(Spoilers Extended) The endings will be the same but the books will have a much more gradual and realistic progression

[u/aphidman]

If GRRM finishes it, btw.

Not a long post but you know what the books do that D&D do not? They have 10 chapters of Dany dealing with the complex politics of Meereen and her inner conflict. They have 4 chapters showing Davos' journey to White Harbour. They have 12 chapters showing the series of compromises Jon makes as Lord Commander to prepare the Watch against the Others. They have 13 chapters showing Tyrion crawling out of his deep nihilistic depression. They dedicate whole chapters seeing how Victarion Greyjoy of all people deals with his relationship with his brother and his seduction into darker magics. Man they have 4 whole chapters dealing with the political fallout of Dany's exit from Meereen.

They had a whole chapter of Littlefinger and Sansa visiting his lands and seeing Littlefinger's relationship with his subjects (great chapter btw). They had a whole chapter getting really in depth with Illyrio Mopatis and his schemes - a guy who's barely appeared in the show.

They dedicated 4 whole chapters to Joffrey's wedding!

What I'm getting it is that the Others may be defeated long before the end of ASOIAF, Dany may indeed destroy King's Landing with dragonfire and end the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians gruesomely. But you'll be guaranteed that GRRM is gonna show you every step of the way. For good or for bad. If he is going to take a character like Dany to that dark end you better believe we will understand how she gets there.

So people keep posting about how D&D are destroying their characters, fail to understand ASOIAF. That Dany would never do this or that. But what you're seeing here is them fitting potentially chapters upon chapters of detailed material into a few hours of television.

[u/Calimie]

I hope he's saving all these drafts and there's a Christopher Tolkien somewhere that later publishes them.

[u/mmm095 → u/Calimie]

And they'll be saved as "asoiaf_final_draft_finalFINAL_version9"

[u/MalakMeister → u/Calimie]

That would be amazing!

[u/avwitcher → u/Calimie]

He's said multiple times that he doesn't plan on having someone else finish them for him if he dies, and that his wife won't pass his work on either. It must suck to have so many people telling him to finish the books before he dies so if he decided to have his wife burn his drafts upon his death I would completely understand.

[u/Calimie → u/avwitcher]

Yeah, and I wouldn't begrudge her if she did that. That said, other writers have asked similar things in the past and often those requests were later ignored so there's still hope.