Man, I don't know, I feel bad for George RR Martin. I'm as extremely hyped as anyone for the imminent return of Game of Thrones for its eighth and final season, and I know ol' George has been writing these final two installments in the Song of Ice and Fire book series as the same pace an army of reanimated corpses walked to the Wall. But man, I don't know. Imagine carefully crafting a complex narrative over decades that spans bloodlines, continents, and overlapping storylines, and then two goobers who thought a slavery drama in the year of our Lord 2019 was a good idea get to tell your ending to the world first.

Not helping: This recent interview with the author on 60 Minutes in which Anderson Cooper, for some reason using a tension usually resolved for serial killers, grills Martin on the ending of Game of Thrones. According to Martin, while it's impossible for Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss to cover all the little details in his secondary character B-plots, the ending in the books and the TV series will not be "that different" — but he welcomes the internet debates all the same.

"I don’t think Dan and Dave’s ending is going to be that different from my ending because of the conversations we did have, but they may be on certain secondary characters, there may be differences. And yeah, some of the people will have that. There will be a debate, I’m sure. I think a lot of people who say, “Oh, Dan and Dave’s ending is better than the one George gave us, it’s a good thing they changed it.” And there will be alot of people who say, “No, Dan and Dave got it wrong, George’s ending is better,” and they will all fight on the internet. There will be debate, and that’s fine. The worst thing for any work of art, be it movie or art, is to be ignored."

Check out the interview below. Game of Thrones returns for its eighth and final season on April 14.

For more on Game of Thrones, check out the links below:

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Image via HBO
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Image via HBO
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Image via HBO