I read all of the books in the series before the show premiered. After a couple of episodes, I was done with the show. The thought of repeating all of that horror and misery, only on the screen instead of the page, didn't seem worth it, production values be damned. Some months later, I happened to walk into a room where someone was watching one of the last episodes of the first season. It was a scene where Tywin Lannister sermonises to Jaime while butchering an animal. It was a scene not taken directly from the books, but made whole cloth for the TV show. I was mesmerised, and suddenly, all on board again. To me, the appeal of Game of Thrones has never been in the way it brings the books alive, but in how it diverges. It's been in the way it's emphasised, through performance, the humanity of its characters (both for ill and good), thus giving me something I never got from Martin's writing. Where some have lamented the direction the show has taken since it started outpacing the source material, I've actually grown fonder of it. The farther away it's gotten from the cutting of those adaptational apron strings, the more I feel like it's grown into its own thing.
So, while I don't doubt that the remaining episodes of this final season will break my heart in lots of ways – and George R.R. Martin will find several more when he gets around to telling the "real" version of the same story – I thoroughly appreciate that Game of Thrones is the kind of the show that knows the importance of showing people coming together, huddling for warmth in the face of impending doom. I could still feel the claw in my gut, of the horror to come, but I'm glad that's not all the show is about.
Review by GranitoroVIP 6BlockedParent2019-04-22T02:29:43Z
I read all of the books in the series before the show premiered. After a couple of episodes, I was done with the show. The thought of repeating all of that horror and misery, only on the screen instead of the page, didn't seem worth it, production values be damned. Some months later, I happened to walk into a room where someone was watching one of the last episodes of the first season. It was a scene where Tywin Lannister sermonises to Jaime while butchering an animal. It was a scene not taken directly from the books, but made whole cloth for the TV show. I was mesmerised, and suddenly, all on board again.
To me, the appeal of Game of Thrones has never been in the way it brings the books alive, but in how it diverges. It's been in the way it's emphasised, through performance, the humanity of its characters (both for ill and good), thus giving me something I never got from Martin's writing. Where some have lamented the direction the show has taken since it started outpacing the source material, I've actually grown fonder of it. The farther away it's gotten from the cutting of those adaptational apron strings, the more I feel like it's grown into its own thing.
So, while I don't doubt that the remaining episodes of this final season will break my heart in lots of ways – and George R.R. Martin will find several more when he gets around to telling the "real" version of the same story – I thoroughly appreciate that Game of Thrones is the kind of the show that knows the importance of showing people coming together, huddling for warmth in the face of impending doom. I could still feel the claw in my gut, of the horror to come, but I'm glad that's not all the show is about.