How Game Of Thrones Season 7 Changed My Mind About Winds Of Winter

I’ll admit, when I finished the first few episodes of Game of Thrones Season 7, I felt like we had come too far in the story for me to be able to enjoy GRRM’s next book Winds Of Winter . But then Dany rode a dragon and a Tarantino-esque gang of badass fighters just went beyond the Wall and now I want details. Lots of details. And HBO ain’t giving them to me.

Let’s face it, the pacing on the show this season has been breakneck even by TV standards. I’ve lost track of the number of people who’ve crossed or sailed around continental Westeros multiple times in the span of what feels like 45 minutes. This past week saw Davos, Gendry and Jon Snow sail from Dragonstone to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea in an instant. By conservative estimates, the size of Westeros is about 4k miles north to south , so we’re talking a sailboat ride of at least 2k miles. It would take weeks. What do they do on the ride? I’d assume that Jon and Gendry would have a LOT to bro-bond over. Is Davos singing songs and pulling up fishes for dinner? Do they stop along the way and have fun tavern nights? How do they avoid Euron’s mighty navy which has to be patrolling the coasts by now?

These are just some of the questions I hope to see answered in Winds of Winter . And this was before we got to Eastwatch and found Thoros, Beric and The Hound (literally) chilling in a cell. Tormund reveals they were picked up by a patrol on their way to journey beyond the Wall. How did they get there? What happened along the way? We got one glimpse of their travels during the show, when The Hound saw a vision in the flames. But there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Hell, there’s debate as to whether or not The Hound is even still alive in the books.

Then there’s Bran. Oh, Bran, your aloof and mystic Three-Eyed Raven schtick does not play so well on screen. It’s a cerebral journey, which makes it hard to tell when you have to dedicate the bulk of your special effects budget to immolating Lannisters and referencing Shrek . But in the pages of a book we can really delve deep into what Bran sees, feels and knows. He told Meera Reed (in the worst goodbye of her life) that he “remembers so much more” it’s hard to be Brandon Stark. The depth of those memories can be mined in full between the pages of Winds of Winter, or perhaps even the penultimate book in the Game of Thrones saga, A Dream of Spring .

Then there’s that whole Young Griff thing. I won’t even go there now, but unless HBO plans to do some terrible storytelling by introducing another secret Targaryen this late in the game, it’s safe to say he’s a book-only character alongside the likes of Victarion Greyjoy. Once upon a time the books spoiled the show, and now the reverse might happen. We don’t know for sure though, since it’s obvious the books are taking a turn away from the HBO series. And while I once was a smug “I knew that was gonna happen” guy, I’m now a fervent “I need to know MOAR” rabid fanboy. There is a finite amount of television left, but if his pace is any indication we’ve got thousands of pages of GRRM prose to look forward to once we relinquish our borrowed HBO Go logins. The Winds of Winter release can’t come soon enough. But 2019 will have to do.