This. I made it through episode 2. Ned Stark, the only character I could even conceive of liking, allows his own daughter’s puppy to be killed because… I’m still not sure why, because he didn’t want to stand up to his friend? I don’t know, but that was the tipping point where I realized there was not a single character left that I hoped lived. I love fantasy settings, but when you are actively rooting against everyone, ‘good guys’ included, it is time to find something else to watch.
I still watch it, though. Love it, really.
His friend was the King, I might remind you.
Two episodes isn’t nearly enough to learn who’s sympathetic and who’s not. There’s simply too many stories happening for that to all fit in just the first few episodes.
This is where I’m at. My GF loves it so I watch it with her, and I’m only waiting for everyone to get a sword to the face.
This is the other problem. I’ve watched every episode and there are so many characters and plot lines there’s just not enough screen time for any proper characterization. I don’t know enough about any of these characters to care what happens to them, aside from the aforementioned desire to see them get stabbed the face (and there isn’t really much of that, either).
King or no, if someone told me to kill off my daughter’s puppy based on a misunderstanding that could be cleared up with about 5 minutes rational conversation, I would be telling them where they could stick that crown of theirs.
Noted, but I feel it was definitely enough to get a feel for the tone: dark, unforgiving, and unsympathetic. I understand that the show is great ‘art’ in that I, the viewer, literally felt anger at the characters. It created an emotional response in me that most TV shows cannot. However, that emotional response (sadness and anger) is not something I want to voluntarily experience in my free time. YMMV.
I agree, I did stick it out for most of season 1 (I didn’t watch the finale episode.) I kept hoping to find some characters that I could like. I thought Ned filled that role, despite his flaws (he starts off a dick, but then becomes a better person as events move him forward. I don’t mind that.) I was desparately trying to look around to find some character that I hoped might survive . Biggirl summed it up perfectly: everyone is a dick, and I don’t really care if they live or die. When I don’t care about the characters, I don’t see any reason to watch the show (beyond perhaps a few episodes to watch the film techniques, special effects, music, editing, costumes, etc.)
And that’s why you’re no Lord of Winterfell 
Because that’s what it was about, really. Ned could have stuck with the truth. Or he could have done what his lord liege told him to, which he’s sworn to do. Ned was very much a man who put duty and sworn promises above practical considerations. That’s what got him killed off.
And to be absolutely fair, it was the right course of action, from his point of view. Back in the old days, and in the grand majority of primitive cultures oathbreaking was a Big Deal. Worse than theft, worse than murder, worse than adultery, worse than rape. They treated oathbreakers the way we treat pedophiles. Worse, even - they were made outlaws. Which, quite literally, meant that they lied outside the protection of the law. You could kill an outlaw on a whim. Or steal from him, or rape him, or rape his children ; all without any legal repercussion because he was not of the clan any more.
Of course, Westeros looks to be more of a High Middle Age society than a Dark Age one, but still. That’s a not unconsiderable social stigma. Especially if you don’t think you can get away with it.
And, to expound on a pet peeve of mine, that’s one thing I really disliked about films like Braveheart or Kingdom of Heaven: they cast a hero with modern sensibilities, principles and morals into a feudal world. Things like sex equality, or the notion that men are worhty regardless of caste. Of course they’re going to outshine every other, strictly feudal bloke and appeal to us.
But the real people who lived in these real times didn’t think or act that way, not because they were innately cunts, but because that’s not how society worked back then, nor how morality was conceptualized back then, nor how people felt about things back then. Life was cheap. Even moreso a pet’s life. Deal with it.
And honestly, even Ned suffered from this tendency - his insistence on executing people sentenced to the death penalty himself because that’s The Right Thing To Do for example. Even the most self-righteous of medieval lords would have had a deserter broken on the wheel by some masked sadist - because that’s what you did. And there wasn’t anything wrong with that.
Doesn’t Tyrion fill that description up to this point? He is a lush and a lecher, but he hasn’t screwed anybody who didn’t deserve it.
Well I kept watching, it did get a bit more interesting but my god everyone is a asshole!
And they aren’t INTERESTING, I’ll watch interesting anti-heroes all day but these characters are just vicious people who live their entire lives searching for a chance to murder their way to the top.
What is the deal with the trees with faces?
Actually one of the reasons I enjoy it so much is because everyone is an asshole to some degree or another. The entire world is shades of gray with very little true black and no true white (except the snow!)
Stannis is an asshole but he’s an asshole who leads from the front, agonizes over the deaths of his men and while he rewards those loyal to him he also punishes them for their transgressions.
Cersi might sleep with her brother but she truly loves him and feels like he’s the other half of her. She’ll sacrifice anyone else to protect her children and get them the future she thinks they deserve.
Joffery is a complete asshole but he was ignored and belittled by the man he thought was his father, endlessly indulged by his mother and now is hearing rumours that his uncle is his real father and is sitting on the throne while still in his teens. He’s a scared little boy acting like an ass in an attempt to cover it up.
etc etc. The reason I enjoyed the books so much is because just when you want to write someone off completely a little bit of humanity leaks through and you see what drives them. You might not make the same choices but you can see why they did. Usually you still hate them but there is a little glimmer of understanding mixed in with it.
Same, and the same goes for the books. I like fiction where there are good guys; not ones where I feel like the best outcome would be for an asteroid to slam into the planet and put everyone out of their misery.
Also same. I want the days I spent reading the books back, so I’m not bothering to watch. George used to be a good writer. I’d much rather see Tuf Voyaging or Armageddon Rag brought to the screen than GoT.
Not a fantasy fan, so I don’t think the show would appeal to me. Plus my brother told me about a dog dying early on, and I think there were more so…I dunno, I can’t deal with that. I’m a wuss.
I don’t think it’s bad, tho. Everyone else I know watches it.
I would point out that the program Rome dealt with this issue head on. Nobody in the show was unrealistically modern in their outlook; the two heroes, such as they were, owned slaves. Julius Caesar really was an aspiring dictator. Brutus was a vacillating jerkwad.
And yet the series found sympathy in tis characters. Lucius Vorenus, probably the most realistic character, was nonetheless a tragic and sympathetic character. Titus Pullo, a thug, was sympathetic. Pullo’s first wife, Eirene, starts out as a slave, and when she’s freed treats slaves like they’re dirt, as if she herself had never been one. You felt bad for Julius Caesar, who despite his dictatorial aspirations seemed honestly to want to improve Rome. Niobe, Vorenus’s wife, is played as a straight up traditional Roman woman of the time but is sympathetic. The series has its bastards, too; there’s an entire subplot of hatred and rivalry between two women where you want them both to lose. But they manage to put the viewer in a historical place where you can sympathize with people who’re acting like people did then.
There are plenty of straight up good guys in GoT. Davos, Sam, Bran, Tyrion just to name a few if you just want to stick to main characters. Also ignoring the “Stupid good” characters.
Tyrion has spent most of the show trying to keep a budding psychopath on the throne. Sure he feels bad about it sometimes, but I’m not sure he really counts as a straight up good guy.
I was lucky enough to have free HBO for a time when the show just started. I just couldn’t continue watching it because I couldn’t distinguish enough characters to figure out what the fuck was going on. The only ones I could recognise from scene to scene were actors I’d seen before (Ned and the King) or had visually distinguishing characteristics (the platinum blondes and Tyrion).
There also wasn’t enough fantasy; just endless political intrigue from an endless parade of boring, interchangeable douchebags set against a promised fantasy setting. It seemed like a chore to watch, and there wasn’t as much boobage as promised.
I’d keep watching for Tyrion, but the rest just… not so much.
I like fantasy and SF, don’t mind unsympathetic characters, and had no trouble keeping the various personages and plot lines straight. I just thought the whole thing was boring, and gave up after three episodes.
Also, Peter Dinkelage is one of my favorite actors of all time, and I thought he was terrible in this.
I haven’t seen the show, but the books bored the piss out of me.
I will stipulate though that when I tried to read the first one, I was on some serious pain meds and so following the plot was rather difficult. But I won’t try them again (*if *I try them again) until I am sure he actually ends the series, and I have doubts that he will.