With all the character changes, non-book deaths, and plot alterations in the upcoming season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, you’d be forgiven if you thought the TV show would eventually have nothing whatsoever to do with George R.R. Martin’s books. But you’d be wrong. Show runners Dan Weiss and David Benioff confirmed over the weekend that their show would be ending in the same place as the book series, and sooner than the books as well.

Speaking to the Oxford Union, Benioff addressed the TV series outpacing the books:

Luckily, we’ve been talking about this with George for a long time, ever since we saw this could happen, and we know where things are heading. And so we’ll eventually, basically, meet up at pretty much the same place where George is going; there might be a few deviations along the route, but we’re heading towards the same destination. I kind of wish that there were some things we didn’t have to spoil, but we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. The show must go on. . .and that’s what we’re going to do.

We’ve known for awhile that Weiss and Benioff knew how Martin planned to end his series. But up until this year, readers were convinced that Martin would at least deliver the long-awaited next book in the series before the show had a chance to outpace him. It’s pretty clear that the upcoming fifth season of Game of Thrones will wrap up the plots of Books 4 and 5 (A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons), leaving everybody, show watchers and book readers alike, in the same place come this year’s season finale a.k.a. in the dark about what will happen next in both Book 6 (The Winds of Winter) and Season 6.

Back in January, Martin’s publisher said she had “no information on likely delivery” of The Winds of Winter, prompting most to conclude that there would be no new book at all in 2015. But Martin has since cancelled several upcoming public appearances at conventions in order to finish Book 6, even teasing that he might finish as early as this summer a.k.a. “before these cons roll round.” Meaning we might get Book 6 before Season 6. Maybe.

But Martin could lock himself away around the clock and he still wouldn’t finish his planned seventh book (A Dream of Spring) before Season 7 of the show rolls around in 2017. Nor would we want him to. Martin’s books are great because he takes his time with the painstaking details. Nobody wants a rush job.