I watched the episode and was thoroughly confused regarding that aspect. Bran time traveling back in time causing Hodor to lose his wits, which later caused Hodor in the future to be what he is, but Hodor in the future had to be what he is before Bran could warg into him...it's contradictory.

Yeah. It just causes a closed causal loop. Hodor has to be witless for him to become witless. So there is no "true" explanation for his handicap.

I've read A Song of Ice and Fire, and have generally enjoyed the 'low fantasy' feel of it -- the actors in the world feel like they follow some sort of internal logic, and their motivations can be deduced, which you can't say for all fantasy. In other words, even if it's cheesy, it doesn't feel like a video game or transparently like one person, the author, is running the show for the sake of the plot. I'm worried that if time looping is introduced to the book series this way, that will all go out the window. Time travel is prime a shark-jumping tool, and once it's in there, all bets are off, because anything can or could have happened.

I'm not too fond of the show and thought the latest episode was really bad character death porn.

I've only read half of the second book because of the lack of time but I do agree with you both on what the writing feels like and what will happen if loops are introduced. There are already fans discussing of th Blood Raven being old Bran coming from another timeline where the world was destroyed.

I'm worried that if time looping is introduced to the book series this way, that will all go out the window. Time travel is prime a shark-jumping tool, and once it's in there, all bets are off, because anything can or could have happened.

I'm not too fond of the show and thought the latest episode was really bad character death porn. — The Great Whatever

I am half-way through AFFC right now but I jumped ahead in the show. I was not really impressed by the latest episode, but I think overall the show does a good service to the books. At the very least, it's entertaining in more than one way ;)

Does the time travel thing happen in the books or was that introduced by the producers?

A Feast for Crows is great. Once all the mandatory big plot is out of the way and the world is established, you get these great little insights into the corners of the world. I don't know if you've gotten to Brienne's Cracklaw Point plot yet, but it's great, you find out that a large region of the Crownlands has been de facto independent from the crown for centuries and has its own mythology, border squabbles, etc. I love that kind of stuff. That's what I mean by ASOIAF not always feeling like the product of one person's imagination -- he puts in these little realistic inconsistencies in the world.

You can't really get that from a TV show, which only has time for the middle of the middle of the main plot, and so ends up feeling like more of an obvious contrivance, like a soap opera, where characters behave the way they do because the writers need them to, and not because they might be seen as part of a larger functioning world.

You can't really get that from a TV show, which only has time for the middle of the middle of the main plot, and so ends up feeling like more of an obvious contrivance, like a soap opera, where characters behave the way they do because the writers need them to, and not because they might be seen as part of a larger functioning world. — The Great Whatever

I agree. Although the show originally motivated me to read the books. It's not really the fault of the producers that they can't show every detail of the books - that's just the nature of television. It's always going to cut up the story into an easily-digestible 45 minute amount. The key to success it seems is to minimize the butchering, and personally I think that most of the time GoT does it better than other shows or movies.

I think the White Walker origin bit was far too rushed. Would have been nice if they'd fleshed it out more and made it seem like a bigger deal.