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Some of Game of Thrones’ changes to A Song of Ice and Fire are defensible, but the show took the best character of the books and made him the worst.
Plenty of characters in Game of Thrones changed from their source material A Song of Ice and Fire in the course of the adaptation’s development, leaving a diverse range of opinions among fans about the best and worst changes the HBO series made. Over the course of the show’s eight seasons, the differences between the adaptation and its source material only multiplied over the course of the run, but there was one character who did not so much develop as he did regress.
Jamie Lannister stands out as one of the best characters from the franchise, with his beautifully-depicted redemption arc in the novels portraying a morally-conflicted figure cast as evil who nevertheless decided to be good. And yet, the HBO series trades much of that away for a familiar love story, and it just might be one of the worst changes the TV show made.
As with many of the differences between the original and the adaptation, Jamie’s character began much the same in both stories. As the eldest son of the wealthy Lannister family, Jamie proved fiercely loyal both to his family and his oath as a member of the Kingsguard responsible for the safety of the Iron Throne. His reputation as the “Kingslayer” haunted him after he killed Westeros’ former ruler in order to save it from the Mad King, and he constantly had a dark cloud over his head due to his secret sexual relationship with his twin sister Cersei, whose endless ambitions constantly put him in the thick of political machinations he ultimately wanted little to do with.
Where the show departed was in handling the redemption arc Jamie underwent over the course of his story. At first arrogant, selfish and loyal to a fault, the loss of Jamie’s hand and his friendship with Brienne of Tarth proved inciting incidents for the expansion of his moral character. But while the book depicted those incidents as wedges between him and the considerably more villainous Cersei, the show repeatedly showed Jamie’s unfaltering commitment to Cersei pulling him back from any such character development.
In the books, the wedge between the twins is bolstered by the revelation that Cersei slept with other men during Jamie’s time away from King’s Landing. As a point of view character, readers were entreated to his frequent internal obsessions over Cersei’s encounters with Lancel Lannister, their cousin, and the Kettleblacks, anointed to the Kingsguard while Jamie is away. The perceived betrayal becomes a fixation for Jamie, and as the story continues, he frequently makes choices that establish his independence from her.
But in the show, he blows off any possibility that Cersei sleeps with other men even as she continues to do so. Where he burns, her pleas for help following her prosecution under the High Sparrow in the books, the letter brings him charging into action in the show. Whereas in the books, the siege of Riverrun Jamie takes part in is conveyed as a chance to get away from the small council and King’s Landing, but the show depicts him as begrudgingly and hurriedly hoping to resolve the situation so he can return to Cersei’s side.
Most such deviations to the character between show and book boil down to the same thing. Where the novels flesh him out, give him further interests and show a future for the character, the HBO series reduces him to little more than a dutiful lover with unwavering faith. By the TV show’s finale, Jamie and Cersei die together with little else left for them in the world. Though the books have yet to conclude the A Song of Ice and Fire series, it is almost a certainty that where the character will leave off there will be in a far more interesting place.
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