[hrothgar]

 phil_20686, on 2011-May-07, 07:54, said:

@ those who red the books:

Does anyone else suspect that Jon snow is actually the son of Lyanna Stark. Too much of the history of the Rebellion doesnt make proper sense. Rhaegar apparently loved Lyanna Stark, despite being married to Elia of Dorne. After Brandon Stark and Rickard stark were murdered he "kidnapped" her. She was later found dead in a tower guarded by 3 members of the kingsguard, including their Lord Commander. Who dies to protect the corpse of a prisoner when your king is already dead? Moreover, Rhaegar was widely thought of as being honourable and a good man, so the story that he captured and raped Lyanna doesn't really seem likely. Not to mention that Eddard says he kept a promise to Lyanna for which he has "borne a heavy cost". It would just make sense if in the tower was the infant son of Lyanna and Rhaeger. It would explain the presence of the king's guard, and the abduction would be "protection" in case the Mad king decided to execute Lyanna aswell. Also, it would mean that Ned never actually broke his vows which seems more in keeping with his character anyway. Finally, alledgedly, Howland Reed is the only person on the show other than Lord stark who supposedly knows who Jon's Mother was, and it just happens that he is the only other survivor of the fight with the kingsguard to rescue Lyanna. I will therefore put forward the theory that Jon stark is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and that Lyanna died in childbirth, but made Ned promise to hide Jon's identity in case Robert decided to execute any remaining heirs to the throne.

This sounds very plausible

I had never considered this before, but it makes a LOT of sense

[Elianna]

 hrothgar, on 2011-May-07, 09:44, said:

This sounds very plausible

I had never considered this before, but it makes a LOT of sense

TBH, this is the MOST COMMON theory of his birth. And we have now made this a complete spoiler thread for those like Justin who haven't read the books. Of course, it doesn't state this in the books (yet)...

I take it none of you three debating this are regular readers of either westeros.org? Another useful place is towerofthehand.com

Westeros has a gathering of prophecies in the books, that are really interesting to re-read and speculate about.

[hrothgar]

Last night exposed the first glaring weakness of the series...
The jousting looks mediocre at best.

In retrospect, I don't find this overly surprising.
(Its not like you have all sorts of knights / trained horses available)

Even so, I wish that they had been able to do better, maybe with some CGI enhancements.

[luke warm]

yeah but you had two not terribly skilled jousters... one was knighted just to get killed and the other is more of a barroom brawler... lacelot woulda moidered either

[jjbrr]

i watched the first 4 episodes last night under the impression that hbo had aired 5 episodes. completely broke my heart to learn i'd have to fiend for a whole week before my next fix.

Spoiler

emilia clarke

[cherdano]

Is it better to watch the show or to read the book?

[hrothgar]

 cherdano, on 2011-May-10, 10:37, said:

Is it better to watch the show or to read the book?

I think that the books are significantly better

(With this said and done, this is one of the best adaptations of a fantasy novel that I have seen)

[luke warm]

 cherdano, on 2011-May-10, 10:37, said:

Is it better to watch the show or to read the book?

it's very rare for a book not to be better than its adaptation... i had high hopes for shogun, but it (while not absolutely *horrible*) couldn't compete... lonesome dove was nicely done though

[blackshoe]

LOTR was pretty good. Yes, I realize liberties were taken. Still pretty good. The Dresden Files TV series (Syfy channel?) wasn't bad either. Been so long since I saw Shogun I don't remember how I felt about it.
That said, I haven't watched this series yet - I'm rereading the books at the moment.

And where the Hell is the Honor Harrington movie?

[Elianna]

Starting with Episode 7, HBO will have episodes a week early on HBOGo.

But you'll still have to wait a week between them! Sorry.

 jjbrr, on 2011-May-10, 10:11, said:

i watched the first 4 episodes last night under the impression that hbo had aired 5 episodes. completely broke my heart to learn i'd have to fiend for a whole week before my next fix.

Spoiler

emilia clarke

[hrothgar]

 luke warm, on 2011-May-09, 15:52, said:

yeah but you had two not terribly skilled jousters... one was knighted just to get killed and the other is more of a barroom brawler... lacelot woulda moidered either

Not sure if I agree with your assessment regarding the Mountain who Rides...

I would hazard a guess that killing someone during a joust while making it look like an accident requires a significant degree of skill

Hrothgar

(Who never tried jousting, but spent a lot of time fighting with spears during the weird old days)

[luke warm]

yeah, i guess that's so... now if we could only find out why the other was knighted in the first place, eh?

[Mbodell]

 Rain, on 2011-April-18, 14:51, said:

I am boycotting his stuff till he finishes the series. A heart can only take so many delays!

I read the first book a decade ago and then decided to wait until he finished the series to read the rest of the series. But the HBO TV series forced my hand and I'm now midway through the 3rd book (reread the first).

 Rain, on 2011-April-18, 14:51, said:

Also, HBO has a terrible record at adaptation - look at the recent Tudor one. Lots of naked bodies injected to spice up the series, a great story to work with, but they have so many blatant historical inaccuracies. Makes me think they will destroy the song of ice and fire series too.

That wasn't HBO. Tutor is a Showtime series that I agree has extra naked bodies without as strong a production as HBO (but maybe comparing more favorable to broadcast TV). The last HBO adaptation was True Blood, which breaks quite a bit with the tone and some of the plot of The Southern Vampire Mysteries, but I like the darker TV tone for a TV series. The books in that case were too fluffy and light weight to make a good series taken straight. I doubt very much HBO will be able to similarly "darken" the Martin series, if anything they may lighten it up (but probably not).

I've been very excited about this series thinking it would be a combination of 3 very good HBO series: The Wire, The Sopranos, and Rome (joint HBO/BBC) and so far I'm not disappointed. The books are better, but the TV series is pretty great. I'm not sure how much I'd like it without knowing the book back story of several of the characters, but several of my coworkers haven't read the books but are loving the series. My analogy was:

The Wire - Getting to know lots of characters from lots of perspectives. And gritty, where not all the characters survive.
The Sopranos - Warring families that have shaky alliances and politics.
Rome - Historic time period piece.

[jjbrr]

The Eyrie is awesome

[jjbrr]

i was upset at the distinct lack of emilia and white walkers though.

[Elianna]

 jjbrr, on 2011-May-16, 00:14, said:

i was upset at the distinct lack of emilia and white walkers though.

I'm pretty sure that you will see her this week. Don't hold your breath for the white walkers appearing soon.

[mgoetze]

I don't have a TV and if I did, I wouldn't be able to get HBO. But I have asked myself whether I should bother to read either the 5th book alone or all 5 books if the 5th book ever actually does come out... I've forgotten 80% of this stuff since I read it, and I always get a funny feeling when (about twice a year) I visit Mr. Martin's website, see that he is doing tons of other stuff, but "of course" working "very hard" on getting this series complete...

[JLOGIC]

Still can't read thread because of potential spoilers but ZOMG BEST SHOW EVER.

[jjbrr]

confirmed

[babalu1997]

 jjbrr, on 2011-June-14, 11:05, said:

confirmed

i never knew about the book
started to watch in the hbo on demand

i gave to watch each episode 3 times, i am hard of hearingnon native speaker and they dont have captions

the story is very good, but then i gave not read any harry potter or lord of the rings

i got the first nook now, reading is slow, too many dictionary consultation, have to read evrything twice