This Game of Thrones Character Is the Missing Piece The Winds of Winter Needs, and George R. R. Martin Says the Show Did Better
The Winds of Winter will tweak Osha after Natalia Tena’s standout Game of Thrones turn made the once-minor wildling too compelling to ignore, George R. R. Martin told Collider.
George R.R. Martin is doing something I wish more authors did after a hit adaptation: he is stealing a good idea from his own TV show. Specifically, he says Osha will get a boost in The Winds of Winter thanks to Natalia Tena making the character pop on Game of Thrones. And before anyone asks: no, the show’s ending is not steering his ship.
Osha is getting an upgrade
In a chat with Collider, Martin admitted Tena changed how he sees Osha, who is a background player in the books but a standout presence on the show.
The only actress who’s really made me rethink a character is Natalia Tena as Osha. She’s younger, more attractive and more dynamic than I had initially written that character. And, when Osha comes back into the story, as I hope that she will, I’m definitely going to take that into account.
On TV, Ramsay Bolton killed Osha in Season 6 with a knife to the neck. In the books, she is very much still breathing, and Martin flat-out says he intends to write her with more spark when she returns in Winds.
Where we left Osha in the books
- After Winterfell falls, Osha and Maester Luwin decide to split the Stark boys for safety. Bran heads north with his crew. Osha takes Rickon and the direwolf Shaggydog and vanishes.
- In A Dance with Dragons, Theon’s squire Wex Pyke believes Osha took Rickon to Skagos, a hard-to-reach island in the Bay of Seals that barely deals with the mainland. It is also rumored to have unicorns. Yes, unicorns.
- Lord Wyman Manderly sends Davos Seaworth to track down Osha and Rickon. If Winds of Winter goes where it seems headed, we are finally going to see what those two have been doing out on Skagos.
Why this matters
Osha has always been a minor character, but she is a linchpin for the Bran and Rickon storyline. Martin has said before that some Thrones performances surpassed his original sketches, and in Osha’s case he is willing to adjust. If he pays off the Skagos thread and gives Osha more agency, that is a genuine book-to-show feedback loop that could make the Northern plot a lot more fun.
About that divisive TV finale influencing the books
Short version: it won’t. Martin told The Guardian that the series’ reception and actor choices are not moving the goalposts for his last two novels.
No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t change anything at all...
He has said he knows the ending in broad strokes and is following the plan he had before HBO raced to the finish. Whatever the show did, he is not rewriting the endgame to match or dodge it.
Quick refresher
Game of Thrones ran from April 17, 2011 to May 19, 2019, with David Benioff & D.B. Weiss as showrunners, based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. It sits at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and is currently streaming on HBO Max.