I'm having trouble dealing with how good Game of Thrones is getting. I'm pretty sure by the end of this season I'll just spend all of Saturday and Sunday shaking and mumbling to myself until the next episode starts.
Read the books then.
I actually have no idea how you can even follow the tv series without having read the books. They leave so much out, so many characters dropped, so many interesting and important stories left untold.
Not quite. They leave out the stuff that would make their show get ripped apart obviously, or would make them go over budget. But then there's things that would work in the books that just wouldn't work in screen. It means they have to shuffle things around. For example the reeds - they've been gone but they're going to show up. Strong Belwas didn't show up and Barristan showed up by himself instead, but it just would have been too hard to fool the viewers into thinking that wasn't Selmy and would have taken up too much unnecessary screen time. Belwas will show up, but later.
We got Brienne and Jaime scenes. I'd pay to have their stuff turned into a movie - Brienne and Jaime's Autumn Vacation sounds about right. And it left off on a stupidly big fucking cliffhanger.
GRRM turned down multiple movie offers because he thought it'd leave out too much of the books. It'd have to be an entirely new series: In the Game of Loves, you win or you cry.
Also holy hell are the fucking names spelled stupidly. I see GRRM is not immune to "I'm a fantasy author so dumb spellings make me super cool" syndrome. If I see a character named Mikyl I might just quit watching.
Read the books then.
That's for the break after Season 3. It is how I will survive those cold, unforgiving months.
Fun fact, the book season 3 is based on is the best one in the series
As for the names, I think it's just GRRM's way of coming up with new names. Get inspiration going. Hodor? Osha? Original names.
Speaking of Osha, she's one example of the show doing something GRRM didn't expect, by making her into a more core character who will return one day. CRYPTIC BULLSHIT WINS.
Ok cool...
You know the drill...]Also, I know Winterfell has burnt down, but have we seen Ramsay Snow/Bolton yet?
We've not seen Ramsay. Lord Bolton has popped up all through season 1 and 2, leading a battle, being talked about as cunning and ruthless (was told to lead 2000 men to their deaths, did it with no question, wanted to torture all the lannister prisoners e.t.c.) and currently is talking to the Kastarks about avenging their deaths... They aren't talking about the Lannisters.
We've also seen Lord Tywin writing those letters that are going between him and Bolton.