Let me tell you a story about Game of Thrones. For about…6-7 seasons, it was the greatest thing on television (HBO to be specific). It had a great expansive world, incredibly deep characters, and plot twists that would rock the world for years to come. Then…Season 8 happened, and its series finale was so hated and reviled…that many wonder if the whole run was ruined.
Part of the reason for such an ending was that the books by George RR Martin weren’t done by the time the series ended. He had the time! But he didn’t finish it. And in a new update…he promises that the show and books won’t end the same way:
“Another question that I get a lot, especially since the end of Game of Thrones on HBO, is whether A Song of Ice and Fire, will end the same way,” Martin shared in his blog. “An architect would be able to give a short, concise, simple answer to that, but I am much more of a gardener. My stories grow and evolve and change as I write them. I generally know where I am going, sure… the final destinations, the big set pieces, they have been my head for years… for decades, in the case of A Song of Ice and Fire. There are lots of devils in the details, though, and sometimes the ground changes under my feet as the words pour forth.”
He added, “What I have noticed more and more of late, however, is my gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series. Yes, some of the things you saw on HBO in Game of Thrones you will also see in The Winds of Winter (though maybe not in quite the same ways)… but much of the rest will be quite different.”
Some of the things that will happen based on where the books ended is Daenerys coming to Westeros proper, Jon Snow finding out about his parents, and so on. But if we’ll actually GET to read the “true ending”? Yeah, that’s a mystery even Martin can’t solve.
Source: George RR Martin
