>> The show was absolutely amazing when it could follow the books. The definitive show everyone talked about. The moment the books ran out it started to go downhill. And when they couldn't easily extrapolate from the books the show fell apart completely. The showrunners and writes for the show weren't good enough to make Game of Thrones on their own. No offence, but that takes a lot of skill and luck. They were good enough to adapt it though.

George R.R. Martin is still underrated, even given his success. He wrote for television for a long time and structured his novels more like seasons of TV, with each chapter serving as an episode. This is part of the reason for their popularity. Martin is also a once-in-a-generation genius of character, structure, and plot - a self-evident truth that is rarely spoken aloud because genre fiction is "not literature."

The creators of the GOT show really never even realized that they were adapting something carefully, painstakingly honed by a genius craftsman. They really figured they could just keep throwing in dramatic, violent twists and we wouldn't know the difference. In that light, it's shocking that they even made the first seasons as competently as they did.