Spoiler warning
Yesterday HBO showed a 14-minute teaser of the upcoming Game of Thrones series:
Game of Thrones Exclusive Preview
For superfans, the folks at Westeros have a more detailed impression of the first few episodes. I had a positive reaction to the sneak preview, which suggests the story will be told with the necessary patience. But knowing what the payoff is, I wonder how non-fans might have reacted.
ASoIF's finite narrative, episodic storytelling, and complex characters are ideal for the way HBO does television. But I still think one of the big obstacles to adapting ASoIF for TV remains the dispatching of one of the series' major characters fairly early on. I don't think there's any real way to write around that given that this person's death basically sets off the unrestrained bloodshed (yes, two beheadings in 15 minutes is relatively restrained here) of the next few books, but I think it's going to be relatively shocking to a television audience accustomed to more formulaic narratives, particularly in a fantasy context.
Mathematically speaking, with two beheadings in the first two minutes, GoT is heading for roughly eight beheadings per episode. Gruesome!
