Game of Thrones Was Better Than Martin's Books, and This Scene Proves It
George RR Martin gets a lot of credit for the fantasy world that he built, and deservedly so. The land of Westeros is richly populated, and the mythology and lore of that world are deep and beautifully woven together.
But while the television show managed (for the first six seasons, at least) to shape that lore into compelling storytelling, Martin's books are much more sprawling. J. R. R. Tolkien could famously describe a landscape for pages and pages, at least he was a magnificent prose writer. Martin is… er… not. He also likes to describe things for pages and pages, but it's usually food (why??) or super off-putting descriptions of sex.
More than anything else, Martin likes to over-explain everything. It's like he doesn't believe his readers will understand a character's feelings unless he explains them to death.
Very early in Game of Thrones (the book), the Stark family comes across a litter of orphaned direwolf pups. Jon, to save the pups from execution, suggests that they be given to the Stark children, as there is one for each of them. At this point Bran, who narrates the chapter, thinks to himself, "aha! I understand what's happening here. Jon has omitted himself, the bastard, in order to save the pups.
He has not counted himself as a Stark, which is painful to him, but what a nice guy." Admittedly I'm paraphrasing, but not as much as you'd think. George R. R. Martin REALLY wants us to understand every nuance of this moment, so he goes on and on about it for almost a full page, supposedly through the eyes of Bran – like any seven-year-old has ever stood around building psychological profiles rather than playing with puppies.
In the Game of Thrones TV show, this entire thought process is boiled down to two lines.
Bran: What about you?
Jon: I'm not a Stark.
It's so simple yet very effective. The complicated relationship with Jon and his family is all there in those two lines, and in spite of its simplicity, this moment actually feels much more laden with meaning than the same scene in the book.
This is a recurring theme in Martin's writing – lots of over-explaining, no subtlety in the way characters think or interact – and that goes triple if the characters are women. All of the women in Game of Thrones are one-dimensional and simply AWFUL in their one-dimensionality, like blow-up dolls that got cursed into real life.
I have to confess that I didn't make it past the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, and maybe it gets better as it goes. But even with the famously terrible final season, I'm sticking with the show.