George R.R. Martin has confirmed that, despite the vitriol surrounding the Game of Thrones ending, his plans for ending the series will not change.
Martin, in a recent interview with The Observer, remarked that the controversial ending of the HBO adaptation of his Song of Ice and Fire novels would not impact the ending that he has in mind for the series. “No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t change anything at all,” he said. “You can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself.”
This, of course, is not the first time that Martin has addressed the finale of the show in the wake of its airing. These recent comments, however, reaffirm his stance on the story and seeing it through to the end the way he always intended — whether or not it will be an ending that the audience wants.
Some divergence between the conclusion of the Game of Thrones television show and the novels should be expected, not least because some major players never even made it to the show to begin with. Writing on his Not A Blog, Martin remarked on those changes and how they’d shape the ending of the books. “There are characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books… so if nothing else, the readers will learn what happened to Jeyne Poole, Lady Stoneheart, Penny and her pig, Skahaz Shavepate, Arianne Martell, Darkstar, Victarion Greyjoy, Ser Garlan the Gallant, Aegon VI, and a myriad of other characters both great and small that viewers of the show never had the chance to meet.”
But, however fans might feel about the Game of Thrones television series ending, one person who is glad for it is George R.R. Martin himself.
“I don’t think it was very good for me, because 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 – and a good day for me is three or four pages – 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,’” Martin said in the same interview with The Observer.” But having the show finish is freeing, because I’m at my own pace now. I have good days and I have bad days and the stress is far less, although it’s still there… I’m sure that when I finish A Dream of Spring you’ll have to tether me to the Earth.”
There was no indication of when Winds of Winter might hit bookshelves, but Martin’s freedom to write it in his own time, and at his own pace, rather than to try and beat out the television series might just be exactly the kind of environment the author needed to finish. We’ll all be eagerly anticipating the next installment.
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