2. The rich culture and characters of Dorne
One of the most universally decried things in the entirety of Game of Thrones is how the show handled Dorne, the country that makes up the southern tip of Westeros. Dorne isn’t really explored in George R.R. Martin’s novels until his fourth book, A Feast for Crows, which finally takes readers to its treacherous dunes, luscious gardens, and riverside towns. But when Martin does finally bring us there, we quickly find that Dorne has one of the most richly developed cultures in all of Westeros.
This manifests in its people, many of whom trace their lineage back to Princess Nymeria of the Rhoyne. Dorne has three distinct subcultures: the salty Dornish who live along the country’s brackish rivers and coasts, the sandy Dornish who live amidst the dunes, and the stony Dornish who occupy the mountainous areas along the country’s northern borders. Even then, Martin keeps things realistic by depicting how these three groups co-mingle depending on the geography and people’s own personal histories.
All this isn’t even getting into the treatment of House Martell. We never really see Prince Doran and Areo Hotah’s complex relationship explored before they’re both unceremoniously killed off in the season 6 premiere, and Doran’s two most prominent children in the books, Quentyn and Arianne Martell, are both absent entirely. Arianne especially is a seemingly major player in the novels who we already know is going to feature in The Winds of Winter, so leaving her out of the fray entirely is a head scratcher, at least until we see how her story resolves in the books.
Everyone knows the show did Dorne dirty. But even then it’s sometimes hard to wrap your head around just how much of this deeply interesting culture was lost in translation.