Five ways Game of Thrones has improved on George RR Martin's books

George RR Martin fans should not worry that Game of Thrones might throw up spoilers for forthcoming books. The TV show has repeatedly shown that it can add to the literary experience

Spoiler warning: discussion of events in seasons one to four of Game of Thrones, and all of A Song of Ice and Fire to date.

It was inevitable that HBO’s Game of Thrones would eventually overtake George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series of novels. Martin published the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, four years ago, and so far there has not been so much as a whisper of the sixth instalment, The Winds of Winter, arriving any time soon. Still, a recent interview with Game of Thrones showrunners DB Weiss and David Benioff, in which they admitted that the forthcoming fifth season was likely to begin spoiling unpublished storylines, has drawn horrified responses. Fans of the TV show are threatening to boycott it, and fans of the books are furious at being forced to follow the show for fear of being spoilered.

I’m a huge fan of Martin’s books. But the author’s decision to split fourth novel A Feast for Crows in two (the second part becoming A Dance with Dragons) left vital characters and storylines such as those of Daenerys Targaryen and Brandon Stark to waste away, forgotten on dusty bookshelves, for years in between the publication of the two instalments. We also saw the beginning of entire chapters about minor characters most people couldn’t care less about, a trend continued in A Dance with Dragons.

We’ll only be able to gauge the worthiness of Martin’s decision to sprinkle literary fairy dust over his increasingly meandering, diversifying storyline when all seven books are available to read. In the meantime, the TV show has offered respite for fans eager to understand Martin’s overarching plan for the saga, and to check in on favourite characters – the news that Weiss and Benioff are about to begin revealing unpublished secrets ought to be welcomed. Here are five ways that Game of Thrones has got down to business on screen, while Martin has been off exploring the wilder and more remote reaches of his unique fantasy world.

The Hound and Arya’s journey

Arya is easily at her most fun romping bloodthirstily through the Riverlands and beyond in the company of the misanthropic Sandor Clegane, and at her least enjoyable once she crosses the Narrow Sea and begins training as a Faceless Man in Braavos. The TV show spotted this and radically extended the ultimate odd couple’s adventures, so that Arya and the Hound are still together by the time she reaches the Vale of Arryn in season four. Here Clegane experiences a meaningful death at the hands of Brienne of Tarth, another character who in the books seems to be wandering aimlessly about for half the narrative, which usefully serves both to remind us what a total badass the warrior woman remains AND give the wonderful Gwendoline Christie more screen time.

The White Walkers

It will surely all make sense in the end, but one of the major issues with Martin’s books is that he sets up a huge panic over the imminent descent of an army of zombie-type creatures over Westeros in first instalment Game of Thrones, then seems to forget all about them for most of the next 3,000 pages. At least in the TV show, Weiss and Benioff take time out to revive our creeping sense of dread by showing us exactly what happens to Craster’s sons: a baby boy is taken to the lair of the undead beings where a lordly uber-zombie turns him into a blue-eyed junior White Walker with the flick of a fingertip. As exposition goes, it’s not exactly a “Luke, I am your Father” moment, but for an audience so long starved of information, it felt like all our frozen Christmases had come at once.

Daenerys’s adventures in the east

In the books, the Mother of Dragons often appears to be killing time that might better be used simply jumping on a ship to Westeros and inflicting bloodthirsty revenge. She doesn’t even appear in A Feast for Crows. But in the TV show, there is an abiding sense that Daenerys is developing as a ruler incrementally as the seasons pass. Her trials and tribulations at the hands of the Qartheen dignitary Xaro Xhoan Daxos and the warlock Pyat Pree in the House of the Undying help her say goodbye to Khal Drogo and her unborn son Rhaego. And we’re never allowed to forget about the burgeoning threat of her slowly maturing pet fire monsters. In the book, Dany doesn’t even get to say: “Where are my dragons?” because nobody in Qarth seemed remotely interested in them in the first place.

The multifaceted Lannisters

Every show needs a good villain, and Game of Thrones has an entire family of them in the shape of Cersei, Joffrey, Tywin, Jaime et al. But there is a complexity to the masters of Casterly Rock on TV that doesn’t always shine through in the books. Tyrion and Jaime exhibit a brotherly bond, exemplified by the kingslayer’s tender rescue of his smaller sibling in the season four finale, which results in the pair parting as friends. In Martin’s version of events, Tyrion screams that he murdered Joffrey after being told the truth about the death of his first wife at the hands of Lannister alpha Tywin, then proceeds to murder his lover Shae in cold blood. (In the show, the makers had the prostitute attack Tyrion with a knife first, thereby maintaining the character’s sympathetic qualities.)

Then there’s Joffrey, who has been even nastier on TV: threatening his own mother with death for slapping him and murdering prostitutes with unspeakable brutality for his own twisted pleasure. Meanwhile, Tywin is more than just a cold-blooded snake of a man, as we see in the episode in which a disguised Arya acts as his cup-bearer – another encounter that never took place in the books.

More screen time for the Starks

Anyone who has reached the end of A Dance with Dragons will wonder whether there will be any members left of the family through which Martin introduced readers to Westeros. Killing off poor Ned was one thing, but members of House Stark drop like flies in the books, and any survivors are far from where the action seems to be happening. Robb’s battles in the south take up a few chapters in the novels, but the heir to Winterfell was a major character in season three – a decision that meant the bloody Red Wedding had real impact. Now all they need to do is give Lady Stoneheart her long overdue resurrection in season five, and we’ll really be in business.

Contributor

Ben Child

The GuardianTramp

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