10 ways Game of Thrones improved on A Song of Ice and Fire

2. Khal Drogo’s Demise

From his very first appearance in the books and the show, the audience is told how utterly badass Khal Drogo is. He’s a warrior without peer. His braid has never been cut. He commands the largest khalasar in Essos, etc. The picture is made abundantly clear that Drogo is someone whose wrath is to be feared.

But one thing we don’t ever see in the books is Khal Drogo actually fight. When the horselord defeats Khal Ogo and captures a village of the Lhazareen, it happens “offscreen.” Same for the wound he takes there, which he cites as “little more than a scratch,” but which viewers and readers alike know as the wound that leads to his death. Khal Drogo dies before he makes good on his promise to pillage Westeros and lay waste to armies.

To be fair, this kind of turn is very much in line with George R.R. Martin’s style, and it works just fine in the books. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish we’d gotten to see just a little bit of Drogo in actual combat.

Apparently, Jason Mamoa, who portrayed Khal Drogo in the show, agreed. Which is why he pitched the idea of adding a short fight scene for Drogo to the showrunners, so that viewers could actually see this fearsome warrior in action at least once before he died.

The result was one of Game of Thrones’ first real deviations from the novels, as we see Drogo fight his own disobedient bloodrider Mago and take the wound that will later get infected and kill him. And though the rest of Drogo’s story played out more or less the same, with Daenerys enlisting the aid of the maegi Mirri Maz Dur and earning the ire of Drogo’s bloodriders, this short addition added a really memorable moment to the show. They’re even making a Funko Pop! Doll commemorating it for the show’s 10th anniversary!

And now, back to King’s Landing: