The most recent issue of Vanity Fair features a huge cover story focusing on everyone’s favorite HBO fantasy series, Game of Thrones. Editor Jim Windolf details the creation of the show, the direction it is headed, and he speaks with both the creators of the show, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, and the author of the series of books it is based on, George R.R. Martin. In the article, the show’s creators confirm what many of the fans of the book have been fearing: the TV show will almost certainly conclude before the book series is finished (season four is set to begin airing in a few weeks, and the creators are shooting for “seven or eight seasons”) and it will spoil the ending of the epic book series on which it is based.
Although certain aspects of the show have gone in different directions than the books (as friends of yours who read all the books have no doubt shared with you), Benioff and Weiss discuss a meeting they had last year with George R.R. Martin where they “sat down with him and literally went through every character.”
They give a few reasons for wrapping the show in the given timeframe. The first is the use of so many child actors. Speaking about Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark, Benioff states, “Maisie was the same age as Arya when it started, but now Maisie is a young woman and Arya is still 11. Time is passing very slowly in the books and very fast in real life.” The show’s creators have also stated that trying to “milk” the show past the planned seven or eight seasons would cause it to grow stale and lose its magic.
Happy that the show is overtaking the books? Will this change your reading or watching habits? Let us know in the comments or the forums. Or, you know, just write “Hodor.”
