Game of Thrones began as a darn good adaptation of the "A Song of Fire and Ice" novels by George R.R. Martin. But then things started to go terribly, terribly wrong. By the time we got to the sloppy sixth season, shitty seventh season, and abhorrent disaster that was the final season, they had ran out of novels to adapt (Martin keeps getting distracted and won't finish them). So they winged it in ways that made absolutely no sense, and that eighth season betrayed just about every character in ways that makes you want to scream into the void just thinking about it.

All of which I explained in this spoiler-filled entry.

But anyway...

Today an article came out in The Hollywood Reporter where they spoke with Thrones showrunners David Benioff Dan Weiss about their new project, 3 Body Problem, and also touched on the ending of Thrones. This is what was said...

"When Benioff and Weiss wrapped Thrones, many fans assumed they deliberately rushed the show to an early conclusion. They had actually said since season two that they planned on making roughly seven seasons (whether this was ultimately the best strategy or not). Another common assumption is that they ditched Thrones to make more money elsewhere."

I call bullshit. They absolutely deliberately rushed the end of the show. They ran out of books to adapt and clearly didn't know what to do without source material, so they just wrapped everything up as quickly as possible so they could move on. And just didn't care that their choices made zero sense. Maybe it wasn't "to make more money elsewhere," but they bailed on the show, and that's not even a debate.

And now, after having their follow-up projects canceled, they moved on to 3 Body Problem, which is going to be a very difficult adaptation. The books are dense, sciency, satisfying reads... but rely on being able to interrupt the story with explanations that you just can't do in a TV show without killing the momentum. Even so, I remain hopeful that Benioff and Weiss can do something interesting with the material. They managed just fine with Thrones until they ran out of books... so maybe 3 Body Problem will be okay since all the books are out?

We won't have too long to wait to know if they done fucked up. The series debuts on March 21.