It seems to me that Stannis in the show is a much more conflicated character than he was in the books. Written Stannis is a pure black/white kind of guy, and Show Stannis makes the same hard headed decisions, but he seeems to carry the weight of those decisions with him.

I may be wrong, but in any respect, I agree with you.

I've been disappointed by the lack of The Mountain in the last couple of episodes. I thought for sure that he'd be front and center once they got to Harrenhal.

I think Dillane is perfect for that part. His performance is reminiscent of his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson in the John Adams miniseries. Both were aloof, secretive and uncharismatic, and he really nails that.

Me too. Said so to my wife while watching last Sunday.

"Our order doesn't deal in pigshit!"

Easily my favorite line in Ep5.

His isn't exactly a speaking role is it? A Soon-to-be-living-the-rest-of-his-short-ass-life-in-agonizing-pain role sure, but a speaking role?

Well he did pick out the prisoners that were going to be tortured just like in the book. I liked the guy they had playing Gregor last season better, this one is tall enough, but is too skinny.

Exactly! Mountains are wide, not just tall. This guy is too toothpicky to be intimidating. Gregor's diet plan has gone wrong. Time to visit the Manderly dining hall for awhile I think...

Catelyn has never been my favorite character, but I just read the part where she gets a raven saying Bran and Rickon were killed by Theon and their heads mounted on spikes at Winterfell. Heartbreaking chapter. Ned is dead, Bran and Rickon killed and mutilated in their home by a punk kid she practically raised, Robb at war and in constant danger, Sansa being held by her enemies, and Arya missing and feared dead, and her dad is dying before her eyes. I felt really sorry for her. Brutal. No wonder she turns into Lady Stoneheart.

No, he's not exactly talkative in the book, but you do get a feel for what a vicious, sick, brutal person he is. Other than chopping off his horse's head, there really hasn't been any character development for Gregor in the show.

His duel with the Red Viper is one of my favorite passages in all the books.

At least she has Robb.

Heh.

On book 4. After watching the ghost of Harrenhal episode, I realized that Jaqen was saying "this man..." referring to himself. And now realized the Faceless Men concept. At that time he was living the life of a man named Jaqen, since they are "no one" then they can't take ownership of a persona/life. Thought that was pretty cool.

That episode is gonna piss some people off. Huge departure from the books.

Yes it was...I was like WTF?

Yeah definitely had some things i didn't like. Could see how some of it needed to be done...but I wanted Jon to have to kill Qhorin like it happened in the books...couldn't of been too difficult.

Definitely a lot that didn't happen in the book. I don't remember Rob talking to this gal and I don't remember the dragons being stolen but that was several books ago.

I just finished "Clash" and was surprised at the differences. Who took the dragons? Jorah? Osha sleeping with Theon was another. Let's discuss people.

The Warlocks

I didn't get the Osha thing either. I guess it's just to build up her part some since the Reeds won't be in the series.

What about Ygritte(sp?) snuggling up to Jon Snow?

That happens but dont remember it happening then

C'mon all you central time zone freaks! Chime in about the differences and how are they going to bring it all together to make it work?

Frankly, I was waiting for an episode like this to happen. There is simply not enough time to cover the massive amount of storytelling in the books. These sharp departures were inevitable.

Hasn't Georgee RR worked closely with the writers and producers since the show's inception (and why he hasn't started on his sixth book in earnest)? I trust in him and them to make it all make sense.

Surprised a wildling girl like Osha found time to work in a razor. :p

Wtf is going on?? Nobody steals the dragons!

This episode reminds me of the draft... too early to grade. If the changes pay off later in the series, then this may be one of the best episodes to date. However, if they don't pay off then it could easily be the worst.

Top to bottom there were too many differences to mention them all, but the attack on Joffery's entourage in Flea bottom was a awesome. Lollys really isn't a character in this, so her rape might not get mentioned, although the Priest having limbs ripped off by a hoard of zombie-like version of Kings Landing's 99%er's was pretty shocking. That was one of my favorite moments from the book, and it was pretty great in the show. Dinkledge slapping Joffery again was fantastic.

Yeah, the thing with OSHA had to happen because the Reeds don't exsist in the show, and she's their way out. No biggee there. It's just a catalyst for what happens next. Oddly, they're taking a completely different path to get to Reek and Ramsay the Flayer but I see where they're going. It will work. I didn't like that Sir Roderick's battle wasn't included, but whatever... his death was fittingly tragic. I'm a little surprised that Luwin was still alive.

I totally do not remember Littlefinger showing up in Harrenhall in the book like he did in this episode. It might have happened and I forgot about it, but I was pretty surprised when he showed up. The scenes with Arya and Tywin are so good that I don't mind them adding extra.

It looks like Jenny Westerling... or whatever her name is in the book is now this feild nurse lady. Seems odd, but whatever. It all works to the same effect I suppose.

The thing with the dragons getting stolen is a total shocker. The only thing I can think of is that they're making new stories for Dany to keep us engaged in what's happening with her. I can't blame them for that. Her storyline does get pretty scant in the book. It seems all a little odd, but like I said before, it might work out for the best TV-wise, or else we'll all hate it if it doesn't. I guess we'll see how it plays out. I'll resevere my judgment on the changes for now, and enjoy what went really well in this episode.

I'm still holding out hope that we'll still get to see Qhorin and Jon battle like in the books. I'm thinking that he's being led into a trap by Ygrette and that Qhorin and his men have already been captured by Rattleshirt. I'm thinking (or more accurately-guessing) that Jon will have to fight the imprisoned Qhorin in order to save his own skin once he's betrayed and then perhaps saved by Ygrette. I'll be pretty pissed if this doesn't happen at all. It's a fairly key event in the story.

I think the warlocks are about to find out that the dragons are somewhat attached to Dany... at least I hope so. I'm sick of seeing her be so pathetic and whiny and saying, "I'm the blood of fire, Dany Stormborn, blah blah blah yada yada yada." It has nothing to back it up unless her dragons actually prove dangerous.

Wow, divergence from the books is getting stronger and stronger. For the most part, I don't mind. The scenes with Arya and Tywin have been some of the most compelling scenes, so I thnk that has been a good change.

Littlefinger showing up will make the storyline easier to follow as they will skip the whole part about Edmure accidentally blowing up Robb's strategy and will just have Littlefinger broker the deal to bring Tywin and the Tyrell's together at King's Landing to defeat Stannis.

Dany's part I will reserve judgment on. Her story was a bit boring and needed to be livened up, plus I always wondered why no one just took her dragons, or at least tried, while she was so vulnerable. I think the warlocks stole them and this will just make the whole house of the undying scene be that much better once it happens. Plus they mentioned Ilryio (or whatever his name is) to remind viewers who the heck he is so that when he sends the boats to her, people will remember and understand who he was, so I think they are going to the same place.

The Jon Snow part worries me the most. He has to kill the Halfhand himself to be accepted by the Wildlings, I really hope they don't change that part and that they do it justice. I will be disappointed if they mess up that story line.

Yeah, I'm hoping that they're just adding a bit of meat to Dany's story since there really isn't much going on with her in ACoK. I just really hope that they don't leave out her visions in the House of the Undying.

Agreed, how they will handle that whole House of Undying scene with Dany has been one of my biggest question marks for this season. How much of the visions and prophecies will they show, and will the changes versus the book (if any) give us any hints about the prophecies and what they mean? Looks to me like we may get a little kick-ass revenge added to it to make them pay for stealing her dragons, which would be fine with me if so. Dany kicks so much ass in the third book, but not so much in book 2 (Drogon kicks butt, but not Dany). I'd be happy for her to start doing it in this season.

Sounds like I have an interesting ride in store when I finally start watching the season.

What a coincidence. I too would like to add some meat to Dany's story.

Kinda sorta' so far. Wish I hadn't read the books.

I agree.

I still have faith that it'll all tie together. I really don't see how they could possibly get away with cutting that out. It's way too crucial. I wonder if they aren't just pushing it back a little to make it more of a cliff-hanger; put it in the last couple of episodes this season.

Yeah, either way. It's the end result that matters. But I got the impression from this episode (with all the "lady" talk) that they were dropping hints that she's lying about her identity. Still won't be surprised to see if she still ends up being Jeyne Westerling.

Did anyone else find Theon's taking of Winterfell a bit..... jarring? I mean I knew it was going to happen, but it seemed like they started the episode with, "Oh by the way, Theon's got Winterfell now." Wait, what?

I hope The Battle of Blackwater Bay is epic, and that's what they're saving the budget for.

What i got from reading other spoiler sites, is that they couldnt really show that, it would have been pretty difficult or someshit to do, but i think you got the jist of it when he murdered that dude the way he did. That was pretty damned brutal.

I thought it was a great episode.

I didn;t mind the Theon part. They hinted heavily at it last week, and they showed all those scenes in the "previously on Game of Thrones" part at the beginning before going right into that story. But also, it felt true to the books because in the book, Bran wakes up and realizes what is happening and then Theon comes into his room, just like on the show. It was told from Bran's POV in the book and the show was very faithful to the book, even using a lot of the same dialog.

At least until Rodrik was killed, obviously that was different. But I liked the way they did that as it had a lot more impact than killing some unknown minor character like Theon did in the book. Plus the Ramsay storyline is being condensed, so it made sense to kill Rodrik in this episode.

Can you refresh my memory of how it went down in the book? Theon took Winterfell with a handful of men, then Rodrick came back with bannermen (including Ramsay) to take Winterfell back, and Ramsay promptly turned on Rodrick. Am I remembering that correctly?

Ramsay was in prison at Winterfell disguised as Reek. When Theon captures Winterfell, they release him and he "helps" Theon. It is ramsay's idea to take Bran and Rickon's clothes with them on their search and then kill the miller boys to pretend they are Bran and Rickon. After Asha comes to visit Theon and leaves him only 10 men, Ramay/Reek suggests that he could raise a couple of hundred men to help Theon defend Winterfell. Theon agrees (Theon is not very bright). When Rodrik comes back with his host and is about to retake Winterfell, Ramsay and his men come along pretending to be on Rodrik's side, then they butcher Rodrik and his men. Theon welcomes him in thinking he is on Theon's side, but Ramsay is on his own side, and he kills all of Theon's men and everyone else at Winterfell and burns Winterfell (Bran, Rickon, Osha, Hodor, Meera and Jojen are all hidden in the crypts at this point). Ramsay also takes Theon as his new "Reek" and begins torturing him (though we don't see that until book 5). Ramsay leaves Winterfell abandoned and goes back to his Dreadfort.

Thank God.

Dany's story mostly becomes a whiny teenager pissing and moaning about what she's going to do when she's queen...then getting all wet in the thighs anytime some purple-haired archer shows up. Her story is just awful for 3 consecutive books.

Perhaps the show will actually make in interesting.

Fortunately it appears that they're not messing around with Tyrion at all, and both he and Snow have the most consistently great storylines.

I agree - there's no reason why they still couldn't have the fight with Qhorin. And as you've said, it's a hugely critical component to the story.

Why the surprise? That's pretty much all she does in the books as well.

Dany gets a little bit of an unfair rap IMO. Her story in book 2 is a very small part only covering 5 out of 70+ chapters. The House of the Undying chapter is excellent and full of interesting visions and prophecies, the rest are fine, but perhaps not thrilling. Still, we are only talking about 4 chapters.

In book 3, I thought Dany's story was excellent and a lot of fun to read. So I can't see how she had three consecutive bad books. Plus she is not even in book 4 at all, so she's not boring in book 3 or 4. I also liked her story in book 1 a lot. So really it is book 5 that is the biggest issue with Dany.

Her chapters in Book 5 did have some tedious parts, and she certainly makes some mistakes. But she is a young girl trying to be a queen, and GRRM will try to make his characters' behavior realistic under their circumstances, even if it makes them less fun to read about (he does this with all three of Dany, Tyrion and Jon in book 5, especially the first 2/3 of the book).

So my Dany summary would be:

Book 1: Dany's story is good and interesting
Book 2: Dany's story is only a small part but finishes strong with House of Undying
Book 3: Dany kicks butt and takes names, I enjoyed her a lot in Book 3
Book 4: Dany's not in book 4
Book 5: Dany's story drags in this book until she finally flies away on Drogon near the end

To me, Book 5 is her only real weak spot.

I agree. I thought it was cool to see her become really powerful and basically build herself an empire with 3 dragon hatchlings, the remnants of a khalasar, and an exiled knight. In the show, I think her character has gotten pretty whiny and annoying. I'm hoping to see her step it up now and see them give her character some teeth (fangs and fire).

I agree.

I love where Danny's story goes and the woman she becomes in Book 3. She's one of my favorite characters and it's largely because of her changes/actions in Storm.

Book 5 is only difficult for me because of the repetition. Danny has more chapters in Dance than her story arc really requires. And that's all George Martin spinning his wheels. That's on him. Overall, I love what Danny becomes/goes through in Dance as well, it just goes on too long and has less forward momentum than it deserves.

See, I think her story is tedious in book 3. I guess the idea is that she's growing into her power and maturity, and I suppose I'm supposed to give her the benefit of immaturity when I'm getting tired of watching her say "I'm the mother of dragons, you'll do what I want" over and over and over again, but it just seems like a meandering shitshow of a story. It's just her trying to prove what a badass she is, but fairly often failing miserably. The only parts of her story that I actually like are Mormont and Ser Barristan's roles in them.

Book 2 is interesting for her until she gets to Qarth for me. I'm not even all that amazed by the House of the Undying chapter. Maybe I need to read it again, but it just seemed too frenetic and disorganized. I just wanted to be done with it.

She went from an extremely promising character in book 1 to just another demanding but ultimately over-matched 'King' by the end of book 5. Look at it this way - has she been any more successful or less entitled than Joffrey as a ruler? The only distinction is that she !@#$ed her way to the top of a Khalasar before relying on a shaky birthright. And while her motives are determined to be more 'pure', she's still all about killing folks to take over a country because she feels its hers by birth.

It's just not that simple. Reducing her to a whiny slutty brat is myopic bordering on absurd. At least to me. I really identify with the challenges she's facing - had to face. And I think there is a nobility and something admirable about what she wants. Even if the way she goes about it is frustrating and/or naive at times.

She's a little girl growing into a woman. She's flawed, just like all of them. But, to me, comparing Danny to Joffrey is like saying that a cop who kills a serial killer is no better than the serial killer himself. Which, again, feels like an oversimplification to me.

But I understand different storylines will appeal to different people.

Okay, you totally lost me when you compared Dany to Joffrey. Really? Joffrey is an evil, sick twisted psychopath who derives pleasure from the suffering of others. Dany is an orphaned teenage girl who is willing to kill to claim the throne she thinks her family deserves, but doesn't derive any pleasure from it and only does it if she has to. She wants to free slaves, not enslave people. She wants to be loved by the people she rules and wants to take care of them, even if she doesn't really know how. Joffrey shoots arrows at his starving subjects to kill them for fun and could not care less whether they all starve to death and die. I mean come on. Really? If you didn't enjoy Dany's story in Book 3, then you just aren't going to be a fan of her. To each his own. But there's no basis for putting her at joffrey's level.

BTW, not sure if you've done a re-read, but the House of Undying chapter is great on a couple of fronts. One is that Drogon gets to burn the place down which is the first time we witness the power of the dragons and that they will protect Dany. And the bad guy Pyatt Pree gets the axe. But on a re-read, after having read all 5 books, it is a fascinating chapter in terms of the visions and prophecies. It is wild how much foreshadowing GRRM does in his books, and her vision of the king with the wolf's head sitting over a feast where all the guests are slain is one of the most obvious examples. The part about Rhaegar and Aegon and the song of ice and fire and the dragon having three heads is one of the key passages in all the books. She gets the three treasons prophecy. She sees the blue flower in a wall of ice (another clue that Jon is Lyanna's son). Lots of good stuff.

BTW, I've been re-reading book 2 for the first time while this season is going, and not only does GRRM have Dany foreshadow the Red Wedding in her visions, but in one of Theon's chapters, he dreams about all the people from Winterfell that are dead, and he also sees Robb and Grey Wind bleeding from a hundred cuts. Things like that are easy to gloss over the first time through, but they really stick out on a re-read when you know what's coming. GRRM definitiely warned us what was coming in his own subtle way. Amazing how much stuff I missed or forgot on my first reading.

I really, really need to read this series. I've done all the books via the audio route, and I just don't have the recall on specifics like many of you do.

I hear you, I knew a lot of specifics based on just reading things like the essays on the Tower of the Hand website which really provide a lot of good insights supported by book quotes, but I have not sat down and done a re-read all the way through myself until I picked up book 2 again in anticipation of this season. These books really do hold up well to a re-read. Looking forward to re-reading book 3 as a lot of the specifics of that one are fuzzy to me at this point, though I may wait until closer to the next season starting.

Wickedson found this... it's awesome.

http://www.theworldsbestever.com/201...ns/#more-83698

Love how they have the actors explain it all.

Nothing like getting your hair burned off, being dropped in a cave in the middle of nowhere and staggering around starving,puking and bleeding to give a character some teeth.

I'm tired of little Dany the nice, I want to see grown-up Dany the vengeful bitch.

In case anyone cares, those are from the DVD's.

Maybe I am fuzzy on the whole thing since it was 3 books ago but I don't remember the whole story with the dragons going the way it is in the show.

Yeah it's not like this at all.

I'm having a hard time watching this show. It seems nothing has happened. I'm on season 2, episode 4. I was pretty pumped at the end of season 1 but I have to force myself to pay attention to this show, I fall asleep half the time or start playing on my phone cause I'm hella bored.

Well I know that she doesn't go to the House of the Undying under the circumstances that she is, or at least I don't remember that. And I don't remember a mass murder of the 13 but something seems to tug at me saying that may have happened. I might have to go back and re-read book two in spots.

I don't believe the 13 died either. But i'm pretty much okay with the direction. She was going to be going to the House of Undying anyways. They're just spicing it up for TV.

This show is not for you. It's not all dragons melting faces.

Yeah I am ok with the storyline and all just didn't recall it happening that way.

I guess not

but it has been 1.5 seasons and nothing has really happened. Should I have read the books?

Ok since this is the spoiler thread I am going to tell you now...

Yes, there are tons of storylines going on and tons more to come. Just keep in mind the actual title of the series of books is "A Song of Ice and Fire", not Game of Thrones. That is just the title of the first book.

ok, fine. But they did make it seem on the season 1 finale that it was gonna be like "OH SHIT, BITCH GOT DRAGONS, BETTER WATCH THE **** OUT"

:facepalm:

here is what I've gathered. Granted I was really stoned during each viewing

And that is still a valid point but you have to consider it is 5 books and we are on book 2. The Dragons have to grow up. Bitch does have dragons and they will play a part but no one knows what that is as of yet.

Ok, I think I went in expecting stuff to be like the video games I've played, like Skyrim or something. I'll try to be a little more patient. Boy, that midget sure can act, huh?

I think you are missing a lot of what has happened. First off Ned Stark was not a King. King Robert is called "the Userper" by several for fighing against Daenerys's father. So "honorable" is a matter of perspective. Secondly "the midget" was sent to King's Landing to control the King and his sister because the little inbred **** is ****ing everything up.

Thirdly and I will put this as a spoiler..

Just one more spoiler so you understand the entire concept.

It's like a fine wine, the books and the series keep getting better with each episode and page. I'm about 100 pages into "Storm of Swords" and can't wait until I have the chance to read more.

Martin reads a chapter from book 6....the reading is at 30:50

Just a hint on how to get through the books faster. I figured out by book 3 that Martin is in love with describing what a person is wearing. He will spend entire paragraphs on describing what someone has on. You can easily gloss over those parts and not miss a beat.

So for those that have read the books, were those really the Stark boys hanging there at the end?

Well since this is the spoiler thread...

No.

Like Dany's one breast covered one not dress. I wish that made it from book to TV.:p