The Band of the Red Hand is crucial to mats story and the Final Battle but then I would have also said the same about Loial and his convincing the Ogre at the Big Stump and their involvement in the Final Battle.

This director seems to think he can screw around and change things pretty much for the sake of changing it to make a point like "how much someone is willing to sacrifice"

Changing or removing some story arcs to help shorten the story or because it doesn't translate to rhe screen well Is understandable but so far there's been at least 3 major changes that don't fit those two criteria and just seem to be the director wanting to make grand statments at the expense of staying true to the books.

Still I'm such a huge fan of those books it's a double edge sword. I hate some of the liberties taken with the story and characters but also am impressed with some aspects that have actually translated to the screen and given me a better understanding of certain aspects of the story.

Its a love hate relationship with this series.

Sorry mate but I fail to see how you can claim to be a fan of the books and make a statement like that.

Maybe you liked them but your not a fan if you think there should have been less books.

As a fan of the books I'm impressed with some of the series episodes and in certain rare occasions the series actually did justice to some aspects of the books. In the most part it's a disappointing adaptation of one of the greatest book series I've read. Completely rewritten story arcs or Completely missing in some cases. There's rare examples of changes that can be explained because material would not have transferred to the screen that well. But some of the greatest changes from the books are just downright disrespectful and do nothing but push a twisted agenda just to satisfy a director who shows his lack of knowledge when it comes to the source material.

I find excuses that explain away these changes by pointing out the amount of text over the entire series of books as a reason to shorten and cut the books down completely wrong as Robert Jordan put a lot of time into describing things visually, setting scenes, going into vast detail to such an extent that to begin with it was hard reading a whole paragraph that was just describing a dress one of the characters was wearing.

Taking into Robert's flair for vast detailed descriptions it seems obvious to me that the source material is not as big as it seems in regards to plots and story arcs once the fluff of describing what you would see.

This is not required in a screen adaptation and a series that runs over many seasons that have maybe 50% more episodes than current seasons could have done justice to this epic tale. Instead your left with a feeling of betrayal when characters die before their time or don't die when they should.

Doesn't work in regards to Thom's main story thread but the writers have taken many liberties with the characters story arcs and not stayed true to the books with many characters.