The world thought they were mad. Insane. What else besides sheer lunacy could make someone think that adapting George R.R. Martin's epic A Song of Fire and Ice was feasible? We're talking about thousands of pages, dozens of characters, a story that was started almost two decades ago. And yet that is what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss set out to do. Somehow, they succeeded. Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon right out of the gate. Now, as season three comes to a close and certain brutalities have occurred, the show has never been more popular. Also, setting aside the series's mass appeal, Game of Thrones is a finely crafted piece of television. Solid acting, immersive art design, smart writing. You name it, Game of Thrones is doing it right. Obviously, they can't just take the words and transfer them to your TV screen verbatim. Some parts are going to get lost, others need to be re-imagined so as to exist properly in a new medium. Benioff and Weiss had a lot of choices to make with this Herculean adaptation. Here are ten of their best decisions...
10. The Hand's Tourney
In the novel A Game of Thrones, this is a rather prolonged sequence that unfolds over two chapters. We see some great soon-to-be-important characters. Thoros of Myr drunkenly appears, waving around his flaming sword. Jamie Lannister gets a little taste of action, too. All-in-all, a wonderful assortment of characters and some nice world building. During the first season of the show, this scene gets compressed and ends up serving one distinct purpose: the introduction of Gregor Clegane, the Mountain who Rides. His memorable horsemanship and the quick fight with Sandor, his brother, demonstrate that Gregor Clegane is a top contender for Most Evil Sonofabitch in Westeros.