HBO's Game of Thrones adaptation stayed pretty faithful to the books for the first few seasons, but after the Red Wedding in Season 3, the show began to take some fairly significant detours from the source material. Despite this, it wasn't some major change to his story that most annoyed author George R.R. Martin.
The writer has already admitted that one of his biggest regrets about the show was the decision not to introduce Lady Stoneheart (the resurrected Catlyn Stark), but it turns out his least favourite scene had more to do with budgetary constraints than anything else.
During an interview with EW, Martin revealed that his least favourite moment is the sequence from Season 1 which saw King Robert Baratheon walking through the woods while hunting the boar that would ultimately end up killing him.
"Four guys walking on foot through the woods carrying spears and Robert is giving Renly s—. In the books, Robert goes off hunting, we get word he was gored by a boar, and they bring him back and he dies. So I never did [a hunting scene]. But I knew what a royal hunting party was like. There would have been a hundred guys. There would have been pavilions. There would have been huntsmen. There would have been dogs. There would have been horns blowing — that's how a king goes hunting! He wouldn't have just been walking through the woods with three of his friends holding spears hoping to meet a boar. But at that point, we couldn't afford horses or dogs or pavilions."
The later seasons of Game of Thrones - the finale, in particular - came in for a lot of backlash, so some may be surprised to learn that Martin didn't take more issue with some of the controversial story choices than he did with a brief stroll through the woods. Then again, the writer has already confirmed that the ending of the show is (pretty much) the same as the conclusion of his saga!
What do you make of Martin's comments? Did it bother you that Robert didn't go hunting with more fanfare? Let us know in the usual place.
About The Author:
Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.