Songs Of Ice & Fire
May. 3rd, 2012 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightofdayeWarning incoming spoilers for the first few episodes of A Game Of Thrones and the first few chapters of Dance of Dragons
Well I read the entirety of The Dresden Files novel Turn Coat over a couple of days and started on my other new novel; A Dance with Dragons. Part One: Dreams And Dust. And Watch the first few episodes of the TV Version of the first novel Game of Thrones as well.
I'm a few chapters in. A couple of Tyrion Chapters, The Dany chapter that was previewed in Feast, a Dornish chapter and a couple of Jon ones. Oh and a Bran one that I forgot about. (which tells you all you need to know about it I guess)
It's interesting stuff and well written but its not exactly grabbing hold of me the way other books have. Maybe its just the result of the long gap between books but everyone's first chapter just seems to be them spending along time remembering or talking to other people about themselves and what they did at the end of Storm Of Swords.
The middle part of Jon's chapter is the exact same scene as a Samwell chapter in Feast and Jon's insight into the scene is not so compelling as to make me want to read through it again. Still the chapter goes beyond the scene from Samwells and becomes fucking awesome when Janos Slant finally gets wants coming to him. The book doesn't really state it outright but its clear Jon comes over all Ned at the end. At first he simply orders his men to hang Slant for refusing orders but then he tells them to stop and Slant thinks he's getting a reprieve. It's actually because Jon realised that he's given the order and as a man of the north he has to do the deed as well. So he decapitates Slant with a Valyrian Steel sword.
Definitely shades of Ned. Plus irony because Slant was one of the ones who held Eddard down when he was decapitated.
---
As to the TV Series, I'm three episodes in and it's covered a lot of ground. Its good stuff but I definitely reminded of my original opinion that adaptions of fantasy novels rarely work. Thinking HP films and Terry Pratchett adaptions mainly. I think I've got a good memory for how things went in the book and it always seems like the lines they missed or changed or cut out were the one's I was looking forward to the best. Also everyone says everything different to how I say in my head, dammit. Barath-eon, LANNister, ARHya Where I think; Barra-theon Lan-nister and Arry-ah.
They've also added quite a few scenes in and most of them seem to involve Jaime talking to people and being a total smarmy git to them. Needling Jon Snow and Eddard. (And having an admittedly awesome scene with Tyrion) I guess its the fact they've got an actor for it and labelled it a starring role when really Jaime is just a supporting character for the first couple of books.
Still perhaps my favourite scene for this reason is the final one in episode three; Arya's first sword lesson. Not only does it have almost every decent line that was originally in the book it expands the scene to show some of the actual teaching, with Ned watching and hearing the sounds of really steel overlaid on their sticks. Really amazing. I can only hope they're going to do Syrio's other really big scene as faithfully.
Ortherwise, I'm really impressed with the guy playing Viserys with a real otherworldly detached quality to him. Not like I imagined him and yet still a very cool portrayal. I also really like the guys playing Illyrio and Jorah Mormont.
Well I read the entirety of The Dresden Files novel Turn Coat over a couple of days and started on my other new novel; A Dance with Dragons. Part One: Dreams And Dust. And Watch the first few episodes of the TV Version of the first novel Game of Thrones as well.
I'm a few chapters in. A couple of Tyrion Chapters, The Dany chapter that was previewed in Feast, a Dornish chapter and a couple of Jon ones. Oh and a Bran one that I forgot about. (which tells you all you need to know about it I guess)
It's interesting stuff and well written but its not exactly grabbing hold of me the way other books have. Maybe its just the result of the long gap between books but everyone's first chapter just seems to be them spending along time remembering or talking to other people about themselves and what they did at the end of Storm Of Swords.
The middle part of Jon's chapter is the exact same scene as a Samwell chapter in Feast and Jon's insight into the scene is not so compelling as to make me want to read through it again. Still the chapter goes beyond the scene from Samwells and becomes fucking awesome when Janos Slant finally gets wants coming to him. The book doesn't really state it outright but its clear Jon comes over all Ned at the end. At first he simply orders his men to hang Slant for refusing orders but then he tells them to stop and Slant thinks he's getting a reprieve. It's actually because Jon realised that he's given the order and as a man of the north he has to do the deed as well. So he decapitates Slant with a Valyrian Steel sword.
Definitely shades of Ned. Plus irony because Slant was one of the ones who held Eddard down when he was decapitated.
---
As to the TV Series, I'm three episodes in and it's covered a lot of ground. Its good stuff but I definitely reminded of my original opinion that adaptions of fantasy novels rarely work. Thinking HP films and Terry Pratchett adaptions mainly. I think I've got a good memory for how things went in the book and it always seems like the lines they missed or changed or cut out were the one's I was looking forward to the best. Also everyone says everything different to how I say in my head, dammit. Barath-eon, LANNister, ARHya Where I think; Barra-theon Lan-nister and Arry-ah.
They've also added quite a few scenes in and most of them seem to involve Jaime talking to people and being a total smarmy git to them. Needling Jon Snow and Eddard. (And having an admittedly awesome scene with Tyrion) I guess its the fact they've got an actor for it and labelled it a starring role when really Jaime is just a supporting character for the first couple of books.
Still perhaps my favourite scene for this reason is the final one in episode three; Arya's first sword lesson. Not only does it have almost every decent line that was originally in the book it expands the scene to show some of the actual teaching, with Ned watching and hearing the sounds of really steel overlaid on their sticks. Really amazing. I can only hope they're going to do Syrio's other really big scene as faithfully.
Ortherwise, I'm really impressed with the guy playing Viserys with a real otherworldly detached quality to him. Not like I imagined him and yet still a very cool portrayal. I also really like the guys playing Illyrio and Jorah Mormont.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 06:53 pm (UTC)Show-Jorah is much more conventionally handsome than what I imagined book-Jorah to look like, but there's actors for you. It was the same way with HP--Dan, Rupert and Emma were all way too pretty to be Harry, Ron and Hermione.
The scenes with Syrio and Arya were so great to watch : )
no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 08:46 pm (UTC)Also does Rickon even exist? He's been named dropped but I don't recall seeing him.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 10:20 pm (UTC)Rickon has a couple appearances on the show, as does Shaggy, but not many. Bran is much more prominent and non-book viewers may forget about Rickon entirely...