15 July, 2025 | Jimmy Henks | 31 views

Lately, I’ve been wondering to what extent showrunners and film directors are allowed to change the source material they adapt onto the screens and still call it an adaptation of the original, because some go too far. Sometimes, save for the title of the adaptation, there is very little connection or semblance between the source material and its television (TV) adaptation.  

A typical example is Hallmark’s adaptation of Janette Oke’s inspirational historical fiction, When Calls the Heart. I watched the TV adaptation of the series up to some point (I gave up when the main character’s Mounty husband – Constable Jack Thornton – got killed off unnecessarily). Many fans of the series complained about this and stopped watching the show. It was then that I learnt the Mounty did not die in the books. So, I decided to read the books instead, and oh my! I was in for such a surprise! The TV series and the book series had so little in common!

In the books, the main character, Elizabeth Marie Thatcher, is the fourth born of six (Jonathan, Margaret, Ruthie, Elizabeth, Julie, Matthew). Her father is a merchantman in Toronto (Canada) and, therefore, they are a well-to-do family.

Elizabeth, who is a teacher in Toronto, gets invited to the west by her senior brother, Jonathan (Jon), who is already settled in Calgary with his family. Jon does not only want her to go and teach over there but also hopes she would find love there. Elizabeth who agrees to move to the west after some hesitation is, however, not interested in finding a suitor in the west – she “came west to teach, not to wed.” Given this, Jon is unable to introduce her to his dashing friend, Wynn Delaney, an officer of the North West Mounted Police, who is a sworn bachelor, by the way.

After refusing to give in to the advances of Mr. Higgins, the district’s school superintendent, he revenges by posting Elizabeth to a remote community further west – Pine Springs. The Pine Springs school is new. It was built two years ago but has not had a teacher before. Although the community has tried their best by putting up the school and a teacherage, a lot of necessities are still lacking. But Elizabeth makes the best out of the situation and eventually wins the heart of the whole community, including Sergeant Wynn Delaney, who is currently staying in Pine Springs due to some family circumstance. The two get married in Calgary to the delight of their families. Elizabeth then moves with Wynn to the north where he gets posted to. Over the years, they move through various settlements in the north, where she learns the ways of the Indians and their language. As they move through the Indian communities, the couple gains the friendship and trust of the Indians, and they share the Good News of Christ with them. Finally, in their later years, they settle in Athabasca whilst their two adopted children, Henry and Christine, also embark on their own life journeys.

Meanwhile, in the TV series, Elizabeth is the second of three siblings (Viola, Elizabeth, and Julie). She ventures into the West herself by accepting an offer of a teaching post in a coal mining town (Coal Valley), which has had a mining disaster not too long ago that claimed the lives of several men in the village. This disaster is a running theme in the series.

Constable Jack Thornton, an officer of the North West Mounted Police, is posted to Coal Valley at the same time Elizabeth is posted there. He soon deduces that it is Elizabeth’s uber-rich and influential, shipping-tycoon dad who got him posted to Coal Valley in order to ensure the safety of his daughter, who had travelled far from home – Hamilton. As someone who wants to be where all the action is – Cape Fullerton – Jack is not happy about this at all.

Although they got off to a rocky start, eventually, the two fall in love and enter into courtship to the displeasure of Elizabeth’s family as they would rather she married Charlse Kensington, an upper-class gentleman who grew up with Elizabeth and works for Elizabeth’s father.  

Elizabeth and Jack continue the courtship for a long time, thereby keeping viewers in suspense about when they will get married. They finally get married (in Season 5, episode 5) and not too long after that Jack gets killed (in Season 5, episode 9) when he goes on a non-threatening assignment.

Another adaptation that goes too far is The Rings of Power, which has managed to deviate so much from J.R.R Tolkien’s lore and has as a result incurred the wrath of the Tolkien fandom.

Many Bible stories have also borne the brunt of excessive changes (some even to level of blasphemy) in their adaptations onto TV screens.

If a TV adaptation can take such liberties with a source material, will it not be better to just give the adaptation a different name, seeing as the original and the adaptation are not the same? So, in the case of When Calls the Heart, will it not have been better to have just given the TV series a different name?

While some adaptations may not experience excessive levels of change as the aforementioned examples, the changes are nonetheless significant. For example, in the TV adaptation of Janette Oke’s inspirational historical fiction, Love Comes Softly, Willie LaHaye, the husband of one of the main characters of the series, Missie LaHaye, gets killed contrary to what happens in the books. Afterwards, the rest of the story deviates significantly from the original.  

In Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, Faramir tries to take the ring of power away from Frodo contrary to what happens in the books. This change ends up tainting Faramir’s character in a huge way and destroys the original intention of Faramir being his brother’s (Boromir) foil. A similar thing happens when instead of Glorfindel, elf-maiden Arwen Evenstar, daughter of Elrond, saves Frodo after he gets stabbed with a Morgul-blade by the Witch-king of Angmar – leader of the Nazgul or Ringwraiths – at Weathertop. This makes her a hero in the eyes of the audience when in fact in the books, she is not. She rather marries a hero – Lord Aragorn. That in itself is not so bad. Not everyone has to be a hero. Some live ordinary lives, and that is okay too.

There are many more examples I could cite, but basically, you get my point. As a movie lover, book lover, and creative writer who hopes to get published someday, I find this practice very concerning. I do get the point that not everything in books will be visually appealing and that there is also the need to save time. That is why it’s called an adaptation. So, for instance, it was definitely okay to eliminate the bit about Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings trilogy as it is too long and superfluous. In the end, the elimination did not affect the rest of the story significantly. It was also okay that the last major battle fought at Mordor (Battle of the Morannon) marked the end of battles in the movies. Thus, when the king (Aragorn) is finally crowned, the hobbits do not have to return home to fight another battle as occurs in the books. This makes sense plot-wise, because there has already been a conflict resolution.  

My concern is about taking too much liberty in adaptations to the extent that they cause significant changes in stories or their meanings. The fact that showrunners and film directors have artistic licence does not mean that they should abuse it. Changing a story so much that it’s totally different from the original ruins the story, especially for people who have read the source material and want to complement them with their visual forms. It’s also a show of disrespect to the original story developers to take too much liberty as it creates the impression that the source material is not good enough and, therefore, must be fixed. The abuse of artistic licence also smacks of arrogance as it seeks to say that those making the significant changes are better storytellers than the developers of the source material. Therefore, I make an earnest appeal to showrunners and film directors to avoid abusing artistic licence.