Since we can't talk about the show on the other side...

[Lost Melnibonean]

Let's see, the ending to the show suggests that the War for Dawn will be won, Daenerys will die, Jon will return to Castle Black, Sansa will lead the North to independence, Arya will sail off into the sunset, Bran will become King of the Six Kingdoms, Rickon will die, and Tyrion will serve as Bran's Hand. 

Which of these things will happen, and how will the George take us there (assuming he can)? 

I have never gone in for the idea that mankind will be extinguished by the Others. That would turn the whole saga into a shaggy dog story. Is that what the George is writing? I don't think so. So yes, I expect mankind will defeat the Others. 

But I think Bran will have a much more important role in that victory than just serving as bait. The George has set the reader up to expect that Bran will be able to summon the old powers to help defeat the Others, and it might be easier to depict that in print than video. Is there any foreshadowing that Bran will be king? I haven't seen any. 

Speaking of shaggy dog stories and foreshadowing, about six years ago, I argued that the Last Hero tale by Old Nan foreshadows the deaths of Jojen, Hodor, Osha, Meera, Rickon, the Liddle they met on their way to the Wall, Sam, Gilly, and Gilly's baby. Since then though, I have reached the conclusion that King Stannis and House Manderly will return House Stark to power in the North in the person of Rickon. I could definitely see Sansa returning to Winterfell, but not to become queen. 

Nor do I think Bran will be a king. With Daenerys dying and Jon returning to his watch (or saying f#@& all that and joining the Free Folk), Dumb & Dumber needed someone to be king, so why not Bran? See, the show completely cut out the Second Dance of the Dragons, and reduced the Aegon subplot to having the Golden Company sell their swords to Cersei. That ain't happening in ASOIAF. Aegon won't win, and Daenerys will die, but there will be an heir. And I expect Tyrion's arc will end during that Dance. 

The George has said that his wife told him not to kill Arya, so I suppose sailing aff into the sunset à la Frodo, would be as good a way as any to end her arc, and it would be a nice allusion to the Lord of the Rings, at least after she takes care of a little business first. 

[Lord Lannister]

I really wish there's was a separate sub forum for book/show talk instead of just lumping it in with the show thread. 

You can probably draw some conclusions the way Wind will go from the show, yes. It's not a coincidence that the show had season 5 Stannis attacking Winterfell with an army of southerners and season 6 Jon attacking Winterfell with an army of wildlings and northmen and Dance ends and Winds begins with Stannis attacking Winterfell with an army of wildlings, southerners and northerners. 

D&D seem eager to assign other people's roles to certain characters to keep the relative. A prominent one being Sansa taking Jeyne's role as Ramsay's wife. I'm willing to guess a lot of that happened in the final two seasons. (F)Aegon's role seems to be merged into Dany and Cersei's roles a bit for example. So many threads split from threads it's hard to speculate how different and tangled the web gets taking another road to the same ending.

[The Baelish Mockingbird]

I don't necessarily think Tyrion becoming hand of the King is confirmed for the ending of the book. Hand of the King is more of an arbitrary decision for the show runners to make in contrast with the books. I don't think it matters who becomes Hand at the end or if there would even be a hand. I always subscribed to the idea that the ending of the book would be the development of a constitutional monarchy. 

Bran becoming King, I can definitely see occurring in the book. The very first chapter in the book is a POV chapter from Bran (prologue excluded) and Game of Thrones seems to like to end things the way they start them. I think the fix here though will be that George will write Bran to be infinitely more charismatic and likeable than whatever we got in series 7 and 8. Either that or Bran will be made to be more of a schemer. The only reason we dislike it in the show is because Bran is basically an unlikable and uncharismatic robot.

[T and A]

The broad story will be the same in the books. By that I mean:

- Jon going in the north, living with the free folk 

- Danny going mad, burning KL and getting killed by Jon 

- Sansa queen in the north

- Bran King of the six kingdoms 

- Arya leaving Westeros 

- Cersei and Jamie dying (although differently in the books)

- Tyrion hand of the King