Oh that one gives me chills as well - isn't that Florence Welch and the machine doing the music? A friend of mine gave me a copy of her cd and in my head I'd pair her voice with sweeping pseudo-medieval battle scenes like this (apparently I'm not the only one who had that idea, heh.)
If I decide I want to watch this series, do you recommend reading the books first, or is that not needed?
Different people would give different answers. Personally, I'd say watch the show first and read the books only if you need to fill in the blanks.
The show is faster-paced, because the books are long. And Martin really, really likes to world build. He can detour from the action to give you the low-down on what happened 20 years ago, or what happened 200 years ago, or what happened 1000 years ago. (This stuff makes great DVD extras, but it can slow down a book. This stuff may eventually come into play, but it's really more info than you need most of the time).
Season 1 follows the book very closely, so I would just watch Season 1 rather than read it.
Generally they haven't departed from the books very much (other than to shuffle the timeline a little. Most of the changes (except Ros the Prostitute who simply does not exist in the books) have just been expanding character interaction.
The books are helpful as a reference, sometimes, though because at first it feels like there are ten-billion characters (There are probably only about a million ;) At first it can be difficult to keep them all straight.
(The books are written with multiple POVs, with different characters narrating different chapters. It works in that it shows that each character has their own motives and ideas of what's right or just, but it's a lot of POV characters.
A brief (and believe it or not, incomplete!) listing of narration characters in the novels:
Ned Stark, Catelyn Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Jon (Stark)Snow (He's illegitimate)
Brienne of Tarth, Samwell Tarley, Melisandre, etc.
It's nice to peek inside so many character's heads, but it works far easier to just watch them (but if you're ever curious what they really think, there's always a book to turn to.)
I'm very close to finishing the 3rd book so I'm very excited about the show restarting. I can't wait to see what they do.
It's hard to believe they'll do some things that are in the book but if they don't it's hard to imagine how they'd be able to continue with the author's story going forward without making wholesale drastic changes. I wonder - what do you think?
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-02-11 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 09:53 pm (UTC)If I decide I want to watch this series, do you recommend reading the books first, or is that not needed?
no subject
Date: 2013-02-12 02:46 am (UTC)The show is faster-paced, because the books are long. And Martin really, really likes to world build. He can detour from the action to give you the low-down on what happened 20 years ago, or what happened 200 years ago, or what happened 1000 years ago. (This stuff makes great DVD extras, but it can slow down a book. This stuff may eventually come into play, but it's really more info than you need most of the time).
Season 1 follows the book very closely, so I would just watch Season 1 rather than read it.
Generally they haven't departed from the books very much (other than to shuffle the timeline a little. Most of the changes (except Ros the Prostitute who simply does not exist in the books) have just been expanding character interaction.
The books are helpful as a reference, sometimes, though because at first it feels like there are ten-billion characters (There are probably only about a million ;) At first it can be difficult to keep them all straight.
(The books are written with multiple POVs, with different characters narrating different chapters. It works in that it shows that each character has their own motives and ideas of what's right or just, but it's a lot of POV characters.
A brief (and believe it or not, incomplete!) listing of narration characters in the novels:
Ned Stark, Catelyn Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Jon (Stark)Snow (He's illegitimate)
Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister
Dany (Daenareys) Targaryen
Theon Greyjoy, Asha (Yara) Greyjoy, etc.
Brienne of Tarth, Samwell Tarley, Melisandre, etc.
It's nice to peek inside so many character's heads, but it works far easier to just watch them (but if you're ever curious what they really think, there's always a book to turn to.)
Anyway, the show is much faster paced.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 06:21 pm (UTC)Though no Jorah yet
no subject
Date: 2013-02-12 10:22 am (UTC)It's hard to believe they'll do some things that are in the book but if they don't it's hard to imagine how they'd be able to continue with the author's story going forward without making wholesale drastic changes. I wonder - what do you think?