#oops-gingermont

God, exactly. From the beginning it was made explicitly clear that the most important plot points would remain consistent from show to book. And while as a book reader I understand why some people are frustrated by omissions and changes by the time the story hits the screen, this isn’t just random D&D fanfiction. In 2014 they said this about it:

“If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want[ed] to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character.” 

Right there, confirmation that they sat with George and got his version of events so that they could reach that same conclusion. In the same interview, they said “key elements” would be the same.  To elaborate on a post I made earlier in the week, Jenn and I met one of GRRM’s friends at Con of Thrones. It was sort of a weird thing where he struck up conversation with us for a different reason and eventually revealed that he knew George to offer us a book signing. Anyway, he was telling us the story of how George even made the decision in the first place to let ASOIAF be adapted. He explained how George used to work on Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast and made it clear that that sort of writing wasn’t really what George liked to do. That kind of business wasn’t appealing to him in the same way that writing fiction on the page was, and so it wasn’t his plan all along to have ASOIAF adapted because he was very protective of it. You can sort of see in his comments about Beauty and the Beast that he was really guarded about saying anything offensive, but he certainly isn’t being very positive about that experience either:

“Sure. I loved the show. Like any show there were high points and low points, but for the most part it was a great show to work on. I learned a lot. I like to think I contributed a lot.”

So, he said that George was not a fan of working in television. When HBO and D&D approached him about Game of Thrones, the story we’ve all heard about George making them confirm Jon’s parentage is true. George’s friend repeated this story to us because he wanted to reiterate how important it was to George to put his story in good hands, with people he trusted and who understood the characters the same way he did. And unprompted by Jenn or myself, he made it a point to say that George still retains a lot of creative control over the show. He said it’s “more than people realize.” He also said that D&D “are doing a great job” continuing the story past the progression of the published books, and that George still “loves” the show. 

So George made sure they had the same interpretation of Jon’s character, and that they know something about Jon that wouldn’t be revealed until book/season 7. From the outset, plans regarding Jon’s character in the current show timeline were made. That would necessarily include Jonerys.So I repeated this whole long story just to confirm that you’re right–there’s no way that something as important as the central romance between the two main characters will be different in the books vs the show. It’s going to happen in the books whether people like it or not. 

If anyone is still unconvinced, there are the comments from Alan Taylor, who directed part of season 7, among other, earlier episodes:

“Anyways, [George] alluded to the fact that Jon and Dany were the point, kind of. That, at the time, there was a huge, vast array of characters, and Jon was a lowly, you know, bastard son. So it wasn’t clear to us at the time, but he did sort of say things that made it clear that the meeting and the convergence of Jon and Dany were sort of the point of the series.”

So there you have it. Alan Taylor repeated this comment in multiple interviews during the airing of s7. If it was false or exaggerated, it would have been mentioned by George and redacted or corrected. Jon and Dany are “the point,” and Jonerys is a thing no matter how you slice it.