Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Matthew wrote:I am enjoying Game of Thrones for what it is, and I rather suspect it might end up truer to Martin's original vision than the books eventually will be. Yes, it is all coming rather in a rush now, but it is television.

Yeah, the show seems to be treating the events of A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons as more-or-less a giant detour (not even counting the 3 or 4 entire subplots introduced in those novels - Quentyn Martell, Aegon Targaryen, Lady Stoneheart, and possibly Victarion Greyjoy (they've added some Iron Islands stuff this season on the show, but it's unlikely to turn out the way it did in the books) - that the show has completely ignored) and is steering back towards the conclusion things appeared to be headed towards at the end of A Storm of Swords, which was probably GRRM's original intent before he got caught up in his own world and characters when writing those books and introduced too many new complications and wrote himself into a corner where his original plan is no longer really plausible without either doing a lot of fancy-dancing (which is what he has apparently been trying to do, and struggling with, for the past dozen or so years) or just crassly hitting a "reset" button (which is pretty much what the show is doing).

On the one hand I kind of feel sorry for GRRM because I trust that if he had ended things the way he originally had planned it would have been better than what we're seeing in the show, but now that the show has done that he's going to feel more pressure to do something different in the books to make them not just seem like a too-late appendix to the show's "canon," which means he's presumably feeling even more pressure which will make his writing even slower and opens the very real possibility that he may never finish the series after all. But on the other hand, I don't feel too sorry for him, because all of his difficulties are unquestionably of his own making. If he'd just stuck to his original plan to skip ahead five years and cover the intervening time in flashbacks, or if he'd resisted the urge to keep introducing new characters and sub-plots and complications even a little bit, he wouldn't have had any of these problems and could currently be enjoying his retirement and swimming in royalty checks.

T. Foster wrote: I don't feel too sorry for [GRRM].

No, you shouldn't. He's fine.

celebritynetworth.com wrote:George R.R. Martin net worth:
$65 Million
George R.R. Martin's Salary
$15 Million Per Year

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/riches ... net-worth/

Just saw A Hologram For The King and Midnight Special Movie with Heather Schunk Grohe. Both good, interesting films, in very different ways. Worth watching.

Heather and I just finished watching the 3rd Daredevil episode on Netflix. We like the characters a lot thus far, but the level of violence in the show continues to escalate. How much worse does it get than the fights in eps 2 and 3? Non-plot spoilers if that's possible to avoid, please

We were also eyeing The Lobster as a possible movie to see: we've liked Colin Farrell in previous films (Minority Report, Winter's Tale). Anyone check it out yet?

Connections, James Burke's alternate view of change programs from the late 1970s. My kids are really enjoying the episodes.

Watched He Never Died the other night. Just plain AWESOME! Highly recommended. It has Henry Rollins in a role that is perfect for him. It's been on my mind for days now.

Bingo anyone?

First two episodes of Preacher. It's looking like it might be something.

grodog wrote:Heather and I just finished watching the 3rd Daredevil episode on Netflix. We like the characters a lot thus far, but the level of violence in the show continues to escalate. How much worse does it get than the fights in eps 2 and 3? Non-plot spoilers if that's possible to avoid, please

Stick with it. It's really, really good. And Jon Bernthal just keeps getting better as the Punisher.

grodog wrote:Heather and I just finished watching the 3rd Daredevil episode on Netflix. We like the characters a lot thus far, but the level of violence in the show continues to escalate. How much worse does it get than the fights in eps 2 and 3? Non-plot spoilers if that's possible to avoid, please

I'll second that the show is amazing, but my Heather couldn't watch the first season so I didn't bother with the second season. I'm not sure which is more violent, but I think they are pretty close.

Heather and I are currently watching season two of The Americans. If you are not familiar, it's a great show about two Russian spies (man and woman) that live undercover in America during the Reagan administration. They've been here long enough to have teenage children, but they are very much active spies. Very interesting tension between typical suburban life and family relationships and actual espionage.

Nik wrote:Heather and I are currently watching season two of The Americans. If you are not familiar, it's a great show about two Russian spies (man and woman) that live undercover in America during the Reagan administration. They've been here long enough to have teenage children, but they are very much active spies. Very interesting tension between typical suburban life and family relationships and actual espionage.

My fiancee turned me onto this. Good stuff. We're also watching Preacher (good so far), Penny Dreadful (looks great, so-so story), Orphan Black (feels like the well's running dry, alas), and maybe a couple other things I'm forgetting.

Skin Wars. Best show ever.

- Wheggi

T. Foster wrote:Orphan Black (feels like the well's running dry, alas)

I have this same fear. Fingers crossed.

Flambeaux wrote:Connections, James Burke's alternate view of change programs from the late 1970s. My kids are really enjoying the episodes.

That along with, "The Day the Universe Changed" he did was great.

I would suggest his book, The Axemaker's Gift as well.

Another fun series is "The Secret Life of Machines". Available for free online. I haven't checked to see if they're on youtube or not.