Honestly I've got to say that in the books it packed much less of a punch for me. At that point in the story I really didn't care much about anybody other than Arya with a touch of care for Tyrion and Jon Snow, since they seemed to be pretty much the only characters that both had the guts to try to accomplish something without moaning about it and then actually succeeded, long term, at
anything (though since then I've come to like Tyrion a fair bit more for reasons I won't go into here). Honestly I'm a sucker for a good "level up in skills or knowledge" training montage story and will let characters "Sue" the story to immense distances if they are in pursuit of one, but at that point everyone except those three had pretty much either been handed armies and success on a plate before failing miserably at actually accomplishing anything, spent all their time cackling about plans within plans with everyone commenting on how devious of a plotter they are yet never actually
do anything, or spent all their time weeping and wailing about the decisions that they need to make, sometimes to such an extent that they never actually choose to do anything at all. I mean it never quite got to the point of the
Eight Deadly Words ("I don't care what happens to these people"), but it walked (and still walks) awfully close to that line with the vast majority of the cast at times.