Five Ways Game Of Thrones Season 5 Improved On The Books

5. Tyrion’s journey to Meereen is streamlined

The best example of intelligent editing in Season 5 is Tyrion Lannister’s journey from Pentos to Meereen. His trip hits most of the same beats it does in A Dance with Dragons—Tyrion is a self-pitying mess in Pentos, heads to Volantis, is kidnapped by Jorah Mormont, encounters slavers, and finally ends up in Meereen after being sold at auction. However, a huge number of details from the books were dropped.

For example, in the books, Tyrion encounters a wide variety of characters he doesn’t meet on the show—there’s Young Griff, an exiled Targaryen prince; Moqorro, an intimidating Red Priest; Penny, a vulnerable dwarf; and more. These characters were all diverting on the page, but considering how jam-packed with plotlines Season 5 was, cutting them was a wise move. There would have been no way to integrate them smoothly into Tyrion’s narrative, and none of them were vital to his development.*

And when the producers need to adapt a very thick book’s worth of journey in 10 episode’s worth of time, “vital” is all they have time for. They compressed and combined material from the books to wonderful effect, Exhibit A being Tyrion and Jorah’s journey through Valyria in “Kill the Boy.”

This is a rough adaption of a chapter from A Dance with Dragons in which Tyrion and the crew he’s traveling with pass through the Sorrows, a moody stretch of the Rhoyne River. Again, most of the major beats are present in both versions—the boat is attacked by stone men, Tyrion is thrown overboard, and one of his companions contracts greyscale when trying to save him. However, by moving the action to Valyria, the show is able to hit a few birds with one stone. We still get all the eerie action with the stone men, but the show also gives us a look at a symbolically important area—after all, Valyria is where Daenerys’ ancestors hail from, and seeing it in ruins reinforces a crucial point: no matter how hard the great Houses fight for power, all civilizations crumble to dust in the end.

Finally, Season 5 goes a bit further than the books and gives us a meeting we’ve all been waiting for: Tyrion and Daenerys, together at last. Far from being fan service, their scenes together are carefully written, and we sense that they may actually make a good team. The details from the books are wonderful, but seeing these two characters onscreen together provides a payoff the books don’t.

*Young Griff may yet prove vital to the overall plot, but he wasn’t necessary for Tyrion’s journey specifically—the show can introduce him in another way if it wants.