Ryan and Ryan talk Thrones

Mo Ryan and Ryan McGee have a new episode of their Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan podcast that focuses wholly on Game of Thrones. Not only that, but they invited myself and Elio and Linda of Westeros.org to join them. What followed was around an hour of Thrones talk, including sharing our thoughts on the first 6 episodes. Check it out!

Also, Ryan McGee published his review of Game of Thrones. It is a long, but very interesting read, and Ryan does a good job explaining exactly what it is that felt off about the series to him.

Moreover, as the hours passed, I realized that the central thing that people point to when praising the books–its realism–only really appears consistently in the show in the political, not psychological, realm. I’m willing to bet that the books do a much better job of revealing characters and their motivations, because the show has the unenviable task of introducing a completely unfamiliar world and then populating it with various races that share thousands of years of history between them. All of them essentially want one thing–the throne. That’s a fairly easy point to grasp, but trying to introduce why all of them want it and the historical conflicts between them all swallows up entire episodes, leaving the machinations intact but the signs of actual beating heartbeats often muted at best, ignored at worst.

The review goes into much more detail than this, so be sure to read it. It is certainly one of the most well-written criticisms of the show to date and is sure to spark lots of great discussion.

• Published on 04/12/2011 at 9:40 PM CDT
• Last updated on 04/13/2011 at 8:48 AM CDT