YMMV / Game of Thrones S4E10: "The Children"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Arya's motivations for not killing the Hound are debated quite a bit. Some figure that it was an act of spite, refusing to offer a Mercy Kill. Others believe that through Stockholm Syndrome she had formed a real bond with him and couldn't bring herself to kill him. Season 6 confirmed it's the latter, where Arya says at that point she'd taken him off her list.
• Franchise Original Sin: Although this is the last episode of what's considered the best era of Game of Thrones (Season 1-4), and it's considered one of the best seasons finales in the series, lots of problems that the later seasons had can already be seen here. Mostly with adaptation changes - such as removing the Tysha revelation, killing off Jojen (who is still alive in the books), the bizarre powers the Children of the Forest were given, and cutting the Lady Stoneheart storyline completely (the meeting of Sandor and Brienne is the only change that was praised unanimously). Likewise still adapting Tyrion's murder of Shae when both their characters went in different directions from the books: Tyrion's killing her was a Start of Darkness for him in the books, but he remains a heroic character in the series, something that would have good and bad consequences for the rest of the character's arc.
• Narm: Jojen's death because of how overkill it is. First, he's stabbed by a wight, then Meera gives him a Mercy Kill with a slit throat. Then Leaf blows him up with a makeshift Molotov cocktail. Thomas Brodie Sangster describes reading it on the plane over to shoot and being baffled by how it kept escalating. Almost as if they wanted to assure book readers that it was a definite Death by Adaptation.
• Special Effects Failure: The Children of the Forest and the Skeletons fight despite the Ray Harryhausen homage was seen as distinctly less impressive than the original in Jason and the Argonauts. The appearance of the Children itself was subject to a fair bit of derision, which may explain the changes made to their design on Season 6.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Of the first four seasons, this is the episode with the most drastic changes to the book. In a way, this episode gives an indication of what the series would become in seasons 5-8, with the showrunners making more and more changes, and having to continue with the plot after going beyond the books. The main points are:
  • The death of Jojen Reed when the character was still alive when last read in A Dance with Dragons.
  • The appearance of the Three-Eyed Raven as a Wizard Classic instead of the one-eyed albino part-tree Humanoid Abomination.
  • While the scene was well praised by many, the Hound-Brienne fight was seen as unnecessarily brutal, and while Brienne was given Adaptational Badass throughout the show, having her defeat the Hound was seen as a big stretch.
  • Changing Tyrion's killing of Shae from a very deliberate murder on his behalf, to instead having him end up killing her in self-defense, is seen by most fans of the book as a serious watering down of his character, as it removes what was a serious edge of moral ambiguity, in favor of making him a more unambigiously heroic figure. Some have even compared it to the infamous "Han shot first" debacle.
  • Excising the Tysha revelation completely, which for many takes away the power of the final Tyrion-Tywin confrontation.
  • And of course, the absence and excision of the Lady Stoneheart storyline.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Despite establishing Tysha in Season One and occasional references in Seasons 2 and 3 about Tyrion's first marriage, the show removed it completely despite having enough space to build it up over Season 4. For many it drastically alters the characters of Tyrion, Jaime, and Tywin and takes away something fundamental from their characters, not to mention decreasing the dramatic potential of one of the most iconic moments in A Storm of Swords.
  • A lot of the complaints also stems from the fact that despite covering the book over two seasons, Game of Thrones still hasn't fully adapted the final threads from A Storm of Swords, with many complaints directed at the original scenes and subplots in Season 4 - Locke at Castle Black, Karl Tanner, Orson Lannister monologue which also contradicted Tyrion's previous statement of having a soft spot for "cripples, bastards, and broken things" - that mostly served as a Red Herring and for purposes of padding. All of these scenes could easily have been cut to fit more book plots that were cut or postponed to other seasons, such as the Greyjoys' plot in A Feast for Crows.

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