Martin's Original Outline for Game of Thrones Finale Was Way Better
Game of Thrones is a show of truly astonishing scale and magnitude, and finding something comparable in strength to the fans' love for it is hard: admittedly, only their hate for its finale can suffice.
But enough has been said about Game of Thrones ' ending; let's talk about Game of Thrones' ending instead!
If you're confused, the original book series by George R.R. Martin is called A Song of Ice and Fire, and Game of Thrones is the first book's name that the show inherited.
But why are we bringing up the first book's ending?
You see, originally, George Martin planned on writing a trilogy, and his initial drafts were completely different from what he settled on late — what you saw in the show, too.
GRRM's original pitch to his publishers has been available to the audience for years, but the book's finale was unknown.
The known plot lines included:
- Daenerys killing Khal Drogo to avenge her brother;
- Catelyn Stark taking her kids behind the wall after Ned's death and being killed by White Walkers;
- Jaime murdering everyone on his path to claim the Iron Throne and framing Tyrion for it;
- Tyrion turning his back on the Lannisters and joining the Starks instead (while also falling in love with Arya which is gross considering their age difference).
Not much else was known about the original Game of Thrones, though, until recently, some fans discovered a way to decipher GRRM's blacked-out notes. Those contained the initial version of the Game of Thrones finale.
Even though some blank spots still remain after the deciphering, they managed to learn this (some of these are assumptions by filling in the blank spots):
- With some help from Tyrion, Bran Stark ends up on the Iron Throne;
- Jon Snow remains in the North, but he is Bran's enemy (for some reason) seeking revenge;
- Daenerys is still in Essos, getting prepared for a full-blown invasion of the Seven Kingdoms;
- The Others (White Walkers in the show) are gathering their forces in the Far North to eventually breach the Wall.
Obviously, George Martin scrapped most of his initial ideas. What caught our attention, though, is that in this earliest version, Bran ends up on the Iron Throne — just like in the finale of the TV show…
Whether this means that GRRM still considers this idea for the books' ending or not remains a mystery.
Maybe he wants Bran to reign over Westeros. Maybe he just fed this idea to the show's writers since he won't be using it anyways.
And maybe we'll never learn the truth — considering the current pace of GRRM's writing, he might end up not finishing the books at all.