8 seasons and a prequel?

If Walder Frey shows up I think LSH will too, but that might not be until season 7 or 8!

Season 5 felt rushed at times, and then at times felt like it completely stopped. That was my biggest issue with it. They crammed everything into the last 3 episodes (which were awesome), but there was a real lul in the middle.

Do you think this will influence George? That is to NOT write 8 novels?!

I actually don't think D&D care about what GRRM does with his books. They got the outline for the end-game and that's all they need.

Having the outline is one thing, but then George goes and adds a ton more details that are key-critical to that ending given and suddenly D&D have a writing problem. So it does matter. They will only cut things out that don't matter for the series ending or at least don't change the story in some dramatic way that it can't be omitted. At least, that's the way I keep figuring it.

If fAegon, and Quentyn, and Lady Stoneheart, and Harry the Heir, and half a zillion other characters they've dropped thus far don't make a significant change to the outcome of the story then it doesn't matter. But what if George goes and throws them for a loop with changes between TWOW and ADOS that they weren't considering during the writing? What if leaving out Garlan Tyrell actually becomes a serious problem because he's somehow important to one of the main character's end-story? Just using that as an example because I remember reading in an interview somewhere George mentioned Garlan specifically as important to the Tyrell story. 

This can add a significant amount of material they suddenly need to add in for continuity to the ending. Hope this makes sense. 

Well, many of us assumed that when we thought s6 would be the penultimate season. Now who knows. It could be s7 that he shows up again in for his comeuppance. We'll see.

GrrM still contributes to the writers' meetings even if he doesn't write an episode, so he's at least privy to the outlines for s6. I imagine if he asked, HBO would send him the scripts too.

Is anybody else skeptical about the success of any spin-off series? The die-hard fans of the books would certainly tune in, but would non-readers give a shit about Rhaegar and Lyanna? Would they really get into a show without Tyrion, Jon, Arya, and Khaleesi?  Hell, I spend a ton of time posting on a forum like this, but even I haven't bothered to read the Dunk and Egg stories.