‘The Winds of Winter’ Release Date, Plot, Characters: Showrunners Promised Author to Be Reticent About Books and Show’s Plot Differences

Over two months into 2019 and there’s still no news about when George R.R. Martin will finish “The Winds of Winter.” In the past, the celebrated author promised fans that the sixth book of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga will come out sometime between late 2018 and early 2019.

But so far, that assurance is slowly withering away. And with its TV adaptation inching closer to its finale release date, fans of the books are becoming more and more restless that a lot of the plot in “The Winds of Winter” will be spoiled by the show. However, it’s no secret by now that the series has long deviated from the book’s story. On some of its narratives, at least.

For instance, Ramsay (Iwan Rheon) never married Sansa (Sophie Turner) in the books but was rather wed to Sansa’s friend, Jeyne Poole. Lady Stoneheart was also cut out in the adaptation, which will surely affect the fate of other characters in the books, particularly that of Brienne (Gwendolyn Christie), and Pod (Daniel Portman). And then there’s Jon Connington and the surviving son of Rhaegar Targaryen, Aegon, who were also excluded in the series. All of these plotlines will be explored in “The Winds of Winter” and it’s still unclear how Martin will tie all of it together.

The author himself admitted that he’s struggling to finish the sixth book due to several overarching plotlines he’s been cultivating for years. He also revealed that he’s in the dark how the series will end as he didn’t read the script of the show’s final season on account of him busy with writing “The Winds of Winter.”

For their part, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss promised Martin that they will not be telling people what the differences will be between the books and the adaptation. Apart from the abovementioned plot deviation, there are still a lot of events and characters that haven’t made its way into the show. This, at least, provides some mystery to the story of “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.”