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[BOOK SPOILERS] Watching the show if it overpasses the books [Part 2]


Stubby

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That would be dreadful! Don't the actors have a contract or something which means they have to continue until the end or most likely, until their character is killed off.

Contracts are generally for 6 years with an optional seventh (the cam choose to leave without breaching contract and get a minor pay increase if they stay). After that it's full contract renegotiation and most of the younger actors will be in a much, much stronger negotiating position.

I really hope they don't do that.

Is the show allowed to go on Hiatus if it catches up to the book? Or is that not possible due to contract reasons

The could do that, but they risk bleeding cast and crew like crazy, losing public interest, and GRRM still not getting it out.

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They could film all the seasons now (so the actors can continue) and show them on television after all the last book is written.

The last book? that will be out in like 2021 at GRRM's current pace. HBO is not going to go out of it's way to appease a fraction of the fanbase by strangling it's biggest show since the Sopranos. They have an on schedule 8 season plan, they will stick to it regardless of what GRRM publishes.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I thought that considering I haven't seen a huge amount of logical predictions for the release of The Winds of Winter, only peoples opinions and best guesses, I would lay out a possible timeline for the publication of the final two books in comparison to the progress of the tv series.



Firstly I will assume a few things;


  1. The one assumption to rule them all: That GRRM will stay ahead of the tv series, or at the very least, is actively trying to stay ahead of the tv series (the latter by all accounts sounds to be the case).
  2. Another assumption: The tv series will successfully span at least 8 seasons and run until the completion of the aSoIaF story-line/books.
  3. And another: Each subsequent tv season (i.e. not including season 3 and 4 ≈ A Storm of Swords Part 1 & 2) will correspond approximately to the content of one book (although this is flexible, see later).
  4. Also: GRRM will not separate his 2 further books geographically as in AFfC and ADwD i.e. both will have a continuous timeline.

So the complete, yet theoretical, timeline is as follows;



A Game of Thrones ≈ Game of Thrones Season 1 (2011)


A Clash of Kings ≈ Game of Thrones Season 2 (2012)


A Storm of Swords Part 1 ≈ Game of Thrones Season 3 (2013)


A Storm of Swords Part 2 ≈ Game of Thrones Season 4 (2014)


A Feast for Crows Part 1 + A Dance with Dragons Part 1 ≈ Game of Thrones Season 5 (2015)


A Feast for Crows Part 2 + A Dance with Dragons Part 2 ≈ Game of Thrones Season 6 (2016)


The Winds of Winter (NOT PUBLISHED YET) ≈ Game of Thrones Season 7 (2017)


A Dream of Spring (NOT PUBLISHED YET) ≈ Game of Thrones Season 8 (2018)



Ok cool.... so now what?



We know that each season of Game of Thrones is produced at the end of the year preceding when it airs (see the years above), or to put it more simply, it is made about 6 months before it goes to air. If we work backwards then that means, given the assumptions above etc., that....



A Dream of Spring will have to be published (or close) at the very latest by half-way through 2017, AND that...



The Winds of Winter will have to be published (or close) at the very latest by half-way through 2016!! ....BUT...



We also know that publishing ADoS only a year after TWoW is so outrageously impossible for GRRM to do you would have to be crazy to believe it. He needs at least 2 years between TWoW and ADoS (which even still is very optimistic given his track record), so...



TWoW will actually have to be published at the latest by half-way through 2015 to give him any chance to finish ADoS by half-way through 2017!! This in-turn would allow him to keep pace with the tv series. YAY!



Of course there are about a million other factors that could impact upon this time line.


I personally believe that only one season each for AFfC + ADoD Part 1, AFfC + ADoD Part 2, TWoW and ADoS is a conservative estimate. Especially considering that the last two books have been suggested to be the longest yet, and that the tv series split the similarly lengthy A Storm of Swords into roughly 2 seasons. Therefore Game of Thrones could easily be more than 8 seasons long, if it did go for longer than 8 seasons than that would give GRRM an extra year writing for every extra season depending on where the extra season is placed.



Also another possibility is that the series either has a break for a year (cue widespread panic, outrage, the end of the world etc.), which would also give GRRM an extra year. Or they could be very cheeky and delay the production and airing of a season by 6 months. If they moved back the production of say, Season 6, from late 2015 to early 2016 (when it should have been airing) and then aired it late 2016 instead, this would give GRRM an extra 6 months. They could even do this more than once.



Another consideration is the idea of ending it all with a movie (i'm not particularly a fan of this idea) which could give 8 (or 9) seasons plus a movie which would take extra time to produce (at least 2 years??), but I wont go into that here.



So here is hoping that old boy George will be able to get TWoW out to us by mid-2015 and ADoS to us by mid-2017 (although depending on the circumstances mid-2018 might also work). I may be getting ahead of myself but I think TWoW coming out in 2015 is do-able. I really hope so otherwise it doesn't look like there will be much hope of the novels concluding before the tv series catches up, which in all likelihood would suck.



Thoughts???



P.S. Apologies for the post being a novel in itself.


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While there will be some AFFC/ADWD material in season 6 (mostly from ADWD), the bulk of the characters will be into TWOW material by then (Bran [who may even need it by season 5], Davos [ditto], Sansa, Arya, Sam, Jaime and Brienne, Cersei, etc.). There are only a couple of characters whose plots could even potentially cover them all the way to the end of season 6, and I don't think it would be at all a good idea to do that with them in any case.


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I disagree, after season 6 only two season will be left. D&D will maximize ADoS considering it is most likely to contain all the much awaited content like Dany's Landing/Great WW battle.



My estimate is that Season 6 will be at least 50% of TWoW, the rest being mixed in with parts of Spring in Season 7.


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I'm with the Not Gonna Watch crowd. The show is like The Cliff Notes of the books, and I preferred the richness of GRRM's writing to the rushed version we're getting on the show. I like having the internal thoughts of the characters, the dream/daydreams and prophecies that are being grazed over, and every little superficial character the show has to leave out/combine/keep as unnamed extras. If we get to the Ice and Fire battles before TWOW comes out, I'll stop watching and wait for the books.




What I find interesting about this topic is that is that if/when the show overtakes the published books, there will be a point at which the spoiler tables will turn, and show watchers will have to guard themselves when having discussions with book readers. I can't wait to see how that gets handled on the boards. I think it will be amusing.


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I disagree, after season 6 only two season will be left. D&D will maximize ADoS considering it is most likely to contain all the much awaited content like Dany's Landing/Great WW battle.

My estimate is that Season 6 will be at least 50% of TWoW, the rest being mixed in with parts of Spring in Season 7.

Oh, I agree there. The way you phrased it made it seem like we'd be well into the sixth book by the start of season 6.

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Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to live long enough to see the books finished, so I'll take a watered down ending to a story over no ending at all.

Lol, I'm not even 30 yet so I hope I do live long enough to see the end of the books, but still, the only reason for me to keep watching after the show overtakes the books is to see some sort of ending. I started reading the books over 10 years ago now, so a part of me has had enough of not knowing for so long... On the other side I feel so sad I wouldn't read it in the books first. But I think I'd keep watching, also because even if I didn't I'd be spoiled anyway so I might as well just enjoy the ride.

Yay! :drool:

Rude.

Oh, I meant I would prefer to see the essentials of the book stories when it comes to characterization and relationships, and I am getting the impression that for some favorite characters, that won't happen. I think probably the show will overpass the books in season 6...

Very much agree with, and that's one of the reasons why I sometimes don't feel it matters if the show overtakes the books, since so many things don't match anyway.

I disagree, after season 6 only two season will be left. D&D will maximize ADoS considering it is most likely to contain all the much awaited content like Dany's Landing/Great WW battle.

My estimate is that Season 6 will be at least 50% of TWoW, the rest being mixed in with parts of Spring in Season 7.

Agreed. This season is second half of asos with bits and pieces from affc/adwd, but affc/adwd will be exhausted by next season. If anything I would imagine season 5 might already have parts from twow. Maybe not a lot, but they're going to move much faster now, especially since there will be no books to base their material on anymore.

I wonder if D&D would change the ending that GRRM gives them, or if GRRM gives them the true ending. I mean if he doesn't finish the books then who is going to be able to say that he didn't give D&D the true ending?

I think it would be bit weird if that was the case. My bet is that the ending in the show will roughly be the same as the books, only with less details. It's true that if grrm doesn't finish the books nobody will know what the original ending was, but I doubt he didn't give the true ending.

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Thoughts???

You're a hopeless optimist. TWOW out in mid-2015? Maybe. ADOS out in mid-2017? Which means he has two years to write it (ore more likely 1 1/2, since he usually starts writing a half year after he has a book published, after his extensive book tour), while TWOW took 4 years (if we assume mid-2015)? No way.

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Season 4 already has significant amounts of AFFC and ADWD material in it, so I think the situation is going to get a bit messy. Basically, Season 5 will be almost all of AFFC/ADWD by itself. Some storylines may linger into the start of Season 6, but probably not too many. Furthermore, HBO's budget appears not to allow more than one large battle sequence per season. If we assume that we will have to see both the battle at Winterfell and Meereen on screen (Storm's End can happen off-screen, that's not a problem), then one of these battles must fall at the end of Season 5 and the other at the start of Season 6 (and hope TWoW doesn't have another large battle sequence that would fall before the end of Season 6). So we could be into TWoW material before Season 5 is done.



Benioff and Weiss then have 1.5 season each to adapt TWoW and ADoS. This may be necessary for budgetary reasons - if there is a big battle at the end of TWoW (Dany's invasion of Westeros?) as well as the two at the start, this would fall in Season 7 when they can afford it - as well as desirable from a pacing perspective. TWoW and ADoS are reported to be the same size as ASoS and ADWD and it is assumed that, like ASoS and unlike ADWD, they will be packed full of important incidents as the various storylines and subplots are concluded. Assuming you can fit each book into just one season may be over-optimistic.



More distressingly, there now seems to be a growing number of rumours that GoT will only be 7 seasons long. Nothing official, but Benioff and Weiss haven't said 8 seasons for a while and HBO (via producer Frank Doelger) did seem to indicate 7 was more realistic. On that basis, even if HBO do eventually give D&D 8 seasons, that decision is not set in stone yet and D&D will do well to plan for 7 seasons, at least at the moment. On that basis, AFFC and ADWD will likely be collapsed into one season, which is likely why they're trying to get as much as possible done this season to set it up and kick those storylines off.



AFFC/ADWD are not going to fill up Seasons 5 and 6. There is insufficient material (especially given the growing likelihood that scenes like the Kingsmoot will be cut or take place offscreen, and a lot of the new characters i.e. Dorne are going to simply not exist in the TV show) in the first place, and doing that destroys the pacing of Dany's story (she spends two and a half seasons in one city after being on the move for three and a half?) in a way it doesn't in the books (in real terms, despite the wait, Dany is only in Meereen for just the one novel of ADWD). It also risks them running out of time to finish the story off. Even if the 8 season thing happens, it only leaves them one season per book, which may not be enough. If the show stops at 7 seasons, that gives them 10 episodes to resolve everything that GRRM has planned in TWoW and ADoS.



Only an idiot risks fumbling the end of the series in order to expand and concentrate on the middle, where less essential stuff is happning, and D&D are clearly not idiots.



As for the timeline for the books appearing, GRRM is sharing outlines and drafts with the TV writers (like he did for ADWD, before the first season even aired), so they will have the material they need to do the adaptation when they need it, that's not a problem. From the audience's POV, it is only important (for book purists anyway) that the books get out before the TV show airs. To avoid TWoW spoilers altogether, TWoW needs to be out by April/May 2015, which does not seem probable at the moment (though not impossible). However, it's likely that only a small amount of TWoW material (if important stuff) will be in Season 5. Most will wait until Season 6, so GRRM has until April 2016, which seems perfectly doable, to avoid the show overtaking fully. That only gives him a year to avoid ADoS spoilers altogether, and two years to avoid the TV show spoiling the ending.


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More distressingly, there now seems to be a growing number of rumours that GoT will only be 7 seasons long. Nothing official, but Benioff and Weiss haven't said 8 seasons for a while and HBO (via producer Frank Doelger) did seem to indicate 7 was more realistic.

"Growing"? Doelger said that once, that's it, as far as I know. And this show has only gotten more profitable.

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"Growing"? Doelger said that once, that's it, as far as I know. And this show has only gotten more profitable.

There is a recent interview with Roger Ashton-Griffiths, who plays Mace Tyrell, saying that a director told him to think of GoT as a "seventy-hour movie".

ETA: If GoT turns out to be 7 seasons long after all, I hope HBO pulls off what Breaking Bad did with Season 5. Have S7.0 and 7.5 with two batches of, say, 7-8 episodes. It'd be doable, I hope, if their main concern is to avoid contract renegotiations that would have to take place after seven years of filming.

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