It's the Bible for the rest of the series, so trimming that down wouldn't do much good and would have done some harm. I didn't expect the other books to carry that on.
They need to trim the fat a bit and the novels have way too many characters. I guess the only major difference in that respect is the city of Qarth. No real idea why Robb's wife has a different name in the novels and in the TV series. I know they changed Theon's sister's name because of how close it was to Osha.
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