With George R.R. Martin's "Winds of Winter" almost certainly scheduled for a January 2017 release, fans can finally breathe a sigh of relief that it is unlikely that the final season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" will overtake the sixth book in "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga.
According to reports, Martin is already currently working on the final leg of the novel. It can be recalled that the book was supposed to come out before HBO aired the sixth season of the television adaptation but Martin did not make it to the deadline.
The author however, revealed to show creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff how the epic saga will end, so it is expected even if the series deviates from the novels, it will still have the same end game.
In his appearance at the Balticon, Martin teased Euron Greyjoy will be a villain worse than Ramsay Bolton, whose reign of terror recently ended. The character was recently introduced to the series as Theon and Yara's uncle who murdered their father to usurp the throne of the Iron Islands.
The siblings were shown escaping with 100 of their best ships and pledging their allegiance to Daenerys Targaryen during the penultimate episode of the show, and the book is expected to explore this plotline when it comes out next year.
Meanwhile, photos of George R.R. Martin's typewritten draft for the Game of Thrones series recently surfaced wherein he outlined what he had planned for the characters of the show.
In the draft, Martin shared that he had planned for Jon Snow and Arya Stark to fall in love and live in torment because they were half siblings. Of course, the final book will reveal Jon's true parentage, which Martin himself hinted was not what fans have been theorizing for years.
Martin also wrote that he had planned for Tyrion to also fall for Arya, to make matters more complicated.
However, as Martin wrote the books, the events in the saga have deviated from the original plan so it is unlikely that he will pursue this storyline.
He also included in the draft that of the chief characters, Daenerys, Jon, Bran, Arya and Tyrion were set to survive the proposed trilogy which has now expanded to a seven book saga with one final book in the pipeline to conclude the series. So far, the five characters still remain alive in the television series.
