7 things from the books we wish Game of Thrones would have kept

In bringing the massive world of the A Song Of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) novels to Game of Thrones, a lot was omitted but some content was so good we wish GoT would have kept it.

Winter is finally here after hearing the Starks warn of the season’s eventual return since the pilot episode of the show. In Game of Thrones Season 8, we will surely find out what happens when Winter hits all of Westeros. The Night King is coming with his army, and we know that there will be a war between the living and the undead. The journey to this very moment involved talking a lot of history and learning about all the key players.

Surprisingly, the writers of Game of Thrones were able to squish centuries of history into dialogue and events so that we may understand what the ancestors of the prominent characters did and how that has affected everyone in the present.

In seeing the Mad King in his paranoid glory, we can understand Daenerys Targaryen’s rightful claim to the throne, but also the reluctance that some may have to bend the knee to her. Similarly, learning about the conquering of Westeros by the First men and the Andals helps us to sympathize with the Children of the Forest in creating the Night King to get their land back.

Still, there is so much more to unpack from the novels that there will be spinoffs based on ASOIAF‘s ancestral history. George R.R. Martin has stories for days in this universe, and a lot of characters and exposition got the big chop during the TV adaptation. Some tales will never have the opportunity of being fulfilled on TV, so we’ve made a list of everything we would have kept in Game of Thrones.