Whether you loved or hated the ending of Game of Thrones, you’re probably still unpacking what happened and wondering if things could have ended any differently.
author george r r martin told the showrunners the “main points of the ending” years ago, but since the last two books are yet to be published, that common ending might be a little different.
You are reading: Where did the game of thrones books leave off
*spoiler warning* this article assumes you have seen all of game of thrones and includes major spoilers for the books. if you don’t want the books to spoil, go now.
as any reader of a song of ice and fire knows, the show departed (in some cases dramatically) from the source material, leaving plenty of room for martin to tell a story that isn’t exactly as it is known to viewers of the show.
These are some of the biggest changes you may have missed if you’ve never read the books.
lady stoneheart is a big problem
This is probably the most dramatic omission and something book lovers have waited in vain for years.
catelyn stark back from the dead.
is an amazing plot bomb that takes place at the end of the third book, a storm of swords.
catch up on our Season 8 recaps:
- episode 1: winterfell
- episode 2: a knight of the seven kingdoms
- episode 3: the long night
- episode 4: the the last of the starks
- episode 5: the bells
- episode 6: the iron throne
In the books, catelyn’s body is dumped in the river after her throat is slit at the red wedding. Nymeria, Arya’s direwolf, finds him a few days later.
The wolf drags him out of the water and then runs off when he sees lord beric dondarrion and his brotherhood approaching without banners.
beric, who has come back to life multiple times at this point, kisses the dead catelyn and begs the lord of light to bring her back. beric drops dead, having traded his life for catelyn’s.
Catelyn, her throat slit and unable to speak more than a rasp, becomes ‘lady stoneheart‘, the cruel and vengeful leader of the sisterhood. The sole purpose of it is to ambush and kill Freys, Lannisters, and anyone else who played a role in the Red Wedding.
She is not the Catelyn we used to know and she is completely consumed with revenge, even capturing and seriously threatening to hang Brienne for her alleged closeness to Jaime Lannister.
jaime book has redemption. show jaime? not so much
A point of much consternation for book lovers is the show’s constant flipping over whether jaime lannister has reformed and gotten rid of cersei.
On the show, Jaime can’t help it and returns to Cersei, over and over again.
this culminates in the last tacky scene in the show where he rapes cersei as the two view joffrey‘s body in sept.
This scene plays out a little differently in the books, making it seem consensual, and then Jaime reflects on his shame for loving Cersei and decides to separate from her.
At one point in the books, Jaime leads the Lannister army in a riverrun siege against the Blackfish and receives a Landing Raven from the King.
We learn that Cersei will be judged by the church for her adultery and needs a champion to fight for her.
“help me. save me. i need you now like i’ve never needed you before. i love you. i love you. i love you. come right away,” cersei tells jaime in the note.
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old jaime would have immediately abandoned the siege and returned to cersei. but when asked if he wanted to answer, the book jaime returns the note to the maestre and says “no. put this on the fire”.
there is a final prophecy about cersei omitted from the show
A young cersei lannister receives a prophecy from a witch in both the books and the show.
cersei asks three questions about her future and learns that she will marry a king, someone younger and more beautiful will take everything from her, and she will have three children who will die before her.
but in the books, the witch has one more thing to say after mentioning the golden shrouds that will cover her children: “and when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar will wrap his hands around your pale white throat and will choke the life out of you.”
This never appeared in the show and likely reveals a different fate for Cersei because “valonqar” is High Valyrian for “little brother” meaning either Tyrion or Jaime will kill her.
there’s another targaryen… maybe
it is alleged in the books that varys changed one of the two young sons of prince rhaegar targaryen before they were killed during the sack of king’s landing when robert won his rebellion. and took the throne.
baby aegon targaryen (not to be confused with jon snow) was *allegedly* given to a man named jon connington, former hand of the king and friend of the prince rhaegar, who was exiled to essos.
connington, under the pseudonym ‘griff’, works for the golden company mercenaries (the same ones cersei hires on the show) and raises the boy, whom he names ‘ young griff‘.
He is the white-haired boy’s mentor, grooming him to be king one day, and their secret identities are kept hidden from the golden company at large.
Later, Connington plans to travel to meet Queen Daenerys and marry young Aegon to her so they can claim the throne together. But he is dismayed to learn that Daenerys is still in Meereen with no plans to sail west.
Instead, he reveals the young griff’s identity to the rest of the golden company and they, fed up with the current commander harry strickland, form around connington and young aegon and sail west, with the intend to place him on the throne without daenerys.
where the books currently end, the golden company has invaded westeros and captured some small fortresses with plans for further conquest.
However, it is hinted quite strongly that the child is not actually Aegon and could be a son of the Targaryen bastard line, known as Blackfyres.
varys and connington are playing a political game and want to place on the throne a wise and just king that they themselves can select and raise.
cersei gets the support of the golden troupe on the show, but in the books they’re waging their own war against her.
ramsay doesn’t marry sansa, he marries an impostor arya
Do you remember when sansa stark married ramsay snow and suffered terrible abuse? it never actually happens in the books. In the books, Sansa follows with Little Finger and the Knights of the Vale.
what really happens is that sansa’s best friend, jeyne poole, who was held captive in king’s landing, is sent north to winterfell to marry lord’s illegitimate son bolton, ramsay. With the real Arya missing since Ned’s beheading, presumed dead, the Lannisters pretend that Jeyne is actually arya stark. Her marriage to Ramsay would cement her control over Winterfell and the North.
jeyne is the one to suffer abuse at the hands of ramsay and eventually flees with the help of theon greyjoy, jumping off the walls of king’s landing into the fresh snow outside.
theon and sansa are unlikely to have the close relationship they have on the show because she’s not the one he’s saving.
king beyond the wall mance rayder escapes execution
remember this guy? it’s been a while.
In the show, the de facto leader of the wildlings is executed by stannis on the wall because he refuses to kneel. we see him burn on a pyre until jon snow gives him mercy as an arrow to the heart.
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but it was all a ruse in the books.
melisandre help the royal mance escape death by using magic to make him look like one of the wild bosses: rattle t-shirt.
Instead, the royal rattlesnake shirt is burned to death while being glamorized to look like a mance.
after the hack is revealed, jon snow begs his friend mance to travel to winterfell on a secret mission to free ‘arya’ (actually jeyne, but jon doesn’t know).
the mission is successful, theon and jeyne escape, but ramsay captures mance.
a Dornish prince tries to marry Daenerys. not going well
quentyn martell, the second son of the Dornish ruler prince doran martell, is sent on a secret mission in the books to travel across the narrow sea and make a offer of marriage to daenerys in exchange for dorne’s help in taking the iron throne.
After Quentyn meets Daenerys, she politely declines the marriage proposal, explaining that she will soon marry a local nobleman, hizdahr zo loraq, to cement her rule over Meereen.
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while quentyn is staying in the palace rooms, daenerys invites him to see two of her dragons, rhaegal and viserion, who are locked in the dragon pit (drogon has escaped and is wandering). around the lands). The sight of the dragons makes a great impression on the normally cautious and insecure Quentyn.
Afraid to return to his father without fulfilling his mission, he hatches a plan to tame at least one of the dragons and bring him back to Dorne. he believes that some targaryen ancestry in his lineage will allow him to get closer to them.
After sneaking into the dragon pit in disguise, nothing goes according to plan. rhaegal decides to roast quentyn in dragonfire and both dragons escape from the pits.
quentyn, horribly disfigured, dies of his injuries in the palace several days later. Prince Doran’s secret master plan for a Targaryen alliance to overthrow the Lannisters is in shambles.
night king, greyjoys and pigs
The above points are just a few of the many, many differences between the books and the show. there are others, including:
- the night king isn’t in the books at all, at least not yet. we don’t know if the white walkers (the others) have a leader
- there are two magical horns, one that supposedly can destroy the wall and another that can tame dragons
- all stark children can enter their direwolves. bran isn’t the only one with this ability
- tyrion loses the tip of his nose in the blackwater battle — it’s even uglier now
- dany’s handsome flank daario naharis, though still described as very handsome, has blue hair, a long blue beard, and a golden mustache. seriously
- tyrion has a dwarf friend named penny: they go on an adventure together in essos and compete on pigs (yes, really)
- jaime he never goes to dorne to bring back myrcella, instead there is an intricate plot of sand snakes to marry myrcella in dorne to gain the throne
- yara greyjoy is still a tough guy but his name is asha in the books and his uncle euron the house with one of his supporters
- euron greyjoy has a warrior brother named victarion greyjoy who commands the iron fleet and sails to daenerys in meereen to transport his army to westeros in exchange for marrying euron. In the books, Euron is cunning and evil, but not much of a fighter. victarion fills that role.
where are the books?
The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, ends with jon snow being stabbed and killed by the other members of the night’s watch.
without going too deep, jon’s death is related to mance rayder and ramsay snow. As Commander-in-Chief, Jon decides to march the Night’s Watch to take back Winterfell from Ramsay. he remembers that the clock has sworn never to interfere in the affairs of the kingdom.
for breaking his vows, jon plunges the same knife into his heart as on the show. however, not from olly, which is a show-only character. in fact, none of the main conspirators on the show have anything to do with the writing in the books.
As for danerys, he has spent a long time ruling in mereen. the last we hear from the mother of dragons is right after the disastrous reopening of the fighting pits.
She has escaped the attack of the sons of the harpy on the back of drogon, but she is seriously ill and wanders the Dothraki sea, trying to find her way back .
Has hallucinations and talks to the grass about rediscovering the Targaryen words: fire and blood. In the final moments of the chapter, some Dothraki find her and abandon her when she died Khal Drogo.
yes, the books are way back in history.
martin appears to have finished most of the writing on the sixth book, to be titled The Winds of Winter, but it has been eight years since the last book and there is no release date in sight.
he has yet to start the last book, a dream of spring.
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