Will Jon Snow die? Why Game of Thrones author may give books different ending to TV saga
- George R.R. Martin is not obliged to follow storylines of HBO series based on his books, just as writers for TV can depart from plot lines he sketched for them
- How fans of the show feel about characters will influence author’s final two books, experts say, making them an adaptation from TV, not the other way round
The long-awaited final season of Game of Thrones, the fantasy epic imagined more than 20 years ago by author George R.R. Martin, begins this month on HBO.
And, in a strange twist never before seen in literature, Martin will himself discover the on-screen ending of his long-running masterwork before he has had a chance to conclude the fantasy on paper.
“Obviously, I wished I finished these books sooner so the show hadn’t gotten ahead of me,” Martin said recently in an interview with Entertainment Weekly before the final season begins airing on April 14. “I never anticipated that.”
When the Emmy Award-winning television series about noble families vying for the Iron Throne was launched in 2011, the American author had only written four of the seven books that make up his Song of Ice and Fire saga.
His fifth novel, A Dance With Dragons, was published in July 2011, a few weeks after the end of the first season.