They, fortunately, are a small minority, 2 of them in total. Anti-spoiler zealots, both of them.
Tell them the truth. GRRM is never going to finish the series. And if he does? It’ll be years after they’ve been spoiled by the TV show, they won’t be able to stay unspoiled…
Which, since I imagine they may also fall under the type of person who gleefully would seek to spoil the show because they had read the books?
I offer them a hearty Milhouse.
This is the thing. The series has become such a cultural phenomenon at this point that the moment the finale finishes airing CNN news will be like “A Stark takes the Iron Throne, but you’ll never believe which one. Tonight, at 11.”
Not really sure how anyone expects to stay unspoiled.
I thought we had already forked off from the books last season? Like Martin have them some notes on where he was probably going, but didn’t necessarily feel beholden to stick with.
What would be amazing is if the showrunners just went completely off-book at the end. Like give the throne to space aliens or zombie Joffrey or something.
I mean, there will doubtless be some minor differences between the end of the show and the books, but hoping it is going to actually be so different you won’t feel spoiled if you ever read the last book is wishful thinking of the highest magnitude.
I mean, Sansa’s going to end up on the Iron Throne right? It’s not going to be Dany/Jon, way too obvious and too happy of an ending, and Cersei keeping it is probably too much of a troll ending for even GRRM. Sansa feels like kind of the dark horse that’s likely to win.
The only thing I’m about 100% sure of is we’ll see a zombie dragon before this thing is over, because c’mon. Not having a zombie dragon would be like not giving dinosaur-riding nazi stormtroopers from the 4th Reich laser guns. Heartbreaking.
Only in the broadest of strokes will the TV series and book series end the same way. The divergence is already marked, whole plot lines are ignored or changed in the series - and the underlying prophecies that drive the plot from the first book are ignored in the TV series.
The basics of how the Others are defeated will remain. Maybe. The occupant of the Iron Throne will be the same. Beyond that? All bets are off.
I guess. But then I’d probably have to bother to read the books before I start worrying about the show spoiling anything.
Well, that’s what I get assuming people posting about book changes would have actually read the books. It’s just that in my mind if you hadn’t read them you’d have no reason to possibly care, and thus wouldn’t comment on it one way or another. My bad!
I was just speculating, I don’t have any personal investment. It was my understanding that last season was where the show and books were going their separate ways but I don’t know myself to what extent.
Last season was the point where we’ve truly gone further than books, but separate ways? Debatable, at least until the books come out. Martin can end up reaching the same destination or actually try to be as different as possible… Like, some characters are still alive in the books and not the series, so, you’d think that’s a big change, but if they’re not doing much of anything, who’s to say they don’t just die next book?
It’s not debatable at all. The TV show had forked away from the book series significantly by seasons 4 + 5. They may end up being somewhat similar in broad strokes in terms of final fates of the main protagonists like Jon, Tyrion, and Dany, but at this point the path to that ending is going to be quite different.
IMO, there’s significant differences in the fate of secondary characters, but the general picture is fairly similar, depending on the next books. Opinions will vary of course, depending on what you value in the story, I guess…
The Guardian ran this Friday, but sort of got lost in their cyberattack coverage.
That Guardian writer is trolling GRRM fans there at the end of his piece. :D
None of the Game of Thrones spin-offs in development are actually spin-offs.
http://www.tvguide.com/news/game-of-thrones-spin-offs-george-rr-martin/
Basically, Martin reveals that all 4 concepts in development are prequels. There will be no show that is set after GoT or that features any of the main characters of GoT beyond the storyline we’ve already seen. No real word on what exactly any of the 4 ideas would encompass, but Martin does drop a nugget about at least a couple of the ideas not being set in Westros at all.
To me, it seems logical that at least one of the ideas would explore Robert’s Rebellion and the events leading up to it. You’d have all the major houses from GoT, Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, etc., you’d have the possibility of including the Greyjoy rebellion, you’d have several of the main characters from GoT only in their younger selves (Ned, Robert, Jaime, Tywin, Tyrion, etc.) and as such it would basically draw all the same viewers of the original show back for more of the same stuff they love. It’s also already partially written through the existing books, so wouldn’t be too difficult to outline and script for a few seasons of television.
Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. I personally would enjoy seeing a series set in Valyria. It would be like a mix of ancient Rome and Atlantis, with all the court and familial intrigue we love from GoT, threats from the outside (something brought down Old Valyria), dragons, magic and Valyrian steel swords. How did an empire so powerful that stretched so far come to such ruin? What magic or menace did they unleash that even now, hundreds of years later, Old Valyria is still a place people fear and avoid on the map?
I’d be very surprised if at least one of these shows in development isn’t the Dunk and Egg stories. I know Martin says they’re not the main focus, but you can’t tell me that HBO didn’t look at those and immediately think of ways to work that stuff into whatever’s being developed.
[quote]
We’re not doing Dunk & Egg. Eventually, sure, I’d love that, and so would many of you. But I’ve only written and published three novellas to date, and there are at least seven or eight or ten more I want to write. We all know how slow I am, and how fast a television show can move. I don’t want to repeat what happened with GAME OF THRONES itself, where the show gets ahead of the books. When the day comes that I’ve finished telling all my tales of Dunk & Egg, then we’ll do a tv show about them… but that day is still a long ways off.
We’re not doing Robert’s Rebellion either. I know thousands of you want that, I know there’s a petition… but by the time I finish writing A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, you will know every important thing that happened in Robert’s Rebellion. There would be no surprises or revelations left in such a show, just the acting out of conflicts whose resolutions you already know. That’s not a story I want to tell just now; it would feel too much like a twice-told tale. [/quote]
I would be surprised and disappointed were that not the case. It is probably the most fleshed out of the background stories.
Yeah, GRRM says they’re not considering Dunk and Egg or Robert’s Rebellion, but with FOUR concepts under consideration, how can at least one of those two not be in the mix? What the hell else is there to make four other TV shows about? I can see maybe something involving Bravos because you’ve got the city itself, the nobility, the sea trade, the Iron Bank and the Faceless Men, so more than enough to craft interesting stories around, but beyond that? I don’t think anyone would be all that excited about a show centered on the Dothraki, or the slave cities, or Dorne (at least not the Dorne the television show has given us thus far).
Of course, one of the shows in consideration could be “Bael-ish”, a half-hour situation comedy about the impoverished son of a minor Westerosi nobleman and his rise to fame and fortune as Kings Landing’s most prominent pimp and criminal mastermind. ;-)