‘Game of Thrones’ author George RR Martin says TV show made Daenerys scene “worse”

"We never discussed it. It made it worse, not better"

Game of Thrones author George RR Martin has criticised one scene in the show and how it was changed from his books.

The hit HBO series ran between 2011 and 2019, and following its conclusion, a new book called Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon has given new insight into the making of the show.

However, in the book Martin criticises the way the showrunners changed the wedding night scene between Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) from a consensual encounter in the book to rape in the series.

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“Why did the wedding scene change from the consensual seduction scene that excited even a horse to the brutal rape of Emilia Clarke?” he says (via Winter is Coming). “We never discussed it. It made it worse, not better.”

George R.R. Martin
Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin.

Showrunner DB Weiss then responds: “[W]e just didn’t have that amount of time and access to the character’s mind. It turns too quickly. It was something the actors themselves felt wasn’t gelling. They weren’t able to find an emotional handhold.”

While the original unaired pilot – which featured Tamzin Merchant as Clarke’s character – also depicted the encounter as consensual, the original scene in the books is still troubling given that Daenerys is 14, and she is married to Drogo against her will in the first place.

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys. Credit: ©2017 Home Box Office, Inc. All

Meanwhile, showrunners Weiss and David Benioff have admitted that they would do some things differently on the show following its divisive final season.

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“There definitely are things [over the course of the show] we would do differently,” Benioff says in the book. “I don’t know if there’s anything I would want to discuss publicly.”

Weiss adds: “Prince once said something about how any record you listen to that you think is terrible, somebody worked themselves to the bone to make it.

“So many people work so hard on any aspect of a thing. So when you say something critical it can sound like you’re blaming somebody else. And really the only people who are to blame are us – and I sure as hell don’t want to blame us.”

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