“It’s a hell of a twist”: ‘The Boys’ Creator Destroyed George R.R. Martin’s Controversial Take on Adapting Source Material With Just One Move and It’s a Good Thing
The Boys is currently one of the most beloved series, but it does not follow the source material down to a tee. Like numerous other creators, showrunner Eric Kripke also deviated the show’s plotline from the storyline in the comics.
However, Kripke has managed to prove A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin’s opinion about creators deviating from the source material wrong as fans do not mind this particular change. In the show, Homelander is portrayed as the bad guy, unlike the comics in which Black Noir is the true villain, and the creator has recently claimed that they never planned to make Black Noir the villain.
The Boys Creator Revealed He Never Planned on Making Black Noir The Villain
Based on the eponymous comics, The Boys is a satirical superhero series in which an eponymous group of vigilantes fights the Supes, superpowered individuals who use their powers for their personal gain but work for a company that paints them as heroes in the public eye. Having premiered in 2019, the show is now in its fourth season.
In the show, Black Noir had been interesting since the beginning but his story arc came to an end when Homelander murdered him at the end of Season 3 to keep him from discovering Homelander’s origin. However, in the comics, Black Noir is a clone of Homelander and is the original villain all along.
Recently, creator Eric Kripke got candid with Variety about this particular change in the show and explained that he never planned to make Black Noir the villain because according to him, while “it’s a hell of a twist”, it was not as satisfying for him. He wanted Homelander to be the villain, and his reasoning seems understandable.
Cloning feels like too — I’m going to sound silly — but cloning feels too magical for the show. We try to say that superheroes are the only slippery banana, and that everything else we try to make as grounded as possible.
The show has been made to be as rooted in reality as possible and Homelander, a Supe, has been the villain all along, so making Black Noir, the original bad guy towards the end. Staying true to the comics in this regard would undermine the entire purpose of the show, which is to reveal that superheroes are not the noble figures people believe them to be.
George R.R. Martin Believes Creators Who Deviate from the Source Material Ruin the Adaptations
Martin is one of the most esteemed writers of the literary world. His novel series A Song of Ice and Fire has been adapted into the popular TV shows Game of Thrones, the prequel House of the Dragon, and the upcoming spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
He has been quite vocal about his issue with Hollywood adaptations and screenwriters’ trying to make the source material look like their own by making major deviations. Last month, he took to his personal blog to bring up the issue again.
‘The book is the book, the film is the film,’ they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own. They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.
There is no denying that Martin is right to a certain extent. Most book-to-screen adaptations deviate from the source material, but not all of them are necessarily bad. The Shining, Forrest Gump, the Harry Potter film series, and now, The Boys prove that despite significant deviations, adaptations can be good.
The Boys is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
