Local Book Enjoyer Watches Adaptation, Predictably Dies.

by Ella Shropshire

So something you would know about me after having any conversation with me is that I am a really big fan of George RR Martin's acclaimed fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. Almost to an absurd degree. There has not been a year since 2019 where i have not re-read at least one of these books (usually it's a Storm of Swords) and i spend an unhealthy amount of my free time listening and reading about the expansive and insane fan theories produced in the 11 years (and counting) gap between the last book and now. These books make me feel, and I love them to death. I have all of them in my dorm room right now, not to flex but I have a first edition Storm of Swords and yeah it is my prized possession. 

I decided a while ago that I would never ever in a million years watch the TV show adaptation, Game of Thrones. It just sounded like it was a bad adaptation. No one wore fun colors and all the men had depressingly modern hairstyles. The characters I saw posts about on social media were not the characters I knew and loved. So I decided to leave it be and just have a jolly old time with my silly little book series. But this summer, House of the Dragon started coming out. Obviously I had read Fire and Blood, and I adored the show as well. It's easy to make a good adaptation of a history book, though, as you can add as much as you want and change some stuff, as it's believable that those recording the history would not have known certain things. It gave me hope, though, and I thought I might take a chance on this incredibly popular series. Friends and family encouraged it. So finally, last weekend, I attempted to watch season one, episode one.

I, um, I kind of hated it. Sort of deeply. 

So let's actually start with what was really cool and epic, in the order it appeared

• Ice looked BANGIN that was one cool sword
• I like Jon and Bran’s interactions. You get to see how close they are!
• Ned and Catelyn’s scenes together. I adored these two!
• Jaime and Cersei’s introduction scene at Jon Arryn’s funeral. This was a great way to show the audience stuff that is only ever mentioned in internal monologues, and was a great way to meet these two psychos. 
• Really enjoyed Ned, Cat, Jaime, Bran and Cersei.
• The clothes of the southern people

Sooo yeah! That was actually it! Wow! Amazing list. Now is for the shorthand list of things that made me want to explode, some of which will be expanded upon! As a warning there will be mentions of some gory stuff, as well as mentions of the sex scenes.

• Whole first sequence with Will, Waymar, and Gared.
• Winterfell looks so bland. Boring plain stone walls. They’ve got a greenhouse there, you know. Coulda added that in. Just no colors, stinky.
• Every single person in the north is wearing the same exact outfit. It is made entirely of gray fabric or dark leather, and a random animal fur around the shoulder. And that is IT! Who was in charge of costuming here? What on earth is happening? Whose idea was it to make the second or third richest family in the entire region look so bland? (fun fact the Manderlys are the richest family in the North, thanks to their harbor and prosperous trading center).
• JAIME LANNISTER'S HAIR IS A CRIME. It's short. WHY IS IT SO SHORT? It's not the most important thing in the world, but it is kind of an important part of his character. His hair is the same length as Cersei's because that's how she prefers his hair to be, cause it's the same length as hers. His journey later on includes changing the way his hair looks, which is representative of growing away from Cersei, eventually leading to the iconic “put this in the fire” moment in A Feast for Crows. Also it just doesn’t look as cool lmao.

• EVERYONE'S HAIR IS SO SHORT? Why can’t the men have long hair? Besides Jaime’s, here are the most tragic character haircuts: Joffrey and Tommen Baratheon. Bring back their immense amounts of blonde ringlets. Rickon Stark. This child is essentially feral, he looks so tame in this show. Theon Greyjoy, he’s not enough of a cringe edgelord here. Jon Snow. he doesn’t even look like a snarky little emo middle schooler

• Not really a complaint but the Kingsguard’s helmets made me chuckle. I’m not sure what else they might have looked like, but yeah.
• It gets tough here. Danaerys is sexualized so, so much. I know she’s been aged up for the show but Jesus Christ. That was unnecessary and just so gross. In the books, she is a child, and that made watching her scenes in the show really hard for me. There was hardly a substantial scene she was in in which the camera did not awkwardly linger on her chest. What the fuck.
• This relates to the Dany stuff and the opening scene stuff, but there is a whole lot of sex, gore and nudity that does not actually appear in the books which I can only assume was added to entice people into watching this show.

The added gore is, to me, especially egregious. So now I’m going to complain a whole lot about the opening scene, following the three nights watchmen who are found and almost all killed by the others, which are also called White Walkers. This scene is absolutely fantastic in the books. It's one of my favorites. It builds suspense and a very subtle sort of horror. The others terrify because they are lethal, silent, precise, efficient. All they do is cold and clean. A dead camp of wildlings that appear to have frozen to death on a summer's day. In a matter of minutes, our characters return to the scene and find it completely empty. In the show, this camp is full of bloody, dismembered bodies, with limbs and such arranged in a gory symbol. What the balls is this? The extreme gore had no effect on me other than causing disappointment. It felt like something out of a horror movie but failed to deliver on the actual feeling of horror. The whole rest of the scene sucks too. Waymar Royce’s amazing last stand against the others and final words “Dance With Me Then” are cut for some heads getting yanked off and more gore. The others appear like barbaric monsters, unlike the sinister, austere, sidhe-like ice creatures of the books. Also, the prologue establishes both the existence of others, and their M.O, along with the way the wights they create function. These undead things can remember things about their previous lives. Waymar Royce’s corpse knows Will when he sees him. He's no longer human, he no longer knows who he is, most likely, but he remembers Will and blames Will for his death.

So much of what's cool to me in the books is replaced in the show in favor of sensational stuff, such as sex, nudity and gore. The thematic elements, the inner monologues that shattered my heart and made me laugh are gone now, and in their place are things that make me go meh. 

Anyway I’m going to continue to hate watching this show because I told someone I would and I love being a hater. :)