Game of Thrones author George RR Martin says the final season of the epic fantasy HBO show was “not completely faithful” to his book series, “A Song of Fire And Ice” on which it was based.
The remark comes hot on the heels of the eighth and final chapter of GoT winning the outstanding drama series Emmy, including an individual trophy for Peter Dinklage in the supporting actor in drama series category.
“The (final) series has been… not completely faithful. Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons,” Martin told Fast Company magazine.
The loss in a book-to-screen adaptation can be “traumatic”, the author admitted.
“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,” he added.
GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan B Weiss were called out for below par script writing and poor portrayal of women in the last season, resulting in lakhs of fans across the world sign an online petition urging the network to redo the final chapter, which ended in May.
“David Benioff and DB Weiss have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (ie the books) to fall back on.
“This series deserves a final season that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO,” the petition read.
Martin, who earlier spoke about the “toxic” culture of online fandoms making the environment volatile for artistes, said the interference of Hollywood studios and networks with the character arcs doesn’t help either.
“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’.”
In August, Martin promised fans that the controversial climax of the TV series will not influence his future novels in the book series.
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