Epic.

*quality *doublepromote

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My two bits:


Characters: All perfect with the exception of Catelyn(not pretty enough), Littlefinger(just a bit off), Hodor(was young in book, not 50+), and Danerys(too doe eyed, but growing on me), Ilyn Payne. The others, especially the Stark boys, Tyrion, Viserys, Cersei and Varys were exceptionally casted. Gems like Aemon, Florel, Bron and Septa Mordane blew me away.

Adaptation: Expected mostly, story offs are reasonable for the most part, (the Others are now called White Walkers, etc).

The bad: the scaling I think, the hands tourney was no bigger than a Ren faire sideshow as was the Dothraki wedding. In the book they were epic. Also that wedding was done during the day and so was the birth of the dragons, which was off-putting. I didn't feel Drago's army was anywhere near 30k.

The downgrading of the dire wolves is disappointing, (they were such a huge spiritual role in the book), but they require CG and that's costly I guess. I hope they're saving that money for the dragons.


The petty: Having Tyrion apparently knocked out during his first battle, in book he fought bravely. Having Danerys immune to fire.

The Unforgivable: Having the knight of the Flowers gay for Renly, including a scene of him sucking him off, even dubbing in the slurping sounds. Pathetic. In book Loras might have been gay, but Renly was a playboy and even married.

All in all I was hoping for a breakthrough in cinematic skill, (like the Rings), but got the budget restrained version. I'll take it though.

Renly and Loras were gay in the book.

There are subtle clues throughout the books, some of which I don't want to comment on since I don't want to give away spoilers for future seasons.

Besides, gay men never get married, especially ones trying to be kings.

That was spoileriffic!

In the book it seemed to me Loras loved Renly like a subject loved his king. I guess since Martin is onboard with this series that it may have been more. Definitely wasn't man gravy slurping gay though.

Who's to say gay boys can't be playboys

>> ^Enzoblue:

In the book it seemed to me Loras loved Renly like a subject loved his king. I guess since Martin is onboard with this series that it may have been more. Definitely wasn't man gravy slurping gay though.


No, this is wrong. You should reread it. They are both gay in the books. It is meant to be something you have to puzzle out, like "J" is "L" and "R"'s son. On your reread, you will realize that George put in a ton of clues for you. Rainbow Guard. Loras never leaves Renly's side. Renly loves bright colors. Renly never consummated his marriage, and everyone believes it. Even things that Renly and Loras say to each other can be taken as one thing, but meant another. Speaking of that, many of the jabs and derisions that Littlefinger and Varys point in their direction are also clues.

It is easy to read Martin's books and miss how much he is putting into each sentence. It really comes out only after you have read them a few times. In some sense, he is a master at foreshadowing.

Anyway, my advice is to read it again.

On a side note... My wife and I are huge fans. We met George at a conference. Amazingly, there were only 20 people. We had breakfast with him a few times. We went to get our 1st ed. ASOIF books signed.

>> ^Enzoblue:

The bad: the scaling I think, the hands tourney was no bigger than a Ren faire sideshow as was the Dothraki wedding. In the book they were epic. Also that wedding was done during the day and so was the birth of the dragons, which was off-putting. I didn't feel Drago's army was anywhere near 30k.
All in all I was hoping for a breakthrough in cinematic skill, (like the Rings), but got the budget restrained version.


It's television, and you should compare it to other television shows, not movies. They don't have $300 million to spend on 10 hours of footage like LOTR. Scenes like Tyrion getting knocked out and missing the fight are there so that the producers don't blow half of the season's budget on a battle that wasn't even important.

I have not read the book and I don't intend to for I am convinced it will not add anything to the quality of the (TV) series. I really enjoy fantasy epics, but these books I will spare for the sake of the goodness which is running out of the screen everytime I watch an episode of GoT.