Game of Thrones: HBO vs. book

I've been watching the series and finished the book last week.
The show follows the storyline well for the most part, although most of the scenes have been altered the information is still there. Where the scenes are changed it's usually easy to see why from a directors point of view. Except for one.

A homo-erotic chest shaving blow-job scene between:

Spoiler:

Where the fuck did this scene come from? It's not even remotely in the book and it seems completely unnecessary. What the fuck?


The biggest problem with the show is in scale and personality. I also think many characters are mis-cast or represented very badly. Lord Renly for one...

-The book is pretty colorful. Many of the rich knights all have intricate armor. They're bright, shiny and enameled or painted in many colors with detailed inlays of gems, metals, sigils, scroll-work, flowers, sunbursts etc... Their helmets have horns, antlers, spikes, crowns and some visors are made to resemble animals etc... Their cloaks are made of feathers, gold, flowers, silk etc.

None of this is in the show. Everybody looks like were dressed from the same generic prop closet that every other fantasy show/movie used. This makes the show look bland, brown, drab and completely generic.


-The sets look like sets. They're small and don't have nearly as many people/extras in them as they should. There's no real sense of anything having a large scale to it. Many scenes don't feel like they're taking place in a bustling kingdom, but on a stage with a few actors and a couple extras standing around. Even the Iron Throne looks tiny. In the book it sounds massive, made from 1000 swords... The throne in the show would fit comfortably in my living room and looks like it was made from 100 swords or less. The throne room should have tons of people in it and in the galleries above, but it's portrayed more like about 20 people showed up for the free coffee and doughnuts.

Winterfell is about the only place that feels right, but it still seems small.

Anyone else watching the show that has read the book (Cram™)? What are your thoughts?

i stopped watching after the first episode. it just sat wrong with me.

I just watched the sixth episode. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I'm enjoying the series so far.

...and yeah, that [spoiler] scene had me confused. I had to start looking in the wiki, because I didn't remember anything going on between those two.

Anyway, I think they've done quite well. There is a lot of vivid and fantastic description in Martin's books, and a lot of that is missed out on in the show. Then again, you have to take into account their budget. The series has been a success, and I bet HBO will invest more into it for the second season.

My only complaint is that it feels like it's rushing through the first book. I'd be happier if they had split it into two seasons, but it seems it's going to end in one. It feels like a lot content in the first book was cut out for more exciting and dramatic elements. Which makes sense since their goal is viewers/ratings, etc...

Oh well. I'm going to keep watching. I can't wait for the newest book to come out this summer. However, I should play catch-up on the other novels since it's been a few years.
I think I preordered it on amazon? I can't remember. I should look into that.

I'm enjoying the show too. I just really wish it had a bit more of the color from the book.

I think putting more money into the knights armor would have gone a long way towards giving the show more of the books feel. And tripling the amount of extras/background characters in each scene would have helped bring the world more alive.

Other than that. Lord Renly. What the fuck.
In the book he's described as incredibly handsome, Wears Bright green (and gold?) armor with huge antlers on his helm and is described as one hell of a warrior.

In the show he looks like an ordinary guy, wearing drab clothes and whines for no reason? I don't understand why they made this one character so different...

i stopped watching after the first episode. it just sat wrong with me.

I actually thought the first episode was the most accurate to the book.

In the books it was implied that Renly was gay. Sad that they made it so obvious though........ I've only seen the first episode. The first episode was pretty good I thought. THe others where done well and I thought Winterfell was done well. Again I have only seen the first episode though.

DRGN LRD 1213 wrote:In the books it was implied that Renly was gay. Sad that they made it so obvious though........

It only bugged me because Renly is already portrayed so different from the book. Then they went and invented a scene that was unnecessary to top it off.

He's really the only character that seems very different from the book to me.

Gotcha. Well I have only seen the first episode so I can't comment on the rest. I wasn;t sure how many of the books you have read Metal so thats why I put in the comment that in the series they do hint that he is gay. I think for tv movies and series they have to dumb it down because otherwise half the audience wouldn;t get the subtle hints....


One point you made that I agree is that the book does a great job of portyaing the knishts armour and talking about all the diferent hemlets and being able to color the armor. Its sad then that they are here not able to do this in the show.....