HBO's "Game of Thrones," based on George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" medieval fantasy series, has taken quite a few liberties in adapting the books to television, and Martin recently weighed in on which of his characters he believes changed the most from book to show.
Seeing as the source material is thousands and thousands of pages, showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff had to cut quite a bit of content, though they also altered characters and added a few of their own, including the wily prostitute Ros. The Mary Sue reports that, for instance, Margaery Tyrell is much more interesting and sneaky in the show, while Robb Stark's marriage was dramatically changed from "a poignant commentary on honor and tragedy to a 'Starcrossed lovers want to get married! But they can't!'" sub-plot.
Fans of the books have made plenty of critiques over Weiss and Benioff's choices, especially when it comes to characterization, but according to Martin, the most different character is the cunning and dangerous Petyr Baelish, also known as Littlefinger.
“Book Littlefinger and television show Littlefinger are very different characters," Martin said in a new interview with the BBC. "They’re probably the character that’s most different from the book to the television show. There was a a line in a recent episode of the show where, he’s not even present, but two people are talking about him and someone says ‘Well, no one trusts Littlefinger’ and ‘Littlefinger has no friends.’ And that’s true of television show Littlefinger, but it’s certainly not true of book Littlefinger. Book Littlefinger, in the book, everybody trusts him. Everybody trusts him because he seems powerless, and he’s very friendly, and he’s very helpful. He helps Ned Stark when he comes to town, he helps Tyrion, you know, he helps the Lannisters. He’s always ready to help, to raise money. He helps Robert, Robert depends on him to finance all of his banquets and tournaments and his other follies, because Littelfinger can always raise money. So, he’s everybody’s friend. But of course there’s the Machiavellian thing. He’s, you know, everybody trusts him, everybody depends on him. He’s not a threat. He’s just this helpful, funny guy, who you can call upon to do whatever you want, and to raise money, and he ingratiaties himself with people and rises higher and higher as a result.”
