“Game of Thrones lost its way once it outpaced George R.R. Martin’s books.”
Adaptations can be a double-edged sword. Hew too close to beloved source material, and creators can expect to be criticized for a lack of imagination and for neglecting to make changes necessitated by working in a different medium altogether. Stray too far, and ardent fans will suddenly be in an uproar over unforgivable treatment of the text and subsequently question the point in adapting their favorite story to begin with.During much of Game of Thrones, showrunners David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and their team of writers carefully navigated this tightrope with aplomb – especially considering that the book series was not complete at the time (and still isn’t). As is usually the case, the earlier seasons tended to be more faithful to Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books, even with several notable omissions, additions, and deviations. As the show progressed and relatively minor changes rippled outward into gradually larger ones, observant viewers recognized the two streams were diverging significantly even while sharing the same baseline DNA. As Martin himself has noted on many occasions, both could exist and be enjoyed simultaneously without needing to pit one against the other.Naturally, this reasonable and nuanced outlook was promptly thrown out the window during the post-finale panic in favor of finding a quick, all-encompassing talking point: one with the heavy implication that most of Game of Thrones’ early success was a product of little more than following Martin’s guideline, as if it were as easy as plugging in the same plot points from the books and then standing aside.For disillusioned book readers, this manifested itself through the presumption that everything went south after Season 5 caught up with the events of Martin’s last published novel, punctuated by the “death” of Jon Snow (Kit Harington). Although some could argue that this loosely fits the timeframe for when Thrones underwent something of an identity shift, the idea that it’s as simple a problem as running out of source material is yet another broad, catch-all diagnosis that practically wilts under scrutiny. (For my money, the Season 4 twin killings of Pedro Pascal’s Oberyn Martell and Charles Dance’s Tywin Lannister, though narratively justified and impeccably realized, represented a turning point from which the show and the books never completely recovered.)You only need to look back at some of the best-written scenes throughout the series to confirm this. Martin’s strict point-of-view structure constrained his books in a way Benioff and Weiss’ scripts never did, and more often than not the results of this freedom were – dare I say it – a marked improvement.As early as Season 1, wholly invented scenes added texture and dimensionality to supporting roles in ways Martin only hinted at. A dialogue-only showcase involving King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney), and Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) begins with the three soldiers swapping world-building war stories before culminating in Jaime’s haunted and spiteful recollection of the Mad King’s final words, “Burn them all.” Another original scene, a beautifully understated private moment humanizing both Robert and his estranged wife Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), fills in all sorts of gaps in their troubled political marriage and the toll it took in keeping the Seven Kingdoms from falling apart. And the memorable first appearance of Tywin Lannister cleverly pauses the otherwise breathless pace of the season’s seventh episode, giving us insight into Jaime’s complicated dynamic with his father while establishing Tywin’s ruthless devotion to protect their family dynasty at all costs. This doesn’t even touch on later sequences such as the stand-out “Chaos is a ladder” monologue/montage or the inspired choice to have Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) serve as Tywin’s cupbearer while a captive in Harrenhal rather than Roose Bolton’s (Michael McElhatton), as she does in the book. (That subplot also features a wonderful original tête-à-tête between Arya and Tywin that’s primarily focused on, fittingly, the question of legacy.) Tellingly, all of these examples rely only on the broadest strokes of Martin’s writings to take these scenes to the next level – meaning that Benioff and Weiss were working with roughly the same insider information that they had when bringing the series in for a landing. The biggest variable, as it turns out, was the execution.Of course, critics can fire back with their own litany of show-specific misfires as proof of Thrones veering off the tracks without Martin’s steady hand at the wheel. Some massively divergent storylines continue to be questioned to this day. Others are better off collecting figurative dust, like the tragically mishandled Iron Island and Dorne subplots, the latter of which the writers smartly aborted with a series of unceremonious deaths. Worst of all had to be the wildly controversial decision to subject fan-favorite character Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) to the relentless villainy of Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon), especially after she’d endured so much suffering to that point already.Practically speaking, however, comparisons to the source material is only one small tool out of many at our disposal when it comes to gauging any adapted work. To dilute Game of Thrones to its barest essence as an adaptation not only does a disservice to dozens of hours of quality entertainment, but it flattens and misrepresents the sheer scope and scale of storytelling that the show had to offer, flaws and all. While it’s understandably tempting to do otherwise, it’s safe to say that these works must be judged by their own merits.The ultimate legacies of Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire will be decided not through their varying adherence to “canon,” but by how they approached the similar-yet-distinct stories they chose to tell.
Conclusion
In the end, one aspect links each of these three unsatisfactory attempts to define the show’s legacy: they’re all missing the forest for the trees. Contrary to popular belief, there is no magic bullet or elixir that can single-handedly account for an entire decade of highs and lows. The reason we can revisit the first episode of Season 1, “Winter Is Coming,” and contextualize it within the series’ overall framework is because we now have ten years’ worth of perspective. None of us are the same now as we were when we first watched how it all began. With any luck, we’ll have grown even more by the time we can truly begin to grapple with the legacy of Game of Thrones.
Wrestling With The Complex Legacy Of ‘Game Of Thrones’ On Its 10th Anniversary
By Jeremy Mathai/April 16, 2021 9:00 am EST
“Nobody talks about Game of Thrones anymore.”
“Game of Thrones lost its way once it outpaced George R.R. Martin’s books.”
Adaptations can be a double-edged sword. Hew too close to beloved source material, and creators can expect to be criticized for a lack of imagination and for neglecting to make changes necessitated by working in a different medium altogether. Stray too far, and ardent fans will suddenly be in an uproar over unforgivable treatment of the text and subsequently question the point in adapting their favorite story to begin with.During much of Game of Thrones, showrunners David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and their team of writers carefully navigated this tightrope with aplomb – especially considering that the book series was not complete at the time (and still isn’t). As is usually the case, the earlier seasons tended to be more faithful to Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books, even with several notable omissions, additions, and deviations. As the show progressed and relatively minor changes rippled outward into gradually larger ones, observant viewers recognized the two streams were diverging significantly even while sharing the same baseline DNA. As Martin himself has noted on many occasions, both could exist and be enjoyed simultaneously without needing to pit one against the other.Naturally, this reasonable and nuanced outlook was promptly thrown out the window during the post-finale panic in favor of finding a quick, all-encompassing talking point: one with the heavy implication that most of Game of Thrones’ early success was a product of little more than following Martin’s guideline, as if it were as easy as plugging in the same plot points from the books and then standing aside.For disillusioned book readers, this manifested itself through the presumption that everything went south after Season 5 caught up with the events of Martin’s last published novel, punctuated by the “death” of Jon Snow (Kit Harington). Although some could argue that this loosely fits the timeframe for when Thrones underwent something of an identity shift, the idea that it’s as simple a problem as running out of source material is yet another broad, catch-all diagnosis that practically wilts under scrutiny. (For my money, the Season 4 twin killings of Pedro Pascal’s Oberyn Martell and Charles Dance’s Tywin Lannister, though narratively justified and impeccably realized, represented a turning point from which the show and the books never completely recovered.)You only need to look back at some of the best-written scenes throughout the series to confirm this. Martin’s strict point-of-view structure constrained his books in a way Benioff and Weiss’ scripts never did, and more often than not the results of this freedom were – dare I say it – a marked improvement.As early as Season 1, wholly invented scenes added texture and dimensionality to supporting roles in ways Martin only hinted at. A dialogue-only showcase involving King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney), and Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) begins with the three soldiers swapping world-building war stories before culminating in Jaime’s haunted and spiteful recollection of the Mad King’s final words, “Burn them all.” Another original scene, a beautifully understated private moment humanizing both Robert and his estranged wife Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), fills in all sorts of gaps in their troubled political marriage and the toll it took in keeping the Seven Kingdoms from falling apart. And the memorable first appearance of Tywin Lannister cleverly pauses the otherwise breathless pace of the season’s seventh episode, giving us insight into Jaime’s complicated dynamic with his father while establishing Tywin’s ruthless devotion to protect their family dynasty at all costs. This doesn’t even touch on later sequences such as the stand-out “Chaos is a ladder” monologue/montage or the inspired choice to have Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) serve as Tywin’s cupbearer while a captive in Harrenhal rather than Roose Bolton’s (Michael McElhatton), as she does in the book. (That subplot also features a wonderful original tête-à-tête between Arya and Tywin that’s primarily focused on, fittingly, the question of legacy.) Tellingly, all of these examples rely only on the broadest strokes of Martin’s writings to take these scenes to the next level – meaning that Benioff and Weiss were working with roughly the same insider information that they had when bringing the series in for a landing. The biggest variable, as it turns out, was the execution.Of course, critics can fire back with their own litany of show-specific misfires as proof of Thrones veering off the tracks without Martin’s steady hand at the wheel. Some massively divergent storylines continue to be questioned to this day. Others are better off collecting figurative dust, like the tragically mishandled Iron Island and Dorne subplots, the latter of which the writers smartly aborted with a series of unceremonious deaths. Worst of all had to be the wildly controversial decision to subject fan-favorite character Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) to the relentless villainy of Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon), especially after she’d endured so much suffering to that point already.Practically speaking, however, comparisons to the source material is only one small tool out of many at our disposal when it comes to gauging any adapted work. To dilute Game of Thrones to its barest essence as an adaptation not only does a disservice to dozens of hours of quality entertainment, but it flattens and misrepresents the sheer scope and scale of storytelling that the show had to offer, flaws and all. While it’s understandably tempting to do otherwise, it’s safe to say that these works must be judged by their own merits.The ultimate legacies of Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire will be decided not through their varying adherence to “canon,” but by how they approached the similar-yet-distinct stories they chose to tell.
“Game of Thrones ended up becoming precisely the kind of show it was meant to subvert.”
Conclusion
In the end, one aspect links each of these three unsatisfactory attempts to define the show’s legacy: they’re all missing the forest for the trees. Contrary to popular belief, there is no magic bullet or elixir that can single-handedly account for an entire decade of highs and lows. The reason we can revisit the first episode of Season 1, “Winter Is Coming,” and contextualize it within the series’ overall framework is because we now have ten years’ worth of perspective. None of us are the same now as we were when we first watched how it all began. With any luck, we’ll have grown even more by the time we can truly begin to grapple with the legacy of Game of Thrones.
