An enormous and fascinating series of charts reveal exactly which Game of Thrones chapters inspired every single episode of the TV show.
This chart shows the awe-inspiring amount of work that went into adapting Game of Thrones
Emily St. James was a senior correspondent for Vox, covering American identities. Before she joined Vox in 2014, she was the first TV editor of the A.V. Club.
The plot lines are much more complicated than you can imagine. The matter of connecting the show’s stories with the books they are based on becomes increasingly muddled the deeper you dive into them. The show often condenses original plot lines, switches characters between stories, and just generally moves a ton of things around.
Enter Joel Geddert of the site Joeltronics’s tool for those who want to reread the chapters the TV scenes are based upon. For instance, here is the relatively straightforward first season:
The filled-in squares indicate direct adaptation, while the dots indicate indirect adaptation.
Things quickly get more complicated, as you can see in the series’ third book outline. The book provided material for three whole seasons of the show, with some straggler plot lines even showing up in season five:
Here's how book three was adapted for the screen.
And occasionally, something that book fans might have given up on ever seeing adapted shows up several seasons later. Remember when, around season five’s midpoint, Littlefinger told Sansa the story of Rhaegar Targaryen, and her aunt Lyanna? That was actually a story from the first book, transplanted forward in time. It was new to show fans, but gratifying to book fans, who had possibly abandoned hope of ever hearing it. (And, indeed, it’s important to one major fan theory.)
Notice that little dot all the way down in season five? That's this story.
Geddert’s charts are lots of fun, so go and poke around at them. The versions on his website are interactive, and you can switch how things are displayed and focus in on certain connections between book and screen.
(Thanks to Sploid for tipping us off.)
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