Books are not television. Television is not reading. For those who first came to Game of Thrones through Martin’s Ice and Fire books, that gets driven home frequently in ways both large and small. On the micro-scale there are changes in character names, appearance, and dialog. At the larger end, there are whole subplots and major characters scrubbed from the video version to preserve both time and series budget (sorry, Lady S., I don’t think you’re ever appearing). 

But there are bigger differences, differences that go beyond the gap between these books and this series; ones that affect almost any transition from page to screen. One of those is simply the wealth of information you get when when a scene is … seen. Though there are writers who seek to describe each stitch of clothing and every rise of an eyebrow, no page of text is going to be as descriptive as a picture. After all, a thousand words. Etc. The scenery, the background sounds, the mud the blood—it all has an impact.

That’s not to say that the book is at a disadvantage in this department. After all, it’s a rare production that can match the budge of the special effects department in a reader’s imagination, and a good writer doesn’t have to dress every character. She just tells you enough to let you fill in the blanks with your own special cast and costumes. The two are simple, irreconcilably different.

But there’s another area where books have a significant edge—relaying memories. Whether third person or first person, a book would have no trouble telling you just what Arya was recalling before she uttered one particular line in this episode. On screen that line comes out not just as cryptic, which can be a good thing, but just damn confusing, which is pretty much never a good thing.

Let’s get under the spoiler line where we can take a look …