George R.R. Martin on the “not completely faithful” final season of Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss received a lot of blowback following the final season of the ground-breaking show. This is well-known by now. In the months since the series finale, we’ve watched as cast members, directors, and others weigh in, by and large defending the show — and the people who made it — from criticism that could, to be fair, get pretty darn ugly at times.

It’s a delicate position. If you put your heart and soul into something, of course you want to defend it. And I think the intensity of the backlash has inspired some of the people involved in the show to double down and not give an inch. It creates a bit of an us-vs-them mentality that is hopefully dissipating by this point.

One person who’s stayed pretty much above the fray has been George R.R. Martin, the writer of the Song of Ice and Fire series. He sort of dipped his toe into the controversy while talking to Fast Company (the interview appears in the magazine, not online), describing his feelings about what can be lost in a book-to-screen adaptation. “It can be… traumatic,” he said. “Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don’t match, and you get the famous creative differences thing — that leads to a lot of conflict.”

Now, note that Martin isn’t talking about Game of Thrones specifically here, just the adaptation process in general. But it’s pretty well known that Benioff and Weiss cut out a lot from the Song of Ice and Fire books, from the appearance of Lady Stoneheart to characters like Young Griff and Arianne Martell. Did that create “conflict” between him and Benioff and Weiss? Stay tuned for the tell-all book.

Continuing to speak in generalities, Martin talked about how frustrating things can be when a studio inserts itself into a show’s development. “You get totally extraneous things like the studio or the network weighing in, and they have some particular thing that has nothing to do with story, but relates to ‘Well this character has a very high Q Rating so let’s give him a lot more stuff to do,’” he said.

In this case, I’m pretty sure Martin is talking about his pre-Game of Thrones experiences in Hollywood — he’s gone on record about being frustrated with network interference during those days. And HBO has never been the kind of network to meddle, anyway. (A Q-Rating, for those interested, is a measure of the familiarity and appeal of a brand, celebrity, company, or entertainment product.)

Finally, Martin did talk a little about the final season of the show. “The [final] series has been… not completely faithful,” he said. “Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons.” Again, that’s something he’s said before, and indeed he’s right — if Game of Thrones had adapted everything from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, we’d be watching for years to come. I’m far from convinced that would have been the right choice.

Basically, Martin didn’t say anything particularly new here. He’s been more detailed in the past. “I wish we had a few more seasons,” he told Rolling Stone while the final season was going on. “But I understand. Dave and Dan are gonna go on to do other things, and I’m sure some of the actors were signed up for like seven or eight years, and they would like to go on and take other roles. All of that is fair. I’m not angry or anything like that, but there’s a little wistfulness in me.”

Martin has always been Team Game of Thrones. Although it was obviously a team effort, it’s still his show, and he was up on stage with everybody else when it won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series two Sundays back. If anything, the story here is how outlets are misinterpreting some of his Fast Company comments, saying he “lashes out” at producers or “slams” the finale.

But brow-furrowing media coverage is another issue. For now, what do make of Martin’s comments?

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