Game of Thrones "The Mountain and the Viper" 6/01/14 S4E8

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Sounds good to me. I'd definitely be interested in that thread.

 

What is this "Ars" mentioned here? Can you share a link?

-Bob

 

I wouldn't say the Mountain was dominating the fight by any means. In fact, he was completely outclassed and beaten soundly. Oberyn used his strengths - his agility and superior foot/hand speed, as well as his superior skill - to mostly neutralize the Mountain's strengths (his head-to-toe armor and superior reach/awesome power), and he succeeded in apparently mortally wounding the Mountain, before he got cocky.

No one can stand toe-to-toe with a fully armored Mountain and win. But by continually outmaneuvering him while probing the armor until he was able to attack the weak points and get the Mountain on the ground is hardly "landing a lucky blow". Sure, the Mountain connected a few times, and he did break one of his spears. But he was mostly ineffective until Oberyn let his guard down.

As the saying goes, styles make fights.

 

I agree with all of this. There is still tremendous storytelling in books 4-5, but there's a lot of "the endless middle" as well, and I'm very hopeful that the Benioff/Weiss can boil those seemingly endless parts down to the their essence and bring out the greatness based on what they've done so far.

 

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http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=23

3 threads:

"It's that time again. Game of Thrones Season 4, TV ONLY!!!!! "

"Game of thrones season 4 book discussion. (here be dragons...and spoilers)"

"GoT thread for reasonable people. We hope... (No Future Spoilers)"

 

So is it correct that most/all of the things that have occurred in the show up to this point have been in Book 3 (or before)? I was under the impression that Books 3 and 4 took place simultaneously, so Seasons 3 and 4 of the show would largely combine those two books. But based on the podcast I referenced above, it sounds like most of the notable things we've seen so far are in Book 3.

 

I don't think I have run across anything in book 4 that has been shown on the show. There is one thing that has happened in the book that I haven't seen mentioned yet but I am sure they are just saving it because the results of that happened in book 4.

The events that happened this week were at the end of book 3.

 

Books 4 and 5 took place at the same time, just covering different characters. This season has been the last half of the third book.

 

Book 3 was split into Season 3 & 4. I think B4 & 5 happen simultaneously (haven't read either yet), which sounds like it will do evil things to my plans to keep my reading and watching roughly in sync next season.

 

When I finished book 3 I read books 4 and 5 together. I would read a few chapters of one then switch to the other.

 

I once saw a chapter reading order list for books 4 and 5 if you wanted to read them as one book in chronological order. I'm sure it's floating around the intertubes somewhere.

 

Tyrion escape method #17:
Brienne and Pod get to the Eyrie and Sansa tells them that her beloved hubby, Tyrion is sentenced to death.

They go with Arya and The Hound to King's Landing rescue him.

 

Thanks, all. Seems I was mistaken about S3 and S4 being books 3 and 4, and about Books 3 and 4 being simultaneous. Guess I was just off by one book on each of those.

 

no spoilers in what I am posting...

Book One = Season One
Book Two = Season Two
Book Three = Season Three & Four

The Future = ???

Book Three is universally acknowledged as the best of the five books, so far. It had enough epic events to easily stand as two TV seasons.

As GRRM was writing Book Four, it spiraled out of control. He decided to make two books out of it. And because he can't do anything in a normal fashion, rather than make them two chronological books, he basically split the characters in half, put some in B4 and the rest in B5. So we have two books, covering roughly the same time period, with half the story in one, and the other half in the other.

He actually brought the books together towards the end of B5 (ie, the time lines merged). So the last part of B5 is (time-wise) forward of everything written up to that point.

Clear as mud?

As far as the TV series, everyone has assumed the showrunners will tell the story as they see fit. Which means much tighter story lines, and forget adhering to the book structure.

There are minor parts of Books 4/5 that made their way into this season, primarily so certain storylines wouldn't disappear for a year or two.

All of this mess is why the books need to be kept, for the most part, totally out of the TV threads. It's just too unfair to non-book readers to create posts that discuss book events, in any fashion.

Other than of course a post such as this.

 

FYP to make it slightly more epic.

 

Who were the three people interrogating Littlefinger and Sansa?

 

If he hadn't have removed the spear, The Mountain wouldn't have been able to do that impressive strength move -- lifting Oberyn bodily while flat on his back with a straight arm and without even shifting his torso.

 

Nobles of the Vale...presumably Robin's Small Council or some such.

 

My guess is that they were the heads of the other prominent families of the Vale.

 

And that's why I am saving the books for after the series is over.