Whenever a book ends up getting a live action adaptation, even when the author is involved there are bound to be moments and scenes that that just don’t quite work the way they were perhaps envisioned and that is the case for HBO’s Game of Thrones. While George R.R. Martin, the author behind the popular series of books the series was based on, has high praise for much of the series, there’s one specific scene didn’t live up to his vision.
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In Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, a behind-the-scenes book about the HBO series, Martin told James Hibberd (via Entertainment Weekly) Martin explained that his least favorite scene came from Season 1, specifically King Robert Baratheon’s hunting excursion, and had a lot to do with budget.
“Where we really fell down in terms of budget was my least favorite scene in the entire show, in all eight seasons: King Robert goes hunting,” Martin said. “Four guys walking on foot through the woods carrying spears and Robert is giving Renly sh*t. 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.”
It’s an understandable complaint, with something that should have been more grand ending up done more simply due to budget (and you can check out the scene here), but Martin had quite a bit of praise for the series as well. Following the series finale in 2019, Martin took to his official website to memorialize the show’s conclusion.
“The last night, the last show. After eight epic seasons, HBO’s GAME OF THRONES series has come to an end.” Martin wrote at the time. “It is hard to believe it is over, if truth be told. The years have gone past in the blink of an eye. Can it really have been more than a decade since my manager Vince Gerardis set up a meeting at the Palm in LA, and I sat down for the first time with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for a lunch that lasted well past dinner? I asked them if they knew who Jon Snow’s mother was. Fortunately, they did. That was how it started. It ended last night.”
“…Any other network, and GAME OF THRONES would not have been what it became.” Martin explained. “Most other networks, this series never gets made at all. I could go on and on… and have, as I’ve been writing this post in my head… but there’s really too much to say. Parting is such sweet sorrow, the Bard wrote. In the weeks and months to come, I may post about some of my favorite moments from the making of this show… now and again, when I am feeling nostalgic… but just now, there are so many memories, and no time to do them all justice.”
“I had no clue, that afternoon at the Palm, that I was about to embark on a journey that would change my life.” Martin continued. “I had optioned books and stories for television and film before. Some had even been made There was no way to know that this one was going to be different, that this pilot would not only be shot, but would go on to become the most successful show in the history of HBO, win a record number of Emmy Awards, become the most popular (and most pirated) show in the world, and transform a group of talented but largely unknown actors into major celebrities and stars. Even less did I imagine that I would somehow become a celebrity as well… and if truth be told, I’m still not sure how that happened. It has been a wild ride, to say the least.”
What do you think about Martin’s least-favorite Game of Thrones scene? Let us know in the comments.
Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images
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