Usually, when books like Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, and The Hunger Games are adapted, fan wisdom and the conventional thought process usually lean towards declaring the books to be better than whatever we end up seeing on screen. However, there is the odd moment, where an author comes out to say that the show or the film was able to do something better than what they had done in the book.
George R.R. Martin, in an interview, revealed that there are several things that the show did better compared to the books, especially when it came to realizing the sets that he had imagined for the epic fantasy setting of A Song of Ice and Fire.
George R.R. Martin admits that Game of Thrones did the High Hall of the Arryns better than A Song of Ice and Fire
In an interview where he was asked about the Eyrie extensively, George R.R. Martin wanted to talk about everything that he did with the location in the books, and how artists have taken the time to interpret it in their own style. The author, when asked whether he got frustrated when someone interprets his world better than he imagined, said:
I wouldn’t say frustrated. I mean, sometimes, is better, you know? I think their, their version of the High Hall of the Arryns with the Moon Door in the floor is probably better than my Moon Door, which is just a door set in a wall. I didn’t think of putting it in the floor.
Martin’s recent comments about adaptations are something that has resonated with audiences, where he mentioned how producers and writers are in a hurry to adapt great stories and make them their own and it is almost always worse than the material it ends up taking inspiration from.
Of course, the author would praise what is good about HBO’s work with his stories. He has revealed that he has a ‘complicated’ relationship with the finale, which was largely critically panned.
George R.R. Martin called out adaptations and those who want to make the stories “their own”
In a blog post of his own, as reported by Deadline, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire decided to call out sub-par adaptations of great works, as films and television shows have been taking video games, comics, and fantasy/sci-fi stories in other media and turning them into long-form live-action and animated series for mainstream audiences.
He wrote:
No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and ‘improve’ on it.
‘The book is the book, the film is the film,’ they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own. They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.
It is more often than not the source material has to be horribly contorted to make it suitable for television and cinema, and there is a potent difference between the mediums that requires that some changes be made in the story.
However, it often results in a product that fans have some difficulty getting behind, and not all of them have the luxury of declaring themselves a part of the bigger multiverse, as is the case with most superhero properties.
Watch Game of Thrones on Max.
