George RR Martin has suggested that his A Song of Ice and Fire book series will end differently to the Game of Thrones TV show.
The HBO series’ final season got a pretty hostile reception when it aired last year, many fans taking issue with certain character arcs as well as the ending.
The show overtook the book series it was adapted from a few seasons back, while Martin’s last published book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was released all the way back in 2011.
He is yet to finish the final two books – The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring – though has hinted that the latter’s ending will deviate from the show’s final outcome, which saw Bran Stark crowned King of the renamed Six Kingdoms.
“People know an ending — but not the ending,” Martin told German newspaper Welt (via Esquire). “The makers of the TV show had overtaken me, which I didn’t expect.”
The author said last year that he did not plan to change the ending to his book series following the negative reaction to Game of Thrones season 8.
“There is a temptation to change it — ‘Oh my god, it’s screwed up, I have to come up with something different,’” he explained.
“But that’s wrong. Because you’ve been planning for a certain ending and if you suddenly change direction just because somebody figured it out, or because they don’t like it, then it screws up the whole structure… I don’t read the fan sites. I want to write the book I’ve always intended to write all along. And when it comes out they can like it or they can not like it.”
Martin also revealed in his new interview that Game of Thrones was originally supposed to end with three films.
Meanwhile, Game of Thrones is set to get a prequel series called House of the Dragon, which has been given a tentative release date of 2022.
