When HBO began airing “Game of Thrones,” it seemed almost unfathomable that the TV series would be able to catch up with its literary source material, George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which was then made up of five incredibly dense books and will cover seven books when it’s complete. Caught up it has though, with the upcoming fifth season using material from the last two published books – which took Martin roughly five years each to write – as its basis. And as the show’s team stares down an unknown path without Martin’s book as a guide, it appears that they’ve decided to steer into the skid and change things up pretty drastically from the source material.
At the Writer’s Guild awards this past weekend, Showbiz 411 reports that the show this year will finally shock fans of the book as Martin tells the site: “People are going to die who don’t die in the books, so even the book readers will be unhappy. So everybody better be on their toes. [The co-creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss] are even bloodier than I am.”
And as for the future, even Martin is uncertain about what’s coming next on the small screen for "Game Of Thrones." “…it’s the hottest show on TV now, but will it be the hottest show on TV two years from now? Hot shows come and go and television changes, and I’ve lived through that before. I certainly hope that we get to tell the entire story," the author says. "Because whatever happens with the show I’m going to finish the books, it will be seven books. But each of these books are 1500 pages long and they each have enough material in them for several seasons. I have two more books, the one I’m writing right now, ‘The Winds Of Winter,’ and after that the last book, ‘The Dream of Spring,’ so those will be the two final books. But we’re talking 3000 pages of material. How many seasons that translates too? That’s up to D.B. And David.”
There you have it folks, forget about the Red Wedding or the Purple Wedding, the misery and spilt blood will be even thicker this year. Will there be any characters left to tell the story in future seasons? “Game of Thrones” returns on HBO on Sunday, April 12th.