I don't know if any of you guys shared the same pant-creaming experience that picking up Game of Thrones, the first book in the series a Song of Ice and Fire, but, well, it was spiritual. Crazy, convoluted political manoevring, characters as deep as they needed to be (and no deeper), a cast bigger than some towns I've been in and several epic narratives that question the strength of loyalty, both to others and one's own moral code, in periods of crisis, that show the lengths some go through in a search for power, and, among others, the personal strength one must have to drag oneself from the weakest on the pecking order to the strongest.
I mean, it's a real let-down that the author stopped writing the series because he couldn't handle how awesome it was anymore.
Now, it's being made into a TV series.
At first, I was afraid. I was petrified. I'd seen the horror of Disney picking up Terry Goodkind's pseudo objectivist wankfactory and turning it into some terrible, terrible television. I watched about 5 episodes before the vomit accumulating around my body built up to my eyes, and I could see no more. It was a complete perversion that ruined an already weak series which, although it started out decently, deformed into wannabe Ayn Rand bullshit babblery. Let me clarify: the Sword of Truth series was solid, for the first book. It was pretty good for the second. The third saw a slide in quality that didn't stop; a headlong slide down a slope where, after each book, you swear you see the bottom directly in front of you, but the force of the collision between your face and the shitty writing overcomes the molecular bonds of bad authorship which shatter like glass knee-caps that only serve to lubricate the already slippery slope on the other side and, somehow, through some anti-miracle, it gets even worse afterwards.
What bothered me most about it was the fact that not only had they taken the best part of the series but they neutered the story and characters to be as bland as possible (which happens when you sell complete creative control over to Disney, especially after assuring all your babbling, retard-cum-philosopher fans [i am not a fan] that you wouldn't jeopardize the integrity of your story lol), ruining the only good part of the series. The bad guys, who relied on presence defined by violence and insanity to actually be bad suddenly had only presence with nothing backing it up. The wise old man lost his wisdom and became a mouthpiece for trite cliches. The strong female lead became gave up strength of character in order to look good on screen and punch guys in the face (cause if she punches guys, she's clearly a strong woman, right?). The hero went from being a weakly defined character to your usual, bland protagonist - some WASPy asshole with conveniently assigned morality who manages to overcome everything bad with marginal effort and suffers no real losses not required by his backstory. Good job, Disney. You took something awkwardly good and digested it. I'll leave the rest of that metaphor to your imagination.
There is some hope, though. Generally speaking, I like HBO series - the Wire, the Sopranos and Rome were all thoroughly entertaining, so there's a decent chance that this won't be a complete shitshow. Second, some of the actors listed show promise. Aidan Gillen (Carcetti, from the Wire) has signed on as my favourite character of the books (Littlefinger), and I have great hopes for him. Sean Bean plays the tragic lead of Ned Stark. Mark Addy is Robert Baratheon (an oddly good fit, for the strongest point of Robert's personality, though not the whole character). Cersei's actress looks hot. Most of the casting seems promising, and I won't say anything about the teaser until I see the actual show air. The atmosphere in the teaser seems promising, although fantasy sets on TV series usually bug me, for all the rubber I see. Maybe it will add to to the character of the show?
Nevertheless, I am totally excited about this shit in a way that is kind of embarassing, when I think about it. So I don't. I just cross my fingers (much like my legs, when I'm sitting down to pee), and hope for the best.
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