Fan art via RDMN

Every week, my friend Meghan and I talk about how confused we are by the changes made in the Game of Thrones show compared to the books.

We don’t really have to catalog everything “wrong” but my memory gets confused as events are changed. So here’s our public discussion of it.

Spoiler alerts galore for anyone who hasn’t read through book 4. (And please don’t spoil book 5 for us.)

On one hand, the first thirty minutes of the episode are mainly more of the same wholly new to the show dialogue that we saw last week. Most of it kind of colored in the situations from the books. I do like that they’re making Joffrey so awful. And I like that they’re setting up conflict between Tyrion and Shae.

The scene with Melisandre and Gendry…what? How can this get wrapped up properly?

I will put forward the notion, though I haven’t read it elsewhere, that the writers of the show are trying to give the book-readers some surprises in the universe we already know. But it still makes no sense to me. I want to see how they visually depict the scenes I’ve imagined. There’s space for new material, sure, but they’re messing with big plot points. It’s weird.

I also think that when the season is over and I can appreciate it all as a whole, that I’ll enjoy it more and won’t be so nitpicky about the inconsistencies. But week by week, well, I just don’t know what to think.