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" George R.R. Martin&amp;#039;s A Song of Ice and Fire series is expected to span seven books (he&amp;#039;s currently writing the sixth tome, The Winds of Winter, and refers to the final installment as A Dream of Spring). Though HBO&amp;#039;s adaptation Game of Thrones avoids 1:1 book-to-season conversion, the series may clock out around the same number. In a new interview, creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff firmly state that the show is in its final act. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve got a very definitive idea of how much longer it is, and we&amp;#039;re getting there,&amp;quot; Benioff tells Variety. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve just started writing episodes for season six. I think we&amp;#039;re heading into the home stretch. Hopefully, we&amp;#039;ll have a clear answer soon.&amp;quot; Benioff reminds onlookers that Game of Thrones was never planned as a traditional series. With Martin&amp;#039;s insight, their story had a clear beginning, middle, and end. HBO accepted the approach from the get-go. The show would end when Benioff wanted to end. And since he&amp;#039;s prioritizing story, the end is nigh. Winter is finally coming. &amp;quot;We could go another four years\u2014and we could come up with good stories\u2014but the one thing that really got us excited when we pitched this to HBO was that this isn&amp;#039;t just a regular series,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;We know what the end is, and we&amp;#039;re barreling toward it. So the idea that we&amp;#039;re going to try and stretch it out by an extra couple years just because we&amp;#039;re all having a good time doing it and people are making money off it just feels like it would be a betrayal.&amp;quot; Allow us to read between the lines. Season 5 just kicked off last Sunday. Benioff and Weiss are currently writing season 6. They balk at the idea of going for four more years. So how much more Game of Thrones will we get? Season 7 isn&amp;#039;t out of the realm of possibility. If that&amp;#039;s a downer, Weiss will make you sympathize with the choice. When asked about Game of Thrones&amp;#039; biggest challenges, Weiss cited a demanding production schedule that annually takes him to Ireland, Croatia, and Iceland. &amp;quot;Being away from home for six months of the year and seeing your kids grow up on Skype all that time. I think I saw Molly walk for the first time on Skype. That&amp;#039;s not good.&amp;quot; Fair. We&amp;#039;re not thrilled, but fair. Spin-off? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/news/a34408/game-of-thrones-ending-how-many-seasons/>