Watching the show first has the uncanny effect of getting the character portrayals into my head.
I wish Christians could be more like Muslims, who ban all portrayals of their prophet Muhammad. I keep getting the popular image of Jesus as a tall man with long hair wearing sheets and sandals. I mean, it's quite instinctual, but I wish I saw what my instinct would have me see first.
If the story's good though, these impressions start to fall away and looks matter less.
For example, Wizard's First Rule. They started off as shadowy medieval archetypes - a shadowy cross between Robin Hood portrayals and Lord of the Rings characters holding swords and bows, but then I started to watch the show. Nearly all the mental fog was gone - characters were no longer spirit-like. They now had real faces!
Pretty exciting.
But now, as I move on in the series, they became more gossamer-like among the mental mist. I think the portrayals usually fell apart at facial expressions - the novel characters and actor's portrayal are ultimately different. Some expressions just don't occur in the show, probably because some scenes can't fit in the adapted story-line. And people probably find it hard to scowl nearly as many times as novel characters can!
Ultimately, I guess it is the character's spirit that lives in the reader, whatever they may look like.
The ghost in the body is perhaps what matters in the end. If there was an important lesson I learnt from reading, it is about looking past the costumes, masks and bodies of people and seeing the spirit living in the body.
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