Book Vs Show Vs More Time

Published August 1, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

When you consider the books vs show, you can really see a big difference on how war is portrayed. In the first three seasons, with the War of the Five Kings, GRRM was really thorough when it comes to the major players planning their battles: You have Tywin at Harrenhal with his group of generals, you have Cersei/Joffery with the small counsel, you have Rob Stark with the Northern Lords each player had their group of strategist to plan each move along the chess board.

But now, since we’re beyond the books, it seems that the war planning is far less thorough, especially regarding Dany. I know they’re speeding through this season faster than Littlefinger’s jet pack, but I would like to get at least a few scenes, similar to the earlier seasons, of everyone discussing battle plans, planning the attack, learning why the last attack failed, etc. Those portions of the earlier seasons really provided the additional detail on how complex this game of thrones actually is.

Also, the other thing we need to ask is: how much of the content is being sacrificed because the double Ds have so much information they need to get out in so little episodes. I imagine it’s difficult having to cut large sections of the overall storyline in order to fit more important scenes, but it does feel like we’re getting the Cliff Notes version of this story. If the War of the Five Kings happened in season 7, I feel like we wouldn’t have gotten those great scenes with Tywin and Arya at Harrenhal, or Tyrion working the small counsel in order to find the real traitor. These were amazing plot points of the earlier seasons and I can’t help but think what could have been added to Season 7 if the double Ds just had a few more episodes to work with.

Just an observation,
Love the show.

Dan Cantu from Austin, Texas.

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