[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Also, I don't have that experience that much with Tolkien and the PJ films, but it sure is complicated being a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire without not having much interest in (the recent seasons of) Game of Thrones. No, I don't want to discuss why I like Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth with you if you've only seen the show, because both the characters, their relationship, and the whole worldbuilding around them are not the same in the show as in the books. Likewise, I wouldn't have any interest discussing say, Aragorn's character arc with somebody who's only seen the movies, or maybe seen the movies 20 times while having read the book once 15 years ago. I don't want to advocate gatekeeping or fandom snobbery, but when it comes to things where people equate the original books with their very popular movie/tv adaptations, my heart always bleeds a little. (And I'm not saying I don't do this myself. I would be more likely to be interested in discussing The Witcher Netflix show than the books, and probably The Witcher book purists would hate to discuss The Witcher with me. And that's okay too. We live in an era of oversharing, but not everything needs to be shared with everyone.)

I have actually refrained from reading the books, simply because I enjoyed the show so much (at least until the later seasons). I did not want to taint that experience with knowledge about how the characters and show "ought" to be.