Hey Guys,
I'm reading the first novel of 'Fire & Ice' atm, and I'm loving it so was interested to see what people preferred; the Novel or the TV Series?
Don't forget to comment below your reasons!
Adam
Game Of Thrones - Poll - Do You Prefer The Novel Or The TV Series?
Jul 7, 2011
Game of Thrones
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As someone who read the books first I enjoyed the TV Series more. You miss out on some things that are in the books but I really think ASOIF suffers from the PoV style(some fans think the opposite though). It's hard to catch certain things when we don't get to know anything about specific characters unless it is second or third-hand. Those characters who don't come across very well in the books are going to behave much more consistently in the show instead of suddenly seeming like totally different characters later on.
ReplyDeletehaha i didnt see the last option so i voted for tv series is the best...even though i never read lol
ReplyDeleteI look for different things in TV and books so I judge them differently, but....
ReplyDeleteI think Game of Thrones TV series is arguably one of the best series on TV right now and assuredly the best Fantasy drama ever on TV. High praise indeed from a TV junkie.
I think the books (most notably Book One) are some of the best Fantasy Adventure books ever written. The style gets the reader so into the world. Not seeing the story from the typical one hero/heroine's eyes really widens the understanding of the reader. No narrow field of vision limited to one mind and one set of eyes, but 10 or more different takes on the world in which A Song of Ice and Fire takes place. I have never understood a non-existent world as well as I understand the workings of The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. The saga is not about one small man's journey.. there and back again. It's the tale of the entire continent and it's inhabitants. It's about the evolution of a civilization in chaos - not a quest with an end goal constantly in sight.
That is why I have to say the books are better.
I've only seen the show so far but ordered the first book from Amazon the other day. Hoping the books are as good as everyone says!
ReplyDeleteI read the books first and several times (each time a new one comes out I re-read the ones preceeding it). For me the TV show is an excellent adaptation of the books, but in a way that is why the show is slightly disappointing. It's simply that I know exactly what is going to happen and there are no surprises.
ReplyDeleteVoted for both, because is very hard to achieve the complex narration of a book in a film and this adaptation actually manages to expand the story with extra scenes and extra dialogue.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest achievement about this show is how they managed to chose the actors to be able to reflect so powerful emotions like the characters in the book. It does wonders (in any movie actually) if the chosen actor manages to beam at you so powerful emotions, and for a story/book so strong in character development it was crucial for the casting to be perfect. And it was more than that.
Now I am almost finishing book 2 of the series and I am still imagining the actors within HBO's show playing the action, and what I love is that their faces/way of talk/way of behave transmits perfectly what their doing/saying (P. Dinklage will have hard time playing Tyrion for S2 and beyond :D )
The only minus for the televised version is the scale of things. In the book everything is grand, big, while on screen only a portion of it is shown - I am sure with a bigger budget and some more CGI (inevitable), the S2 should be more faithful to the book.
I arrived at the conclusion that often is better to see the show and then reading the book. This way, if the show is good, you complete it with the book and the treat is sweeter. If the show is bad, you read the book and still enjoy it while dumping the show for good.
ReplyDeleteThe other way around, almost every time the adaptation will look easy/fast fowarding through the story, and if the characters doesn't rise to the expectations (and often it doesn't) then you will hate it more.
well, as I love the novels, I have to say they are better...but tv series is really great!! :)
ReplyDeleteThe novels are of course better than the TV Show, but that's not too bad, because the show itself is also really good.
ReplyDeleteEach is great in its own right. The book is an excellent read the show is quality TV!
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the books yet, I think I'm going to read the first now, and see the 2nd season before reading the 2nd book, so I dont't get things spoiled for me.
ReplyDeleteI think the books and tv show complement eachother. It happened to me with Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, the books are really rich with information and the story is more complete, but the movies helped me visualize a lot of things that were difficult to imagine.
You're always going to be a bit disappointed at the adaptation, but after a while I learned to appreciate it for what it is, a movie or tv show.
I watched the TV series first and then read the books (starting book 4 now). It´s a really difficult choice as both books and tv series are amazing. I voted for Books, but it is only because of the details that makes the story more complete. I have absolutely no complains with the TV series. I have never before seen such a good adaptation. I am absolutely thrilled that they are sticking with the story lines.
ReplyDeleteI got book one on my kindle about a week ago, and it's a really good read so far... about 300 pages in I think... The kindle says 30% in anyhow and I think the books around a thousand pages :P
ReplyDeleteI'm quite daunted by it actually, arrived today and it's thicker than even the longest Harry Potter book! Might take me a while to read this :P
ReplyDeleteAnd think.... A Game of Thrones is the SMALLEST of the books! XD
ReplyDeleteIt is? Wow. I think i'll be spending a lot of time reading this summer then!
ReplyDeleteThis is basically my opinion. Had I only seen the show, or watched the show first, I think I would have just been happy with it being one of the best shows on television at the moment. Having read them though, it's hard to divorce the complexity of many of the characters' internal struggles from what you're watching onscreen. The novel has a lot more to say in more interesting ways, but the show does a formidable job of getting the gist across.
ReplyDeleteOne other aspect of the series that makes the book > TV show is that the novels aren't particularly exploitative of their inherent adult content. There is sex and gore and a bit of swearing, but it's all important, necessary, and well crafted storywise. The show seems to just relish its existence on HBO by basically screaming BOOBIES at the top of its lungs, instead of crafting the appropriate atmosphere. That's not to say that whores are out of place or anything... Just that scenes like Littlefinger's whore training were a tad out of place. A little less sexposition and I would be somewhat happier with the narrative.
It's like 835 US paperback pages I think right? Book 2 is 1009,Book 3 has 1216, Book 4 has 1104, Book 5 has over 1200. So yeah.... AGoT is the smallest by a fair ammount.
ReplyDeleteGRRM is damn prolific XD
Yeah, 835 although like 20 of that is the appendix. No wonder there's such a long time between books, must take him forever to finish each one!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the nudity issues too. It's not so much shock value or completely gratuitous, but just out of place or overused. I hope they find other ways to have exposition than the prostitutes. To be fair Littlefinger's whores are definitely part of the story and need to be seen. I'm just not sure we need to see so much of them (both frequency and square inch of their flesh).
ReplyDeleteAll the minor TV series issues aside, I still find it brilliant. For me it's not a matter of which is better since both are stellar, it's just which is better comparatively in their own medium.
Here's a fun quick hit:
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday, George R.R. Martin handed in the script, more precisely the first draft, of the ninth episode he is writing for the second season:Today I delivered the first draft of “Blackwater” to Dan and David. (Finally) A bit overdue, as always. And probably too long and long expensive, as my scripts always are. (I got to write the [event edited for spoilers]. I tried to be good and restrain myself, but you know how things go. Oh, well. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it).
This is television… (no, it’s not TV, it’s HBO)… so there will undoubtedly be many further drafts and revisions. But the first draft is the hard one.
Meanwhile, GRRM gets asked a few questions on the same subject in an interview over at the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy. Not much in terms of new information, but click through for the entire interview. For non-readers, there is just a very minor spoiler (also edited out above) concerning what “Blackwater” in the title of the episode refers to, with no details given.The Wall Street Journal: So I understand you’re writing an episode of next season’s “Game of Thrones” called “Blackwater.”
George R.R. Martin: I’m just finishing that as we’re speaking right now. I have it on the screen sitting in front of me.
WSJ:
A lot of people would like to see that.
GRRM: It’s done, I’m just doing the final touches on it and I’ll be shooting it off to [executive producers] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss], the first draft anyway. Yes, it’s episode nine of the second season.
WSJ:Is it about the Battle of the Blackwater?
GRRM: Battle of the Blackwater Rush, yes indeed.
That sounds great.
GRRM: Well I hope so. We’re trying. It’s going to be enormously expensive. There’s always the problem—when you write books, you can have everything be as big as you want, you can have all special effects budget in the world and you can have thousands of fighters and all that. But then when you actually put it on screen, it’s a little more challenging. So if anyone has an extra couple of million dollars they could give us, we could make the battle even bigger.
WSJ:With how well your books are selling, you could self-fund the battle scenes.
GRRM:
Yeah, well that’s a thought. Don’t tell that to HBO. I don’t want that idea to go any further.
Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/07/07/george-r-r-martin-previews-a-dance-with-dragons-and-next-seasons-game-of-thrones/
i haven't actually read the books for the series as i have only just begun watching Game of thrones am on episode 3 and am loving game of thrones
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is that Books 1-3 all came out within 2 years of each other (1996, 1998, 2000), with Book 3 being the longest book to date. He can write well AND fast, he's just had some continuity issues to deal with these last 11 years.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I heard that he sent the newest book to the owners of one of the fansites so they could check the continuity. Not surprised it happens with how long the stories are though.
ReplyDeleteWell there are occasional issues with, you know, the eye colour of some side character mentioned once. He has a file somewhere keeping track of that xD. But yeah, Ellio and Linda of westeros.org are fantastic at what they do. They run the best and largest ASoIaF fan forum out there. They are both heavily involved in helping George sort through his issues.
ReplyDeleteFor these books, it was mostly logistical ones. Having characters in different locations meeting up in the same place at the same time when they come from miles away in different directions is difficult.
I've mentioned it before, but one of the best fan resources out there is a site called Tower of the Hand. Basically, you set the website to having read 1, 2, 3, 4 or none of the books and it gives you info accordingly spoilerwise.
Wow, it's impressive how much work goes into these books. I understand the logistics you mention, how big is Westeros meant to be anyway?
ReplyDeleteHaven't heard of that site, thanks for bringing it up. Will be useful as i'm already losing track with all these characters and storylines going on!
I had a hard time voting on this one, since I didn't "read" the books, I listened to the audiobooks. While they were unabridged so the words are the same as the written books, it is certainly a different experience from reading them. Luckily Roy Dotrice does a superb job of reading them and has a good variety of voices.
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