When David Benioff and D.B. Weiss first started working on Game of Thrones back in 2007, the expectation was that with two books to go in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, the author would have wrapped up his fantasy epic well before the series reached its conclusion.
Well, some twelve years later, and we’re still waiting on those last two books, with the show catching up to and surpassing its source material with 2016’s sixth season. The series has also deviated from Martin’s books in a number of ways, meaning that the ending we’re going to get in the series next month will differ from that of A Dream of Spring.
Speaking to 60 Minutes, Martin has been chatting about next month’s finale to the show, and while he think they’ll be broadly similar, he expects the differences to the books will spark plenty of debate among fans.
“I don’t think Dan and Dave’s ending is going to be that different from my ending because of the conversations we did have, but they may be on certain secondary characters, there may be differences. And yeah, some of the people will have that. There will be a debate, I’m sure. I think a lot of people who say, ‘Oh, Dan and Dave’s ending is better than the one George gave us, it’s a good thing they changed it.’ And there will be alot of people who say, ‘No, Dan and Dave got it wrong, George’s ending is better,’ and they will all fight on the internet. There will be debate, and that’s fine. The worst thing for any work of art, be it movie or art, is to be ignored.”
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Game of Thrones’ final season is airing on Sunday nights on HBO in the US and on Monday nights on Sky Atlantic in the UK.