I never expected them to follow the books precisely. Not with an epic mile-long multi-book story like this. It would take 30 years of ten episode seasons to do it. I'd love it of course, because in this case the story has enough depth and quality that it'd be worth it.
I haven't noticed the show killing off essential characters far earlier than in the books. Who?
So far it has "somewhat" followed the books. Robb had a new love interest in the books which led to misfortune for him, and so far in the tv series he seems to be developing *gasp* a new love interest. It's not the exact one from the books, it's different. I'm okay with it being different. The book didn't really delve much into how he came to fall for that girl, and only briefly mentioned in retrospect as to how it came to be. The series seems to be going into a lot more detail about it. Again, I'm fine with that.
I think I'll wait until I see these last three episodes of S2 and then maybe we'll all have a better grasp of things. Or maybe we won't and we'll be sitting on here griping for another year whilst waiting for S3.
