ShreyaStannis Baratheon
Stephen Dillane has perfectly played Stannis’ (The second of the Baratheon brothers) role and has received audience’s love for it. But he does not look like the uncompromising demeanored Stannis of the books. The main problem is that he is made to look older than he actually is in the first book, which is 34. “Stannis Baratheon was broad of shoulder and sinewy of limb, with a tightness in his face and flesh that spoke of leather cured in the sun until it was as tough as steel. Though he was not yet five-and-thirty, only a fringe of thin black hair remained on his head, circling behind his ears like the shadow of a crown.” His eyes were “a blue as dark as the sea by night.” Again, which was not so in the show.
Tyrion Lannister
The youngest of the Lannisters and lover of ale, Tyrion was almost forsaken by his father for his dwarfism, as if that was not enough, his sister kept blaming him for their mother’s death. Peter Dinklage seems to be the perfect fit for the character, impeccably portraying his shrewd and intellectual side. But the “Imp” has a more deformed appearance than what is shown in the TV series. He was “the ugliest” of the Lannisters, “His head was too large for his body, with a brute’s squashed-in face beneath a swollen shelf of the brow. One green eye and one black one peered out from under a lank fall of hair so blond it seemed white.” And Tyrion had lost a major chunk of his nose in the Battle of Blackwaters. The show producers seemed to have a serious problem with providing characters with something as basic as contact lenses to make their appearances more authentic.
Melisandre
Viewers have mixed feelings about Melisandre but her act of reviving Snow surely played in her favor of being liked. Choosing Carice van Houten to act as Melisandre was one of the casting staff’s most triumphant decisions. She owns the character and really seems like the daughter of the fire God. In the book, she is described as having ” the heart-shaped face, the red eyes, the long coppery hair, her red gowns moving like flames as she walked, a swirl of silk and satin.” The character stands true to the entire look except for one little thing. van Houten eyes should have been amber red instead of her natural blue.
Roose Bolton
Ramsay’s father, the one who manages to take hold of Winterfell, Lord of Dreadfort is visibly a shrewd, cruel and as cold as those winds in Winterfell. His calculating nature was portrayed by Michael McElhatton with finesse on the screen but there are a lot of loopholes as far as his appearance is concerned. “. His face was clean-shaved, smooth-skinned, ordinary, not handsome but not quite plain. Though Roose had been in battles, he bore no scars. Though well past forty, he was as yet unwrinkled, with scarce a line to tell of the passage of time. His lips were so thin that when he pressed them together they seemed to vanish altogether.”- this is his description in the books, how hard was it for the producers to provide him with a black wig?
Jaime Lannister
Jamie has gone on to be one of the most detestable characters to be one of the most loved. This one-handed King’s Hand is a complicated character with his only serious romantic interest being his sister and he being the uncle/father of her children. Anyhow, the problem that book reading fans have had with his on-screen portrayal by Nikolaj Coster- Waldau is that his hair was right in no season. They were supposed to be longer in the first 2 seasons and when he gets released from Catelyn’s prison he shaves his head in the books so as to avoid recognition. His beard grows again and he is shabbier looking, unlike his most recent military haircut in the latest seasons.
Samwell Tarly
John Bradley does possess Sam’s sweet sidekick demeanor. But his appearance deviates from that of the Sam of the books. Believe it or not, the book Sam weighs way more than Bradley, is clean-shaven and thus looks like a boy and has light colored eyes. His first description in the book is quite funny, given from the perspective of Jon Snow, “Through the eye slit of his helm, he(Snow) beheld the fattest boy he had ever seen standing in the door of the armory. By the look of him, he must have weighed twenty stone. The fur collar of his embroidered surcoat was lost beneath his chins. Pale eyes moved nervously in a great round moon of a face, and plump sweaty fingers wiped themselves on the velvet of his doublet.”