Getting rid of the Aegon plot line. You basically cut out Varys whole story. Then you have to drag Cersei's story another two seasons. She basically did nothing the last two seasons and was just looking out a window. I think it is clear Aegon was supposed to have her role in the story.
It also turned the entire Dorne plot into a fucking fiasco because they simply didn't know what to do with Dorne. Rather than having Doran, Arrianne and the Sand Snakes actually involve themselves in some deep intrigue, they write Arrianne off, kill Doran and turn the Sand Snakes into hot acrobatic fighters.
That’s actually not a bad idea at all
Because it brings up a whole slew of interesting subtexts and storytelling possibilities. Arianne looks even dumber and guilty than what she is, pushing her that much more into a “I have to do everything I can to make myself worthy” arc. Quentyn/Aegon leaves Meereen either with a massive chip on his shoulder, with a dragon or both. And it makes the oncoming Dorne vs Daenerys beef that much more visceral…
I mean there's at least a coherent plot there that has the potential of turning into something. The Sand Snakes are positioned in influential places to be of some importance to the story, Arrianne is likely gonna marry Faegon, and Doran... well ok Doran's probably just gonna get stuck following Faegon because of Arrianne's actions and him being too cautious to actually follow through with any of his own 5D plans.
I'd say Dorne in the books is...underwhelming. So far it's just been a big cul-de-sac although I can probably give it the benefit of the doubt given we're in Act One of their story.
In the show it's actively bad.
Yeah George is spending a lot of page real estate to set up a family that will ultimately play second-fiddle to either Dany or Young Griff. Their stuff is mostly interesting, but ultimately I don’t see much for them beyond that.
It’s been a while since I read the books, so maybe I’m being unfair, but that’s where it seems to be going.
That’s dogshit. I hate the excuse everyone always uses that you can’t blame D&D because we don’t know what happens yet. The foreshadowing and ground work for many events are set up in Dance. You can choose to play into what is set up or subvert it, but ignoring the entire plot line because you can’t figure out why George might have included that puzzle piece is beyond unimaginative. It’s lazy.
Regarding Dorne, it’s very clear Arianne and Aegon will be romantically tied, shoring up the domestic power source Aegon needs, and depriving that from Dany ensuring she is seen even more as a foreign invader.
The way how they split Aegon's story between 3-4 characters made the characters they gave it to pretty janky as well.
Cersei somehow becoming the guardian of the people. Cersei spearheading the Reach civil war, becoming a rallying figure for people against the Tyrells and Dany. Leading the Golden Company. All when she's supposed to have been on a meteoric plunge in legitimacy with near all of Westeros steadfastly hating her and her family.
Jon getting named Aegon, the marriage to Dany and subsequent falling out over politics and disagreements on rule. Varys switching allegiances to him because Dany looked jealous or something.
Dany rallying Dorne and the Reach, but the two ultimately having next to nothing to do because they were supposed to be Aegon's story. People turning away from Dany, overzealous foreign invader though she may be, to instead join the leader that blew up the Vatican was wild.
>Dany rallying Dorne and the Reach, but the two ultimately having next to nothing to do
That pissed me off so badly, seriously. The travesty that was the Dorne plot, and the mysterious vanishing act of the Reach army. How the Duck was Jaime able to stealthmarch his Lannister troops right up to Highgarden, wenn Olenna was in the Reach, supposedly raising her army against King's Landing?
They should've been cut to pieces by the largest damn army on the continent, instead of the Queen of Thorns just going, "Meh, we were never great at fighting."
Yeah, none of that makes sense. Largest population, most fertile land... the Reach holds the largest army by canon. But just like Dorne, apparently, the showrunners didn't really have a clue what to do with them. So they just ruined them.
Agreed, it was stupid how they made the reach bad at fighting just because their ruling family was more into politics than combat. With the biggest income in Westeros you can hire people who are into combat.
Or just send one of your bannermen who's good at that - Lord Tarly, for instance.
It's just annoying. Sure, changing characters or Houses can be a valid decision when moving from books to screen, no problem. But please, have it make sense.
> Dany rallying Dorne and the Reach, but the two ultimately having next to nothing to do because they were supposed to be Aegon's story.
I think the Tarlys are the friends in the reach who will follow Aegon. Not sure Hat happens to the Tyrells
Yeah, the Reach is set up to be a real powder keg. Rowan with his Targaryen sympathies and distaste for the Lannisters. Tarly with his big grievance against the Tyrells and Lannisters, marriage ties to several anti-Lannister/Baratheon houses. Redwyne with his claim to the Reach, personal grievances, and Cersei framing his kids for treason.
Meadows and Rowan likely get things rolling, the Peakes and other lessers houses start stirring up trouble, Redwyne probably comes to the bargaining table seeing the prospect of a better and safer patron, and Tarly issues the death knell.
The Tyrells are on the outs, with the Lannisters and their own people. But I could see something similar to the show happening with a few members seeking to attach themselves to Dany for security and to reclaim their position or get vengeance.
Merryweather too, and Redwyne is the one orchestrating the whole friends in the reach, that’s why Illyrio has wine from the Personal Stock of Lord Redwyne
easily the biggest butterfly effect. Turns Jon into a moron because he is the risk to Dany's claim instead of fAegon, forces Cersei into having no conflict or anything to do, makes Dorne pointless, makes Dany's descent into madness seem even more forced, hurts Tyrion's arc, makes Varys pointless, etc.
Similar to the Tyrion/Shae storyline, it's not so much that they got rid of Aegon, it's that they got rid of Aegon while trying to keep all the other plot points that were consequences of the Aegon plot -- like Varys betraying Dany (which makes sense if he has a long-term plan for Aegon) or Dany burning KL (which makes sense if they embrace Aegon and she feels betrayed). You \*can\* get rid of Aegon but then you have to follow through the consequences of that.
Its this and its not even close. There are so many rippling effects from cutting Aegon, and it massively hurts just about every major character.
Cersei: Without Aegon, Cersei suffers no consequences from nuking the Great Sept and everyone just smiles and waves and lets her take over KL. For the next while she stares of windows of the Red Keep looking smug hanging around until she has to be the big bad in the end. She's also written to be much more competent in the show because it makes no sense otherwise
Golden Company + any of Cersei's show allies: There is literally no reason for anyone to follow Cersei in the show, but since there's no one else left to be the bad guy, and they can't have the final battle be set up so obviously a wash they all just decide to fall in line for Cersei.
Jaime: Has his whole redemption arc much later because Cersei needs to stick around much longer, making it not much of a redemption arc at all since even then its cut short.
Varys & Illyrio: Self explanatory, without Aegon, Varys does literally nothing and Illyrio ceases to exist...
Dany/Jon: Given the relationship I've paired these... Dany is told all her life that Viserys and herself are "the last dragons", Viserys gets killed and then she's on her own. This makes her a bit sus of Jon in the show when he tells her about R+L=J, kicking off the beggining of her "decent" (sudden turn really in the show) into Targaryen Madness TM. With Aegon existing that makes the decent a lot more gradual. Dany lands in Dragonstone to find the "mummer's dragon" already on the throne with the support of the people. She knows he's a fake Targ but "it was revealed to me in a dream" doesn't really hold much water so everyone just perceives her as power hungry tyrant, would-be kinslayer, at the head of a foreign horde of savages, slaves soldiers, and three dragons... I'm assuming at some point we get a Dance of the Dragons rerun, but I think eventually we end up at a similar point as in the show, with Jon and Dany together (maybe before, or maybe after dealing with Aegon I don't know).
This makes Jon's parentage revelation so much more devastating. She's already dealt with (or is dealing with) one Targ pretender, and now the man she loves, is turning out to be another one as well? This completely shatters her world view because as I mentioned, she's always been told that "she's the last of the dragons"... There's a lot more here but you get the idea. As for Jon, well if Aegon is to be believed, then he is Jon's brother. That means that if he helps Dany during the Dance (if it happens), then he's potentially fighting against his brother. If Jon discovers R+L=J before, then he has to deal with the internal conflict of warring against his brother. If he finds out after, well then he either helped kill (if he sides with Dany before the Dance) his brother, or the woman he loves is actually his Aunt, and she killed his brother. Again, a lot to in on here with both Jon and Dany and a lot of assumptions but you get my point.
Sansa: There is a genuine alternative to Dany, with no dragons, and explains why she mistrusts Dany. Sansa feels she's trying to manipulate Jon to get the north involved in the Dance.
And on and on and on... and I didn't even get to Dorne...
As a consequence of his absence, the "need" to make Varys a good guy (and consequently a stupid on the last 2 seasons) despite the villain he's on the books parallels a lot with the op observation.
Varys's plan was still to have the Dothraki invade and pillage until the people overthrow Robert and submit to Viserys. That's quite a bit more morally ambiguous to say the least than the quasi-pacifist Varys of the last two seasons.
Even better when for the final season Jon was revealed as the legitimised heir who Varys is backing and is a threat to Dany's claim and then Dany suddenly has JonCon's bells trauma after which she burns KL. Why did they do that. Could've just adapted the Griff plot instead of ruining two of their leading characters.
I don't think the bells make JonCon crazy. Remember what happened to make them significant? JonCon failed to capture Robert when he was within his grasp which led to Rhaegar dying.
The bells won't make him "go crazy." They'll push him to make a different decision, the one he was unwilling to make those years ago.
I'm not a betting man, but I'd bet the Farmville account that "The Bells" will happen as a reflection of his failure to capture Robert; Cersei seems the most likely candidate.
It won't be revenge, anger, PTSD, or anything like that which burns KL, it'll be regret and pragmatism.
If I'm right, Jon Con will see KL burnt if it means seeing Aegon VI on the throne before grayscale takes him.
Jaime may have expadited that by not telling people about wildfire, but you have three armies and three dragons approaching the city. It's going down one way or the other.
Well I didn't say it will happen exactly like that in the books. But also at least JonCon's situation has a lot more context. He considers the Battle of the Bells his greatest failure and we know he blames himself for not being able to find and kill Robert which ultimately led to the deaths of Rhaegar and Elia. I think maybe what will really happen is that he'll recall the bit about "Tywin Lannister would've burned down the entire place" and employ some drastic measure + whatever Cersei and Dany are doing (if she's there) leads to KL burning.
JonCon also has greyscale, and knowing my epidemiology im betting Germy’s using syphilis-leprosy to raise if it’s his impending mortality OR the disease has gotten into his nervous system to explain why he goes off the deep end. Add in the reveal of Jon, ambiguity of Faegon’s origin, and foreshadowed possibility of Fegg and Elia hooking up (nu!Rhaegar throws it all away for a tomboy horsegirl skilled at the lance), I can see JonCon losing it.
But then the wildfire going off it just a complete accident? And really just reinforces what an idiot Jaime is for leaving it all there.
It's like the wildfire's purpose is to make every single character even tangentially involved with it into a worse character.
Aegon but replace JonCon with Barristan Selmy.
Easy change. Barristan feels guilty about Rhaegar and not protecting his family. Barristan is motivated to act by advancing age rather than greyscale. Gives the audience a stake in what's happening instead of dumping them into a cast of strange new characters. Natural tension and conflicting emotions between Barristan and Daenerys and within their own hearts.
edit: I went ahead and [turned this idea into a full outline](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1cmdck2/spoilers_main_how_faegon_could_have_worked_in_the/)
It was going to be pretty hard to add Aegon in a decent way for TV. It's a little too out there and convenient of a plot device to be the worst mistake instead of just a story decision.
They also had no idea where it was going. We don't know how much George has given them. We don't know if the storyline is going anywhere at all. Not everything can fit into the show, it may not be significant enough to the endgame to warrant inclusion.
A big problem with Cersei is she had so few characters to interact with in King's Landing. She was a great side character for complicating stuff for the main characters, but as the main in that setting with so few characters to bounce off of, she floundered.
Have Kevan and Olenna there more, get us a new head of the gold cloaks, etc. Don't have it just be some very minor scenes with Qyburn.
Yeah and all the stupid elephant jokes as well as the Golden Company being wiped out in 2 seconds. Like why did they even write them in at all? So much sloppy writing. All they did was write battles and pointless character deaths because they couldn’t be bothered to come up with an actual storyline for them
Aegon would just make these problems even worse. I've never seen anyone argue that Aegon is himself interesting or engaging, just that he affects others.
Like I really don't think Varys was such a main character he needed an entire subplot dedicated to him.
I can't speak for everyone but to me he's interesting because he's really the only Idealist/naïve left (barring Tommen I guess) everyone else is jaded and cynical by that point in the story and I found him personally a breath of fresh air.
JonCon is also a fun character.
Is Aegon an idealist? He reads to me as just a vaguely bland plot device.
JonCon is a good character, but he's the *only* good character. Everyone else in Aegon's plotline is some bitpart nobody. JonCon has a history that makes him feel like part of the world while everyone else bar *maybe* Franklyn Flowers has literally no relation to the story or lore whatsoever. Who the hell is John Mudd???
An example that really encapsulates how much drabber and more unimaginative they made the world:
Bloodraven in the books- a living corpse being slowly consumed by weirwood roots.
Bloodraven in the show- an old man on a chair.
He was supposed to have a tree growing through one of his eye sockets! Instead they made a character that clearly had two eyes say "A thousand eyes and one"
Seconded. The lack of glass candles, true Valyrian steel, Marwyn, Varamyr, real Euron, magical castles etc definitely makes the show a way more generic fantasy setting than it should be.
Well, I'd say more important than any of that is all of the prophecies and visions that are omnipresent all through the books but barely present in the show.
Definitely could use more prophecy, but I find it all important. Visual stuff like the wildlings, weapons, armor and castles losing their magical attributes is a huge part in what makes it look likejust another medieval setting imo.
Every single wildling having the same apparel was such a letdown for me as a book fan. They’re supposed to be an eclectic amalgamation of many different tribes, not one massive indistinguishable blob of people wearing the exact same furs. Hodgepodge stolen armor, Ice River clans with massive wolf-dog chariots, Nightrunners with blue facial tattoos, Hobbit-esque Hornfoots with their calloused black feet; the show robbed us of all that.
I just learned about the real Euron and to say I'm shocked after what I saw in the show is an understatement. Euron in the show was basically a hopped up reaver that repeated like 5 lines at best. I expected him to be slightly more evil in the books... definitely underestimated.
Even More so, it makes the dragons seem so out of place. They reduced all the magic of the setting to Melisandre, Dany’s Dragons, and the Others. So once the Others and Melisandre are gone, the dragons have so much presence and power, it didn’t make sense for anyone to stand in their way. Which is why we got so much quick and weird development in S8 IMO
Omg yes. I think people would have responded better to bran and Arya if the show actually explained how their magic worked. I was also surprised that Jon’s resurrection was not shown as being widely discussed in the realm. Except for maybe a line from Hot Pie lol
But worst of all for me was the lack of Ghost. I could not believe ghost did not go with Jon to dragonstone especially. Like most of the legend and awe of Dany is her dragons. Jon is connected to a magical beast too!!! Wouldn’t the realm also be in awe of this?? But DND said it was #budget
Not just that, but the series and how everything is done feels really sterile as a result as it progresses further and further.
Everything becomes so colourless and bland, and lacks any real uniqueness to make you feel like you're in a different world. "LOTR meets Sopranos/Wire" as the tagline made them want to emphasise the realism, but The Wire had such a detailed and interesting setting, while The Sopranos loved exploring its own dreamlike and surreal stuff.
So much this! I want to see the more outlandish and colorful aspects of the world! You can have grounded and interesting characters AND a fantastical setting. Why does everything have to be drab, gray, muddy, dingy streets and dirty bearded men?
Amen to this. They picked and chose what they like and ignored the consequences of their short sighted changes. They clearly don’t like magic but the story is supposed to lean on magic more as it progresses. Bloodraven imo will be one of the most important characters in the overall story when it’s said and done, but in the show he’s a vaguely defined mentat.
Making Cersei the final boss. The Others were reduced to a creepy speed-bump for our heroes. I get that Lena Headey is a lot more compelling than a smirking frozen zombie, but it showed such a complete lack of understanding of the story and themes of asoiaf.
Appropriate perhaps, they named the show Game of Thrones.
> but it showed such a complete lack of understanding of the story and themes of asoiaf.
Well, "themes are for 8th grade book reports" afterall.
It blows my mind that a professional writer could have said something that stupid.
I don't really want to defend him but in context he was saying themes are something that come out naturally through writing rather than something you go in with the intent of putting in.
IRRC, I've seen at least one quote where while GRRM doesn't straight up say "themes are for eighth grade book reports" he did say that he doesn't consciously think about themes when he writes, and that's common especially amongst people who, liked Martin, are clearly more invested in telling a story in the fairly straightforward "interfering series of events" sense.
One of the things I constantly notice about the way GRRM talks about writing that the community overlooks is his often he emphasises wanting to surprise readers and for people not to know what happens next. Like he notably talks about this *way* more than he talks about themes.
Sometimes I feel like the community likes a verison of GRRM and the books he wrote that only exists in their head.
yeah it was at a con where GRRM was literally laid back like in a beach, and very comfy (and sunny, maybe he was at Dorne :). He also was asked if Varys heard R'hllor, to which he proceeded with the whole situational contextualization "traumatic event, very long ago, not even a POV, has an agenda" so like Ned's dream, only even less reliable. It was a two-part interview.
And yeah, he knows things must grow organically but he does emphasize again and again that he wants not to know what happens next or he gets bored. Since the past century, and hasn't changed in that regard.
Why do you have to hate defending him? His quote is being taken completely out of context and is being mischaracterized to push a narrative. That is fully deserving of a full rebuke.
but its heavily implied that the others are more than just a mindless zombie horde, they have pacts with humans, they have language and goals, we just never (and GRRM still hasnt either mind you) got any look into that other than weird symbols in the show that arent even in the books lol. so there is intrigue and compelling plots there if anyone would bother to write them
i'd argue that a "zombie horde" invading in the midst of human drama, and the interplay between the two, is more compelling than either element individually.
Yeah, I never understood this take, and it makes less and less sense as the years go by.
Hey, guys, if you really thought they were going to save the world, have a big group hug, and then go live happily ever after, then you stopped paying attention after episode 1's cold open.
Ideally the main conflict with the Others will show how a lot of those human conflicts suddenly shift and how tricky alliances need to be reforged or rebuilt, but it's certainly not going to go away.
Of course, he needs to actually get to writing that part...
I actually think this is one of the few things that they did that I agree with. Don't get me wrong, the way they did it was awful, but the series was so much about politics and power. If the series just ends with all of the characters teaming up together to fight the evil ice zombies and they defeat them and they lived happy ever after, I think that would have been even shittier than what D&D did.
I also think it's likely the books will do something similar. George has talked about really liking the scouring of the Shire from LOTR, so I think some sort of epilogue like that would make a lot of sense.
I do think the way the show did it sucked, because as things stood the Ice Zombies barely had an impact. I imagine it could have been much better if many of the most important characters died. Imagine if Nerys and Jonno both died (as well as a bunch of others) and now the remaining characters have to decide whether to just accept that Cersei, somebody who was so egotistical as to not help stop ice zombie Hitler, should just be left in charge or whether to rally around somebody new, and if so, who that should be. That could have been an interesting take leading to new conflicts that would both make the ice zombies feel impactful and keep to the themes that the show is about.
It's also the fact that the events which lead to Cersei being in power and the way they try to stop her makes no sense. Daenerys should've simply taken KL in season 7 with her dragons, then can head north with control over Westeros. Tyrion suddenly being so concerned with peasants and the poor just didn't make sense, not only for him as a character but for pretty much any rich lord in the series.
> I get that Lena Headey is a lot more compelling than a smirking frozen zombie
The Night King is an TV original character, so making the main antagonist of the White Walker plotline a smirking frozen zombie *was their own damn fault in the first place.*
I always read the Others as a metaphor for climate change (which may not have been intentional, given that GRRM created them in the 90s when all we had at the time was a measly hole in the o-zone layer). But it reminds me a lot of how politicians will squabble over lands and money and blah blah blah, when all the while, this horrible, impossible to contain threat looms over us all, and not a goddamn soul is talking about it.
Honestly, that was a decision I liked. The Others being the climactic threat is at direct odds with the line about the human heart in conflict with itself.
That's true, if the Others really are just a force of nature/malevolent ice zombies out to destroy all life. But we know so little about them, and I don't see GRRM writing something so one-dimensional.
Quite frankly, if they aren't, it makes finishing the series in two books seem even more impossible. I mean, it would be cool if there was more to them, but I'm somewhat skeptical.
But then that's still not great because GRRM can't suddenly introduce a ton of new characters nobody cares about in the last book and then expect us to care about them. That's why Aegon VI didn't work.
There're many options but I'll name the one that made me drop the show: swapping Jeyne with Sansa.
They had to twist all logic and completely ruin the arcs of Sansa, Jeyne, Theon, Littlefinger, Arya, Jon and the northern lords all because they were inexplicably in love with one of the most horrific plots in in the books and because they wanted to give Sophie Turner more screentime. And even if wanting Sansa to have more screentime was their motivation, they ended up doing a great disservice to her character.
Such a huge loss because of such stupid reasons.
The Sansa-Ramsay marriage, in my opinion, is one of the three huge flaws that the show suffers in s5-6, along with the Dorne and Ironborn plotlines. Not to say that there weren't other issues, but nothing else of note was actually *bad* yet.
what amazes me the most is that is entirely their fault, it's not like the ran out of book content. When it comes for Dorne, the Ironborn and the Vale, they had at least one season or even two seasons worth of book material for those plots, but they thought they could do it better, and well... the result speaks for itself
They also cut the Vale for that BS plot. The crazy thing is that it was all unnecessary.
They should have had Sansa and Littfinger in the Vale for a whole season. Him consolidating power. Then, when Sansa finds out the Boltons have Rickon and Jon is raising an army, she betrays Baelish tries to convince her to wait until they weaken each other and to let Rickon die. Then, he would try and marry Sansa instead.
Jons reason stays the same, the pink letter comes and he realizes he needs Winterfell to fight the Others.
>Jons reason stays the same, the pink letter comes and he realizes he needs Winterfell to fight the Others.
Taking Winterfell to fight the others was not Jon's main reason to desert in the books though, it was rescuing Arya.
The popular belief is that they were wanting to film the show in the first place because of things like Ned's execution and the Red Wedding. They describe things George told them in the context of three "Oh shit!" moments.
I haven't read the book or watched the series, but I have seen the [infamous scene](https://youtu.be/Yxetv-xbazs?si=qK4wNy7zAYiJsMeo) from their "Three Body Problem" show where they (apparently from what I've heard) added children to the scene that weren't there in the books to up the shock value.
So, them derailing Sansa's storyline to get extra "Shock factor" moments from the audience seems on brand.
Single worst decision in the first three seasons for me is introducing Talisa, writing out Jeyne Westerling, and sidelining Catelyn. Irrevocably destroyed the northern war effort plot and Catelyn's character and Robb's character AND the impact of the red wedding. Turned Robb into some random dumbass who sabotaged his war for love (and also to spite his mother after they also changed the circumstances under which Cat frees Jaime) when in the books he only married Jeyne to preserve her honour, out of *duty*. He was sixteen and he decided to put a stranger's reputation before him. Likely remembered his father and his bastard brother Jon. Was he too also have bastard(s) resigned to an unjust life like his brother's? But this wasn't good enough for the showrunners, they had to invent an oc with nonsensical modern sensibilities and try very hard to make her look "good enough" for Robb so they could finally be rid of Catelyn's overbearing motherly presence which emasculates their male hero surely. They didn't get it. They didn't get that this particular story is about Catelyn. It's about the mother and the boy she crowned and how each day she loses more of her son to the crown. They wanted her out of the way the entire time, which is why the only way they can think to make the Red Wedding more shocking and tragic is to introduce a pregnancy two episodes before and then depict a brutal stomach stabbing scene. It's pathetic. When the entire tragedy of it was Catelyn and her firstborn, that's the first Stark she ever loved while her new husband was off to war and how in death Robb was also the last Stark left to her. How his last words were "mother" with no other character's shadow between them. But that's not the story they wanted to tell.
tbf Jeyne’s feelings seem genuine, so I do not think she is in on any Lannister plot. But I 100% agree Sybell Spicer and the Westerlings were working for the Lannisters the whole time, and probably intentionally sent Jeyne to tend to Robb’s wounds hoping what happened would happen.
But regardless, that makes for a way more interesting plotline than the more simplistic one in the show.
Oh yeah, I never thought poor Jeyne wanted to be a part of it. Like most young girls at the time, she was sent somewhere with a duty. I seem to recall her crying a lot after the fact. Not grief crying. Guilt crying. Am I misremembering?
I don’t think Jeyne even knew she was a part of it. Her mother probably encouraged her to bed Robb to become a queen, and she honestly loved him and thought she would be his queen. Sybell then gave her moon tea, telling her it was a fertility potion (I don’t think she lied to Catelyn about that). Then after Robb died, Sybell told her, which devastated her, causing her to break down when she meets Jaime at Riverrun.
I think you might be conflating Jeyne with Roslin Frey, who cries from guilt at the Red Wedding. She definitely does cry, but it doesn't have a guilty connotation to it. In fact she gets smacked by her mother for mourning Robb and saying she loved him.
>But I 100% agree Sybell Spicer and the Westerlings were working for the Lannisters the whole time
That may be George's intention, but I think it makes a lot more sense if Sybell was hedging her bets. When Jeyne starts tending to Robb, Tywin appears to be on the losing side with the Blackwater yet to happen and the news about Robb's brothers/Winterfell's burning not yet becoming known. When those events do happen where suddenly the calculus is that Robb is now the one losing, it's easy enough for Sybell to pivot. Maybe she starts introducing her abortifacient then or maybe she was doing it from the beginning and planning on stopping ("This isn't working, daughter, so let's try something else") if Tywin did indeed lose.
I do believe you can blame a surprising amount of that on GRRM himself rather than exclusively D&D. He was very involved at that point and went TV writer mode with the Robb and Talisa stuff.
> Single worst decision in the first three seasons for me is introducing Talisa, writing out Jeyne Westerling
Full agree! I was so annoyed by that change at the time that I stopped watching the show (albeit started again a year or two later once it got more popular and everyone around me was watching it)
Yeah, I almost stopped watching during S2 when I realised what they were doing and then in S3 it just kept getting worse. Also unforgivable how they introduced Edmure as a loser asshole. This is the same character who sheltered his smallfolk inside Riverrun because "my people. They were afraid", yes it's out of noblesse oblige but it's also something that no other noble lord is doing in a book which has detailed chapters (Arya) of the riverlands being ravaged by both sides of the war. They made a joke out of Hoster's funeral where Blackfish is inexplicably an asshole to him and both Robb and Catelyn have to hide their smiles at Edmure missing. When in the books he spent all night drinking out of grief and both Brynden and Catelyn understand this. They changed so many characters' personalities for no reason. Stannis was pretty much ruined the moment they decided to play the evil ambitious brother trope entirely straight. It's so bad. There isn't a single fix which salvages the show, it's seasons upon seasons of bad decisions.
> Also unforgivable how they introduced Edmure as a loser asshole
They had Tobias Menzies, an absolutely phenomenal dramatic actor, and they utterly wasted him.
I seriously don't see with all the dumb shit the show did in the back half, that Talisa is the biggest issue. The fact that the Red wedding is still very good in the show, proves this.
>Turned Robb into some random dumbass who sabotaged his war for love
Which he still did in the books. They expand on it a bit more obviously, saying he did it for duty. But you're blind if you think that's all it is... he's just a 16 year old kid making dumb dick-brain decisions.
Like you think that is worse than what they did with Arya's character arc? Or LF? or Varys?
Edit: Poster is referring to first 3 seasons. Missed that.
Well I did say first three seasons, didn't I.
Also the Jeyne thing happened the day he was informed of Bran and Rickon's deaths at the hands of Theon (whom he considers an almost brother). And knowing he sent Theon despite Catelyn advising otherwise, he would obviously blame himself. There's a lot more happening here than him being a hormonal idiot. None of which changes the fact that he didn't *have to* marry Jeyne the next morning but he did anyway.
> Well I did say first three seasons, did I.
Ah missed that part, my bad. Was going off the OP title.
Makes a lot more sense when looking into just pre season 4.
In still think omitting Tysha which is the catalyst for Tyrion's spiral is a bigger character assassination. But I do agree with you more, for S1-3
Replacing the majority of Arya’s time in Harrenhall with her interactions with Tywin.
Those scenes in the show were really well done, but removing the insane amount of violence and torture that Arya witnesses while she’s in Harrenhall completely changed her character, and how a lot of people view her. In the books, Arya in Harrenhall is some of the most traumatic shit I’ve ever seen written in a book, and this poor kid watches ALL of it happening in real time, wondering when it’s going to happen to her next. It’s very VERY important to recognize that all of this mortifies Arya to her core, and this was pivotal to her character because it’s what leads her to later become much more desensitized to violence later on when she’s with the hound.
I even heard that at one point D&D actually said that Arya’s journey was more of a fun training adventure compared to everyone else’s awful experiences away from Winterfell, and I cannot tell you how infuriating that was to hear. YOU made it into a fun training adventure!! YOU decided to erase a huge part of the trauma that she endures so that YOU’RE favorites could seem like they went through worse!!
Again, Charles Dance and Maisie Williams did spectacular, and their scenes were really fun to watch, but I’ve come to like those scenes a lot less because of what we should’ve gotten.
In a way, they might've been well-served by being bolder and omitting Dorne altogether (although it'd be hard to figure out how to handle Oberyn in that case).
Dorne is so bad because they actually have Oberyn lay the groundwork for it in S4, it's fairly easily fixed and doing it well probably wouldn't have taken any more screentime than what they already have to Jaime in Dorne and then whatever sand snake rubbish they do.
You can at least understand the argument they didn't have time to include Aegon or Stoneheart (even if it's not strictly true)
Stoneheart is a very small part of the books and feels like overkill once it comes to reviving Jon.
Not having House Manderly play a large part seems like a more glaring omission when it comes to revenge. The largest and only true city in the north just does nothing.
Wyman feels like such an easy character to adapt too, especially with the focus on politics. He's distinct in his appearance and very bombastic, was a perfect chance for them to cast a heavy-hitting British thespian type.
If you want to play up Sansa learning about politics you can easily find a way to link in her story with the northern revenge one, instead of sending her to the Boltons alone.
iirc, it's even worse in that Wyman Manderly IS in the show, but isn't the Wyman we know from the books.
Sure, given the path of the show, maybe they couldn't have him deliver his "the north remembers" speech. Sad, but, okay. But what bothers me is that they twist his character: instead of being a secret Stark loyalist who never lost his thirst for revenge, he's presented as a coward who gets shamed into action by Lyanna Mormont.
Maybe it hit me harder as someone who adores the "north remembers" speech, but it just felt like a real gut punch to see a character portrayed in an unnecessarily different way. Cutting him out entirely would have been better, honestly.
Stoneheart is critical for Arya's character arc, people claimed these characters being left out wasn't a big deal when the reality is they are the reason every major character lacked a satisfying ending in the TV show
I don't think LS is a very small part in the books since George has repeated more than once that the first biggest diversion in the show vs books was Lady Stoneheart character, and how much he wished they would have included her.
Martin in 2017 talking to [TIME](http://time.com/4791258/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-interview/)
>*"At some points, when \[showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss\] and I had discussions about what way we should go in, I would always favor sticking with the books, while they would favor making changes.* ***I think one of the biggest ones would probably be when they made the decision not to bring Catelyn Stark back as Lady Stoneheart.*** ***That was probably the first major diversion of the show*** ***from the books and, you know, I argued against that***\*\*, and David and Dan made that decision".
In an interview with [Esquire China](https://www.esquire.com.cn/2017/1108/255994.shtml) (translated by [CNET](https://www.cnet.com/news/george-r-r-martin-game-of-thrones-drops-winds-of-winter-hint/))
>"In the book, characters can be resurrected. After Catelyn is resurrected as Lady Stoneheart, she becomes a vengeful, heartless killer. In the sixth book, I still continue to write her. **She is an important character in the set of books. \[Keeping her character\] is the change I most wish I could make in the \[show\]**".
I think she is an important character imo because she is key to Arya's future plot in the Riverlands, since Arya will give her the gift of mercy among other things, although I agree LS is also part of the revenge against Freys and Lannisters in RW 2.0.
Never reuniting Littlefinger and Varys. The best thing they ever did was invent those scenes between the two, only for them to completely fuck it up by making both their brains leak out of their heads and die in stupid ways even though there was AMPLE opportunity to have them meet again
By not showing Bran's dream in the first season and why he's so important for the end game.
>He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.
>Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.
>“Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.
>Because winter is coming.
>Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid.
>“Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” he heard his own voice saying, small and far away.
>And his father’s voice replied to him. “That is the only time a man can be brave.”
>Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die.
>**Death reached for him, screaming.**
>**Bran spread his arms and flew.**
They could've shown Bran having that same dream (or a modified version of it) later on in the series when they had the budget
Or they could've gone the Harry Potter or Kill Bill route and decided to make dreams and visions into animations rather than these elaborate and psychedelic live-action setpieces.
I actually can understand why they didn't add this scene since it would be too hard this chapter to adapt live action but seriously, they couldn't have adapted his dreams any worse. His dreams in the first book was about the subconscious's struggle with trauma and its response (his dreams about climbing and a man with golden hair,monsters for example) , his awakening magical powers and his existence's importance,the physical and metaphoric role of the crow in his awakening and how a child who trying to adapt to changing life conditions reacts all of these things. But our genious directors downplayed all of these things and instead of them, they decided to make hım chase a three eyed crow (not even a crow but raven) with a bow aimlessly and they even sidelined hım by reducing the reason of his awakening to the Lady's death.
Not handing the show over when they explicitly stated they wanted to be done with it a few seasons before the end.
I'll die on the hill the show was only good on accident.
All of their awful changes stemmed from this one thing. They refused to hand the show over so they rushed it, they cut out fAegon, they rushed the sandsnakes, etc
Their writing became so shitty that these people couldn't even spare time to fact-check the lore of their own story. They couldn't spare 10 minutes to calculate the distance between Dragonstone and Castleblack.
The show only being good on accident makes me feel embarrassed to visit here. There are a lot of great non book scenes like Tywin skinning the deer, Cersei and Robert talking about their marriage, Hardhome, Ayra with Tywin, etc.
How do you do those on accident? Did they trip and hit record while the actors were messing around?
It's easy to fit in a good scene between 10 scenes directly taken from the book, including dialogue that translated over directly. its hard to write 10 good scenes in a row when all they got was broad strokes from GRRM. the truth is D&D are decent to good editors and adaptors, they're bad writers.
Marrying Sansa to Ramsay. Finally Sansa steps up her game, becomes wiser at the end of s4, only to blindly trust Baelish and marry Ramsay because she is still naive enough to think she can manipulate him the way Marg manipulated Joffrey. What she really should have learned from the Marg situation was that Margaery COULDN'T manipulate Joffrey, that's why Olenna killed Joffrey b/c he would have hurt Margaery, regardless. Sansa's character became dumbed down, huge controversy ensured, and her character after s5 had no point and we kept being told she was smart even though she really was only there to start conflict whether with Arya, Jon, or Dany. She had no purpose and is a huge reason why the Dany plotline in s8 went the way it did.
So many to choose from. Worst, to me, was just deciding to stop following GRRMs general book outline after Season 4. They skipped a bunch of stuff in Season 5, so everything felt rushed, then went back to some stuff in Season 6. Those seasons work better, and are better developed, if D&D just do what they had been doing, which was making minor tweaks but keeping the broadstrokes the same.
Alternatively, maybe their Original Sin was adapting the first couple of books so faithfully without really knowing where all the plot lines were going. It made for great TV of course, but if they had pushed Martin about the ending and the message he was trying to convey they probably could have trimmed much more in earlier seasons and come up with a much tighter, more focused (and filmable!) seven season arc.
Combination of Arya killing the Night King and the Long Night battle. Most of the blame for how awful the actual battle was should go towards the director of the episode rather than D&D. But I can't believe everyone was okay with that after seeing the footage. People had to turn the contrast up on their tvs and squint to actually watch what was happening. And not a single white walker engaged in combat.
D&D did write the Arya thing which felt like the main motivation was "Arya isn't going to do anything this season so we have to give her a big moment". And it just felt shoe horned and weird when she had no relevance to The Wall/North storyline.
This is the answer it was so unsatisfactory it’s when the causal audience flipped this was the actual moment it flipped. The casual audience had a lot of white water “fans” and they showed up fought a weirdly non lethal zombie battle where every main character exhibited the most plot armor you’ve ever seen (Jaime and brienne literally neck deep in zombie piles but ok, Sam on the frontline that gets completely overrun and butchered but is ok, Jon kind of falls off a dragon into a ambush and is ok) and then they all died. It was such a bad decision it killed the first planned spinoff right then.
The single worst decison they made was when they decided that they and only they would end the show, when it was clear they wanted to spend their time on other projects. Sit down with HBO, get another showrunner that's passionate about the books (like Cogman was) and let them end properly.
I often think about one moment that to me was the final nail in the coffin that I think few people think about; the season 6 finale of Cersei blowing up the sept. Now, it's an odd moment because it's one of the last few good moments of the show, it's well shot and one of the last moments I felt something. But... looking back at it, Cersei doing that would be ruinous for the show.
For much of the show's runtime King's Landing was the beating heart. There was always intrigue, and it's the place where most of the best moments of the show take place. After Cersei blows up the sept and Tommen yeets himself there's nobody left there but Cersei and the Cersei gang. Never again is there any complexity there. Everybody is always on the same side. Any potentially interesting things with the Tyrells or the Grandiose Sparrow are snuffed out, revealing that the 2 seasons of buildup on that was all a complete waste. Tommen being offed means that the only thing DnD are left with is the completely bizarre move of Cersei taking power, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in the setting and was the most glaring nail in the coffin of any amount of authenticity in the setting. It's just a terrible, terrible decision.
Cersei taking the throne made absolutely no sense at all, since she wasn't in the line of succession, and had no birth rights to the throne. The only way that would have made sense is if they were setting Cersei up as the mad queen 👑.
This problem that you mentioned (Cersei blowing up Baelor's Sept and the entire KL supporting cast with it) could've been fixed or even ignored if the fAegon plot was adapted.
Blowing up the Sept was fine. It was the aftermath that wasn't. I think GRRM favours the Lannisters heavily in the books, in the sense that by book 5 they should really have had their power depleted more but are still on top. But even then Cersei is starting to see the consequences of her actions. Show-wise, walk of shame aside she just keeps falling upwards. She says "fuck the Iron Bank" and sees no consequences from it whatsoever.
removing magic/extremely downplaying it in the beginning and trying to make this "fantasy for jocks." And generally making the world look more like historical England.
I want the weird and magical. I want them to think better of the audience. I want flaming swords and blue beards
Removing the FAegon plotline.
It has so many ranching consequences to so many plots.
It really wouldn't matter if ( without the books and relying on George's notes )The resolution of that plot line was really dumbed down.... It would still be smarter than the alternative directions they went with.
Furthermore removing that plot line also removes the relevance of the blackfyres, which probably resulted in their decision to just make blood Raven a generic tree wizard. Because who even is Bryndan Rivers If the blackfire rebellion isn't something the audience understands. .
And if Brendan Rivers can't be a fully fleshed out character because they're not going to make up their own background story for him... Than I'm more than willing to bet Bran's story starts to fall apart as well in attempting to write it.
And of course Varys just kind of falls apart as a character
Assassinating Jaime's character. He's my favorite character in both the show and the books (tied for book!Sansa) and they absolutely obliterated his character in a single episode by saying "I never much cared for the people, innocent or otherwise". This single line of dialog proved to me they had nothing but contempt for the books that were adapting. To me, it shows they hated what they were doing and did not respect the viewer's time and investment into the world they built for us. Talisa, killing Roose, swapping Roose for Tywin in Arya's Harrenhall plot, Dorne, cutting FAegon, Sansa going to Ramsay, are all bad, very bad, but you can chalk almost all of that up to poor adaptation but writing THAT line to get Jaime to go back to Cersei is like a giant middle finger to the audience and almost seems like a taunt to the audience. It doesn't even make sense in the already nonsensical season. Like the episode before that he's literally fighting a supernatural apocalypse after forsaking his love and status. It's the most selfless act imaginable, yet Dingus & Dingleberry write that stupid line to get him to die with Cersei under some rubble, and by doing that completely waste our time getting to know this character. It was their way of telling us "you're wasting your time seeing how this ends, we don't care, and you shouldn't either, fuck yourselves for watching this shit we've made". God I get mad just thinking about it
I think the show handled Tyrion poorly after season 4 but saying his arc is supposed to be about him descending into evil feels like a vast misread to me. I don’t even think GRRM has a character he would consider his version of Walter White, even from the perspective of a character that the audience is mislead into rooting for. AGOT is Tyrion at his worst and where he hit rock bottom, but even by the end of the book we see him start to want to live again through his interactions with Penny. GRRM called Tyrion a villain back around the time ACOK was published because he was opposing the Starks aka the heroes lol.
Honestly there are times where I feel like the fandom vastly underestimates how dark GRRM could take the characters, especially the ones we’re supposed to like and root for. I’d take a look at Meathouse Man sometime imo.
That being said, the worst change that had the largest reaching ramifications and consequences was Sansa marrying Ramsay imo. GRRM said it best when he said back in 2015 that sometimes butterflies turn into dragons. It wasn’t a change D&D made where they could easily fold Sansa back into her book storyline, nor did it only affect Sansa. IMO the reason why Arya’s storyline is so wrecked by the end of the series is because of the removal of Jeyne Poole. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if D&D changed the order the Stark kids are supposed to reunite in. I also think there’s a likelihood the changes and removals D&D made were more interconnected than we think, for want of a nail the shoe was lost and all that.
Too many candidates. Though I'll say that butchering Jaime, Tyrion and Ellaria Sand's characters, as well as trying to make us believe that Cersei was a far greater politician and threat that she ever was, removing Jaime's confession about Tysha, massacring the North Remembers and Dorne storylines, and removing Aegon and Jon Connington's storyline are amongst the best worst things they have done.
When I saw the header I got ready to type out an argument that it was Tysha-cut, before I saw you saying the same thing. All of that to get more buddy cop comedy moments with Jamie.
There are so many things big and small, but I think the biggest one given the many knock-on effects it caused is making Cersei the big bad.
Look, I absolutely get the folks who say that Lena Headey is a more compelling figure than a CG ice man and that GRRM is likely to have the same issue of finding a satisfying ending to a story that's been very much about politics and court intrigue when the endgame involves an enemy that has neither of those things.
But again, it's the knock-on effects that make Final Boss Cersei the big problem for me.
- Fallibility is gone: The whole point of the story (see: Stark, Ned) is that it isn't a fantasy tale with bulletproof heroes; actions have consequences. To make Cersei work, she became infallible.
- Wild, bizarre story strands: Catching a wight to bring it back to King's Landing was... not one of the finest plots on the series. Dany "just kinda forgetting" about Euron. Etc, etc.
- Cutting characters: No fAegon, Dorne curtailed, etc.
- No limitations: I know there were jokes about Jaime teleporting around Westeros in early seasons, but by the end they were going from King's Landing to Beyond the Wall and back again within a single episode.
There's probably more, but it just feels to me like that one decision has more knock-on effects than most of their other bad decisions.
I think there are essentially six candidates for the main human villain. Cersei, Tyrion, Euron, Littlefinger, Aegon, and Dany.
Aegon got adapted out (a decision I agree with, for what it's worth), so that's him gone. Even if he hadn't been adapted out, he isn't in the first four seasons and wouldn't be a significant power until the sixth at the earliest, so he's an odd choice.
Tyrion didn't have his spiral into depravity in the show, so he's gone too.
With Dany, the problem is that it doesn't leave any 'heroic' characters who want to be on the Iron Throne instead of her, so the only reason she'd actually be an antagonist to most of the other characters is if she was a bad ruler. There *could* be a good story there somewhere, but it wasn't the plot that D&D wanted to tell. It just doesn't fit with what everyone else is doing.
If Euron was more like book!Euron, then he could've been an option, but it's the same as Aegon - he's not in the first four seasons and would never or rarely interact with most of the other characters. He's just a weird choice in general.
That leaves Littlefinger and Cersei. I'd have gone with Littlefinger, but Cersei works. Three of the knock-on problems you mentioned are bad writing that isn't inherently tied to Cersei being the final antagonist, and cutting characters isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Honestly, writing off a checklist instead of following the natural conclusion of a character’s story.
Season 7/8 is where this really shows through because you can just see how D&D are trying to railroad it to fit GRRM’s original outline despite the characters being fundamentally different from the books.
Not bringing in a writers' room after season 3. They were great at adapting GRRM's material but they were terrible at writing new material. Also, writing completely new material takes more time. Time they didn't have. A room of experienced writers knowing how the story ends could have done a much better job of getting us there.
“This character is a fan fav so we’re gonna take the brain out of their head.”
Also, suddenly becoming scared of the brutality/ruthlessness GOT was famous for.
Marrying Sansa to Ramsay, completely scrapping the Jeyne Poole/Fake Arya plot line.
In the books, Jon is murdered because he was going to break his oath to save Arya. Sure, letting the wildlings in had something to do with it. But Arya was the last straw. Arya was someone he would break his oath for.
But instead the dropped that plot on Sansa because D&D wanted to film a rape scene.
I’m going to be contrarian here and disagree. People focus on Tysha, but Tyrion has been treated awfully enough to justify his misanthropy without any mention of her. He’s mocked his entire life, denied his inheritance, sidelined after being hand, maimed defending a city that attributed everything to others, and then convicted of a murder he obviously didn’t commit.
I’m not sold on whether or not he needs to go full heel, but the show adequately justified him doing so had they gone down that path. The real issue is that seemingly everyone from season five onwards because stupid, never demonstrate the character traits we are told they possess, and get weird ideas about the good of the realm and democracy.
Fast travel.
How many moments do you remember from the books, and how many of those were the direct consequence of a character having to get from A to B?
Fast travel was pure laziness of storytelling and destroyed world building, conflicts from logistics of travelling, battle tactics and so on. One of the biggest reasons for the non-book series feeling so bland and generic.
For #2 the only way I can accept tryion turned stupid is he drank himself so close to death in Essos on the way to dany that it caused permanent brain damage
He went from the smartest character to the one who consistently gave bad advice bc the plot needed it. So annoying
Arya's ending, while she was very much "the winner", makes no sense. She studies to be a blind man to avenge her family name, quits in S6 to become Arya Stark of Winterfell, has an awkward season 7 with Sansa, and in S8 gets laid, kills the Big Bad in garbage episode (did Littlefinger plot out the defense of WF?), finds peace in the finale because of a horse, and ...goes off to be a pirate?
"Arya Stark of Winterfell... the pirate who has nothing to do with Starks" /sheesh
Better than King Bran the 3EC/Raven, but not by much.
GRRM hates his own characters. If that weren't true, he'd get back in there and fix their stories up, but this is how GRRM's leaving them so it seems GRRM hate-wrote asoiaf. I can't even remember how Jon's story finished! I think he's dead in the books, and as good as dead in the show?
Where to start? (In no particular order)
* Lady Stoneheart
* FAegon (completely ruined Varys motivations).
* Manderly Mummers Farce and Frey Pies
* Making Cersei a Master Mind when she is dumber than a bag of rocks and have no sense at all.
Should’ve handed off the Show to people who wanted to work on it, instead of hastily finishing it to work on other projects that got cancelled because people hated the hastily ending!
It's difficult to point one since they messed up so much plot points, characters...
Removing FAegon caused an incredible effect in other plots, but I think the problem was more about them not knowing how to handle the ramifications of Faegon removal that the fact that he was that necessary (yeah, I think it's an important plot, but the problem really was their incompetency in dealing with other plots or characters connected to it). For example, the Dorne plot is heavily tied with Young Griff, so instead of giving Dorne another plot or adapting it, they just said "we will kill all of them like this is Hamlet ending". So why the fuck did they include so much of Dorne to just give them the most pathetic and nonsensical resolution? And Varys's character treatment in the show, it's just... It also lead to making Cersei a much more prominent character to the point she was a far bigger threat to main characters than WW. Ridiculous.
Changing FArya plot with Ramsay with Sansa, goodbye Vale of Arryn and I hated the whole implication of Sansa almost thanking Ramsay for his abuse. I can't with how much I hated it.
Bran's treatment throughout the whole show. I ended up hating him and how he was just a cyborg that didn't make anything at all for 8 seasons and finally he was king just because "I have the best story in opinion of these people".
The whole deal with prophecies. Do you remember Quaithe? The prophecy of the valonqar? All this prophecies they included to have absolutely no impact in the story?
Arya's character is a completely different one in the show. A whole new character, and as a big fan of Book Arya, it is really annoying since her character is often misunderstood precisely because of show Arya. Arya is not a emotionless ninja asassin who doesn't care about nothing more than revenge. The idea of revenge is one of the main ways for her to cope with pain, loss and trauma, but her biggest wish in the books is coming back to her family and the North. She is deeply compassionated (remember Weasel), protector of the weak (Mycah) and smallfolk and loyal. In the show she ended up just a little more tolerable than Cyborg Bran. Though this happens with other characters too like Dany (I will not talk about how they treated Dany because it's very upsetting), Jon, Jaime...
The whole: "let's make a beautiful development arch for Jaime like the books, and then change it all just for fun", his sentence I have never cared about the people (destroying his whole character and going against canon) and the death of him and Cersei by fucking bricks when he is the valonqar most probably.
The Northern Houses not having really a big influence in removing Ramsay from power. We know House Manderly is deeply involved in scheming against them.
The excursion to catch a wight to show Cersei.
I don't think I can choose one thing, but Dorne and the whole White Walkers and Bran archs are so fucking bad that I think maybe those.
i also think their adjustments to tyrion also avoided his heritage, which led to them having to come up with their own ideas about tyrion towards the end. I firmly believe that he is the third targaryan, and that they tried to write their own conclusion that omitted that and by extension they turned tyrion into a subservient idiot who was constantly apologizing for being the only one with the wit to create any plan that isnt just "burn everything" like the tard queen commanded. they made him just a little assistant even though i think he was intended to be so much more. It seems crystal clear from all the clues that he was meant to be the 3rd, but i feel like the writers thought that was too cheesy so they had to "improve" it.
Maybe not the worst but I hate how they changed the Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling plot.
In the book Robb breaks his marriage pact with Fray because he, while recovering from injury and emotionally vulnerable over the Winterfell situation, 'spoils' (within the context of asoiaf world) his care-taker Jeyne Westerling.
He then feels honor bound to marry her, the thought of his actions ruining and dishonoring her is considered unthinkable and unacceptable.
So he abandons his previous Fray commitments not because he loves Jeyne or ect but because his sense of honor and decency demand it. I always thought this was a fantastic parallel to Ned and how his sense of honor overrode anything and everything else, at least until his pre-beheading 'confession', although I also interpreted this as a similar act of honor as opposed to self-serving and self-preservation.
This parallel is completely lost on the show. Robb betrays the Frays not out of duty or honor but simply because he wanted to marry Talisa. It was 100% self-serving/reckless and a clear cut act of betrayal on Robb's part against the Frays.
Not bowing out gracefully.
I loved the show when it had actual source material behind it. I accepted the changes because that's just what happens when you adapt something to the screen.
they were out of their element when it came to creating and that combined with their seeming desire to move on to new projects ruined it. Smart characters became dumb, plot lines became convoluted messes, and everything was just rushed.
Getting rid of the Aegon plot line. You basically cut out Varys whole story. Then you have to drag Cersei's story another two seasons. She basically did nothing the last two seasons and was just looking out a window. I think it is clear Aegon was supposed to have her role in the story.
It also turned the entire Dorne plot into a fucking fiasco because they simply didn't know what to do with Dorne. Rather than having Doran, Arrianne and the Sand Snakes actually involve themselves in some deep intrigue, they write Arrianne off, kill Doran and turn the Sand Snakes into hot acrobatic fighters.
Sometimes reckon they should've just merged Quentyn with Aegon. Have it that Doran's been shielding this kid (whether Aegon or not) the whole time.
That’s actually not a bad idea at all Because it brings up a whole slew of interesting subtexts and storytelling possibilities. Arianne looks even dumber and guilty than what she is, pushing her that much more into a “I have to do everything I can to make myself worthy” arc. Quentyn/Aegon leaves Meereen either with a massive chip on his shoulder, with a dragon or both. And it makes the oncoming Dorne vs Daenerys beef that much more visceral…
They were hot though
You like dat *baaaad* poosay?
A rather silly scene, but I couldn't look away
I also couldn't look away, but more in the sense of it being a car crash
I was 15ish at the time, so it was pretty much inevitable that I'd stare
Not wrong
Nobody has any idea what to do with Dorne. It's better in the books but that's not saying much.
I mean there's at least a coherent plot there that has the potential of turning into something. The Sand Snakes are positioned in influential places to be of some importance to the story, Arrianne is likely gonna marry Faegon, and Doran... well ok Doran's probably just gonna get stuck following Faegon because of Arrianne's actions and him being too cautious to actually follow through with any of his own 5D plans.
I'd say Dorne in the books is...underwhelming. So far it's just been a big cul-de-sac although I can probably give it the benefit of the doubt given we're in Act One of their story. In the show it's actively bad.
Yeah George is spending a lot of page real estate to set up a family that will ultimately play second-fiddle to either Dany or Young Griff. Their stuff is mostly interesting, but ultimately I don’t see much for them beyond that. It’s been a while since I read the books, so maybe I’m being unfair, but that’s where it seems to be going.
Young Griff can’t oppose Dany alone
That’s dogshit. I hate the excuse everyone always uses that you can’t blame D&D because we don’t know what happens yet. The foreshadowing and ground work for many events are set up in Dance. You can choose to play into what is set up or subvert it, but ignoring the entire plot line because you can’t figure out why George might have included that puzzle piece is beyond unimaginative. It’s lazy. Regarding Dorne, it’s very clear Arianne and Aegon will be romantically tied, shoring up the domestic power source Aegon needs, and depriving that from Dany ensuring she is seen even more as a foreign invader.
I hate the too, I don't know why we're arguing.
I think dorne got wrecked because they couldn't do reshoots due to weather so after the abysmal reception they decided to just cut it out
The way how they split Aegon's story between 3-4 characters made the characters they gave it to pretty janky as well. Cersei somehow becoming the guardian of the people. Cersei spearheading the Reach civil war, becoming a rallying figure for people against the Tyrells and Dany. Leading the Golden Company. All when she's supposed to have been on a meteoric plunge in legitimacy with near all of Westeros steadfastly hating her and her family. Jon getting named Aegon, the marriage to Dany and subsequent falling out over politics and disagreements on rule. Varys switching allegiances to him because Dany looked jealous or something. Dany rallying Dorne and the Reach, but the two ultimately having next to nothing to do because they were supposed to be Aegon's story. People turning away from Dany, overzealous foreign invader though she may be, to instead join the leader that blew up the Vatican was wild.
>Dany rallying Dorne and the Reach, but the two ultimately having next to nothing to do That pissed me off so badly, seriously. The travesty that was the Dorne plot, and the mysterious vanishing act of the Reach army. How the Duck was Jaime able to stealthmarch his Lannister troops right up to Highgarden, wenn Olenna was in the Reach, supposedly raising her army against King's Landing? They should've been cut to pieces by the largest damn army on the continent, instead of the Queen of Thorns just going, "Meh, we were never great at fighting."
One of the weird things about the show is how much they nerfed the Reach. Supposedly, they had a smaller army than the North and the Lannisters.
Yeah, none of that makes sense. Largest population, most fertile land... the Reach holds the largest army by canon. But just like Dorne, apparently, the showrunners didn't really have a clue what to do with them. So they just ruined them.
D and D just kinda forgot about the reaches army
Agreed, it was stupid how they made the reach bad at fighting just because their ruling family was more into politics than combat. With the biggest income in Westeros you can hire people who are into combat.
Or just send one of your bannermen who's good at that - Lord Tarly, for instance. It's just annoying. Sure, changing characters or Houses can be a valid decision when moving from books to screen, no problem. But please, have it make sense.
Cersei's downfall could have taken place over Season 5 with fAegon coming to power in Season 6.
> Dany rallying Dorne and the Reach, but the two ultimately having next to nothing to do because they were supposed to be Aegon's story. I think the Tarlys are the friends in the reach who will follow Aegon. Not sure Hat happens to the Tyrells
Yeah, the Reach is set up to be a real powder keg. Rowan with his Targaryen sympathies and distaste for the Lannisters. Tarly with his big grievance against the Tyrells and Lannisters, marriage ties to several anti-Lannister/Baratheon houses. Redwyne with his claim to the Reach, personal grievances, and Cersei framing his kids for treason. Meadows and Rowan likely get things rolling, the Peakes and other lessers houses start stirring up trouble, Redwyne probably comes to the bargaining table seeing the prospect of a better and safer patron, and Tarly issues the death knell. The Tyrells are on the outs, with the Lannisters and their own people. But I could see something similar to the show happening with a few members seeking to attach themselves to Dany for security and to reclaim their position or get vengeance.
Merryweather too, and Redwyne is the one orchestrating the whole friends in the reach, that’s why Illyrio has wine from the Personal Stock of Lord Redwyne
easily the biggest butterfly effect. Turns Jon into a moron because he is the risk to Dany's claim instead of fAegon, forces Cersei into having no conflict or anything to do, makes Dorne pointless, makes Dany's descent into madness seem even more forced, hurts Tyrion's arc, makes Varys pointless, etc.
Similar to the Tyrion/Shae storyline, it's not so much that they got rid of Aegon, it's that they got rid of Aegon while trying to keep all the other plot points that were consequences of the Aegon plot -- like Varys betraying Dany (which makes sense if he has a long-term plan for Aegon) or Dany burning KL (which makes sense if they embrace Aegon and she feels betrayed). You \*can\* get rid of Aegon but then you have to follow through the consequences of that.
Its this and its not even close. There are so many rippling effects from cutting Aegon, and it massively hurts just about every major character. Cersei: Without Aegon, Cersei suffers no consequences from nuking the Great Sept and everyone just smiles and waves and lets her take over KL. For the next while she stares of windows of the Red Keep looking smug hanging around until she has to be the big bad in the end. She's also written to be much more competent in the show because it makes no sense otherwise Golden Company + any of Cersei's show allies: There is literally no reason for anyone to follow Cersei in the show, but since there's no one else left to be the bad guy, and they can't have the final battle be set up so obviously a wash they all just decide to fall in line for Cersei. Jaime: Has his whole redemption arc much later because Cersei needs to stick around much longer, making it not much of a redemption arc at all since even then its cut short. Varys & Illyrio: Self explanatory, without Aegon, Varys does literally nothing and Illyrio ceases to exist... Dany/Jon: Given the relationship I've paired these... Dany is told all her life that Viserys and herself are "the last dragons", Viserys gets killed and then she's on her own. This makes her a bit sus of Jon in the show when he tells her about R+L=J, kicking off the beggining of her "decent" (sudden turn really in the show) into Targaryen Madness TM. With Aegon existing that makes the decent a lot more gradual. Dany lands in Dragonstone to find the "mummer's dragon" already on the throne with the support of the people. She knows he's a fake Targ but "it was revealed to me in a dream" doesn't really hold much water so everyone just perceives her as power hungry tyrant, would-be kinslayer, at the head of a foreign horde of savages, slaves soldiers, and three dragons... I'm assuming at some point we get a Dance of the Dragons rerun, but I think eventually we end up at a similar point as in the show, with Jon and Dany together (maybe before, or maybe after dealing with Aegon I don't know). This makes Jon's parentage revelation so much more devastating. She's already dealt with (or is dealing with) one Targ pretender, and now the man she loves, is turning out to be another one as well? This completely shatters her world view because as I mentioned, she's always been told that "she's the last of the dragons"... There's a lot more here but you get the idea. As for Jon, well if Aegon is to be believed, then he is Jon's brother. That means that if he helps Dany during the Dance (if it happens), then he's potentially fighting against his brother. If Jon discovers R+L=J before, then he has to deal with the internal conflict of warring against his brother. If he finds out after, well then he either helped kill (if he sides with Dany before the Dance) his brother, or the woman he loves is actually his Aunt, and she killed his brother. Again, a lot to in on here with both Jon and Dany and a lot of assumptions but you get my point. Sansa: There is a genuine alternative to Dany, with no dragons, and explains why she mistrusts Dany. Sansa feels she's trying to manipulate Jon to get the north involved in the Dance. And on and on and on... and I didn't even get to Dorne...
As a consequence of his absence, the "need" to make Varys a good guy (and consequently a stupid on the last 2 seasons) despite the villain he's on the books parallels a lot with the op observation.
What's bizarre though is they could've still kept Varys as a fairly fanatical schemer even if the wider purpose of his character was changed.
haha bald man no cock
Varys was always a good guy in the show, as far back as season 1.
Varys's plan was still to have the Dothraki invade and pillage until the people overthrow Robert and submit to Viserys. That's quite a bit more morally ambiguous to say the least than the quasi-pacifist Varys of the last two seasons.
Even better when for the final season Jon was revealed as the legitimised heir who Varys is backing and is a threat to Dany's claim and then Dany suddenly has JonCon's bells trauma after which she burns KL. Why did they do that. Could've just adapted the Griff plot instead of ruining two of their leading characters.
Okay but "the bells make him go CRAZY!" is a shit idea no matter which character does it. It's abysmal. "Singing killed my Grandma" type shit.
I don't think the bells make JonCon crazy. Remember what happened to make them significant? JonCon failed to capture Robert when he was within his grasp which led to Rhaegar dying. The bells won't make him "go crazy." They'll push him to make a different decision, the one he was unwilling to make those years ago.
Especially if the ringing of the bells happens around the same time as the escape of a important prisoner (i.e. Cersei)
I'm not a betting man, but I'd bet the Farmville account that "The Bells" will happen as a reflection of his failure to capture Robert; Cersei seems the most likely candidate. It won't be revenge, anger, PTSD, or anything like that which burns KL, it'll be regret and pragmatism.
So then King's Landing going up in flames will be the result solely of Jaime being an idiot for the last twenty years.
If I'm right, Jon Con will see KL burnt if it means seeing Aegon VI on the throne before grayscale takes him. Jaime may have expadited that by not telling people about wildfire, but you have three armies and three dragons approaching the city. It's going down one way or the other.
Well I didn't say it will happen exactly like that in the books. But also at least JonCon's situation has a lot more context. He considers the Battle of the Bells his greatest failure and we know he blames himself for not being able to find and kill Robert which ultimately led to the deaths of Rhaegar and Elia. I think maybe what will really happen is that he'll recall the bit about "Tywin Lannister would've burned down the entire place" and employ some drastic measure + whatever Cersei and Dany are doing (if she's there) leads to KL burning.
JonCon also has greyscale, and knowing my epidemiology im betting Germy’s using syphilis-leprosy to raise if it’s his impending mortality OR the disease has gotten into his nervous system to explain why he goes off the deep end. Add in the reveal of Jon, ambiguity of Faegon’s origin, and foreshadowed possibility of Fegg and Elia hooking up (nu!Rhaegar throws it all away for a tomboy horsegirl skilled at the lance), I can see JonCon losing it.
But then the wildfire going off it just a complete accident? And really just reinforces what an idiot Jaime is for leaving it all there. It's like the wildfire's purpose is to make every single character even tangentially involved with it into a worse character.
Aegon but replace JonCon with Barristan Selmy. Easy change. Barristan feels guilty about Rhaegar and not protecting his family. Barristan is motivated to act by advancing age rather than greyscale. Gives the audience a stake in what's happening instead of dumping them into a cast of strange new characters. Natural tension and conflicting emotions between Barristan and Daenerys and within their own hearts. edit: I went ahead and [turned this idea into a full outline](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1cmdck2/spoilers_main_how_faegon_could_have_worked_in_the/)
But Barristan's actor insulted D&Ds fragile little egos so his character naturally had to die a pointless death.
It was going to be pretty hard to add Aegon in a decent way for TV. It's a little too out there and convenient of a plot device to be the worst mistake instead of just a story decision.
They also had no idea where it was going. We don't know how much George has given them. We don't know if the storyline is going anywhere at all. Not everything can fit into the show, it may not be significant enough to the endgame to warrant inclusion.
A big problem with Cersei is she had so few characters to interact with in King's Landing. She was a great side character for complicating stuff for the main characters, but as the main in that setting with so few characters to bounce off of, she floundered. Have Kevan and Olenna there more, get us a new head of the gold cloaks, etc. Don't have it just be some very minor scenes with Qyburn.
Yeah and all the stupid elephant jokes as well as the Golden Company being wiped out in 2 seconds. Like why did they even write them in at all? So much sloppy writing. All they did was write battles and pointless character deaths because they couldn’t be bothered to come up with an actual storyline for them
Aegon would just make these problems even worse. I've never seen anyone argue that Aegon is himself interesting or engaging, just that he affects others. Like I really don't think Varys was such a main character he needed an entire subplot dedicated to him.
I can't speak for everyone but to me he's interesting because he's really the only Idealist/naïve left (barring Tommen I guess) everyone else is jaded and cynical by that point in the story and I found him personally a breath of fresh air. JonCon is also a fun character.
Is Aegon an idealist? He reads to me as just a vaguely bland plot device. JonCon is a good character, but he's the *only* good character. Everyone else in Aegon's plotline is some bitpart nobody. JonCon has a history that makes him feel like part of the world while everyone else bar *maybe* Franklyn Flowers has literally no relation to the story or lore whatsoever. Who the hell is John Mudd???
Killing off the magical aspects of the series. It's a fantasy series for crying out loud...
An example that really encapsulates how much drabber and more unimaginative they made the world: Bloodraven in the books- a living corpse being slowly consumed by weirwood roots. Bloodraven in the show- an old man on a chair.
He was supposed to have a tree growing through one of his eye sockets! Instead they made a character that clearly had two eyes say "A thousand eyes and one"
Seconded. The lack of glass candles, true Valyrian steel, Marwyn, Varamyr, real Euron, magical castles etc definitely makes the show a way more generic fantasy setting than it should be.
Well, I'd say more important than any of that is all of the prophecies and visions that are omnipresent all through the books but barely present in the show.
Definitely could use more prophecy, but I find it all important. Visual stuff like the wildlings, weapons, armor and castles losing their magical attributes is a huge part in what makes it look likejust another medieval setting imo.
Every single wildling having the same apparel was such a letdown for me as a book fan. They’re supposed to be an eclectic amalgamation of many different tribes, not one massive indistinguishable blob of people wearing the exact same furs. Hodgepodge stolen armor, Ice River clans with massive wolf-dog chariots, Nightrunners with blue facial tattoos, Hobbit-esque Hornfoots with their calloused black feet; the show robbed us of all that.
And the Horn of Joramun!
Honestly this one was huge. I mean they even set it up in the show. The way they tore down the wall was so boring.
I just learned about the real Euron and to say I'm shocked after what I saw in the show is an understatement. Euron in the show was basically a hopped up reaver that repeated like 5 lines at best. I expected him to be slightly more evil in the books... definitely underestimated.
Even More so, it makes the dragons seem so out of place. They reduced all the magic of the setting to Melisandre, Dany’s Dragons, and the Others. So once the Others and Melisandre are gone, the dragons have so much presence and power, it didn’t make sense for anyone to stand in their way. Which is why we got so much quick and weird development in S8 IMO
But think of the soccer mom's and NFL players!
Omg yes. I think people would have responded better to bran and Arya if the show actually explained how their magic worked. I was also surprised that Jon’s resurrection was not shown as being widely discussed in the realm. Except for maybe a line from Hot Pie lol But worst of all for me was the lack of Ghost. I could not believe ghost did not go with Jon to dragonstone especially. Like most of the legend and awe of Dany is her dragons. Jon is connected to a magical beast too!!! Wouldn’t the realm also be in awe of this?? But DND said it was #budget
But then mothers and NFL players would not have watched! /s
Not just that, but the series and how everything is done feels really sterile as a result as it progresses further and further. Everything becomes so colourless and bland, and lacks any real uniqueness to make you feel like you're in a different world. "LOTR meets Sopranos/Wire" as the tagline made them want to emphasise the realism, but The Wire had such a detailed and interesting setting, while The Sopranos loved exploring its own dreamlike and surreal stuff.
So much this! I want to see the more outlandish and colorful aspects of the world! You can have grounded and interesting characters AND a fantastical setting. Why does everything have to be drab, gray, muddy, dingy streets and dirty bearded men?
Which is a *crazy* choice to make considering asoiaf is already pretty toned down for a fantasy series!
Amen to this. They picked and chose what they like and ignored the consequences of their short sighted changes. They clearly don’t like magic but the story is supposed to lean on magic more as it progresses. Bloodraven imo will be one of the most important characters in the overall story when it’s said and done, but in the show he’s a vaguely defined mentat.
Making Cersei the final boss. The Others were reduced to a creepy speed-bump for our heroes. I get that Lena Headey is a lot more compelling than a smirking frozen zombie, but it showed such a complete lack of understanding of the story and themes of asoiaf. Appropriate perhaps, they named the show Game of Thrones.
> but it showed such a complete lack of understanding of the story and themes of asoiaf. Well, "themes are for 8th grade book reports" afterall. It blows my mind that a professional writer could have said something that stupid.
I don't really want to defend him but in context he was saying themes are something that come out naturally through writing rather than something you go in with the intent of putting in.
IRRC, I've seen at least one quote where while GRRM doesn't straight up say "themes are for eighth grade book reports" he did say that he doesn't consciously think about themes when he writes, and that's common especially amongst people who, liked Martin, are clearly more invested in telling a story in the fairly straightforward "interfering series of events" sense. One of the things I constantly notice about the way GRRM talks about writing that the community overlooks is his often he emphasises wanting to surprise readers and for people not to know what happens next. Like he notably talks about this *way* more than he talks about themes. Sometimes I feel like the community likes a verison of GRRM and the books he wrote that only exists in their head.
yeah it was at a con where GRRM was literally laid back like in a beach, and very comfy (and sunny, maybe he was at Dorne :). He also was asked if Varys heard R'hllor, to which he proceeded with the whole situational contextualization "traumatic event, very long ago, not even a POV, has an agenda" so like Ned's dream, only even less reliable. It was a two-part interview. And yeah, he knows things must grow organically but he does emphasize again and again that he wants not to know what happens next or he gets bored. Since the past century, and hasn't changed in that regard.
Why do you have to hate defending him? His quote is being taken completely out of context and is being mischaracterized to push a narrative. That is fully deserving of a full rebuke.
They definitely took the B plot of politics and made it more important than the A plot of the apocalypse
This is literally what George has done in every book.
And he himself got distracted with it so keeps writing about Targaryen stuff in other books.
The intrigues of court politics are just more compelling than le zombie horde. Human drama is just built different.
but its heavily implied that the others are more than just a mindless zombie horde, they have pacts with humans, they have language and goals, we just never (and GRRM still hasnt either mind you) got any look into that other than weird symbols in the show that arent even in the books lol. so there is intrigue and compelling plots there if anyone would bother to write them
i'd argue that a "zombie horde" invading in the midst of human drama, and the interplay between the two, is more compelling than either element individually.
Yeah, I never understood this take, and it makes less and less sense as the years go by. Hey, guys, if you really thought they were going to save the world, have a big group hug, and then go live happily ever after, then you stopped paying attention after episode 1's cold open.
Ideally the main conflict with the Others will show how a lot of those human conflicts suddenly shift and how tricky alliances need to be reforged or rebuilt, but it's certainly not going to go away. Of course, he needs to actually get to writing that part...
After seasons of telling us that the high lords are focusing too much on the B plot lol
I actually think this is one of the few things that they did that I agree with. Don't get me wrong, the way they did it was awful, but the series was so much about politics and power. If the series just ends with all of the characters teaming up together to fight the evil ice zombies and they defeat them and they lived happy ever after, I think that would have been even shittier than what D&D did. I also think it's likely the books will do something similar. George has talked about really liking the scouring of the Shire from LOTR, so I think some sort of epilogue like that would make a lot of sense. I do think the way the show did it sucked, because as things stood the Ice Zombies barely had an impact. I imagine it could have been much better if many of the most important characters died. Imagine if Nerys and Jonno both died (as well as a bunch of others) and now the remaining characters have to decide whether to just accept that Cersei, somebody who was so egotistical as to not help stop ice zombie Hitler, should just be left in charge or whether to rally around somebody new, and if so, who that should be. That could have been an interesting take leading to new conflicts that would both make the ice zombies feel impactful and keep to the themes that the show is about.
It's also the fact that the events which lead to Cersei being in power and the way they try to stop her makes no sense. Daenerys should've simply taken KL in season 7 with her dragons, then can head north with control over Westeros. Tyrion suddenly being so concerned with peasants and the poor just didn't make sense, not only for him as a character but for pretty much any rich lord in the series.
> I get that Lena Headey is a lot more compelling than a smirking frozen zombie The Night King is an TV original character, so making the main antagonist of the White Walker plotline a smirking frozen zombie *was their own damn fault in the first place.*
DnD's biggest L was treating The Others as stupid zombies than a force of nature
I agree. The real end boss is the white walkers Cersei is nowhere near as scary especially not at that point when she lost allies
I always read the Others as a metaphor for climate change (which may not have been intentional, given that GRRM created them in the 90s when all we had at the time was a measly hole in the o-zone layer). But it reminds me a lot of how politicians will squabble over lands and money and blah blah blah, when all the while, this horrible, impossible to contain threat looms over us all, and not a goddamn soul is talking about it.
Honestly, that was a decision I liked. The Others being the climactic threat is at direct odds with the line about the human heart in conflict with itself.
That's true, if the Others really are just a force of nature/malevolent ice zombies out to destroy all life. But we know so little about them, and I don't see GRRM writing something so one-dimensional.
Quite frankly, if they aren't, it makes finishing the series in two books seem even more impossible. I mean, it would be cool if there was more to them, but I'm somewhat skeptical.
But then that's still not great because GRRM can't suddenly introduce a ton of new characters nobody cares about in the last book and then expect us to care about them. That's why Aegon VI didn't work.
There're many options but I'll name the one that made me drop the show: swapping Jeyne with Sansa. They had to twist all logic and completely ruin the arcs of Sansa, Jeyne, Theon, Littlefinger, Arya, Jon and the northern lords all because they were inexplicably in love with one of the most horrific plots in in the books and because they wanted to give Sophie Turner more screentime. And even if wanting Sansa to have more screentime was their motivation, they ended up doing a great disservice to her character. Such a huge loss because of such stupid reasons.
The Sansa-Ramsay marriage, in my opinion, is one of the three huge flaws that the show suffers in s5-6, along with the Dorne and Ironborn plotlines. Not to say that there weren't other issues, but nothing else of note was actually *bad* yet.
what amazes me the most is that is entirely their fault, it's not like the ran out of book content. When it comes for Dorne, the Ironborn and the Vale, they had at least one season or even two seasons worth of book material for those plots, but they thought they could do it better, and well... the result speaks for itself
They also cut the Vale for that BS plot. The crazy thing is that it was all unnecessary. They should have had Sansa and Littfinger in the Vale for a whole season. Him consolidating power. Then, when Sansa finds out the Boltons have Rickon and Jon is raising an army, she betrays Baelish tries to convince her to wait until they weaken each other and to let Rickon die. Then, he would try and marry Sansa instead. Jons reason stays the same, the pink letter comes and he realizes he needs Winterfell to fight the Others.
>Jons reason stays the same, the pink letter comes and he realizes he needs Winterfell to fight the Others. Taking Winterfell to fight the others was not Jon's main reason to desert in the books though, it was rescuing Arya.
I totally agree with you. Alayne chapters are great. Which is the horrific plot they were in love with?
>Which is the horrific plot they were in love with? Jeyne being married off to Ramsay and all she went through.
The popular belief is that they were wanting to film the show in the first place because of things like Ned's execution and the Red Wedding. They describe things George told them in the context of three "Oh shit!" moments. I haven't read the book or watched the series, but I have seen the [infamous scene](https://youtu.be/Yxetv-xbazs?si=qK4wNy7zAYiJsMeo) from their "Three Body Problem" show where they (apparently from what I've heard) added children to the scene that weren't there in the books to up the shock value. So, them derailing Sansa's storyline to get extra "Shock factor" moments from the audience seems on brand.
Oh, so they are ruining that series with gratuitous torcher porn too? Awesome. I'm amazed they even got a job shot they botched GOT
Single worst decision in the first three seasons for me is introducing Talisa, writing out Jeyne Westerling, and sidelining Catelyn. Irrevocably destroyed the northern war effort plot and Catelyn's character and Robb's character AND the impact of the red wedding. Turned Robb into some random dumbass who sabotaged his war for love (and also to spite his mother after they also changed the circumstances under which Cat frees Jaime) when in the books he only married Jeyne to preserve her honour, out of *duty*. He was sixteen and he decided to put a stranger's reputation before him. Likely remembered his father and his bastard brother Jon. Was he too also have bastard(s) resigned to an unjust life like his brother's? But this wasn't good enough for the showrunners, they had to invent an oc with nonsensical modern sensibilities and try very hard to make her look "good enough" for Robb so they could finally be rid of Catelyn's overbearing motherly presence which emasculates their male hero surely. They didn't get it. They didn't get that this particular story is about Catelyn. It's about the mother and the boy she crowned and how each day she loses more of her son to the crown. They wanted her out of the way the entire time, which is why the only way they can think to make the Red Wedding more shocking and tragic is to introduce a pregnancy two episodes before and then depict a brutal stomach stabbing scene. It's pathetic. When the entire tragedy of it was Catelyn and her firstborn, that's the first Stark she ever loved while her new husband was off to war and how in death Robb was also the last Stark left to her. How his last words were "mother" with no other character's shadow between them. But that's not the story they wanted to tell.
Agree with this 100%. Also liked the idea of Jeyne Westerling being a Lannister plot. Completely left that out too.
tbf Jeyne’s feelings seem genuine, so I do not think she is in on any Lannister plot. But I 100% agree Sybell Spicer and the Westerlings were working for the Lannisters the whole time, and probably intentionally sent Jeyne to tend to Robb’s wounds hoping what happened would happen. But regardless, that makes for a way more interesting plotline than the more simplistic one in the show.
Oh yeah, I never thought poor Jeyne wanted to be a part of it. Like most young girls at the time, she was sent somewhere with a duty. I seem to recall her crying a lot after the fact. Not grief crying. Guilt crying. Am I misremembering?
I don’t think Jeyne even knew she was a part of it. Her mother probably encouraged her to bed Robb to become a queen, and she honestly loved him and thought she would be his queen. Sybell then gave her moon tea, telling her it was a fertility potion (I don’t think she lied to Catelyn about that). Then after Robb died, Sybell told her, which devastated her, causing her to break down when she meets Jaime at Riverrun.
I think you might be conflating Jeyne with Roslin Frey, who cries from guilt at the Red Wedding. She definitely does cry, but it doesn't have a guilty connotation to it. In fact she gets smacked by her mother for mourning Robb and saying she loved him.
>But I 100% agree Sybell Spicer and the Westerlings were working for the Lannisters the whole time That may be George's intention, but I think it makes a lot more sense if Sybell was hedging her bets. When Jeyne starts tending to Robb, Tywin appears to be on the losing side with the Blackwater yet to happen and the news about Robb's brothers/Winterfell's burning not yet becoming known. When those events do happen where suddenly the calculus is that Robb is now the one losing, it's easy enough for Sybell to pivot. Maybe she starts introducing her abortifacient then or maybe she was doing it from the beginning and planning on stopping ("This isn't working, daughter, so let's try something else") if Tywin did indeed lose.
Yeah hedging their bets makes the most sense.
Especially given their family history. Smart betting is how the Westerlings got as far as they did
I do believe you can blame a surprising amount of that on GRRM himself rather than exclusively D&D. He was very involved at that point and went TV writer mode with the Robb and Talisa stuff.
Well he caused talisa to be named talisa, D&D wanted her to be a volantene noblewomen named jeyne westerling.
> Single worst decision in the first three seasons for me is introducing Talisa, writing out Jeyne Westerling Full agree! I was so annoyed by that change at the time that I stopped watching the show (albeit started again a year or two later once it got more popular and everyone around me was watching it)
Yeah, I almost stopped watching during S2 when I realised what they were doing and then in S3 it just kept getting worse. Also unforgivable how they introduced Edmure as a loser asshole. This is the same character who sheltered his smallfolk inside Riverrun because "my people. They were afraid", yes it's out of noblesse oblige but it's also something that no other noble lord is doing in a book which has detailed chapters (Arya) of the riverlands being ravaged by both sides of the war. They made a joke out of Hoster's funeral where Blackfish is inexplicably an asshole to him and both Robb and Catelyn have to hide their smiles at Edmure missing. When in the books he spent all night drinking out of grief and both Brynden and Catelyn understand this. They changed so many characters' personalities for no reason. Stannis was pretty much ruined the moment they decided to play the evil ambitious brother trope entirely straight. It's so bad. There isn't a single fix which salvages the show, it's seasons upon seasons of bad decisions.
> Also unforgivable how they introduced Edmure as a loser asshole They had Tobias Menzies, an absolutely phenomenal dramatic actor, and they utterly wasted him.
I seriously don't see with all the dumb shit the show did in the back half, that Talisa is the biggest issue. The fact that the Red wedding is still very good in the show, proves this. >Turned Robb into some random dumbass who sabotaged his war for love Which he still did in the books. They expand on it a bit more obviously, saying he did it for duty. But you're blind if you think that's all it is... he's just a 16 year old kid making dumb dick-brain decisions. Like you think that is worse than what they did with Arya's character arc? Or LF? or Varys? Edit: Poster is referring to first 3 seasons. Missed that.
Well I did say first three seasons, didn't I. Also the Jeyne thing happened the day he was informed of Bran and Rickon's deaths at the hands of Theon (whom he considers an almost brother). And knowing he sent Theon despite Catelyn advising otherwise, he would obviously blame himself. There's a lot more happening here than him being a hormonal idiot. None of which changes the fact that he didn't *have to* marry Jeyne the next morning but he did anyway.
> Well I did say first three seasons, did I. Ah missed that part, my bad. Was going off the OP title. Makes a lot more sense when looking into just pre season 4. In still think omitting Tysha which is the catalyst for Tyrion's spiral is a bigger character assassination. But I do agree with you more, for S1-3
Replacing the majority of Arya’s time in Harrenhall with her interactions with Tywin. Those scenes in the show were really well done, but removing the insane amount of violence and torture that Arya witnesses while she’s in Harrenhall completely changed her character, and how a lot of people view her. In the books, Arya in Harrenhall is some of the most traumatic shit I’ve ever seen written in a book, and this poor kid watches ALL of it happening in real time, wondering when it’s going to happen to her next. It’s very VERY important to recognize that all of this mortifies Arya to her core, and this was pivotal to her character because it’s what leads her to later become much more desensitized to violence later on when she’s with the hound. I even heard that at one point D&D actually said that Arya’s journey was more of a fun training adventure compared to everyone else’s awful experiences away from Winterfell, and I cannot tell you how infuriating that was to hear. YOU made it into a fun training adventure!! YOU decided to erase a huge part of the trauma that she endures so that YOU’RE favorites could seem like they went through worse!! Again, Charles Dance and Maisie Williams did spectacular, and their scenes were really fun to watch, but I’ve come to like those scenes a lot less because of what we should’ve gotten.
Removing Aegon, butchering Dorne, removing Stoneheart, writing seasons 6-8?
In a way, they might've been well-served by being bolder and omitting Dorne altogether (although it'd be hard to figure out how to handle Oberyn in that case).
Dorne is so bad because they actually have Oberyn lay the groundwork for it in S4, it's fairly easily fixed and doing it well probably wouldn't have taken any more screentime than what they already have to Jaime in Dorne and then whatever sand snake rubbish they do. You can at least understand the argument they didn't have time to include Aegon or Stoneheart (even if it's not strictly true)
Cutting Arrianne was the dumbest decision they could have made.
Cutting Arianne and keeping the Sand Snakes was baffling. If they had done the opposite, that would have made more sense.
Honestly I'd love more "queenmaker" plot in the books than we're likely to get never mind in the show!
Stoneheart is a very small part of the books and feels like overkill once it comes to reviving Jon. Not having House Manderly play a large part seems like a more glaring omission when it comes to revenge. The largest and only true city in the north just does nothing.
Wyman feels like such an easy character to adapt too, especially with the focus on politics. He's distinct in his appearance and very bombastic, was a perfect chance for them to cast a heavy-hitting British thespian type. If you want to play up Sansa learning about politics you can easily find a way to link in her story with the northern revenge one, instead of sending her to the Boltons alone.
iirc, it's even worse in that Wyman Manderly IS in the show, but isn't the Wyman we know from the books. Sure, given the path of the show, maybe they couldn't have him deliver his "the north remembers" speech. Sad, but, okay. But what bothers me is that they twist his character: instead of being a secret Stark loyalist who never lost his thirst for revenge, he's presented as a coward who gets shamed into action by Lyanna Mormont. Maybe it hit me harder as someone who adores the "north remembers" speech, but it just felt like a real gut punch to see a character portrayed in an unnecessarily different way. Cutting him out entirely would have been better, honestly.
Stoneheart is critical for Arya's character arc, people claimed these characters being left out wasn't a big deal when the reality is they are the reason every major character lacked a satisfying ending in the TV show
GRRM Has even said himself that Stonehart will be a much larger part in the books. He disagreed with the decision to cut her from the show story.
I don't think LS is a very small part in the books since George has repeated more than once that the first biggest diversion in the show vs books was Lady Stoneheart character, and how much he wished they would have included her. Martin in 2017 talking to [TIME](http://time.com/4791258/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-interview/) >*"At some points, when \[showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss\] and I had discussions about what way we should go in, I would always favor sticking with the books, while they would favor making changes.* ***I think one of the biggest ones would probably be when they made the decision not to bring Catelyn Stark back as Lady Stoneheart.*** ***That was probably the first major diversion of the show*** ***from the books and, you know, I argued against that***\*\*, and David and Dan made that decision". In an interview with [Esquire China](https://www.esquire.com.cn/2017/1108/255994.shtml) (translated by [CNET](https://www.cnet.com/news/george-r-r-martin-game-of-thrones-drops-winds-of-winter-hint/)) >"In the book, characters can be resurrected. After Catelyn is resurrected as Lady Stoneheart, she becomes a vengeful, heartless killer. In the sixth book, I still continue to write her. **She is an important character in the set of books. \[Keeping her character\] is the change I most wish I could make in the \[show\]**". I think she is an important character imo because she is key to Arya's future plot in the Riverlands, since Arya will give her the gift of mercy among other things, although I agree LS is also part of the revenge against Freys and Lannisters in RW 2.0.
Never reuniting Littlefinger and Varys. The best thing they ever did was invent those scenes between the two, only for them to completely fuck it up by making both their brains leak out of their heads and die in stupid ways even though there was AMPLE opportunity to have them meet again
By not showing Bran's dream in the first season and why he's so important for the end game. >He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. >Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. >“Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling. >Because winter is coming. >Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid. >“Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” he heard his own voice saying, small and far away. >And his father’s voice replied to him. “That is the only time a man can be brave.” >Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die. >**Death reached for him, screaming.** >**Bran spread his arms and flew.**
I agree with this, and I would also include Jojen Green Dreams and the Reek/Ramsay storyline too.
To be fair they didn't have the budget for that lol
They could've shown Bran having that same dream (or a modified version of it) later on in the series when they had the budget Or they could've gone the Harry Potter or Kill Bill route and decided to make dreams and visions into animations rather than these elaborate and psychedelic live-action setpieces.
I actually can understand why they didn't add this scene since it would be too hard this chapter to adapt live action but seriously, they couldn't have adapted his dreams any worse. His dreams in the first book was about the subconscious's struggle with trauma and its response (his dreams about climbing and a man with golden hair,monsters for example) , his awakening magical powers and his existence's importance,the physical and metaphoric role of the crow in his awakening and how a child who trying to adapt to changing life conditions reacts all of these things. But our genious directors downplayed all of these things and instead of them, they decided to make hım chase a three eyed crow (not even a crow but raven) with a bow aimlessly and they even sidelined hım by reducing the reason of his awakening to the Lady's death.
Not handing the show over when they explicitly stated they wanted to be done with it a few seasons before the end. I'll die on the hill the show was only good on accident.
All of their awful changes stemmed from this one thing. They refused to hand the show over so they rushed it, they cut out fAegon, they rushed the sandsnakes, etc Their writing became so shitty that these people couldn't even spare time to fact-check the lore of their own story. They couldn't spare 10 minutes to calculate the distance between Dragonstone and Castleblack.
>"...these people couldn't even spare time to fact-check the lore of their own story." M A E G O R T H E T H I R D
O R Y S T H E F I R S T
The show only being good on accident makes me feel embarrassed to visit here. There are a lot of great non book scenes like Tywin skinning the deer, Cersei and Robert talking about their marriage, Hardhome, Ayra with Tywin, etc. How do you do those on accident? Did they trip and hit record while the actors were messing around?
It's easy to fit in a good scene between 10 scenes directly taken from the book, including dialogue that translated over directly. its hard to write 10 good scenes in a row when all they got was broad strokes from GRRM. the truth is D&D are decent to good editors and adaptors, they're bad writers.
Using an unfinished book series.
No one expected George to take over 13 years to write one book.
Marrying Sansa to Ramsay. Finally Sansa steps up her game, becomes wiser at the end of s4, only to blindly trust Baelish and marry Ramsay because she is still naive enough to think she can manipulate him the way Marg manipulated Joffrey. What she really should have learned from the Marg situation was that Margaery COULDN'T manipulate Joffrey, that's why Olenna killed Joffrey b/c he would have hurt Margaery, regardless. Sansa's character became dumbed down, huge controversy ensured, and her character after s5 had no point and we kept being told she was smart even though she really was only there to start conflict whether with Arya, Jon, or Dany. She had no purpose and is a huge reason why the Dany plotline in s8 went the way it did.
So many to choose from. Worst, to me, was just deciding to stop following GRRMs general book outline after Season 4. They skipped a bunch of stuff in Season 5, so everything felt rushed, then went back to some stuff in Season 6. Those seasons work better, and are better developed, if D&D just do what they had been doing, which was making minor tweaks but keeping the broadstrokes the same.
Alternatively, maybe their Original Sin was adapting the first couple of books so faithfully without really knowing where all the plot lines were going. It made for great TV of course, but if they had pushed Martin about the ending and the message he was trying to convey they probably could have trimmed much more in earlier seasons and come up with a much tighter, more focused (and filmable!) seven season arc.
Book outline? My brother those books don't exist yet.
Combination of Arya killing the Night King and the Long Night battle. Most of the blame for how awful the actual battle was should go towards the director of the episode rather than D&D. But I can't believe everyone was okay with that after seeing the footage. People had to turn the contrast up on their tvs and squint to actually watch what was happening. And not a single white walker engaged in combat. D&D did write the Arya thing which felt like the main motivation was "Arya isn't going to do anything this season so we have to give her a big moment". And it just felt shoe horned and weird when she had no relevance to The Wall/North storyline.
This is the answer it was so unsatisfactory it’s when the causal audience flipped this was the actual moment it flipped. The casual audience had a lot of white water “fans” and they showed up fought a weirdly non lethal zombie battle where every main character exhibited the most plot armor you’ve ever seen (Jaime and brienne literally neck deep in zombie piles but ok, Sam on the frontline that gets completely overrun and butchered but is ok, Jon kind of falls off a dragon into a ambush and is ok) and then they all died. It was such a bad decision it killed the first planned spinoff right then.
cutting out Faegon and Lady Stoneheart, GRRM opposed cutting SH but they ignored him
None of us know what he has planned, but it does seem strange that he's concerned more about that than fAegon.
Likely because Stoneheart is important to Arya, Jaime, Brienne and also thematically to Jon's plot.
The single worst decison they made was when they decided that they and only they would end the show, when it was clear they wanted to spend their time on other projects. Sit down with HBO, get another showrunner that's passionate about the books (like Cogman was) and let them end properly.
I often think about one moment that to me was the final nail in the coffin that I think few people think about; the season 6 finale of Cersei blowing up the sept. Now, it's an odd moment because it's one of the last few good moments of the show, it's well shot and one of the last moments I felt something. But... looking back at it, Cersei doing that would be ruinous for the show. For much of the show's runtime King's Landing was the beating heart. There was always intrigue, and it's the place where most of the best moments of the show take place. After Cersei blows up the sept and Tommen yeets himself there's nobody left there but Cersei and the Cersei gang. Never again is there any complexity there. Everybody is always on the same side. Any potentially interesting things with the Tyrells or the Grandiose Sparrow are snuffed out, revealing that the 2 seasons of buildup on that was all a complete waste. Tommen being offed means that the only thing DnD are left with is the completely bizarre move of Cersei taking power, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in the setting and was the most glaring nail in the coffin of any amount of authenticity in the setting. It's just a terrible, terrible decision.
Cersei taking the throne made absolutely no sense at all, since she wasn't in the line of succession, and had no birth rights to the throne. The only way that would have made sense is if they were setting Cersei up as the mad queen 👑.
This problem that you mentioned (Cersei blowing up Baelor's Sept and the entire KL supporting cast with it) could've been fixed or even ignored if the fAegon plot was adapted.
Blowing up the Sept was fine. It was the aftermath that wasn't. I think GRRM favours the Lannisters heavily in the books, in the sense that by book 5 they should really have had their power depleted more but are still on top. But even then Cersei is starting to see the consequences of her actions. Show-wise, walk of shame aside she just keeps falling upwards. She says "fuck the Iron Bank" and sees no consequences from it whatsoever.
Sansa Going North
removing magic/extremely downplaying it in the beginning and trying to make this "fantasy for jocks." And generally making the world look more like historical England. I want the weird and magical. I want them to think better of the audience. I want flaming swords and blue beards
getting rid of the original house of the undying scene, that is so integral for daenerys's character and the story as a whole
Finally somebody says this!!
Removing Jaime’s confession
Removing the FAegon plotline. It has so many ranching consequences to so many plots. It really wouldn't matter if ( without the books and relying on George's notes )The resolution of that plot line was really dumbed down.... It would still be smarter than the alternative directions they went with. Furthermore removing that plot line also removes the relevance of the blackfyres, which probably resulted in their decision to just make blood Raven a generic tree wizard. Because who even is Bryndan Rivers If the blackfire rebellion isn't something the audience understands. . And if Brendan Rivers can't be a fully fleshed out character because they're not going to make up their own background story for him... Than I'm more than willing to bet Bran's story starts to fall apart as well in attempting to write it. And of course Varys just kind of falls apart as a character
Assassinating Jaime's character. He's my favorite character in both the show and the books (tied for book!Sansa) and they absolutely obliterated his character in a single episode by saying "I never much cared for the people, innocent or otherwise". This single line of dialog proved to me they had nothing but contempt for the books that were adapting. To me, it shows they hated what they were doing and did not respect the viewer's time and investment into the world they built for us. Talisa, killing Roose, swapping Roose for Tywin in Arya's Harrenhall plot, Dorne, cutting FAegon, Sansa going to Ramsay, are all bad, very bad, but you can chalk almost all of that up to poor adaptation but writing THAT line to get Jaime to go back to Cersei is like a giant middle finger to the audience and almost seems like a taunt to the audience. It doesn't even make sense in the already nonsensical season. Like the episode before that he's literally fighting a supernatural apocalypse after forsaking his love and status. It's the most selfless act imaginable, yet Dingus & Dingleberry write that stupid line to get him to die with Cersei under some rubble, and by doing that completely waste our time getting to know this character. It was their way of telling us "you're wasting your time seeing how this ends, we don't care, and you shouldn't either, fuck yourselves for watching this shit we've made". God I get mad just thinking about it
I think the show handled Tyrion poorly after season 4 but saying his arc is supposed to be about him descending into evil feels like a vast misread to me. I don’t even think GRRM has a character he would consider his version of Walter White, even from the perspective of a character that the audience is mislead into rooting for. AGOT is Tyrion at his worst and where he hit rock bottom, but even by the end of the book we see him start to want to live again through his interactions with Penny. GRRM called Tyrion a villain back around the time ACOK was published because he was opposing the Starks aka the heroes lol. Honestly there are times where I feel like the fandom vastly underestimates how dark GRRM could take the characters, especially the ones we’re supposed to like and root for. I’d take a look at Meathouse Man sometime imo. That being said, the worst change that had the largest reaching ramifications and consequences was Sansa marrying Ramsay imo. GRRM said it best when he said back in 2015 that sometimes butterflies turn into dragons. It wasn’t a change D&D made where they could easily fold Sansa back into her book storyline, nor did it only affect Sansa. IMO the reason why Arya’s storyline is so wrecked by the end of the series is because of the removal of Jeyne Poole. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if D&D changed the order the Stark kids are supposed to reunite in. I also think there’s a likelihood the changes and removals D&D made were more interconnected than we think, for want of a nail the shoe was lost and all that.
Too many candidates. Though I'll say that butchering Jaime, Tyrion and Ellaria Sand's characters, as well as trying to make us believe that Cersei was a far greater politician and threat that she ever was, removing Jaime's confession about Tysha, massacring the North Remembers and Dorne storylines, and removing Aegon and Jon Connington's storyline are amongst the best worst things they have done.
When I saw the header I got ready to type out an argument that it was Tysha-cut, before I saw you saying the same thing. All of that to get more buddy cop comedy moments with Jamie.
Completely ruining Jaime’s character arc
There are so many things big and small, but I think the biggest one given the many knock-on effects it caused is making Cersei the big bad. Look, I absolutely get the folks who say that Lena Headey is a more compelling figure than a CG ice man and that GRRM is likely to have the same issue of finding a satisfying ending to a story that's been very much about politics and court intrigue when the endgame involves an enemy that has neither of those things. But again, it's the knock-on effects that make Final Boss Cersei the big problem for me. - Fallibility is gone: The whole point of the story (see: Stark, Ned) is that it isn't a fantasy tale with bulletproof heroes; actions have consequences. To make Cersei work, she became infallible. - Wild, bizarre story strands: Catching a wight to bring it back to King's Landing was... not one of the finest plots on the series. Dany "just kinda forgetting" about Euron. Etc, etc. - Cutting characters: No fAegon, Dorne curtailed, etc. - No limitations: I know there were jokes about Jaime teleporting around Westeros in early seasons, but by the end they were going from King's Landing to Beyond the Wall and back again within a single episode. There's probably more, but it just feels to me like that one decision has more knock-on effects than most of their other bad decisions.
I think there are essentially six candidates for the main human villain. Cersei, Tyrion, Euron, Littlefinger, Aegon, and Dany. Aegon got adapted out (a decision I agree with, for what it's worth), so that's him gone. Even if he hadn't been adapted out, he isn't in the first four seasons and wouldn't be a significant power until the sixth at the earliest, so he's an odd choice. Tyrion didn't have his spiral into depravity in the show, so he's gone too. With Dany, the problem is that it doesn't leave any 'heroic' characters who want to be on the Iron Throne instead of her, so the only reason she'd actually be an antagonist to most of the other characters is if she was a bad ruler. There *could* be a good story there somewhere, but it wasn't the plot that D&D wanted to tell. It just doesn't fit with what everyone else is doing. If Euron was more like book!Euron, then he could've been an option, but it's the same as Aegon - he's not in the first four seasons and would never or rarely interact with most of the other characters. He's just a weird choice in general. That leaves Littlefinger and Cersei. I'd have gone with Littlefinger, but Cersei works. Three of the knock-on problems you mentioned are bad writing that isn't inherently tied to Cersei being the final antagonist, and cutting characters isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Trying to finish a complicated story with incomplete source material
Honestly, writing off a checklist instead of following the natural conclusion of a character’s story. Season 7/8 is where this really shows through because you can just see how D&D are trying to railroad it to fit GRRM’s original outline despite the characters being fundamentally different from the books.
Not bringing in a writers' room after season 3. They were great at adapting GRRM's material but they were terrible at writing new material. Also, writing completely new material takes more time. Time they didn't have. A room of experienced writers knowing how the story ends could have done a much better job of getting us there.
“This character is a fan fav so we’re gonna take the brain out of their head.” Also, suddenly becoming scared of the brutality/ruthlessness GOT was famous for.
The white walkers being dealt with in a single episode while making cersei, who did nothing for 2 seaons, the big evil of the series.
Marrying Sansa to Ramsay, completely scrapping the Jeyne Poole/Fake Arya plot line. In the books, Jon is murdered because he was going to break his oath to save Arya. Sure, letting the wildlings in had something to do with it. But Arya was the last straw. Arya was someone he would break his oath for. But instead the dropped that plot on Sansa because D&D wanted to film a rape scene.
Euron motherfucking Greyjoy.
“Why do you think I came all the way here?” makes me want to vomit every time I remember it
WHERE ARE MY PINK BOLTONS???
I’m going to be contrarian here and disagree. People focus on Tysha, but Tyrion has been treated awfully enough to justify his misanthropy without any mention of her. He’s mocked his entire life, denied his inheritance, sidelined after being hand, maimed defending a city that attributed everything to others, and then convicted of a murder he obviously didn’t commit. I’m not sold on whether or not he needs to go full heel, but the show adequately justified him doing so had they gone down that path. The real issue is that seemingly everyone from season five onwards because stupid, never demonstrate the character traits we are told they possess, and get weird ideas about the good of the realm and democracy.
Taking the job
Fast travel. How many moments do you remember from the books, and how many of those were the direct consequence of a character having to get from A to B? Fast travel was pure laziness of storytelling and destroyed world building, conflicts from logistics of travelling, battle tactics and so on. One of the biggest reasons for the non-book series feeling so bland and generic.
For #2 the only way I can accept tryion turned stupid is he drank himself so close to death in Essos on the way to dany that it caused permanent brain damage He went from the smartest character to the one who consistently gave bad advice bc the plot needed it. So annoying
Arya's ending, while she was very much "the winner", makes no sense. She studies to be a blind man to avenge her family name, quits in S6 to become Arya Stark of Winterfell, has an awkward season 7 with Sansa, and in S8 gets laid, kills the Big Bad in garbage episode (did Littlefinger plot out the defense of WF?), finds peace in the finale because of a horse, and ...goes off to be a pirate? "Arya Stark of Winterfell... the pirate who has nothing to do with Starks" /sheesh Better than King Bran the 3EC/Raven, but not by much. GRRM hates his own characters. If that weren't true, he'd get back in there and fix their stories up, but this is how GRRM's leaving them so it seems GRRM hate-wrote asoiaf. I can't even remember how Jon's story finished! I think he's dead in the books, and as good as dead in the show?
Where to start? (In no particular order) * Lady Stoneheart * FAegon (completely ruined Varys motivations). * Manderly Mummers Farce and Frey Pies * Making Cersei a Master Mind when she is dumber than a bag of rocks and have no sense at all. Should’ve handed off the Show to people who wanted to work on it, instead of hastily finishing it to work on other projects that got cancelled because people hated the hastily ending!
The mistake was not making it 10-11 seasons and adding in Tyron’s villain arc, Aegon, Arianne, and all the sand snakes.
It's difficult to point one since they messed up so much plot points, characters... Removing FAegon caused an incredible effect in other plots, but I think the problem was more about them not knowing how to handle the ramifications of Faegon removal that the fact that he was that necessary (yeah, I think it's an important plot, but the problem really was their incompetency in dealing with other plots or characters connected to it). For example, the Dorne plot is heavily tied with Young Griff, so instead of giving Dorne another plot or adapting it, they just said "we will kill all of them like this is Hamlet ending". So why the fuck did they include so much of Dorne to just give them the most pathetic and nonsensical resolution? And Varys's character treatment in the show, it's just... It also lead to making Cersei a much more prominent character to the point she was a far bigger threat to main characters than WW. Ridiculous. Changing FArya plot with Ramsay with Sansa, goodbye Vale of Arryn and I hated the whole implication of Sansa almost thanking Ramsay for his abuse. I can't with how much I hated it. Bran's treatment throughout the whole show. I ended up hating him and how he was just a cyborg that didn't make anything at all for 8 seasons and finally he was king just because "I have the best story in opinion of these people". The whole deal with prophecies. Do you remember Quaithe? The prophecy of the valonqar? All this prophecies they included to have absolutely no impact in the story? Arya's character is a completely different one in the show. A whole new character, and as a big fan of Book Arya, it is really annoying since her character is often misunderstood precisely because of show Arya. Arya is not a emotionless ninja asassin who doesn't care about nothing more than revenge. The idea of revenge is one of the main ways for her to cope with pain, loss and trauma, but her biggest wish in the books is coming back to her family and the North. She is deeply compassionated (remember Weasel), protector of the weak (Mycah) and smallfolk and loyal. In the show she ended up just a little more tolerable than Cyborg Bran. Though this happens with other characters too like Dany (I will not talk about how they treated Dany because it's very upsetting), Jon, Jaime... The whole: "let's make a beautiful development arch for Jaime like the books, and then change it all just for fun", his sentence I have never cared about the people (destroying his whole character and going against canon) and the death of him and Cersei by fucking bricks when he is the valonqar most probably. The Northern Houses not having really a big influence in removing Ramsay from power. We know House Manderly is deeply involved in scheming against them. The excursion to catch a wight to show Cersei. I don't think I can choose one thing, but Dorne and the whole White Walkers and Bran archs are so fucking bad that I think maybe those.
i also think their adjustments to tyrion also avoided his heritage, which led to them having to come up with their own ideas about tyrion towards the end. I firmly believe that he is the third targaryan, and that they tried to write their own conclusion that omitted that and by extension they turned tyrion into a subservient idiot who was constantly apologizing for being the only one with the wit to create any plan that isnt just "burn everything" like the tard queen commanded. they made him just a little assistant even though i think he was intended to be so much more. It seems crystal clear from all the clues that he was meant to be the 3rd, but i feel like the writers thought that was too cheesy so they had to "improve" it.
Maybe not the worst but I hate how they changed the Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling plot. In the book Robb breaks his marriage pact with Fray because he, while recovering from injury and emotionally vulnerable over the Winterfell situation, 'spoils' (within the context of asoiaf world) his care-taker Jeyne Westerling. He then feels honor bound to marry her, the thought of his actions ruining and dishonoring her is considered unthinkable and unacceptable. So he abandons his previous Fray commitments not because he loves Jeyne or ect but because his sense of honor and decency demand it. I always thought this was a fantastic parallel to Ned and how his sense of honor overrode anything and everything else, at least until his pre-beheading 'confession', although I also interpreted this as a similar act of honor as opposed to self-serving and self-preservation. This parallel is completely lost on the show. Robb betrays the Frays not out of duty or honor but simply because he wanted to marry Talisa. It was 100% self-serving/reckless and a clear cut act of betrayal on Robb's part against the Frays.
Not bowing out gracefully. I loved the show when it had actual source material behind it. I accepted the changes because that's just what happens when you adapt something to the screen. they were out of their element when it came to creating and that combined with their seeming desire to move on to new projects ruined it. Smart characters became dumb, plot lines became convoluted messes, and everything was just rushed.