[QUOTE=Fair Rarity]
(I get through the books pretending their years or months or something don’t match up to Earth 24-hour, 365 cycles and they’re all a couple years older in Earth time).
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Same here. Plus even with her dragons nobody would take Dany seriously when she’s only 15 or so.
There was even an episode where Tyrion referred to his nephew as being 17 rather than the 13 or 14 that he is in the book.
My favorite dialog from the TV show isn’t in the book:
Eddard Stark: “You think my life is some precious thing to me? That I would trade my honor for a few more years…of what?” You grew up with actors. You learned their craft and you learnt it well. But I grew up with soldiers. I learned how to die a long time ago."
It sums up Ned Stark so well.
Caveat: we don’t have HBO so I haven’t seen any of the third season yet.
However, they wasted a huge opportunity in casting Ciaran Hinds as Mance Rayder instead of casting him as Roose Bolton and beefing up Roose’s role in anticipation of him becoming more important in later books. All those scenes with Tywin at Harrenhal should have been Roose. And Ciaran Hinds would have made the character creepy as hell. But no, they wanted to give Charles Dance more screen time. I guess I can’t blame them, he’s very well cast.
The actor who plays Stannis doesn’t have the tension and fire that the character should have. I can’t ever tell that he’s grinding his teeth.
Brienne’s casting was brilliant; second best physical type match after Peter Dinklage as Tyrion.
This is really silly, but Jon’s hair bugs me. It’s too curly. And he’s not as hot as he is in the books. I feel like he lacks the charisma I felt from the book character.
Stannis doesn’t seem as hard and on edge as he does in the books either.
I’m on the fence about Margaery. She’s just so different from the books, but maybe her TV character will grow on me.
I love the casting of Tywin. He is just perfect for that character.
Rather than multi-quote half the the thread, I’m just going to make a little list.
Tyrion’s nose: It doesn’t bother me that Dinklage got to keep his nose. CGIing it out every scene would have been impractical, though I will concede the fake nose of gold thing would have been appropriate (parallels to Jaime’s hand). But I don’t think it was really necessary. No offense to little people, but I have zero attraction to dwarf women and it’s not hard for me to imagine that plenty of women feel that way about dwarf men. Besides, I think by the time she gets married Sansa would have been repulsed by any Lannister, regardless of height or noselessness.
My favorite non-book scene is probably the conversation between Cersei and Robert about the Dothraki and how their marriage holds the kingdom together.
I’m surprised to read that people don’t think Stephen Dillane is intense enough as Stannis. I think he captured the role perfectly. The way he shrugs when he says thousands will die, the way he corrects grammar and bitches about Renly getting Storm’s End, and especially how his pre-battle inspirational speech was one sentence long, and was really more of an order than a speech.
I also surprised people don’t think Kit Harrington is pretty enough. I’m a straight man so I guess my opinion doesn’t matter much, but I think he’s the best looking dude on the show. He catches some heat for always having his mouth open, but that’s exactly how I pictured book Jon, as a slack jawed yokel.
Charles Dance is perfect as Tywin. I do wonder how he’d look with a shaved head and muttonchops sometimes…
I… don’t like the Talisa change. Oona Chaplin is lovely and charming but I feel the character just comes off less than genuine due to flaws in writing rather than in her acting. I think they had originally planned more for Talisa, probably something along the lines that she actually was Jeyne Westerling but was going by the alias of Talisa so that she and Robb could have a meet cute and there could possibly be some drama when her true identity was revealed. Then I feel like they realized they were running out of time and someone said “Fuck it, should we just make her actually be from Volantis?”
Over on the ASOIF forums people consistently claim the show has ruined everything by making too many changes from the books, but off the top of my head I can’t think of any book to screen adaptations that have been more faithful than GOT.
This is the one thing that I think improved upon the book. I always thought the Jeyne Westerling thing came off a little too quickly; all of a sudden, Robb just shows up with a new bride. It didn’t work for me in the book at all, not enough backstory, not enough depth. I’m not crazy about the Talisa story, but I do think it’s better than the original. I think had they done it like the book - Jeyne just shows up - the TV-only viewers wouldn’t buy it, either.
Personally, I don’t like the girl who plays Sansa. I think she’s OK as an actress, but she’s nowhere near as beautiful as the book Sansa. The book goes on and on about how she’s a ringer for her mother at that age, but the two actresses (Catelyn and Sansa) look nothing like each other. TV-Sansa is just a little too wan and skinny; I pictured more of an earthy, stronger-featured beauty, with thicker hair and just prettier in general.
I’m really happy with the Brienne casting. Yeah, in the book, Brienne was downright ugly, and the actress playing her is not, but that’s more a matter of the makeup. I think they could have made her uglier had they chosen to. What they could NOT do is add how big she is, or how muscular, and the actress definitely brings that. I was so worried they were going to get some willowy 5’11" actress and try to convince us that she was a warrior.
Other than that, I’m good with the rest. Jon I think is very handsome and plays the part well, same with Jaime. Dany, too, works, though I wish they’d have figured out a way to do the purple eyes. And, as others have pointed out, Joffrey is magnificent. And Tyrion, but that goes without saying.
Yeah, the Lannisters are the best-cast family by a mile.
The Brienne actress is just flat out massive. IMDB says she’s 6’3 but she looks damn near 6’5 out there unless everyone else (Jaime, et al.) are only 5’8ish - which wouldn’t be too surprising.
Tyrian, Tywin, and Joffery are all perfectly cast but I also want to give love to Bronn and Arya. Bronn’s lines are good but his delivery makes them great. Arya has managed her role much better then Sansa’s. I will concede that Arya has more to work with and Sansa’s role requires more nuance but the talent disparity still stands imo.
My favorite was probably when Tyrion was introducing his sellswords. “This is Timmett son of Timmett, and Ulf son of Umar, and Bronn son of… son of?”
Bronn: You wouldn’t know him.
Good line, perfect delivery.
The hair is off, but I think it’s his round face that bothers me. I thought he was supposed to have a long face to differentiate himself from Catelyn’s children (except Arya).
Oddly enough, I’m not bothered by Arya not having a long face (i.e., a horseface), probably because the actor is so good.
Robb’s marriage worked for me in the book because, not being a pov character, most of his major actions are “offscreen.” I don’t necessarily think it was a bad idea to flesh out Robb’s love interest, I just think it was poorly executed.
Sophie Turner is incredibly beautiful. She does, however, look nothing like Michelle Fairly. Speaking of good casting decisions, Michelle Fairly is a phenomenal actress. I feel she sometimes gets overlooked when people are praising the acting on the show, but her performance is truly fantastic.
Robb’s marriage was fine in the books, he was injured and heartbroken over Bran and Rickon and ended up nailing a hot teenage girl who was taking care of him, then married her because lolNed.
Boy, I don’t see it. She’s pretty, but I don’t consider her even beautiful, much less incredibly beautiful. To each his/her own.
It wasn’t the facts of his marriage; it was that, for me, it wasn’t written well. He just showed up out of nowhere with a wife. I know the backstory came out, but it just didn’t ring true with me. In this one case, I think the TV show got it better than the book.
Jon Snow in the book is much better than Jon Snow in the TV show.
I watched season one of GOT before I read all the books. When I watched the TV show and read the threads I wondered why everyone cared about Jon Snow so much because he seemed like such a bland character.
Then I read the book and understood the guy a lot better. His plight of being a bastard comes across much better in the book than in the TV show. The actor who plays him doesn’t bring across the hurt, humiliation, and determination that underlie every decision Jon Snow makes.
Peter Dinklage brings across the same qualities in Tyrion much better than Kit Harington does. Just watch the scene in the latest episode with him and his father.
One thing the series doesn’t impart is how much time it takes to travel from one part of Westeros to another. This was particularly true in the Vale, which in the book is a grueling journey that explains why that land is relatively free of the war, but in the series isn’t measurably worse than going from King’s Landing to Rosby.
McNeice played him in the pilot, but had to be recast for scheduling reasons. Here’s a picture of him in costume from the pilot.
Hmm. He looks like he was having a coronary. I wonder if that’s another reason he pulled out.
Early on in the series, I had some problems simply because everyone I imagined with long hair in the box had short hair (Littlefinger, Tywin, Theon, Renly) and vice versa (Bran, Jon Snow, Robert Baratheon). But now the actors are ingrained in my head enough I find it hard to remember what I originally imagined the book characters looking like.
Peter Dinklage is perfect as Tyrion and was actually always who I imagined playing him. The actors they got for Brienne, Joffrey (hell, all of the Lannisters) and most of the Starks are pretty good, too.
I agree that Kit Harrington feels really off as Jon. Yeah, Jon’s makes a lot of mistakes in the books, especially early on, but it’s youthful mistakes combined with his emotional problems from his estrangement from Catelyn. But Harrington comes off as a straight-up dumbass most of the time.
Casting I don’t like because they don’t look anything like how I imagined them and they haven’t won me over like some of the others: Asha/Yara Greyjoy, Osha the wildling, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Craster, Janos Slynt (too wimpy looking), Syrio Forel (can’t imagine a water dancer as short and stumpy). I also hated the way they did Quaithe’s “mask.”
Tywin?
One piece of casting I’m not entirely happy with is that of Samwell Tarly. He looks the part, definitely, but Sam is also supposed to be fiercely intelligent - and the TV character mostly comes across as a bit of a dufus.