Well, it's starting tonight. (tomorrow for me, technically)
The show is finally starting to catch up to my favourite parts from the books, and I honestly cannot wait to see this played out (even more so than the Red Wedding, huehuehue)
[COLOR="#cc8899"]I was less than thrilled with the merging of certain characters
Spoiler
Edric+Gendry, Ramsay calling Theon "Reek" when that was supposed to be the persona he used to infiltrate Theon's group...
people showing up in places they had no business being in
Spoiler
*Cough*Melisandre taking a day trip to buy Gendry because reasons*Cough*
...the timing of certain events being shifted because drama...
Spoiler
Jaime arriving at King's Landing before Joff's death?!
Season 3 seemed particularly bad about it compared to some of the earlier stuff. I can understand merging characters, and one merge in particular forcing a half-assed explanation for how person X arrived where person Y was supposed to be.[/COLOR]
Ramsay calling Theon "Reek" when that was supposed to be the persona he used to infiltrate Theon's group...
Spoiler
You didn't get to book 5, didn't you? Because yeah they skipped the part about Ramsay going undercover but he DOES call Theon Reek... Not wanting to spoil or anything.
I get where you're coming from, but I find it only normal that they're mixing some already known characters instead of introducing tons of new ones. Non book-readers are already mixed up enough as it is!
I've seen a lot of outburst recently from how different things are getting from the books, especially this season. I gotta say though, I find it a good idea. For two major reasons.
1) If I'm someone who has read the books first, and then watch the show, and the show is exactly the same...I'd get bored pretty quickly. Let's face it, there's not a whole lot of action in the show. Most of the intrigue is by the mystery, the unknown, etc. If I already know everything that's going to happen...what's the point in watching? It's not like this is Futurama, where even though I know all the jokes it's still absolutely hilarious. You only get surprised by a revelation/event once.
Now putting this in reverse, like it is for me...I would find no point in reading the books after the show is over if they were identical. Right now I'm waiting for the last two books to come out, which means I'll be waiting a while. Regardless, if the show was exactly the same as the books, I'd mind as well just re-watch the show instead of reading the books. However, I KNOW the books are different in some ways, so there's no reason for me NOT to read the books if I like the universe.
2) As others have mentioned, there's A LOT of characters. Way too many to keep up with for the normal viewer. That's not to say the normal viewer is stupid, but just that it's A LOT of faces to remember (and when you're watching a show "blind", you mostly remember people through faces). I've already been asked by people I watch with more than once who some character is, or have to point out references so they fully understand what's going on in a particular scene.
A good example of this is last night's episode:
Episode 4
My father didn't realize that Locke at Castle Black was the same guy that Roose Bolton had sent to find the remaining Starks in the previous episode.
There's already A LOT to remember, and you can't exactly take the show slowly like you could a book if you needed to (without rewatching the same episodes over and over, which most viewers are not willing to do).
As a random side note, Derosis' signature keeps catching my eye while I was typing this, I have no idea why. I didn't even read the text. Might be that transition in the middle.
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