I find it funny reading people bemoan how slow things are going this season, while I'm excited about how quickly they are chewing through the material. Yes, I'm one of those snobs who read the books before the tv show had even started. Every season before this had pretty much followed a single book, except seasons 2 and 3 were the 2nd book. This season looks like it will go through both books 4 and 5. Book 4 came out in 2005, and book 5 in 2011. You think not much has happened this season? Readers have watched these characters twiddle their thumbs for 10 years now! Heck, even some of the most interesting things to happen this season didn't even occur in the books. Jaime never went to Dorne, Ramsay didn't marry Sansa (she is just chilling at the Eyrie, and he married a girl they are pretending is Sansa), Brienne never found Sansa, and Tyrion is still slowly traveling to meet Dani. They've also scrapped a lot of the stupid subplots involving some boring new characters that were introduced because he's killed off so many of the interesting ones. I'm actually excited to see what they do next season now that they are current with Martin's glacially moving plotlines, and I'm really hoping they don't end this season the way the last book ended.