George R.R. Martin has teased a “bittersweet” ending to “A Song of Ice and Fire” and what did you expect?

It’s no secret that A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) is a dark and dangerous universe, which is why we’re not surprised that the book series’ author, George R.R. Martin, has said it’ll only get darker.

Martin has been working on the sixth book in the popular fantasy series, The Winds of Winter, for YEARS. While the HBO TV show, Game of Thrones, has now surpassed the book series in terms of its timeline, there are enough differences between the show and the book that we’re obviously still super excited to see what Martin has been cooking up.

While Martin revealed on his blog in November that he would be focusing on trying to finish The Winds of Winter, the author has been teasing what fans can expect from the book and the end of the series as a whole.

Speaking at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, Martin opened up about the tone of the sixth book in the series, and it’s kinda what we were expecting, tbh.

"There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I’m writing," he said. "I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fills the world, so this is not gonna be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for."

Seriously, if you’re not aware by now that Westeros is one unsavory place then you’ve not been paying attention!

"Some of the characters [are] in very dark places…," he added. "In any story, the classic structure is, ‘Things get worse before they get better,’ so things are getting worse for a lot of people."

Martin also spoke about the final book in the series, The Dream of Spring.

If you were expecting a happy, fairytale ending you’ll be very disappointed.

"I don’t know that I, as a writer, really believe in the conventional, cliched happy ending, where everything is resolved and the good guy wins and the bad guy loses, he said (unsurprisingly). "We very seldom see that in real life or in history, and I don’t find it as emotionally satisfying myself as what I like to call the bittersweet ending."

He went on to say,

"I think there’s a difference between a loose end and something that’s deliberately left by the author ambiguous, or something for the readers to think about and worry about and debate about," he revealed. "For me, that’s part of the fun of reading and writing is having stories that maybe have a little ambiguity to them, a little subtlety to them, and everything is not crystal clear and laid out. You have to think about some things and put clues together and see what it all adds up to. "So some of that is gonna be left there deliberately. But first I have to finish the damn thing."

While Martin has claimed that he is going to attempt to finish The Winds of Winter before 2017 is up, we’re not holding out breathe. Given the scope of the series, it’s no wonder that he’s struggling to finish it.

Luckily, we have Game of Thrones to keep us occupied until then. The show’s seventh season is set to air sometime next summer.