's not much more for her to do here). The more Hound, the better.

The recast of Daario was annoying to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Daario in the book or in the show, he's the GoT equivalent of a douchey fratboy, but I think they dropped the ball with the recast. Even with it being necessary because the other actor had to drop off, they could have at least had the costume designers give him a somewhat similar look. Now I can just imagine confused non-readers thinking "What happened to that long haired dude? Did he die? And who's this bearded guy that came out of nowhere?" The new actor indeed doesn't have the swagger of the other guy, and quite frankly looks more like a Westerosi knight or noble than an exotic mercenary. Whatever, Daario sucks anyway and I'll get over it.

I'm glad they brought Dontos back, but am I the only one that thinks it's a bit "too little, too late?"