Game Of Thrones: 8 Clues For How It Will (And Won't) End
Informed speculation as to how TV’s biggest show will conclude.
A year ago, HBO admitted what many had speculated about for months: Game Of Thrones, the channel’s flagship show (and arguably the biggest TV show on the planet) would be coming to an end following season eight.
That left two seasons of the show to wrap up the labyrinthine plot with its cast of, if not thousands, then certain dozens of richly drawn, compelling characters… and further revelations were to follow. The two seasons would be truncated from their usual ten chapters, running to seven and six episodes each. The remaining episodes would run longer, reaching feature length.
More than that, as we found with season seven, the narrative would pick up its pace. What remained of the Stark family, separated by geography and tragedy for six seasons, would be reunited. Daenerys, last scion of the usurped Targaryen royal family, would finally arrive in the continent of Westeros to reclaim her birthright - and would come face to face with the King In The North, Jon Snow.
With the plot accelerating and subtlety on the backburner as season seven reached its climax on Sunday, it’s time to look at the way in which this show could, should and absolutely will not come to a conclusion.
8. The Books Are No Longer Relevant
At first the show followed the source material fairly closely, but with author George R. R. Martin writing at a snail’s pace, television has outpaced prose. In a neat reversal of the problems of TV viewers during the first three seasons, that’s led to fans of the books complaining about spoilers.
That’s not necessarily warranted, however. Although Martin has planned all the important set pieces from the beginning and knows where all the important chess pieces will stand come the end, he writes organically, finding the shape of the story as he goes. Television producers, on the other hand, have to structure their stories in advance.
Last month, showrunners and main writers of Game Of Thrones David Benioff and D.B. Weiss revealed that they met with Martin in 2012 to discuss how the story might end, Martin told them his vision of the climactic events, but they already had 90% of the story in their heads.
Benioff and Weiss now claim that they know what will happen in every scene of season eight, while Martin is still gamely slogging his way through the penultimate volume. Realistically Game Of Thrones will only superficially resemble A Song Of Ice And Fire by the conclusion. It’s best to treat the two as parallel universes.