George R. R. Martin Wants Bittersweet Ending for Game Of Thrones

George R. R. Martin gave two talks at the Northwestern Medill School of Journalism this week, discussing attending the Big Ten school – oh, and Game of Thrones, of course. The writer revealed that he only really got started on Game of Thrones after some Hollywood failure. After writing a pilot for a series called Doorways that, after months of development, didn’t get picked up, it was his “last strike” in Hollywood, and led to him starting his novel series.

So that’s how it began; how will it end?

“I think you need to have some hope. We all yearn for happy endings in a sense,” Martin said of how Game of Thrones might end. “Myself, I’m attracted to the bittersweet ending. People ask me how Game of Thrones is gonna end, and I’m not gonna tell them … but I always say to expect something bittersweet in the end, like [J.R.R. Tolkien]. I think Tolkien did this brilliantly. I didn’t understand that when I was a kid — when I read Return of the King.”

The writer also said he’s no longer really feeling pressure to write faster because the show is catching up to the novels.

“I write at the pace I write, and what the show is doing is not going to change what the books are,” he said.

via Vulture