Spoiler Policy FYI: This post is for book readers who also watch the show, or people who don’t mind learning about how things that happen in the books (past or future). I’m going to reference characters that are not in the show briefly, and also reveal what points in the show match up with points not yet revealed in the books, according to showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff. Fill the comments with book details and theories if you like. Armed with that info, let’s dive in!

One of the biggest questions before Game of Thrones Season 6 aired was what it would mean for the show to go off-book. There are certain plots that are backtracking into some of the books (like Pyke, Euron arriving, and the Kingsmoot), but most of Season 6’s big reveals have been after the events described in A Dance with Dragons. Game of Thrones has been increasingly divergent from the source material anyway, so there was a feeling that Season 6 might not really spoil the books too much — perhaps this is where two separate stories would be told, based on the same base material (like fanfic, frankly).