I try to keep the two as separate as possible, but I’d be lying if I said I found that easy. The biggest thing for me is faces, I really struggle to envisage the characters how they’re written in the book rather than how they look on the screen.
this is one of the few shows where it’s become impossible for me to divide the book and show characters in my head.
Honestly?
It killed any desire to read them again.
Not necessarily because of anything about the show or the books, but because I genuinely believe that Mr Martin is never going to finish them. The show ending essentially wrecked any choice he could make in the ending of the books. It’s a no win situation for him. He’s better off just living his best life and letting the show stand as an ending for both than dealing with the shitshow of drama that would come from anything he could possibly write.
And it isn’t like the show was completely without his guidance. The ending was at least loosely based on his plans and ideas.
Mind you, I don’t hate the show ending in terms of loose ideas. The basic, broad strokes make sense based on the books. Hell, some of it even makes sense based on the show. It was the execution of the ending that was absurd. You could have the same basic plot, with less dumb writing and make it a fitting conclusion.
Which all means that rereading the books is a waste of time, there’s no finish.
But the show made too many alterations and weird decisions for it to match perfectly to the books. And, they wrote the show with a very clear emphasis on specific characters being the “main” characters in a way the books never did.
