5. The Sansa and Ramsay Marriage

And for those who skipped from the twelfth entry on the last list, here is the rest of that thought:

Sending Sansa into a dynamic role of manipulating the Boltons is all well and good, but Benioff and Weiss failed to deliver on that promise. Instead of getting the “Dark Sansa” everyone expected from the season four finale—also the one who saved Petyr Baelish’s life with a lie—we were treated to a return of Sansa the Victim. Or more precisely, Sansa the Rape Victim.

The actual sexual violence Sansa had to endure, as repugnant as it is, might not even be the biggest problem with this development. Because in all honesty, marrying a man like Ramsay Bolton could not have ended in any other way. The bigger issue is that Sansa neither used her increased gameplaying abilities or Northern resources in any meaningful way to exact revenge or announce herself as more than a victim and survivor; at this point, Sansa should be building her place at the top of the North if she is to take over Winterfell, which is so obviously where her storyline is headed. Unfortunately, Benioff and Weiss were fine with her being locked in a tower and fretting about her fate, as she has always done. It robs Sansa of her character growth from the previous four seasons, and on top of that, it trivializes the rape of a teenage girl whose suffering is hardly even touched upon in a genuinely insightful way.

It turned one of their best changes into one of the worst.

4. No Amazing Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie Adventures

Another casualty of the budgetary and time limitations of television production, the transcendental adventures of Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie (and Lommy depending on the novel) crossing the riverlands was sadly removed during seasons two and three.

While in Clash and Storm, the three of them get into a variety of anecdotal vignettes, meeting persons born high and low, devastated and untouched by the War of the Five Kings, this medieval fantasy version of Mark Twain is almost entirely absent from the TV series due to not serving the plot in a significant way. As a tradeoff, we got some wonderful moments between Arya and Tywin, but it will always be a shame that we never see Arya’s attempt to steal food from village guards or their true daring escape from Harrenhal.

Aye, “Weasel’s Soup” becomes the stuff of legend amongst Roose Bolton’s men (you read that right) when she frees them from the Mountain’s clutches by throwing scalding hot soup into their guards’ faces, and slaughtering the rest with Jaqen h’ghar by her side. It’s just one of the many Arya adventures that will sadly have to remain exclusively on the page.

3. Craster’s Keep

On the previous page, we discussed how adding the Battle of Hardhome was a visceral way of increasing the action and showcasing the White Walkers in a crucial way for the series.

…Yeah, well the added Battle for Craster’s Keep is absolutely none of that.

In an attempt to check off a box about a presumable season four action quota (even though it featured one of the series’ great battles only a few episodes later in “Watchers on the Wall”), this was a moment purely contrived for television expectations and it showed. There was no convincing excuse given for Jon Snow to lead an expedition Beyond the Wall to punish these traitors, nor did it add anything to the series except a rather unexciting action sequence, complete with a little rape. Because after all, showing these guys slaughter the likable Lord Commander Mormont in a previous episode and inferring that they have participated in cannibalism isn’t enough. Nope, apparently they needed to be raping a woman in the background, because…shock? Horror? Hopefully not titillation.

There truly is nothing positive to say about this entire detour.

2. Jaime and Bronn Go to Dorne

But if Craster’s Keep was a waste of an episode’s last 15 minutes, then Dorne turned out to be a horrible misuse of two of the series’ best characters in season five.

Like a year-long variation on the Craster’s Keep problem, Jaime and Bronn are sent to Dorne to kidnap the Princess Myrcella back from the no good Martells since the Sand Snakes have rather foolishly announced via package their intent to murder the young “Baratheon.”

Ergo, rather than bring this to the attention of Prince Doran, who ended up stopping the assassination with his own guards since it was stupidly executed in broad daylight, and who subsequently gave Myrcella to Jaime to take to King’s Landing anyway, Jaime and Bronn waste time sneaking into Dorne and then get…promptly captured.

When contrasted with the fact that this was substituted in for Jaime Lannister impressively taking Riverrun without killing a single man, as well as having a tense confrontation with Edmure Tully (whose ignominious fate is finally revealed), the frustration is only compounded. In the novel, Jaime also uses this time to discard a letter of urgency from a frantic Cersei, remarkably showing major growth since he’d prefer trying to repay a debt to the long-dead Catelyn Stark for giving him his life.

Meanwhile, Game of Thrones season five had him go on the dippiest road trip ever with Bronn. Weak.

1. Jaime Rapes Cersei

Could it be anything else?

While Jaime is not even my third favorite character in this story, it is stunning how many of the worst mistakes are the character assassination of the Kingslayer. It’s a tribute to either Martin’s story or Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s performance that he is still one of the most popular characters on the series considering the number of snafus that have thus far been made.

Yet, none are worse than the time that Jaime Lannister took Cersei against her will in the Great Sept of Baelor…at least that is what appears to happen? Even though neither character acknowledges or reacts to it in the following episode?!?

Perhaps this is because it was not even the intention of the writers or director for it to be a rape scene.

But it is. The fact that they did not even realize this puts it at the top of the list with a dragonglass spear.

So there are the 15 Best and 11 Worst Game of Thrones Book Changes. Agree? Disagree? Let us know below or by following this Lord Commander on Twitter here.