Actually, you can finesse those scenes: Recall that in the book, you never actually see much of Riverrun that is unique. Martin referred in an interview with a local columnist I read habitually to the PoVs of the three major battles of GoT and he pointed out that the third battle, the one where Robb relieves the siege of Riverrun, is told as a report to characters in a different location. IMO, this implies that they are going to keep that method of describing the battle (it has the benefit of being both true to the book and much much cheaper than filming a battle scene - don't ever expect a TV show as expensive as this to go out of its way to show more massive and complicated scenes than they have to; in a case like the Battle of the Camps, where they have a good reason AND the excuse of staying true to the book - not a chance), thus no need for a set for the battle. Beyond that all you need is a bedroom, maybe, for Cat to talk briefly to Hoster, a tree for the praying scene, and a conference room for Robb to be hailed in. Just switch out the furniture from any one of a bunch of council sets already used.

The disappointing thing I'll bet for a lot of book fans will be the much greater difference between "show" and "tell" on the screen than on the page. Martin can tell half the backstory in dialogue, but because he interjects the narrator's memories, or the listener's mental commentary and because the scenes he shows "live" are also portrayed in words, you don't feel the lack when, say, Ned tells Robert about riding into the throne room to find Jaime sitting on the Iron Throne, or Jaime describes the death of Brandon and Rickard Stark to Catelyn or the soldier describes the disaster at Riverrun to Tywin and Kevan and Tyrion, because to the reader, you are still seeing the same format, whether narrated by a PoV character, or in explained in dialogue. In fact, the latter can actually be better - which battle do we get a superior understanding of as soon as we learn of it? The Green Fork from a participant's perspective, which is realistically hurried, and limited and confused, or the Battle of the Camps, summarized after the fact by a man who knows the whole story? Obviously the latter, at least in the books. But now, watching TV, accounts of past events and dialogue are much less viscerally satisfying when it's just a couple of talking heads. Tell me you FELT Petyr's description of how the Hound got burned the same way you felt it when Sandor told Sansa in the book.

Your (probably mistaken) assumption proves this point - because the description in the books is just as good as a first person narration, and because you are used to building the image in your head, you REMEMBER Riverrun appearing in book one, and forget that no PoV character actually lays eyes on the place in GoT.

Hell, I probably would have reflexively come to the same conclusion if your post didn't make me think about the issue.


You can always introduce him then. And given the sort of realism Martin appears to be going for, dramatic rescues which are such staples of other fantasy are highly unlikely. In another series, Tyrion's agents would have rescued Jaime from Riverrun easily, Arya & Yoren would have swept Ned from the block, Arya & the Hound would have brought a timely warning of the Freys' & Bolton's treachery, and so on. But I think anything further Brynden could accomplish could be transferred to one of Lady Stoneheart's band, who would have similar motivations.