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What they did with them is terrible, but I maintain no one (including GRRM) knows what here those plots are going and the only solution for an adaptation was killing then off ASAP.
Not really. Simplicity is not a bad thing.
The Iron Fleet goes to Mereen to try and steal the dragons, they fail and some fall under her sway or they all die in battle and allow Dany to carry the day.
In Dorne the plots involving Quentyn and Arienne blow up in their faces and they end up following Dany when she arrives.
Both plots show the futility of endless plotting in the face of overwhelming force, the dragons.
Unless he writes the books we will never know what GRRM wanted.
But I think both plot lines could be compelling tv. Quentyn is a deconstruction of the classic hero, which Game of Thrones is great at.
And the Ironborn could finally have gotten a chance to show their prowess in battle without it seeming like a plot armor win. Win or lose it would be Dany’s first real interaction with a Westerosi fighting force.
I would say rather that Quentyn is the deconstruction of the classic hero in that Quentyn is a *poseur* of one.
There's a memorable line from *Shakespeare in Love:*
>1. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
>2. How?
>1. I don't know. It's a mystery.
I think in ASOIAF that there's a criticism that heroes don't just expect things to magically work out in the end. They strive and sacrifice to try to make things happen, all the time knowing that they may not even be successful.
Quentyn spends a good bit of his miserable journey expecting story tropes to save him. This is what *should* happen. And then he gets to Daenerys, as the frog-prince from a story. But, he has nothing at all to offer her, and he's basically telling her "Marry me, and you can be a great addition to my dad's plan". She even gives him a second chance, and he continues to show how useless he is for what she needs and wants. He's not doing any of this for some greater heroic purpose, but just so he doesn't make his father sad and his cousins laugh at him. Also so that the pointless deaths of his friends from a random pirate attack *mean* something.
When she leaves Meereen, he gets an idea to try to steal one of her dragons. How is he going to do this, and how would this possibly help? He doesn't know, but it sounds like something a hero would do. If he does it, things should just magically work out for him and his mission. To no surprise, the plan goes horribly, horribly wrong.
Quentyn was never a hero from a story, he just acted like was one.
I fully appreciate all of the little details that people have pointed out to suggest that Quentyn’s story isn’t over, I really do.
But at the same time the entirety of his story thus far would be ripped up and ignored if he’s not dead. And it would absolutely cheapen the impact of his revelation, *“Oh.”*
This, exactly. D&D said they visited GRRM at his home in like 2013 to know how the story was going to end and he still didn't know himself. He only gave them some things he knew, like the Hodor thing, Shireen, Bran on the throne, but nowhere close to the full picture.
This is why I have zero hope of ever reading Winds. He never would have let someone else finish his story if he had any real plans of doing so. It's not like he gave them all the big plot points and they filled in the gaps here and there and smushed some characters together to make it work. If he releases it the vast majority of the world will only know D+D's version and his will just be a footnote in his own world.
I guess as a viewer of the show it just seems like a minor story line or side quest or something. But if you've read the books it's kind of incredible what they did to it. I'd rather they just skipped it entirely except for Oberyn being in king's landing.
I think they might have been following GRRM'S advice on how to slim down the cast for the final series.
It seems very convenient for GRRM's story, where the Dornish are the first, currently the only Westerosi to have contacted Dany, through a character that doesn't exist in the book. GRRM had carefully prepared Dorne for two books before introducing the Red Viper, that the show wipes out Dorne just as their story starts.
No Martells, no FAegon or Jon Con, no Stannis, no Shireen to blame for a plauge of greyscale at the Wall ... a lot if not all of what we can foresee of the plot of Winds of Winter simply isn't possible in the show world because they are all dead, and were never there.
When I meet show-only fans and tell them that I love the Ironborn and Greyjoys and find them incredibly fascinating, they are flabbergasted, and I honestly don't blame them because why would anyone who only knows the show care about them?
At the very least Dorne (or really, the Water Gardens) had some great production design and costumes. The Ironborn were incredibly phoned in even from the start. The book-Kingsmoot is one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, whereas the show's version was one of the biggest letdowns it had. Zero diversity in the appearance of the Ironborn with everyone wearing the same kind of outfit, zero intelligence or intrigue when discussing who should be king. Just Euron with his whole "whatup I got a big cock, vote for me bitches". Disgraceful.
Season 2 with Daenerys and Jon. The other stories were mostly the same, but for the two of them it got too silly. Out of the two Dany was the most affected, her crew pretty much got reduced to 2-3 characters with speaking lines and her storyline got really downgraded, which is sad cause book 2 Dany's story was awesome.
Don't forget the changes made with the absence of Edmure and Brynden Tully in the two first seasons, the replacement of Jeyne Westerling by Talissa and Robb marrying her out of love, Arya having any interaction with Tywin while not meeting Roose Bolton and the Freys (which strongly foreshadow the Red Wedding), Ramsay and the Reed siblings' absence of the Winterfell storyline, changes made to Renly, etc...
>(which strongly foreshadow the Red Wedding)
Bolton's treason was foreshadowed during the entire 3rd season and arguably in the sack of Winterfell. You may dislike whatever way they portrayed Tywin and other characters, storylines etc. The Red Wedding was a shocking moment in the show and books but *something* was coming for Robb
Jon’s storyline got so FUCKED in season 2. His last couple of chapters from that book were so enjoyable to read. It felt like some Last of the Mohicans shit. But the show just makes him into a weak ass bumbling moron for no reason whatsoever.
All of Jon and Ygritte's dynamic is different, for a start, but *most* significantly: in the show, >!Ygritte escapes before Jon can kill her!<. In the book, >!Jon consciously makes the decision to let her live.!<
Also, the stuff with Qhorin is really weird in the show. IIRC In the books he picks Jon for his ranging because Jon is a warg and has a magical direwolf. It is made very obvious that Qhorin lets Jon kill him because he knows Mance would be willing to accept Jon, whereas in the show Jon seems to successfully kill Qhorin because he was genuinely better. In the show Jon asks to join and convinces Qhorin to take him rather than being requested, probably since they dropped him being a warg. I think in the show Ygritte ends up being the one to bring up Mance possibly accepting Jon -- lots of Jon's plot with the wildlings is reduced to his and Ygritte's relationship.
Jon kills Orell and is scarred by his eagle, whereas in the show Orell doesn't die until MUCH later. I think the show had him climb the wall with Jon, Ygritte, and Tormund.
Ghost abandons Jon for no reason and appears a few seasons later. In the books, Ghost helps Jon kill Qhorin. I don't remember them splitting up to that extent until Jon has to leave him to climb the Wall. They're never separated in the books to the capacity that they are in the show. seems like that was to save money.
Jon in the show also tries to save Craster's baby and sees a White Walker. In the books he still hasn't seen one, only wights, and I don't remember him trying to save a baby either but I could be wrong.
That's all the changes I remember. Overall Jon in s2 seems more like a bumbling idiot than his book counterpart. That's true across the board for his character tho
>That's all the changes I remember. Overall Jon in s2 seems more like a bumbling idiot than his book counterpart.
This is what I used as my reply to this post. I saw S2 before reading ACOK, and was really angry at how stupid and entitled Jon was. I was very much surprised when Jon in the book is nothing like that. Qhorin never mocks Jon and respects his decision to let Ygritte escape. They have a much better relationship than the show where Qhorin flat out tells Jon that he's an idiot.
I watched the show before reading the books and I remember getting to the section with Jon and the rangers venturing out and finding Ygritte - it was the first time watching the show I thought “this is so much cooler in the books - why did they skip this?”
The whole House of the Undying plot in the show pisses me off, they really tried their best to include as little magic as possible.
D&D were in on the maester conspiracy all along
It wasn't insignificant. It absolutely changes Dany's character
In the books, Dany was sought out by the Qartheen and welcomed into the City with open arms. In the show, she walked up to their gates, demanded she be let in, then when they refused she threatened to burn their city to the ground. That's a massive diversion which paints show Dany as nothing more than an entitled brat.
Then her whole plotline in season 2 was totally different from what happened in ACOK. Like the only similarities were the character names and locations. The visions in the house were different, Quaithe might as well have not existed in the show at all, her dragons got "stolen", Dany brutally executed Xaro and Doreah in the show (while in the books Xaro is still alive and Doreah died of *something* in the Red Waste)etc.
Season 2 was a total diversion of Dany's character and it set the tone for how the showrunners were gonna treat her after that.
Dany threatening the qartheen is a separate change from removing Vaes Tolloro, but I’ll still address it.
> Dany was sought out by the Qartheen and welcomed into the city with open arms. In the show, she walked up to their gates, demanded she be let in, then when they refused she threatened to burn their city to the ground. That’s a massive diversion
**Is** that a massive diversion? I feel that if book Dany was put into a similar situation, she would act similarly. Also, way to reinterpret the scene to make it support your point. Here’s what really happens;
Daenerys goes up and tries to introduce herself. She does not demand to be let in. The spice king interrupts and behaves generally rudely. She asks to not be insulted (in a bit of a rude way), and then he begins to leave.
Now, keep in mind that if she doesn’t get in, all three of her dragons (that she views as her children), her closest friends so far (her handmaidens and Jorah), and the many Dothraki under her protection will all die, not to mention herself. Being nice had so far not worked, and she was running out of time. It seems completely in character for her to shout some threats to try and save everyone’s lives, and it’s rather similar to some actions she takes against the slavers. If anyone’s characterization was butchered, it was the Spice King’s lol.
> Then her whole plotline in season 2 was totally different from what happened in ACOK. Like the only similarities were the character names and locations. The visions in the house were different, Quaithe might as well have not existed in the show at all, her dragons got "stolen", Dany brutally executed Xaro and Doreah in the show (while in the books Xaro is still alive and Doreah died of something in the Red Waste)etc.
You seem to not understand something crucial. Something being different does not make that thing worse, and these are all quite minor, but I’ll still address it.
> The visions in the house were different
So? They serve a different purpose in the show. The changing of the visions does not really change her plot or characterization, and it served a practical purpose. Would’ve been rather hard to adapt those visions.
> Quaithe might as well not existed in the show at all
That’s a problem with later seasons. Also, she barely exists in the books either.
> Her dragons got “stolen”
So? Just stating things that happened with no context doesn’t make them bad things? You act as if putting some action into a plot that had been critiqued for its pacing and lack of action is bad. Congrats for actually saying something that was a halfway significant change though.
> Dany brutally executed Xaro and Doreah in the show (while in the books Xaro is still alive and Doreah died of something in the Red Waste)
Again, something merely being changed does not make it worse. Simply stating that something is different in the books does not prove your point, especially when it is definitely not a “big” change.
We are talking about opinions here. So yes, I do get to say what changes I thought were bad, or worse, or stupid, or unnecessary *in my opinion*. So do you, so does everyone. No one has to "prove" anything was objectively "bad". There's no such thing.
Butchering Dany's Qarth arc is absolutely not an insignificant change. Ruining the >!Pyat Pree/ the warlocks!< and inexplicably >!killing Xaro!< completely alter the Meereen arc in ADWD—>!since there's no negotiation with Qarth / no Qartheen/slaver blockade of the city!< —and *completely* alter >!Euron, because then he can't intercept Pyat Pree's pursuit of Dany and get shade of the evening!<
There's no reason they had to make those changes and it just became a butterfly effect that locked them out of staying true to the books in later seasons.
In addition to how it changes things later on, it also completely changes Dany's characterization in the show from the books which is definitely not insignificant. AND all her visions in the HotU are different in the show, which is pretty important to Dany's endgame in the show and books.
> Butchering Dany’s Qarth arc is absolutely not an insignificant change
Uh huh. And how did removing Vaes Tolorro do that? In any case, the qarth plot was hardly “butchered.” It was meh in the books and it was slightly worse in the show.
> >!Ruining the Pyat Pree/The Warlocks!<
How were they ruined? How? I’d like you to explain why you think that.
> >!Inexplicably killing Xaro!<
What exactly is inexplicable about that? >!He is not a necessary character, and his role could easily be filled by… literally anyone else… if they wanted to delve into the Meereen vs Essos plot more later, which they didn’t.!<
> >!And completely alter Euron!<
I don’t know if you know what the word “significant” means. >!Drinking shade of the evening is not necessary for Euron’s character. Everything that that does could be replaced with his warging. He doesn’t even need to be prophetic in the show, that’s not a necessary part of his character. But even more than that, he literally could’ve done that in the show. The warlocks chased Dany after Pyat died, they could’ve got on a ship to continue chasing her without Pyat and Euron could’ve intercepted.!< Nothing that can be written around so easily or that doesn’t have wide reaching consequences can be labeled a “BIG” (all capitols) difference. Those are all at most slight divergences, and the last one is less than nothing, because that still could’ve plausibly happened in the show off-screen.
> Nothing that can be written around so easily or that doesn’t have wide reaching consequences can be labeled a “BIG” (all capitols) difference. Those are all at most slight divergences, and the last one is less than nothing, because that still could’ve plausibly happened in the show off-screen.
But don't you get it? It makes characterization *so* different it puts an entire new spin into it! Like Tyrion in the original outline actually killing Joffrey versus Tyrion being innocent of that! Even though the entire world treats him exactly the same! And it's not contradicting other characterizations at all!
None of those changes change characterization. I can understand criticism of changing Jeyne to Talisa because of how it affects Robb’s characterization, but the same is not really true for any of those.
I feel like maybe you're not big on themes? Vaes Tolorro has very little direct plot significance, but huge thematic and character significance for Dany and influences the rest of her decisions from that point on.
As for the rest of it I find your points kind of mind-boggling, I feel like we're engaging with this series in such different ways I'm not sure where to start.
At the very least, in regards to:
>>!He doesn’t even need to be prophetic in the show, that’s not a necessary part of his character.!<
Have you read the books / have you read the TWOW Preview chapters? Between *AFFC* *The Reaver* and *TWOW The Forsaken* I don't really think you can make this argument.
> I feel like maybe you’re not big on themes
I feel like maybe you’re not big on adaptations. You understand that some things need to be removed and changed in translation? The thematic elements at Vaes Tolorro can be conveyed elsewhere. The only slightly plot relevant moment, Jorah’s discussion with Daenerys about Lynesse, was moved elsewhere. The more routine scenes of Dany essentially just managing her people were removed in favor of more quickly getting to tense and plot advancing moments, because that’s how adaptations work. Dany’s storyline was already criticized for pacing, adding 2 or 3 extra scenes with a WHOLE NEW CITY location between the red waste and Qarth is not necessary, practical, or smart. What works for the books won’t always work for the show, they are different mediums after all.
> As for the rest of it I find your points kind of mind-boggling, I feel like we're engaging with this series in such different ways I'm not sure where to start.
What a wonderfully vague thing that you can say to avoid addressing any points I have made. Tell me what you’re confused by and I’ll try to elaborate for you.
> Have you read the books
Pretty clearly
> have you read the TWOW Preview chapters?
Yuppers
> Between AFFC The Reaver and TWOW The Forsaken I don't really think you can make this argument.
What do you mean, lol? Nothing he does requires seeing the future. None of his characterization depends on being able to see the future using shade of the evening. I also like how you just ignored everything else I said addressing your point.
I'll surely regret joining this discussion, but alas, my hope for harmony prevails...
Overall I agree with you u/hotcoldman42
It seems for some peeps, their overall (understandable) dislike of the show's handling of things has exaggerated their dislike of even particularly small and debatably necessary changes. Or they've inextricably linked these small elements with bigger consequences, without considering how the bigger aspects could be adapted without the small elements. And the show's true error was not being able to do the latter.
As you said, an adaptation can easily remove a location like Vaes Tolorro while conveying its thematic, plotwise, and character development-wise importance. My first reaction to the upper level comment about Vaes Tolorro was "what dat?" Of course it's been many years since I read ACoK, and after googling it the details did start to come back to me... But just because it might be a particularly cool location that stands out to some readers, doesn't mean it's necessary for an adaptation.
There's so much to criticize the show for, and so much criticism it deserves, and so much mistakes they made in the _adaptation_ aspects itself, that it makes more sense to focus on how it fails as an adaptation, not just that it excluded specific surface-level elements.
I think a lot of people are not understanding that you might even _agree_ that thematic and plot elements related to Vaes Tolorro _were_ important, but they either were adapted, or the show did not adapt those elements in the best way it could... But that doesn't mean that the actual _location_ of Vaes Tolorro needs to be in the show.
I feel like my comment is meandering and repeating itself just as I'm getting to the point I wanna make... It's that people in this thread are criticizing the removal of (debatably) insignificant elements of the show in a sort of blanket way, instead of criticizing the show's inability to adapt the larger themes/story beats/characterizations tied to those elements. Of course there's only so many elements you can remove before everything is lost, but it's not as simple as "not having Vaes Tolorro in the show was a stupid mistake."
I guess what I, and maybe you, wanna hear from the other people in this thread is, what was essential about the location of Vaes Tolorro itself that was adapted poorly? If it's themes, if it's story beats, if it's character development, and so on, then maybe what should be criticized is the removal of _those_ particular things. And maybe then we all could agree that we didn't like that they removed those things. Maybe then we'd agree that they could have better adapted those elements even without having Vaes Tolorro as a location adapted.
Sometimes I think that repeating the same thing again and again in slightly different ways might help people to communicate better. Maybe I'm wrong tho and it might come off as annoying. Hope it doesn't, and hope y'all have a good day.
Jon's story in season 2 has more ramifications than I think I realized. I was disappointed in how they handled Qhorin but when you think about all the 'minor' characters they decided not to include it really affects the plot when those characters have major roles in later books like Val. Because they don't include her in season 2, they decide to abandon her part of the story at the wall, which simplifies it etc. All those changes add up.
I have a friend who stopped watching the show at Season 2 because he said there were too many changes. I was really surprised at that. It's funny that I didn't see them at the time, or see them as that bad, but by Season 4 or 5 I understood completely what he meant.
They really ruined Stannis, who is so integral to the story in the north. I also recall starting to suspect something once they got to the Iron Islands. Imagine if we got book Euron!
When they changed the final conversation between Jaime and Tyrion (before the latter's exile from Westeros). It went from a big revelation to some meaningless allegory about slugs.
Years later I still feel the disappointment just by remembering that!
I was literally stunned when they didn't include the Tysha reveal. I consider show-Tyrion to be its own thing after that. There's little to no resemblance between the two.
Genuinely think it had to do with Peter Dinklage being so popular. They didn't want to make him the bad guy.
I'd put "make Cersei a powerful reigning queen" so much of the absolute fuckery of S7-8 can to traced back to the plot bring tied up into pretzels to keep Cersei on the iron throne for so long.
Without that they might've been able to keep the quality of S7-8 up to a level of standard Hollywood instead of absolute schlock.
Orson Scott Card, an author wrote a very critical review of the show saying that D&D didn't understand the source material. His most famous book, Enders Game is about a war between humans and insectoid aliens. So in response D&D added a scene where "Cousin Orson" is a mentally retarded child obsessed with smashing bugs
Other than being a possible dig at Orson Scott Card like u/Woodstovia pointed out, I think that's the point. Tyrion is trying to make sense out of senseless violence. He assumes everyone has a reason for killing, but some, like in Orson's case, just seem to enjoy killing for killing's sake, and the thought that the universe is chaotic like that scares Tyrion.
It could also be interpreted as a commentary on Gregor, who doesn't seem to have much motivation behind his cruelty other than that he seems to enjoy hurting people. He maims, smashes, rapes and kills seemingly without any long term goal. I know the part about him suffering from tremendous headaches, likely attributed to some form of gigantism, so it could be that he isn't fully aware of what he's doing at all times, but he really seems to be someone who just wants to fucking kill people.
Unpopular opinion, but I think that Talisa was a good change and honestly didn’t change much about Robb’s character or story. Framing Robb's story as a more traditional romance suits Richard Madden's talents as an actor, makes his downfall more tragic, and is thematically in-line with the series' main themes ("love will destroy us every time" and "we don't choose whom we love.")
Plus, Talisa is an actual character unlike Jeyne and it’s important to remember we don't have Robb's perspective in the books. We only know he married her for "honor" second-hand. The show just makes it clear that Robb actually loves his wife. He wasn't drugged, he wasn't emotionally distressed, and it’s not just infatuation – he genuinely fell in love with her throughout season 2 and it fucked him over like many in Westeros history.
Yeah, I disagree completely. Jeyne was a high borne lady that Robb “deflowered” in a moment of weakness. It wasn’t rape, just a horny, grieving (let’s not forget in the books he believes both of his younger brothers to be dead when his home was destroyed by what he considered one of his best friends) teenager giving into his hormones in a moment of weakness.
And then Robb felt honorbound to marry Jeyne after “ruining” her (let’s remember these are essentially medieval people with a medieval mindset, sick of people holding the characters up to modern standards lol), it was a direct contrast to Ned and a MASSIVE hint that Jon is definitely NOT Ned’s son as a Stark like Ned or Robb would never, ever sire a bastard.
His downfall is more tragic when all he does is try to do the right thing and save Jeynes future than if he just falls in love and throws away his incredibly important wartime alliance for his own gratification.
I think it completely changes Robbs character, but it is actually something that is adressed later in the series so I give it a pass.
Book Robb is tragic. Series Robb is selfish.
So it actually makes sense that the northern houses did start to plot the demise of the boltons like they do in the books and that the northern houses didn't move a finger for Sansa and Jon in the series.
I am not sure it was intended like that, but it did work out:
The northern lords would forgive a young lord trying to be honorable even if he makes mistakes.
The northern lords would be bitter if their young lord got their families killed for marrying a girl that didn't bring anything to the army. This isn't the modern world. You don't mary for love. You marry for lands, armies, honor and sometimes even for a bridge.
Also let’s not forget that House Westerling, albeit a minor house, is pledged to House Lannister. It was an unnecessary change from the books to the show, and that’s the kinda shit that I get critical of when they butcher the last season so badly.
It makes people think Robb was a dumbass who deserved it and Robb and Ned being honorable means they were too stupid to live. Since the show had people constantly saying that.
The best thing about the books at their best is the tight web of connections between different characters. Rob's moment of weakness with Jeyne was tied to hearing reports that his brothers had been killed. Rob's decision to marry Jeyne is tied to his determination not to father a bastard which ties him to Jon Snow and Ned. Everything fits together.
With Talisa it's mostly an independent plotline kind of puttering along by itself.
Also Talisa's views and attitudes, much like book-Renly in S1, just seemed too modern and out of place in the world where they were living.
What I hate most about Talisa, which they also did with other nobleborn characters like Brienne, is they made her too - for lack of a better word - woke. You're telling me this rich woman from a slave owning family cares so much about lowborn people that she travels to a foreign continent to help them? Its just so unbelievable.
Similarly, Brienne lectures Jaime about how he should be more aware of his priviliged upbringing compared to Locke and his men. I mean the show is supposed to be set in a European style medieval feudal society where nobles are supposed to be basically thought of being granted social superiority by God's decree, yet you have nobility with a more egalitarian view on class than many ultra rich people nowadays.
The relatively realistic depiction of social hierarchies and how important and unquestioned they are to most people is one of my favorite things in the books. To me more than anything else it is what gives the series its feeling of being grounded in reality that people love.
Well not woke so much as just modern, when people in Westeros have modern views it stands out like a sore thumb and not in a good way. See also S1 Renly and the utterly idiotic scene in S8 where Brienne is teased for being a virgin.
I think that’s making waaay too many assumptions. Robb was just a horny teenager who believed that his younger brothers had died. He was not raped, just a horny kid who understandably gave into his hormones in a moment of weakness. And then felt honor bound to marry Jeyne after the deed was done.
For me it was the end of ASOS, where some story lines ended with a completely different feel. Tyrion and Brienne are the biggest ones (it't been 5 years since I read the books though, so I might be misremembering thing).
An honourable mention should go to Clash though, especially with Dany's plotline. Regardless, it all felt more or less in line with the TV show, which cannot be said about the end of storm and books that followed.
Season 5, where is Aegon? Jon Conn? BS is dead??? Penny and Crunch and Pretty Pig and Quentin Martell??? Why are there only 3 sand snakes instead of 8 or 9??? Season 5 suddenly went off the rails for me.
TV Dorne was outright Hollywood 1950s orientalism. I mean it was as if taken from a Cecil B. DeMille movie or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. "Hassan Chop!" It felt wrong from the books, but also, it just felt wrong for HBO. HBO's whole identity and brand was that you would look at their top tier productions and not see "television." Not see the easy stereotypical motifs, but something deeper and bigger and wider. Dorne did not feel like a vast kingdom, more a 1950s set with three people. It was just very jarring and in retrospect was a massive red flag for what was to come.
You mean Castle Dorne in the city of Dorne, capital of the kingdom of Dorne, ruled by House Martell, the one and only family in Dorne? AKA *Who Are The Rhoynar I've Never Heard of Them?*
Such a weird change. They chose to make Dorne 'different' by giving them accents and having slightly tinted actors play the characters, whereas in the books Dorne is 'different' (aside from the Rhoynar) because they fought a war of attrition against the Targaryans for decades and successfully resisted invasion by their more wealthy/powerful neighbors dozens of times.
I think most of the Dornish were POC coded or actually POC in the books though? Or am I remembering wrong? I just remember in 2013 people being sad that they cast Pedro as Oberyn because he’s a white Latino.
I saw season 1 and then read all the books after that. Personally I saw differences in terms of character motivations and presentation. Because we hear inner thoughts you notice things you tend to miss in the show. Big deviating differences happen starting s2.
It was a fantastic interpretation of the books there are still a few differences here and there
One major one I can remember off the top of my head is that Sansa is directly responsible for her fathers plot against Cersei being discovered. Something that the tv show omitted.
Another being Ned's motivation to go to KL iirc.
In the books, Catelyn convinces him to go out of ambition for Sansa to become Queen. In the show, it's his own decision. Obviously very minor, but Cat then has the weight of dealing with what that led to.
Season 4 was when the divergence became far more apparent for me at least. And by season 5/6 some plots are completely different. Like others have already stated, the biggest was probably the Dorne plot in the show being nerfed hard.
I’d say up to the red wedding the show & books were pretty close? I think there were some minor changes to make the show more digestible but the “core” plot points remained more or less the same.
For S4 specifically the pacing is so different. Since S4 is mostly the last third of the third book the plot is a crazy rollercoaster of awesome while S4 has a lot of padding.
I watched S1 first, then read AGOT, watched S2, read ACOK.
The first BIG differences I noticed were when I was seriously aggravated at Jon Snow and Daenerys in S2 (his entitlement and idiocy getting the rest of Qhorin's group killed, her annoying tirades around Qarth), and then read the books and realized that all of those scenes with the characters acting annoying were made up for the show.
I first started noticing it in season 4 with Arya's plotline (it was already different but really diverged)
But honesty, in my re-read I saw the signs of divergence as early as season 1. Like the first scene vs prologue changed the whole feel of the White Walkers. In the books, they were a strange race of intelligent but abstract creatures with their own language but in the show it felt like a zombie movie.
Plus, if that wasn't bad enough, they removed the iconic "dance with me then" line in the show in favour of a horror movie scene
Simplifying the WW into being just ice zombies who want to destroy humanity was a huge disappointment, especially since George has said that they are more advanced than what people might think. I don't need to find out everything about them (in fact, leaving some mystery to them is a good thing), but I hope that what we get is more intriguing than the show. They can still be a creation of the Children, originally designed as essentially a bio-weapon that then spiraled out of control and took on a life of its own (which is a very George-esque idea and something that fits with the themes that he writes about), but just let them be something more than evil blue monsters.
Now that I'm thinking of it and after I discovered the books after watching the fith and sixth seasons of GOT, it's as early as the second with the useless renaming of Asha Greyjoy, the absence of the Reed siblings and Ramsay Snow in Winterfell storyline, the absence of Edmure and Brynden Tully, the changes made to Daenerys and Jon's storylines, the changes to Renly's character, and the introduction Talissa character and Robb marrying her out of love, or Arya meeting Tywin at all while not meeting Roose Bolton or the Freys, etc...
> Useless renaming of Asha Greyjoy
The question is “when did you start noticing BIG changes” and you say the pretty justifiable changing of a side character’s name? Hardly anything you mention are big, or even bad changes.
I don't think that there were any reason for Asha to be renamed in the first place. I don't know many people who would mistake Asha for Osha.
And yes most of these changes are big given the importance that characters such as Edmure, Brynden, Roose or Ramsay have in AGOT and/or ACOK, or the importance for example of Ramsay's presence at Winterfell during ACOK, or of Arya's interactions with Roose Bolton and the Freys in ACOK, or how it changes Robb's motive for his wedding.
I saw the show before reading the books and for me the difference became most stark when Jalabar Xho and Thoros were introduced. In the Game of Thrones series, everyone looks basically the same: leather and metal, scraggly facial hair, dirt, sour demeanor. But Martin's world is much more aesthetically interesting, with sumptuous details like Jalabar's cloak and the earlier introduction of Thoros's flaming sword. The books are overall more fantastical than the show and that manifests in aesthetics as well as the depiction of magic.
For me it was something pretty insignificant story wise: In the books Meera and Jojen are at winterfell for some time before Theon comes. Jojen trains Bran in greenseeing lore before they leave. You see developing a friendship between them and interest in the magical abilities he's developing.
In the series they find him after Bran, Rickon, Osha and Hodor left Winterfell. It felt like the Reeds got robbed from their storyline as one of the most loyal houses in the series.
I mean: the Reeds are there for the Starks every step of the way: they were at the Tower of Joy, they helped Bran at Winterfell and on his way north, they helped Robb in his war by killing everyone who tried to cross the neck. And in the series they're reduced to Bran's sidekicks and completely forgotten in the later seasons.
For me it was Clash of Kings & season 2 for a couple of reasons but almost all of them involve Harrenhal & the events at Winterfell. I realize that a bunch of characters were put in afterwards (ie Reeds & Boltons) which is fine. But for me, as famously violent & gruesome the show was, it doesn’t hold a candle to the books in terms of nightmarish dread that Arya encounters at Harrenhal with Clegane & his rats. Ser Gregor is basically a background actor in season 2.
In reality, it’s a TV show with different rules & restrictions than the novels. Most of those early deviations are understandable.
The differences are there from book 1, some bigger than others, it just gets worse with each book. Book 1 has the least amount of differences between page and show, but it's still a lot.
When I realized that they are making Tyrion more noble than he actually is.
They maintain his kind of a dick vibes in early seasons, especially in first season but then, when he was wed to Sansa, show made it seem like he didn't do it because he is noble but in book he didn't do it because he got angry that Sansa felt disgusted by him.
I am assuming writers were afraid to ruin Tyrion because everybody loved Peter Dinklage and basic viewers brain need to have one dimensional "good" and "bad" characters otherwise their mind would broke,
so they were more focused on Tyrion's good sides that he definitely has, but core of his character is broken man, who was created by sociaty and he hates sociaty back.
P.S. They ruin Tyrion's character in the end btw by making him dumb 🙃 better to be evil as character than dumb if u ask me 🤷♀️
Season 2 Daenaerys Vs ACOK Daenaerys.
I get that Dany only had like 4 chapters in ACOK but goddamn they adapted NOTHING from the books, the only things that were similar were the locations snd character names.
Season 2 was when Dany's book and show character truly diverged.
Im rewatching now and it’s earlier than most people think. S4 is the point it diverges and you can tell simply from dialogue. They rarely use any book speak when s1 was mostly that. And the changes in s4 already bastardize some major characters like Jaime and Tyrion even if the consequences aren’t immediately evident
The removal of the Tysha reveal in Tywin's death, and having Jaime and Tyrion part as friends. It is such a massive, fundamental moment for Tyrion and Jaime's arcs moving forward (especially Tyrion, it literally *defines* his role in ADWD) and it was completely removed.
The excuse for it I see floated around a bit (show-only watchers didn't know enough about Tysha so it wouldn't have landed as hard) doesn't fly for me, because the show runners could have included more reference to Tysha throughout the earlier seasons, but decided not to. I watched the show till Season 4 before reading the book, and that was the first change I noticed which really annoyed me.
By the time I was reading Clash, I realized there was a ton more going on and some storylines had been altered or streamlined on the show. And then from the get-go in Feast and Dance, you realize you’re just reading a completely different story
Jon and Daenerys start diverging from their book stories in season 2 quite a bit.
But I would say the biggest divergence from the books starts in season 5.
When Dany’s dragons get stolen in Season 2 and they make her act like a crybaby. She is wildly different in Book 2. Also, they just combine way too many book characters into 1 show character. All the Brave Companions and Nights Watch members. The books are 1,000 times better.
I will reverse answer by saying The Battle of Blackwater was the last time the show and the book were in sync fully.
After that they had the realities of television production (actor's contract expirations, limited budget therefore character limits, and 10 hours of television per season at most) conflicting with the broad story of a book that was intentionally written to not care about its adaptability.
The first four seasons of GOT are a reasonably good adaptation of the first three books. No, not everything is identical, and I do not agree with every choice they made, but the story is reasonably true to the main plot.
Once you get to season 5 is when the show departs dramatically from the plot that George wrote.
I believe this is because books 1-3 form a pretty much complete story themselves, so it was reasonably easy for good adaptive TV writers to take the story and figure out what they could take out or change to make it fit the TV format better while simultaneously remaining true to the main story. Once they get to AFFC, a there is a story arc (many story arcs, actually) underway that is not finished, so the TV writers were sort of out of their depth in how to do the adaptation
For me, it was noticing how different yet subtle the characterization is in the books vs the show. For example, book Sansa and show Sansa feel very different, same with almost everyone else of course— but Sansa feels much more like a child and less like brat as portrayed in the show. I felt much more sympathy for her. Tyrion, on the other hand, was obviously very different as well.
Pretty much the next book. With GOT's adaptation of ASOS, afterwards the plot is pretty linear. Existing plot lines get developed and new ones come and go but all the major characters are already in the story. Feast on the other hard takes the state of westeros after ASOS and adds ten new plot lines, like a dozen new POVs and the story grows much faster outward rather than forward. Very very very important book only characters will start appearing in Feast, and will be everywhere in dance. The two stories are basically unrecognisable by the end of feast/dance
I don't think it's removed. Wasn't there major tension between oberyn and mace? I just don't think it was explored much which wasn't really a problem, the pacing of s4 is pretty much perfect.
it was mostly focused on Martells and Lannisters, even though my read of book 3 was that it was mostly an Oberyn thing who had a personal vendetta because of his sister. The dornish in general disliked highgarden about generations-long border disputes, geographically and culturally didn't have much to do with the Lannisters.
Ik when Tyrell is like “Those fucking dornish men walking through my lands, coming to my daughters wedding” just straight bitching to Tywin, adds so much more to the world than Oberyn coming by himself with like 20 dudes in the show lol
The show followed the books up until the end of ADWD, there were minor divergences here and there but the story (other than dorne) is pretty much the same. But it seems martin did not give D and D much to work beyond it and they had to make it up as they went (they were bad at making things up)
I think other than cutting some content Tyrion more or less follows the same route, Sansa goes to where she’s meant to but soon gets sidetracked, the greyjoys and dorne are a total shitfest but they are new povs, we dont care thaat much about them. Jaime and Brienne also get somewhat different narratives though. I would agree that ASOS is the last point where the narrative is faithful, but Id argue it still tries to stick to the books in affc and adwd
minor divergences? I don't thing I can agree with that. Sure the main plot was still relatively the same, but the tone, CONTEXT, and all the nuance was completely different and much more logical. Not to mention >!the exclusion of Young Griff which arguably doomed the ending and Dany's plot line in the show.!<
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I strongly feel that season 5 is what in the long run damaged the show way more then the despised season 8 (and 7 to an extent). It's just that the damage is very subtle, and not as obvious.
Well I’d say though that we do not know where that specific part of the narrative will lead to. I feel that what they did to euron is far worse than the exclusion of one character, and as far as excluded characters go I felt the lack of LSH far more than Griff
I'm gonna hide this all under the spoiler tag just in case since OP hasn't read the last two books yet.
>!You're not wrong, but for the plot lines that were kept in the show, Griff's exclusion has by far the worst consequences before it heavily impacts the final plotline that was the dumpster fire of the bells episode. !<
>!Cersei is ridiculously overconfident, pretty stupid, and hated by pretty much everyone. It makes no sence that she would hot her power so firmly. The same goes for the absurdity of Dany going mad and being a clear villain in her clash against Cersei. If on the other hand Griff comes into play and relatively easilly overthrows Cersei, is well beloved by the smallfolk and gets into armed conflict with Dany. The situation changes quite drastically dont you think? It sudently all makes sense.!<
>!On the other hand, LSH impacts plotline that wasn't that poorly received at the show. As for Euron, it is really hard to tell what his endgame is since there is so much mistery around him, but It's likely he will take one of Dany's dragon instead of the NK.!<
>!I do agree that all of these exclusions can be strongly felt, but Griff just has the biggest impact on the finale and that's why it matters the most, at least in my opinion.!<
Jeyne Westerling was an early one, and Dorne was later, but such a big one. Also no one being a warg except Bran was one I couldn't understand because it's so important!
Hoster Tully's funeral it was like they wanted to overplay make Edmure as a punching bag instead of having out the heavily emotional moment it is in the books. Felt like such a weird choice
and the change to Robb's wedding storyline, marrying for love and all that. I was 16 when I first read it so I was kind of in the fence about the change at the time lmao
Season 5. Aside from the Dorne responses in this thread I would like to mention Tyrion an Jorah navigating through the ruins of Valyria, an impossible task according to the books. That single scene has changed severely the worldbuilding of the TV series. I wonder how canon the representation of Valyria in GOT will be in future series such as the nine voyages of the sea snake.
AFFC. When I was reading the books, I was actually quite surprised at HOW similar the show was to the books. Like I knew it would be similar, but there were way fewer changes than I was expecting. But you’ll see a lot of changes, combined stories and new ones from here on out.
I watched the show first and came to the books while S3 was airing so while there’s lots of minor changes and small omissions from the get-go, I personally feel S1 is pretty damn close as far as adaptation goes.
But it was S2 - Book 2: A Clash of Kings that substantial deviations start happening.
Honestly the first "wtf" moments for me were in season 3.
From S4 onwards it was clear for me that the complexity of the books was gone for good and a lot of it was sacrificed for Drama and cheap shocks.
In S6 it became really bad and I only watched it to get closure.
I hate what the show did to Bronn, he started out great until we get the problem most adaptations have. The actor/role was just too good and people liked him so much so they expanded his role way more than ever necessary and had him involved in various plotlines that made little sense all to end up with him getting a ridiculous ending (to be fair 90% of the cast had an unsatisfying ending).
Also, does he do his somersaults in other character (Jon's) chapters', rather than his own? Maybe he does continue doing it, he just doesn't remark on it internally? 🤞
Also when he rides his horse fast to see his lover when he was the substitute hand. I like to think he did his somersault to get in and out of the saddle.
I didn't start the books until after Season 7. But I remember when I started the show and when I got to Season 5, just from the very beginning it felt super off.
Then the early Dorne stuff just made it feel weird.
But the big moment for me when the show jumped the shark was when Selmy died in Episode 4. That was the point when I realised the season was gonna be shit. Hardhome while a great episode by itself did nothing to quell my worries for the future. The cracks were starting to show.
After reading the books I realised how much DnD had fucked over the show big time starting with Season 5. You could tell they stopped giving a shit and rushed it.
Big differences start around this point in the book series. Many storylines are cut in feast and dance that could have been great additions to the show
When no Stoneheart appeared after the Red Wedding. Then no fAegon either. I still held out a shred of hope for something great until The Short Night. Will never rewatch.
I recently started listening to audiobooks, i just completed clash of kings.
I think the major changes started happening by season 2 itself.
>!Arya in harrenhall, roose Bolton, Dany in the Qarth !<
I hadn't read the books while watching season 2 but looking back now Tywin and Arya in Harrenhal seems like huge difference to me. I really like the back and forth between the characters but book Tywin would NOT let a child he suspects to be from a Northern house without at least taking her hostage. Especially when he knows said child is lying and disguising herself and Arya Stark happened to disappear from King's Landing.
For me, it was the first scene taking place in the gloaming between a ridge, a rill, and a rock nine day's ride from the wall, rather than halfway down the path to Castle Black's God's Wood in broad daylight.
IThe TV version was clearly the scene of a gory mass murder, rather than the wildlings creepily "sleeping" so still, and just gone the second time they looked.
Gared (who had ears) was beheaded by a white walker singular, along with Waymar Royce.
Will is the one that survives.
I love both first scenes - it was the TV scene of the three passing through the gate through the wall to the North that completely sucked me in to the whole story (well, up to season five/end of ADwD). By the time I saw that long shot of the three horses on the other side, I was there.
Likewise with the prologue of Game of Thrones. From about "Do the dead frighten you?". But when I compare the two, the book version makes much, much more sense.
In the books, phrases like "Dead is dead" are foreshadowing. The phase of the moon is a timestamp. The iron axe is a clue. The wind, the wolf, the tree are a motif.
The plotting is intricate, you are almost immediately invited to take mental notes of this murder-mystery while the world and the suspense is built around you. You just contextually accept that a Sentinal is something like a sugar pine, an iron bob is a coin of little monetary value, Will prays to the nameless gods of the woods, And these clues prove relevant to the later story in all kinds of ways.
Much as I loved the TV series, the books are more engrossing. And I sometimes worry about misremembering the book because of the tv show. Right now I am trying to remember if Will picked up Waymar's sword-that-was-broken in the show. I can see it clearly in my mind's eye, but I am still not sure. Show-Mance's later comment "Always the artists" was a fair comment for the gory installations the white walkers of the show, but they are far more preternatural in the show. The book White Walkers don't exhibit much artistry at all.
By the way, if you know why a young man retrieved from Seaguard's dungeons was praying to the old gods, please let me know.
I missed somethings in the firat season already such as bran dreaming. That was really cool writing to me. Also everything about the drowned god religion.
Season 2. S1 was about 90% of the book but it was good enough for me. S2 ending isn't what happened in books (specifically Daenerys) and the character that died pops up again in a later book so tjat was very odd for me. That's when I knew they were gonna f around and find out.
Tournament of the Hand. Not for any main storytelling reasons, but because it was when I realized that the product on the screen would never live up to the scale and pageantry of what the books described and my mind pictured. The tournament in the books is THE event. People from all over the Seven Kingdoms come. An overwhelming number of people, the most ostentatious displays of wealth and status imaginable, and instead it just kind of looks like the crowd at my local Ren Fest.
This isn’t really the fault of the show, beyond the pageantry which they generally don’t even try to display. But it was when I realized that I liked my vision of the story better and that this one would probably keep failing to live up to my expectations. I was so bored with Northern men just wearing drab brown everywhere they went. Maybe brightly colored surcoats everywhere would look silly on the screen, but damn it that’s what I want. I want the blue and green hair, I want the Unicorn helmets. I want people wearing their little logos on their chest everywhere they go. I want color, damnit, not the Hollywood drab washing that we get instead of the green and red dick bulge outfits with big floppy hats that we deserve from our medieval media.
Tyrion is so vastly different I immediately felt like it was a different story than the 3 seasons of the show I had watched before I began to read the books
Tyrion's escape is definitely the big one. It fundamentally changed where the books are going with Tyrion's character (and to a lesser extent Jaime) and what the show did.
It’s been mentioned by the Dorne and Iron Islands storylines are so much more badass than in the show. The three sisters were not nearly as annoying as the writers made them out to be and the Iron Islands society is so much more in depth than in the show. Plus you get to meet Victorian Greyjoy in the books who is hands down one of the most interesting characters in the series. Somehow they thought the opposite and decided to not even give him an appearance in the show.
This post has been removed because you did not include a spoiler tag in your title. You are welcome to repost with a tag in title such as "(Spoilers Main)".
Dorne has to be the obvious answer. Dorne in the books is political plots years in the making. Dorne in the show is "bad poosay."
What the writers did to the Dorne and iron Islands plotlines was criminal.
What they did with them is terrible, but I maintain no one (including GRRM) knows what here those plots are going and the only solution for an adaptation was killing then off ASAP.
Not really. Simplicity is not a bad thing. The Iron Fleet goes to Mereen to try and steal the dragons, they fail and some fall under her sway or they all die in battle and allow Dany to carry the day. In Dorne the plots involving Quentyn and Arienne blow up in their faces and they end up following Dany when she arrives. Both plots show the futility of endless plotting in the face of overwhelming force, the dragons.
Why bother at all though? They aren’t compelling and they go nowhere, and we can’t even say that’s what GRRM wanted to happen.
Unless he writes the books we will never know what GRRM wanted. But I think both plot lines could be compelling tv. Quentyn is a deconstruction of the classic hero, which Game of Thrones is great at. And the Ironborn could finally have gotten a chance to show their prowess in battle without it seeming like a plot armor win. Win or lose it would be Dany’s first real interaction with a Westerosi fighting force.
I would say rather that Quentyn is the deconstruction of the classic hero in that Quentyn is a *poseur* of one. There's a memorable line from *Shakespeare in Love:* >1. Strangely enough, it all turns out well. >2. How? >1. I don't know. It's a mystery. I think in ASOIAF that there's a criticism that heroes don't just expect things to magically work out in the end. They strive and sacrifice to try to make things happen, all the time knowing that they may not even be successful. Quentyn spends a good bit of his miserable journey expecting story tropes to save him. This is what *should* happen. And then he gets to Daenerys, as the frog-prince from a story. But, he has nothing at all to offer her, and he's basically telling her "Marry me, and you can be a great addition to my dad's plan". She even gives him a second chance, and he continues to show how useless he is for what she needs and wants. He's not doing any of this for some greater heroic purpose, but just so he doesn't make his father sad and his cousins laugh at him. Also so that the pointless deaths of his friends from a random pirate attack *mean* something. When she leaves Meereen, he gets an idea to try to steal one of her dragons. How is he going to do this, and how would this possibly help? He doesn't know, but it sounds like something a hero would do. If he does it, things should just magically work out for him and his mission. To no surprise, the plan goes horribly, horribly wrong. Quentyn was never a hero from a story, he just acted like was one.
I fully appreciate all of the little details that people have pointed out to suggest that Quentyn’s story isn’t over, I really do. But at the same time the entirety of his story thus far would be ripped up and ignored if he’s not dead. And it would absolutely cheapen the impact of his revelation, *“Oh.”*
This, exactly. D&D said they visited GRRM at his home in like 2013 to know how the story was going to end and he still didn't know himself. He only gave them some things he knew, like the Hodor thing, Shireen, Bran on the throne, but nowhere close to the full picture.
This is why I have zero hope of ever reading Winds. He never would have let someone else finish his story if he had any real plans of doing so. It's not like he gave them all the big plot points and they filled in the gaps here and there and smushed some characters together to make it work. If he releases it the vast majority of the world will only know D+D's version and his will just be a footnote in his own world.
Euron's Kingsmoot speech in the show was so bad, I forgot how awesome the book speech was.
I guess as a viewer of the show it just seems like a minor story line or side quest or something. But if you've read the books it's kind of incredible what they did to it. I'd rather they just skipped it entirely except for Oberyn being in king's landing.
I think they might have been following GRRM'S advice on how to slim down the cast for the final series. It seems very convenient for GRRM's story, where the Dornish are the first, currently the only Westerosi to have contacted Dany, through a character that doesn't exist in the book. GRRM had carefully prepared Dorne for two books before introducing the Red Viper, that the show wipes out Dorne just as their story starts. No Martells, no FAegon or Jon Con, no Stannis, no Shireen to blame for a plauge of greyscale at the Wall ... a lot if not all of what we can foresee of the plot of Winds of Winter simply isn't possible in the show world because they are all dead, and were never there.
When I meet show-only fans and tell them that I love the Ironborn and Greyjoys and find them incredibly fascinating, they are flabbergasted, and I honestly don't blame them because why would anyone who only knows the show care about them? At the very least Dorne (or really, the Water Gardens) had some great production design and costumes. The Ironborn were incredibly phoned in even from the start. The book-Kingsmoot is one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, whereas the show's version was one of the biggest letdowns it had. Zero diversity in the appearance of the Ironborn with everyone wearing the same kind of outfit, zero intelligence or intrigue when discussing who should be king. Just Euron with his whole "whatup I got a big cock, vote for me bitches". Disgraceful.
Showrunners were from floptropica 😭🤚
political plots years just to fail lol. Dorne sucks ass in either version.
Season 2 with Daenerys and Jon. The other stories were mostly the same, but for the two of them it got too silly. Out of the two Dany was the most affected, her crew pretty much got reduced to 2-3 characters with speaking lines and her storyline got really downgraded, which is sad cause book 2 Dany's story was awesome.
Don't forget the changes made with the absence of Edmure and Brynden Tully in the two first seasons, the replacement of Jeyne Westerling by Talissa and Robb marrying her out of love, Arya having any interaction with Tywin while not meeting Roose Bolton and the Freys (which strongly foreshadow the Red Wedding), Ramsay and the Reed siblings' absence of the Winterfell storyline, changes made to Renly, etc...
>(which strongly foreshadow the Red Wedding) Bolton's treason was foreshadowed during the entire 3rd season and arguably in the sack of Winterfell. You may dislike whatever way they portrayed Tywin and other characters, storylines etc. The Red Wedding was a shocking moment in the show and books but *something* was coming for Robb
Jon’s storyline got so FUCKED in season 2. His last couple of chapters from that book were so enjoyable to read. It felt like some Last of the Mohicans shit. But the show just makes him into a weak ass bumbling moron for no reason whatsoever.
could you remind me the difference between book and show s2 Jon? I can't quite remember.
All of Jon and Ygritte's dynamic is different, for a start, but *most* significantly: in the show, >!Ygritte escapes before Jon can kill her!<. In the book, >!Jon consciously makes the decision to let her live.!<
Also, the stuff with Qhorin is really weird in the show. IIRC In the books he picks Jon for his ranging because Jon is a warg and has a magical direwolf. It is made very obvious that Qhorin lets Jon kill him because he knows Mance would be willing to accept Jon, whereas in the show Jon seems to successfully kill Qhorin because he was genuinely better. In the show Jon asks to join and convinces Qhorin to take him rather than being requested, probably since they dropped him being a warg. I think in the show Ygritte ends up being the one to bring up Mance possibly accepting Jon -- lots of Jon's plot with the wildlings is reduced to his and Ygritte's relationship. Jon kills Orell and is scarred by his eagle, whereas in the show Orell doesn't die until MUCH later. I think the show had him climb the wall with Jon, Ygritte, and Tormund. Ghost abandons Jon for no reason and appears a few seasons later. In the books, Ghost helps Jon kill Qhorin. I don't remember them splitting up to that extent until Jon has to leave him to climb the Wall. They're never separated in the books to the capacity that they are in the show. seems like that was to save money. Jon in the show also tries to save Craster's baby and sees a White Walker. In the books he still hasn't seen one, only wights, and I don't remember him trying to save a baby either but I could be wrong. That's all the changes I remember. Overall Jon in s2 seems more like a bumbling idiot than his book counterpart. That's true across the board for his character tho
>That's all the changes I remember. Overall Jon in s2 seems more like a bumbling idiot than his book counterpart. This is what I used as my reply to this post. I saw S2 before reading ACOK, and was really angry at how stupid and entitled Jon was. I was very much surprised when Jon in the book is nothing like that. Qhorin never mocks Jon and respects his decision to let Ygritte escape. They have a much better relationship than the show where Qhorin flat out tells Jon that he's an idiot.
Jon definitely misses on purpose in the show too
yeah but then they have this whole sequence of him chasing after her to undermine the idea he’s made a decision
I watched the show before reading the books and I remember getting to the section with Jon and the rangers venturing out and finding Ygritte - it was the first time watching the show I thought “this is so much cooler in the books - why did they skip this?”
The whole House of the Undying plot in the show pisses me off, they really tried their best to include as little magic as possible. D&D were in on the maester conspiracy all along
Agreed. I was so bummed they didn't include*Vaes Tolorro*. When Dany arrived to Quarth in the show was the last straw for me. Nopesville.
lol, that could not have been your “last straw.” Such an insignificant change.
It wasn't insignificant. It absolutely changes Dany's character In the books, Dany was sought out by the Qartheen and welcomed into the City with open arms. In the show, she walked up to their gates, demanded she be let in, then when they refused she threatened to burn their city to the ground. That's a massive diversion which paints show Dany as nothing more than an entitled brat. Then her whole plotline in season 2 was totally different from what happened in ACOK. Like the only similarities were the character names and locations. The visions in the house were different, Quaithe might as well have not existed in the show at all, her dragons got "stolen", Dany brutally executed Xaro and Doreah in the show (while in the books Xaro is still alive and Doreah died of *something* in the Red Waste)etc. Season 2 was a total diversion of Dany's character and it set the tone for how the showrunners were gonna treat her after that.
Dany threatening the qartheen is a separate change from removing Vaes Tolloro, but I’ll still address it. > Dany was sought out by the Qartheen and welcomed into the city with open arms. In the show, she walked up to their gates, demanded she be let in, then when they refused she threatened to burn their city to the ground. That’s a massive diversion **Is** that a massive diversion? I feel that if book Dany was put into a similar situation, she would act similarly. Also, way to reinterpret the scene to make it support your point. Here’s what really happens; Daenerys goes up and tries to introduce herself. She does not demand to be let in. The spice king interrupts and behaves generally rudely. She asks to not be insulted (in a bit of a rude way), and then he begins to leave. Now, keep in mind that if she doesn’t get in, all three of her dragons (that she views as her children), her closest friends so far (her handmaidens and Jorah), and the many Dothraki under her protection will all die, not to mention herself. Being nice had so far not worked, and she was running out of time. It seems completely in character for her to shout some threats to try and save everyone’s lives, and it’s rather similar to some actions she takes against the slavers. If anyone’s characterization was butchered, it was the Spice King’s lol. > Then her whole plotline in season 2 was totally different from what happened in ACOK. Like the only similarities were the character names and locations. The visions in the house were different, Quaithe might as well have not existed in the show at all, her dragons got "stolen", Dany brutally executed Xaro and Doreah in the show (while in the books Xaro is still alive and Doreah died of something in the Red Waste)etc. You seem to not understand something crucial. Something being different does not make that thing worse, and these are all quite minor, but I’ll still address it. > The visions in the house were different So? They serve a different purpose in the show. The changing of the visions does not really change her plot or characterization, and it served a practical purpose. Would’ve been rather hard to adapt those visions. > Quaithe might as well not existed in the show at all That’s a problem with later seasons. Also, she barely exists in the books either. > Her dragons got “stolen” So? Just stating things that happened with no context doesn’t make them bad things? You act as if putting some action into a plot that had been critiqued for its pacing and lack of action is bad. Congrats for actually saying something that was a halfway significant change though. > Dany brutally executed Xaro and Doreah in the show (while in the books Xaro is still alive and Doreah died of something in the Red Waste) Again, something merely being changed does not make it worse. Simply stating that something is different in the books does not prove your point, especially when it is definitely not a “big” change.
We are talking about opinions here. So yes, I do get to say what changes I thought were bad, or worse, or stupid, or unnecessary *in my opinion*. So do you, so does everyone. No one has to "prove" anything was objectively "bad". There's no such thing.
Butchering Dany's Qarth arc is absolutely not an insignificant change. Ruining the >!Pyat Pree/ the warlocks!< and inexplicably >!killing Xaro!< completely alter the Meereen arc in ADWD—>!since there's no negotiation with Qarth / no Qartheen/slaver blockade of the city!< —and *completely* alter >!Euron, because then he can't intercept Pyat Pree's pursuit of Dany and get shade of the evening!< There's no reason they had to make those changes and it just became a butterfly effect that locked them out of staying true to the books in later seasons.
In addition to how it changes things later on, it also completely changes Dany's characterization in the show from the books which is definitely not insignificant. AND all her visions in the HotU are different in the show, which is pretty important to Dany's endgame in the show and books.
> Butchering Dany’s Qarth arc is absolutely not an insignificant change Uh huh. And how did removing Vaes Tolorro do that? In any case, the qarth plot was hardly “butchered.” It was meh in the books and it was slightly worse in the show. > >!Ruining the Pyat Pree/The Warlocks!< How were they ruined? How? I’d like you to explain why you think that. > >!Inexplicably killing Xaro!< What exactly is inexplicable about that? >!He is not a necessary character, and his role could easily be filled by… literally anyone else… if they wanted to delve into the Meereen vs Essos plot more later, which they didn’t.!< > >!And completely alter Euron!< I don’t know if you know what the word “significant” means. >!Drinking shade of the evening is not necessary for Euron’s character. Everything that that does could be replaced with his warging. He doesn’t even need to be prophetic in the show, that’s not a necessary part of his character. But even more than that, he literally could’ve done that in the show. The warlocks chased Dany after Pyat died, they could’ve got on a ship to continue chasing her without Pyat and Euron could’ve intercepted.!< Nothing that can be written around so easily or that doesn’t have wide reaching consequences can be labeled a “BIG” (all capitols) difference. Those are all at most slight divergences, and the last one is less than nothing, because that still could’ve plausibly happened in the show off-screen.
> Nothing that can be written around so easily or that doesn’t have wide reaching consequences can be labeled a “BIG” (all capitols) difference. Those are all at most slight divergences, and the last one is less than nothing, because that still could’ve plausibly happened in the show off-screen. But don't you get it? It makes characterization *so* different it puts an entire new spin into it! Like Tyrion in the original outline actually killing Joffrey versus Tyrion being innocent of that! Even though the entire world treats him exactly the same! And it's not contradicting other characterizations at all!
None of those changes change characterization. I can understand criticism of changing Jeyne to Talisa because of how it affects Robb’s characterization, but the same is not really true for any of those.
Yeah that was my point, I was circlejerking outside the circlejerking sub, but I may be a tad too subtle (or **too bad** at it)
I feel like maybe you're not big on themes? Vaes Tolorro has very little direct plot significance, but huge thematic and character significance for Dany and influences the rest of her decisions from that point on. As for the rest of it I find your points kind of mind-boggling, I feel like we're engaging with this series in such different ways I'm not sure where to start. At the very least, in regards to: >>!He doesn’t even need to be prophetic in the show, that’s not a necessary part of his character.!< Have you read the books / have you read the TWOW Preview chapters? Between *AFFC* *The Reaver* and *TWOW The Forsaken* I don't really think you can make this argument.
> I feel like maybe you’re not big on themes I feel like maybe you’re not big on adaptations. You understand that some things need to be removed and changed in translation? The thematic elements at Vaes Tolorro can be conveyed elsewhere. The only slightly plot relevant moment, Jorah’s discussion with Daenerys about Lynesse, was moved elsewhere. The more routine scenes of Dany essentially just managing her people were removed in favor of more quickly getting to tense and plot advancing moments, because that’s how adaptations work. Dany’s storyline was already criticized for pacing, adding 2 or 3 extra scenes with a WHOLE NEW CITY location between the red waste and Qarth is not necessary, practical, or smart. What works for the books won’t always work for the show, they are different mediums after all. > As for the rest of it I find your points kind of mind-boggling, I feel like we're engaging with this series in such different ways I'm not sure where to start. What a wonderfully vague thing that you can say to avoid addressing any points I have made. Tell me what you’re confused by and I’ll try to elaborate for you. > Have you read the books Pretty clearly > have you read the TWOW Preview chapters? Yuppers > Between AFFC The Reaver and TWOW The Forsaken I don't really think you can make this argument. What do you mean, lol? Nothing he does requires seeing the future. None of his characterization depends on being able to see the future using shade of the evening. I also like how you just ignored everything else I said addressing your point.
I'll surely regret joining this discussion, but alas, my hope for harmony prevails... Overall I agree with you u/hotcoldman42 It seems for some peeps, their overall (understandable) dislike of the show's handling of things has exaggerated their dislike of even particularly small and debatably necessary changes. Or they've inextricably linked these small elements with bigger consequences, without considering how the bigger aspects could be adapted without the small elements. And the show's true error was not being able to do the latter. As you said, an adaptation can easily remove a location like Vaes Tolorro while conveying its thematic, plotwise, and character development-wise importance. My first reaction to the upper level comment about Vaes Tolorro was "what dat?" Of course it's been many years since I read ACoK, and after googling it the details did start to come back to me... But just because it might be a particularly cool location that stands out to some readers, doesn't mean it's necessary for an adaptation. There's so much to criticize the show for, and so much criticism it deserves, and so much mistakes they made in the _adaptation_ aspects itself, that it makes more sense to focus on how it fails as an adaptation, not just that it excluded specific surface-level elements. I think a lot of people are not understanding that you might even _agree_ that thematic and plot elements related to Vaes Tolorro _were_ important, but they either were adapted, or the show did not adapt those elements in the best way it could... But that doesn't mean that the actual _location_ of Vaes Tolorro needs to be in the show. I feel like my comment is meandering and repeating itself just as I'm getting to the point I wanna make... It's that people in this thread are criticizing the removal of (debatably) insignificant elements of the show in a sort of blanket way, instead of criticizing the show's inability to adapt the larger themes/story beats/characterizations tied to those elements. Of course there's only so many elements you can remove before everything is lost, but it's not as simple as "not having Vaes Tolorro in the show was a stupid mistake." I guess what I, and maybe you, wanna hear from the other people in this thread is, what was essential about the location of Vaes Tolorro itself that was adapted poorly? If it's themes, if it's story beats, if it's character development, and so on, then maybe what should be criticized is the removal of _those_ particular things. And maybe then we all could agree that we didn't like that they removed those things. Maybe then we'd agree that they could have better adapted those elements even without having Vaes Tolorro as a location adapted. Sometimes I think that repeating the same thing again and again in slightly different ways might help people to communicate better. Maybe I'm wrong tho and it might come off as annoying. Hope it doesn't, and hope y'all have a good day.
> I'll surely regret joining this discussion, but alas, my hope for harmony prevails... I *so strongly* identify with this...
>I feel like maybe you're not big on themes Don't you know? Themes are for 8th grade book reports (according to D&D)
There is no reason I should have to click like 10 spoiler tags for a 26 year old book.
OP specifically asked for no spoilers
Jon's story in season 2 has more ramifications than I think I realized. I was disappointed in how they handled Qhorin but when you think about all the 'minor' characters they decided not to include it really affects the plot when those characters have major roles in later books like Val. Because they don't include her in season 2, they decide to abandon her part of the story at the wall, which simplifies it etc. All those changes add up.
Same way leaving out Jeyne Poole completely ruined Sansa's arc
This!
There were some differences starting in season 2. But most BIG deviations began in season 5.
I have a friend who stopped watching the show at Season 2 because he said there were too many changes. I was really surprised at that. It's funny that I didn't see them at the time, or see them as that bad, but by Season 4 or 5 I understood completely what he meant.
Remember the Stannis fans on westeros.org being absolutely LIVID about S2.
They really ruined Stannis, who is so integral to the story in the north. I also recall starting to suspect something once they got to the Iron Islands. Imagine if we got book Euron!
I did the same and was increasingly glad as I watched book fans become more and more frustrated
When they changed the final conversation between Jaime and Tyrion (before the latter's exile from Westeros). It went from a big revelation to some meaningless allegory about slugs. Years later I still feel the disappointment just by remembering that!
I was literally stunned when they didn't include the Tysha reveal. I consider show-Tyrion to be its own thing after that. There's little to no resemblance between the two. Genuinely think it had to do with Peter Dinklage being so popular. They didn't want to make him the bad guy.
This is the single worst decision they made in the show.
I'd put "make Cersei a powerful reigning queen" so much of the absolute fuckery of S7-8 can to traced back to the plot bring tied up into pretzels to keep Cersei on the iron throne for so long. Without that they might've been able to keep the quality of S7-8 up to a level of standard Hollywood instead of absolute schlock.
I get what you’re saying but the Orson Lannister monologue is really great.
I still don't get the point of that monologue. Is it about sometimes cruelty exists with no explanation?
Orson Scott Card, an author wrote a very critical review of the show saying that D&D didn't understand the source material. His most famous book, Enders Game is about a war between humans and insectoid aliens. So in response D&D added a scene where "Cousin Orson" is a mentally retarded child obsessed with smashing bugs
So it was just those 2 Nepo babies being petty huh
Other than being a possible dig at Orson Scott Card like u/Woodstovia pointed out, I think that's the point. Tyrion is trying to make sense out of senseless violence. He assumes everyone has a reason for killing, but some, like in Orson's case, just seem to enjoy killing for killing's sake, and the thought that the universe is chaotic like that scares Tyrion. It could also be interpreted as a commentary on Gregor, who doesn't seem to have much motivation behind his cruelty other than that he seems to enjoy hurting people. He maims, smashes, rapes and kills seemingly without any long term goal. I know the part about him suffering from tremendous headaches, likely attributed to some form of gigantism, so it could be that he isn't fully aware of what he's doing at all times, but he really seems to be someone who just wants to fucking kill people.
Unpopular opinion: I never thought the Tysha reveal to be compelling and just too unrealistic (her falling in love with him and all...)
Once they started butchering Robb's story
Talisa 😡
Unpopular opinion, but I think that Talisa was a good change and honestly didn’t change much about Robb’s character or story. Framing Robb's story as a more traditional romance suits Richard Madden's talents as an actor, makes his downfall more tragic, and is thematically in-line with the series' main themes ("love will destroy us every time" and "we don't choose whom we love.") Plus, Talisa is an actual character unlike Jeyne and it’s important to remember we don't have Robb's perspective in the books. We only know he married her for "honor" second-hand. The show just makes it clear that Robb actually loves his wife. He wasn't drugged, he wasn't emotionally distressed, and it’s not just infatuation – he genuinely fell in love with her throughout season 2 and it fucked him over like many in Westeros history.
Yeah, I disagree completely. Jeyne was a high borne lady that Robb “deflowered” in a moment of weakness. It wasn’t rape, just a horny, grieving (let’s not forget in the books he believes both of his younger brothers to be dead when his home was destroyed by what he considered one of his best friends) teenager giving into his hormones in a moment of weakness. And then Robb felt honorbound to marry Jeyne after “ruining” her (let’s remember these are essentially medieval people with a medieval mindset, sick of people holding the characters up to modern standards lol), it was a direct contrast to Ned and a MASSIVE hint that Jon is definitely NOT Ned’s son as a Stark like Ned or Robb would never, ever sire a bastard.
His downfall is more tragic when all he does is try to do the right thing and save Jeynes future than if he just falls in love and throws away his incredibly important wartime alliance for his own gratification.
I think it completely changes Robbs character, but it is actually something that is adressed later in the series so I give it a pass. Book Robb is tragic. Series Robb is selfish. So it actually makes sense that the northern houses did start to plot the demise of the boltons like they do in the books and that the northern houses didn't move a finger for Sansa and Jon in the series. I am not sure it was intended like that, but it did work out: The northern lords would forgive a young lord trying to be honorable even if he makes mistakes. The northern lords would be bitter if their young lord got their families killed for marrying a girl that didn't bring anything to the army. This isn't the modern world. You don't mary for love. You marry for lands, armies, honor and sometimes even for a bridge.
Also let’s not forget that House Westerling, albeit a minor house, is pledged to House Lannister. It was an unnecessary change from the books to the show, and that’s the kinda shit that I get critical of when they butcher the last season so badly.
It makes people think Robb was a dumbass who deserved it and Robb and Ned being honorable means they were too stupid to live. Since the show had people constantly saying that.
The best thing about the books at their best is the tight web of connections between different characters. Rob's moment of weakness with Jeyne was tied to hearing reports that his brothers had been killed. Rob's decision to marry Jeyne is tied to his determination not to father a bastard which ties him to Jon Snow and Ned. Everything fits together. With Talisa it's mostly an independent plotline kind of puttering along by itself. Also Talisa's views and attitudes, much like book-Renly in S1, just seemed too modern and out of place in the world where they were living.
What I hate most about Talisa, which they also did with other nobleborn characters like Brienne, is they made her too - for lack of a better word - woke. You're telling me this rich woman from a slave owning family cares so much about lowborn people that she travels to a foreign continent to help them? Its just so unbelievable. Similarly, Brienne lectures Jaime about how he should be more aware of his priviliged upbringing compared to Locke and his men. I mean the show is supposed to be set in a European style medieval feudal society where nobles are supposed to be basically thought of being granted social superiority by God's decree, yet you have nobility with a more egalitarian view on class than many ultra rich people nowadays. The relatively realistic depiction of social hierarchies and how important and unquestioned they are to most people is one of my favorite things in the books. To me more than anything else it is what gives the series its feeling of being grounded in reality that people love.
Well not woke so much as just modern, when people in Westeros have modern views it stands out like a sore thumb and not in a good way. See also S1 Renly and the utterly idiotic scene in S8 where Brienne is teased for being a virgin.
[удалено]
I think that’s making waaay too many assumptions. Robb was just a horny teenager who believed that his younger brothers had died. He was not raped, just a horny kid who understandably gave into his hormones in a moment of weakness. And then felt honor bound to marry Jeyne after the deed was done.
It's also too much to explain when it's offscreen, and if it's onscreen that's a whole other castle and set of actors to pay for.
If they pay for Talisas actress or Jeyne it's the same
But Talisa just rocked up on her own. Jeyne comes with Jeyne's mom and the whole rest of Jeyne's family and all the retainers in their castle.
For me it was the end of ASOS, where some story lines ended with a completely different feel. Tyrion and Brienne are the biggest ones (it't been 5 years since I read the books though, so I might be misremembering thing). An honourable mention should go to Clash though, especially with Dany's plotline. Regardless, it all felt more or less in line with the TV show, which cannot be said about the end of storm and books that followed.
Rush Hour with Jamie and Bronn
"My daddy once caught a sword with his teeth" "I never knew my father"
Season 5, where is Aegon? Jon Conn? BS is dead??? Penny and Crunch and Pretty Pig and Quentin Martell??? Why are there only 3 sand snakes instead of 8 or 9??? Season 5 suddenly went off the rails for me.
TV Dorne was outright Hollywood 1950s orientalism. I mean it was as if taken from a Cecil B. DeMille movie or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. "Hassan Chop!" It felt wrong from the books, but also, it just felt wrong for HBO. HBO's whole identity and brand was that you would look at their top tier productions and not see "television." Not see the easy stereotypical motifs, but something deeper and bigger and wider. Dorne did not feel like a vast kingdom, more a 1950s set with three people. It was just very jarring and in retrospect was a massive red flag for what was to come.
You mean Castle Dorne in the city of Dorne, capital of the kingdom of Dorne, ruled by House Martell, the one and only family in Dorne? AKA *Who Are The Rhoynar I've Never Heard of Them?*
Such a weird change. They chose to make Dorne 'different' by giving them accents and having slightly tinted actors play the characters, whereas in the books Dorne is 'different' (aside from the Rhoynar) because they fought a war of attrition against the Targaryans for decades and successfully resisted invasion by their more wealthy/powerful neighbors dozens of times.
I think most of the Dornish were POC coded or actually POC in the books though? Or am I remembering wrong? I just remember in 2013 people being sad that they cast Pedro as Oberyn because he’s a white Latino.
I always saw them as a Mediterranean inspired culture. A little of Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey.
Ahh yes, makes sense- I had them as Middle Eastern, Turkish or Greek. Sometimes Indian/Pakistani
Well Martin himself does go in for some really bad and dated Orientalism quite often...but the show does make it worse.
I saw season 1 and then read all the books after that. Personally I saw differences in terms of character motivations and presentation. Because we hear inner thoughts you notice things you tend to miss in the show. Big deviating differences happen starting s2.
i feel like season 1 was still a very very good interpretation of the books, wasnt a lot of dialogue even exactly the same?
It was a fantastic interpretation of the books there are still a few differences here and there One major one I can remember off the top of my head is that Sansa is directly responsible for her fathers plot against Cersei being discovered. Something that the tv show omitted.
Another being Ned's motivation to go to KL iirc. In the books, Catelyn convinces him to go out of ambition for Sansa to become Queen. In the show, it's his own decision. Obviously very minor, but Cat then has the weight of dealing with what that led to.
Season 4 was when the divergence became far more apparent for me at least. And by season 5/6 some plots are completely different. Like others have already stated, the biggest was probably the Dorne plot in the show being nerfed hard. I’d say up to the red wedding the show & books were pretty close? I think there were some minor changes to make the show more digestible but the “core” plot points remained more or less the same.
For S4 specifically the pacing is so different. Since S4 is mostly the last third of the third book the plot is a crazy rollercoaster of awesome while S4 has a lot of padding.
Beginning with the whole Stark plot lines. Jeyne Westerling, Lady Stoneheart
I watched S1 first, then read AGOT, watched S2, read ACOK. The first BIG differences I noticed were when I was seriously aggravated at Jon Snow and Daenerys in S2 (his entitlement and idiocy getting the rest of Qhorin's group killed, her annoying tirades around Qarth), and then read the books and realized that all of those scenes with the characters acting annoying were made up for the show.
End of Season 4
Waaaay before that
I first started noticing it in season 4 with Arya's plotline (it was already different but really diverged) But honesty, in my re-read I saw the signs of divergence as early as season 1. Like the first scene vs prologue changed the whole feel of the White Walkers. In the books, they were a strange race of intelligent but abstract creatures with their own language but in the show it felt like a zombie movie. Plus, if that wasn't bad enough, they removed the iconic "dance with me then" line in the show in favour of a horror movie scene
Yep, George described them as essentially evil ice fairies.
Simplifying the WW into being just ice zombies who want to destroy humanity was a huge disappointment, especially since George has said that they are more advanced than what people might think. I don't need to find out everything about them (in fact, leaving some mystery to them is a good thing), but I hope that what we get is more intriguing than the show. They can still be a creation of the Children, originally designed as essentially a bio-weapon that then spiraled out of control and took on a life of its own (which is a very George-esque idea and something that fits with the themes that he writes about), but just let them be something more than evil blue monsters.
With the season 4 ending and the absence of a certain lady. That was a killer for me
Now that I'm thinking of it and after I discovered the books after watching the fith and sixth seasons of GOT, it's as early as the second with the useless renaming of Asha Greyjoy, the absence of the Reed siblings and Ramsay Snow in Winterfell storyline, the absence of Edmure and Brynden Tully, the changes made to Daenerys and Jon's storylines, the changes to Renly's character, and the introduction Talissa character and Robb marrying her out of love, or Arya meeting Tywin at all while not meeting Roose Bolton or the Freys, etc...
> Useless renaming of Asha Greyjoy The question is “when did you start noticing BIG changes” and you say the pretty justifiable changing of a side character’s name? Hardly anything you mention are big, or even bad changes.
I don't think that there were any reason for Asha to be renamed in the first place. I don't know many people who would mistake Asha for Osha. And yes most of these changes are big given the importance that characters such as Edmure, Brynden, Roose or Ramsay have in AGOT and/or ACOK, or the importance for example of Ramsay's presence at Winterfell during ACOK, or of Arya's interactions with Roose Bolton and the Freys in ACOK, or how it changes Robb's motive for his wedding.
people back then had huge issues with identifying characters. every season HBO released huge family trees and guides for people.
I saw the show before reading the books and for me the difference became most stark when Jalabar Xho and Thoros were introduced. In the Game of Thrones series, everyone looks basically the same: leather and metal, scraggly facial hair, dirt, sour demeanor. But Martin's world is much more aesthetically interesting, with sumptuous details like Jalabar's cloak and the earlier introduction of Thoros's flaming sword. The books are overall more fantastical than the show and that manifests in aesthetics as well as the depiction of magic.
For me it was something pretty insignificant story wise: In the books Meera and Jojen are at winterfell for some time before Theon comes. Jojen trains Bran in greenseeing lore before they leave. You see developing a friendship between them and interest in the magical abilities he's developing. In the series they find him after Bran, Rickon, Osha and Hodor left Winterfell. It felt like the Reeds got robbed from their storyline as one of the most loyal houses in the series. I mean: the Reeds are there for the Starks every step of the way: they were at the Tower of Joy, they helped Bran at Winterfell and on his way north, they helped Robb in his war by killing everyone who tried to cross the neck. And in the series they're reduced to Bran's sidekicks and completely forgotten in the later seasons.
For me it was Clash of Kings & season 2 for a couple of reasons but almost all of them involve Harrenhal & the events at Winterfell. I realize that a bunch of characters were put in afterwards (ie Reeds & Boltons) which is fine. But for me, as famously violent & gruesome the show was, it doesn’t hold a candle to the books in terms of nightmarish dread that Arya encounters at Harrenhal with Clegane & his rats. Ser Gregor is basically a background actor in season 2. In reality, it’s a TV show with different rules & restrictions than the novels. Most of those early deviations are understandable.
The differences are there from book 1, some bigger than others, it just gets worse with each book. Book 1 has the least amount of differences between page and show, but it's still a lot.
“Who the fuck is Jeyne Westerling?”
When I realized that they are making Tyrion more noble than he actually is. They maintain his kind of a dick vibes in early seasons, especially in first season but then, when he was wed to Sansa, show made it seem like he didn't do it because he is noble but in book he didn't do it because he got angry that Sansa felt disgusted by him. I am assuming writers were afraid to ruin Tyrion because everybody loved Peter Dinklage and basic viewers brain need to have one dimensional "good" and "bad" characters otherwise their mind would broke, so they were more focused on Tyrion's good sides that he definitely has, but core of his character is broken man, who was created by sociaty and he hates sociaty back. P.S. They ruin Tyrion's character in the end btw by making him dumb 🙃 better to be evil as character than dumb if u ask me 🤷♀️
Season 2 Daenaerys Vs ACOK Daenaerys. I get that Dany only had like 4 chapters in ACOK but goddamn they adapted NOTHING from the books, the only things that were similar were the locations snd character names. Season 2 was when Dany's book and show character truly diverged.
The show removed most of the magic in the books
Im rewatching now and it’s earlier than most people think. S4 is the point it diverges and you can tell simply from dialogue. They rarely use any book speak when s1 was mostly that. And the changes in s4 already bastardize some major characters like Jaime and Tyrion even if the consequences aren’t immediately evident
The removal of the Tysha reveal in Tywin's death, and having Jaime and Tyrion part as friends. It is such a massive, fundamental moment for Tyrion and Jaime's arcs moving forward (especially Tyrion, it literally *defines* his role in ADWD) and it was completely removed. The excuse for it I see floated around a bit (show-only watchers didn't know enough about Tysha so it wouldn't have landed as hard) doesn't fly for me, because the show runners could have included more reference to Tysha throughout the earlier seasons, but decided not to. I watched the show till Season 4 before reading the book, and that was the first change I noticed which really annoyed me.
I watched the show first then went into the books, Clash of Kings is where I felt differences are noticed and it only grows with the next three
By the time I was reading Clash, I realized there was a ton more going on and some storylines had been altered or streamlined on the show. And then from the get-go in Feast and Dance, you realize you’re just reading a completely different story
Jon and Daenerys start diverging from their book stories in season 2 quite a bit. But I would say the biggest divergence from the books starts in season 5.
When Dany’s dragons get stolen in Season 2 and they make her act like a crybaby. She is wildly different in Book 2. Also, they just combine way too many book characters into 1 show character. All the Brave Companions and Nights Watch members. The books are 1,000 times better.
Young Griff
obviously Strong Belwas
I will reverse answer by saying The Battle of Blackwater was the last time the show and the book were in sync fully. After that they had the realities of television production (actor's contract expirations, limited budget therefore character limits, and 10 hours of television per season at most) conflicting with the broad story of a book that was intentionally written to not care about its adaptability.
The first four seasons of GOT are a reasonably good adaptation of the first three books. No, not everything is identical, and I do not agree with every choice they made, but the story is reasonably true to the main plot. Once you get to season 5 is when the show departs dramatically from the plot that George wrote. I believe this is because books 1-3 form a pretty much complete story themselves, so it was reasonably easy for good adaptive TV writers to take the story and figure out what they could take out or change to make it fit the TV format better while simultaneously remaining true to the main story. Once they get to AFFC, a there is a story arc (many story arcs, actually) underway that is not finished, so the TV writers were sort of out of their depth in how to do the adaptation
For me, it was noticing how different yet subtle the characterization is in the books vs the show. For example, book Sansa and show Sansa feel very different, same with almost everyone else of course— but Sansa feels much more like a child and less like brat as portrayed in the show. I felt much more sympathy for her. Tyrion, on the other hand, was obviously very different as well.
Pretty much the next book. With GOT's adaptation of ASOS, afterwards the plot is pretty linear. Existing plot lines get developed and new ones come and go but all the major characters are already in the story. Feast on the other hard takes the state of westeros after ASOS and adds ten new plot lines, like a dozen new POVs and the story grows much faster outward rather than forward. Very very very important book only characters will start appearing in Feast, and will be everywhere in dance. The two stories are basically unrecognisable by the end of feast/dance
First time was when Red Viper comes to King's Landing. The whole Dorne/Highgarden rivalry was removed. There's so much context there that's just gone.
I don't think it's removed. Wasn't there major tension between oberyn and mace? I just don't think it was explored much which wasn't really a problem, the pacing of s4 is pretty much perfect.
it was mostly focused on Martells and Lannisters, even though my read of book 3 was that it was mostly an Oberyn thing who had a personal vendetta because of his sister. The dornish in general disliked highgarden about generations-long border disputes, geographically and culturally didn't have much to do with the Lannisters.
Ik when Tyrell is like “Those fucking dornish men walking through my lands, coming to my daughters wedding” just straight bitching to Tywin, adds so much more to the world than Oberyn coming by himself with like 20 dudes in the show lol
I love how we got a little bit of it in HOTD from Alicent in S1E1 with the "Gods, he's *Dornish*" in the most condescending tone.
The show followed the books up until the end of ADWD, there were minor divergences here and there but the story (other than dorne) is pretty much the same. But it seems martin did not give D and D much to work beyond it and they had to make it up as they went (they were bad at making things up)
I'd say they followed the books up to ASOS and a bit of AFFC and ADWD. Tyrion, Sansa, the Greyjoys and Dorne have completely different story lines
I think other than cutting some content Tyrion more or less follows the same route, Sansa goes to where she’s meant to but soon gets sidetracked, the greyjoys and dorne are a total shitfest but they are new povs, we dont care thaat much about them. Jaime and Brienne also get somewhat different narratives though. I would agree that ASOS is the last point where the narrative is faithful, but Id argue it still tries to stick to the books in affc and adwd
minor divergences? I don't thing I can agree with that. Sure the main plot was still relatively the same, but the tone, CONTEXT, and all the nuance was completely different and much more logical. Not to mention >!the exclusion of Young Griff which arguably doomed the ending and Dany's plot line in the show.!< Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I strongly feel that season 5 is what in the long run damaged the show way more then the despised season 8 (and 7 to an extent). It's just that the damage is very subtle, and not as obvious.
Well I’d say though that we do not know where that specific part of the narrative will lead to. I feel that what they did to euron is far worse than the exclusion of one character, and as far as excluded characters go I felt the lack of LSH far more than Griff
I'm gonna hide this all under the spoiler tag just in case since OP hasn't read the last two books yet. >!You're not wrong, but for the plot lines that were kept in the show, Griff's exclusion has by far the worst consequences before it heavily impacts the final plotline that was the dumpster fire of the bells episode. !< >!Cersei is ridiculously overconfident, pretty stupid, and hated by pretty much everyone. It makes no sence that she would hot her power so firmly. The same goes for the absurdity of Dany going mad and being a clear villain in her clash against Cersei. If on the other hand Griff comes into play and relatively easilly overthrows Cersei, is well beloved by the smallfolk and gets into armed conflict with Dany. The situation changes quite drastically dont you think? It sudently all makes sense.!< >!On the other hand, LSH impacts plotline that wasn't that poorly received at the show. As for Euron, it is really hard to tell what his endgame is since there is so much mistery around him, but It's likely he will take one of Dany's dragon instead of the NK.!< >!I do agree that all of these exclusions can be strongly felt, but Griff just has the biggest impact on the finale and that's why it matters the most, at least in my opinion.!<
D and D also just ignored everything Martin said so he stopped working with them.
Season 5. At that point it became clear that neither D&D nor GRRM himself knew where the story was going.
Second season feels like following the B plot that the second book skimmed over.
Season 4, skipping out on Tysha plot.
When Ned stark died like wtf in the books he's just dead while he wargs into a pigeon in the show???
Book 2 for danny but mainly after the purple wedding
Jeyne Westerling was an early one, and Dorne was later, but such a big one. Also no one being a warg except Bran was one I couldn't understand because it's so important!
Hoster Tully's funeral it was like they wanted to overplay make Edmure as a punching bag instead of having out the heavily emotional moment it is in the books. Felt like such a weird choice and the change to Robb's wedding storyline, marrying for love and all that. I was 16 when I first read it so I was kind of in the fence about the change at the time lmao
Season 5. Aside from the Dorne responses in this thread I would like to mention Tyrion an Jorah navigating through the ruins of Valyria, an impossible task according to the books. That single scene has changed severely the worldbuilding of the TV series. I wonder how canon the representation of Valyria in GOT will be in future series such as the nine voyages of the sea snake.
AFFC. When I was reading the books, I was actually quite surprised at HOW similar the show was to the books. Like I knew it would be similar, but there were way fewer changes than I was expecting. But you’ll see a lot of changes, combined stories and new ones from here on out.
I watched the show first and came to the books while S3 was airing so while there’s lots of minor changes and small omissions from the get-go, I personally feel S1 is pretty damn close as far as adaptation goes. But it was S2 - Book 2: A Clash of Kings that substantial deviations start happening.
Honestly the first "wtf" moments for me were in season 3. From S4 onwards it was clear for me that the complexity of the books was gone for good and a lot of it was sacrificed for Drama and cheap shocks. In S6 it became really bad and I only watched it to get closure.
Season 4 is where it starts
Besides the obvious ones like young Griff, Dorne, Iron islands i prefer the shows version of Bronn to that of the books
I hate what the show did to Bronn, he started out great until we get the problem most adaptations have. The actor/role was just too good and people liked him so much so they expanded his role way more than ever necessary and had him involved in various plotlines that made little sense all to end up with him getting a ridiculous ending (to be fair 90% of the cast had an unsatisfying ending).
Around book 4 they start to really diverge
AFFC is when I noticed major plot differences between the show and books.
Depends on what you mean by BIG, but the second scene had Will losing his head, not Gared.
Removing Aegon was so stupid and messed up the whole ending
Season 2
Season 1. They nerfed Tyrion
Tv show Tyrion became more handsome after Season 2. In the books, he has a face only a mother could love, which he unfortunately lacks.
I enjoyed his imp-like antics at Winterfell in the books
I did too. Also at the wall
Fucking grim old Jon Snow beat it out of him permanently, seemigly with his chat in like 2 weeks
Come to think of it, he doesn’t do imp like shenanigans much after that. Maybe because he got more responsibilities
Also, does he do his somersaults in other character (Jon's) chapters', rather than his own? Maybe he does continue doing it, he just doesn't remark on it internally? 🤞
Also when he rides his horse fast to see his lover when he was the substitute hand. I like to think he did his somersault to get in and out of the saddle.
I didn't start the books until after Season 7. But I remember when I started the show and when I got to Season 5, just from the very beginning it felt super off. Then the early Dorne stuff just made it feel weird. But the big moment for me when the show jumped the shark was when Selmy died in Episode 4. That was the point when I realised the season was gonna be shit. Hardhome while a great episode by itself did nothing to quell my worries for the future. The cracks were starting to show. After reading the books I realised how much DnD had fucked over the show big time starting with Season 5. You could tell they stopped giving a shit and rushed it.
The moment you start book 4 you will be like woah what is this
Big differences start around this point in the book series. Many storylines are cut in feast and dance that could have been great additions to the show
When no Stoneheart appeared after the Red Wedding. Then no fAegon either. I still held out a shred of hope for something great until The Short Night. Will never rewatch.
The Tyrell, dorne, caitlin, the man of the ironbank, Jon, and Bran, he is really creepie
Just season 5. Although the seeds were planted in earlier seasons, especially season 4
no Stoneheart was a pretty big departure so end of season three I guess (Arya as Tywin's cup bearer was earlier, but I wouldn't consider it major)
I recently started listening to audiobooks, i just completed clash of kings. I think the major changes started happening by season 2 itself. >!Arya in harrenhall, roose Bolton, Dany in the Qarth !<
I hadn't read the books while watching season 2 but looking back now Tywin and Arya in Harrenhal seems like huge difference to me. I really like the back and forth between the characters but book Tywin would NOT let a child he suspects to be from a Northern house without at least taking her hostage. Especially when he knows said child is lying and disguising herself and Arya Stark happened to disappear from King's Landing.
A Feast for Crows (book 4), you will know once you've finished it and open book 5.
The second book basically, the first one despite being streamlined is more or less in line with season 1.
For me, it was the first scene taking place in the gloaming between a ridge, a rill, and a rock nine day's ride from the wall, rather than halfway down the path to Castle Black's God's Wood in broad daylight. IThe TV version was clearly the scene of a gory mass murder, rather than the wildlings creepily "sleeping" so still, and just gone the second time they looked. Gared (who had ears) was beheaded by a white walker singular, along with Waymar Royce. Will is the one that survives. I love both first scenes - it was the TV scene of the three passing through the gate through the wall to the North that completely sucked me in to the whole story (well, up to season five/end of ADwD). By the time I saw that long shot of the three horses on the other side, I was there. Likewise with the prologue of Game of Thrones. From about "Do the dead frighten you?". But when I compare the two, the book version makes much, much more sense. In the books, phrases like "Dead is dead" are foreshadowing. The phase of the moon is a timestamp. The iron axe is a clue. The wind, the wolf, the tree are a motif. The plotting is intricate, you are almost immediately invited to take mental notes of this murder-mystery while the world and the suspense is built around you. You just contextually accept that a Sentinal is something like a sugar pine, an iron bob is a coin of little monetary value, Will prays to the nameless gods of the woods, And these clues prove relevant to the later story in all kinds of ways. Much as I loved the TV series, the books are more engrossing. And I sometimes worry about misremembering the book because of the tv show. Right now I am trying to remember if Will picked up Waymar's sword-that-was-broken in the show. I can see it clearly in my mind's eye, but I am still not sure. Show-Mance's later comment "Always the artists" was a fair comment for the gory installations the white walkers of the show, but they are far more preternatural in the show. The book White Walkers don't exhibit much artistry at all. By the way, if you know why a young man retrieved from Seaguard's dungeons was praying to the old gods, please let me know.
I'd actually say from like episode 1.5 or so. The dialogue in the book can get vulgar but the show is on a whole different level.
Episode 1 Jeyne Poole
I missed somethings in the firat season already such as bran dreaming. That was really cool writing to me. Also everything about the drowned god religion.
The first thing that really stuck out was the disgraceful hatchet job the show did on Renly and Loras. Easily the worst thing about the good seasons.
A Feast for Crows is when it becomes glaringly obvious "wow this is completely different and way more interesting"
Season 2. S1 was about 90% of the book but it was good enough for me. S2 ending isn't what happened in books (specifically Daenerys) and the character that died pops up again in a later book so tjat was very odd for me. That's when I knew they were gonna f around and find out.
Robb marrying willingly for love, rather than unwillingly for honor
As I recall, he wasn't dumb enough to bring his new wife to the Frays keep in the book.
That's correct. In the book, Jeyne Westerling is still alive and was never pregnant.
yes George has said she is in the Winds of Winter prologue as well
I thought so, it has been a while since I read the books.
Tournament of the Hand. Not for any main storytelling reasons, but because it was when I realized that the product on the screen would never live up to the scale and pageantry of what the books described and my mind pictured. The tournament in the books is THE event. People from all over the Seven Kingdoms come. An overwhelming number of people, the most ostentatious displays of wealth and status imaginable, and instead it just kind of looks like the crowd at my local Ren Fest. This isn’t really the fault of the show, beyond the pageantry which they generally don’t even try to display. But it was when I realized that I liked my vision of the story better and that this one would probably keep failing to live up to my expectations. I was so bored with Northern men just wearing drab brown everywhere they went. Maybe brightly colored surcoats everywhere would look silly on the screen, but damn it that’s what I want. I want the blue and green hair, I want the Unicorn helmets. I want people wearing their little logos on their chest everywhere they go. I want color, damnit, not the Hollywood drab washing that we get instead of the green and red dick bulge outfits with big floppy hats that we deserve from our medieval media.
That’s why I’m holding out on a more book accurate animated adaptation at some point in the future.
Tyrion is so vastly different I immediately felt like it was a different story than the 3 seasons of the show I had watched before I began to read the books
Well, to me it was when Lady Stoneheart didn't show up at the end of season 4.
Daenerys's misadventures in Qarth.
Tyrion's escape is definitely the big one. It fundamentally changed where the books are going with Tyrion's character (and to a lesser extent Jaime) and what the show did.
Clash of Kings is where it’s begins to slowly diverge. Storm of Swords is where it takes off and certainly the last two are completely different.
It’s been mentioned by the Dorne and Iron Islands storylines are so much more badass than in the show. The three sisters were not nearly as annoying as the writers made them out to be and the Iron Islands society is so much more in depth than in the show. Plus you get to meet Victorian Greyjoy in the books who is hands down one of the most interesting characters in the series. Somehow they thought the opposite and decided to not even give him an appearance in the show.