I haven't read much fantasy, but of what I've read, ASOIAF easily has the most plots going at all times. Adapting LOTR to the screen required keeping one, two or three different stories going, and most of those were stagnant for periods of time. In the latest ASOAIF books there were 18 POV characters. Of course, some of them interact directly with each other, but there were still five or six completely different storylines in different locations running. That makes just transferring the plot from the books to the screen near impossible. One of the biggest complaint about the show I hear is that the 10 hours they have each season is not enough to cover all the plots.
So far, I've read the first book and I'm about a dozen chapters into the second (which is still pretty early in the book). So far, it feels like there are far fewer plot lines going on compared to Malazan Book of the Fallen. 18 POV characters doesn't seem that crazy to me.
To be fair though, Malazan is actually complete and spans 10 novels for the primary series, and a bunch more in other series or stand-alones in the same world. I haven't read all the books, though I've read all 10 in the main series. The size of the plot is such that the fifth book rewinds to
before the first book in order to talk about events on a completely different continent, and it doesn't feature any characters from the previous books. Subsequent novels connect the threads.
Depends on the character. They've sped up some story lines a lot, to the point that they are on the verge of surpassing the books, and others are very much behind, to the point of the character in question not even being introduced in the show yet, leaving the fans to guess whether they'll appear at all.
They definitely did go down that road a bit last season already. There weren't enough going on with one of the story lines but they wanted the character to have screen time because he/she'll be important later and the viewers need to see him/her, so they created some really pointless subplots for him/her. This will be a big problem for next season.
Hmmm, that's dangerous. It can easily create plot holes and force showrunners to deviate even further from source material when (...if?) future novels get released. De-syncing different character arcs can also screw with sensitive timing in military movement. I understand why they'd do that, but still.
So since I've read just the first book so far, how far can I watch in the show without hitting spoilers? (I know I can find this online, but why not ask while I'm here...)