George R.R. Martin: Game of Thrones ending won’t be “that different” from the Song of Ice and Fire ending

Most Game of Thrones fans know this story: George R.R. Martin released A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in his Song of Ice and Fire series, back in 2011, the same year Game of Thrones debuted on HBO. Soon enough, it became clear that the show would adapt all the source material available before Martin could publish more, so Martin met with Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss to tell them what he had in mind for the ending. In a preview of tomorrow’s 60 Minutes special about Game of Thrones, Martin gets more honest than ever about what exactly they discussed at that meeting, and how much the ending of the show will differ from the ending of the books. Watch below:

So the big news here is that, according to Martin, the endings won’t differ all that much, at least not more than any other adaptation. “I don’t think Dan and Dave’s ending is gonna be that different from my ending because of the conversations we did have,” he said. “But on certain secondary characters there may be big differences.” And indeed, it sounds like the conversations were pretty thorough:

"We’re talking here about several days of story conferences taking place in my home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But there’s no way to get in all the detail, all the minor characters, all the secondary characters. The series has been extremely faithful compared to 97% of all television and movie adaptations of literary properties. But it’s not completely faithful. And it can’t be. Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons."

Also very interesting is Martin’s prediction for how people will react to the ending:

"There will be a debate, I’m sure. I think [there will be] a lot of people who will 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 a lot of people who say, ‘No, Dan and Dave got it wrong. George’s ending is better.’ And they will all fight on the internet, and there will be debate. And that’s fine. You know, the worst thing for any work of art, be it a movie or a book, is to be ignored."

I don’t think there’s any danger of this ending being ignored. Bring on the debate! I know you have it in you, internet.

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As long as we’re talking about Martin, he announced on his Not a Blog that there’s an illustrated edition of A Clash of Kings coming, with illustrations by Lauren K. Cannon. Check out the cover:

This is a follow-up to the illustrated edition of A Game of Thrones. The new version of Clash is out November 5, 2019.

Back to 60 Minutes, a bunch of the cast members did their best to avoid talking about the ending under questioning from Anderson Cooper, although a few did give some interesting impressions. Check it out:

Dan Weiss: “That’s the big twist. Everybody wins.” No!

I enjoyed what John Bradley (Sam Tarly) had to say about Game of Thrones’ tradition of not giving audiences what they expect:

"We’ve never given people what they think they want, because we know that people really like to challenged and they don’t like to be spoonfed, and all of those great moments, those visceral moments of people’s reaction to this show, have come from things happening that they didn’t want to happen."

Take us home, Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister):

"It ends brilliantly…It brings everybody into it…It questions everything, which I love. It really makes you question yourself, I think. I did when I was reading it….I would love to talk to you more about it but I can’t. It’s really good."

Season 8 premieres tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. on HBO!

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