Let’s get real: Winds of Winter isn’t going to be like Game of Thrones season 6. Like, at all. The butterfly effect is real and it’s taken full effect: The litany of changes throughout the first five seasons of Game of Thrones have taken us to a point where the show’s events differ dramatically from those in the book. That was true in season 5 and although Winds of Winter isn’t out yet, the list of events that couldn’t happen in the book are already quite long. And there are even more events that are highly unlikely.
Winds Of Winter Could Have A Very Different Plot Than Game Of Thrones Season 6
Let’s start with the biggest difference: The whole arc in the North has to be different in Winds of Winter, for two simple reasons: First, Stannis isn’t dead (and Shireen isn’t even with him). Second, Sansa isn’t married to Ramsay Bolton (or in the North at all). These are both huge differences. Even if Stannis does lose the first Battle of Winterfell, Selyse and Shireen will presumably still live.
But the Sansa issue is more pressing. In the books, she’s still in the Vale and Ramsay is already married to someone else—Sansa’s old friend Jeyne Poole, who was being forced to masquerade as Arya Stark, until she escaped at the end of Dance With Dragons. Sansa’s weird Littlefinger arc in Game of Thrones actually makes more sense if we bear in mind that she’s in the Vale in the books and it’s believable that Littlefinger’s intervention in the Battle of the Bastards—if such a thing happens at all—will be the very beginning of Jon Snow and Sansa’s alliance, not its culmination. She could well stay in the Vale right until that moment.
A huge number of other plotlines in Game of Thrones season 6 almost certainly won’t make it over to the books. The Sand Snake coup in Dorne didn’t make sense in the show and would make less in Winds of Winter, where Doran’s plan for vengeance is already in motion—evaluate Aegon and determine whether to ally with him . He will be a more implacable foe than Ellaria ever will. Many other deaths in Game of Thrones season 6 could well be avoided and may have been a simple exercise in cutting costs and reducing complexity. Osha and Rickon’s plot is more farfetched in the books, because the Umbers are very begrudging Bolton allies—and because Rickon is probably in Skagos anyway. Davos is also hot on his heels.
The big question is how the arc in King’s Landing will play out in Winds of Winter—where Kevan Lannister and Grand Maester Pycelle are already dead, but Myrcella isn’t (at least for now). Even if Cersei’s plan follows a similar pattern, which it well may, the death toll in the books may well be lower. The books won’t kill all the Tyrells, since two of them—Willas and Garlan—aren’t even in the capital. Margaery may not even die so easily, although perhaps that’s wishful thinking. After all, Tommen’s days really are numbered.
The key touchstones of Game of Thrones season 6 will surely remain mostly the same—Jon Snow’s resurrection; Daenerys’s subjugation of the Dothraki and return to Westeros; Jon Snow becoming King in the North; Cersei becoming Queen; “hold the door” and the Tower of Joy—but there’s a lot more than just that in Game of Thrones season 6. And it’s not just the details that vary.
