Game of Thrones / Adaptation Induced Plot Hole

The show has a lot of plot holes not in the source material:

In "The Wolf and the Lion", Jaime clearly orders, "Take him alive," after Ned points out that killing him will also result in Tyrion's death, but Jaime then does his best to kill Ned and even punishes a mook for interfering before riding off without seizing Ned as ordered. When asked about it later, Jaime only says killing Ned "wouldn't have been clean" as if he never intended to capture Ned at all and it was only Honor Before Reason rather than Tyrion's safety that constrained him. In the novels, there's no duel and Jaime's intention is purely to "chasten" Ned by killing his men because he knows he can't touch Ned without drawing King Robert's ire, and it's implied he had to flee the city because Ned was accidentally injured.
- The scene also makes Jaime's reputation as the greatest swordsman in Westeros a serious case of Informed Ability, since Ned duels him blow for blow and according to the screenwriter, Ned would have won if the duel continued, yet no one seems surprised by this. Making this even less explicable is a scene in season 6 where Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven observe the man who trained Jaime, Ser Arthur Dayne, fight Ned at the tail-end of Robert’s Rebellion, and both Bran and the Raven remark that Ser Arthur is “far better” a fighter than a young, in-his-prime Ned Stark. In the books, in addition to there being no duel between Jaime and Ned, Ned is explicitly a strategist with little physical prowess.
Sam Tarly realises something is wrong with the two bodies found north of the Wall because they don't stink. This was, indeed, very unusual in the book, where even that far north it was still relatively warm, the events of the books being set at the dusk of the singularly longest and warmest summer in the history of the setting. But in the show that area was already heavily snowed in from the start, so the bodies would've been frozen solid and the lack of stench wouldn't have been notable in the slightest.
In Season 1, Lord Commander Mormont dispatches Alliser Thorne to take a wight's hand to King's Landing to prove their existence to the royal court, but Thorne never arrives and instead the small council only receives a vague letter that everyone except Tyrion dismisses. In the novels, Thorne arrives but nobody listens because the hand rots away while Tyrion disdainfully refuses to meet him.
Despite nearly dying as a result, Tyrion apparently forgets he was framed for trying to kill Bran since he never once probes into who framed him or why, even as he systematically removes his other opponents like Janos Slynt and Pycelle. He even gives Littlefinger a Meaningful Look when claiming he has "so much to be thankful for" in "The North Remembers" but never follows up. In the books, Tyrion easily tracks the lie back (Catelyn straight-up names her source) but defers retaliation because Littlefinger is too useful and controls too many essential bureaucrats, something that isn't true in the show where Littlefinger's power explicitly amounts to owning a brothel and borrowing from the Iron Bank.
In the books, the gold cloaks identify Gendry by sight but are never affiliated with Amory Lorch or Gregor Clegane, who therefore have no special interest in Gendry when they capture him. In "What is Dead May Never Die", however, Lorch is directly assisting the gold cloaks when he attacks, yet Arya's Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit still fools everyone even though the real Gendry is a muscular, dark-haired young man not a skinny, blond pubescent, so apparently the gold cloaks were sent out with no description of their target at all, even though it's a plot point that others can spot his family resemblance to Robert at a glance. This also causes a problem in that somehow the Gold Cloaks head all the way back to King's Landing, are able to re-arm themselves, and then travel all the way back to catch back up to Yoren and his recruits in the middle of nowhere. In the books, it's just an unfortunate decision to stay in an abandoned keep when Amory Lorch and more of Tywin's men happen to be in the area performing a chevauchée.
In the books Catelyn Stark helps Jaime Lannister escape from the dungeons of Riverrun - her home castle, where she knows the layout well and has some authority as the daughter of the local Lord - while the army is away at war, and the staff is outside partying. In the series Jaime is being held in a stockade in the middle of a busy war camp, and yet Cat somehow leads him out off-screen.
After his break with them, Robb declares that the Karstark forces have marched "home", totally disregarding that the Greyjoys hold the border fortress of Moat Cailin, making it impossible for any northerners to march home. Retaking the castle even becomes the main Bolton plotline in Season 4, but then in Season 5 Brienne and Pod treat circumventing it as a minor inconvenience that's solved off-screen and Season 7 utterly ignores it when Sansa says, "There's nothing between us and Cersei." In the novels, Moat Cailin remains an important place that nobody passes unchecked, and the Karstarks set off south and east to pillage the Riverlands in search of the Kingslayer instead.
- Season 6 makes it worse when Littlefinger takes Moat Cailin offscreen with no discernible stratagem, leaves his army there long enough to ride through hundreds of miles of hostile territory to speak with Sansa at the Wall, then marches on to Winterfell to win the Battle of the Bastards, all totally undetected by Ramsay. In the novels, no one's ever taken Moat Cailin from the south at all, nevermind this easily.
When Cercei learns of Tyrion's plan to wed princess Myrcella to the Dornish prince, she vehemently abhors the idea but seems powerless to prevent it, and only impotently rages at Tyrion. This makes no sense given that Cersei is the Queen Regent, the de-jure leader of the state, and she most definitely has the final say in the matter of her daughter's fate. In the book Tyrion understood that and made sure to get her consent and convince her that this was the right decision.
In the books, at the outset of the conflict between the Starks and Lannisters, Robb divides his forces sending all his infantry and a small number of cavalry under the command of Roose Bolton to engage Tywin while he takes the rest of his cavalry to ambush Jaime. Roose ended up engaging a roughly equal force of 20k westermen against his 17k northerners and while he was ultimately defeated, Tywin's army still suffered losses and Roose was able to retreat with the majority of his strength intact. However, in the show Robb detached a small force of only two thousand to face an army ten times that size, which predictably resulted in them being completely wiped out at no significant cost in men to Tywin's host. Putting aside why this diversionary force still engaged in open combat when facing such suicidal odds instead of retreating or deserting, this makes Robb's victory against Jaime much less impressive, as instead of being outnumbered more than two to one, Robb would have had about as many men as Jaime and had to send 2K men to certain death to win. The praise Robb receives for this victory thus becomes all but inexplicable, and later Robb comes off as hugely hypocritical when he angrily chides Edmure over an engagement where he lost just 200 men - and inflicting heavier losses against Lannister forces as well - because "We need our men more than Tywin needs his", but no one points this out.
In both book and show Davos Seaworth takes Melisandre to a cave under the castle of Storm's End, where she gives birth to a shadowy assassin which then goes through the portcullis and after its mark. Problem is, in the book that mark was the man holding the castle, and the reason Mel had to be smuggled in was that (according to her) the walls of Storm's End were magically warded, and the assassin couldn't have passed them from the outside - a problem she hadn't had when she'd previously used a similar assassin to kill Renly Baratheon in his camp. The show cut out the castellan and merged the two assassinations together, meaning that Mel undertook the dangerous trip to the cave, created the assassin there and then sent it back outside, for no reason whatsoever.
Robb decides to besiege Casterly Rock to raise morale and make the Lannisters engage him as if it's a brilliant new idea in Season 3, but judging by his trip to the Crag and Jaime's guise as a thief from Ashemark, that's exactly where Robb was campaigning in Season 2. Assuming Oxcross is in the same place, Robb probably could've seen Casterly Rock from the battlefield. In the books, this was Robb's initial plan but it was foiled by Balon's refusal to blockade the Rock by sea and Edmure's unexpected victory over Tywin at the Battle of the Fords, so his new plan is to restore his prestige by retaking the North hence why his whole army accompanies him to the Twins, a maneuver that doesn't make sense if his target is Casterly Rock.
When Jon argues against killing a bystander in "The Rains of Castamere" because it will draw more watchmen to their trail, Tormund responds, "I hope so [...] killing crows in the open is what we do." Logically, sparing the bystander would also achieve this, yet Jon never points this out and in the next scene the wildlings mercilessly hunt down the bystander as if to stop the signal. In doing so, Tormund also just shrugs off Orell's report of shouting from the windmill where Team Bran is hiding. In the novels, the wildlings have an ironclad Leave No Survivors policy to maintain secrecy for their attack on Castle Black and insist on killing an innocent bystander just to seize his fire and shelter while Team Bran is hidden in an island holdfast whose treacherous causeway baffles the inquisitive wildlings.
In both books and show Jon Snow is accused of being a turncloak by Alister Thorne and Janos Slynt. In the book this happens in the middle of the massive wildling attack, and Thorne and Slynt spare Jon from the hanging only to send him on a suicide mission to assassinate Mance Rayder. In the show Jon's trial takes place way before the attack, and he's spared just because Maester Aemon says so. Except that as a "maester chained and sworn", Aemon is explicitly a servant of the Watch, not a part of any ruling council as he's presented in the show. His expertise is respected, sure, but he has no authority to overturn the decisions of the acting Lord Commander, and Thorne was clearly at odds with him.
- While not exactly a full blown plot hole, the absence of the captured wildling chieftain Rattleshirt who testifies against Jon in the books, means that Jon basically signs his own death warrant for no good reason by admitting he'd killed Qhorin Halfhand and slept with a wildling girl. Yes, Jon is an honorable man, but he'd already lied to the Wildlings for months by pretending to have defected to even get back to the wall.
In "Two Swords", Arya wonders why the Hound is broke and calls him stupid for not stealing anything from Joffrey, both of them apparently amnesic that the Brotherhood Without Banners took all his money in exchange for worthless scrip in "Kissed By Fire". In the novels, neither of them forgets this since the Hound nabs Arya specifically because the Brotherhood stole his gold, and he even uses the scrip to poison the well for any Brotherhood pursuers who might try to use the same ferryboat across the Trident.
In "The Mountain and the Viper", Sandor and Arya arrive to the Bloody Gates of the Vale, only to learn that her aunt Lysa Arryn (to whom Sandor was planning to ransom her) has recently passed away. Arya breaks into a fit of hysterical laughter over the tragic absurdity of the situation, and then they both just turn around and leave. Except that Lysa's death, while tragic, shouldn't have mattered much to them, since it means Arya's cousin and Lysa's son, Robyn Arryn (who is The Caligula, but loves his family), would be in charge. So Sandor and Arya could still seek shelter with the Vale, and the guards would've certainly escorted them to him after learning who Sandor's companion was, yet they apparently just let them walk away. Sure, Robyn had appointed Littlefinger as his regent, which would've complicated matters, but Arya didn't know that. In the book Sandor and Arya never went to the Vale, because the road leading there became far too dangerous due to the increased activity of raiding mountain clans, whose presence the show quietly but completely forgets about.
Robert and Cersei's black-haired Canon Foreigner child provides drama in Season 1, but isn't incorporated into other elements of the story.
- Cersei herself refers to the canon foreigner as "my/our first boy" to Catelyn and Robert in Season 1 but to Joffrey as her "firstborn" to Oberyn in Season 4, and when we hear the prophecy she received in her youth in "The Wars to Come", the writers trip in their math by leaving Cersei's offspring at three and the prophecy's tone suggesting she and Robert wouldn't have any children together.
- Season 7 makes it worse when Cersei reveals she's pregnant with a fifth child without even mentioning the three-child prophecy that caused her so much angst in Seasons 5 and 6. In order to downplay this discrepancy, she also veers from claiming You Can't Fight Fate after Myrcella's death because of the prophecy to basically blaming Tommen for his.
- The Canon Foreigner child also doesn't even fit into the show's own timeline. Robert and Cersei's marriage is solidly dated to 17 years before Season 1 when Joffrey is 16.^note Even a child conceived on their wedding day could only match these criteria for a three-month period, and a second-born Joffrey could only be born 18+ months into the marriage and thus couldn't turn 16 until at least six months after Robert and Cersei's 19th anniversary. The only way the black-haired baby could exist is in a case of heteropaternal superfecundation, being Joffrey's fraternal twin, but with different fathers.
- It's extremely unlikely that Catelyn, the wife of Robert's best friend who is also one of the highest ranking nobles, wouldn't know that the king and queen had a child who'd died in infancy. They'd have sent out ravens the moment a male heir was born.
With Jaime in the Kingsguard and Tyrion in exile (and guilty of patricide), Cersei should be the ruler of Casterly Rock and the Westerlands in Season 5 as she is in the books, but she's never described as such. On the contrary, she's constantly diminished as a mere "dowager queen" rather than a major magnate with no clear account for who is or isn't the successor to those offices.
- Then Jaime is dismissed from the Kingsguard in "Blood of My Blood" yet there's no discussion of his rights either (which were the conflict between him and Tywin in Season 4) and the narrative treats this too as a demotion, used simply to remove him from the capital. In the books, Jaime remains in the Kingsguard (and thus ineligible) and departs for the Riverlands on Cersei's orders before the High Sparrow is even a problem.
Jon and the other survivors depart Hardhome by ship but in the next episode, the ships inexplicably vanish and the survivors arrive on foot at Castle Black, 150 miles inland, rather than simply sailing (or marching) down the coast to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, which is explicitly called the closest castle to Hardhome and shown to have a port and a gate in Season 7. In the books, Jon stays at Castle Black, communicating with Cotter Pyke, who is heading the Hardhome mission. While Jon has plans to head a mission to Hardhome himself to rescue the wildlings, Cotter Pyke, and his rangers after previous missions fail, he doesn't make it there. The large group of wildlings Jon lets through the gate prior to this point are those belonging to Tormund's band.
- In the show, Stannis raises the possibility of Thorne taking command as bad for Jon and why he should join Stannis. In the books, Thorne wasn't at Castle Black until near the end of the siege, and his only contribution was to have Jon arrested on clearly weak charges before sending him off on a suicidal mission to kill Mance during negotiations, which coupled with his past behavior towards Jon makes clear why Janos Slynt winning the election as Thorne's puppet would be deadly for Jon. Thorne's insulting towards Jon in the show, but he was able to competently lead the defense against Mance's horde, admitted Jon was right about the need to prepare for Mance's attack, and Jon came up with the plan to murder Mance himself, which makes it unclear why Jon would need to worry about Thorne in power.
In "Mother's Mercy", Jon is branded a traitor by Thorne for letting wildlings through the Wall, even though doing so isn't actually against their vows and Thorne himself opened the gate, not to mention that the Watch is obviously incapable of expelling them again so removing Jon now only destroys any semblance of control. Thorne's Motive Rant in ''The Red Woman" also makes no mention of fears of Bolton reprisals for Jon supporting Stannis as a motive, disproving a common fan rationalization derived from the books where the mutiny does not occur until Ramsay's demands prompt Jon to compromise the Watch's neutrality when Jon declares he will march south to confront Ramsay, with the wildlings volunteering to join him. While a faction of the Night's Watch deeply oppose Jon's efforts to ally with and save the wildlings, they do not mutiny against Jon when Jon himself opens the gate after imposing strict conditions on the wildlings to prevent them from raiding south and Jon is able to maintain the loyalty of the Watch at this point (despite arguments with dissident officers). In the books, a faction of Jon's officers disapprove of the aid Jon provides Stannis, fearing it will result in reprisal from the Iron Throne.
Ramsay proposes a stronger pursuit and even storming Castle Black if necessary to get Sansa back but then, despite dismissing Roose's objections and even seizing power in the same scene, he immediately does the exact opposite and surrenders the initiative by sending Jon (a very different version of) the same letter he does in the books where his circumstances, options, and intentions are much more uncertain.
Daenerys is spared Khal Moro's mistreatment in "The Red Woman" thanks to the Suddenly Significant Rule that a khal's widow must join the dosh khaleen in Vaes Dothrak, but why this never came up during Drogo's dying in Season 1 isn't addressed. In the books, it is established at the time that it is the duty of Drogo's bloodriders (all deceased) to bring her there, or of Daenerys's own khas (who intended to do so right up until she hatched her dragons), and that Jorah was afraid Daenerys might walk into Drogo's pyre to avoid it.
In "The Red Woman", Melisandre reverts to her true form through no other action than removing her necklace even though she was seen in her usual Glamoured appearance while bathing without it in Season 4. Dedicated fans were quick to come up with ways A Wizard Did It, but the show itself never does, nor does it mention Melisandre's true age again until "The Long Night" when she disintegrates within moments of removing the necklace and the show again leaves it completely ambiguous why this happens, creating a third unexplainedly different reaction to the third time she's removed her necklace. The books maintain Magic A Is Magic A by having Mel explicitly never remove her necklace and even use an incantation to remove a Glamour from another character.
In "Breaker Of Chains" when Daenerys chooses a champion to fight against the Meerenese champion, she muses that it has to be somebody capable but, preferably, expendable, since the fight is largerly symbolic even if winning it would encourage her army and disheart the enemy. For this reason she dismisses Jorah and Barristan (as her chief bodyguards and advisors) and Grey Worm (as the commander of her Unsullied), and settles on Daario Naharis. Except that Daario was by no mean expendable - he commanded the mercenary company that accounted for 20% of her forces and only followed her because he did. In the book she chose her bodyguard Strong Belwas, who was expendable, as he had only recently joined her, commanded no forces and hadn't yet proven himself to be particularly useful.
In prior seasons, Theon's claim to be "heir to Pyke and the Iron Islands" is only ever challenged by the implication his father might overrule the Heir Club for Men in favour of Yara, and Balon even threatens to disinherit Yara herself just before his death, yet when Yara tries to assert her rights suddenly "the law is clear" the next ruler must be elected by the previously unmentioned kingsmoot. In the books, rather than suddenly always being the law, the kingsmoot is a derelict tradition dredged up in an attempt to oust Euron after he's already seized the throne.
Sam and Gilly's conversation on the ship in "Oathkeeper" is devoted to all the reasons she can't come to Oldtown with him, yet in Season 7 she inexplicably lives with him in Oldtown totally unobstructed by any of these arguments. In the books, Sam always intended to take her to Horn Hill for her security and support, and her expulsion (if she even gets there) is unlikely with Lord Randyll hundreds of miles away in the capital.
"Book of the Stranger" clearly shows that Littlefinger rules the Vale only by fear since his solution when Lord Royce doesn't believe his Blatant Lies is to show how he can convince Robin Arryn to execute any lord at will. Yet from then on, Robin remains far off in the Vale while Littlefinger leads those same threatened lords to war without any of them just disposing of him and selling the impressionable Robin some story. In the books, instead of ruling by fear, Littlefinger deftly ingratiates himself to the lords by appealing to their self-interest with presents, payments, and promotions.
In Seasons 4 and 5, the Boltons' position is constantly described as precarious since the North will jump at the call to restore the Starks, which is explicitly why Locke stalks Jon, why Ramsay marries Sansa, and why Stannis wants to legitimize Jon. Yet in Season 6, Ramsay suddenly needs only the Umbers, Karstarks, and Manderlys to ensure "none could challenge us" and gains two of them solely by being anti-Stark while Jon and Sansa are refused by basically everyone except Lyanna Mormont (who's only won over by Davos' speech about the coming Zombie Apocalypse) even though Rickon, a trueborn Stark son, is in dire need of a Roaring Rampage of Rescue, a fact that's dismissed by Lady Mormont and not even mentioned to Lord Glover. Contrast all this with the books where many northerners make impassioned speeches and work against the Boltons in a myriad of ways, including secretly looking to Rickon as the Rightful King Returns and joining Stannis' army in order to rescue "the Ned's little girl" from Ramsay's clutches.
- The Northern lords plead pragmatism in their refusals, specifically citing Jon and Sansa's lack of troops, even though they all refused to support Stannis who explicitly outnumbered the supposedly despised Boltons back in Season 5. In the books, even No Social Skills Stannis can start with the smaller army and no Stark association and still rally thousands of northmen simply by opposing the Boltons and Greyjoys.
- Smalljon Umber allies with Ramsay ostensibly only because he hates wildlings more yet freely offers up Rickon instead of the much cheaper oaths Ramsay requests, and back in Season 5 when Stannis had just crushed a massive wildling invasion and was looking for a Stark heir and allies to overthrow Roose (whom Umber openly disdains), Umber apparently did nothing instead of aggrandizing himself as an architect of a Stark restoration by giving Rickon to Stannis. In the books, by contrast, Rickon remains a Noble Fugitive and the few lords who know of his survival are keen on restoring him under Stannis' aegis while the Umbers (who aren't even in the loop) actively contribute to Stannis' army by besieging Winterfell and sending Ramsay's escaped bride to him.
Jon leaving the Night's Watch is only ever justified by Loophole Abuse related to his resurrection, yet from then on everyone, even enemies and lords who traditionally execute deserters, just accepts his departure No Questions Asked, even though they have every reason to be incredulous of a resurrection. And even if everyone did just hear and accept his resurrection story offscreen, why does Jon then balk at telling Daenerys as if it's an unbelievable secret? In the books, Jon leaving the Night's Watch (much less becoming king) is just very popular Fanfic fodder and everyone else who's been resurrected (i.e. Beric, Stoneheart, Gregor, and Coldhands) has come back more unsettling and outcast rather than more agreeable to society.
The books eventually reveal Varys's actual plan was always to support a Hidden Backup Prince he believes he's raised to be The Good King, but with this character ultimately Adapted Out, in Season 5 Varys is seemingly retconned into backing Daenerys from the start, even though she didn't show the mass benevolence he so prizes until Season 3 or even any leadership ability until the middle of Season 1, prior to which Varys and Illyrio clearly supported Viserys (who never showed either) to the extent that Daenerys was just a pawn they bartered to buy him an army.
- The writers pay lip-service to addressing this in "Stormborn" by having Daenerys confront Varys about his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and the fact that Viserys was "cruel, foolish and weak", but since Varys just deflects the direct question of why he'd support Viserys over Robert by flattering Daenerys and denouncing her father before returning to his same old refrains about The Needs of the Many and how "incompetence should not be rewarded with blind loyalty" (which are still incongruent with his obsequiousness to the Mad King and support for Viserys), the scene just winds up raising further questions.
After two seasons of the High Sparrow saying individuals are irrelevant and daunting great magnates with slogans like, "You are the few, we are the many," Cersei abruptly undoes his entire uprising in a single explosion and receives nothing but muted respect for it even as she paints Daenerys as dangerous and destructive. Bronn even says, "There is no High Septon anymore," implying the whole continent-wide religion, not just the High Sparrow's faction, has disappeared. In the novels, the Faith Militant remains undefeated largely because every Reasonable Authority Figure knows attacking them will "drive the pious into the arms of one or another of these would-be usurpers" and there's strong precedent in Archmaester Gyldayn's Histories that an insane Westerosi monarch who tries to suppress the Faith Militant by burning them in their Great Sept will only find themselves in a protracted guerrilla war for the rest of their reign even if they have dragons.
- The citizens of King's Landing even cheer when Euron arrives with the Sand Snakes in "The Queen's Justice", despite him being a barbarian pirate leading a victory parade for the woman they recently jeered and threw rubbish at and saw seize power by blowing up a big chunk of their city, all apparently because "they just like severed heads, really." In the books, even without the mass-murder of the Green Trial, the burghers of King's Landing make no secret of their antipathy to the Lannisters, particularly in their tepid turnout for Tywin's funeral, the subversive puppet shows that Cersei mercilessly cracks down on, and of course their support for the High Sparrow and abuse of Cersei in the first place.
- While Cersei and Tommen's ultimate fate in the books is unknown, the series largely retains the set-up of Cersei being put through escalating persecution by the faith militant before her trial while Tommen effectively abandons her. Since Tommen is noticeably older than his book counterpart by this point and is no longer strictly a Child King, his decision to do so would be taken even more seriously. But despite Cersei's plan in the series resulting in everyone between her and the Iron Throne - including Tommen, who is Driven to Suicide in private from witnessing the Green Trial - dying, no enemy or ally ever brings up the possibility that she she may have intentionally killed her son as well. On the contrary, Tyrion continues insisting she loves all her children and attempts to get her to surrender by appealing to this care, despite now having good reason to doubt it exists.
It's constantly hammered into Arya that becoming a Faceless Man requires becoming "no one", yet right from the start the Waif is an Alpha Bitch with an unexplained enmity for Arya that culminates in asking to kill her personally^note, clearly showing the Waif to be full of feelings that don't align with the Faceless Man creed but aren't even acknowledged much less explained in-universe. In the books there's no such contradiction because Arya has No Antagonist and the Waif serves as a real mentor instead.
The series ignores most strategic consequences of Daenerys occupying the island of Dragonstone, since Euron's armada can sail past it at will in "The Spoils of War" and "The Dragon and the Wolf" and the small, rocky island can apparently feed and house her enormous army and Dothraki super-horde indefinitely. The only solid consequence is that Daenerys's forces have to backtrack to pick up the Dornish army despite already rendezvousing with Olenna, Ellaria, and the Sand Snakes. In the books, sea transit is always complicated and Tyrion has to develop intricate plans to elude Stannis's fleet at Dragonstone just to get Myrcella to Dorne, and Jon Connington stages his invasion in the Stormlands for strategic and logistical reasons (including possible coordination with Dorne) that are secondary to his desire to revisit his ancestral home of Griffin's Roost, which is passably defended.
Halfway through Season 6, Yara and Theon steal enough of the Iron Fleet to prevent any pursuit by Euron and make themselves valuable allies to Daenerys, yet in Season 7 Euron is nonetheless in possession of 1,000 full-sized warships and "the greatest armada Westeros has ever seen" despite ruling only a cluster of impoverished islands he himself describes as "nothing but rocks and bird-shit." In the books, Euron maintains control over basically the whole fleet (of which only ~100 are real warships) and nobody gushes about it being the greatest Westeros has seen.
Jaime's successful gambit in "The Queen's Justice" requires two sudden reversals of canon, neither of which are probable in the books where there's zero indication that the Lannisters are Mock Millionaires or that the Tyrells are Paper Tigers.
- The dismissal of Casterly Rock as worthless without its gold mines goes against the world-building of the books and earlier seasons that clearly showed the loss of an ancestral seat as a major morale blow when Stannis preferred starvation to surrender at Storm's End in the backstory, when the Lannisters defended King's Landing solely because it was the traditional capital, when Robb's army was demoralized and his rule delegitimized by the Sack of Winterfell, and just two episodes before when Daenerys retook her ancestral seat of Dragonstone obviously for it's Watsonian and Doylist symbolic value. Plus, Tywin previously detailed precisely how Money Is Not Power and it's actually prestige that keeps their vassals in line in a Season 2 Histories & Lore featurette.
  - It's also rather ludicrous since the Rock is portrayed as such a strong fortification that even with Tyrion's trick to get the gates open the place only falls because it was left with a token defense. They effectively abandoned a keystone defense for half the continent for no reason.
  - Say what you want about the Artistic License – Economics of Casterly Rock and the Westerlands' bottomless gold mines not somehow causing massive devaluation and inflation in the books, but the idea introduced in Season 4 that those mines simply ran dry one day without any prior drop in production and was then easily covered up without any of the very visible and inescapable consequences like out-of-work miners, goldsmiths, or merchants coming to light defies even Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
  - To make matters worse, Jaime focuses solely on the value of Casterly Rock, but since the whole Lannister army had marched on the Reach, he, essentially, surrendered the entire Westerlands to the enemy, cutting off his supply lines and mobilization reserve, not to mention the huge morale blow he dealt to his soldiers by making them abandon their homeland indefinitely. It's a miracle he didn't face mass desertion, if not an outright mutiny. He also claims that because they've emptied Rock's larders, the Unsullied wouldn't be able to hold the castle for long, as if there were no settlements around it to tax or pillage, starting with the the huge trade city of Lannisport that the Rock sits over. Of course, on any of the shots of Casterly Rock, Lannisport is nowhere to be seen, and apparently the castle is simply sitting in the middle of nowhere. And even besides that, Dany's army now has a small continent worth of land with no doubt countless farms (yes, the Westerlands aren't primary food producers like The Reach, but are also far from barren) that they can use to feed soldiers at the castle.
- The sudden reduction of the Tyrells from top-tier power to Paper Tiger. There was no clever tactic at Highgarden, Jaime's men simply stormed one of Westeros' most defensible castles with ease. Word of God glosses over the Tyrells' ignominious end as a matter of "fighting isn't really their forte," and Olenna echoes this in-universe, even suggesting Tywin could've easily annexed the whole Reach, but this only raises further questions by implying the Tyrells were beaten rather than Out-Gambitted. This blatantly contradicts the countless earlier references to the Tyrells fielding the largest army in Westeros and producing top-tier knights like Loras Tyrell, and is all the more flagrant once Jon gets rescued in "Beyond the Wall" despite his position being much more distant and vulnerable than Highgarden.
By Season 7 the only reason Sansa can give for why Littlefinger is still around is, "We need his men," which rings really hollow given Lord Royce's assurance the Vale rode north for Sansa's sake and the fact she already has all she needs to condemn him for killing Lysa and selling her to the Boltons, both of which the Vale lords already suspect. Moreover, Season 7 revolves around setting up an Ass Pull with Arya rather than anyone doing anything to erode Littlefinger's position yet everyone accepts Sansa's accusations based on Bran's omniscience with No Questions Asked. In the novels, Littlefinger is affable and ingratiating rather than the Obviously Evil guy nobody likes.
In the books, dragonglass and (implicitly) Valyrian steel can kill the Others but are no better than other weapons against wights, who must be burnt or reduced to Ludicrous Gibs. The show maintains this rule until Season 7 when both materials are suddenly very effective against wights in "Beyond the Wall" even though Longclaw had no special effect on them at Hardhome.
- The fire vulnerability gets tossed out of the window during "The Long Night" in Season 8, where the wights fill in the burning trenches around Winterfell with their own bodies, even though it should've been tantamount to extinguishing fire with gasoline.
A crucial part of Cersei and Jaime's breakup in "The Dragon and the Wolf" relies on unacknowledged Insane Troll Logic. Out of the blue, Cersei accuses Jaime of treason for "promoting [her] enemies' interests" by meeting with Tyrion behind her back, contradicting not only that Jaime was led to the meeting under false pretenses but that he freely confessed to the meeting, prompting Cersei to admit he was duped and she let it happen because "an accommodation with the Dragon Queen could be in our immediate interest." That makes her accusation Blatant Lies, but it's treated as implicitly true because Jaime changes the subject so Cersei can continue to dominate the conversation. In the novels, Jaime and Cersei's relationship breaks down much earlier and more gradually, and their last argument occurs when she reassigns him to the Riverlands and balks at his attempt to appoint Loras Tyrell as his replacement.
In the start of season 7, the only reason given for why Daenerys doesn't sail right to King's Landing and take it with the help of her dragons is that "tens of thousands will die in firestorms", and later Jon echoes this statement by saying it wouldn't be nice if Dany goes around "burning cities and melting castles". Although still weirdly ultra-humanitarian for the brutal medieval-esque setting, this concern would've been at least somewhat valid in the books, where Dany's inability to control or train her dragons was a major hurdle for her. Even by the end of "Dance" she only barely starts to assert dominance over Drogon, to say nothing of the other two, so using them in warfare would probably indeed look like "point them in the general direction of the enemy, say "dracarys" and hope that enough infrastructure will be left standing to rule over after they're done". But in the show it was clearly demonstrated that she controls her dragons perfectly, on a level more befitting RC drones than war animals, making all the angst about collateral damage or reluctance to attack the capital and win the war downright meaningless. To add insult to injury, when Dany does storm King's Landing in season 8, she swiftly demolishes city walls, gates and defences with surgical precision and zero civilian casualties. Granted, she still burns the city down afterwards, but there were a lot of exacebrating circumstances which were nowhere near in sight at the start of her campaign.
While it's still unknown how Sam's story in the books will end, the show ends with him serving in King's Landing as Grand Maester of the Seven Kingdoms. This ignores the fact that Sam is a member of the Night's Watch, and was sent to the Citadel specifically to become a maester in service to the Watch, succeeding the deceased Maester Aemon. Taking the position of Grand Maester requires him to leave the Watch, even though we're repeatedly reminded that members of the Watch serve for life; even just going by the show, the only other character to get out of his service to the Watch is Jon, who has to invoke some serious Loophole Abuse (he leaves after dying and being magically resurrected, meaning that he technically did serve the Watch until his death). It also ignores the fact that he never actually finished his training at the Citadel, and shouldn't technically meet the qualifications for being a full-fledged maester (let alone the Grand Maester). It's heavily implied that Bran and/or Tyrion appointed him to the position because they knew him personally—but it's been established that the Grand Maester is appointed by the council of archmaesters at the Citadel, who would be highly unlikely to send a runaway novice as their representative. Most people got the impression that the writers chose Sam for the role because he was the only important character with any sort of maester training, solely due to The Main Characters Do Everything being in full effect by that point.

Adaptation Induced Plot Hole / Game of Thrones

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Adaptation Induced Plot Hole / Game of Thrones

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