Game of Thrones is adapted from George R. R. Martin’s immense body of work, A Song of Ice and Fire, but it does not always tick the writer’s boxes and he has recently spoken about a rather unexpected least favourite scene from the TV series.
This scene happens to be from the first season, among the very first episodes. The scene he spoke about was the boar hunt that King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) went on. The hunt, which took place behind the scenes in the books, was nevertheless a pivotal moment in the story, after which the story took a different turn.
Martin said, regarding the scene, “Where we really fell down in terms of budget was my least favourite scene in the entire show, in all eight seasons: King Robert goes hunting. Four guys walking on foot through the woods carrying spears and Robert is giving Renly shit.
In the books, Robert goes off hunting, we get word he was gored by a boar, and they bring him back and he dies.” There was no hunting scene in the book itself.
He went on to speak about the grand spectacle a royal hunting scene in the medieval age would have been and it really is a very different scene than the show depicted. As opposed to hundreds of people, horses, pavilions, hounds and horns, there were four or five men walking around holding spears.
It must be disappointing indeed to the man who visualized the grandeur of the scene and had been so excited to see his life’s work on the screen. And each episode of the show had massive budgets so the anticlimactic nature of the hunt is hard to understand.
Given the criticism the last season faced almost universally, it is hard to imagine why such a seemingly insignificant scene would be his least favourite scene of all.
But since Martin has been very silent about the last few seasons which outpaced the timeline of his books, perhaps he is holding back so as to not give too many spoilers. As the author of the book series, his likes and dislikes will understandably not align with that of the fans.
