Months have past and everyone is still talking about how Game of Thrones should have ended. That’s because HBO’s hugely popular fantasy series, which came to an end after eight seasons in mid-May, had become an integral part of popular culture. So, of course, everyone is going to have an opinion about how showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss decided to end it. Including author George R.R. Martin, who maintains that the show’s ending is not going to affect how he decides to end the book series that served as its basis.
Not only is Martin not going to let Benioff and Weiss’ bonkers series finale script affect his writing, but he’s also not being shy about how bad Thrones‘ popularity has been for his work. Speaking with The Observer, Martin explained that the show “completely changed my life” but not wholly for the better:
“There were a couple of years where, if I could have finished the book, I could have stayed ahead of the show for another couple of years, and the stress was enormous,” he says. “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.'”
Despite the pressures that keeping up with the television series put on him, Martin now says that “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.” In other words, the author’s many, many promises about finishing The Winds of Winter and other future novels may very well come true. Possibly. Probably.
(Via The Observer)
