As a book reading GoT fan, your friends are dicks and they're doing it wrong. You're supposed to downplay things, give no hints of any crazy shit to come, and then enjoy the shock of the show-only plebs. So much more amusing that way.

I'm definitely excited for season 4. There's gonna be all sorts of fun shit going on, maybe crazy bullshit as early as episode 2 if I'm remembering the order of events correctly.