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It has been well over a year since we’ve seen a new episode of Game of Thrones, and fans are getting restless. In the 16 months since the seventh season ended, viewers have been rewatching the old episodes, rereading George RR Martin's books, listening closely for any season eight spoilers from the cast and crew, and concocting all sorts of theories about how it will end—some of them more plausible than others.
With so many fan theories out there, it was only a matter of time before someone correctly guessed the ending. And Martin has confirmed that some fans have done just that—at least when it comes to the books.
Back in 2014, while speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Martin admitted that several fan theories have been directly in line with his own planned ending for Game of Thrones.
"So many readers were reading the books with so much attention that they were throwing up some theories, and while some of those theories were amusing bulls*** and creative, some of the theories are right," Martin said. "At least one or two readers had put together the extremely subtle and obscure clues that I'd planted in the books and came to the right solution."
You see? The ending is sitting right there just waiting to be discovered by anyone who can invest the time to rereading the books and analyzing even the tiniest details. Again, Martin was talking about the ending of his A Song of Ice and Fire book series, not the HBO series. And while they could be one and the same, the television show could also deviate from what Martin is planning. (Given the number of Game of Thrones characters who were killed off on TV, but are still alive in the books, it certainly wouldn't be unprecedented.)
Though there has been some speculation that both the book and television series will have the same ending, neither Martin nor showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have confirmed that—though they haven't denied it either. So, as per usual when it comes to all things Westeros, we're all just theorizing here.
As for the television series: We'll know for sure how Game of Thrones ends when it returns for the final time in April 2019. But as far as Martin’s books go, we may be waiting on that ending for a while—so keep the fan theories coming.