Well of course the bad news is that we’re going to have to wait until next year for season four of Game of Thrones but of course the good news is that Game of Thrones completed another season of epic fantasy.
I was slow getting into Game of Thrones. When I read the first book it took me a while to get into Martin’s dark setting. In fact I put it down after the first hundred pages and only got back to it after watching season 1. Since then I have caught up completely (taking a break in the middle of A Dance With Dragons at the moment) and have become fascinated with the artistry of the adaption,watching all of the tough choices the creators have had to make due to budget and pacing in the process making the show increasingly different from the book. On top of this I was excited about how HBO was taking a fantasy work seriously and whatever I thought of the show itself I saw it as a first step to the fantasy and science fiction shows I dreamed of.
Half the reason for enjoying the season three was for all of the changes. It had deviated from the book enough that even though I knew what was going to happen I didn’t. While I knew all of the important points of the story would be addressed I no longer knew HOW these would happen. A good example of this is how the death of Ros caught me completely by surprise. As she was a character added to the show what I knew from the books wouldn’t have helped me one way or the other but her status as a witness to all of the goings on in Kings Landing had me thinking that she would last til the end (even in a show like this)
I am also fascinated by the way the actor’s performance makes the characters very different from their equivalents in the book. My favorite example is Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister but this goes even more so for Dianna Rigg as Lady Oleana and Michael McElhatton as Roose Bolton. All more reasons to like the show more.
If I had any problems with this season it was that it’s getting to the point where it has almost too many plotlines being juggled to the point where sometimes an episode can only adress it for only a couple of minutes. In fact there are some times if feels like a plotline is only being followed to make sure we don’t forget a character exists before they reappear in a few seasons. However while this can be seen as a nuisance in a weekly serial I’m confident it won’t be a problem in the DVDs. The other problem I had with it was that this was the season that had the Red Wedding in it. Obviously one of the seasons had to have the Red Wedding in it but if there ever was a scene that I would have preferred happening off screen with the cast talking about it in horror, it would be the Red Wedding. (on a much smaller note I worry that Isaac Hempstead-Wright is growing a little too fast for his role but obviously that is not his fault.)
Anyway this was good and I enjoyed it immensely. Season Four will be very interesting. You see there was a LOT going on in A Storm of Swords, and while they broke it up into two parts I’m still wondering how they will squeeze the rest of it into the next season.
