Who Dies Next? Here Are Three Likely Candidates
On Sunday night, the fourth season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” wrapped up. The season was primarily based on the second half of “A Storm of Swords,” the third book in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.
The showrunners know how Martin will end the series, so they can write that ending should they outpace him. “Game of Thrones” has, for the past four years, premiered in late March or early April, so we’d expect that Seasons 5, 6 and 7 to begin in March or April of 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively. Of course, it’s possible that Martin will quicken his pace as HBO gains on him. But our estimate of a July release date for “The Winds of Winter” would mean his rate was 356 words per day, so he’d have to speed it up. It might be a difficult target to hit. I will be updating this post with production news and casting rumors fairly regularly. I hope to do updates every week or two when news is slow, but I will update the big casting rumors as they come in.
Arya Stark finally found freedom at the end of Season 4 of 'Game of Thrones'. After Brienne won a fight with the Hound, Arya walked away from both of them choosing to be alone and escape on a ship. Luckily, she had an iron coin to get a coveted cabin. Showrunners/executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recently signed a contract that will keep them at the helm through the sixth season as well. Some major characters - yes, I always had plans, what Tyrion's arc was going to be through this, what Arya's arc was going to be through this, what Jon Snow's arc is going to be," slipped George R.R. Martin during an interview with io9, "I knew what the principal deaths were going to be, and when they were coming. That would be the closest thing."
Five or six weeks ago Winter-is-Coming a couple reports of new characters to be added for Season 5. The list is not complete and there has been no official HBO confirmation. That said, it is a nice starting point! It took me a week of work, but I have created “The Ultimate Game of Thrones Season 5 Spoiler by downloading all the eBooks and audio books of the series. What follows is a smorgasbord of FREE DOWNLOADABLE FILES in the most popular formats with instructions on how to enjoy them. HBO recently announced that “Game of Thrones” has been renewed for two more seasons , which means the show will be returning for seasons five and six. Questions will now begin to surface about when production for the upcoming season will begin, and we have that answer.
I've generally heard it not as GRRM inventing the sex and violence formula (which as you said certainly existed), but reshaping the way the genre was structured internally. Heroic fantasy used to be a dominant subgenre, highly separate from dark fantasy as well as sword and sorcery. Heroic fantasy has been in decline since A Game of Thrones was published, grimdark has appeared, and epics in general are expected to have a different overall feel. While there are going to be imitators in the process, I think it's another step toward turning fantasy into a more diverse and interesting genre.