George RR Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones novels, has spoken about the ending of the hit TV show adaptation in a new blog post.
In a post on his blog entitled 'An Ending', the American novelist discusses his first meeting with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, potential spin-offs, his next novels and, most importantly, if they will match up to the TV ending.
The HBO show overtook the books by George R R Martin many seasons ago, despite the writer being five books ahead of the series when series one aired. Martin hasn't published a book in the series since A Dance With Dragons in 2011.
In the blog post, Martin confirms that the sixth and seventh instalments, Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring are on the way, without giving an exact date.
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He wrote: "The Winds of Winter is very late, I know, I know, but it will be done. 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."
But perhaps the most burning question fans have is whether Martin's ending to the book series will match up to that of the TV show - something that Martin addresses in his post.
"How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different?" he writes, answering: "Well... yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes."
He went on: "I am working in a very different medium than David and Dan, never forget. 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."
Martin then spoke about the "butterfly effect" of novel writing as opposed to creating a TV show, where extra characters and plot lines are delved into in more depth.
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"There are characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books," he wrote, adding: "Readers will learn what happened to Jeyne Poole, Lady Stoneheart, Penny and her pig, Skahaz Shavepate, Arianne Martell, Darkstar, Victarion Greyjoy, Ser Garlan the Gallant, Aegon VI, and a myriad of other characters both great and small that viewers of the show never had the chance to meet."
He finished by saying: "Book or show, which will be the 'real' ending? It's a silly question."
It's no secret that the ending of the HBO has been met with disappointment by fans. Over a million have signed a change.org petition asking for the entire final season to remade "with competent writers". But for hardcore fans, it was a matter of believing that the ending did not live up to George R R Martin's suspected vision, despite us knowing that Martin was forced to reveal plot secrets about the ending to show runners years ago.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Martin was asked if he'd be "surprised" by the ending, and said: "Well, to a degree. I mean, I think... the major points of the ending will be things that I told them, you know, five or six years ago, but there may also be changes, and there'll be a lot added."
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Martin has expressed disappointment about the book/TV show timeline in the past.
In an interview with CBS News, he said: "I was completely confident that I would have the entire series finished," adding, "Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring would be out before they got to them."
He also told Entertainment Weekly: "I know there are a lot of people out there who are very angry with me that Winds of Winter isn't finished. And I'm mad about that myself."
He continued: "I wished I finished it four years ago. I wished it was finished now. But it's not. And I've had dark nights of the soul where I've pounded my head against the keyboard and said, 'God, will I ever finish this?
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"The show is going further and further forward and I'm falling further and further behind. What the hell is happening here? I've got to do this."
In the blog post, Martin also speaks about his first meeting with Benioff and Weiss over a decade ago in an LA restaurant. Interestingly, he explains that during the meeting they correctly guessed the identity of Jon Snow's mother - a fact that Martin's novels to date hadn't touched on.
He wrote: "Can it really have been more than a decade since my manager Vince Gerardis set up a meeting at the Palm in LA, and I sat down for the first time with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for a lunch that lasted well past dinner? I asked them if they knew who Jon Snow's mother was. Fortunately, they did."
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Martin also confirmed that there are multiple GoT spin-offs in the works, aside from the one we know about, saying: "I suspect that you have not seen the last of Westeros on your television sets either, but I guess that all depends on how some of these successor shows turn out."
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: TV and Film News, Game of Thrones
