>>214049023
The show ignored the premise of subverting the percieved 'edginess', and instead started identifying itself as being a show that revels in killing good guys.
The stuff that happened in the North after the Boltons took over is probably the best example I can remember.
After GGRM set up a standard fantasy world, he famously subverted expectations by killing off Ned, the hero, in the first book. At this point the audience was tricked into viewing the honorable approach Ned took as naive and stupid, and that the self-serving pragmatism of the Lannister's was the 'smart' way to act - which is where the 'edgy' interpretation comes from.
Except later on when Stannis is trying to take the North back, we see various houses and tribes willing to fight alongside Stannis for the sake of putting Ned's children back in control - for absolutely no benefit to themselves. They were still loyal to 'The Ned's' ghost simply because they liked him so much - culminating in the whole 'The North Remembers' speech.
Meanwhile the Lannister's were losing grasp on everything, because betraying everybody you come in contact with leaves you with no allies - except those who are happy to betray you too.
GRRM managed to subvert his own subversion, because at heart he isn't some creep who just wants to see rape in LotR. He just finds the story of good overcoming evil in the darkest of circumstances more compelling when the evil is more grounded and human, being represented by greed, short sightedness and petty squabbles for power, rather than the more classical, mythic evil in LotR.
The show, of course, threw all of this away. The subplot of the northern houses rallying behind Ned's children was cut and even as late as S7/8 we were listening to Sansa/Arya monologue about how stupid Ned was for being nice, and that they were smarter because they had the ability to behave like ruthless sociopaths - entirely missing the point.
