Why Reading ASOIAF Made Me Dislike Game of Thrones- An Open Letter to David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
Hey dudes. Your show sucks.
Since October, 2016, when I decided to start watching Game of Thrones, I have been slowly reading the book series you are adapting it from: George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, which is a fantasy series that sets out to examine the genre of fantasy itself, humanity, morality, ethics, climate change, and our collective reality through the lens of morally grey, intelligent characters, living in a medieval fantasy world fifteen years after a two year long civil war called Robert’s Rebellion rocked the core of the continent/country of Westeros, some of whom are self-aware, some of whom are really, really not.
There. That’s the spoiler-free series summary.
It didn’t occur to me while I was reading book one, it niggled in the back of my head while I was reading book two, but it stuck with me while I was reading book three, A Storm of Swords, the very simple thought that yo.
Your show is far. Far. FAR worse than the books you set out to adapt.
People go up to me and ask “What are you reading, Vi?” because that’s how you start a conversation with someone who doesn’t want to talk to you. I show them the book title, they see the banner at the top reading “GAME OF THRONES- A NEW ORIGINAL SERIES FROM HBO” and say, predictably, unfailingly, “Oh, Game of Thrones!” and I have to take the time to put the old, worn receipt I use as a book mark in my place to inform the uninformed, “The books are a hundred thousand times better than the show. And that’s not even me being a book snob. Read the books, don’t watch the show.” You don’t know how exhausting that is.
You will find no shortage of people on this site who are fans of the books and/or your TV show. Many criticize you, many criticize GRRM, some unrepentantly scream into the Void that you and/or GRRM are God, and deserving of nothing but veneration, unquestioning love, and sainthood. I have reblogged and liked posts from all three sorts of people. Never doubt that I enjoy both stories. Your television series has some really good acting, plenty of nice aesthetics, and some damn nice costumes.
And yet, I vastly prefer the books. Reading the books, reading metas about the books, reading fanfiction about the books, reading metas about the show, and seeing the general discourse in both fandoms has all brought me to the conclusion that I prefer GRRM’s story.
Lady Stoneheart and Young Griff are the two major storylines that you cut out in your book-to-screen adaptation, to the utter detriment of your show, and the fact that you removed them tells me a lot about what you do and do not understand about ASOIAF.
Lady Stoneheart, the reanimated corpse of the late Catelyn Tully Stark, is a character only introduced in the epilogue of A Storm of Swords, and I can understand why, at first glance, you would think that your decision to cut out her narrative is acceptable. You murdered Catelyn’s story within her own story, after-all. You forgot that Robb is not the center of the Northern Rebellion; Catelyn is. She is the eyes and ears, and it is her mistakes that both start the war, end it, and prolong it.
Lady Stoneheart’s story effects Brienne of Tarth’s story, and Jaime Lannister’s story, and GRRM’s examination of knighthood, honor, redemption and loyalty through them. It relates to Gendry, Sandor Clegane, and Podrick Payne, and their themes of loss of identity, as well as Sandor’s themes of redemption and mercy. LSH’s own actions work to the detriment of her daughter Sansa, and the themes of her story mirror and accentuate those of her younger daughter, Arya, whose story is about psychological trauma, justice, mercy, death, and why you should not join death cults. By cutting out Lady Stoneheart, Sansa’s story becomes that of her poor, forgotten friend, Jeyne Poole, and Arya becomes a terrorist instead of a girl struggling to find her identity and wander home.
Lady Stoneheart, in GRRM’s broader examination of the genre of fantasy, is an examination of the trope of the reanimated dead. Catelyn is resurrected as LSH after three days of slowly decomposing in a river, her torn cheeks and slashed throat still draining blood. When Beric Dondarrion sacrifices herself to save her (yes, Beric is dead in the books) he does not bring back the loving mother who knew the name of every stablehand in Winterfell, he brings back the screaming woman who “clawed her face to bloody ribbons” when she witnesses her last living child die before her eyes. He brings back a demon, intent on bringing death to anyone she views as remotely related to those who have done her wrong. This is GRRM’s examination of why people don’t just come back from death. They are changed, they are different, they are a bit mad. LSH is a zombie, every bit as much as the wights, she’s just a zombie forged of the other end of the spectrum: fire.
Aegon VI Targaryen, or “Young Griff” is the perfect prince. He is introduced during the fifth book, even later than Lady Stoneheart. You would think exempting him would be even more acceptable, and yet, once again, you would be wrong.
Young Griff’s story relates to Arianne Martell, another character who is utterly cut out of the television show, as well as to the Sand Snakes and their plot with Myrcella Baratheon, who they were intending to crown as queen, not murder. Young Griff, by extension, relates to Doran Martell and poor, poor Quentyn Martell, and to Daenerys Targaryen, Ashara Dayne, Varys, Illyrio Mopatis, and, crucially, CRUCIALLY, Tyrion Lannister, who has become a background character ever since his escape from King’s Landing in Season Four. Young Griff is planning on invading Westeros using the Golden Company, which will probably effect the remainder of Arya’s stint in Braavos before she runs into Jeyne Poole and Justin Massey, and the actual invasion will greatly affect Brienne of Tarth because of where the island of Tarth is located. Brienne is her father Selwyn’s only heir, and he’s probably going to die before the end of TWOW, leaving Brienne as the Evenstar.
In GRRM’s broader discourse, Young Griff’s role, as @poorquentyn talks about quite a bit in his metas, is to deconstruct the fantasy genre as a whole. Young Griff is the Perfect Prince in exile, Varys’s guaranteed A+ Political Science thesis project, complete with badass army, misfit mentors, sassy nun, and a hot future wife waiting for him. And yet, Young Griff is actually a tragedy because he is not Aegon VI Targaryen, he is not the Once and Future King, he is not the savior, he is not Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell’s son. Young Griff is most likely the biological son of the hedonistic pedophiliac opportunistic Illyrio Mopatis, and a kid who would have been content to sail up and down the Rhoyne with his motley crew for the rest of his life, but no, he was told that he is the only living child of Rhaegar Targaryen, the heir to the Iron Throne. GRRM uses Young Griff to explain Dany’s story and Jon’s story. Don’t you see how unsatisfying it would have been, he asks, if Jon had been Young Griff? Don’t you see how much more interesting Jon’s story is with Val and Ygritte and Sam and Gilly and Monster and Mance and Donal Noye and Satin and Craster? Don’t you see how much better fantasy can be?
You see, my good sirs, you have missed the entire point of ASOIAF in your hit television show: what can fantasy be?
Arya does not have to be merely the plucky tomboy, an assassin with a sad backstory who Is Not Like Other Girls. Arya can be the plucky tomboy who looks up to her mother, is jealous of her sister, and is abused by her teacher. Arya can be a girl who admires other women, who wishes she were pretty, who loves to learn languages and is good at math. She can be the girl who wargs into Nymeria and the cats of Braavos, who leaves Sandor Clegane to die because he would not let her kill herself trying to save her mother.
Jon Snow does not have to be merely the Male Action Hero Who Will Save the Day and Get the Hot Chick. Jon can be a flawed man, too young, too brilliant, too radical, too kind to live. He can be the adopted son of a good man, he can be intelligent and still make mistakes, he can be kind and still show Gilly profound cruelty, he can be a leader and be best at leading when he is negotiating marriages and panes of glass and who works where when. He can be impartial to who sits the Iron Throne and still get himself killed for loving his baby sister too desperately. He can be a good leader, and still be killed. Jon is not important because he is Rhaegar’s son, he is not important because he is the Ice to Dany’s Fire; he is important because he is Aragorn’s Tax Plan.
D. B. Weiss and David Benioff, your story fails in the face of the might that is ASOIAF because your story fails to be profound. Your story fails to contribute anything to The Great Struggle. Your story fails to innovate, your story fails to evolve. Your story fails to understand the core of its own characters, it fails to understand its own themes and messages.
Your story fails because it is not a compelling story.
I hope you are capable of understanding that.
Best Wishes,
A Teenage Girl Who You Can Call Vi
