So if this is a spoiler thread, may I post something about what I read about? (err, in the song of fire and ice wiki)

EDIT - Just read Keg's initial post but still wanted to make sure it's cool

I don't see why not. You can always use a spoiler tag if you're really all that worried about it. But we have the spoiler-free thread for those who have not read the books and don't want to be spoiled. Pretty much everyone here either doesn't care, or has read all the books.

Ok cool, thank you - so I read through a lot of the fire and ice wiki (I know, but I didn't want to buy the books lol) I absorbed a lot but not as much obviously as you all have. Basically I earmarked all the characters and what I found out, and correct me if i'm wrong, was that basically all the Starks die (except Sansa and Arya and the Jon) and all the Lannister's live, except Joffrey - that about right? That sucks for them, lol here I thought they were the end all Good guys that would come charging back but NOT! I was so hoping for some perceived justice in the form of gruesome deaths :(
I'm very interested to see how the show maybe changes some of the outcomes, if they do, and the battles are supposed to be epic...can't wait :) Although I have to say after this, I am going to get the books, reading what everyone has posted I am very interested in the whole story now.

Right now, as of end of book 5, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon are for sure alive, and Jon is stabbed and could be alive or dead, only GRRM knows. Catelyn is a zombie in that she died and came back as lady stoneheart to take vengenace on all Freys. Ned is dead. Robb is dead.

So still lots of Starks around to come back and kick some ass. In fact, i believe that book 7 was rumored at one point to be titled "A Time for Wolves" so hopefully the Starks win in the end. Nothing is sure with GRRM though.

****! I knew I shouldn't have gone in the spoiler thread.

I've been defending Sansa for as long as I've been entering the GOT threads.

It may have something to do with the fact that the television character is about 4 or 5 years older than the book character. Sansa is 11 in the book. So when you see her as a fairly passive figure and oftentimes very programmed and naive, you have to remember she was written as an 11 year old. HBO has stayed very faithful to the source material...except for the age. So you see someone that appears to be about 16/17 years old acting as an 11 year old would and it frustrates you.

Well it's not Sansa's fault, really - it's HBOs.

I think the book readers tend to defend her a little more because they have a better perspective on her behavior.

HBO aged up all the kid characters a bit, which frankly they needed to do and GRRM himself has said he would do if he could start over. The stuff Arya and Bran do is not really believable for their ages, so you had to play them older. Dany is 14 when the book starts, but that obviously wouldn't work on the show given her sex scenes. Robb is 15 or 16, Theon is 18 or 19, and Jon is about 14 or 15, all of those are too young for what they do. GRRM missed the mark on ages in the books. The show ages for the actors and actresses work much better and are much more believable.

Haha, yeah, bad idea! Didn;t you read the OP first?

Good take.

I was actually pre-disposed to dislike Sansa because of the books. Much like Dany, I basically dreaded her PoV chapters. GRRM does develop her story well, but I just have a hard time caring about what's going on with her. I actually like both her and Dany more on TV than I do in the books.

I'm with you. The series has made Sansa much more sympathetic to me. Theon as well, though I never had the whole visceral 'he's an asshole' reaction that so many seemed to have halfway through book 1. Going back, I can see how people got that perception of him, though, and I'm glad that the series has tried to more fully show the quandary that he faces: blood vs. "family."

And yes... he's a cur. But imagine if it were a Stark that were fostering with say, the Lannisters, and managed to come back and take Casterly Rock from them, beheading Lannister dogs the whole way. How would we feel? That's a testament to GRRM's writing ability, imo.

Yeah, there is definitely that progression that I went through where I became sympathetic toward Sansa, and maybe a little less thrilled with how Arya turned out. Both are still great characters and the fact that they've both developed in different ways just shows how talented GRRM is.

Am I the only who thinks that Arya Crow-killer & Sam the Slayer have become the characters that other important characters "bump" into when needed? It seems like we'll get a big build up for these characters who are about cross paths and then they pretty much just pass by with only indirect contact (aside from Sam and Bran- which was cool. How many Stark siblings has Sam met so far?)

Arya - for me - is still far and away the most interesting character in this story. I love how her story is playing out. Zero complaints about Arya.

I hope we get some sort of reconciliation between Arya and Sansa, however. Something that shows each other how they each have grown. Could be cool.

I just want Arya and Nymeria to meet back up. Those two together would be kickass. Dragons in the air, wolves on the ground.

That would be great if it was the title for the seventh book. I thought the next two were going to be titled "Winds of Winter" for book six (I think that's set in stone) and "A Promise of Spring" for book seven.