Show Ends Book Ends Not the Same

This last Sunday was the first Sunday in quite a long time where people didn't get to hum along to the most catchy theme music in fantasy for a while. Yes, Game of Thrones has finally come to an end. What an end that was though. Wherever you stand on it, just let me get something out of the way;

The books will not end the same as the show. The idea that it will is sheer madness.

Since the very divisive ending of the show, it seems there has been something of an uptick in people speculating how close the show ending will come to the book ending. The short version is, not very close really, the longer version is below.

First however, let us get something out of the way, what does the author say about it. Well, GRRM on his Not a Blog website, says surprisingly little. Here is exactly what he said:

How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different? 

Well… yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. 

I am working in a very different medium than David and Dan, never forget. They had six hours for this final season. I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done… and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them. And of course the butterfly effect will be at work as well; those of you who follow this Not A Blog will know that I’ve been talking about that since season one. 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. And yes, there will be unicorns… of a sort… 

Book or show, which will be the “real” ending? It’s a silly question. How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have?

People have read a lot into this (especially the Scarlett O'Hara comment, it's 3 in the novel and 1 in the film in case you're wondering) and they really ought not to. For one thing, nowhere does he ever say this is the same ending, though he does say he will write it and we can read it, then the internet can argue about which is better. The author is also pointing out that they are both working in a vastly different medium, which means stories, plots and entire character arcs had to change to fit the particular medium of television and its limitations.

Two prime examples are those of Cersei and Arya.

With Cersei, I've briefly pointed out she is the Mad Queen we deserve, but her story in Game of Thrones is vastly different from her story in A Song of Ice and Fire. To be clear, the show essentially cuts her character off at the legs, flipping back and forth on what drives her, protecting her children or power (it settles on power) but in the books it's one thing. The valonqar prophecy of Maggie the Magi. This is the reason she hates Tyrion, this is why she hates other queens and this is why she is so hell bent on keeping her kids on the throne.

In Game of Thrones however, her goal is power, pure and simple. There isn't a really complex story line about loving her children (who she seems to miraculously forget about) or trying to tragically prevent a prophecy from coming true, it's merely about a woman winning power so she can never be hurt again. Then she dies in her lover/brother's arms.

The exclusion of the valonqar prophecy from the show makes for a dramatically different character arc and ending. The reason being is that it makes Show Cersei's demise less tragic and more sympathetic, despite the book Cersei not being a really sympathetic character who is not going to die tragically in the arms of her brother. If you're wondering about Cersei's eventual fate, just remember the words Tyrion spoke which have been rattling around in Jaime's head "she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know" which he can't stop thinking about.

Is she pregnant? Possibly. Is it Jaime's? Who can say?

As for Arya's story line, well let's just say her odds of killing the book's non-existant Night King are pretty slim.

Beinhoff and Weiss, famously dismissive of things like themes, have missed the point of Arya's character arc. Since the first book of the series Arya's arc has all shifted around themes of vengeance and identity. Ever since the Hound killed Micah she has been fixated on revenge, but in her quest for revenge she has also begun to lose her identity as a Stark. Her only real link back to her family is with the show's oft overlooked warging abilities in the Starks and to her direwolf Nymeria, who the show has also forgotten. Her story will be about remembering who she is, something the Faceless Men are currently attempting to make sure she forgets, though not very well as seen in her Winds of Winter Chapter.

The one beat the show probably gets right is her murder of Walder Frey, however, it misses the bigger point of that story since the show omitted Lady Stoneheart. The other side of the coin in Arya's character arc is her quest for vengeance, something the show doesn't really address either. In that story line we already have the foil for Arya's character. Her deceased mother who is consumed with vengeance after having come back wrong and seems to exist only to take vengeance on her foes. This is vengeance gone too far, and we can already probably grasp the direction Arya will have to go in order to end the eternal cycle of vengeance and it has little to do with a leader of the Others and more to do with her immediate family. Maybe that will force her to sail away from Westeros, or maybe not.

These are just two examples. Sansa's story line is a similar one, interchanging her for Jeyne Pool, leaving out Harry the Heir, any issues in her claims to Winterfell, ect. Tyrion's as well leaves out his duplicity with Young Griff, his important background with Tysha, and his psychological issues the show doesn't really address which will be big in his character ending. Euron's character... well let's just say he is going to be very different in the books. This doesn't even address the plot holes left by the show ending...

Allow me though, to show the dichotomy that seems to exist with how people are interpreting this almost unprecedented event in pop culture. I think that the problem is nicely summed up in Michael from Off the Bookshelf's post This is it essay:

I think there are two ways to approach the ending the show has given us. 

The first: Martin told Benioff and Weiss the general outline of the bullet points at the end of the story. Benioff and Weiss decided to switch some of those around because they didn’t like how it ended with the Others being defeated, and didn’t really care for XYZ plot points in particular. 

The second: Martin told them the general outline of the ending. They adapted those bullet points as closely as they could, based on what they knew and what they’d already done in the show.

While I acknowledge this is a valid take, I must take great pains to point out that so much from the books has diverged from the show starting with Season 4 that the idea they have adapted points and endings from the book very closely should be disregarded off the bat. The missing Lady Stoneheart and Nymeria for Arya alone are probably game changers for how she gets to her ending (which may even be something as simple as leaving Westeros). They may even have changed who lives and who dies just so they can get shock value, which is something they have confessed to doing already along with other retcons.

That they have already killed major characters off out of order, brought some back, or had some who die live, Bronn becoming the Lord of Highgarden when he's already the Lord of Stokeworth...well that means we cannot definitively say Game of Thrones has ended remotely similar to A Song of Spring. That it would be is just super unlikely for the reasons outlined with two characters alone.

Perhaps the penultimate reason for the different ending from the show in the books is the book series firm grasp on feudal politics, something the show lacked often.

Here's the thing, Bran Stark ending up as the King of the Six Kingdoms is incredibly unlikely. While some kind of Great Council is possible, it electing Bran Stark, whose story lies Beyond the Wall, is hard to swallow. His story has never once interacted with the politics of the War of the Five Kings, he has no claim to the Iron Throne, and his attachment to the magic in the books was utterly irrelevant in the show. As another issue, for Bran to sit on the Iron Throne as a Stark, yet the Starks in the North also being independent...that's unfeasible. The Iron Islands, Dorne, and even the Vale would start to think independence is better than being de facto ruled by the North.

Who will sit on the Iron Throne though? Well, that I can't tell you and we just need to Read And Find Out.

The one thing I can definitively say is that, in broad strokes Game of Thrones is going to be similar to how A Song of Ice and Fire ends, but it lacks the important magic and supernatural aspects we see in the books which will effect the characters and overall ending. However, don't count on having watched the show to let you guess how the books are going to end, you'll be disappointed.