Five Ways Game Of Thrones Season 5 Improved On The Books

4. Mance Rayder is killed for good

More smart editing: the producers decided to kill wildling leader Mance Rayder off permanently, rather than fake his death, as happens in A Dance with Dragons.*

To some extent, the same logic behind cutting Tyrion’s journey down to size applies here: Mance Rayder’s subplot from A Dance with Dragons would have been one plotline too many in an already plot-heavy season. However, it goes a little deeper than that.

George R.R. Martin has gained a reputation for killing characters unexpectedly, which creates an atmosphere where no one is safe. That’s good for drama. In recent books, death has seemed a little less certain—Catelyn Stark rose from the dead as Lady Stoneheart, the Hound is widely theorized to have survived his apparent death, and Mance Rayder’s execution was a show put on by Melisandre. (Plus, I think we all know what’s going to happen with a certain Night’s Watchmen who died at the end of Season 5.) In A Song of Ice and Fire, death means something because it’s permanent, but if too many characters survive their deaths, it has less impact.

I don’t think Martin has played the resurrection card so often that its cheapened the drama of his story, but it’s something to be wary of. For its part, the show has sidestepped this danger almost entirely (some would say it’s been too careful). In the case of Mance Rayder, it’s better because of it. The king beyond the Wall’s execution in “The Wars to Come” was a powerful scene in part because we knew it was the end.

*There’s a distant possibility that the show could be keeping Rayder’s survival under wraps, but I wouldn’t count on it.