This is a fun one from TCA, as the opening of the interview begins with some geeky discussion as to whether Westeros really counts as a single kingdom, and whether there’s actually seven or eight kingdoms within it. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss reiterate that a chief reason for producing the show “the HBO way” is that it allows them to be very faithful to the source material. They recognize they won’t make 100% of the fans happy, but they’re confident most of them will be:
(The answer to the question, by the by, is that Westeros is one kingdom, made up of the seven former kingdoms which existed at the time of Aegon’s conquest. We assume the reference to eight refers to the Iron Islands, but at the time of the Conquest the kingdom of the Iron Isles and the Trident was unified.)
Thanks to mediawill for the pointer!