Jojen Reed’s death, spelled out pretty clearly on-screen in Game of Thrones season 4, was entirely different in the novels.
There were always going to be major differences between Game of Thrones, the TV show, and A Song of Ice and Fire, the novels. Some characters who died fairly early in the novels continue to survive onscreen, and some who are (or may be) alive in the books are dead in the show. One of these is Jojen Reed.
During Game of Thrones seasons 3 and 4 Jojen was the main force guiding Bran towards the Three-Eyed Raven. He had so-called “green dreams” that allowed him to get little glimpses of the future. Pretty early on, he revealed to Bran that they had given him a glimpse of his own death, and it would be by fire.
Jojen successfully led Bran (and Hodor) to the Three-Eyed Raven, but was ambushed by wight on their way to the entrance. One of the wights stabbed Jojen repeatedly and then Meera cut his throat as an act of mercy. Ultimately Leaf, a child of the forest, threw something that lit his body on fire to ensure he wouldn’t become a wight himself.
In the books, it was not nearly so clear-cut (nothing is). In fact, it’s actually possible that the Jojen of the books is still alive somewhere, it’s just not likely. In the books, he and Bran reached the Three-Eyed Raven and the children of the forest without being caught by the wights. Once they arrived Jojen slowly but surely retreated into himself. He took to wandering the caves alone, became more sickly and eventually disappeared.
Then comes the disturbing part. When Bran reached a certain stage in his training, the children gave him a special paste to, in their words, “wed him to the trees.” The paste was red, and Bran almost couldn’t keep it down at first. Now, the weirwood sap is also red, so this could have just been made out of the trees, but it happened soon after Jojen disappeared, and blood is red too. Bran even had some trouble keeping the concoction down for the first few mouthfuls, but it became tastier and tastier the more he ate it.
In both the show and the novels Jojen had essentially the same purpose: to deliver Bran safely to the Three-Eyed Raven. But then their paths diverged. In the books, Jojen just fade out of the story. He had been growing more sickly even before they reached the Three-Eyed Raven, and was always restless after they arrived. He (almost literally) wandered out of the story. On the show he did the work to make sure Bran reached the Three-Eyed Raven, but just as they reached him, he went out with a bang.
Game of Thrones returns for its final season April 24 on HBO.
