Top 7: Best Story Changes

We’ve had a bit of a down time, news wise (George—where are those casting clues?!), which means it’s time to step up and toss a bone to the ravenous ASoIaF fandogs so they can have something to chew on besides each other. So I came up with a little exercise.

Actually, this may give you more cause to chew. I guess we’ll see!

That Game of Thrones is one of the most faithful adaptations from book to television is widely recognized by most people. It is known. Even the most diehard book fans, quibble though they may, find it hard to place another show under the “more faithful” column. Sword of Truth and Harry Potter fans wish they were us.

That said, there were still a few tweaks in translation. And you may call it blaspheme, but personally… I really liked a lot of ’em. Translation from POV to screen is never easy, and I thought our worthy team did a damned fine job. I salute them!

So in honor of the southron seven Westerosi gods, I’m kicking this “Top 7” thing off with the seven story changes I liked the most.

I want you to do the same. Join in on the fun. If you can’t come up with seven, come up with whatever you can. Agree with me or disagree. But this game has rules:

1. We’re not discussing added scenes, rather story changes. If you think an added scene changed the story enough that it should count, that’s fine, but if you can realistically see a scene and think of it as something George may have left on his own cutting room floor, it’s not a change.

2. You cannot disparage a change or argue against a change unless someone mentions it as a favorite change in the first place. I want debate, not griping. Very specific. This one is not for the nitpickers to start tossing out their direwolves objections. That’s an entirely different post.

(And yes, I will be doing the Top 7: Worst Story Changes too. For the people that just have to bitch—it’s coming. But not here; today I want to accentuate and debate the positive. If you break the rules, your post gets yanked. This is a specific exercise—and quite possibly an exercise in your own self-restraint.)

Feel free to discuss—but disparage only that which has been placed before you.

(Warning: there will be SPOILERS from the first season and the first book, A Game of Thrones.)

Here are my Top 7: Best Story Changes:

1. “Baelor.” In the titular episode, Ned passes Yoren and says that single word to him. Yoren then taking Arya becomes Ned’s final correct deed. He very likely saved her life; who knows what might have happened had Yoren not snagged her? Ned of course then went on to save Sansa’s life by lying, and got decapitated for his troubles. But that miniscule change, for me, was part of what made the ninth episode the best of them all.

2. The Moon Door in the floor. Dramatically, stylistically… I sort of wish George had thought of it. Having it in the wall is much less cool than right there in front of the throne. Little Sweetrobin doesn’t even have to get up to watch the bad men fly. This one is probably credited to Gemma Jackson rather than the writers, but hey. It really worked.

3. Ned fights Jaime. That needed to happen. I almost like the entirety of the change (even if it would have been cooler at night and in a downpour), including Jory getting it through the eye. Nasty. And awesome. A fight on horseback would not have been as impressive as those two locking swords.

4. Dany yaks. In the book, Daenerys gets the horse heart down with almost no problems. Here, she actually vomits part of it back up into her hands… but it never spills, and then she eats it. For me, that was stronger. More disgusting, sure. But stronger.

5. Tyrion doesn’t tumble. The part of Tyrion’s introduction to Jon in A Game of Thrones came off as corny to me. The first time I read it I became momentarily confused and thought Puck from Alpha Flight had somehow entered the story, eh? So having him stumble out of the stable sodded out of his mind was far more appropriate. Add to that…

6. Tyrion doesn’t go to war. Some people felt cheated that they’d missed the Battle of the Green Fork along with Tyrion who, knocked unconscious by a passing clansmen’s warhammer, slept through the entirety of the thing. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have minded seeing some fighting… I’m just saying I don’t find it realistic that he would have been able to do it. (Death sentence indeed, thanks, dad!) Disemboweling a horse with his pointed helmet? What? No. Sleepytime is better. I thought that whole sequence was brilliantly staged and shot, groggy wakeup especially.

7. Three slaps! George R. R. Martin would have us believe Tyrion only slapped Joffrey twice. And I don’t want to live in a world in which The Joff only got his bell rung double. Three is much better. Actually, this is much better. But three is awesome.

Honorable (and questionable) mention: “Not today.” You could argue Syrio mentioning the God of Death was simply an added scene rather than a story change, but I think it has greater impact than that. It likely gives Arya a specific origin for some of her future actions (rather than being motivated by a certain ACoK character whose name begins with “J”). On the flip-side, it may strengthen the argument of the S = J theorists, which would then make it an added scene and not a change. So I suppose whether or not it is actually a change can be debated as well, but I do not personally believe in the S = J theory. I suppose we shall see.

More Top 7’s to come. Suggestions for Top 7’s also welcome!

What’cha’all got?

• Published on 07/05/2011 at 8:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/20/2016 at 6:04 PM CDT