We Will Burn You First: Game of Thrones Book Spoilers Are Coming to TV, Admits Producer

Allow me to express my feelings about this in the immortal words of No Doubt: Don’t speak, I know just what you’re saying, so please stop explaining. Don’t tell me cause it hurts. Don’t speak, I know what you’re thinking, I don’t need your reasons. Don’t tell me cause it hurts.

Producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, as well as actors Kit Harington and John Bradley, sat down at the Oxford Union for a full address in which they answered some audience questions. One fan was wondering how they felt about potentially telling George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire story before he gets to. Benioff had this to say in response (FYI there are no actual spoilers for either the books or the show here):

We’ve been talking to him for a while about this. The fact is we didn’t want to catch up, obviously, we would hope that the books would come out ahead of the show. But at the same time George has his process and if it takes him 20 years to finish the series, that’s what it should take him. I mean, he’s writing, to my mind, the great epic of our, the great fantasy epic anyway of our time. We can’t rush him and I wouldn’t want to rush him. And at the same time we can’t put the show on hiatus. We’ve got all these actors, wonderful cast, I mean I think the greatest cast ever assembled for a television show. And we can’t take a two year break cause you know, these guys are in demand and they are going to go off and do other stuff. So we kind of have to keep pushing forward.

Is he saying…? Yeah, he is:

Luckily, we’ve been talking about this with George for a long time ever since we saw this could happen, and we know where things are heading. So we’ll eventually, basically, meet up at pretty much the same place where George is going; there might be a few deviations along the route, but we’re heading towards the same destination. I kind of wish there were some things that we didn’t have to spoil, in terms of… for the books, but we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. The show must go on [laughs]. Just came up with that. And that’s what we’re gonna do.

We recently found out Martin would not attend San Diego Comic-Con this summer so he could focus on writing the next installment of the series (he also skipped writing any episodes for Season 5 of the show), The Winds of Winter, and hoped it could mean we’d see the novel sooner rather than later. We also hoped it meant the show wouldn’t surpass the books but I guess we were wrong.

But it may not be all bad news. Benioff also said:

I think the thing that’s kind of fun for George is the idea that he can still have surprises for people even once they’ve watched the show through to the conclusion. There are certain things that are going to happen in the books that are different from the show, and I think people who love the show and want more—want to know more about the characters, want to know more about the different characters who might not have made the cut for the show—will be able to turn to the books. So, that’s where we stand.

Personally, I’m pretty bummed about this, even though I knew it was almost assuredly going to happen. One thing to consider is that the producers didn’t say when any of these book spoilers might wind up on the show. We already know some characters’ arcs are caught up with their book counterparts and that some big changes have been made to others’ storylines but as an ASoIaF reader, I’d like to know.

Because I will seriously stop watching the show and quit my job and go live in a cave so as not to be spoiled.

You can watch the whole Q&A here if you’re interested.

(via WatchersOnTheWall)

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