The Small Council: Do we even want the Griffs to appear in Season 5?

Word around the rumor mill this week was that Griff and Young Griff, two characters who featured prominently in A Dance with Dragons, might be appearing on the upcoming fifth season of Game of Thrones, despite widespread assumptions that they didn’t make the cut. These characters caused their fair share of controversy among book readers when A Dance with Dragons came out back in 2011, and some fans were happy to learn that they probably wouldn’t be showing up. Their inclusion is by no means a foregone conclusion, and we’ll know whether they make an appearance soon enough. Still, the news brings up an interesting question: apart from whether or not they actually appear in the show, SHOULD they appear on it? The Small Council discusses the question below.

SPOILERS, GLORIOUS SPOILERS, FOLLOW

DAN: Without access to the remaining books in the series, it’s hard to know whether the plot involving Griff and Young Griff will eventually bear fruit. That said, count me among the fans who weren’t terribly enthusiastic about their appearance in A Dance with Dragons. I kind of reacted to them in the same way that Ani reacted to the inclusion of the Ironborn and the Dornish in A Feast for Crows. I had a general sense of, ‘Why am I spending time with these new people instead of with the characters I already like?’ Also, I got the feeling that including them would complicate a story that was already getting a shade too complex for its own good. Did we really need another powerful faction vying for the Iron Throne? I wanted to get to the dragons, the White Walkers, and the fireworks factory, and I wanted to get to them now!

So no, I wasn’t really broken up when it started to seem like the Griffs wouldn’t appear on the show. And if you ask me, they’re better off left on the cutting room floor. The producers get a lot of flack for altering things from the books, but some of those changes have worked out well. Take the way they adapted Tyrion’s trap in What Is Dead May Never Die. In that episode, Tyrion told Pycelle, Varys, and Littlefinger different stories about what he intended to do with Princess Myrcella in an attempt to find out which of them was disloyal. In A Clash of Kings, this process requires a fair amount of setup, but the show disposes of it in a clear, fun, efficient way. Of late, the producers have been applying this kind of thinking on a grand scale—they decided, for example, to cut the Ironborn entirely from Season 5. They’ll need to keep thinking this way if they truly want to complete the series in seven seasons, and given how many other important stories are already in play, the Griffs seem like a natural cut to make.

ANI: Now see Dan, I was actually bummed when the Griffs were cut! Not because I wanted another False Dragon running around—I had my fill of those back when I read the Wheel of Time series. But the two of them were the most interesting part of those “Casual Boating With Tyrion and Friends” chapters from A Dance with Dragons. I’ve held out hope they were just being kept as a SuperSecretSurprise. I was more bummed that their being cut also seemed to cut Penny. Because clearly Penny was nowhere to be seen, and unlike the Griffs, who are normal-sized humans who could be rather easily kept under wraps the same way the show has gone to great lengths to keep Hardhome under wraps, Penny—and a casting call for her—would be pretty hard to miss.

I consider Penny a pretty important character for Tyrion’s development, once he leaves the safety of Pentos and the last people who respect his “Lannister Privilege,” if you will. As bad as the scene would be, there’s a corollary scene to the dwarf scene at the Purple Wedding, in which Tyrion and Penny joust, which shows just how far Tyrion has fallen in the world. But the reason I think she’s important is less for that, than for the fact that she’s the first woman who Tyrion befriends platonically, as women to him up until now have either been unobtainable or whores. I understand the need to streamline. (And I’ll bet Peter Dinklage would be damned before he rode a pig, no matter how big this show is.) But I’m sorry for the loss of the Griffs and Penny, and though I know it’s foolish, I would love to see them show up.

DAVID (RAZOR): I’m with Ani on this one. The Griffs made Tyrion’s entire trip, down the Rhoyne, all the more interesting. The cyvasse games between Young Griff and Tyrion shed light on whether or not Young Griff had Targaryen blood. But it’s not just the Griff’s possible exclusion that bothers me, it’s the characters that get the axe along with them.

I always wanted to know more about Septa Lemore, almost-Maester Haldon, and Ser Rolly Duckfield. Even if the Griffs are somehow being sneakily sneaked into Season 5, I don’t see those three characters joining them. Of course we have Nikolaj Coster-Waldau teasing book spoilers with a duck in his hands, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we will see Rolly Duckfield.

The book purist in me, rages against the exclusion of these book characters that, over the years and through many re-reads, I have come to know and love. However, the rational side of my addled brain whispers to me that this is just an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, and not every minute detail can be included in a 10 episode-a-season slate.

Can Benioff and Weiss pull off the campaign for the Iron Throne, without possibly-false Aegon (Young Griff) and his mentor Jon Connington (Griff) around? Is Aegon a true Targaryen? What about the possible spread of Greyscale, in Westeros, from Jon Connington and Tyrion, when he returns with Dany? And, on that note, will Tyrion even get Greyscale on the show? These are stories that I would love to see played out on my television screen, but sadly, I just do not see it happening…and I say that, fully hoping that I am wrong.

CAMERON: I have a certain degree of hesitance in saying “yes” or “no” definitively to this question. The Griffs are in kind of a weird place right now, because the book-readers (or most of the ones that I talk to) are convinced that they will have a huge role to play in the endgame, and I don’t really think there’s enough evidence of that just yet, nor do I think the show can commit a significant amount of time this season trying to convince show-watchers of their importance. Yes, Jon Connington is a POV character in Dance, but lest we forget, George also created Ser Barristan’s POV chapters specifically to solve a plot problem. If the show does include them, I’ll take it as a sign that D&D will get some use out of them, even if it will be different from whatever plans George has for them in the books. But most of what I want from Season 5 has very little to do with these currently minor characters who may or may not have any kind of actual impact on the overall story.

• Published on 04/03/2015 at 3:30 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:05 PM CDT