Middle Grounders: GoT vs. ASOIAF through 3 books/4seasons

So I've officially entered Davos territory, having just finished A Storm of Swords last night. The books are incredible as advertised. I'm antsy to talk about it so I wanted to start a new off-season thread with some half-cocked observations that I noticed while reading. It's tl;dr but whatever, hopefully someone will be up for a discussion.



This post contains spoilers from the first 3 books of A Song of Ice and Fire and all 4 seasons of Game of Thrones. The epilogue will not be discussed here, nor will content in books 4 or 5. If you wish not to see this material, then leave now.







Things the show does better:


Making me hate Joffrey

- Don't get me wrong, I despised him in the book, too, but in the show he gets a little more attention. The scene where he tortures the prostitutes never happens in the books; Roz doesn't even exist, so we don't get to see him kill her with the crossbow, either. All of these little scenes and interactions serve to really create a true psychopath, which make the Purple Wedding even sweeter in the long run.

Keeping the Red Wedding a brutal surprise

- The Red Wedding gets a lot of foreshadow upon a rewatch of the series, but it's nothing compared to the books. Keep in mind that 90% of Robb's storyline is told from Lady Cat's perspective, (which came as a shock to me that one of the major characters in the series so far never had his own chapter of narration), so we see her constantly fretting about the Freys inside her head. There's also the chapter where Dany visits the House of the Undying, where she literally sees in a "vision" the aftermath of a massacre at a feast, complete with a dead king on the throne with a wolf's head on his body. Maybe it's because I knew it was coming anyway, but there was nothing subtle about that at all. Factor that in with Lord Bolton's traitorous behavior, and by the time Robb gets killed it actually makes more sense than it would if he had survived.

Oberyn's Characterization

- I loved this dude in the show. Loved him. I was glued to every scene he was in, couldn't wait to see him fight, hated to see him go, etc. I expected to get the same character appeal from the book, but it was all so brief. The story he tells Tyrion in the dungeon before saying he'll be his champion was actually told the first time they meet, and it just didn't pack the same punch as that scene did. (To be fair, that's probably my favorite scene in the entire show, so the bar was raised pretty high.) Conversations with Tywin and Cersei were left out, as was the brothel scene where he fricks up a couple of Lannisters just for humming their little tune within earshot. It's not that the text did a poor job of it, because it was still enthralling; I just feel like the show knocked it out of the park.




Things the book does better:


Establishing the Mountain as a heartless fricking monster

- He is an unholy terror throughout the books, while in the show he seems to disappear for a while. There was a story that Arya overhears at some point about the Mountain raping a young girl right in front of her dad after throwing him a piece of silver, and then asking for change afterwards. It really makes your stomach turn, but you also never forget he's out there lurking.

Jon Snow, Qhorin and the Wildlings

- I hated how the show blamed Jon Snow for Qhorin Halfhand and the other rangers getting caught beyond the wall. In the book, Qhorin is almost impressed that Jon let Ygritte go, saying he "had to see what kind of man he was" before he knew what to do with him. It's a warg and his eagle that dooms them in the books, but the show makes it look like Jon is responsible for everyone dying. It just seemed unnecessary and kind of takes some of the bite out of Jon's character for a while. Qhorin's death was so quick and emotionless in the show, but his sacrifice is much more heartfelt in the text.

Anything to do with Robert's Rebellion

- This is by far the biggest gripe I have, and the show has ignored it so thoroughly that I almost feel like they have a plan to revisit it at some point. Has the show even mentioned Rhaegar's name? Maybe once or twice? We've beaten this to death on this board already so I won't rehash everything, but man, there's a lot of good content and characterization that you get from the first book that the show just doesn't even attempt to cover.



Random observations


- The show really took some liberties with the Theon/Ramsay storyline from what I can tell. That being said, The Bastard of Bolton is probably the most vicious character in the books, and I haven't even gotten to the torture scenes yet - assuming they even exist. That guy is a complete psychopath, by Lord Bolton's own admission.

- Some old guy kills the Titan's Bastard with a wooden staff and then reveals himself to be Barristan Selmy? So awesome. Just so damn awesome. I can see why the show omitted Strong Belwas, and how it would have been difficult for a character to reveal his secret identity when we've all already seen him on camera, but I would have loved to see them make this happen on television.

- I won't discuss the epilogue of A Storm of Swords since it hasn't been shown on TV yet...but my jaw dropped after I read it. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.

- Jaime is just a fantastic character on every level. Reading his thoughts in the third book was awesome.

- I'm not completely convinced through 3 books and 4 seasons that Dany's storyline is enhancing the series. It might be an unpopular opinion, and there's certainly aspects of it that are entertaining as hell - but very few of them have anything to do with her. Barristan Selmy and the Rhaegar references are the most interesting things so far. It's not that it isn't a good story, it just very rarely relates to everything else that's going on in the GoT universe. The storylines overlapping and affecting each other is what makes everything so great, and Dany's arc just doesn't do that too often. I'm sure it will improve in the future.