Duh.

when i woke up earlier this am!

It has good production values and all that, and some of the acting is excellent, but nothing can rescue the plot. It's not even good fantasy.

Confusing 'popular' with 'good' is a common mistake. Millions of people and millions of dollars pointed towards the Pet Rock as "good"

A Song of Ice and Fire definitely qualifies as "good" fantasy IMO, though it can drag at points.. and I don't necessarily think it translates very well to TV.

TV is a very limited medium, it becomes all about the visual, how things look. That's what McLuhan was talking about. I've never been big on fantasy, so my opinion isn't worth a lot, but the stuff I like is very "mental", alien mentalities, some feminists I found very engaging. Not too many unicorns and dragons.

Martin cut his teeth as a writer for the Beauty and the Beast series in the 80's. TV is his natural medium.

The book series is suffering from lack of focus and (likely publisher-instigated) bloat. I think the pacing of the show, and the need for Martin to work with others, has improved the storytelling.

Game of Thrones, according to the author (a fellow Santa Fe resident) draws much of its origins from England's historically factual War of the Roses. So if there ever was a case of truth being stranger than fiction (except for the dragons, of course) this has got to be a prime example of that well-trodden cliche, IMHO.

Fiction tends to be downright orderly and sensible compared to some of the things real people do in real life.

And the dynastic politics of Kings, Emperors, and other wannabe Grand Poobahs is hard to exceed for sheer debased visciousness. It is hard to outdo the likes of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Stalin, or Mao. Harems, torture, mountains of skulls, all the markers of greatness.

for me. I just like watching to see what they do with the books.

I managed to fight my way through season 4, but I don't know if I have the fortitude to try for season 5.

The books are much better.
But whatever, to each his own. I don't have much time to watch TV as it is and hockey playoffs are coming.

agree with you

symbolism on the second pass that I couldn't discern before.

A group of characters go here and something bad happens to them.
Another groups goes there and something bad happens to them.
Some other character goes somewhere and something bad happens...
Repeat

Yawn. Wish tv channels would film some stuff by Jack Vance, Jack Chalker, and Roger Zelazny and skip the sprawling fantasy epics.

I'm on Episode 3 of Season 1. I'm also in the middle of the second book.

I love the series and can't wait to get the DVD set of Season 5 (which releases somewhere around February of 2016).

Show is awesome.

But I'm a big fan of the show. Due to the leaked episodes I will have to avoid looking at reddit, youtube, etc comments because there are gonna be trolls spoiling the show for the next month

For me, it just gets better season by season.

I don't have HBO so I binge watch each season when the dvds come out. I try to pace myself but I always wind up watching all 40 hours in less than a week. Some of the commentaries are really interesting, so there's a bunch more hours I use to wean myself off the binge.

Very seriously bummed by the death of the Hound though. The Arya/Hound roadshow was my favorite part of the whole series. The girl that plays Arya is a terrific little actress. She says so much with just her eyes, but a real idiot in one of the commentaries she did with the Sansa actress. To be fair though, it was two teenage girls acting like teenage girls so, whatcha gonna do.

of Dance with Dragons. The show is making it's own way forward independently of the novels.

I heard the leaked versions were from a DVD. I prefer HD quality.