This is a TV drama series not war reenactment. They've got 10 hours to tell a story of a 1000 page book. If you want to devote 5 mins to every battle, there will be no time left at all to further the plot. I agree that they don't always make the right scene choices, the Shae scene is a good example, but I have a feeling that they are going to use her as major plot driving point in the future, so maybe a good introduction was necessary. They also needed to explain the 2 battles that went on better so non-readers could understand the significance of what was happening. Battles aren't plot drivers but the aftermath of battles are. There's nothing better than a good battle scene but, also nothing worse than a bad one. I totally understand why they would sacrifice the battles for major plot driving scenes (Ned's death / Drogo resurrection). It was just unfortunate that they also lost the plot driver of the battles (defeat of Jamie's whole army and lifting the siege of Riverrun).
