Rhapsodies

So the second episode of Game of Thrones’ fifth season conclusively proves what I was completely sure about watching the first episode. The HBO is officially it’s own independent entity. While, as I said, I knew this week all of the visible changes were in what I would consider the big changes were pretty much just in holding patterns. In this episode all these people start making their moves and it’s completely different from the blend of Feast For Crows and Dance With Dragons I was expecting.

So now we have three of our viewpoint characters, Brienne, Sansa and Jaime, whose stories have changed completely and two more Arya and Cersei’s who’s stories to have had notable alterations with possibly more to come. At the moment the only plot line that has remained mostly the same is Tyrion’s with the only del change, at the moment is replacing the role of Illyrio Mopatis, who has not been seen since the first season, with Varys.

I have to say I’m mostly cool with this, even though it makes my favorite game of handicapping all of the changes made from the book pointless. It had to be done sooner than later considering how the show has been catching up with the books at a disturbing pace. Ultimately it’s best to treat the adaptation as its own independent property rather than stalling for time while waiting for Winds of Winter to come out.

Though I have to say I’m glad my guess of replacing Ser Illyn Payne with Bronn as Jaime’s sidekick turned out to be correct.