Why it is so hard to adapt a book series to television - and how to do it correctly
This is going to be a bit of a long post so apologies in advance and thanks to anybody who makes it through and has some thoughts on the topic.
I think one of the main reasons why people fall in love with a good book or series is because of the depth of character development, the rich world building, the emersion, etc. Take your favourite character for example. In a book, the author can give us so much more information on their background, sometimes you get to follow their inner dialogue, their motivations and feelings and interpretations of events. When characters interact, a book can dedicate entire chapters to private 1:1 conversations where they can discuss plans, share opinions, and in general build up the significance of countless little details. All of these put together is what drives character development and arcs.
When it comes to interacting with the main plot of a story all of these interactions look something like:
a+b+c+d+e+f = G
Where G is either a primary story climax or major event.
Now multiply this out because there is rarely just one character involved. This suspense and weight is built behind every aspect of a story. So much momentum and emphasis can be put behind characters, places, events, even items so that when multiple pieces interact in a major way the outcome is a culmination of all this significance
Now our interaction looks like:
a+b+c = 1
d+e+f = 2
g+h+i = 3
j+k+l = 4
1+2+3+4 = HOLY SHIT moment
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The problem that I see so many TV adaptations making, is they see the plot of a book, parse out those HOLY SHIT moments, and then just try to fill in the blanks as efficiently as possible. But so often it just ends up landing flat because you did not build any of the suspense or significance. A character still *does* the same thing but nobody knows *why* so it just doesn't matter.
Even worse is when they copy overall structure of the story, but then change key details for seemingly no good reason. And when this happens with a character that has an especially detailed and long development arch it makes me want to pull my fucking hair out. Instead of a consistent and logical chain of cause-and-effect, personality, drives and motivations you get something like:
a+b+c+d+e+f+g+eRf+1+*&$
Writing this I am specifically thinking about Helaena, Jace, Rhaenyra and Alicent for HotD. Then of course Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen in GoT. For fuck sakes the entire narrative is building towards the culmination of the "ice and fire" prophecy that in the end just sort of...doesn't matter. Its like setting up a 10KM chain of dominos and then the last piece doesn't fall.
All that said, I understand 100% that a TV show or a movie just cannot realistically convey all of the context, dialogue, motivations, etc that a book can. There just is not enough screen time available and its just not as entertaining to watch drawn out conversations between characters or listening to the MC narrate their intentions and thoughts. However what writers CAN and SHOULD do is understand the structure and reasoning behind each characters story. Find those important elements and either showcase that in a different way or find a substitution that might not be the exact same but is *functionally* equivalent.
I will leave this off with just one example where I believe a TV show did a good job at doing exactly that
***Spoiler alert for Wheel of Time Tv show and Books***
This is just one example, but there are countless others. But in the Wheel of Time book series, one of the characters, Perrin Aybara, is fairly consequential but by no means the main character in the story. His whole shtick revolves around his hesitance to lead, reluctance to violence, but still overwhelmingly protective and loyal. Plus a good deal of awkwardness around girls.
Anyhow in the books, we get entire chapters from his perspective, listening to his inner struggle between using a blacksmith hammer to create things and a war axe to destroy. Lessons learned from his blacksmith apprenticeship, about his family, his relationship with the other main characters growing up as boys etc etc. It is A LOT of information that builds a really memorable (and one of my favourite) characters. But of course a TV show is not going to spend hours and hours trying to establish such a detailed description of a side character. So what do they do instead?
*Spoiler* In the very first episode of this series they make a massive change to the character by having Perrin be married right from the start and in a very quick, but tragic scene, he accidentally kills his own wife with an axe.
BOOM, just like that, you have a character you were just introduced to that episode and in like 15 seconds the writers have created a situation where the viewer, from then on, totally understands his hesitance to lead, aversion to axes, desire to build and return to life of a blacksmith, awkwardness with females. When he picks up an axe next time, you understand the significance of that action immediately.
Now obviously this is a MASSIVE change to the story and character, something that book fans typically hate on TV writers for doing. But in this case I actually loved the decision here to keep the core of what makes Perrin tick and being able to portray that going forward in the story.
I dont know if this was confirmed anywhere, but my suspicion is that this is one of many examples where the writers room actually LISTENED TO their hired writing consultant, Brandon Sanderson. What a difference these small decisions can make when a writer actually understands the important elements of a story and works to maintain them. Keeping an intact and coherent chain like this is what makes those big scenes really land with an audience. When you understand all of the character threads and moments that lead up to the finale is what makes it really land.
Rant over, sorry again, and thanks again to anybody who made it this far.