[BOOK SPOILERS] Would you watch the show if it overpasses the books?

[Gneisenau]

If the show overtakes, I flee from this board into exile and only return when the books catch up to the show.

[Colonel Green]

The Iron Throne cat will already be out of the bag thanks to the TV show, I think he says F it and enjoys retirement at that point.

The show ending before the books would probably slow Martin down, but I don't think he would ever just abandon the project, just because his literary legacy is entirely bound up in finishing this series. ASOIAF will go from being the crown jewel of contemporary high fantasy to a laughingstock. He won't be hurting for money, of course, but I would expect his reputation matters to him.

[Broken Fox]

I'm sure it does to some degree, but if his reputation was of the utmost importance to him he wouldn't write like fucking molasses. His attitude has always been "it'll get done when it gets done." That doesn't exactly scream "I must secure my legacy at all costs!"

Obviously he does care a great deal about his baby but I can easily see that scenario D-Shiznit pointed out happening. GRRM seems like he'd rather enjoy the rest of his life than scramble to finish his book series, and I totally respect that. Just the impression I get.

[SheepStealer]

I have to if the book isn't out by then. I like the books a lot more but like someone said,I watched GOT season1 and read the book after.Enjoyed both. I hope this does not happen.

[Colonel Green]

I'm sure it does to some degree, but if his reputation was of the utmost importance to him he wouldn't write like fucking molasses. His attitude has always been "it'll get done when it gets done." That doesn't exactly scream "I must secure my legacy at all costs!"

Martin writes as fast as he writes, and doesn't seem to able to will himself to go faster, even though by now he's clearly realized the timeframe he's under (whereas in earlier seasons he seems to have distracted himself with fantasies of AFFC/ADWD taking up three seasons; I'd love to see him try to outline that).

[Broken Fox]

Well yeah, that's my point. He's now newly rich and famous and obviously enjoying it all, and his age is catching up with him. It just looks like life takes precedence over his art and GOT is his get-out-of-jail-free card.

I definitely think he cares about ASOIAF I just don't think he's that interested in telling it anymore :lol:

[D-Shiznit]

Another thing to consider is the ending of the show, if it gets a negative reaction like most high profile endings do, his will to write will go down even further. Why wirte something you know people already hate?

[Broken Fox]

He strikes me as a "live life while you can" sort of guy. Which makes sense, he's a blue collar dude from Jersey. Some artists are obsessed with solidifying their legacy or whatever you want to call it and kind of fuck up a lot of what goes on in their personal lives for it, I think he has other priorities. I mean when you're dead you're dead and you won't be around to enjoy any of it anyway.

Then again, if the GOT show didn't exist he might have a very different attitude towards it all. This is all just speculation though. Who the hell knows what he's thinking.

[Newstar]

I definitely think he cares about ASOIAF I just don't think he's that interested in telling it anymore :lol:

That The World of Ice and Fire ballooned in length--250,000 words--seems to suggest that that's the case, although GRRM has made an impressive show of going through the motions even if his heart's no longer in it; he did try to clear his plate in 2013 to work on TWOW, after all.

If GRRM truly wants to finish the books, then I'm all for that, no matter how long it takes him. If, on the other hand, he truly has lost interest and would prefer to focus on other things, I think he should stop, no matter what that would mean for his legacy. There's something to be said for finishing what one has started and seeing things through, but life is short and he is not a young man. I'd hate to see him spend another eight or so years of his life shackled to a project which no longer interests him as much as it once did, if that is indeed the case.

...Now that I think about it, if GRRM realized that the show was outpacing the books and refused to give the showrunners material for the unpublished books so that they'd be forced to do an alternate ending, would HBO be on board with that? Is GRRM under any obligation to cooperate in providing them with future plot points when the show runs out of book material? GRRM has already spoiled the writers to a certain extent on future developments, but would that continue if they wanted to continue the adaptation without published books? I doubt HBO would be terribly thrilled with GRRM refusing to spoil the unpublished books for the benefit of the writers. I'm just wondering how viable this "showrunners come up with alternate ending" scenario really is. I also wonder whether the showrunners or HBO contemplated this possibility when planning for the show.

[Miryana]

...Now that I think about it, if GRRM realized that the show was outpacing the books and refused to give the showrunners material for the unpublished books so that they'd be forced to do an alternate ending, would HBO be on board with that? Is GRRM under any obligation to cooperate in providing them with future plot points when the show runs out of book material? GRRM has already spoiled the writers to a certain extent on future developments, but would that continue if they wanted to continue the adaptation without published books? I doubt HBO would be terribly thrilled with GRRM refusing to spoil the unpublished books for the benefit of the writers. I'm just wondering how viable this "showrunners come up with alternate ending" scenario really is. I also wonder whether the showrunners or HBO contemplated this possibility when planning for the show.

Surely HBO put it in writing that they get to choose between coming up with their own ending (I hear only the first two seasons of True Blood were faithful to the books) or making him tell the book ending if it's not yet been published. When they got the rights, wasn't GRRM already infamous for AFFC and the new wait for ADWD? HBO has to have considered the possibility because fans who do this for fun and not as a job were already speculating about it in 2009 when I checked out the casting. At this point, I'm 99% sure that the show will pass the books and all my desperate hopes focus on wishing that they will give us GRRM's ending because we might not get in any other form and their own ending would consist of unrestrained stanning for Tyrion.

[titanx5]

...Now that I think about it, if GRRM realized that the show was outpacing the books and refused to give the showrunners material for the unpublished books so that they'd be forced to do an alternate ending, would HBO be on board with that? Is GRRM under any obligation to cooperate in providing them with future plot points when the show runs out of book material? GRRM has already spoiled the writers to a certain extent on future developments, but would that continue if they wanted to continue the adaptation without published books? I doubt HBO would be terribly thrilled with GRRM refusing to spoil the unpublished books for the benefit of the writers. I'm just wondering how viable this "showrunners come up with alternate ending" scenario really is. I also wonder whether the showrunners or HBO contemplated this possibility when planning for the show.

D&D have already said they known how the story ends, so no we wont get an alternative ending, there will be the bigger details missing that only the book can provide. Also even though the books are his baby and he sold the rights to HBO, he still wants them to have the same ending as it is his story and his legacy. Im optimistic we will get WoW by middle 2015. So the writers will have all the details to write for s6. DoS however wont be done by then unfortunately. So the result will be the same, but the journey may differ to a certain degree

[Colonel Green]

Also even though the books are his baby and he sold the rights to HBO, he still wants them to have the same ending as it is his story and his legacy.

He's actually made some statements contrary to that in the recent past, saying that he would prefer if the show didn't spoil the ending in advance.

But I rather doubt HBO would have committed to this series without contractual guarantees for a scenario like this, and given Martin's history of misjudging his own writing pace, I suspect he would have agreed to such a condition, believing it would never be relevant.

[jons nissa]

I can't imagine how demoralizing it would be to go from seeing your works adapted for television to essentially writing a novelization of your own story as told first on TV.

i don't believe a writer has ever been in such a situation. trying to put myself in grrm's shoes and guess how he feels about that possibility makes me think he probably finds the whole idea surreal.

i agree it will be demoralizing however, if hbo's interpretation of the ending really doesn't sit well with grrm, it might spur him on to finish the series even more. or, indeed, make him feel as if the pressure is gone. hard to say. and while the idea of learning the ending via the show is not how i would prefer to learn it (let's face it, they won't address ALL of the story lines in the book), i can't deny that there is a great relief of knowing there is a set timeline for me to find out what happens in the big picture. getting the final book (which may be 3 books away!) is becoming more and more tenuous as each year passes.

[Mr Fixit]

He's actually made some statements contrary to that in the recent past, saying that he would prefer if the show didn't spoil the ending in advance.

But I rather doubt HBO would have committed to this series without contractual guarantees for a scenario like this, and given Martin's history of misjudging his own writing pace, I suspect he would have agreed to such a condition, believing it would never be relevant.

Probably. It has to be a nightmare scenario for Martin however, to work on his magnum opus for 25+ years only to let someone else beat him to the punch. The delays in writing ADwD were crucial in this regard. Had he finished Dance around 2008, which was entirely possible by the time Feast was published, none of this would have mattered.

I honestly still don't know what kept him from delivering the book before 2011. I know pretty much everything publicly said about the infamous Meereenese knot, but that by itself can hardly account for all those lost years, especially if we keep in mind that Martin had some 470 pages (I think) ready by the time AFfC came out. Seems to me he'd given up on Dance for quite a while. Out of frustration maybe?

[Red Tiger]

Yes, yes I would

[The Reckoner]

I'd drop the show and wait for the books.

[esed]

I will watch the show anyway. Apparently, Martin told general plot direction to Benioff and Weiss, so show's ending will be somewhat similar to books anyway. However, as far as I see it, the show is more and more independent from books, and screenwriters are more and more prone to add scenes which were never existed in books. A good scenes, I should admit. I suppose that 4th season can be even more independent in terms of plot directions. E.g. I think that Shae-Tyrion relations will receive completely different ending. Apparently, show invests a lot in Tyrion character, and in TV show we actually can see that Shae will be killed by Tywin or on Tywin's orders. It will create even more sympathy to the Imp. Or maybe we will see the same ending but it will be more pathetic. SPOILER ALERT: I just can't see TV show's Shae betraying Tyrion for money or something else. She has already rejected present from Varys...

[Newstar]

Apparently, Martin told general plot direction to Benioff and Weiss, so show's ending will be somewhat similar to books anyway.

We do know that 1) D&D have known the books' ending for a while (although it's not clear to what degree of detail) and 2) GRRM had a big pow-wow with the writers (including Bryan Cogman) in the spring of 2013 where he spilled details on upcoming plot arcs (i.e. TWOW material), as related by Bryan Cogman last year:

...David, Dan and I recently visited George at his home in Santa Fe for a few days to talk about GoT’s future and pick his brain about where all the storylines and characters are headed. We’re getting to the point now, as we map out future seasons, where that information is necessary. Mind you, George is still writing, so I imagine some of this stuff isn’t etched in stone, but he has a clear vision and he was kind enough to share.

So it's not like the writers have no canon material at their disposal past ADWD whatsoever, although as Bryan Cogman pointed out, the information they received is subject to change. In fact, depending on how detailed the roadmap GRRM gave them was, the writers may very well be spoiled as to the remainder of the series.

I do wonder how detailed the ending description was that GRRM provided D&D. I mean, "The Others are defeated and Jon Snow sits the Iron Throne at the end" (for example) is technically a description of the ending, but it really doesn't say much of anything. Of course, even if GRRM had told D&D the endgame for all the characters from the getgo (for example, Jaime strangles Cersei to death, Brienne winds up in the Kingsguard, Stannis dies in battle, etc. etc.), that isn't terribly useful for figuring out how they get from point A (end of ADWD) to point B (end of ADOS). That could be covered off by this meeting with GRRM where he discussed future arcs with them, though, since that could theoretically take them through the end of ADOS.

If the writers have a rough roadmap for the unpublished books from GRRM--and granted, that's a big assumption on my part--then they could probably write the rest of the TV show with that information alone. There's so much non-book material in the TV show already--although granted there are still several scenes lifted virtually verbatim from the books--that the books have essentially become nothing more than a rough plot outline for the show to follow anyway.

SPOILER ALERT: I just can't see TV show's Shae betraying Tyrion for money or something else. She has already rejected present from Varys...

Shae has twice in the show rejected wealth: the golden chain, and Varys' bribe. I can see her turning on Tyrion out of a sense of betrayal or wounded pride, or to protect Sansa (whom she seems to love more than Tyrion, so much that she would "kill" for her), but for gold? No way.

[SansaSeastar]

I like to believe that I wouldn't watch it but to be honest, I probably would be to curious. I just hope to god that this will never happen.

[ebevan91]

I'd just have to watch the show.

Would you rather be spoiled by watching the show, or be spoiled by some random internet users or websites, without witnessing the events yourself, be it on TV or in the books?