Did you have feelings about the final episode of Game of Thrones? If so, join the chorus of Game of Thrones TV show and book fans who are still voicing their opinions about the series finale. Yes, there is plenty to criticize, and George R.R. Martin has heard your cries of despair. In a new interview, he responded to the Game of Thrones finale backlash, and explained what it means going forward for the next two books in the Song of Ice and Fire series — specifically, if the ending of the show will affect the ending of the ASoIF books.
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“No, it doesn’t. [The show finale] doesn’t change anything [in the ASoIF books] at all,” Martin told the Observer in an upcoming interview. “You can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself.”
Martin also conceded that the show was untenable for his writing process. “I don’t think [the TV show] was very good for me. The very thing that should have speeded me up actually slowed me down. Every day I sat down to write and even if I had a good day...I’d feel terrible because I’d be thinking, ‘My God, I have to finish the book. I’ve only written four pages when I should have written 40.’” (Writers everywhere should be relieved to hear that Martin also suffers from writer’s block, too.)
There are still at least two more books left in the ASoIF series: The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. We do know that Bran eventually becomes King of Six Kingdoms, and this is likely to happen in the books, as Martin has said as much. However, he also cautions that the books will be different than the show. There is currently no word on release dates for either book. He does have a deadline, though — Martin has jokingly promised to imprison himself in New Zealand if TWoW isn’t finished by the time he appears at the World Science Fiction Convention in Wellington next year.
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