I wouldn't skip a single scene with this chick in it, and most girls I know feel the same way about Jon Snow. HBO knows how to dish out the eye candy.

You don't get that she and Jon Snow are the long-game story?

I still don't know what 'the actual storyline' is in Game of Thrones and I am on book four. Well was. I gave up.

There is no plot. There are little resolutions, just (a few) interesting characters bouncing around a world that keeps getting bigger and bigger.

The show offers more structure but its going to have to veer pretty heavily from Martin's work if its going to resolve itself in any meaningful way on the timeline of a television show limited to a few seasons.

The trick with a lot of hack writing, particularly in fantasy, seems to be to just keep opening plotlines, while tying up as few as possible. If you imagine a flow chart connecting events as they branch out into plotlines, it should look like an ever-expanding cone.

Because stupid people eat this shit up. They somehow manage to convince themselves that the author has some kind of massive awesome ending to all this stuff planned, hidden up his sleeve all along, and they just can't wait to find out what it is! The more nonsense he adds, the more people get wrapped up in it. Lost did this, and most people I know STILL think that show was about something.

I guess the plan is to just die before you have to finish your last book, like Robert Jordan. Or whatever his name was.

Flipped through one of the books. It seemed like an NC-17 Dragonlance novel that was trying to introduce the political plots and conversational subtext of Dune but with nowhere near the talent to pull it off.

You almost feel obligated though to watch any HBO show with high production values. At best it's trashy entertainment like True Blood but without knowing it's trash (in other words the first season of True Blood). Someone here described it perfectly as "not exciting enough for action, not complex enough for intrigue".

The only thing that makes it watchable is Peter Dinklage, but for every scene with him you have painful scenes of Jon Snow with the barbarian girl. The 2nd season gets by entirely on Dinklage and the buildup to the King's Landing invasion which turns out to have an underwhelming resolution.

I am openly critical of Game of Thrones, but I wouldn't call the show trashy entertainment on par with intentional camp like True Blood. The substance of Game of Thrones is manipulative and empty: like lost but with very familiar iconography.

The casting is perfect and the character writing is real and interesting. The performances are evenly awesome with a few notable exceptions.

The visual effects are properly thought out and executed and the overall tone is perfect fantasy.

I will agree with you on the issue of it being compared to Dune, though. No. Not even close.

I flipped through Grapes of Wrath once, seemed like retard bullshit. Heh, you guys read this shit? There wasn't even an ending, just some gratuitous tits.

The Wikipedia page for A Song of Ice and Fire makes a point of mentioning that George RR Martin is "in robust health." I'm sure there's a lot fantasy nerds living in perpetual fear of him pulling a Robert Jordan.

snake,

Just because some writers can leave conflicts unresolved for thematic effect doesn't mean every unresolved conflict always has a thematic effect.

youre trying to compare miles davis to television static, but it was snarky, so you at least have that going for you.

Does that work on reddit?

It definitely tries to go for the subtext and veiled threats of Dune's dialog.

Take the scene where the brothel owner and queen threaten each other (ending with her almost ordering her guards to kill him). Painfully on the nose dialog trying to sound subtle.

Then compare it to the formal dinner scene in Dune where various factions are fishing for information while undercutting each other via seemingly innocent remarks. Miles apart.


Wait no it's just like Steinbeck!

A brief rebuttal in favor of Game of Thrones:

Jon Snow has yet to turn into a giant psychic godworm.