(This article will contain spoilers for both the Game of Thrones series and the A Song of Ice and Fire series of books)

When the Game of Thrones series began on HBO, it was one of the most faithful book-to-TV adaptations in recent history. Nearly every chapter of the book was present and intact, and the few segments left out (aside from a potentially game-changing dream sequence in one of Ned’s chapters) were not significant. If anything, season 1 was notable for adding scenes to the story. Since the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book chapters are all written from the perspective of specific characters, any moments not involving those characters could not be included in the books. This wasn’t a problem in the TV show, where we could get scenes between Cersei and Joffrey, or Varys and Littlefinger, without breaking up a pre-determined narrative structure.

Each season has gotten a little braver with its changes from the source material. The tiny divergences have been adding up over time and now, we’re at a season that people are calling drastically different from the books. However, I can’t help but think that much of this talk of changes has been a tad overblown. For all of the shifting details that the show has incorporated, it’s all been in service to the same central arcs.

The changes have also been necessary. In A Song of Ice and Fire, the way that the stories begin sprawling out and multiplying makes sense. George R.R. Martin has J.R.R. Tolkien-esque ambitions when it comes to world-building, and in order to truly explore every piece of lore that interests him, he needs to introduce new characters with different trajectories to cover more ground. It can be tedious at times, but given that the reader determines their own pace when getting through a novel, it’s not damning.

This changes in a TV show, where if you spend half of your runtime on previously-insignificant characters who may not even affect the central narrative (if there IS a central narrative, at this point), you will completely alienate your audience. Five years into a television drama, you have to play to your audience’s loyalties: they want to see what happens to the characters they’ve been following up until this point. So, instead of working toward a goal of divergence, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have doubled-down on convergence.

First, the biggest change is in what they have omitted. Aside from the Dornish subplot (which appears to be set to kick off this week), all stories not involving any major previous characters have been excised. This means that we won’t be hearing about the death of Balon Greyjoy, or Euron Greyjoy’s ascendance to “King of the Iron Islands” at the kingsmoot. We also won’t be seeing “Young Griff,” the disguised teenage son of Rhaegar Targaryen and the true heir to the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, stories that involve major characters but also the introduction of new major characters and locations throughout Westeros and Essos have been cut, unless absolutely integral to the story. Therefore, the Citadel conspiracy to put Aegon (the son of Rhaegar) into power doesn’t exist, Sansa’s childhood friend isn’t disguised as Arya Stark and married to Ramsay Bolton, and Harrold Hardyng isn’t introduced to be married off to Sansa. Perhaps most shocking of all, the vengeful reanimated corpse of Catelyn Stark has been seemingly cut from the show altogether.

The most interesting thing to watch in the new season, from the perspective of somebody who has read the books, is how they have reconfigured the plotlines that were touched by stories that they omitted. Take, for instance, the removal of Lady Stoneheart (Catelyn Stark). In the book, Stoneheart is used to call into question who exactly Brienne is loyal to and test her relationship with Jaime Lannister. However, without Stoheheart, they have to readjust the trajectory for both Brienne and Jaime. Benioff and Weiss’s solution for this is smart: they’re sending Jaime to Dorne to recover Myrcella, which puts a familiar face in the otherwise-unfamiliar storyline in Dorne, and giving Brienne run-ins with both Sansa AND Arya. In Brienne’s case, having both Stark daughters reject her protection puts her in the same place of questionable allegiance as being nearly executed by Catelyn Stark. They are reaching the same goal with fewer pieces on the board.

The same goes for the most talked-about alteration this season: Sansa Stark’s story. It’s a quite interesting change that, in retrospect, seems head-smackingly obvious. In the books, Ramsay Bolton marries Jeyne Poole, who is pretending to be Arya Stark, to further solidify his claim on the north. Meanwhile, Petyr Baelish sets up Sansa Stark (still passing as his bastard “Alayne”) with Harrold Hardying, a lord in the Vale, so that he can reveal Sansa’s identity at the wedding and set in motion a unified Stark-Arryn effort to reclaim the North. The show just took these two plots, removed Jeyne and Harrold, and merged them. Sansa is still marrying into a position of power in the north, and Ramsay is still solidifying his hold on the realm. It makes perfect sense.

Other simplifications that have stemmed from the cut storylines: Tyrion’s journey (there’s no narrative need to have Tyrion travel with a ship crew if they’re not introducing “Young Griff”), Sam and Gilly staying at the wall (due to the lack of the Citadel conspiracy, them leaving is unnecessary), and Varys championing Daenerys and accompanying Tyrion through Essos (which is possible since the Targaryen he supports in the book, Aegon, is presumably dead in the show). There have been other minor elements cut as well (for instance, it doesn’t appear that Melisandre pulled the same switcheroo with Mance Rayder that she did in the book), but they’ve ultimately been small changes that will not affect the major arcs. Everything is going as expected with Daenerys in Meereen, Jon Snow at the Wall, Tyrion and Jorah in Essos, Arya in Braavos, and Cersei in King’s Landing.

At this point, Game of Thrones is an example of how to do an adaptation right: always serve the story, but you don’t be a slave to the details. What works in one medium won’t necessarily work in another. If Benioff and Weiss can figure out how to plow through a slow patch of the books this efficiently, it will be especially exciting to see them march ahead into unwritten territory in seasons to come.