- Ned is described as plain and long-faced but is played by Mr. Fanservice stalwart Sean Bean and described as "even more impressive" than his late brother Brandon, while in the books Catelyn recalls her "childish disappointment" that Ned was shorter, plainer, and more solemn than Brandon.
- Like his father, Jon is long-faced and never pointed out as notably attractive in the books but is played by Mr. Fanservice Kit Harington and is constantly described as "pretty" in the show. This is likely meant as an allusion to his true parentage, as Rhaegar Targaryen was known to have been exceptionally beautiful.
- Arya is often called "horse-faced" in the books by Sansa and Jeyne Poole, and is mistaken for a boy before she starts posing as one but Maisie Williams is round-faced and cute. However, even in the books, several characters note that she is getting prettier as she grows up and she is noted to favorably resemble her aunt Lyanna, who was quite attractive, if not a great beauty.
- Tyrion is frequently described as The Grotesque as well as a dwarf in the books, but Peter Dinklage is quite handsome
◊ and even proclaimed so in-universe.
- The facial wound he receives is also much less grievous than the partial loss of his nose and upper lip for both pragmatic and sympathetic reasons, which gets a Mythology Gag when Cersei notes his scar isn't as bad as she'd heard.
- For all their gruesomeness, Sandor Clegane's facial burns◊ are far less extensive than in the books. This was at least partially pragmatic since a more extensive prosthetic affected the actor's vision, making it impractical for a character with so many fight scenes.
- Jorah Mormont is hefty, hairy, balding, and "not handsome" in the books, in stark contrast◊ to Iain Glen, and he's spared the dreadful facial brand used by the slavers to earmark him as dangerous and disobedient in the books.
- Brienne is described as hideous in the books by everyone who meets her, with an overly broad face, coarse freckly features, an overly wide mouth, puffy lips that look swollen, large crooked teeth, a nose that's been broken several times and so upturned she looks somewhat pig-like, brittle hair, and a figure that actually looks worse in a gown. Gwendoline Christie is made up to look plain and mannish with some minor facial scars but not really ugly and She Cleans Up Nicely in her time at Harrenhal - out of armour and after a good bath she starts to look a little more like the normal Gwendoline Christie.
- Even the dress she's forced to wear, which in the books is described as both garish and several sizes too small for her, looks rather decent.
- The show also avoids the part from the books where Biter takes two large bites out of her face.
- Ygritte is described in the books as having crooked teeth and a pug nose, but she is considered beautiful by Jon. In the series, she's played by the conventionally attractive Rose Leslie.
- Pod is a debilitatingly shy, stuttering twelve-year-old in the books, who has been aged up to a handsome, if somewhat adorkable young man in the show.
- Osha hardly looks like a woman in the books, with a lean, scarred body and a hard face. Natalia Tena is an attractive actress with a feminine physique and far more youthful than the Osha of the books. Her costuming, including a shapeless robe and scraggly hair, goes a long way in toning it down, but even so she's able to seduce male characters twice.
- Selyse Baratheon is plump with large ears and a mustache in the books but the worst that can be said of Tara Fitzgerald is that she's made to look gaunt, though frequent contrasts with Ms. Fanservice Melisandre help downplay it.
- Even without the greyscale scars, Shireen is described in the books as the unfortunate recipient of her father's square jaw and her mother's large ears. Kerry Ingram is adorable.
- Robin Arryn is a small and sickly child with epilepsy in the books but looks fairly normal, if a bit gawky, in the show.
- In the books, Dagmer Cleftjaw takes his name from a horrific scar from an axe that cleft his jaw. In the show, he's just plain Dagmer and only has some minor facial nicks.
- Ramsay Snow is explicitly described in the books as being "...an ugly man. Even splendorous garb cannot disguise this fact. He is big boned and slope shouldered, with a fleshiness to him that suggests that later in life he will turn to fat. His skin is pink and blotchy, his nose broad, his mouth small, his hair long and dark and dry. His lips are wide and meaty, wormy looking, but the thing that men notice most about him are his eyes. He has his lord father's eyes: small, close-set, and queerly pale." Iwan Rheon has none of these traits except the eyes.
- Yoren is much more put together and reputable-looking than the filthy, hunchbacked old man from the books.
- Rorge keeps his nose for practical reasons in the show, and while his companion Biter retains his filed-down teeth, he's still better looking than the pallid obese man with weeping sores that is described in the book.
- Walder Frey certainly doesn't turn any heads in the show, but he's still far younger and sprier looking than the bald, toothless, half-blind, crippled old vulture of a man described in the books, despite being described as being nearly ninety at the end of "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things".
- Giants are hairy, ape-like beings more similar to Bigfoot than men in the books, but are merely over-sized men with brutish facial features in the show.
- Beric Dondarrion is much gaunter and disfigured by a blow to the head in the book, which is dropped for pragmatic reasons.
- Reek (Theon Greyjoy) is described in the books as looking ghastly pale and malnourished, with broken teeth and premature white hair, as well as the missing fingers and limp featured in the show.
- The books' Three-eyed Crow is a one-eyed albino with a wine-stain birthmark on his cheek who's pierced through with weirwood roots and looks more like a corpse than a living man. The show's Three-eyed Raven is a two-eyed Wizard Classic who seems to be merely tangled in the roots, and with the magic of The Other Darrin turned into a graceful and dashing old sage.
- The sleek and smooth-voiced Hot Witch Cersei met as a child in the show is a far cry from the squat, croaking crone described in the novels.
- Lancel is very infirm, dishevelled, and prematurely aged after his brush with death in the books, but is even healthier and more muscular than before in "The Wars to Come".
- Conversely, he gets a seven-pointed star Carved Mark on his forehead, which doesn't happen in the books.
- Lollys Stokeworth is obese and mentally handicapped in the books, but is fairly average-looking in the show, with her dim-witted descriptor being played more as ditzy childishness than as a severe handicap.
- The slaver Yezzan zo Qaggaz is basically a humanoid Jabba the Hutt in the novels, being too fat to stand and suffering from a debilitating disease that leaves him jaundiced and unable to control his bladder. Actor Enzo Cilenti is not the slightest bit ugly or overweight.
- Euron Greyjoy has only a scar on his cheek left by Balon's knife instead of his sinister Eyepatch of Power, the "crow's eye" beneath it (which Theon describes as "black and shining with malice"), and the creepy blue lips from drinking Shade of the Evening like Pyat Pree from Season 2.
- Obara Sand in the books is described as very plain, big-boned, and mannish. The show tries to make her out to be gruff and aggressive (Olenna tells her she looks like an angry boy), but she's still every bit as lovely as her sisters, as she's played by the beautiful Keisha Castle-Hughes.
- Magister Illyrio is morbidly obese in the books (to the point that people who have never met him comment on it upon seeing one of his specially made chairs), but he's a pretty normal-looking overweight man in the show.
- Daario Naharis, although attractive, dyes his hair sky-blue in Tyroshi tradition and has a triple-forked, blue beard, a blue mustache with the tips dyed gold, and a golden tooth. In the series, the first actor who played him was clean-shaven (although the second had a normal beard), his hair is not dyed blue, and has no golden tooth.
- Lysa Tully/Arryn is overweight in the books, but is played on TV by Kate Dickie, who is anything but.
- In the books, Lysa is described as being just as beautiful as her sister in her youth, if not moreso, but let herself go later in life. The series played up her paranoia and bizarre behavior to make up for this.
- The Davos of the books is described as being short, slight and with a "common" face, whereas Liam Cunningham is fairly tall and well-built, and also attractive in a rugged sort of way.
- In "Blood of my Blood", the late King Aerys is briefly shown in Bran's vision and has none of the disheveled appearance that he has in the books: no cut wounds from the throne, with no overgrown hair and fingernails.
- Howland Reed seems to be a normal-looking man that's just a little smaller than Ned, rather than being noticeably smaller (as he's described) and looking like a Crannogman. This is likely due to Pragmatic Adaptation, as the peoples of the Neck have not been described in the show even by the resident Reeds, so it may have looked silly to have Reed appear like that.
- In the books, Lord Wyman Manderly is so massively fat that he has been nicknamed Lord Too-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse by his peers, while in the show, he is considerably leaner and more martial looking.
- In the books, Syrio Forel is described as bald and leathery, in contrast to his charming appearance in the series.
- In the books, Roose Bolton is described as "neither handsome nor plain". His voice is also described as soft and whispery in the books, but McElhatton's deep, smooth voice has earned him quite a few fangirls.
- Walda Bolton may avert Hollywood Pudgy, but she still has a pretty face and healthy hair. Her book counterpart is not only obese but also red-faced, has limp yellow hair, and an annoying squeaky voice to boot.
- In the books, when Cersei's hair is cut off by the Faith they shave her completely bald. In the show, they leave her with Boyish Short Hair that isn't completely unattractive. She also has a perfect physique, while in the corresponding part of the book her body is described as having lost part of its beauty due to Cersei's age and pregnancies. That said, the series makes little effort to polish Lena Headey's natural minor blemishes as Cersei (her crow's feet are clearly visible, for example), so the general idea of "beauty somewhat weathered by age" still gets across, particularly when she's paired in scenes with the blossoming Sansa Stark and the young, in-her-prime Margeary Tyrell.
Adaptational Attractiveness / Game of Thrones
The show has a lot of this, partly because the novels actively avert Hollywood Homely and Beauty Is Never Tarnished and partly because simulating gruesome injuries is just plain impractical for television:
