A sidenote on the dragons. The past thousand-and-a-half years has given us a range of dragons, from the lucky dragons of China, to the tussling red and white dragons of Welsh lore, to the dragon of St George fame, substitute for Satan, to the Zen-ish, wise, riddling dragons of Le Guin’s Earthsea, to the hoarding, miserly dragons of Beowulf and The Hobbit. George RR Martin’s dragons are more like superweapon bazookas. They’re aesthetically attractive – more so in the books than in the series, where they have less delicate pink tracery and more scaly pterodactyl beakiness – but, so far, they don’t talk.
user-inactivated:
Think I'm going to make the executive decision to quit watching the show as it catches up to the book-specific plot. Shame, it's been good (mostly) television. But the books matter a lot more.