So...close...

[trinityvixen]

I went to drop off laundry this morning that probably should have been done a lot earlier. (It was exercise stuff, mostly, that had been soaked through when I rode home from work last Friday, and it smelled...unpleasant.) As I was waiting to get my receipt, another customer in the store saw that I was reading A Game of Thrones and started freaking out about how great the TV show was, and was I watching it? I told him, no, I wanted to read the book first. He thought that sounded like a great idea until I told him was 800 pages.

I'm now 700+ pages in, and I've just hit the scene that was the spoiler heard around the world. MY GOD IT TOOK 700 PAGES TO GET TO THIS, NO WONDER EVERYONE IS JUST WATCHING THE SHOW. I just want to be done. Of course, they start filming the next season in a month, and it'll be on before I've got time to read the second book if I don't push on. HELP ME.

On the spoiler issue: I talked about with my roommates about it last night. It's really not something I could help coming across. It was a spoiler so large the internet exploded. It wasn't careless people on Twitter (which I mostly ignore anyway) or reviews of the show itself on geek websites that got me. It was things like Entertainment Weekly not caring for anyone so lazy and poor as not to have both HBO and a TiVo that they could catch up on the show within a week that spoiled me. I'm not even a huge spoiler-hater person. I mentioned to my roommates how little I care to read reviews for anything I'm excited about because I tend to like some seriously crap stuff. And it has been my experience that the less a given film/show/book is esteemed, the less reviewers give a shit about spoiling important things. I agree with moonlightalice that basic plot outlines are not especially spoiler-y, but when you're talking about the difference between The King's Speech and something like Priest, a reviewer will, despite the formulaic and historical nature of the former, spare it and spoil the latter in a review. I do not care that I called the "surprise reveal" in Priest two seconds in--even if it's obvious, don't give it away, okay?

But, yes, I'm about to finish A Game of Thrones, and I've quite enjoyed it. I hope it manages, in the next 70 pages or so, to resolve enough that I don't have to tax my already exhausted reserves to finish the book after in order to feel any sense of closure. (This is where you don't tell me whether I do or not, okay? Save it for when I do a full review.)

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

There was a surprise reveal in Priest?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You know, about his "niece." It's so obvious it's not a spoiler. I don't care. If you talk about it in a review, I kill you.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I've read all four books before, so I knew what was coming, but I'm 3-4 episodes behind on the show right now and I still haven't seen the spoiler posted everywhere online. Certainly nothing like the Harry Potter nonsense. Granted, I haven't been looking up anything about the show, so I'm largely avoiding exposure. Or maybe it's because I don't watch EW. Maybe people who use DVRs or care about spoilers aren't the target audience for that show?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The worst spoiler faux pas I ever saw was Publishers Lunch, which is a daily email that goes to almost everyone in publishing. The day of the release of Book Seven, one of the news items was headlined "Harry Potter Lives!" They were talking about the sales, and hadn't actually seen the book, but given the fact that there is a high percentage of Potter fans in the industry, they must have gotten FLAMED. There was a very sincere apology a few hours later.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Entertainment Weekly is a magazine. They have spoiled me for many, many things. They give about three words lead on spoilers, like, "This is a spoiler, turn away now, Harry Potter Lives." There's no way not to see the end of the sentence before realizing that they're about to spoil you. Worse, they have this bullet-point list of awesome stuff each week, and they'll throw out developments in shows on there.

But the internet was positively aflame with the Game of Thrones spoiler. I didn't go looking for it, it found me. Maybe you just got lucky.

[lnbw.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, because I (who knew what was coming!) mostly saw variations on "that shocking event in last night's episode" on the internets. Certainly enough chatter that even the most oblivious would have known something had happened, but no details.

I'm sad that we were not as good about keeping the secret as I thought we were. :(

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The spoilers came after the explosion, to be sure. I remember your tweeting about the beginning of the series and how you were waiting to see how people, already wrapped up in the show, were going to react to SPOILER. And react they did.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

I had the weird juxtaposition of starting the book partway through the season, so half of the characters looked like the actors on screen and half looked like my own imagined visions. It was bizarre! I've read the second and am awaiting the third and fourth. I'm like that about book series, though. I won't tell you what to read. As for the spoiler, I was told point blank about it the first time anyone ever mentioned the book/series to me, which was the night before the series began. :p

The only thing I will tell you about the show (not a spoiler, btw) is that the opening credits are gorgeous. Wow. I need a GoT icon...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book before I knew who was cast--curse my knowledge of movies--although I got some of the casting news I heard long ago confused with the characters I now am aware of. Like, I knew Sean Bean was in Game of Thrones and which character he was playing, even if I couldn't know until I read the book what the character was like. But for the longest time I thought that the actress playing Dany was the one playing Catelyn Stark. I had her image stuck in my head. I also get her confused with Cersei. Jason Momoa's role was completely unknown to me; from pictures I'd seen, I thought he was a hired hand to one of the families. Not so. It's all a jumble.

I'm sorry to hear that the spoiler was given to you before the series reached that point. I think it makes certain actions/characters all the more tragic, but the shock is definitely gone. I really hate people who spoil. It removes the surprise that I, being generally unsuspicious as I read, often experience and enjoy.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

Look! I found a GoT icon! Yay! :)
While I knew what to expect, I didn't know when it would happen, so I was waiting for it, which was odd. After reading, I went back and watched the episodes I'd seen before I knew more details, which was cool.

I look forward to hearing your eventual reaction to the show! :)

And, yeah, spoilery people are frustrating!

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I was pretty much spoiled instantly on Twitter, which is par for the course these days, but fortunately I don't know what character he's playing so when I finally get to the books in a few years, I will hopefully be surprised. The show can wait until whenever--there's a long queue ahead of it.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Noooo, you were spoiled for the big GoT spoiler? That is SO SAD. I mean, probably it's much happier for you since you didn't get attached and then throw the book across the room in horrified disappointment.

I think the show falls well short of the books, and furthermore, I am one of those grumpy old fans who doesn't want new fans accessing it via the show OR by picking up the books now! GET OUT. :P

Actually, I'm mostly kidding about my grumpy fannishness since I used to enable people to read these books by buying them as gifts; I just don't like that the fandom is going to be bleeding its wank all over LJ when previously it kept itself to places like westeros.org. And I do still think the show is as well done as any visual media is going to be able to handle; I just know that I had parts where I was going wait, who is this person, again?, and I'd read the books. I don't know how new viewers are surviving this.

I also find that I'm reversing my opinions on a lot of characters. Daenerys? Still cool. Jon Snow? Holy balls do I ever not care. Ditto Robb. I have SO MANY OPINIONS on the casting and acting, I could fill up three more comments, and I don't even remember enough about the later books to spoil you, but I want to wait to read your opinions once you've seen the show.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

I am with you on being DEAD BORED by Jon Snow. Not for reasons to do with casting, just book stuff -- though I'm not particularly moved by the actor they picked either. Didn't find Jon more than passingly interesting on first read, came to the same conclusion on second read, and now I don't find him interesting on watching (though I haven't seen more than about three episodes).

Though I suspect he'll be important to mumble mumble mumblething later, and I'm interested by mumblething, so we'll see.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I thought I liked Jon pretty well in the books. I definitely cared more in general about all of the Stark kids than I do about any of them in the show.

Now I need to go back and read and see if the show has just revealed the underlying boring tendencies of some of the characters I'm finding myself impatient with. But in general, I think the characters I find outright awesome in the books have gotten better while the boring ones have gotten worse.

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

I quite liked Jon in the books, but he does seem rather boring in the show.
Maybe he just hasn't had a chance to get going yet and because I read the first three books *years* ago I don't remember when he became interesting.

I started reading book four years ago and couldn't manage it. I started again when I went overseas and I'm a bit over half way through it and enjoying it this time around (thankfully).

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about spoilers, somehow I've managed to meet the *complete* opposite on my tour around Ireland. As in, he's up to date with the series, found out I'm up to book four, and basically said "Spoiler everything!!! I want to know X, Y, Z!!!"

First person I've ever met to react like that..

What's the "Big spoiler" that's just happened? I'm a few weeks behind on the show since I'm planning to watch them when I fly back to Australia, but I've read the books before :)