@Yogi - Hmm. You thought Season 3 was dragging on and on, but you also want the seasons to be 20 2-hour shows long? I think I would like a very in-depth take on the source that way, but I tend to think that most people would feel like things were dragging too much.

Personally, I liked the books and am enjoying watching a for-TV take on the material. Some things disappoint me compared to the books, but on the whole I feel like it is pretty well done. Sorta like Peter Jackson's LOTR. In both cases, as a fan of the books a longer runtime would almost always be better from my perspective but I can usually understand the cuts made to condense down the material. I'd even include being OK with stuff like Tom Bombadil missing in the LOTR films, which irked a lot of fans; or at least a vocal number on the internet.

The Red Wedding from the books was fairly shocking for me on first reading, but on the other hand I recovered from it fairly quickly since I was personally a bigger fan of Jon Snow as my Stark clan icon from the get-go. As mentioned in the video here, Robb is played up quite a bit in the series, so I guess that for people who haven't read the books it might be an even bigger initial shock than it was to book readers.

/potential slight spoilers

...Not to mention that some other events coming up quite soon replace the "holy shit, that was brutal!" reaction to the Red Wedding with "holy shit, that was brutally awesome!"...

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Clegane invulnerability and Stark lightning-rod-ness might cancel out and give the kids a chance at normal life!

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It's interesting that your traditional fantasy strongmen types (Robert Baratheon, Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Khal Drogo, Jamie Lannister) fare so poorly in this universe, while the outcasts (bastards, dwarves, tomboys, cripples and book readers) find a way to survive.

I can say the same. I still enjoyed them, but I just wasn't into them as much. After book 4 I was ready for the series to end. It took 4+ books just for the promised "winter" to come. Starks clearly never met George Martin.

This series is a real exercise in the importance of keeping relate-able characters throughout a narrative. I'm still rooting for Arya (my favorite), and Bran (though his actor seems to be growing worse at portraying him). It's a pity the show turned Jon Snow into sexually-repressed Emo.

Crazy to think that THAT guy is Rob Stark.

There are some really stark moments in there. My son would be engulfed by his toys. He has too many.

Uh what?Spoilers:



Arya, Daenerys, John Snow, Bran, Tyrion are all alive and well. (Actually, one of them is in limbo, but whatever).

Your problem is that you bet on all the wrong horses. This is not another generic fantasy tale where house Stark is the good guys and House Lannister are the bad guys. There are a lot of flaws with the series, but unhinged and unpredictable are not on that list. The most popular prediction for the outcome of the series is actually quite interesting, and so far, all the books and pieces of the puzzle fit.

That said, GRRM is taking an awful long time with the set up, and if you didn't like the first 3 books, definitely don't bother with the next two.

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?" -Friedrich Nietzsche


^ We have murdered our God's because we (rightly) came to understand that by this very act were to become their superiors. The "Will to power" (the most fundamental force in the human psyche) always demanded that this must one day come to pass, we were always destined to outlive our fairy tales.
However given our God's now lie dead at our feet the same "Will to power" demands of us a stark choice...

We can stare forever into the abyss of meaninglessness we have created in their place.....
or
We can fill that void with the only meaningful entity that remains, ourselves!

We have killed the God's, now WE must take their place. The "Ubermenschen" are simply those Human's who have attained such a mastery of their own minds that the left hemisphere of the brain (where logic & rational thought occur) has complete assess and control of the right (where the God's & spirit/emotions/inspiration live).

This is why I would never call myself an Atheist but rather a post-modern Gnostic. The God's & spirits did exist to us in every sense that matters, all we changed was our relationship to them. Instead of being their slaves we are now their masters, and we can command them to do whatsoever we please.
Or to put it another way, we became masters of our own reality when we killed our tyrannical God's, now it's time for us to exercise this new found power. (Novus Ordo Mundi! ;-) )

☠
"In Hoc Signo Vinces"

Breathtakingly beautiful yet strikingly stark [like another world] *quality *shortfilms

Given what RDJ has done to Tony Stark, I'd suggest anyone trying to reboot this series within the next, say, 20 years will have a VERY hard time.

Yeah, Tony Stark and Clark Kent are two very different individuals. Clark always puts others first, to the point that he won't use all his strength and power to its full extent, because he knows he could cause more damage than the villain he's trying to stop. Yes, he's a boy scout, but there's a bit of a lesson in a story about an alien who tries to act more compassionate towards humans, than most humans.

Also, he's THE superhero. period. I don't care if they make his powers and villains not realistic. I'm so fucking tired of lex luthor. He's a great villain, but geez, give it a rest already. There's a bunch of other great villains in the superman lore, and it's about time we see him be matched physically and not just intelectually. Zod is one, Darkseid is another. I would also love to see Doomsday or Brainiac.

I don't think we need another Iron Man. I love Iron Man, but Clark Kent is not Tony Stark.

If you want funny read a Deadpool comic.

Superman has other weaknesses - a quick example is his compassion. Superman may be nearly invulnerable but the people he loves are not.

It's not limited to there. Perhaps that is the limit of your experience (or the time you noticed it most starkly), but it's something that keeps repeating throughout life. Move to a new city, start a new job, take a holiday in another country... The point of small talk is to find commonalities. It's a way to find out if you share enough with a person to continue to invest your social energy in them.

Why and how would you spend endless hours talking to someone that can in no way relate to your culture, your family situation, your intellectual interests, your hobbies, your food preferences, and on and on. Small talk is a way to fire as many questions through a filter and see where you can link up with someone else. I think it is actually extremely useful, if a bit tedious at times.