Fuck Cersei.

That is all.

People are shocked to hear me say that I am not a fan of this. I never read the books, and the episodes that I have seen, while I'll agree that it's got great stuff, I'm just not into this show as many would think I should. (I mean, I love stories that have dragons, families that fight, blood and such, I should be in love with this show). I just never got into it.

Although I will say that I do like Peter Dinkledge in it.

I'm definitely a fan of the show, and I'm caught up on the 4 seasons. I've never read the books, and I'm not sure if I'll ever get into reading them. I can't believe that I have to wait a year for the 5th season, but that's just how it goes. Tyrion, FTW!

From what I've heard from a few of my brother's friends, they say that the show is actually a lot better than the books. And they're not the only ones who I've seen say that. Pops up on Facebook some times from a few friends saying the same thing.

I kinda enjoy it, reading and watching.


I like the show more, because it culls the bullshit filler Martin seems to have an infatuation for.

I rather enjoy the show.

It's not exactly anything like the fantasy I tend to enjoy but seeing as nothing (except the Hobbit) has been produced since the LOTR movies I will take what I can get. It's nice that it doesn't try to emulate LOTR like 90% of all western fantasy out there.

I still wish someone would produce something like the 1982 Conan movie, though.

There is no one left to hate tho.They are all dead lol

Especially since LoTR was a product of its time and does not hold up at all. Tolkien's shortcomings as a writer really didn't age very well. White fantasy is basically overdone, Dark fantasy is all over the place, and Martin's shitbrown fantasy is well, ... all the shit.

Have you forgotten Littlefinger?

That fucker's worthy of fifty chops to the throat.

Nah at least he did something useful with Sansa.

Even if Tolkien had shortcomings as a writer he had a pretty good imagination, pretty good familiarity with his source material, was very thoughtful in his world consistensy and I like the actual setting itself.


Fantasy could need some fresh blood in the genre and it makes me consider to start writing stories of my own just to see if I can do better.

The bastard was being selfish; he just wants her so he can get Winterfell.

I hope Sansa crosses him good.

Something I love about the show is that pretty much everyone is Morally grey.

Very few characters are pure good or pure evil... seriously Jaime Lannister is a great example of someone who starts off as a cunt, then we feel pity for him, then his story arc with Brienne makes him pretty fucking likable, and hes pretty much a good guy in Season 4, incest aside. Throw in characters like Shea, The hound, Bron and you can see what I mean.

There is white fantasy, Tolkien could be considered white fantasy. There is dark fantasy, and there is shitbrown fantasy, which is Martin.

The problem with Tolkien is that his whole world is so banal, so black and white that I can barely read it anymore with the same enthusiasm. When I read the lord of the Rings I read it critically, not necessarily for enjoyment.

His characters are morally determined, the hobbits are sickeningly goodly, anyone who has a different opinion or differs from the pre-established norm is bad, industrialization is bad, and Tolkien was DEATHLY afraid of females.

I don't view Tolkiens world a place we are suppose to compare to the real world. To me it's mythology and I happen to like mythology.

Black and white morales are part of mythology and after the end of LOTR all the mythological elements are being removed from the world to turn it into the grey zone that the real world is meant to be. Tolkien never wrote this story because he realised it would just be about politics and petty conflicts rather than the fantastic.

So the future of Tolkiens world would have pretty much been like Game of Thrones without anything magical in it.

No. Not really. Contemporary American fantasy did quite well without black and white imagery, just to name Lovecraft's crew and Robert E Howard. And to say that Tolkien avoided politics is well, LoTR is pretty much a love letter anti-industrialization and war (Frodo's PTSD is a glaringly obvious echo of post-war soldiers returning to peace).

Sure, he wrote and constructed it as a saga, the whole thing basically follows the German Niebelunglied dramatically right down to the central object being a ring.

That however does not excuse Tolkien. His characters are lacking in dimensions, they are non-intrinsic in their motivation, any moral variable is avoided, and the one case with Frodo where we actually see his hesitance is written up on the Ring's board.

This on it's own merits doesn't necesarily mean that LoTR is BAD per se, but above a certain age the reader needs a certain complexity within his or her characters.

The problem doesn't lie in Tolkien solely. The problem is that mainstream fantasy cannot get the fuck out of Tolkien's luminosphere, and I still see the fair, slim, shoots well and short, stocky, metalworker stereotypes needlessly perpetuated. Eastern European fantasy moved/moves away from that though, I moved away from that.

About the dwarves: it cracks me up whenever they are represented as stereotypically Scottish, when in LoTR they are admittedly and very clearly based on the semite-jewish language.

Oh, LOTR certainly have problems and have caused some problems in the genre. Although, that is also partly because RPG's like dungeons and dragons used Tolkiens world building as a model to go after. In truth DnD didn't start out as something that was suppose to emulate LOTR but the people that played it did so and in the end the RPG authors gave them what they wanted.

Then there is also franchises like Warhammer that steals and blends from so many sources that they turn them into some generic mush. Most of the time they just kinda switch out names to avoid lawsuits.

So the real problem isn't LOTR as much as people like to conform and stick with what they know.

I love the show and the books. I honestly think that the books are some of the best writing I've read in a long time. He might be a little on the Dickens side when it comes to description, but I actually like that. Martin sets a scene really well.

I think that the show does a better job at giving certain characters depth. There seem to be more sit down conversations between characters, which helps the show from a budgetary standpoint (I believe the show creators said that before).

The show also has the advantage of not being tied down by point of view. You get to be in places and see more of characters than you do in the books. I do like the point of view though, as you get really good insight in to the characters, so it's a trade off.

The books, to me, are much better on the fantasy elements and overall scope of things. Sure, there are far more characters to keep track of, but the battles are bigger, the history is richer and as the show goes on, I'm really starting to wonder how far off the beaten path they'll go.

In short, both are awesome. If you haven't, give them both a good chance. Book one and season one aren't super easy to get in to, but I still got sucked in pretty quickly.

I love the interesting twist that the TV and book series diverge from one another. Some characters in the book die, while they survive in the TV series, and vice-versa.

For people who *think* they know everything that is going to happen because of previous experience with either the books or the series get a few surprises along the way.