Remember when Game of Thrones show fans had to worry about book fans spoiling events of the series for them? Well, now the tables have turned: the showrunners have confirmed that the HBO series will start spoiling future events of the books.
According to Vanity Fair, showrunner David Benioff said that the HBO show will have the same ending that George R.R. Martin has planned for the books and that watching the show will spoil the remainder of the Song of Ice and Fire series.
"I kind of wish that there were some things we didn’t have to spoil, but we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place," Benioff said.
Last year, the showrunners confirmed that they had sat down with author George R.R. Martin so he could tell them where his story is going. They apparently went through every single character and what happens to them so that the showrunners could begin setting things up for the end of the series. At the time, Martin said he was hopeful that he could release his books in time so that the show did not catch up with him.
Well, this is awkward, then. That didn't happen, and earlier this year Martin's publisher said there were no plans to release the next book, The Winds of Winter, in 2015, as we previously reported. In the past Martin has suggested the show take time off or do a prequel season to give him time to catch up, but Benioff said they won't be doing that and that the show must go on.
Prior to this it was thought that the HBO show could potentially go in a different direction so that the book and the show would end in completely separate ways, but not anymore. This all means that the twists and surprises of Martin's series, which began nearly 20 years ago, will probably be widely known before he actually publishes them himself.
So now we know that Season 5 will definitely spoil events of The Winds of Winter, but is there any hope left that Martin could possibly release his last book before the show ends? Well, Martin is apparently hard at work on The Winds of Winter, skipping Comic-Con this year so he could work on it according to The Hollywood Reporter. He said that if he completed the book by Comic-Con he might change his mind, maybe implying that Matin feels he's close enough that he could conceivably be finished by July.
If that's true, he could get The Winds of Winter out before Season 6 of the show. Given that Season 6 will be based largely on the events of that book, that would work out. Then if HBO decides to give the show more than seven seasons as they discussed last week, and George R.R. Martin could somehow get his final book out two years later before Season 8 begins, then we would avoid major spoilers about the ending of the book. So there is still some universe where this could all be avoided, but it seems pretty unlikely. HBO would have to commit to giving the show more seasons and George R.R. Martin would have to write at a ridiculously fast pace for him, and two years seems unlikely considering the last two books have had gaps of five to six years between them. And even in this dream scenario, the show plays around with the order of book events anyway, so future events would still be spoiled for us.
We have to wonder if George R.R. Martin is regretting giving away his secrets to showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff, as it's certainly not ideal for him to be sort of losing control of the end of his story. Of course, book readers could simply stop watching the show to avoid spoilers, but good luck avoiding hearing about future Red Wedding style events for several years while you wait for A Dream of Spring.
Sorry, book fans. Benioff and Weiss send their regards.
image of Peter Dinklage courtesy of INFphoto.com
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