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'Game of Thrones' producers say this season won't spoil the upcoming books

As season six of the HBO drama approaches, the showrunners of 'Thrones' say their program won't give away future events in the books by George R.R. Martin. The show is experiencing an unusual situation in that it's run out of source material before its story is over.

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Macall B. Polay/HBO
'Game of Thrones' stars Emilia Clarke.

While the upcoming season of the smash hit TV show “Game of Thrones” will tell the story of the residents of Westeros beyond what is depicted in George R.R. Martin’s “Thrones” novels, “Thrones” showrunners say that the TV show won’t give away what’s coming in future books by Mr. Martin. 

The TV adaptation of “Thrones” seemingly reached the end of the plotlines for many characters as depicted in Martin’s books with the end of the show’s fifth season.

Yet showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff says fans who watch the show won’t have the plots of future books by Martin ruined. 

“People are talking about whether the books are going to be spoiled – and it’s really not true,” Mr. Benioff said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “So much of what we’re doing diverges from the books at this point. And while there are certain key elements that will be the same, we’re not going to talk so much about that – and I don’t think George is either. People are going to be very surprised when they read the books after the show. They’re quite divergent in so many respects for the remainder of the show.” 

“Thrones” tells the story of various people living in the fantasy realm of Westeros who are battling to take the throne.

The last book by Martin to be released in his series was “A Dance with Dragons,” which came out in 2011. The author has said he’s planning two more books in the series. 

Normally fans of books that are adapted for movies or TV are up in arms when part of an original story is changed. But the unusual path taken by “Thrones” – having the TV story and the novels’ story almost be two distinct narratives – may please fans rather than the opposite.

When it was believed that the upcoming season six episodes could give away some of Martin’s future storylines, Vanity Fair writer Joanna Robinson wrote, “The obvious advantage [will be that] book readers will no longer have to tiptoe around spoilers. The disadvantage being that readers who enjoy the story of Westeros unfolding the way Martin tells it (painstaking details and all), will have to settle for learning how it all ends in an abridged and modified way.”

Meanwhile, others feel that so many changes have been made for the TV show already that the TV show and the novels on which it is based are already two very different properties. 

“Many fans have already separated ‘book canon’ and ‘show canon,’” Slashfilm writer Jacob Hall wrote. “… They’re completely different in so many ways at this point.”

But, inevitably, some details will be shown on television before they make it to print. As series author George R.R. Martin wrote in January:

Given where we are, inevitably, there will be certain plot twists and reveals in season six of GAME OF THRONES that have not yet happened in the books. For years my readers have been ahead of the viewers. This year, for some things, the reverse will be true. How you want to handle that... hey, that's up to you.

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