This article was taken from the May 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Having worked for ten years under the constraints of Hollywood TV productions of The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, George RR Martin originally wrote his A Song of Ice and Fire novels as gigantic, dense fantasy tomes. (For context: the first novel, A Game of Thrones, was 778 pages -- the most recent, A Dance with Dragons, runs to 959.) So when the producers of HBO’s TV adaptation, DB Weiss and David Benioff, had to condense the show into ten 55-minute episodes per series, they had to make changes.
As the show goes on, fans will notice the series is deviating more and more from the source material – and with the books running out and Martin’s sixth novel, The Winds of Winter, not due until at least 2016, expect to see even more when the fifth series airs this month. Here, WIRED chronicles the major changes so far. (And if you haven’t read the books: spoiler alert.) Game of Thrones starts on April 13 on Sky Atlantic
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
