The end of the fifth season of Game of Thrones marks the end of an era.
The show has finally caught up to, surpassed, or completely bypassed the events of the novels, and the great equalizing of fan experiences has begun. Expected or not, it feels a bit odd for “A Song of Fire and Ice” readers to suddenly be in the dark.
As HBO’s adaptation of the literary series rapidly evolved from “a pretty intense Lord of the Rings kind of show” into the most popular thing in the universe, book readers became bastions of knowledge. Then Season 5 came, and the show took a big fiery dump on readers’ so-called expertise. Readers will no longer know, at least for the time being, whether something is “supposed” to be happening or not. It can only be hoped that the showrunners are sticking to George R.R. Martin’s notes. Now, all fans are equals.
