What happens when Game of Thrones catches the books?

Lengthy quote from io9.

Co-showrunner David Benioff discusses in general terms how he and partner D.B. Weiss will approach the fourth book, A Feast of Crows, which features a largely new cast of characters and is generally considered the weakest entry:

"I don't think we want to answer specifically what we're keeping and dropping, but we do take your point. The series has already reached a point where there are so many characters, particularly in season three we're introducing so many new ones, we run the risk of bursting at the seams as we try to cram every single subplot and all the various characters and it becomes impossible on a budgetary level and it becomes impossible on an episode-basis to jump around every few minutes to 30 different characters and locations. We don't want to do that, and recognize that as a real risk and we will take steps not to fall into that trap."

And author George R.R. Martin says he's still optimistic the TV series won't reach the end of the story before he does:

"I think the odds against that happening are very long. I still have a lead of several gigantic books. If they include everything in the books, I don't think they're going to catch up with me. If they do, we'll have some interesting discussions."

Now, look, first of all, Feast is by no means the weakest entry. I'm puzzled as to why people think Brienne wandering around in the middle of nowhere is worse than Tyrion wandering around in the middle of nowhere, or why finding out that Cersei has the political acumen of Ned Stark is worse than finding out Daenerys has the political acumen of Ned Stark. (Or why Arianne Martell is a weaker supporting character than her brother Quentyn. And so on.)

But that nitpick aside, I think George is a tad optimistic.


Somebody did the math and found out that if he keeps to his average of 3ish years to write a book, and they go for seven seasons, he'll just squeak in. There are two problems. One, there is no guarantee that the series will only have seven books. Given that Winds has to begin with the last ten or so chapters of Dance, not to mention the fact that the series began as a trilogy. Two, yes it's true that overall his average is 3ish years. In the past decade, his average is five and a half. And yes that was supposedly because he had to cut the "Meereenese Knot," except - and this is yet another criticism of A Dance With Dragons so get used to it - he never effing did that. With the sole exception of Crispy McDragonfood, nobody traveling to Meereeeeeeeen actually met Daenerys. Now it's possible that he's got it worked out and we didn't get it because he refused to cut a Reek chapter or something. It's equally possible that his editor finally got fed up and told him to send him what he had, Douglas-Adams-style.

Secondly, George says he expects D&D to keep everything in Feast. David already basically said that's not going to happen.  Furthermore, as neither Feast nor Dance really has a middle point, my guess is that those books will be consolidated into one season (this would keep with the 7-season plan anyway).

Next, what does "interesting discussions" mean? They're not doing a prequel to stall for time. The kids are already like five years older than they should be.

And finally, if he's watched the most recent episodes, George should know how much trouble he's in. Sansa and Bran have a whopping 3 chapters each after Storm. Dany gets to Meereen and then her story dies stone dead. Jon isn't much better off once the Storm material is over.

So stop being optimistic. Game of Thrones is going to catch the books, they're going to piece together an ending from the clues George has given them, and we'll likely see a completely different ending in the books some three years later.