I give the season a B-, over a B or B+ from the season before. Have not read the books and do not plan to. It seems like the book following is pretty fanatical, based on the well read folks here, but that is a world I'm not in now. If I'm reading stuff now, it's either geeky message boards on extreme music or global news/politics.

Is the third season gonna be better than this one was? I already spoilered myself on "The Red Wedding" online and don't think that's gonna have the same impact of the first season results overall. Sean Bean brought a lot credibilty/gravity to the show, which I don't see from a pure character standpoint going forward (unless you're talking about Dinklage, who is completely irreplacable at this point).

Obviously I can't vouch for the production values and direction, but in terms of story (barring any colossal straying from the books) the next season should be pretty bad ass. In fact I believe they are essentially splitting book three into two seasons which hopefully will allow them to really dig into the meat of the plot lines. A lot of important character development happens over the course of the 3rd book, and of course there are more characters being introduced, so hopefully splitting the book up will allow for a less rushed/confusing immersion.

They've gotta nail the battle at The Wall, given how that storyline has been my only real gripe...this season, it dragged something awful...and I really hope they give viewers more context on Donal Noye than they did on Halfhand.

Being a pretty big fan of Donal Noye, I hope so too. That will be in the 4th season, I'm guessing, so maybe by then they'll feel better about throwing tertiary characters to the front of the action here and there.

To contrast, I would be completely fine if they threw out the entire Iron Islands storyline that starts in Feast. Actually, I'm sort of hoping they do. It's gone nowhere since it was introduced. Same with Dorne and Myrcella, though at least that is somewhat related to a main plot line since it includes a Lannister.

I haven't read Dance yet, but Feast definitely suffers from too many new characters/plotlines and not enough old...which is primarily due to the decision to split the two books by (loosely) geography rather than chronology. I can handle new characters, although quite a few have failed to spark much interest in these new story lines, but goddammit I want to know what's going down with everyone else still.

I still have confidence in Martin to bring it altogether - I do believe he has a vision in place, an endgame scenario everything is moving toward - as long as he manages to stay alive long enough, but I get what you are saying. If the HBO series makes it to season 5 there will be some pretty hard choices on what to edit out. I guess we'll see.

The Iron Island story is actually more appealing to me on screen than it was in the books, ironically. Ironically ... get it?

I really enjoyed it and it might reflect on my IQ but I'm struggling to keep up with who's who. It would also be nice for the good guys to get a little win here and there - think how a great wrestling feud is constructed. Still Joffrey is possible the greatest evil character I've seen on TV - he has no redeeming features.

Honestly, it only gets worse, really, really worse in a number of ways. I'm not even talking about White Walkers, they've yet to take the main stage, 90% of the characters don't even know they are real, if they know about them at all, everyone below the Wall thinks of them as a myth. Everyone outside of Westeros likely doesn't even think of them.

I just don't want people to think it'll become something bright and shiny. It gets darker and the dawn hasn't even approached in the books, there's hopes but no sense of how it will play out, or if it will play out well for anyone. Just hope and the sense that it might not end horribly for everyone.

BUT, somehow it's not depressing, Martin's genius is in keeping the reader involved even though things just keep getting worse. It's unrelenting sometimes, it's Murphy's Law, everything that can go wrong usually does.

And even some of the good stuff is just creepy.

That sounds amazing. When I get some free time, I might actually start reading the books. It just seems like such a challenge to do lol.

My girlfriend just got finished reading them all. He loved them

It's pretty simple, everything people like about the show is in the book but there's a lot more of it.

A lot more Tyrion, a lot more Arya, a lot more Jon, a lot more Jaime, it's just...more.

"He loved them"?

Um, ok.

The more I think about it, the less I'm inclined to recommend the last two books at all. Neither do much to further the story line at all. They almost seem like exercises in futility.

When you've got an author like Martin that is lazy and not focused (hell, he even admitted he's lost track of where the story is -- he hired the guy that does the 'Song of Ice and Fire' wiki to keep his facts straight), then, as a fan, you've got problems.

First three books are majestic, though.

Good luck with finishing up this series of books. I don't see it happening.

Holy shit, I just found out Ciaran Hinds is playing Mance Rayder in the third season. Stoked. I've been making my way through the books and just started A Storm of Swords. Good stuff. This is gonna be awesome.

You might remember him as Caesar from Rome if you watched that show. He was in There Will be Blood too.

Season 3 starts March 31st.

I bought the first season used on DVD for a good price, figured it was something different to watch. I ended up really enjoying it so much, I watched the entire thing twice and bought the first book. It's pretty enjoyable also, I'm almost done with it now. For modern epic fantasy, I do prefer R. Scott Bakker though, his The Prince Of Nothing series is a little more my style.

I just powered through the 2nd season this week. Glorious. Can't decide to read the books or not in between. I want to but I love how it's playing out with me having no idea what's coming.

My advice, read them, they compliment the books very well and add a richness to the story that is damn impossible to convey via tv.

Not to mention that not only are they some of the finest fantasy ever written, they're among the finest books ever written. Well, the first three at least.

Oh damn I just love the books. I've been spreading them out a bit so that they will last a bit longer. Just started on the fourth.

The Tv serie is a great one as well. Great casting imo. Great scenery as well.
I guess you have to separate the books and the TV thingy a bit though since they are not totally following each other to get the most out of them.

Can't wait for Season 3!!!

I love these little videos that they made for the Blu-Ray sets.

Yeah, Season 2 really deviates from the book in a number of ways, and much more than season one did.

Another one of those cool "lore" videos in the upcoming blu-ray. Ygritte narrates.

The Season 3 preview looks great, stoked for it.