For book ppl. I heard this episode differed quite a bit from the novels. More so than any episode before apparently?
Is this true + how so?
Pretty much everything North of the wall seems to be changed as of this moment. It might correct itself back onto the book course in the next episode or two. Much like Dany's Strong Belwas they wrote out a Bran and company character named Coldhands who kind of shepherded them through with little incident. There was none of this captured at Craster's Keep stuff.
The main thing seems to be that book readers are either really excited or really, really angry about the last scene with the Night's King reveal. They're treating it as a book spoiler. In the books up to now nothing like that last scene has ever been "seen." Assuming that White Walker at the end was indeed the Night's King - some HBO episode guide called him that so I suppose it's accurate enough.
It appears HBO has since edited that episode guide synopsis and replaced the specific name with just "a Walker." So I dunno what's going on with regards to all of that. The scene still threw readers for a huge loop, whether it was the Night's King or not.