1. Tyrion's Dark Side
It's glaringly obvious that Tyrion Lannister is a fan favorite. His sharp wit, intelligence and Peter Dinklage's masterful delivery sets him aside from the rest of the cast. But sometimes fans forget that Tyrion, just like the majority of the characters in this universe, are morally gray. That's why it's so important that the show includes Tyrion doing things that we may not expect a beloved character to do. Tyrion's relationship with Shae is one of the few improvements HBO has made from the text - particuarly, how the characterization of Shae has changed. I'd argue TV Shae is more engaging and likable than book Shae, but that post is for another time. In 'A Storm of Swords' we see a singer, Symon Silvertongue discover the secret affair. The musician tries to blackmail Tyrion by composing a song about the affair. Tyrion has Symon killed as a result. Excluding this event would continue the show's trend of characterizing Tyrion in a more simple way - not all viewers can grasp the idea of complex characters that are not black and white, or rather, they don't care to. Which isn't a problem, instead the problem lies in how other characters, say Tyrion's sister Cersei for instance, is labled by many viewers and fans as 'evil' when it can be argued from the text that she is more complex than that (although the show does attempt to humanize her in a compelling way in which the first three books didn't) Tyrion gets the most favorable screen time in this regard, and I think it does a disservice to his character to not show his uglier, darker. (Tysha's rape, anyone? I'd be eager to see Tyrion fans uphold his goodness based on that event). One of the best things about this series is that the characters we may love are far from perfect, and the show's creators have an obligation to at least try and consistently present them as such. There are a handful of other events that we are almost guaranteed to see play out in season three and/or four - the Red Wedding and the First Battle at the Wall and Ygritte's fate, for example. It's just that we're worried some of the storylines we've come to know and love might get shafted and never make it to the screen. And we're confused about how some of the changes will influence how the story plays out considering the series of events in the next books. But ultimately, despite any complaints we have about past or future changes in terms of how the books were adapted, we should acknowledge how lucky we are that HBO was the network to adapt this series. Considering the insane amount of characters, side plots and intricacies of the books, it's a miracle that an on screen adaptation even exists - and that it happens to be a really awesome one is something we should be proud of.