getting into game of thrones

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1

So, since many of my friends are on the Game of Thrones bandwagon, I’d like to get into the whole thingie as well so I can shit on their terrible opinions. :grinning:

Anyway, I was curious, is it better to take up the books or watch the TV series? I’ve heard the books have more detailed worldbuilding and details, but is the extra stuff actually good? I’m not intimidated by the length, but is the writing worth it to actually slog through so many pages?

2

Lol don’t read the books

This is decent enough TV to get smashed to and laugh at and occasionally with, but anyone trying to sell you on Greatness is a cad

3

the TV series is basically a soap opera and it jumps the shark around the middle of the fifth season but it’s definitely enjoyable

can’t speak to the books

4

The books aren’t all that heavy. I found them compelling, though it’s been many years since I read the first few. Martin has some other good books outside the Song of Ice and Fire series as well, such as the standalone novel Fevre Dream.

Haven’t watched the show, so I can’t talk about whether it’s worth seeing. People sure talk about it a lot, though. It takes a lot to make me commit to watching a television show.

5

I had a good time listening to the audio books while working, I probably wouldn’t have made it through the last couple in the series if I was using my free time on them though.

6

I would say the first three are decent fantasy funtimes, but after that it’s a pretty huge slog. If you want the book reading experience, you can probably get away with just reading the first and calling it a day.

7

it’s legitimately good until the fifth season. I tried reading parts of the first and third books but the writing was so bad I had to stop myself from throwing the books across my kitchen. so don’t do that.

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8

Just watch the show, or don’t please don’t. You’re not missing anything by skipping the show, if you’re in the mood for a TV show you can lord over your friends and claim you’re a tastemaker, then watch Mr. Robot

9

Don’t read the books, don’t watch the show.

I was a fan for awhile. The first book is good! It’s also the shortest, and has the least character subplots. It’s basically a medieval noir detective story with Ned Stark in the gumshoe role. Then it spirals off into a tedious kudzu plot and never recovers (save for a few big wham moments in one book).

Huge chunks of the latter books are like watching GRRM patiently read and reread the directions on a board game and fumble to set all the pieces up.

Also they are hung up on the worst kind of 90s grimdark bloodshit.

11

the books are not better. they are if anything much worse

13

show is shit. some of the actors are fun but most of the good ones are dead now. maybe the first season is sort of okay.

14

the show had pacing issues since at least s3 (when certain characters started to have one arc per season) but now it’s gotten real unrewarding, yeah

15

I found the books okay. I despise the show.

The books are bloated and pulpy, but there’s a real sense of history in the worldbuilding. The lore actually isn’t that excessive, a lot of it is brought up tangentially rather than through pure exposition. The 2nd and 3rd book movie very quickly despite their length and have some satisfying payoffs. 4th and 5th books are purely meandering plotlines that go nowhere. I’d only recommend these books if you love worldbuilding or need something to read for a long airplane ride.

The show is awful. The first 3 seasons are sort of carried by the plotlines from the first few books, but that’s it. The show has zero decency (horribly sexist and racist), has no idea how to stage a scene, has no idea how human beings speak. None of the plotlines once they breakaway from the book plotlines make any sense. It’s entirely driven by cliffhangers (read: sudden deaths of characters). The writers/creators are absolutely clueless. Has a few good performances, but some of the main actors are hilariously bad. It is mindboggling how much praise this show gets.

Despite all that though…I did watch it all…

16

I mean, the primary reasons that season 5 turned out pretty bad were

  • they killed off too many of the good characters prior to that point (how this was not such an obvious pitfall that they didn’t do more to avoid it I do not understand, people were joking about it during the first season and oh well there it goes)
  • at the end of the fourth season of the show it seemed like they were deliberately moving things around to compensate for the famously meandering nature of the fourth and fifth books, which was exciting and gave them the benefit of the doubt, then they wound up returning to some of the plot points in the books in what seemed like reverse order, circling back around the narrative in a way that was not only illogical and unsatisfying, but also frequently exploitative.

even up to the four episode leak at the beginning of the season it seemed like they were keeping things interesting, then they pretty much squandered everything they had.

17

Just watch deadwood