In this week's episode of Game of Thrones, Tyrion makes some staffing changes in King's Landing, Jon learns what happens to baby boys in the Craster household, and Theon discovers that you can't go home again.
The HBO drama remains first-rate, but as a hard-core fan of A Clash of Kings – Book 2 in George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which I've read five times – I consider no deviation from the novels to be too trivial to second-guess and nitpick.
I almost always prefer things the way they are in the books, but at least with Sunday's episode (titled "The Night Lands," after the name given by the Dothraki horse lords to the afterlife), HBO pleasantly surprised me by introducing a dark twist that's not in the novels. Without further ado, here are seven more differences between the books and the show that caught my eye.
(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)
1) Why do Yoren's prisoners look so normal?
In A Clash of Kings, Arya discovers that Yoren, the brother of the Night's Watch who rescued her from King's Landing, is transporting three recruits back to the Wall inside a wheeled cage. These men had been imprisoned in the Black Cells beneath the Red Keep, where the worst criminals are kept. Two of the men, Rorge and Biter, are terrifying and hideous. Rorge has only a gaping hole where his nose should be, and Biter has teeth filed down to points. The third man, Jaqen H'ghar, is handsome and charming, but the fact that he's been imprisoned with the other two – that in fact they seem to fear him – makes him seem very dangerous indeed.
This effect is somewhat diminished in "The Night Lands," in which Rorge and Biter seem loutish but not particularly scary. Rorge isn't missing his nose, and Biter's teeth definitely aren't as fanglike as I'd imagined. Jaqen is described in the books as having hair that's red on one side and white on the other, but if that's true in the show, it's hard to tell from this episode. So these guys come across as rather ordinary, more "drunk tank" than "Black Cells."
I hate to keep harping on this, but just as I think the actor who plays Davos really should have had his fingertips removed, I also think the guys who play Rorge and Biter should have undergone surgery to make them better match their roles. I mean, I've seen people who've had their teeth filed down to points who aren't even playing Biter, so it's definitely something you could do, and the fact that these actors didn't bother really shows a lack of commitment. I mean, come on, Davos didn't really have his fingertips chopped off? Rorge didn't really have his nose cut off? Biter didn't really have his teeth filed down? Next you'll be telling me they didn't really decapitate Sean Bean. Which brings us to ...
2) One of Dany's scouts gets decapitated?
In A Clash of Kings, the khalasar (tribe) of Daenerys Targaryen is encamped in the deserted city of Vaes Tolorro when she sends out her bloodriders (bodyguards) to scout the lands ahead. In the book, all three report back, but in "The Night Lands" we see that the first of her scouts, Rakharo, returns as a decapitated head, having fallen victim to one of the other roaming khalasars. This moment was pretty fantastic. If you're going to make changes to the story, this is the way to do it – killing off likeable minor characters that readers of the books will assume are safe. It definitely makes an impact, and really you can never go wrong with decapitations.
3) What's with the name changes?
In this episode, Theon Greyjoy returns home to Pyke for the first time since he was a child. As Theon is the only son of Balon Greyjoy, would-be king of the Iron Islands, he expects to be treated with some obsequiousness for a change. But things don't go according to plan. Not only does the first of his subjects that he meets look like the villain from I Know What You Did Last Summer, but the man is surly and apathetic in the face of Theon's boasts. Things go from bad to worse as Theon realizes that his long tenure as hostage to the Starks of Winterfell has made him suspect in his father's eyes, and that his father seems determined to assign command of the fleet to Theon's sister, Yara.
Wait, say what? What the hell is a "Yara"?
How dumb do TV producers think we are?Turns out the show has renamed Asha Greyjoy, and now she's Yara Greyjoy. Apparently someone thought "Asha" sounded too much like "Osha," the wildling woman held prisoner at Winterfell. Huh? How dumb do TV producers think we are? And how much overlap is there really between viewers who enjoy a show about byzantine political intrigue and viewers too brain-dead to distinguish two characters who look nothing alike?
This is the second time Game of Thrones has pulled this crap. It was even more ridiculous in Season 1, when the name of Lysa Arryn's areola-lapping young son was changed from Robert to Robin. (This at least had some precedent in the books, as "Robin" is his nickname.) One of the cool things Martin does in A Song of Ice and Fire is to present a world in which, just as in our world, certain personal names are common, and parents sometimes name their children after people they know and admire, which gives the world an added touch of verisimilitude. I really wish the show wouldn't have messed with that.
4) What happened to Shireen and Patchface?
Dragonstone is starting to feel seriously underpopulated. Not only has Cressen kicked the bucket (with no Pylos in evidence to replace him), but we also learn that in the continuity of the show, Stannis never had any children, so his daughter Shireen and her loyal jester Patchface presumably won't be putting in an appearance. Shireen I suppose is dispensable, but Patchface presents one of the more intriguing mysteries in the novels. He's a jester who once came close to drowning, is now severely brain-damaged, and sings nonsense songs about kingdoms he's seen beneath the waves. He also seems to have a touch of prophecy, as some of his songs later come true. He provides one of the few bits of evidence we've seen that the Drowned God worshipped by the Ironborn might be more than just a legend. It'll be interesting to see if Patchface-style babbling about realms beneath the sea will show up elsewhere in the show.
5) What's with all the non-veiled threats?
I griped last week about the scene in the previous episode, "The North Remembers," where Machiavellian mastermind Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger, clumsily threatens Cersei Lannister, an action which is both out of character and pretty nonsensical. Is he putting her on notice that he knows the secret of her son's parentage in order to try to gain power over her? Well, it should already be pretty obvious that he knows her "secret," since he was ostensibly cooperating with Eddard Stark's investigation, and was present, along with a few dozen other people, when Stark shouted, "Your son has no claim to the throne!" back in "You Win or You Die" from Season 1.
So that cat's kind of out of the bag at this point. And anyway, what does Littlefinger gain from making clumsy threats? If the secret were really such a big deal, this would just be inviting Cersei to off him on the spot, which she immediately threatens to do, but then lets him go, which makes no sense either. She should either kill him outright or else laugh off his threats. Making open threats you don't intend to carry out is the worst of both worlds. Littlefinger will still know her "secret," and her violent response will have confirmed beyond any doubt both that the secret is true and that she knows it can hurt her. And it's not as if she needs to remind him that she's willing or able to have him killed. She's the queen regent. That goes without saying.
There's a reason tales of political intrigue are full of references to "veiled" threats.There's a reason tales of political intrigue are full of references to "veiled" threats. It's because threats of the non-veiled variety have severe and obvious drawbacks. That's something Martin's books do a great job of capturing, but something the show is still struggling with a bit, maybe due to time pressures or out of fear that viewers will miss the subtext if things get too subtle.
Case in point is the interaction in "The Night Lands" between Varys and Tyrion. Tyrion returns to his chambers to find Varys chatting pleasantly with Shae, the secret consort that Tyrion's father forbade him from bringing to King's Landing. Varys doesn't come right out and say, "You tried to keep her secret, but I found her anyway, and I can use this against you." He doesn't have to. It goes without saying. So far so good.
In A Clash of Kings, Tyrion responds to Varys with a veiled threat of his own, but in the show he completely loses his cool, openly threatens Varys, and announces, "I know how this game is played." Um, apparently not. This game is played with veiled threats, not open ones. And speaking of open threats ...
6) Why is Craster attacking Jon?
At the end of this week's episode, Jon sneaks out into the woods beyond Craster's cabin and witnesses Craster offering a newborn babe to the White Walkers. Jon then turns around and spots Craster just as Craster starts bludgeoning him into unconsciousness. Roll credits.
I definitely wasn't crazy about that. Not only is this a huge deviation from the books – perhaps the biggest in the show so far – but it also propagates the lame Hollywood cliché that knocking someone out is both safe and easy. I mean, imagine you're Craster here. Sure, bludgeoning Jon might knock him out, but it might also kill or cripple him, in which case you've got some serious explaining to do. Or else Jon might just be like, "Ow! What the eff, Craster. Seriously, man." And then maybe stab you with his sword. Wouldn't it be better to just sneak off?
I strongly suspect that this is going to be what I think of as a "bad" cliffhanger, although in fairness to the show, a lot of my opinions about what distinguishes a good cliffhanger from a bad one first crystallized while reading A Song of Ice and Fire itself, which features a completely different cliffhanger in which a character is struck in the head and knocked unconscious, but one that I dislike just as much.
A good cliffhanger is one in which characters are placed in significant, prolonged peril, something that's going to take them a while to extricate themselves from, and you want to keep reading or watching because you want to see how they go about saving themselves. A bad cliffhanger is one in which characters are placed in transitory, inconsequential peril, and within moments of picking up the story you discover that the immediate danger has already passed, which makes the whole thing seem gimmicky. I can't always tell whether I've just witnessed a good cliffhanger or a bad one, but I certainly have my suspicions, and the more bad ones I see (especially from a particular show or writer), the more suspicious I get.
I strongly suspect that when the show picks up next week, Jon will be fine, Craster will say something grouchy to justify his actions, Mormont will tell Jon to shut up, and I'll find the whole conversation a bit forced and implausible.
7) What is Ros even doing in this show?
I continue to be befuddled as to why beautiful prostitute Ros gets so much screen time. Fantastic scenes from the books such as Gendry learning Arya's true identity are presented in an incredibly rushed way, but somehow the show finds time for all these "bonus" scenes that aren't that interesting or relevant, such as the scene in "The Night Lands" between Ros and Littlefinger. This scene doesn't advance the plot at all, and what we learn about the characters – that Littlefinger is creepy and manipulative and that Ros becomes upset when you stab her friend's baby – is nothing we didn't already know.
What's Your Take on Season 2 of Game of Thrones?
Give us your spin on Sunday's episode of Game of Thrones, and/or your take on the HBO series so far, in the comments below.
