Poll: Winter Is Coming - HBO's A Game of Thrones [READ WARNING]

Who will rule Westeros?

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    471
  • Poll closed .
the king being bumped off sets off what is know as the battle of the 5 kings.

Its the cornerstone of the story for the next 6 books. Killing the king was key. If he wasn't dead there would be no throne to fight over :D
 
MrLOL said:
Watch them again and you'll get a better understanding. Side effect of having to cram so much of the book into 8/9 hours.
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I think I will buy the book after the first season finishes. From what you say the book must be massive! I mean they covered the first book of Lord of the Rings in just over 3 hours yet the first book of this, you claim they are having to cram so much into 10 hours!

I take it that each book is as big as the complete Lord of the Rings trilogy then?
 
to be fair to HBO, they could have cut large amounts out of the book to make it flow much slower, but they've been as true to the book as possible.

Even now, little bits here and there are cut. For example the bonding between bron and tyrion on the way to the eeyrie was cut short on the TV. We saw the comment he made about storming it using 10 good men and some ropes, but much of the bonding in the book wasn't covered because they felt it wasn't necessary to go into such depths.

And i think they made that judgement call right, they did just enough to explain why bron would volunteer to be tyrion's champion, without taking up too much valuable screen time.
 
scorza said:
Hasn't this already been explained in the TV series? The Dothraki all fight as cavalry with curved swords, which is fine for making mince meat out of infantry but they won't be able to pierce the armour of the knights on horseback. But - there aren't enough knights to match the Dothraki force. The main disadvantage for the Dothraki is that they have no siege warfare capability so the Seven Kingdoms' forces would be perfectly safe in their castles. Ser Jorah Mormount said something along the lines that King Robert might be stupid enough to meet the Dothraki on an open field, but the people advising him are cleverer than that, implying that the Dothraki are a threat to the Seven Kingdoms albeit a manageable one.
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Yes but if you listen to the conversations, I cannot remember who it was but essentially he made the valid point of how would your citizens react if the descendant of your old king came along wanting the throne, wanting a fight, wanting to kill you... and then all the lords went and hid in their castles ****ing their pants? The people would very quickly declare for the Targaryens leaving the knights and lords pretty bummed when their food runs out.

Hiding in the castles would not be a valid option.
 
MrLOL said:
It has pretty much. They are well regarded warriors who pose a serious threat to the seven kingdoms. BUt its not simply a case of the Dothraki have 40,000 men and the Armys of the Seven Kingdoms have 60,000 or whatever. Will be interesting to see how this pans out. I've read the first book so know whats going to happen in this series, but refrained from reading too far ahead to see if the dothraki arrive and what happens when they do.
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Yeah, pretty much, the Westeros armies together vastly outnumber Drogo's khalisar but the majority of their troops will be barely-trained, ill-equipped peasants. It seems to be a mostly feudal-style society, so I'm assuming that for every 1 knight there'll be 10-20 well-trained men at arms and about 100 peasants. Except maybe for the richer areas like Lannisport who could probably afford to keep a small standing army as well, or even hire some mercenaries from abroad.

Remember, even Ned who's one of the most powerful people in the country (the North is the largest kingdom, at least by area, and he's the lord of ALL of it), had only 50 people in his personal guard (iirc, he mentioned it last episode). I'm assuming he brought them along from Winterfell, though some of them might've been provided by the king instead. But we're meant to understand that he took a very large part of his people from Winterfell when he went down, so I'm guessing he doesn't have more than 100 trained soldiers of his own. And he basically owns nearly half the country by area as his own personal fiefdom! So I'm guessing for the average low-income knight who owns a castle and maybe a couple of small villages around it even the 10 men I said earlier would be a stretch.

The Dothraki by contrast would be 40,000 well-trained professional warriors. And even though their scimitars couldn't really pierce plate their bows would easily go through it at close range. And they would tear apart the untrained infantry that would constitute 90% of the Westeros armies anyway.


No1newts said:
Yes but if you listen to the conversations, I cannot remember who it was but essentially he made the valid point of how would your citizens react if the descendant of your old king came along wanting the throne, wanting a fight, wanting to kill you... and then all the lords went and hid in their castles ****ing their pants? The people would very quickly declare for the Targaryens leaving the knights and lords pretty bummed when their food runs out.
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It was Robert, in the same scene where he did the awesome "five... one!" quote. The guy's an insufferably egotistical, boorish prat most of the time, but once in a while you got the feeling that he acted like an idiot not because he is one but because he's a smart man who knows he's almost certainly doomed whatever he does so he might as well enjoy himself! :p
 
I have been quite satisfied with the adaptation so far, sure they've missed some scenes, but they've also added quite a few great scenes IMO.
I was a bit gutted about them excluding Blackfish on the show, but hopefully he turns up in season 2. Anyone else think Harry Lloyd was absolutely fantastic in his role ?? I loved every scene he was in, sure its a pretty vile character but he plays it so well, that I couldn't help but smile.
Very well made overall IMO, and glad its on HBO. even showtime wouldn't come anywhere near as close in terms of CGI + the overall look.
 
No1newts said:
Yes but if you listen to the conversations, I cannot remember who it was but essentially he made the valid point of how would your citizens react if the descendant of your old king came along wanting the throne, wanting a fight, wanting to kill you... and then all the lords went and hid in their castles ****ing their pants? The people would very quickly declare for the Targaryens leaving the knights and lords pretty bummed when their food runs out.

Hiding in the castles would not be a valid option.
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Isn't that what I said in the second paragraph of the post you quoted? :p

I think it's important to realise that this is all the opinion of the characters, having read the books I think a lot of the Seven Kingdoms' nobility wouldn't give a crap if the common folk are being slaughtered outside their castles as long as they are safe. OTOH for Robert, that would be an unacceptable course of action because he is honourable in that way (but not in others).
 
Greebo said:
I think I will buy the book after the first season finishes. From what you say the book must be massive! I mean they covered the first book of Lord of the Rings in just over 3 hours
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They also chopped massive chunks out of it and hacked around with the plot to make it fit in a few hours, Tom Bombadil being the most glaring omission.
 
Gribs said:
They also chopped massive chunks out of it and hacked around with the plot to make it fit in a few hours, Tom Bombadil being the most glaring omission.
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I could live with them cutting stuff out for time constraints, but the crappy arwen-aragorn stuff they added in really hacked me off
 
For some reason the books don't seem to lend themsleves to the kindle im my opinion. I think its the POV aspect of the books that means I'm always jumping back and forth 50 pages etc to check things in the characters last chapter
 
daver said:
I could live with them cutting stuff out for time constraints, but the crappy arwen-aragorn stuff they added in really hacked me off
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+1
Worst part for me was Faramir taking the hobbits back to the city when in the books he was wise enough to set them free on their way. Its a complete change of character. :(
 
I was skeptical when i recorded the first episode, didn't think i'd like it, but this is amazing. And no, i haven't read the books... yet. Plenty to get through at the minute, but when i get some free time i'll definitely try to find them in the library :)
 
oxygene said:
+1
Worst part for me was Faramir taking the hobbits back to the city when in the books he was wise enough to set them free on their way. Its a complete change of character. :(
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Yeah I hated what they did to Faramir too, I really liked his character in the books. I also hated the Elves turning up at Helm's Deep and messing around with Andúril not being forged until near the end of RotK
 
Squark said:
Yeah I hated what they did to Faramir too. I also hated the Elves turning up at Helm's Deep and messing around with Andúril not being forged until near the end of RotK
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Oh god yeah I'd forgotten a hundred elves suddenly appeared at Helms Deep! "Lets give everyone a love character we've just introduced who can die at this battle. As no one important dies no one will enjoy it!
 
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