The Nights Watch: GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 EPISODE 3. April 29 UK. Spoilers after 2 am.

[OneInAMillionYou]

Come gather brothers and sisters of The Nights Watch. The Battle of Winterfell will soon be upon us.

Valar morghulis

He apparently had a detailed outline of book 6, seen only by his wife, but I don't think there will ever be a book, much less a no. 7. GRRM isn't exactly young, he's had a major health problem already, and he's fond of food and cigars.

I was the same as you MelanieCheeks. Found the books tiresome. Just pages and pages of description about everything. No detail of anyone's clothing gone undescribed. Bran is boring in the TV series and simply mind numbing in the books over huge number of pages. Read two books, just couldn't face the third.

I love the books, but I’m losing hope of George producing even Winds of Winter let alone finishing the series.

So only start reading them if you’re happy for them to remain unfinished.

I liked the first and second but got increasingly bored by the later books. Too many characters and plot lines.

I loved the books, but they're hard going - especially the tangent about the iron islands / Greyjoy's etc.

I really enjoyed the books up until A Dance with Dragons, which was just too dull. I don’t like book Tyrion and can’t engage with book Dany, so it was a struggle. The whole Quentyn Martell storyline just seemed pointless at that point.

Realistically, I don’t think he can finish in two books. The story has expanded and expanded and he never seems to ‘end’ a storyline. The books should have moved beyond the primary phase characters and into the secondary phase, but we’re still hearing about the Brotherhood Without Banner and the Freys.

Many of the great mysteries of the show are already out there. We know Jon gets ressurrected and Shireen burnt, we know why Hodor only says Hodor, we know R+L=J, we know Sansa takes back Winterfell with the help of Littlefinger and then causes his downfall. The details will be different, but the ‘checkbox’ stays the same.

Given his history and the background for the character, Dany ending up on the throne just seems like the ‘wrong’ sort of ending for the series - book or show. I do think they wrote season 7 and 8 together, so nothing that has been said in either one should be taken as a throwaway line.

I have a feeling that Missandei is going to die. Her and Grey Worm made their retirement plans and he miraculously survived the Long Night despite being on the front line.

8dayweek book Euron is setting up to be way more interesting than show Euron. The Winds sample chapter ‘The Forsaken’ is quite horrible. Have you read it?

Narration of ‘The Forsaken’

I would find to frustrating to invest time in the books and them not he finished.

There are so many fans of GOT now - GRRM has to finish them for us surely?!

He has invested so much time but threnody maybe he’s just handed it over to the tv producers and it’s not his baby any more

maybe he’s just handed it over to the tv producers and it’s not his baby any more

I think he’s just had enough of the whole thing.

Every time he tweets anything (and he does do a fair amount of trolling on the subject to be fair) he gets about a million replies saying “finish the f*cking books”. Every book discussion ends up being a prediction about his writing speed vs life expectancy. It must be seriously depressing.

This should have been his ‘great work’ but I think it was just too big a job for someone with his writing style.

This should have been his ‘great work

It still is though, I think. I haven’t read them but to be adapted to a tv series at all they must have been pretty good but it is a great franchise.

I hope he does finish them

It still is though, I think

I’m going to reserve judgment on that until after episode 6.

I read the first book and didn’t love it. My nephew suggested I watch the series instead so I did, not expecting much. I loved them. We watched the three existing ones in a week! I can’t think of another instance of where I’ve preferred a tv/film version ever, I’m much more of a book person usually. I then read the remaining books afterwards out of greed (not knowing that they didn’t end at the time, so that was frustrating!). I’m not holding my breath that he will finish them, and it’s driven me bonkers that he has published prequels in the meantime “Get on with it George!!”. Perhaps he has already written them and will release the lot when the series is done?

I’d quite like Sansa to kill Cersei, but it’s unlikely.

I’ve got to go to work at 3am Monday morning and won’t be able to watch it until weds. That’s going to be tough!

Sansa killing Cersei would be good, as would one of her brothers

The only other thing where I thought the film was better than the book was Life or PI 🤔

I fully expect Dany to use Rhaegal and Drogon to burn Euron's fleet of ships as how she used her three dragons to burn the slaver ships in season 5. Just like then with the slavers broke the truce, Cersei went back on her promise to send her troops to fight. Tyrion said to them Dany has a forgiving nature, but breaking promises she can't forgive. She'll do a lot of damage before the mega arrows manages to take down Drogon (I reckon).

I was just re watching episode 2 and all the reunions etc. Do you think Ed dying because of Sam will be an issue between him and Jon or are we too far into it for them to bother with that kind of thing

You just reminded me of which I stumbled across years ago when I got to the end of the books, and thought was quite funny!

I am not sure Rhaegal is under Dany's control any more. Rhaegal is bbonded to Jon.

I finally had a look at the Jon and Viserion scene. Thank you for pointing it out. It does look like Jon was distracting them. Fight scenes bore me, so I paid me too little attention.

Although I do not seriously think the Night King was about to bend the knee: if he was, he would still draw the sword and offer it palm up to his liege while bending the knee.

I thought there were rumours that Neil Gaiman has been tapped up to complete the series should Martin pass away before it's finished?

Also don't want Cleganebowl. Everything with him since Season 6 has seemed to be about him getting over himself, fighting for 'something bigger' etc etc.

Killing his brother undoes that character growth. That said, he still had a dig at the dragon pit, so who knows. Not been thrilled by Hound content in this season so far

The Hound is such a sulky teenager.

He's got sulkier again... Thought there was potential there lol but think there's too much to fit in this season to do justice to every character's plot 😅

I think some form of Cleganebowl is nearly inevitable. Agree that the Hound killing the Mountain would be predictable (although I’m sure I’d enjoy watching it!). Personally, I’d like Sandor to have his wounded brother at his mercy with the Mountain asking for death. Mirroring his earlier scene with Arya and exerting control over his brother for the first time of his life, Sandor would just walk away - leaving him to die.

@SweetSummerchild Thank you - I'll give it a look! I think I have read it? I've tried to read what excerpts I can from WoW but I probably have a bit of TV fog and need to go back and remember where we're at in the books, because I've probably subconsciously filled in some gaps with TV history.

The Dorne storyline is a bit meandering too but it does look like we're getting an "end" with that.

I'm currently steeling myself to read Fire & Blood - I keep reading the first page then telling myself to wait until after the show so I can give it my full attention.

Think people on a previous thread were talking about Cersei dying in childbirth, I think that would fit her story.