George R.R. Martin on if the Game Of Thrones books end differently than the show: "Well ... yes. And no. And yes."

By Reid McCarter  |  May 21, 2019 | 3:57pm
Aux Features Books
George R.R. Martin on if the Game Of Thrones books end differently than the show: "Well ... yes. And no. And yes."
Photo: Jeff Kravitz

Now that the dust has cleared on HBO’s Game Of Thrones series finale, fans unhappy with the ending have very little to look forward to other than bigger, better season 8 remake petitions and the continued hope that author George R.R. Martin will finish out the series of novels differently. Fortunately, over at Martin’s incredibly dope pseudo-Livejournal page, the dream of a different ending and a return to blog posts capped off by “Current mood” indicators in the shape of alien head emojis lives on through a new post.

Well, sort of…

The post, entitled “An Ending,” features a very nice header image of a frog in a bowtie and also some words by Martin on Thrones’ TV finale and what’s next. He reminisces on meeting showrunners/writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for the first time and thanks the many people who made the HBO series a success. He also mentions the bewildering number of projects he’s working on and addresses whether his final two A Song Of Ice And Fire novels will conclude the same way as the show.

“How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different?” he writes. “Well … yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes.”

Martin clarifies this very definite statement by noting that the comparison is difficult, considering that he works “in a very different medium than David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss].”

“They had six hours for this final season. I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done…and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them.”

He mentions the “butterfly effect” he often references in regards to adaptation, writing that “characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books” will impact his story. Martin names many of them yet somehow omits Ser Pounce, the royal cat so cruelly killed off in the show but whose fate is unknown to book readers and may still shape the destiny of the Seven Kingdoms.

“Book or show, which will be the ‘real’ ending? It’s a silly question,” he adds. “How about this? I’ll write it. You read it. Then everyone can make up their own mind, and argue about it on the internet.”

Because he must, Martin also keeps the hounds at bay by noting that he’s still writing the next book in the series, The Winds Of Winter. “[It’s] very late, I know, I know, but it will be done,” he writes. “I won’t say when, I’ve tried that before, only to burn you all and jinx myself…but I will finish it, and then will come A Dream of Spring.”

Having reminded us that his ending will arrive only after we wait for not one, but two enormous books to be released, our current mood, in the spirit of Martin’s blog, can best be summed up as a tired alien head.

Read the rest of the post over here.

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