Game of Thrones: Heads Will Roll in Season 5

Published on by Josh Bray
Reaction piece to information regarding character deaths in Season 5 of HBO's Game of Thrones

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There is a fine line you have to tra­verse when you are adapt­ing a work from one medi­um to an­oth­er. Especially when that tran­si­tion in­volves go­ing from print to screen. Adapting a work for film or TV can be a mon­u­men­tal un­der­tak­ing. The pro­duc­ers for HBO’s A Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, have cer­tain­ly walked that fine path on their jour­ney to bring life to the world and peo­ple who George R.R. Martin has created.

Changing up ex­ist­ing canon can be es­sen­tial in push­ing out a suc­cess­ful adap­ta­tion, but can also bring the ire of the fan­base for the orig­i­nal work. This can be a sticky is­sue, es­pe­cial­ly when the fan­base in ques­tion is the pas­sion­ate and at­ten­tion ori­ent­ed fans of George R.R. Martin’s work. Thus any mus­ings from Mr. Martin, or the show pro­duc­ers, tend to set the hype trains rolling.

George_R.R._Martin_by_Gage_SkidmoreThis hap­pened just yes­ter­day when Showbiz411 re­port­ed George saying;

“People are go­ing to die who don’t die in the books, so even the book read­ers will be un­hap­py. So every­body bet­ter be on their toes. David [Benioff] and D.B. [Weiss] are even blood­i­er than I am.”

Even if you are an­cil­lary con­nect­ed to the geek realm, I am sure you are wak­ing up to wild spec­u­la­tion and rum­bles to­day. I think that the show pro­duc­ers have cho­sen wise­ly thus far when mak­ing choic­es that di­verge from the books time­line, and that is where I place my opin­ion for this up­com­ing season.

It is also not the first time the show run­ners have cho­sen to kill off char­ac­ters ear­li­er than the books se­ries, or slay char­ac­ters still alive in the books universe.

An as­tute read­er on Scifi.StackExchange points out:

In or­der of deaths, here are the peo­ple who have died on the show but are still alive in the books.

  • Willas Wode (killed by hill tribes)
  • Khal Mago (killed by Khal Drogo in a duel)
  • Dany’s blood­rid­er Rakharo (be­head­ed on the Red Waste)
  • Qarth’s Council of Thirteen (mur­dered by Pyat Pree and Xaro)
  • Pyat Pree (killed by dragonfire)
  • Xaro Xhoan Daxos (left to die in an im­pen­e­tra­ble vault)
  • Dany’s hand­maid­en Irri (killed when Dany’s drag­ons are stolen)
  • Walder Frey’s wife Joyeuse (killed by Catelyn)
  • Grenn (killed fight­ing Mag the Mighty)
  • Pyp (killed by Ygritte)
  • Styr, Magnar of Thenn (killed by Jon)
  • Jojen Reed (killed by spooooky skeletons)

So we have been here be­fore, and the show’s pro­duc­ers have offed some no­table char­ac­ters al­ready. Should we as­sume Martin speak­ing out in­di­cates that some high­er pro­file deaths are to be ex­pect­ed this sea­son? Or are the showrun­ners go­ing to be clean­ing up ex­tra­ne­ous char­ac­ters to fo­cus more on core sto­ry threads? Let me know what you think!

I know who I would like to see go by the way­side in a fit­ting way. Here’s to Ramsay Bolton’s (hope­ful) demise.

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Josh Bray

Josh has worked in IT for over 15 years. Graduated Broadcasting school in 2012 with a fo­cus on A/V pro­duc­tion. Amateur pho­tog­ra­ph­er with a pas­sion to make things work… by any means nec­es­sary. Editor-in-Chief and do-er of tech things at SuperNerdLand
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