‘Game of Thrones’: George R. R. Martin Shared 3 Secrets With Producers; One Won’t Be Revealed Until the ‘Very End’

If you’ve somehow recovered from Sunday night’s devastating episode of “Game of Thrones,” congratulations on not having a heart. In any case, it’s been confirmed that the huge reveal at the end of “The Door” was not an invention of the show, but rather something author George R. R. Martin shared with showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss as a canonical part of his books. Furthermore, it’s one of only three secrets he made them privy to during a meeting two years ago.

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The first of these “holy sh– moments” was Stannis Baratheon burning his daughter at the stake as a blood sacrifice last season, the second was the origin of Hodor’s name and the third “is from the very end,” Benioff tells Entertainment Weekly. Even so, he continues, “Game of Thrones” is becoming increasingly different from the books on which it’s based: “So much of what we’re doing diverges from the books at this point. And while there are certain key elements that will be the same, we’re not going to talk so much about that — and I don’t think George is either. People are going to be very surprised when they read the books after the show. They’re quite divergent in so many respects for the remainder of the show.”

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Which is to say, some of the heartbreaking deaths still to follow in “Game of Thrones” may not actually take place in the last two “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels — and vice versa.

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