George R. R. Martin Tells Fans To Expect ‘Bittersweet’ Ending to Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin’s comments about how his series Game of Thrones will end are almost as hard to figure out as all the fan theories about Jon Snow.

But Martin acknowledges that, while the HBO show has caught up to the book, he’s still charging ahead to finish his saga on his own terms.

“I’ve been hearing them come up behind me for years, and the question is, How can I make myself write faster? I think, by now, the answer is, I can’t. I write at the pace I write, and what the show is doing is not going to change what the books are,” he told Northwestern Medill School of Journalism students in a sold-out discussion on Wednesday.

While he didn’t release any revelations about how his series will end, he did hint at the idea of a happy ending.

“I think you need to have some hope…we all yearn for happy endings in a sense. Myself, I’m attracted to the bittersweet ending. People ask me how Game of Thrones is gonna end, and I’m not gonna tell them … but I always say to expect something bittersweet in the end,” he said. “You can’t just fulfill a quest and then pretend life is perfect.”