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23 New Pics From Game of Thrones Season 3

Jan. 28, 2013by: Jesse Giroux

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If you haven't seen any of Game of Thrones yet be careful; there are some spoilers sprinkled about.

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I haven't read any of the books in the A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series. Part of the reason is that fantasy novels just don't connect with me as well as other genres. I don't think it's the long detailed descriptions of nature, castles, etc. that sometimes seem to plague the genre. I had no problem reading Patrick Bateman's views on Huey Lewis (it's about eight pages in the book and Jared Leto doesn't die at the end) or his descriptions of what multiple people are wearing at a party, where it was bought from, how much was spent on this...it goes on for a while. For whatever reason, fantasy books (and video games...sorry SKYRIM fans) don't excite me.

However, the past two seasons of Game of Thrones have certainly pushed me towards the books, and the third seasons may just be the final shove I need to finally dive into the novels. Besides this one.

With the third season right around the corner, the official Game of Thrones Facebook page has released 23 new pictures of most (it can't be all...the cast size rivals the amount of extras used in GANDHI for Christ's sake) of your favorite characters as well as some of the new faces that will be popping up for the first time. These are apparently the first official pictures released, so don't expect anything that's a spoiler or full of action, but it still gets me (and I'm sure plenty of others) excited to return to Westeros and Essos.

Check out some of the pics below or got to their Facebook page to see them all. Game of Thrones returns (with slightly extended episodes) March 31st.

"IT'S NEESON SEASON...UH, I MEAN...WINTER'S COMING."

GOT2

Game of Thrones

Extra Tidbit:	Since I haven't read the books I have a question for those that have: would the first two seasons have benefited from being split up like what is being done with season three? I'm sure as well as a job HBO has done, plenty of stuff has been left out in the transition from book to television. Would the first two seasons be vastly different or just extended?

Source:	Game of Thrones Facebook

Tags:	game of thrones, HBO, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Maggie Smith, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Richard Madden

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kincade1981

3:22PM on 01/28/2013

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The first season was done very well. Sure, the skipped over a few things and some liberties were taken, but overall well done. The second season was good too. I think more liberties were taken, and some important characters were left out, but still okay. I don't think the first two books needed an extra season. Actually I wished HBO would run 12 episode seasons instead of 10. That would have filled in a lot of gaps I think. But book 3...my god. It has to be two seasons. Way too much

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Danger^Cart

2:44PM on 01/28/2013

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The first season was great, they really did an amazing job of adapting it. Really another 50 min would have been beneficial just to flesh some stuff out a bit more but that's just being greedy. It's one of the most faithful screen translations ever, I'd say. Even the made up scenes were phenomenal ("war stories" being particularly epic, it could have fit right into the book if we'd had a Jaime POV that early).

The second season is a hell of a lot messier, however, and the made up scenes are mostly just gratuitous nonsense. I wouldn't go so far as to say it needed to be split up, but two or three more episodes wouldn't have hurt. With Swords the material expands so rapidly and with such density that there's really no choice. This is where shit blows up (not that kind of blown up, but still vastly more epic).

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vesaker

2:19PM on 01/28/2013

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Nice

The best thing about these books, and in tern the show, is that there is SO much detail in everything but its not ever done in a way that they hever to go "hey look at this!!!" and bog things down. If you've read the books you will see all sorts of things in shots of the show that aren't mentioned but you know are supposed to be there. If you haven't read the books then these things can be sort of like easter eggs for once you have read them.

The crazy thing about the show is the balance they strike between what to tell, what not to tell and what to new things to add entirely. Some of my favorite moments of Season 1 are the scenes with King Robert. He's not explored much in the books and is much more of an oafish ass. In the show though he's a bit more likable and we get more insight to his character. The scene where he describes his first kill to Selmey and Jamie is not in the book at all yet it feels like it could have been cause it fits so well with everything else they do in the show!

P.S. Who else thinks R+L=J?

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Benjimus

12:55PM on 01/28/2013

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Read the Books

As far as adaptations go, tv shows and films will never be an exact carbon copy of the original source material. That said, the first season is extremely faithful to the first book. One thing the tv viewer doesn't get is the the history of Westeros, And boy is there a lot. I hope in the future they'll do a webisode series during the hiatus (ala Lost, or BSG) that's focused on Aegon the Conquerer or Robert's Rebellion.

As far as if they needed to split the first two books into 4 seasons I completely disagree. You get the main plot points without straying away toooo far from the source material like The Walking Dead does in my opinion. Like I said, it's not going to be a perfect retelling of A Song of Ice and Fire but the writers, including George R. R. Martin himself have done a very good job in telling a 1600 page story into 20 episodes especially considering they have a finite budget and the task of creating this story requires so much production.

Having them split ASOS is one of the best decision the creators have made thus far. It's by far the most action packed book of the series and everyone should be very excited because it's going to be a fun roller coaster of a story.

I'm going to say tho that the 3rd season sounds like it'll focus on the first 2/3s of ASOS while the 4th season will include the remaining 1/3 of ASOS as well as the first bits of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons.The reason being the 4th and 5th book basically take place at the same time but focus on different locations/ characters. For example, AFFC has very little chapters pertaining to North/the Wall, they're mostly in ADWD.

I'm going to stop writing.

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Indydan13

1:58PM on 01/28/2013

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I'd rather see Robert's Rebellion get turned into a 2 season prequel after this show is finished. It's too grand a story to tell in webisodes. Doing it at the same time would cause overload/confusion, though. Season 1 is the setup, ending with the murder of Rickard and Brandon. Season 2...well, you can guess what happens in season 2.

For Aegon, I'd rather not see that. The fun part about "ancient" history (for them or us) is the fact that it's hard to delineate what is myth turned fact and what is straight up fact. I'm guessing most of the stories told about Aegon were a bit of both. Making a show of it would remove that dichotomy between the accepted story and actual fact, similar to the origins of the "kingslayer" nickname and, well, most stories told from person to person in Westeros. Often in the books you get that duality of what we know and what they know, and Aegon is probably one of them.

Aside from that, agreed!

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adaifallah

-3

10:40AM on 01/28/2013

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I read the books...

...and the way they told the story was okay, but it would have definitely benefited from splitting each book into 2 seasons. If they would have done that, they could have introduced a lot of key characters from the books. For example, the Reed children were introduced in the second book, but were never introduced in the second season on HBO, they will be introduced in the third season however. Meera and Jojen Reed are two of the biggest characters when telling Bran's story, it would have been pretty cool if they would have brought them into the story a couple of episodes before the second season's finale like the books did. Also, in the books, The Knight of Roses was never said to have been gay. There was never ever anything between he and Renly in the books, but I am sure George R. R. Martin must have told the producers/directors to add all that in. A lot of stuff was changed, but I was happy with the way a lot of it was put on the big screen.

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Indydan13

12:08PM on 01/28/2013

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The issue with that, though, is that Bran's story isn't focused too heavily upon, so the Reed children were extraneous in the interpretation of the show, up to a point. The first season was dead on as close to being the novel as possible, and the second season was less accurate, but for a purpose. Splitting up Clash of Kings to keep in characters/storylines that were either abandoned entirely or changed for brevity would have thrown off the pace. There would be a whole lot more of a whole lot of nothing, just for accuracy's sake.

Ser Loras and Renly's relationship was always very subtle, but I definitely saw something there while reading it. It was in subtext and very slight hints, never over the top hints thought. Since it was never told from someone's point of view who would have known for sure, it was never explained in full. But Lora's actions and things he would say would lend credulity to the idea that they were a couple in the book too. So, it's possible that Martin confirmed it; telling the producers flat out so that in the visual medium they could show it instead of hint at it in words; or, the producers got that vibe from the books, and put that in to give them something to do. Either way, it was there and yet not there for me.

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Benjimus

12:58PM on 01/28/2013

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Subtle hints in regards to Renly's Sexuality

[link]

adaifallah

1:27PM on 01/28/2013

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Oh I know that being part of "The Rainbow Guard" pretty much implied it, but what I meant was that they never flat out said that they were gay. Also, there were never chapters in Renly or Loras' points of view in the books, nor did any of the conversations they had about King Robert or Brienne show up in the novels either. Of course, not everything can be translated 100% from the novels or books, sometimes I wished that they would have put those small events in the novels or removed them from

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Indydan13

1:50PM on 01/28/2013

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Keep in mind though, that the method of storytelling for TV/film is different than novels. In Novels we can be told things about how the character feels, and more subtlety is available due to the words being readily available and to engage the reader. In a show, we have to see these things, and if it can't be shown visually, it has to be said directly. For instance, with Benjimus' link, Martin was able to give more than enough subtext as to the sexuality of Renly without flat out saying it. (Just like a novelist doesn't have to flat out say what the theme is of the book, it's up to implication and interpretation). Other scenes flat out can't work in a show that work in a novel and vice versa.

See: Tom Bombadil from Lord of the Rings.

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