‘Game of Thrones’ Author Shades Showrunners: ‘They Never Make it Better… They Make it Worse’

Author George R.R. Martin lashed out at screenwriters working on book adaptations these days, and many fans think it was a thinly-veiled insult meant for the showrunners of Game of Thrones. Martin discussed the topic at a live event back in 2022, and he elaborated in a blog post last week. He wrote that screenwriters make too many changes to the material they adapt, and that it rarely works out for the better.

Martin linked to an article about the 2022 live event where he discussed adaptations with fellow author Neil Gaiman. He wrote that “very little has changed since then. If anything, things have gotten worse. Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and ‘make them their own.’” Martin listed some of his personal favorite authors that have been adapted to the screen, then went on: “No matter how matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and ‘improve’ on it. ‘The book is the book, the film is the film,’ they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound.”

“Then they make the story their own. They never make it better, though,” Martin wrote. “Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.”

Martin never mentioned any of the writers who have adapted his work to the screen in this post. In fact, all of that was set up as a preamble to his review of the new FX series Shogun. Still, with nearly half the post dedicated to this diatribe about adaptations, fans couldn’t help but perceive it as an indictment of the process as a whole. Considering the infamously unpopular ending of HBO’s Game of Thrones, many assumed Martin was talking about the writers and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Game of Thrones ended awkwardly in 2019 with two shortened seasons and a lot of rushed plot points. At the time, Martin told Entertainment Tonight that both he and HBO executives had lobbied for the show to go on longer, and that Benioff and Weiss had made the decision to end it when they did. Critics noted how unique it was for the fandom to turn on the showrunners, not the cast or other more visible people involved in the show.

Of course, Martin gets flak as well, with many fans blaming his writer’s block with the books for the show’s lackluster ending. The author still plans to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, saying it will be different from the TV show ending. Martin has very lightly defended Benioff and Weiss from criticism in past blog posts, and has never criticized them himself. This blog post has many fans wondering if something has changed between the three writers behind the scenes, but that’s only speculation.

Martin has heaped praise on other screenwriters working on Game of Thrones spinoffs, including House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker. He has worked with a handful of other writers in recent years on HBO’s many spinoffs in development. He has also written about his experience as a TV writer in his book Dreamsongs.

House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres on Sunday, June 16 on HBO and Max. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is filming now, and is slated to premiere in 2025. Martin’s books are available in print, digital and audiobook formats. So far, there’s no release date in place for his next installment, The Winds of Winter.