Game Of Thrones Season 6: 8 Ways Battle Of The Bastards Will Be Different In The Books

8. It Might Not Even Happen

It's easy to assume that, while the show is diverging from the books, the *major* moments will still be the same, with Weiss and Benioff given the outlines of what will happen by Martin.

So it goes with the battle here, but there's no guarantee of it actually happening. As it stands in this storyline, the show is considerably past the books, and there are a number of differences to be reconciled, and other events to take place first.

For a start, Jon is still dead, so it's dependent on his coming back in a similar fashion (I've no doubt he will still come back though). And further to that, Stannis is still alive, and we've yet to have the Battle of Winterfell between his army and that of House Bolton.

Despite Ramsay's declarations of defeating him, Stannis is still camped out a few days' ride from Winterfell, and preparing for the battle. He's sent 'Arya Stark' (actually Jeyne Poole) to the Wall to be reunited with Jon, and plans on hiring thousands and thousands of sellswords to help him defeat the Bolton army. There's actually a chance that, despite his death on the show, Stannis could defeat the Boltons - the battle is slated to take place fairly early on in The Winds of Winter - and if that's the case, the Battle of the Bastards will never happen.