Game of Thrones

[thelerner]

HBO has come down hard on any bar having a Game of Thrones event.  Too bad.  It'd be fun to watch with other enthusiasts.

[zerostao]

today i watched episode 9 of season 5. i dont watch much tv and this is the only show i am currently watching.

last year i watched the first season and this year i have been trying to catch up

so i can be waiting for the next episode like the rest of ya

and read this thread

[zerostao]

i binged this week and am caught up

there is a yuge fleet afloat, with dragons!

 

[thelerner]

Nice to see how the haunting music score is made.

 

I'm starting to slowly rewatch the series.  Season uno. 

They're all so.. so.. so alive. 

 

if you haven't seen it, this is awesomely funny, not at first but once it gets rolling.

Edited July 18, 2016 by thelerner

[redcairo]

I bought those books.

 

I read the first book. By the end of it I was like, GODS! Is this author the most depressed person in the world? Does he see nothing but misery and death and the worst people triumphing?

 

I thought well, maybe it gets better. Maybe the first book is just kinda dark.

 

But then I found a review that talked about everything that bothered me the most and then said, and the ENTIRE SERIES is like this! It never changes!

 

I sent the books to someone else.

 

I didn't watch the TV show, even though one of the bad guys (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is one of my favorite actors to drool over since I saw him in the awesome series New Amsterdam (see hulu or amazon or a warez site for the only season).

 

RC

[zerostao]

[dust]

I bought those books.

 

I read the first book. By the end of it I was like, GODS! Is this author the most depressed person in the world? Does he see nothing but misery and death and the worst people triumphing?

 

If you like fantasy stuff and haven't read them yet, the Wheel of Time books might be worth investing some time in.

 

14 books altogether, each as long as one of the Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire books, and with many similarities, but the Wheel series actually has various protagonists (good and bad) who you can get to know and be pretty sure they're not going to die randomly because the author had too much wine one night and thought it would be fun.

 

Owes a lot to Lord of the Rings, but the story is n times more complicated and the lead characters more interesting.

 

I'm on the 13th book now and it's just as good as it was at the beginning.

[redcairo]

Oh heck yeah!  Thanks Dust, yeah I'm a huge Robert Jordan fan. Read all those, and the prequel. He was absolutely brilliant, that man. I cried when he died (of cancer). Brandon Sanderson has done a really great job in finishing his stuff... but isn't him.

 

I was just mentioning him the other day. I was telling someone about this amazing epic fantasy author who had this group of women who were magically bound from telling lies, they couldn't do it. And they still managed to be the most deviously distrustworthy group of humans on the planet LOL!!!

 

I think I wish the very last book was... I dunno. Maybe more... expanded. A couple areas I thought would go somewhere didn't. But then I realize that technically... that bleeping series could still be going on, it just had to be ended somewhere.

 

My best friend is still not done with the series. He loves it so much he hates the idea of being done with it. I tease him because it's taking so long.

 

I thought by book 7 Jordan should have been fined for every new character. And I nearly quit reading in the middle of book 8 because of the new characters, and then I really didn't like the Seanchan so didn't like reading about them from then on.

 

I had a 'moment of insight' prior to finishing that series, that the 'world' of Jordan had become (if it wasn't always) literally his body I mean like microbiology writ to global humanization scale. Of course my mystical stuff always ties into "we are the universe literally" so maybe it's just part of that. But for a few minutes while that was strong in me it seemed like everything fell into place as that making perfect sense. :-)

 

RC

[dust]

I suspected you'd know it already wondered about making a topic about it recently

 

There are minor problems I have with Jordan's writing style -- e,g. he unnecessarily repeated certain motifs a lot (in particular "Her face was a smooth mask of Aes Sedai serenity") -- but other than that I've enjoyed the whole series. The increasing complexity, new characters etc has kept me even more hooked. [i counted in my head the other day and figured that, at that point, we were dealing with the perspectives of about 15 major characters in almost as many different places. And yet it's rarely confusing, or tiring -- I just want to know how they all end up coming together!]

 

I understand what you mean about the Seanchan, but don't you think they help balance the story, and offer another interesting perspective like the other 'outsider' groups? (I'm seeing Aiel, Tuatha'an, Atha'an Miere, Whitecloaks as the outsiders)

 

Looping back to Game of Thrones (kind of) I've wondered about a WOT TV series -- apparently someone's got the rights to it now -- but not sure it would translate well to screen. Not sure how they'd portray Aes Sedai, or weaves (even with today's CG, would be crazy to make complicated weaves look good), or manage casting, etc.

 

Would be interested to hear your thoughts on that. I recommended it to a friend recently and he's on the 3rd or 4th book by now (listening to the audiobooks, which are very well done BTW) but other than him I have nobody to discuss WOT with in real life...

[Songtsan]

Another good writer is Brandon Sanderson, who wrote the last book or so of the Wheel of Time series. He has a few good series, such as the Stormlight Archives...I also like Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series...

[dust]

Yeah, I just bought Alloy of Law, to be read once done with WOT. Quite enjoyed the first era Mistborn series but wasn't sure if I'd read the next era...very cool imaginative stuff (Allomancy etc) but it got very stale at certain points. But his writing on the WOT books convinced me to go back to him again.

 

Also recently bought Dune, which amazingly I haven't read yet.

Edited March 12, 2017 by dust

[ralis]

I haven't read the books and just viewed the first two episodes. Seems like a Medievel blood fest.

[Aetherous]

I haven't read the books and just viewed the first two episodes. Seems like a Medievel blood fest.

It can get very addicting. Can't wait for the new season!

[silent thunder]

I got to book five.  Enjoyed them, but eventually tired of the author/serial killer's style.

[Taomeow]

.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Taomeow

[thelerner]

I haven't read the books and just viewed the first two episodes. Seems like a Medievel blood fest.

Please, they're just murdering people, one by one, back then, right? 

How I long for those pacifistic days. 

 

The last few seasons, If you don't see a body count between 100 and 5,000 per episode then you've taken one too many washroom breaks. 

[zerostao]

it's an historical fact that some of those episodes were the driving force inspiring thomas hobbes to write and publish

The Leviathan

 

sadly, the Azure Window off Malta collapsed into the sea 4 days ago.

omen?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/09/that-sad-day-arrived-maltas-azure-window-as-seen-on-game-of-thrones-collapses-into-sea/?utm_term=.99c62c5ce410

[redcairo]

I read one of Brandon Sanderson's 3-book series. I went to find the title but dang, I didn't know he had so much stuff, I can't remember which it was. It had this element where a selective (genetically selective) group of people could control things physically and they would for example be able to jump, not quite fly really, through a control of... I think it was the metallic elements, and it would play off throwing something akin to a coin to the ground for example and then controlling between that and body.

 

I think it was one of his early works. He was clearly, and I mean overwhelmingly, inspired by Jordan, to the point that it seemed slightly in places like his own story but RJ fanfic, but then again, epic fantasy genre does tend to have an often very repetitive set of elements I guess. The fight scenes were so complex I had to slow down so much to try and keep track of what was happening (and they went ON) I ended up skimming through them eventually. But aside from that, I actually really enjoyed them, you could see his talent even if raw in places, and I was in a thoughtful mode at the time so I kept stopping and going, "Hmm!" at various ideas in it, as it had a lot of stuff related to... who you are, and choose to be, vs. who you naturally are via environment, and that sort of thing.

 

I read DUNE series when I was about 19 and was utterly obsessed with it. I have to say though I don't think I have the patience for it anymore. I was much more a reader in those days. I would have given anything for a whole spinoff series on Duncan Idaho, the ghola (not quite a clone).  I recall that was during one of the periods when I would so be "in the other world of the book" my father would go, "ARE YOU ON DRUGS?!" which I found totally hilarious (given I was so straight).

 

There is a certain niche of epic fantasy where everything is horrible and everyone dies horribly and everyone is evil and there's just a few characters you so hope for that you hang on. I dislike that niche hugely and felt GoT was like that. I read that stuff and when I am done, I am just dark all the way through, as if the darkness has gotten into me. Most epic series have a lot of that. I am a big fan of stuff that has a little more optimism in there somewhere.

 

I've read stuff via kindle fire that I probably wouldn't have otherwise and have found some good stuff. Next time I'm in my e-library I will look for this genre and make a note of stuff to mention here in case others are interested. There's been a few neat books although they're often just one-off.

 

Probably from my e-library I can leave out the weredragon alien shapeshifter navy seal biker club stepbrother billionaire romance novels haha. I am half kidding. Amazon 'unlimited' is, in fact, limited, and when I really want to read I do enormous amounts very fast, so I go through a lot in many genres. My favorite romance of the unlimited list was actually a few about half-human soldier androids, although I admit to not much plot (much romance is just pxrn, sadly), but I have a real interest in the whole development-of-self stuff, and I think chimera and hybrid-androids are examples of people who'd have a real helluva time with the metaphysics of who-am-I. And occasionally you stumble on something that doesn't belong in romance AT ALL (like one about a wounded soldier in Iraq who is protected by a young prostitute and falls in love with her that could nearly give you proxy ptsd it was so heavy) or humorously offbeat. I found an epic book I really liked but the sequel wasn't ready and when it was, I couldn't even remember who/what was going on, lots of foreign names, so didn't buy it. Short attention span lately... the whole kindle phenomenon that amazon sparked has gotten a lot to market that never would have gotten there previously so I am a big fan of giving new authors a chance.

 

Rambling. Cause I got up at some ungodly hour to troubleshoot server issues. And it's done but now I think I want to sleep! When I should be working. There is no winning. ;-) 

 

RC

[dust]

I read one of Brandon Sanderson's 3-book series. I went to find the title but dang, I didn't know he had so much stuff, I can't remember which it was. It had this element where a selective (genetically selective) group of people could control things physically and they would for example be able to jump, not quite fly really, through a control of... I think it was the metallic elements, and it would play off throwing something akin to a coin to the ground for example and then controlling between that and body.

 

Yeah, that's the Mistborn books. 'Allomancy' is the consuming metals to gain certain powers.

 

 

I think it was one of his early works. He was clearly, and I mean overwhelmingly, inspired by Jordan, to the point that it seemed slightly in places like his own story but RJ fanfic, but then again, epic fantasy genre does tend to have an often very repetitive set of elements I guess. The fight scenes were so complex I had to slow down so much to try and keep track of what was happening (and they went ON) I ended up skimming through them eventually. But aside from that, I actually really enjoyed them, you could see his talent even if raw in places, and I was in a thoughtful mode at the time so I kept stopping and going, "Hmm!" at various ideas in it, as it had a lot of stuff related to... who you are, and choose to be, vs. who you naturally are via environment, and that sort of thing.

 

Most similarities I could easily put down to the fact that fantasy tends to repeat itself, as you say. Certainly I thought Allomancy was pretty original as far as magic power type stuff goes. No wands, no spells, no scepters or broomsticks...

 

Of course, I know that Sanderson was influenced heavily by Jordan, but... for example, I find much more direct influence from Tolkien in Jordan's work. The three innocent souls who unwittingly set off from their quiet village on a dangerous adventure; the Ogier and Green Man so similar to the Ents; the Blight and Mordor; the Fades so similar to Ringwraiths, Trollocs so similar to Orcs; etc.

 

 

There is a certain niche of epic fantasy where everything is horrible and everyone dies horribly and everyone is evil and there's just a few characters you so hope for that you hang on. I dislike that niche hugely and felt GoT was like that. I read that stuff and when I am done, I am just dark all the way through, as if the darkness has gotten into me. Most epic series have a lot of that. I am a big fan of stuff that has a little more optimism in there somewhere.

 

For sure.

Edited March 14, 2017 by dust

[thelerner]

There's an actual Buddhist practice, I think from the Theravada tradition. that follows similar language restrictions.  I forget the details of it, but it struck me as a similar practice.  I bet someone here would know it.  

[zerostao]

I love the Arya Stark story, it's pretty awesome

the Fearless Girl is trending, it is a strong spirit and one i want on my side.

i havnt read the books, i anticipate arya and the hound meeting back up.

 

joanna palani