JoeDeclassified.com

I'm in love with this show.

Intense fan of the books, can't wait for the new one scheduled to be released on 7/12.

Here's to hoping for lots of deleted scenes on the eventual DVD release!

I commented on your sig over on hisstank, great show. I still need to check the family tree on HBO.com so I can keep everyone straight.

I loved the first three books, but I hated A Feast For Crows. The “sorry for screwing you over” apology at the end of AFFC, plus the extra five year wait for the new A Dance With Dragons was bad enough. But fiction wise, AFFC was an agonizingly slow read by the sheer number of asinine new characters introduced with minimal to no purpose that bogged things down to a crawl. (Did we really need literally half the book dedicated to the Ironheads picking a “king” to present an argument on gender discrimination? And does anyone care about Brienne?!)

Martin is in serious need of an editor who will stand up to him and trim off the extraneous side characters so his books have a hope of completion before he dies. Then if he gets the story told, he is more than welcome to publish the various side stories that he has been sitting on for those who obsess over every detail of every minor noble and their entire family history in his world. Though to be fair, I did just read an article in which Martin said no more new POV characters would be introduced after ADWD, So maybe he got the hint the extra characters that don't progress the plot need to go.

At least the plus of the HBO series, is, it forces the fat to be cut out, and the producers are not adhering to Martin’s love of ugly characters.

Love the books, just finished reading Dance with Dragons earlier this week.

Chris, I'm a Brienne fan. Don't know if you've hit up DwD yet, but some of the seemingly pointless characters introduced in FfC are starting to make sense now.

As far as the show, definitely loving it so far - just waiting on the last couple of episodes to reach us here in the mail...

I have not watched any of the episodes yet, but my girlfriend loves that show. I just got her the books.
Chris

Whaaaaattt?! Are you serious?



No, after AFFC, I was holding off ADWD in case it turned out to be another stinker.

At this point, all I care about is seeing Jon Snow survive, Samwell meeting a horrible death, and Martin losing the lesbian fantasies with Dany. But knowing my luck (and given almost all my other faves have died lame deaths), Jon will be made out to be really cool and badass, only to accidently slip on some ice and fall off the wall to his death; the coward Samwell will continue to piss his pants, whine, but accidently kill another wraith and be made the new Lord; there will be 344 more pages of Brienne; and Dany will have another sex scene with GRRM's "Mary Sue" character of himself.

Absolutely. Brienne, in my mind, is just about the only pure hero in the story. With a tale full of incestuous backstabbers, idiots, and corrupt fools, she is pretty much the only character who defies traditions and tries to do the right thing, all the time, regardless of the consequences (Davos is the other of this type). She's the classic underdog, and I love that shit.

What are we reading the same books. She pledged her loyalty to a Usurper king out of girlish crush.

Season 2 - so close...April 1st.