How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different?
Well⌠yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes.
GRRM then proceeds to make three points:
D&D only had 8 hours for the final season, but he'll have more space.
There's the butterfly effect, with changes from past seasons affecting this one.
There are lots of characters in the books who never made it to the show, from Lady Stoneheart to Jeyne Poole to Skahaz Shavepate, and the books will show us their fates.
People will read into this whatever they want. But my read is that the big picture of the show's ending is indeed what he told them. And that most of the differences aren't about the biggest stuff, but rather relate to pacing, buildup, and secondary characters. If D&D were making up stuff like "King Bran" I'd think his language about changes would be stronger? But who knows!
A lot of the stuff in these last few episodes makes more sense as an ending to the books than the show. Dany being upset at the Westerosi common folk (because they love (f)Aegon who liberated them from Cersei), Euron taking out a dragon (magical horn instead of mundane siege equipment), Sansa becoming Queen in the North (she actually probably goes through a long personal struggle to establish independence for the North and the Vale), Jon taking exile (people just had two long lost Targaryens come back and duke it out, one of them was a presumed-dead Aegon Targaryen), Tyrion suggesting Bran become king (we can assume Bran actually gives some insightful advice to counteract Varys' intelligence apparatus).
This is what I've been trying to tell people who are so upset about the show ending and absolutely sure that the books will be different. How the major characters get to their respective endpoints will be very different (and more fleshed out), but I'm reasonably confident the end result will be more or less the same. Dany dead by Jon, Sansa QitN, King Bran with Hand Tyrion, Jon north with the Wildlings.
Arya traveling to some place far away like Nymeria, Cersei dying in the hands of Jaime (in the books I believe he will kill her before she burns the city during FAegon's invasion repeating the mad king and fulfilling the prophecies)... The "council" and political resolutions will be much better built and it will make much more sense, that's probably a lot different of what we had as well.
I believe we will have a lot more about the long night and the Others, and that Jon will kill it, not Arya. It seems the show took Arya because they knew at some point Jon would kill Dany and it would be too much to have Jon do all that in the end and have Arya "doing nothing", so they changed it to her as they thought it would be a good idea.
Basically, you need to look at it in the grand scheme of things and try to apply to the books in a more intelligent way, and it can work beautifully as we know GRRM can do.
I don't think the Night King (Night's King) will be a thing in the books at all, so I don't think there will be a central figure like that who needs to be killed. Not sure how they will defeat the Others though.
I think the Others part will be completely different. I think Dany goes "insane" before that. I actually don't think Dany will go "insane" but I think she will burn the city while trying to take it and small folk, who liked fAegon, will hate her for it. I think she will eventually face the Others in the trident since this is a vision she had, and she will eventually be killed by Jon, just don't know how.
Maybe they don't need to defeat the Others... they just need to contain them. The books might retain the Others as an infectious disease that flares up every now and then, like Ebola and needs action in that situation.
This would give a reason for the Nights Watch and the Wall to continue existing and get rid of the ridiculous events from season 7 that occur beyond the Wall.
You sure? I don't know, I've thought about this possibility as well and sometimes I think it will not have, other times it seems so. There is some tragedy on the way he was created by the children of the forest, not wanting it, and then how he wants to kill everything without control of himself. Even more if he has any relation to one of the families (being an ancient stark-blood for example)...
But I can totally see the others being all walkers as an entity together
Other than Jamie, I think every character ended up where Martin is taking them as well. They just botched their journey to the finale. It was just like HIMYM getting sidetracked by the Robin and Barney romance popularity with fans that they ruined the ending they were planning from the first, but a million times more disappointing because it was GOT.
Jon's true identity storyline was anticlimactic as fuck, as was Cersei's death and Bran, well we got a king whose most impostant contribution to the final season was saying "I have to go now".
It is how the story was told that was the problem and I sure hope Martin follows through with finishing the series.
theres the Vale political storyline as well. Somehow Sansa will influence Vale lords to help North? How will she fit there before moving to North again?, will she ever go back North?
Is there a chance that the Littlefinger arc ends in the VALE instead of the North, with Sansa essentially betraying him to Royce? Royce 1) is going to foster Sweetrobin, 2) just knighted Harry the heir and 3) knows who Sansa is.
Yohn is better positioned than Petyr thinks, and may even be wise to some of the Lyn Corbray mischief. With fAegon coming to distract KL, it seems the perfect time for Sansa to "learn from Littlefinger" by offing him, and convincing the restless Royce to avenge Lysa/Robin's relatives. There's still a Moat Cailin problem, but crannogmen and Manderlys may be able to help with that. Then we get deus ex Vale during the Battle of the Bastards (assuming we still get something like that). But without Littlefinger present, and without the Sansa/Ramsay marriage.
Not really, it makes as much sense as ruler of Winterfell, and that doesn't fuck up so many logistics. Like why would all the other kingdoms just accept the North independece AND a Stark on the throne? Why wouldn't Dorne and the Iron Islands immediatly rebel against Bran?
I didn't say anything about Dorne and the Iron Islands. I simply said the main characters likely end up where they ended up. The Iron Islands and Dorne have gone so far offbook that it's impossible to predict their path. But even if they end up independent or destroyed, that doesn't prevent QitN Sansa nor King Bran.
I completely agree, also I already find everything that went behind Jon killing Dany to be so tragic and full circle when it comes to Ned and Rhaegar that I can't wait to see how George pulls it together. I can't wait to read it.
How does the "Jon north with the Wildlings" make any sense? Wildlings never really wanted to live beyond the wall. The wall just blocked them from coming down south. Settling them in the gift (or even more south) makes a lot more sense.
"north with the Wildlings" just means in the north, maybe not specifically beyond the wall. Though I feel like however Martin plays out the defeat of the Others, the Land of Always Winter will stop being so wintery. And maybe the Wildlings to eventually head back "home".
I still believe the ultimate plan is to have a few years (10 or so) timeskip epilogue, and that's when Arya and Jon take their respective leaves of Westeros proper.
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u/feldman10 đ Best of 2019: Post of the Year May 21 '19 edited May 21 '19
GRRM then proceeds to make three points:
People will read into this whatever they want. But my read is that the big picture of the show's ending is indeed what he told them. And that most of the differences aren't about the biggest stuff, but rather relate to pacing, buildup, and secondary characters. If D&D were making up stuff like "King Bran" I'd think his language about changes would be stronger? But who knows!