George R.R. Martin Told Book Ending To Game of Thrones Showrunners

Game of Thrones is wrapping up its run with Season 8 which is about to begin this Sunday, but the showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, have known the ending of their show for years.

The HBO series is based on George R.R. Martin’s book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which isn’t complete yet, but Martin decided to tell Weiss and Benioff the ending. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the two showrunners revealed Martin sat them down and told them how he was planning on ending the book series.

However, despite knowing the general ending of the book series, both Benioff and Weiss don’t want the TV show’s ending to spoil the book ending for fans.

“[The concern] used to be that the books would spoil the show for people — and luckily it did not, for the most part. Now that the show is ahead of the books, it seems the show could ruin the books for people.

“So one thing we’ve talked to George about is that we’re not going to tell people what the differences are, so when those books come out people can experience them fresh,” Benioff shared.

“It’s kind of nice for him because — obviously through necessity we’ve pulled out ahead — the show has become so different [in recent seasons] that people will have no way knowing from watching what will or won’t appear in the books. And honestly, neither do we,” Weiss added.

In fact, Martin could completely change his planned book ending because he hasn’t even started writing yet!

“We don’t. And George discovers a lot of stuff while he’s writing. I don’t think that final book is written in stone yet — it’s not written on paper yet. As George says, he’s a gardener and he’s waiting to see how those seeds blossom,” Benioff added.