Ed Ranks the 13 Worst Game of Thrones Book-to-Show Story Changes

Hey, I've talked about this show before! 

A Game of Thrones does a pretty good job at adapting a number of massive books with a million characters into a slightly more manageable massive show with thousands of characters.  In fact, a lot of times the TV show improves on the long-winded books by merging plots and attributes given to a huge number of minor characters into the stories of impportant characters. Ramsey Bolton marries a fake Arya in the books? Wymen Manderly gives the Boltons and some minor Freys some pies made of out other minor Freys in the books? Whatever. The show also adds more depth to barely touched-upon book characters like Margery Tyrell, making them more interesting.

But the show doesn't always improve things. Sometimes the source material in A Song of Ice and Fire is much, much better. Here are a couple of times the show messed up some book stuff which could have been cool.

13. Aegon Targaryen & Jon Connington 

I couldn't decide if this deletion from the books was a good thing or a bad thing. It's probably a mix of both, so I'll put it here.  For show watchers who know nothing about the books - on Tyrion's way through Essos he runs into Griff and Young Griff, pseudonyms for Jon Connington (a former Hand of the King) and, supposedly, Aegon Targaryen - the child of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell (said to have been bashed against a wall as a baby by the Mountain). If this really is Aegon, then we have a child who is a legitimate heir and contender to the Iron Throne, as well as a deviously-planned baby-switching plot that goes back the entire reign of the Baratheons. Few fans actually believe the boy is the real Aegon though - merely a red herring. In the books, the Martells of Dorne and Spymaster Varys are behind the scenes working to help Aegon (or fake Aegon) to the throne. The fact that the TV show completely eliminates the character and has Varys and Dorne ally with Daenerys sort of confirms that the whole Aegon/Jon thing isn't that important to the end game of the series anyway. Given that, I suppose it makes some sense to leave it out - but still, wouldn't it be a little cool to have thrown this twist by introducing yet another contender with substantial forces and allies backing him?  As it stands now in the show - Dany has everyone in the damn world allied with her (and she doesn't even need those allies because she has dragons). Seems like it will be an easy win for her.

Hear The Rains of Castamere playing? RUN!!!

12. Lady Stoneheart

A lot of people miss the fact that Lady Stoneheart hasn't, and likely never will, appear in the show. Honestly, I think things will be fine without her. Still, it would have been great to have seen Zombie Catelyn Stark hang some people.

11. That Jaime/Cersei Sex Scene

You know the one. Right by Joffrey's corpse. Eww. For a number of reasons this was bad. You'd think one person in editing would have been like, "Wait, is this a bit rapey?" Still, the main people this pissed off were the fans in the cult of Jaime who think he's on some redemption story. GRRM don't play that. Why are people trying to redeem a guy who threw a child out of a tower anyway? Jaime is an asshole and hopefully Brienne will just take him to get killed by Stoneheart soon enough anyway. Spoiler? Bitch please, the "A Feast For Crows" ultimatum came out in 2005. It doesn't count as an spoiler anymore if it happened the same year as Hurricane Katrina.

10. Prophesies and Foreshadowing

Okay, this one is super vague - but what I'm trying to say is that these concepts were big in the books, but are downplayed on TV. To some degree that makes sense and works. One of the reasons Game of Thrones works as a show and appeals to many non-traditional "fantasy" fans is that it is a lot more "real" in some ways as many of the best stories are heavy on historic-inspired political intrigue while downplaying "magic." Still, there are a lot of times in the book where Old Nan tells a story to Bran, or when some prophesy, story or backstory is told. Those almost always pay off. I suppose it's harder to do in the medium of television, where you have to "show," rather than in books when it's easy to "tell."

Remember anything interesting about this? Me neither.

9. Qarth

The House of the Undying is a good example of the above. In the books, Daenerys sees visions hinting at a number of things including the Red Wedding, Mad King Aerys II ordering the burning of King's Landing, her brother Rhaegar, Stannis, Jon Snow's parentage, and the "child of three" prophesies connected to the dragon with three heads, three marriages she will have, and (as many believe) the fact that there will perhaps be three heirs to the Targaryen line (Dany, Jon Snow and a hotly debated third candidate). In the show, the House of the Dying is a lot more "meh." But I'm not only talking about the House of the Undying here. I'm talking about all of Qarth. It was "meh." The only cool part was when she locked those people up in the vault to starve and die. Good stuff.

8. Shades of Gray

While I'm ranking vague concepts, I might as well talk about the missing complexity of characters. In the show, Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister are straight-up heroes with almost no moral flaws. Tyrion drinks? Big deal. In the books it's a lot different. They have true faults and layers. In the show when they gang up on Jon Snow to stab him it's because those guys are bad, evil, terrible people. In the book the guys stabbing him kind of have a point, include some of his closest allies, and their aim is actually to protect the Night's Watch. Too bad for them that Jon Snow can't die because he's the Prince that Was Promised. Probably.

7. Other Starks Warging (Kind Of)

In the show, Bran can warg into animals (and Hodor!). In the books, the other Starks are shown as having similar characteristics - although they never actually warg, per se. Still, the overall theme is that all of the Starks can have prophetic dreams or share the dreams and thoughts of their pet wolves. Jon, Arya, and maybe even Sansa (debatable - she seems to have a lot of dreams about Lady though).

Awwwwwwww!

6. The Adventures of Jon Snow Beyond the Wall

In the books, Jon Snow beyond the Wall is epic. It's like an amazing adventure with him and a bunch of others in the Night's Watch slowly getting killed off one-by-one. Kind of like Alien, but in the snow. Or like Alien remixed with Lovcecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. In the show, it's just a couple of scenes and then whatever. Since the events at the Wall are somewhat independent from other happenings in Westeros, the show could have paced this out better to have more time spent on Jon above the wall and left out filler crap like the later raid on Craster's Keep.  It's a little odd that that there is so much material in the books that a lot of it had to get cut out for time... and yet the show still needed to find filler.

5. The Adventures of Brienne and Pod

Well, it's possible that the show will have more amazing Brienne-Pod adventures because they were last seen rowing off together - but in the books they had all sorts of awesome hijinks with Septon Meribald and others that got left on the cutting room floor for the show.  Dun Fort, Maidenpool, the Stinking Goose, Crackclaw Point, the Whispers, the Saltpans, the Quiet Isle, the Inn at the Crossroads, etc. They need to fit the left out parts all into the last two seasons somehow. Or dare I say... spinoff?

4. The Adventures of Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie

Pretty much the same as above. The books "A Clash of Kings" and "A Storm of Swords" are full of Arya stuff that never made it to the show. And who in their right mind doesn't want more Hot Pie?

3. Loras Tyrell, Everything About Him 

Hey look, it's Loras.

Loras is a badass mofo in the books. He kicks ass and chews bubblegum (but he's all out of bubblegum). In the show, he's largely just there to have hot nude love scenes. His death even sort of sucks in the show, as he renounces everything that's awesome about him and gets his head carved up before being blown up with about a dozen other characters who have been more important than him for the last four seasons. He doesn't quite die in the books - at least yet - although he is seemingly mortally wounded at Dragonstone. What is he doing in Dragonstone in the books? Leading an attack on Stannis's forces while trying to avenge the death of his love, Renly, who Stannis murdered with that Lost smoke demon that came out of the Red Witch's Va-jay-jay.  Yeah, in the books he's dying slowly from wounds in battle acquired avenging Renly. That's just the kind of dude Loras is in the books. Awesome. So why did I underline "seemingly?" Because the only evidence in the books is based on some story being told to Cersei by someone who later betrays her. So why knows.

2. Doran Martell

Seriously, what the HELL did the show do to Doran? The casting was PERFECT. When I heard Alexander Siddig was playing Doran, I was psyched. This is one of the best actors you could get for this part. In the books, Doran appears to be a wimpy, gout-ridden loser. But that's before you learn he's a Littlefinger-level plotter. He swears loyalty to the Iron Throne, but he's got plans. As alluded to in the Aegon / Connington entry above - Doran and the House Martell actually have a scheme to ally with the Targaryens and rock Westeros to its knees. He's got the Lannister daughter Myrcella as a hostage (she's still alive in the books) just in case, and has had dual plans at different times to marry both his incredibly awesome daughter Arianne (she's book-only) and son Quentyn (less awesome, still book-only) to the Targaryens that will make some future grandchild of his the heir to the Iron Throne. In the show he seems to be a wimpy, gout-ridden loser because he is... well... a wimpy, gout-ridden loser. He gets murdered by his own people and dies before any big reveal of a plan. This is the equivalent of casting Marlon Brando to have a bit part in a Wayans brothers film. And not even the good Keenan Ivory/Damon combo. I'm talking Shawn/Marlon. Then after casting him they cut most of his scenes. Not done with analogies yet? Good! This would be like if "The Greatest Story Ever Told" was a movie all about Herod Antipas, and featured Max von Sydow in a brief cameo as a carpenter named Jesus who does absolutely nothing except woodwork some benches. I'm just sitting there and waiting for Jesus to do some magic but all I get is The New Yankee Workshop.

Acting. How does it work?

1. Everything Else About Dorne

The Dorne stuff isn't the absolute best stuff in the books. In fact, I kind of rolled my eyes and hurried through the Arys Oakheart and Areo Hotah POV chapters. Still, as mediocre as they were... it was infinitely better than anything the show gave us about Dorne. First of all, the Sand Snakes are awesome in the books, not insolent little shitty "but you need the bad pussy" pun machines. And since I already mentioned her when talking about Doran--Arianne Martel. She's great. She's probably one of the most interesting characters in the entirety of the book series, and they left her out of the show to essentially have her role filled by Ellaria Sand. Boooooo.