To say that the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones has been polarizing would be like saying Avengers: Endgame has made a little bit of money. Not since millions of Star Wars fans turned on that franchise following The Last Jedi have we seen such mutiny among a show’s fandom.
Aside from online petitions demanding HBO completely redo season eight with brand new writers (would said petitioners also raise the 100 or so million needed for such a task as well?), many disgruntled fans have anointed Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin as their new saviour. Martin’s end to his epic Song of Fire and Ice series, the theory goes, will be vastly superior to the show’s.
The truth is, regardless of where you sit on the expectation scale, whether you’re one of the fans frothing at the mouth with righteous fury or reasonably satisfied with what’s unfolded so far, you had better be prepared to make peace with how the show ends this Sunday.
Because we are never going to get Martin’s conclusion to the saga.
While show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have taken an enormous amount of heat from fans for season eight (along with the entire writing team), they’ve essentially been wrapping up the saga for the past three seasons.
When Thrones debuted back in 2011, Martin was releasing the fifth instalment in the series, A Dance of Dragons. With plans to adapt each book into a single season, both HBO and the creative team behind GoT were reasonably confident that Martin would have polished off his uber-tale by the time season six was scheduled to hit the airwaves.
Insert laugh here.
We haven’t seen another Fire and Ice book since Dance of Dragons hit bookshelves in 2011 (the same year the show debuted, for those keeping track). There have been tidbits here and there, the odd short story or novella (sometimes previously published) and last year’s Fire and Blood (which chronicled the arrival of the infamous Targaryen clan in Westeros three centuries before Ned Stark, Danny and the rest captivated our attention) but there have been no further adventures in Westeros over the last eight years.
And there likely won’t be anymore on the written page.
Martin insists that he needs at least two more books to wrap up the novels, and has even mused that he may need an eighth. Including the current eight year drought, he’s been averaging one Fire and Ice book every 4.8 years (and counting). At the age of 70, that kind of batting average doesn’t inspire confidence.
Martin’s recent speed to quash an online conspiracy that he was already finished the books and was merely waiting for the show to wrap up before releasing them probably means that he’s no closer to finishing The Winds of Winter (the promised sixth book) than he was eight years ago.
He’s gone from promising vague dates to simply telling people the next volume will be “done its done.” And don’t forget, even if that considerable hurdle is cleared, there’s at least one more book after that.
Both the success of the show and the reaction to season eight has probably further convinced him to leave his keyboard alone. While everyone was expecting the show to be successful, few expected it to be the phenomenon it became. That success probably intimidated Martin more than a little, perhaps convincing him that no ending he could write would compete with the show’s conclusion. But if you’re thinking the response to season eight may have renewed his creative confidence, think again. There’s a good chance he may look at the collective fan frothing and decide no ending could satisfy the fandom.
Because while the producers have been writing the last three seasons with no source material, they apparently have been using Martin’s notes on where he wanted to go with the story. Meaning everything that has been a source of anger for fans this season may have been his original brain child. So unless he plans on completely contracting his own vision and veers the other way or adopts one of the popular fan theories making the online rounds, fans will be equally disappointed by his resolution. And equally furious.
At the conclusion of A Dance of Dragons, Westeros and the state of the story was very different from where the show was at the same point. Some things and events-like Jon bleeding in the snow after being betrayed by his brothers in the Nightwatch and Danny being lost in the grasslands after Drogon whisked her away from Mereen’s fighting pits-appeared in both the books and the show. But the beyond that, the narrative of the books would be completely alien to anyone who has relied strictly on the show.
Jamie had followed (an apparently undead?) Brienne into the wilderness in hopes of finding Sansa Stark. Likewise Catelyn Stark had raised herself from the dead (and was the one who killed Brienne). No one had any idea what Bran was up to and Tyrion was just buying himself out of slavery (and had yet to meet any young dragon queens). Berristan Selmy was still very much alive and trying to hold Mereen in Danny’s absence while Varys had just killed Grand Master Pycelle and Kevan Lannister in hopes that Cersei’s reckless thirst for power would destabilize the Seven Kingdoms further, allowing a barely known Aegon Targaryen to assume the Iron Throne (and not Danareys Stormborn). Fans eager for book six would have to reread A Dance of Dragons just to remember where Martin left things, especially after eight plus years.
So no matter how you’ve felt about the current season of Game of Thrones, make sure you catch the season finale this Sunday. It’s quite likely the last time you’ll get to see Westeros and the only real chance you’ll have to say goodbye to the epic story.
And it’s probably the only ending your going to get.
Image HBO
