Game Of Thrones: 10 Ways Season 5 Was Better Than The Books

The Game of Thrones showrunners had a lot going against them with Season 5. In a post-Red Wedding world, the series has a lot to live up to if it wants to keep viewers shocked and on the edge of their seats, still convinced anything can happen. There was also the fact that the majority of readers feel the books peaked with book three, and that the fourth and fifth installments were somewhat disappointing. 

So how could the showrunners take two books that arguably were a huge step down and make them into an effective season of television? Well, aside from some occasional missteps like with Sansa or a lot of stuff in Dorne, Season 5 ended up being a pretty excellent season, and in a lot of ways it even surpassed the source material.

Yes, while it's usually blasphemous to say that a screen adaptation is better than the original book, in this case it's true. George R.R. Martin's fourth and fifth books were often quite meandering, with many storylines not going anywhere, the introduction of new characters who just weren't nearly as interesting, and few moments really living up to the heights of the first three in the series. By the fourth book, it unfortunately felt like Martin was beginning to run out of steam and was losing interest in this story.

But, by combining and streamlining storylines, the showrunners produced a much more satisfying story with Season 5. Here are 10 ways the show actually improved upon the books.

The third book in the series, A Storm of Swords, was released in 2000, and the fourth one didn't come out until 2005. Fans rushed to bookstores to see what would happen to all their favorite characters, especially where Tyrion would end up after murdering Tywin and fleeing King’s Landing. Who would you identify as the three main characters of this story? Probably Tyrion, Dany and Jon Snow, right?

Well guess what? None of them are in the fourth book. What happened was when George R.R. Martin was writing, the book became so massive that he decided to split it in two. Rather than cut the story in the middle and give readers half a book, he decided to divide it up by location, focusing book four on King's Landing, Dorne, and a few other places.

That made sense in theory, but imagine the disappointment when readers cracked into the fourth book only to find out that the three best characters in the series were completely absent, and then the next book didn’t come out until 2011. Dedicated readers who read book three when it was published had to wait over 10 years to find out what happened to Tyrion, Dany and Jon. Ouch.

The fifth season of the show corrected that mistake, combining the storylines of book 4 and 5 into a more satisfying whole.