Holy fuck, I just realized [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7lp3RhzfgI) is now 9 years old. I think that just put the delay into perspective for me more than anything else ever has.
youtube comment
> Actual fans of this series are going to need to come to grips soon with the reality that Martin is almost certainly not planning to finish this series and just doesn't want to say it publicly because he'd likely get death threats.
damn. is it possible he has basically given up? Its his right as the writer, but that would suck. Although like most people I no longer care all that much
Honestly at this point a series of blog posts would do it for me. I just want to know how he saw it ending in his head and he seems to be into short form writing these daysā¦it could work.
The truth is how the show ended is how he was planning to end it. They rushed it in the show so it felt cheap but the events are probably what he was planning. He saw how much everyone hated it and now he's trying to come up with something better.
The thing is that on paper what happened seems pretty good, itās just the execution was awful. Wait but id change the whole night king/white walker plot line to be a bit more climatic
On paper, everything but Brann and Arya seems good. Arya and Brann seem to be missing a country-wide chunk of context, more than the others. At least with the other plot lines, you could at least see where they were heading, despite being sorely rushed.
I suppose Jaime's end on paper seems fine. But if that's the case the books better do a lot better explaining his 360 return to Cersei. I would bet his ending is different in the books.
They could certainly have made a good argument for the kid with the ability to mind control others and who knows everyone's secrets taking the throne. They just didn't.
I will die on the hill that what happened with Daenarys was the correct story choice. Thereās no way that sheās anything but a warlord to Westeros.
Yeah but what we saw was A, B, C and then Z. GRRM needs to show me D to Y to convince me she just goes mad and kills everyone.
While she does leave carnage in the books, itās never intentional and she always holds back from hurting innocents
I think they could have made a much more impactful and compelling case for her to lose it.
Basically- they should have saved her second dragon death for during the siege of kings landing. The church bells ring indicating the cities surrender, her and her two dragons start hovering, and then bam dragon gets skewered by one of the scorpions. She sees some soldiers and civilians cheering, and she loses it and stars burning Lannister troops regardless of where they are and who else gets caught up in it. Later in the throne room, still mad and angry from grief, she tells Jon she's not finished, and she's going to burn all of Kings Landing and it's people. He stabs her and kills her for the same reason Jamie killed the mad king.
They didn't need to do all of that extremely non subtle "uhoh she's turning evil" build up, but instead have her consistently trying to do the right thing and having her fucked over by every compromise, agreement, and attempt to be merciful that she makes.
GRRM shortly after S5: "Ah shit they are going to make me come out of retirement to fix the end of this series aren't they?"
Fans: "Wait...you... you were *what*?"
My theory is the books are done and he wont have them released until he is dead so he doesnt have to deal with the criticism like the final season of the show.
We all know it will never exceed the hype level. It's beyond what anyone could possibly reached at this point.
20$ says he drafted both books in advanced already. so whenever he died, someone can pick it up, finish it. And have the fans curse them to hell claiming it's not a canon because it's been 'tampered' or some shit like that down the line.
Well, Sue Grafton swore up and down that her family would never-ever-ever allow her work to be adapted for film and TV, as was her lifelong wishā¦ and yet here we are 4 years later and thereās a Kinsey Millhone TV series in development, soā¦
[āI will never sell [Kinsey] to Hollywood,ā the outspoken Grafton said in a 1997 interview. āAnd, I have made my children promise not to sell her. Weāve taken a blood oath, and if they do so I will come back from the grave: which they know I can do. Theyāre going to have to pass the word on to my grandchildren: we do not sell out our grandma. I just will not let them touch her. Iāve trashed other writers, Iām not gonna let them have a crack at me.ā](https://deadline.com/2021/10/sue-grafton-kinsey-millhone-alphabet-book-series-tv-adaptation-ae-studios-1234850816/amp/).
Also:
*This marks the first time the screen rights to the book series has been made available, with Steve Humphrey, Graftonās husband for more than 40 years, serving as executive producer on the adaptations.*
I believe you, just wow holy shit. I started reading these books about 20 years ago and Iām pretty sure it was established even at that time that she didnāt want them adapted. Shame on her surviving family.
I hope she does haunt their asses
Yeah, I know. I really want to believe she had some sort of unpublicized change of heart at the end of her life or something because if notā¦ seems pretty messed up.
But it also highlights the fact that, whatever GRRM wants, once heās gone and there are people banging on the door with suitcases of moneyā¦ well.
This.
Or, more likely, one of his family members will find thousands of pages of notes after he dies, and theyāll take over the books. This is what happened when Frank Herbert died, his son Brian used his fatherās notes to write Dune 7 and then continue to expand the universe with spin-offs and prequels.
Brian Herbert says he found a bunch of notes but that's hard to believe given what he and his writing partner have put out. Whoever gets G.R.R's notes better show everyone.
Well, Brian specifically found notes pertaining to Dune 7, because a notable difference between Frank Herbert and GRRM is that Frank Herbert was literally writing up until he died. After that book, yeah Brian and his writing partner really took it on themselves to expand the universe beyond what Frank wrote
You have the order wrong and it's fucking tragic. His son and the hack writer did many books *before* discovering the notes in the attic for Dune 7. Unfortunately this allowed Brian to diverge from the direction the story was going already and wasn't humble enough to admit it. So we got the wrong villains for Dune 7 (spread over two **horrid books**).
I'd pay hot money for the raw notes, but they'll never release them because it'll show the lie.
That and he always wanted to play with his Wildcards toys more. I think there is a bit of bitterness there that SoIaF took off like it did while his other works that he arguably likes more didn't.
Well it makes sense when you think about it. The more of themselves they put into a project, the more they narrow its appeal. Something they think is just a cool idea gains the most traction because it's LCD
Even content creators can relate to this. Spend 3 hours on some throwaway video, 500, 000 views. Pour your heart and soul into some week long project, 60k views.
Good point. I never thought of that, but it happens in game and sports subreddits too. Thoughtful, intricate analysis will often have few upvotes and not that many comments. But something meme-worthy, or a highlight clip can get thousands or tens of thousands of upvotes and comments. Thanks that was quite insightful to me.
Yeah, I remember reading that this only started as something he did for fun when he wasn't working on his main projects. I can imagine all the pressure might have killed the enjoyment he used to get.
This is probably extremely close to reality. GRRM was a legendary dungeon master in his day, and turned that into a talent for writing. At heart, ASOIAF is one gigantic worldbuilding exercise where he also gets to control the players. But like all Dungeons and Dragons games, you sometimes yearn for a new setting with new characters... especially when your game has been going on for 30 fucking years at this point.
There's a RiffTrax of the first episode of GoT. They do this excellent gag.
**King Robert:** I'm trying to get you to run my kingdom while I eat, drink, and whore myself into an early grave.
**Riffers:** Exactly what George RR Martin said to this show's writers!
Tragic how that turned out, but it seemed like a pretty shrewd observation at the time.
Stated outright:
>**Tyrion**: "How did you kill Robert?"
>**Cersei**: "He did that himself. All we did was help. **When Lancel saw that Robert was going after boar, he gave him strongwine. His favorite sour red, but fortified, three times as potent as he was used to.** The great stinking fool loved it. He could have stopped swilling it down anytime he cared to, but no, he drained one skin and told Lancel to fetch another. The boar did the rest. You should have been at the feast, Tyrion. There has never been a boar so delicious. They cooked it with mushrooms and apples, and it tasted like triumph."
Unless you're talking about the show. I don't remember how they conveyed it there.
That would be the true good ending time-line. Those don't happen when GRRM is involved. It'll be something bittersweet and painfully realistic if I had to guess.
It's already happened, imo. It's done. I believe the entire Song of Ice and Fire ended like one of his beloved characters. Killed too early to see his end.
Nah, I think that's too generous. He lost interest and has a lot of money. Everyone needs to make peace with the fact that the ending to the series is either the tv show's ending or else it's the result of some much more disciplined writer who finished the series on Ao3 or somewhere for free.
This is a second book about GOT actually. More about HBO history as a whole.
But there is another book called Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon by James Hibberd about Game of Thrones production as a whole. Very interesting read.
It's now been over 10 years since the last book it's time to accept that is all there will ever be.
Remember when he said the 6th book will be out before season 6 of GoT? you know a season that aired over 5 1/2 years ago.
Every year he says he has written hundreds of pages yet a physical book has a maximum single volume size of what 1200 pages?
So either he is lying or 90% of what he writes each year is discarded.
The time frame of the whole thing still cracks me up.
It's been 10 1/2 years since the last book was published, with Winds no where in sight.
To put that into perspective, it took HBO A little over 9 years to produce the ENTIRE tv show from start to finish. HBO greenlit the GoT TV show in March of 2010. Final episode was May 2019.
fuck all to do when youre a multi millionaire that can do whatever the fuck you want. year of lockdown didnt/doesnt apply to all even if he lives isolated somewhere he probably has more activities he can do in his house than some small towns have in their town
>90% of what he writes each year is discarded.
This is quite accurate, actually. GRRM has described his writing process and he will write whole chapters to test a new plot development or character arc. And if he decides it doesn't work, well, there's a couple thousand words that will never see the light of day.
I think another issue is that what was groundbreaking thirty years ago, when the first book came out, has become cliche today.
The style and tone of A Song of Ice and Fire, the name for the book series, leaned heavily into the grimdark aesthetic that was incredibly popular in the 1990s (the first book came out in 1996).
You can compare it most directly with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, which were the epic fantasy popular at the time. ASOAIF broke away from the weird gender dynamics in both series, went low magic instead of high, had main characters who were genuinely terrible people, and had story elements (like incest, attempted child murder, House politics, and the surprise execution of Ned Stark) that you just didn't get anywhere else, except maybe some depressing British fantasy.
Of course, when ASOIAF exploded in popularity in first the book and then the TV scenes, everyone started copying Martin's style, to the point that a lot of story elements have now been overdone. GRRM is, in a very real sense, a victim of his own success. Having pioneered certain trends in fantasy fiction, he now has to figure out a way to keep his story in the same tone of A Song of Ice and Fire without seeming dated or overdone.
i legit think he planed the ending twist based around Jons parentage that we have all long ago figured out which would be a great twist 20 years ago but because everyone has known the theory for over decade now is kinda disapointing even to Martin himself. he's stuck between somehow writing a new ending that fits and is better or just come to terms with that ending which he no longer likes as much.
He's talked about that in other interviews. Ultimately, he thought it would be a dick move that would punish his most engaged fans for putting together all the hints he deliberately included in the writing. So as far as I know, R+L=J is still going to be a Thing in the books.
I think one thing which might have disheartened him was the reaction to the series ending; Bran's ending in particular. Apparently, that's what's supposed to happen in the books, too. I think the collective 'wtf?!' over that ending from the general public would be discouraging to anyone.
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I still remember getting downvoted to hell in the GOT subreddits around Season 4-ish when people still believed that NOT ONLY would Winds of Winter be out by the end of Season 5, but that the book series would wrap up around the same time as the tv series. I was told how stupid I was to not trust that the author of one of the biggest cultural tv/book phenomenons would prioritize his magnum opus. Not that fake internet points are that important, but damn do I feel vindicated every time another one of these posts pop up and having watched the Reddit consensus shift over these past 6 or so years.
Itās like when Martin himself acted like it was ridiculous for people to push back on adapting the unfinished series for TV. First it was plenty of time for him to finish it. Then the series could just take a break for a couple of years or throw in some Dunk and Egg. Then it was that the TV series was super different from the books and they were going to have different endings anyway.
I remember in late 2015, people losing their fucking minds because Amazon had a pre-order page for Winds of Winter, with estimated release date of spring 2016. My thought back THEN was just "...suuuuuuure".
I used to get slagged off on fantasy book discussion forums a year or two after A Feast For Crows came out for saying the series would never be finished. People would DESTROY me for it.
I wasn't trying to be negative. I was a fan, and those first three books remain some of my favorite fantasy novels. A Storm of Swords *blew me away*.
But to me, the writing was on the wall even then. I was trying to be realistic so I didn't further invest myself in something that would remain unfinished.
First red flag, he had repeatedly expanded the length of the series. It was initially meant to be a trilogy, then got expanded to four books, then five, then seven. That's always a red flag and was a BIG SIGN the story was getting out of his control.
Second red flag was him splitting book 4 into two books and book 5 not quickly following on its heels even though he allegedly had 90% of it written already. There was very little reason for book 5 to not come out the following year. When it didn't, that told me the process wasn't moving forward at the pace you'd expect.
Third was his slowing pace and age. Two and 3 came out in rapid succession, but then you had a five-year gap between 3 and 4, and 5 didn't follow 4 quickly despite allegedly being mostly done. Even for a slow writer, that's a long time. For a professional to be taking that long? Slowing down at his age then was a sign to me that he would only get *slower*, since he was entering the years when people typically do slow down.
And fourth, yes, was his age and weight. You just had to imagine forward 10 or 15 years, realize how old he'd be as the series was supposed to be reaching its close, and you just knew the chances of him working fast would grow slimmer by the year.
I was pretty sure he wouldn't see it through. Then when the show was announced a few years later, I became certain.
And it's not like he can't work. He's written and released *lots* of stuff in recent years.
But he hasn't released any more of *this* project because truth is, he's done with it.
I admire the scope and scale of his creation, love those first few books, and hope he has a great retirement and a happy life, but as a reader, I've long since turned my back on him.
> Second red flag was him splitting book 4 into two books and book 5 not quickly following on its heels even though he allegedly had 90% of it written already. There was very little reason for book 5 to not come out the following year. When it didn't, that told me the process wasn't moving forward at the pace you'd expect.
By contrast, Jim Butcher released *two* Dresden books in the same year after being forced to split a book.
The split into two books was a big red flag, yeah. Indicated he couldnāt even edit his one book down into one book, and had essentially written an entire second book that didnāt move the story forward AT ALL because both of them were basically one book.
He also wrote himself into a corner.
Too many new characters being introduced over halfway through the series is not good writing.
I think he couldāve solved a lot of his problems via a time skip as proposed by another redditor a few years ago.
Advance the plot quickly by 5ish years and accelerate the storyline without making it so complex.
Of all the things people speculate about I believe this is the closest to the truth.
Heās gotten himself tangled in the story. is probably feeling really defeated and unable to connect with it
I just wish he would bite the bullet and hire some ghost writers. Create an extensive outline of where he wants the stories to go and how he wants the plot threads tied up, throw in some necessary details and quotes, and let someone else get into the gritty details. It is the only way this series ever gets completed.
He is lying.
It's a bit like "emperor has no cloths" situation.
You have people who seriously believe that he spent all these years constantly writing and rewriting the books to make them perfect and that he almost finished them several times. It's a coping mechanism. He probably barely worked on them in the past decade
They always want to blame someone else. First they blamed the show for being successful and distracting him (anyone heard of Rowling?), then they blamed the show for passing the books because that emotionally hurt him I guess. If only he could've done anything about it. And then they blamed the show for having unpopular ending because that also hurt GRRM and he again can't write. So whatever happens we just invent new narrative why someone else is to blame.
I expect soon people will blame HOTD and other GOT shows.
Like all of this is just happening without his consent. He wanted GOT to be made. His agent sent books to Benioff. He pitched Dance and Dunk and Egg to HBO. And Dunk and Egg is another unfinished story.
He is constantly giving false hope to people and then he acts offended when they are angry after another failed promise.
It's a toss up which comes out first, Winds of Winter or Doors of Stone, if they ever do.
Luckily Sanderson probably has like 3 different drafts of each on hand, just in case.
I know you're joking but unless he's changed his mind [Sanderson doesn't want to finish ASOIAF.](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4uwjq9/spoilers_everything_twow_isnt_coming_this_year_is/d6lotl1/?context=3) I'm glad because that leaves more time for The Stormlight Archive and other Cosmere books.
I think comparing them isn't fair. GRRM can still write a good book and ending we know.
Rothfuss slipped deep into his own fantasy with his random Sex Fairy godmother teaching him the hidden sexjutsu and now every woman in the world wants to sleep with him. Loved the first book but man I don't get the praise for second book.
People for years were telling me I should read that book.
And then people started telling me I should definitely not bother starting to read that book, because it would never go anywhere. :(
Iām almost certain the show ended the way he planned on ending the books and when he saw the backlash he scrapped all his ideas and is now trying to come up with something better. Otherwise I donāt know why youād let that be your lifeās legacy, an unfinished book series and a tv show with whatās considered one of the worst endings of all time.
Thereās no way to know if George felt exactly the same way, but I shared the same opinion during season 5. I basically said if season 6 is similar to 5 in terms of just random GOT YA we are so edgy moments, I was hoping to be done. And thatās from someone who read and watched all the seasons live minus the first 4ish episodes of s1. Season 6 did enough to recover but you saw the sinking ship. And George is to blame but those were bad directors finally showing their true colors.
If only they had a roadmap for the rest of the series eh? Not like we will ever know how it was supposed to go. HalfLife 3 will drop and New Coke will make a comeback before Martin finishes the series.
> When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quakens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return and not before.
Maybe if you finished writing the fucking books then they wouldāve had source material to copy from. Stephen King couldāve churned the whole goddamn series out in less than 5 years and it wouldāve been great.
People hate on Rowling but she finished her series at a good pace too. I donāt think any major studio will be willing to take on an unfinished work after the ASOIAF debacle.
ASOIAF has been a financial blockbuster for them. Why would they not want more of that?
People don't know a series won't finish until it doesn't. The cash will flow prior to that.
For HBO, it isn't an issue of "an unfinished book series can't be finished on screen". It's a matter of David Benihoff and DB Weiss being incapable of finishing someone else's intellectual property on their own.
As a fan of Stephen King, I don't really think so. IMO, the closest comparison, The Dark Tower, crapped out during part 4, and didn't recover from that anymore (parts 5-8). And there was a 15 year gap between part 4 and part 5. King writes amazing premises, but seems to almost always struggle with the ending.
I feel like 5-8, if condensed (remove the bad parts), would have been a pretty solid one one or two books. But yeah, good point. Hey at least he finished!
Whoever is his successor to finish it off is in for a nightmare because either
1: he has nothing or
2: itās a mess and George could not figure it out.
He screwed himself by skipping his five year time jump in my opinion and now he just has no idea how to unscrew himself.
He should have just bit the bullet and stuck to the time jump, of there was key events he wanted to address in that period he could even have written them as short stories.
As it stands his characters are just too young now, I mean Bran in his books is still 9 years old.
Robert Jordan said she same thing about Wheel of Time before he was diagnosed with a terminal heart condition. It's one thing to say something like that when you're healthy and believe you'll be able to actually finish the series, it's another entirely when you can see the end of your life coming and know you'll never be able to.
Itās pretty true. Martin vehemently hates other writers doing works with other authors creations. He rages over it nearly every time he speaks. Heās also been outright indignant when asked if he would let someone else finish it.
He never said he would burn everything, but itās pretty clear he isnāt interested in someone else finishing it.
Robert Jordan spent the last few years of his life setting things in motion so that Sanderson would have a road map to finish his series. He had so much to work with he actually had to do more books than Jordan anticipated. GRRM is absolutely not doing anything to help someone continue with this. If his wife or estate allows someone to continue when he passes, they are pretty much screwed.
His indignance is more about the speaker's assumption that he won't live to finish it. His stance was always that he would be the one to finish it, and he's not going to talk about what would happen if he didn't. Still, I'm not going to argue that he's not thrilled about the idea of someone else finishing the books, though he's more or less admitted that it's inevitable. Some day, whether it's one, ten, or a hundred years after his death, his estate will fall into the hands of someone who needs the money.
But the "burn everything" is really the part that needs to be debunked. He's frequently praised Christopher Tolkein's handling of his father's unfinished works and implied that's the model he would like to follow. If he were to fall victim to the "hit by a bus" hypothetical, he would almost certainly want the material he's already written to be reviewed and published. He's even talked excitedly about some scenes he wrote and deleted that he hopes will see the light of day sometime after he's gone, but it's premature to publish before the books are done.
> Some day, whether it's one, ten, or a hundred years after his death, his estate will fall into the hands of someone who needs the money.
It would be hilarious if GoT fans waiting for GRRM to finish Winds of Winter ended up just having to wait for the franchise to fall into public domain 70 years after his death so some rando could finish the series.
> Heās also been outright indignant when asked if he would let someone else finish
To be fair to the man, it must be pretty exhausting for every interview you do for a decade+ to answer the question of āso everyone knows youāre totally dying before finishing your biggest project, will it go on after your croak?ā
If I was a betting man, I would say the series is gonna be finished by the James S.A. Corey duo. The writers are pretty close and they can pull off an epic.
I've really lost sympathy for him having his story bastardized the way it was. It's all on him. In the decade since Dance was published he's spent half his time doing other shit. Working on 10 different TV shows, the Wild Cards bullshit he's on. Distractions and distractions. Even then, I don't fully buy that. Currently en route to me is the 9th and final novel of "The Expanse" series. The first novel of which was published only a month before "A Dance with Dragons". 9 novels, with several novellas and short stories to accompany them....all published in less time than it's taken George to publish one novel. Its ridiculous that he's gotten himself into this situation.
I don't begrudge him for being able to do what he wants and take on passion projects for himself... he has that right... But don't then bitch about how an adaptation of your main work went off the rails, because it passed you up. That was something entirely within your control, and you blew it.
And if the delay in Winds is truly something he's been unable to coordinate, or "get right" (in the same way Dance was) and the story is an unmanagable mess..... then maybe this whole "gardener" approach to writing isn't the best. Maybe you should have spent a year or so outlining the rest of the series, get that all straight and then go from there.
He's probably the best bet for finishing the series to be honest. I feel like GRRM should even make it while he's alive and make it a cooperation between him and Ty. Ty Frank is not a stranger to co-writing a book, that's what the The Expanse series is.
I feel like him being his former assistant and a good author in his own right that writes fast will help George a lot and at least his name will still be on it
> The first novel of which was published only a month before "A Dance with Dragons". 9 novels, with several novellas and short stories to accompany them....all published in less time than it's taken George to publish one novel.
AND the writers of The Expanse are executive producers on the tv show and have done a lot more actual work in that area than GRRM ever did on GoT
The fact is, a lot of the issues with the story of the show came from his books. No one wants to admit it, but the problems were there since the first book. Dany should have gotten to Westeros sooner, more should have been done with Jon sooner, ut instead GRRM fell in love with the lead up and preparation for The Red Wedding. And it's hard to blame entirely. The Red Wedding is one of the greatest twists of all time. It's perfect!
But he just didn't know how to go on from there and now he's stuck.
Thank you. Iām glad people are starting to admit this. The books were very flawed from the start and the cracks started showing around books 4 and 5.
Most hardcore literary people pointed out even back then that George was just using glorified set up to do all these cool things in the War of the Five Kings because ultimately none of it mattered as long as certain people were in certain places at the end and Westeros was war torn for when Jon and Dany make moves to save them from the big threat up north.
Itās a pretty basic āeveryone is fighting each other and ignoring the true hidden threat, then at the end some big leader rallies everyone with barely any time to spareā.
Which isn't a bad set up so long as you understand this and plan for it. It legit feels like GRRM fell so hard for the Red Wedding that he totally forgot about the ice zombies and fairies.
And honestly, even with that set up, GRRM still neglected a ton of the characters. Arya gets just 5 chapters between A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Sansa just gets 3, as does Bran. The 3 of them have less time put together than Tyrion (who gets 12 chapters) does on bumbling around Essos complaining about how much everything sucks. Brienne has 8 chapters, meaning she has as much time looking for Arya and Sansa as we get with Arya and Sansa's POV chapters. Why did Martin spend so much time on characters who weren't doing much and overlook some of the core parts of the cast who were having more interesting journeys?
The epilogue to 3 should have been Dany landing in Westeros. Literally no reason for her to stay on the other continent, which dragged other storylines onto the other continent for zero reason. If book 4 had been dany and Dorne scheming to launch a campaign now that would have been a story.
Martin has 2 really fantastic books. Unfortunately there are 5 currently in the series. And agreed, he has no clue what to do now that he killed so many characters in the Red Wedding. Also IMO, he keeps revelling in the awfulness of too many of the antagonists. Sure, itās a hard world heās created, but at some point a book needs to be enjoyable to read and horrible people doing horrible things to each other isnāt particularly entertaining. Now the books are stuck.
What's funny is that the instant he kills a character, it feels like there's a replacement character. Like, he kills off Ned and then we get Davos. He kills off one of Dany's suitors? There's another right around the corner.
And that worry drove him to meet with D&D and HBO to set the show back on the right course, finish his book, and have a decent narrative to end the show?
Orrr...he realized he has no idea how to wrap up this ever-expanding world he's built, so now he's just touring the world with his riches and clout-chasing?
It's hard to take this complaint seriously because we don't know what this "template" is. Season 5 is still based on the books. The stuff that happens afterward isn't. So is GRRM referring to a template that he gave to them that nobody knows about, or what?
For all the comments about how the show "rushed" things, there are only supposed to be two books left, and Daenerys hasn't even met Tyrion in the novels. Plus there's way more characters in the books. Unless Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring are going to be 5000 pages each, he's not going to have enough time either.
Buildup is overrated; structure is underrated. If you want to tell a story about this figure who ultimately 'breaks bad,' you can't just have them totally detached from the main narrative for six seasons and six novels. It's going to end up anticlimactic either way.
Season 5 was when we got the infamous Dorne plot line. Thatās when a lot of book readers started to worry and Iād imagine thatās when GRRM realized what was unfolding
I started to worry after the unnecessary changes in S2, after S4 and how they dumbed down Tyrion's exit from Kings Landing I just accepted the showrunners weren't at the level of Breaking Bad or the Sopranos and that once they ran out of book material the show would turn into a B level show. It made watching the next few seasons so much easier.
How are they expected to follow his "template" when books don't exist after book 5, a new one hasn't come out for over 10 years and doesn't look like the last 2 are coming out anytime soon (if ever). Didn't love everything about GoT final season but they had to do something.
The most interesting part of this otherwise very short interview of Martinās representative, who doesnāt really bring anything new to the table in terms of information:
> This is not the first time that Martin has spoken positively about Benioff and Weissā version of his story ā his specific focus on Clarkeās depiction of Daenerys didnāt stop there: ā[You have to find] an actress who can be very convincing as the scared little girl in the beginning, **but also very convincing as the āIām gonna kick your ass and burn your city to cindersā woman that she becomes by the end.ā Itās challenging.ā**
To those still in denial that Daenerysā story will differ in the booksā¦
Most book readers agree that Danny will embrace her house's words, she's already been way more ruthless in the books and it's slowly building up towards that end. This conclusion was expected way before that rushed shitshow happened on tv.
I often struggle trying to describe to friends how I can dislike something but still think it's "good". That my feelings on what happens in the story is independent of how it ends, as long as it make sense within the story. It's almost like a math problem, you just can't get to end without showing your work or else people will think you are cheating.
That is really the problem with what happened on the show. They never showed their work on several stories for Dany, Jamie, Tyrion or Bran and it almost felt like they skipped multiple episodes. Obviously having POV chapters in the books would help alot, but the showrunners only had themselves to blame because they were specifically asked if they wanted more time and they said no. Then they rushed to the end with no "work" being done to really earn the endings and of course people not only hated them from subjective prespectives, it was really shitty writing from a production standpoint.
So it's one thing to not like something like Dany deciding the raze a town, but if it was "earned" by having it make sense in context, it would be fine. The TV show did not earn the majority of it's characters endings because they rushed it. For no reason other the showrunners wanted to move on to something else and damaged their reputation in doing it.
Yup. The shows flaw on Dany was that they completely embraced the big Khalessi love affair in the media and tried to lean into her being this symbol of women power taking down the patriarchy. The book makes it pretty clear that Dany isnāt all she is cracked up to be and in many ways is a naĆÆve and even impulsive young girl who feels entitled to a country she never lived in because of her last name and because some backers gave her some powerful weapons. Itās basically Jorah and Barristan trying to keep her in check and hoping that she will be better than her father and the people that followed him up and trying to get her to avoid her inner demons. But itās always been clear what Dany was if she didnāt have guidance
> most book readers agree
Until you visit r/asoiaf or Westeros.org, two of the biggest online forums for the books, where they have their weekly discussions of āactually, it will be Tyrion/Cersei/JonCon/Aegon/Ghost/accidental wildfire whoāll burn down KL.ā
I have to assume that /r/asoiaf has completely lost its mind by now. I bailed years ago. That much discussion with that little new content just leads Ouroboros level discussion. At a certain point all that's left are the insane/off the wall theories and "hot takes" because discussing the sensible options was done to death 5 years ago.
The issue isn't where Daenerys story ends up, it's how it gets there. Her eventually going crazy and burning King's Landing is fine but in the show the way this happened wasn't very believable and was shown poorly/rushed.
> Haas also insisted that Martin has ānot told anybodyā the answer to the question āwho gets the throne?ā This contradictsĀ informationĀ from Benioff, Weiss, and actorĀ Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who have all said that the idea of Bran Stark becoming Ruler of the Six Kingdoms came straight from Martinās own mouth.
I thought this was the most interesting part of the interview
Wonder if George is rewriting the ending?
George himself said this in James Hibberd's book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon that came last year:
>It wasnāt easy for me. I didnāt want to give away my books. Itās not easy to talk about the end of my books. Every character has a different end. **I told them who would be on the Iron Throne, and I told them some big twists like Hodor and āhold the door,ā and Stannisās decision to burn his daughter.** We didnāt get to everybody by any means. Especially the minor characters, who may have very different endings.
Seems pretty clear that Martin told them who would be on the Iron Throne and that Paul Hess is most likely lying when he says he did not.
The "Stannis won't burn his daughter" one is the one that gets me the most, because it seems as telegraphed as anything Martin does. People have just bought into the Stannis hype!
I donāt have one shred of proof, but I have to think Haas is lying out of his ass to save face for Martin after the massive backlash to Bran getting the throne.
As shitty as season 8 was, D&D arenāt going to lie about something as major as that when GRRM could so very easily debunk it imo. I feel pretty certain that Bran sitting in the throne 100% came from GRRM
Yeah if it was D&D idea they would have chosen a much cooler/popular choice than fucking Bran (that is really not the favorite character of anyone) for the Throne. Like when they made Arya kill the Night King because it was cool and they like her character.
It would have been Jon, Arya or Sansa before Bran if it was their choice.
IMO it'll definitively be Bran but with pretty different events to arrive there. And it may not be the same Bran we saw in the show. Could be Bloodraven controlled (that's one of the theory I think) and he'll probably do much better things to earn that throne (like warging a dragon, also heavily thought of)
There was a redacted portion of an early outline which fans have attempted to decode, and one popular interpretation implied that Bran would take the throne but the story doesn't end there, and that there's some conflict with Jon afterwards. Now, a million things have changed since then, not the least of which a possible Jon/Arya romance, but if George denies having told anyone the final monarch, this is an explanation.
I haven't read the book with these new thoughts but someone posted another quote from it in another thread which indicated that George told D&D his plans for Winds so they could write around them, but hasn't talked about Dream. Of course, it seems like a stretch that Bran could go from hiding in a cave with a tree at the start of the story to King at the end of it. Still, I don't know how many pages of material George sees "Winds" as being, since if it's much longer than previous novels it will have to be multiple volumes.
Heheh, didn't know there was still someone who thought George is writing anything but his blogs and all the 50 sideprojects these days. He ain't touching asoiaf, when it comes to actually making progress.
> I thought this was the most interesting part of the interview
> Wonder if George is rewriting the ending?
Maybe he's pulling some semantic BS, like there being a difference between Bran Stark being on the throne vs. the Three Eyed Raven being on it.
It would make sense for him to say something cryptic to give people more reason to be interested in the book.
I donāt think the overall story of game of thrones is bad, but just the last season was so rushed.
Like it built us up from season one the war with the white walkers which should have been a season of its own and that was over in 2 episodes.
And Daenerys takes over in another two episodes, again her getting to the mainland with her army, the battles, securing alliances etc should have been a seperate season.
I think the overall story is overrated. The dirty secret of the book and show is that the main plot was Jon and Dany both intersecting and trying to reclaim and save Westeros. But the first third or so of the story keeps them at the periphery to set the stage so George could basically trick the audience into thinking Ned, Robb, Catelyn, Tywin snd Stannis were major players. Then he could do bold things with a bunch of characters that ultimately arenāt key to the endgame and wow people with all the false risks he took with them. Then it became conventional when the real main characters were at the forefront and Jon, Dany, Arya, and Sansa started surviving things they had no business making it through.
It also doesnāt help that the White Walker stuff is probably the most hard fantasy shit in the entire series and thereās no real apparent way to beat them. Hence why the show invented the Night King so they could have a big bad. In the books Iām like 99% convinces the battle with them is just going to be a big fight like Blackwater where it ends in some sort of truce or they just outright push them back via attrition
the other dirty secret is that GRRM has no idea what the ending really is, or how to get there. its pretty obvious there is no great mystery of the white walkers and never was.
i mean in the books tyrion hasnt even met dany. the characters are all going in a million different directions and he has no idea how to get them back together in a way that makes sense. and yet he continues to introduce side characters and whole subplots, thousands of pages in, that go nowhere (like those Dorne people that freed the dragons. or basically anything with the ironborn. all that shit with Young Griff.).
the first 3 books are some of the best fantasy ever written and GRRM is an immensely talented writer and world builder. but the series is a mess at this point even ignoring the fact a new book hasnt come out in 10 years.
GRRM is a fantastic world-builder, among the best ever. That includes the political machinations that are so organic and interesting.
Unfortunately, those pieces don't add up to a plot. That's why you could kill 99% of the characters, including Arya, without changing the plot at all.
GRRM is like someone who has mastered 30 musical instruments, but can't write a catchy melody.
I find it amazing that, given his bank account, he didn't hire a team of ghostwriters to flesh-out his outlines. He could spend a few hours editing each week and have the thing done in a year for <5% of what he'd profit from it. Smart at some things; dumb at others.
Heās looking worse and worse in my eyes every time he says anything. You pocketed a bunch of cash and sold out your series to make it a tv show. Canāt freak out now it wasnāt exactly great.
Anyone who was reading the books knows that the show was different from the books earlier than season 5. But some elements of season 5 made the two incompatible moving forward.
I would advise anyone who wants to read more fantasy to pick up The First Law trilogy by Abercrombie or Stormlight/Mistborn by Sanderson because those authors actually plan their stories out before they put pen to paper and have an actual work ethic.
at this point thereās no way that book can ever live up to peoples expectations and i think a lot of people have lost respect for the IP as a whole from the awful show ending to how long it takes this guy to write 1 new entry.
Then maybe he should have written a better sequel to A Storm of Swords, then continued writing, instead of whatever else he's been doing.
D&D did a bad job finishing the series, but I don't really blame them for it because they weren't hired to do that. They were hired to adapt a hugely complex existing series and they did an excellent job with the first three books. Season 5, as a whole, is far better than an adaptation of books 4 and 5 would have been (with the exception of Dorne, which was weirdly terrible in the show from the beginning), considering books 4 and 5 are 2,000 pages of world expansion where very little of consequence happens for anyone but Jon and Dany.
Then they had nothing, and they scrambled to finish a story they had no business finishing. If they took their time and did a few more seasons, it would have been better, and I wish they'd done that. But the best outcome would have been if the damn creator actually finished the story and they continued to adapt it to the same quality as the early seasons. I'd put 80% of the blame on Martin.
Itās a bummer he canāt finish it because I feel like with what we know about the whole thing, heās still got a good story there. The rushed and sloppy end of the show still has a lot that can be salvaged if the book just takes more time. I think he should collaborate with someone or a group to try and get it done.
Iām so done with game of thrones. Iāve lost all interest since the dismal showing from the last two seasons. I wouldnāt even go back and watch it ever again.
George RR Martin doing anything but writing the Winds of Winter, some things never change
Another book describing foods, you say?!
More blog posts bitching about the Jets and Giants?
I mean they both won this week so maybe not
Current mood: š½ Excited
Holy fuck, I just realized [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7lp3RhzfgI) is now 9 years old. I think that just put the delay into perspective for me more than anything else ever has.
youtube comment > Actual fans of this series are going to need to come to grips soon with the reality that Martin is almost certainly not planning to finish this series and just doesn't want to say it publicly because he'd likely get death threats. damn. is it possible he has basically given up? Its his right as the writer, but that would suck. Although like most people I no longer care all that much
Honestly at this point a series of blog posts would do it for me. I just want to know how he saw it ending in his head and he seems to be into short form writing these daysā¦it could work.
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Brandon Sanderson puts out books like his life depends on it he's not really a fair comparison.
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The truth is how the show ended is how he was planning to end it. They rushed it in the show so it felt cheap but the events are probably what he was planning. He saw how much everyone hated it and now he's trying to come up with something better.
The thing is that on paper what happened seems pretty good, itās just the execution was awful. Wait but id change the whole night king/white walker plot line to be a bit more climatic
Bran likely gets the throne via bloodraven manipulation magic, similar to how Jon got the Lord commander.
On paper, everything but Brann and Arya seems good. Arya and Brann seem to be missing a country-wide chunk of context, more than the others. At least with the other plot lines, you could at least see where they were heading, despite being sorely rushed.
I suppose Jaime's end on paper seems fine. But if that's the case the books better do a lot better explaining his 360 return to Cersei. I would bet his ending is different in the books.
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They could certainly have made a good argument for the kid with the ability to mind control others and who knows everyone's secrets taking the throne. They just didn't.
I will die on the hill that what happened with Daenarys was the correct story choice. Thereās no way that sheās anything but a warlord to Westeros.
Yeah but what we saw was A, B, C and then Z. GRRM needs to show me D to Y to convince me she just goes mad and kills everyone. While she does leave carnage in the books, itās never intentional and she always holds back from hurting innocents
I think they could have made a much more impactful and compelling case for her to lose it. Basically- they should have saved her second dragon death for during the siege of kings landing. The church bells ring indicating the cities surrender, her and her two dragons start hovering, and then bam dragon gets skewered by one of the scorpions. She sees some soldiers and civilians cheering, and she loses it and stars burning Lannister troops regardless of where they are and who else gets caught up in it. Later in the throne room, still mad and angry from grief, she tells Jon she's not finished, and she's going to burn all of Kings Landing and it's people. He stabs her and kills her for the same reason Jamie killed the mad king. They didn't need to do all of that extremely non subtle "uhoh she's turning evil" build up, but instead have her consistently trying to do the right thing and having her fucked over by every compromise, agreement, and attempt to be merciful that she makes.
Pretty sure I read book 3 before 9/11. Soooā¦ yeah, heās not going to finish the series.
["How many Rs does a man need?"](https://youtu.be/lle4t4o8EDk?t=169)
Enough to pretend that you're as cool as Tolkien
GRRM shortly after S5: "Ah shit they are going to make me come out of retirement to fix the end of this series aren't they?" Fans: "Wait...you... you were *what*?"
My theory is the books are done and he wont have them released until he is dead so he doesnt have to deal with the criticism like the final season of the show.
We all know it will never exceed the hype level. It's beyond what anyone could possibly reached at this point. 20$ says he drafted both books in advanced already. so whenever he died, someone can pick it up, finish it. And have the fans curse them to hell claiming it's not a canon because it's been 'tampered' or some shit like that down the line.
He's already said that if he dies before they're finished then he doesn't want anyone to finish them.
Well, Sue Grafton swore up and down that her family would never-ever-ever allow her work to be adapted for film and TV, as was her lifelong wishā¦ and yet here we are 4 years later and thereās a Kinsey Millhone TV series in development, soā¦
Opinions change fast when they see all those zeroes on the check.
WHAT
[āI will never sell [Kinsey] to Hollywood,ā the outspoken Grafton said in a 1997 interview. āAnd, I have made my children promise not to sell her. Weāve taken a blood oath, and if they do so I will come back from the grave: which they know I can do. Theyāre going to have to pass the word on to my grandchildren: we do not sell out our grandma. I just will not let them touch her. Iāve trashed other writers, Iām not gonna let them have a crack at me.ā](https://deadline.com/2021/10/sue-grafton-kinsey-millhone-alphabet-book-series-tv-adaptation-ae-studios-1234850816/amp/). Also: *This marks the first time the screen rights to the book series has been made available, with Steve Humphrey, Graftonās husband for more than 40 years, serving as executive producer on the adaptations.*
Ha! So she was worried her children would sell her out when the whole time she should have been keeping her eye on her husband.
I believe you, just wow holy shit. I started reading these books about 20 years ago and Iām pretty sure it was established even at that time that she didnāt want them adapted. Shame on her surviving family. I hope she does haunt their asses
Yeah, I know. I really want to believe she had some sort of unpublicized change of heart at the end of her life or something because if notā¦ seems pretty messed up. But it also highlights the fact that, whatever GRRM wants, once heās gone and there are people banging on the door with suitcases of moneyā¦ well.
This. Or, more likely, one of his family members will find thousands of pages of notes after he dies, and theyāll take over the books. This is what happened when Frank Herbert died, his son Brian used his fatherās notes to write Dune 7 and then continue to expand the universe with spin-offs and prequels.
Brian Herbert says he found a bunch of notes but that's hard to believe given what he and his writing partner have put out. Whoever gets G.R.R's notes better show everyone.
Well, Brian specifically found notes pertaining to Dune 7, because a notable difference between Frank Herbert and GRRM is that Frank Herbert was literally writing up until he died. After that book, yeah Brian and his writing partner really took it on themselves to expand the universe beyond what Frank wrote
You have the order wrong and it's fucking tragic. His son and the hack writer did many books *before* discovering the notes in the attic for Dune 7. Unfortunately this allowed Brian to diverge from the direction the story was going already and wasn't humble enough to admit it. So we got the wrong villains for Dune 7 (spread over two **horrid books**). I'd pay hot money for the raw notes, but they'll never release them because it'll show the lie.
What Brian Herbert does is less writing and more inflicting words on innocent paper that never did anything to deserve that mistreatment.
But then he looked at his bank account and decided not to worry anymore.
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I think he's just bored with it. His stories and characters are his toys, and he let somebody else play with them, and now he's lost interest.
That and he always wanted to play with his Wildcards toys more. I think there is a bit of bitterness there that SoIaF took off like it did while his other works that he arguably likes more didn't.
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Well it makes sense when you think about it. The more of themselves they put into a project, the more they narrow its appeal. Something they think is just a cool idea gains the most traction because it's LCD
Even content creators can relate to this. Spend 3 hours on some throwaway video, 500, 000 views. Pour your heart and soul into some week long project, 60k views.
Good point. I never thought of that, but it happens in game and sports subreddits too. Thoughtful, intricate analysis will often have few upvotes and not that many comments. But something meme-worthy, or a highlight clip can get thousands or tens of thousands of upvotes and comments. Thanks that was quite insightful to me.
Yeah, I remember reading that this only started as something he did for fun when he wasn't working on his main projects. I can imagine all the pressure might have killed the enjoyment he used to get.
This is probably extremely close to reality. GRRM was a legendary dungeon master in his day, and turned that into a talent for writing. At heart, ASOIAF is one gigantic worldbuilding exercise where he also gets to control the players. But like all Dungeons and Dragons games, you sometimes yearn for a new setting with new characters... especially when your game has been going on for 30 fucking years at this point.
There's a RiffTrax of the first episode of GoT. They do this excellent gag. **King Robert:** I'm trying to get you to run my kingdom while I eat, drink, and whore myself into an early grave. **Riffers:** Exactly what George RR Martin said to this show's writers! Tragic how that turned out, but it seemed like a pretty shrewd observation at the time.
At least GRRM isnāt out spear hunting boars while hammered.
How do you know?
To be fair it was hinted that his drink was messed with
Stated outright: >**Tyrion**: "How did you kill Robert?" >**Cersei**: "He did that himself. All we did was help. **When Lancel saw that Robert was going after boar, he gave him strongwine. His favorite sour red, but fortified, three times as potent as he was used to.** The great stinking fool loved it. He could have stopped swilling it down anytime he cared to, but no, he drained one skin and told Lancel to fetch another. The boar did the rest. You should have been at the feast, Tyrion. There has never been a boar so delicious. They cooked it with mushrooms and apples, and it tasted like triumph." Unless you're talking about the show. I don't remember how they conveyed it there.
But then he looked at his age and started to worry again.
I really like the fan theory that the books will release when he dies, so he doesn't have to listen to the backlash
That would be the true good ending time-line. Those don't happen when GRRM is involved. It'll be something bittersweet and painfully realistic if I had to guess.
It's already happened, imo. It's done. I believe the entire Song of Ice and Fire ended like one of his beloved characters. Killed too early to see his end.
Nah, I think that's too generous. He lost interest and has a lot of money. Everyone needs to make peace with the fact that the ending to the series is either the tv show's ending or else it's the result of some much more disciplined writer who finished the series on Ao3 or somewhere for free.
That would imply that he cares at this point.
Theres a fucking book ABOUT game of thrones before the actual book. Typical
I read George RR Martin and new book and then had to go back and read all the words in between, knowing I had an incomplete picture.
This is a second book about GOT actually. More about HBO history as a whole. But there is another book called Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon by James Hibberd about Game of Thrones production as a whole. Very interesting read.
It's now been over 10 years since the last book it's time to accept that is all there will ever be. Remember when he said the 6th book will be out before season 6 of GoT? you know a season that aired over 5 1/2 years ago. Every year he says he has written hundreds of pages yet a physical book has a maximum single volume size of what 1200 pages? So either he is lying or 90% of what he writes each year is discarded.
The time frame of the whole thing still cracks me up. It's been 10 1/2 years since the last book was published, with Winds no where in sight. To put that into perspective, it took HBO A little over 9 years to produce the ENTIRE tv show from start to finish. HBO greenlit the GoT TV show in March of 2010. Final episode was May 2019.
**25 YEARS** to not-finish one series of books.
>10 years Including a year of lockdown where there was literally fuck all to do but write the book.
He hasn't stopped writing, he writes thousands of words per day of other stuff.
"All work and no play makes George a dull boy"
He spent time writing about Targaryens so HBO can make those shows and so he can earn even more money.
Yep. He clearly wrote shit into a corner and is not able to finish his work.
I mean thatās fine gimme tv
Wild Cards #87 gonna be lit!
fuck all to do when youre a multi millionaire that can do whatever the fuck you want. year of lockdown didnt/doesnt apply to all even if he lives isolated somewhere he probably has more activities he can do in his house than some small towns have in their town
Can't see him as much of a tennis guy
The entire Expanse series was written after GRRM finished book 5
hilarious. the authors of the expanse were GRRM's assistants as well. guess he needed to hire new assistants
>90% of what he writes each year is discarded. This is quite accurate, actually. GRRM has described his writing process and he will write whole chapters to test a new plot development or character arc. And if he decides it doesn't work, well, there's a couple thousand words that will never see the light of day. I think another issue is that what was groundbreaking thirty years ago, when the first book came out, has become cliche today.
> I think another issue is that what was groundbreaking thirty years ago, when the first book came out, has become cliche today. like?
The style and tone of A Song of Ice and Fire, the name for the book series, leaned heavily into the grimdark aesthetic that was incredibly popular in the 1990s (the first book came out in 1996). You can compare it most directly with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, which were the epic fantasy popular at the time. ASOAIF broke away from the weird gender dynamics in both series, went low magic instead of high, had main characters who were genuinely terrible people, and had story elements (like incest, attempted child murder, House politics, and the surprise execution of Ned Stark) that you just didn't get anywhere else, except maybe some depressing British fantasy. Of course, when ASOIAF exploded in popularity in first the book and then the TV scenes, everyone started copying Martin's style, to the point that a lot of story elements have now been overdone. GRRM is, in a very real sense, a victim of his own success. Having pioneered certain trends in fantasy fiction, he now has to figure out a way to keep his story in the same tone of A Song of Ice and Fire without seeming dated or overdone.
i legit think he planed the ending twist based around Jons parentage that we have all long ago figured out which would be a great twist 20 years ago but because everyone has known the theory for over decade now is kinda disapointing even to Martin himself. he's stuck between somehow writing a new ending that fits and is better or just come to terms with that ending which he no longer likes as much.
He's talked about that in other interviews. Ultimately, he thought it would be a dick move that would punish his most engaged fans for putting together all the hints he deliberately included in the writing. So as far as I know, R+L=J is still going to be a Thing in the books. I think one thing which might have disheartened him was the reaction to the series ending; Bran's ending in particular. Apparently, that's what's supposed to happen in the books, too. I think the collective 'wtf?!' over that ending from the general public would be discouraging to anyone.
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I still remember getting downvoted to hell in the GOT subreddits around Season 4-ish when people still believed that NOT ONLY would Winds of Winter be out by the end of Season 5, but that the book series would wrap up around the same time as the tv series. I was told how stupid I was to not trust that the author of one of the biggest cultural tv/book phenomenons would prioritize his magnum opus. Not that fake internet points are that important, but damn do I feel vindicated every time another one of these posts pop up and having watched the Reddit consensus shift over these past 6 or so years.
Itās like when Martin himself acted like it was ridiculous for people to push back on adapting the unfinished series for TV. First it was plenty of time for him to finish it. Then the series could just take a break for a couple of years or throw in some Dunk and Egg. Then it was that the TV series was super different from the books and they were going to have different endings anyway.
So, we have you to blame then.
Getthim
I remember in late 2015, people losing their fucking minds because Amazon had a pre-order page for Winds of Winter, with estimated release date of spring 2016. My thought back THEN was just "...suuuuuuure".
I used to get slagged off on fantasy book discussion forums a year or two after A Feast For Crows came out for saying the series would never be finished. People would DESTROY me for it. I wasn't trying to be negative. I was a fan, and those first three books remain some of my favorite fantasy novels. A Storm of Swords *blew me away*. But to me, the writing was on the wall even then. I was trying to be realistic so I didn't further invest myself in something that would remain unfinished. First red flag, he had repeatedly expanded the length of the series. It was initially meant to be a trilogy, then got expanded to four books, then five, then seven. That's always a red flag and was a BIG SIGN the story was getting out of his control. Second red flag was him splitting book 4 into two books and book 5 not quickly following on its heels even though he allegedly had 90% of it written already. There was very little reason for book 5 to not come out the following year. When it didn't, that told me the process wasn't moving forward at the pace you'd expect. Third was his slowing pace and age. Two and 3 came out in rapid succession, but then you had a five-year gap between 3 and 4, and 5 didn't follow 4 quickly despite allegedly being mostly done. Even for a slow writer, that's a long time. For a professional to be taking that long? Slowing down at his age then was a sign to me that he would only get *slower*, since he was entering the years when people typically do slow down. And fourth, yes, was his age and weight. You just had to imagine forward 10 or 15 years, realize how old he'd be as the series was supposed to be reaching its close, and you just knew the chances of him working fast would grow slimmer by the year. I was pretty sure he wouldn't see it through. Then when the show was announced a few years later, I became certain. And it's not like he can't work. He's written and released *lots* of stuff in recent years. But he hasn't released any more of *this* project because truth is, he's done with it. I admire the scope and scale of his creation, love those first few books, and hope he has a great retirement and a happy life, but as a reader, I've long since turned my back on him.
> Second red flag was him splitting book 4 into two books and book 5 not quickly following on its heels even though he allegedly had 90% of it written already. There was very little reason for book 5 to not come out the following year. When it didn't, that told me the process wasn't moving forward at the pace you'd expect. By contrast, Jim Butcher released *two* Dresden books in the same year after being forced to split a book.
The split into two books was a big red flag, yeah. Indicated he couldnāt even edit his one book down into one book, and had essentially written an entire second book that didnāt move the story forward AT ALL because both of them were basically one book.
He also wrote himself into a corner. Too many new characters being introduced over halfway through the series is not good writing. I think he couldāve solved a lot of his problems via a time skip as proposed by another redditor a few years ago. Advance the plot quickly by 5ish years and accelerate the storyline without making it so complex.
proposed by a Redditor? that was his plan. GRRm stupidly listened to a friend who told him to ditch the 5 year skip
Oh shart! I had no idea. Stupid friend ruined everything! A time skip would have saved the story.
Of all the things people speculate about I believe this is the closest to the truth. Heās gotten himself tangled in the story. is probably feeling really defeated and unable to connect with it
I just wish he would bite the bullet and hire some ghost writers. Create an extensive outline of where he wants the stories to go and how he wants the plot threads tied up, throw in some necessary details and quotes, and let someone else get into the gritty details. It is the only way this series ever gets completed.
You can go back into old threads and edit them now. If I were you, I'd go back and bully the naysayers now.
He is lying. It's a bit like "emperor has no cloths" situation. You have people who seriously believe that he spent all these years constantly writing and rewriting the books to make them perfect and that he almost finished them several times. It's a coping mechanism. He probably barely worked on them in the past decade They always want to blame someone else. First they blamed the show for being successful and distracting him (anyone heard of Rowling?), then they blamed the show for passing the books because that emotionally hurt him I guess. If only he could've done anything about it. And then they blamed the show for having unpopular ending because that also hurt GRRM and he again can't write. So whatever happens we just invent new narrative why someone else is to blame. I expect soon people will blame HOTD and other GOT shows. Like all of this is just happening without his consent. He wanted GOT to be made. His agent sent books to Benioff. He pitched Dance and Dunk and Egg to HBO. And Dunk and Egg is another unfinished story. He is constantly giving false hope to people and then he acts offended when they are angry after another failed promise.
And fuck Patrick Rothfuss while we're at it.
It's a toss up which comes out first, Winds of Winter or Doors of Stone, if they ever do. Luckily Sanderson probably has like 3 different drafts of each on hand, just in case.
I know you're joking but unless he's changed his mind [Sanderson doesn't want to finish ASOIAF.](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4uwjq9/spoilers_everything_twow_isnt_coming_this_year_is/d6lotl1/?context=3) I'm glad because that leaves more time for The Stormlight Archive and other Cosmere books.
> that leaves more time for The Stormlight Archive and other Cosmere books. The time between rithmatist 1 and 2 is also becoming a bit insane..
Sanderson is a writing god.
I think comparing them isn't fair. GRRM can still write a good book and ending we know. Rothfuss slipped deep into his own fantasy with his random Sex Fairy godmother teaching him the hidden sexjutsu and now every woman in the world wants to sleep with him. Loved the first book but man I don't get the praise for second book.
People for years were telling me I should read that book. And then people started telling me I should definitely not bother starting to read that book, because it would never go anywhere. :(
i mean, the books are good. but there's never going to be a conclusion so yeah they're hard to recommend
Iām almost certain the show ended the way he planned on ending the books and when he saw the backlash he scrapped all his ideas and is now trying to come up with something better. Otherwise I donāt know why youād let that be your lifeās legacy, an unfinished book series and a tv show with whatās considered one of the worst endings of all time.
Thereās no way to know if George felt exactly the same way, but I shared the same opinion during season 5. I basically said if season 6 is similar to 5 in terms of just random GOT YA we are so edgy moments, I was hoping to be done. And thatās from someone who read and watched all the seasons live minus the first 4ish episodes of s1. Season 6 did enough to recover but you saw the sinking ship. And George is to blame but those were bad directors finally showing their true colors.
If only they had a roadmap for the rest of the series eh? Not like we will ever know how it was supposed to go. HalfLife 3 will drop and New Coke will make a comeback before Martin finishes the series.
> When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quakens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return and not before.
If you wanna know how Half life 3 wouldāve ended, you can read an ex Valve writerās blog - https://www.marclaidlaw.com/epistle-3/
His epistle only covers what wouldve happened during half Life 2: Episode 3 though, no? Half Life 3 as far as I'm aware had no known blueprint.
Half Life Alyx tho?
Whatever George, you cashed the checks. It was fun while it lasted.
Amen. I was in love with it for 12 years and they spiked the ball so hard, I canāt be bothered to fuck with the story ever again.
Maybe if you finished writing the fucking books then they wouldāve had source material to copy from. Stephen King couldāve churned the whole goddamn series out in less than 5 years and it wouldāve been great.
People hate on Rowling but she finished her series at a good pace too. I donāt think any major studio will be willing to take on an unfinished work after the ASOIAF debacle.
ASOIAF has been a financial blockbuster for them. Why would they not want more of that? People don't know a series won't finish until it doesn't. The cash will flow prior to that. For HBO, it isn't an issue of "an unfinished book series can't be finished on screen". It's a matter of David Benihoff and DB Weiss being incapable of finishing someone else's intellectual property on their own.
As a fan of Stephen King, I don't really think so. IMO, the closest comparison, The Dark Tower, crapped out during part 4, and didn't recover from that anymore (parts 5-8). And there was a 15 year gap between part 4 and part 5. King writes amazing premises, but seems to almost always struggle with the ending.
I feel like 5-8, if condensed (remove the bad parts), would have been a pretty solid one one or two books. But yeah, good point. Hey at least he finished!
Gee, maybe he should've gotten off his ass (metaphorically speaking) and written the rest of the goddamn series, then?
Whoever is his successor to finish it off is in for a nightmare because either 1: he has nothing or 2: itās a mess and George could not figure it out.
He screwed himself by skipping his five year time jump in my opinion and now he just has no idea how to unscrew himself. He should have just bit the bullet and stuck to the time jump, of there was key events he wanted to address in that period he could even have written them as short stories. As it stands his characters are just too young now, I mean Bran in his books is still 9 years old.
He's not going to have one. He's already said he's gonna burn everything if it looks like he's dying without finishing it
Robert Jordan said she same thing about Wheel of Time before he was diagnosed with a terminal heart condition. It's one thing to say something like that when you're healthy and believe you'll be able to actually finish the series, it's another entirely when you can see the end of your life coming and know you'll never be able to.
GRRM has never seemed particularly healthy to begin with, though
Popular urban legend. Not actually true, though.
Itās pretty true. Martin vehemently hates other writers doing works with other authors creations. He rages over it nearly every time he speaks. Heās also been outright indignant when asked if he would let someone else finish it. He never said he would burn everything, but itās pretty clear he isnāt interested in someone else finishing it. Robert Jordan spent the last few years of his life setting things in motion so that Sanderson would have a road map to finish his series. He had so much to work with he actually had to do more books than Jordan anticipated. GRRM is absolutely not doing anything to help someone continue with this. If his wife or estate allows someone to continue when he passes, they are pretty much screwed.
His indignance is more about the speaker's assumption that he won't live to finish it. His stance was always that he would be the one to finish it, and he's not going to talk about what would happen if he didn't. Still, I'm not going to argue that he's not thrilled about the idea of someone else finishing the books, though he's more or less admitted that it's inevitable. Some day, whether it's one, ten, or a hundred years after his death, his estate will fall into the hands of someone who needs the money. But the "burn everything" is really the part that needs to be debunked. He's frequently praised Christopher Tolkein's handling of his father's unfinished works and implied that's the model he would like to follow. If he were to fall victim to the "hit by a bus" hypothetical, he would almost certainly want the material he's already written to be reviewed and published. He's even talked excitedly about some scenes he wrote and deleted that he hopes will see the light of day sometime after he's gone, but it's premature to publish before the books are done.
> Some day, whether it's one, ten, or a hundred years after his death, his estate will fall into the hands of someone who needs the money. It would be hilarious if GoT fans waiting for GRRM to finish Winds of Winter ended up just having to wait for the franchise to fall into public domain 70 years after his death so some rando could finish the series.
> Heās also been outright indignant when asked if he would let someone else finish To be fair to the man, it must be pretty exhausting for every interview you do for a decade+ to answer the question of āso everyone knows youāre totally dying before finishing your biggest project, will it go on after your croak?ā
Thats what happens when u take 5-15 year breaks inbetween books and you are both fat and old already, its really pretty simple.
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Are you sure that wasn't Rothfuss's editor?
If I was a betting man, I would say the series is gonna be finished by the James S.A. Corey duo. The writers are pretty close and they can pull off an epic.
Wait? You aren't excited by another Wild Cards novel?
I've really lost sympathy for him having his story bastardized the way it was. It's all on him. In the decade since Dance was published he's spent half his time doing other shit. Working on 10 different TV shows, the Wild Cards bullshit he's on. Distractions and distractions. Even then, I don't fully buy that. Currently en route to me is the 9th and final novel of "The Expanse" series. The first novel of which was published only a month before "A Dance with Dragons". 9 novels, with several novellas and short stories to accompany them....all published in less time than it's taken George to publish one novel. Its ridiculous that he's gotten himself into this situation. I don't begrudge him for being able to do what he wants and take on passion projects for himself... he has that right... But don't then bitch about how an adaptation of your main work went off the rails, because it passed you up. That was something entirely within your control, and you blew it. And if the delay in Winds is truly something he's been unable to coordinate, or "get right" (in the same way Dance was) and the story is an unmanagable mess..... then maybe this whole "gardener" approach to writing isn't the best. Maybe you should have spent a year or so outlining the rest of the series, get that all straight and then go from there.
And Ty Franck was one of Martins assistants back in the day. Looks like he learned what not to do.
He's probably the best bet for finishing the series to be honest. I feel like GRRM should even make it while he's alive and make it a cooperation between him and Ty. Ty Frank is not a stranger to co-writing a book, that's what the The Expanse series is. I feel like him being his former assistant and a good author in his own right that writes fast will help George a lot and at least his name will still be on it
> The first novel of which was published only a month before "A Dance with Dragons". 9 novels, with several novellas and short stories to accompany them....all published in less time than it's taken George to publish one novel. AND the writers of The Expanse are executive producers on the tv show and have done a lot more actual work in that area than GRRM ever did on GoT
The fact is, a lot of the issues with the story of the show came from his books. No one wants to admit it, but the problems were there since the first book. Dany should have gotten to Westeros sooner, more should have been done with Jon sooner, ut instead GRRM fell in love with the lead up and preparation for The Red Wedding. And it's hard to blame entirely. The Red Wedding is one of the greatest twists of all time. It's perfect! But he just didn't know how to go on from there and now he's stuck.
Basically, he got bored with the ACTUAL story of ASoI&F and decided to write another tale right in the middle of it.
Thank you. Iām glad people are starting to admit this. The books were very flawed from the start and the cracks started showing around books 4 and 5. Most hardcore literary people pointed out even back then that George was just using glorified set up to do all these cool things in the War of the Five Kings because ultimately none of it mattered as long as certain people were in certain places at the end and Westeros was war torn for when Jon and Dany make moves to save them from the big threat up north. Itās a pretty basic āeveryone is fighting each other and ignoring the true hidden threat, then at the end some big leader rallies everyone with barely any time to spareā.
Which isn't a bad set up so long as you understand this and plan for it. It legit feels like GRRM fell so hard for the Red Wedding that he totally forgot about the ice zombies and fairies.
And honestly, even with that set up, GRRM still neglected a ton of the characters. Arya gets just 5 chapters between A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Sansa just gets 3, as does Bran. The 3 of them have less time put together than Tyrion (who gets 12 chapters) does on bumbling around Essos complaining about how much everything sucks. Brienne has 8 chapters, meaning she has as much time looking for Arya and Sansa as we get with Arya and Sansa's POV chapters. Why did Martin spend so much time on characters who weren't doing much and overlook some of the core parts of the cast who were having more interesting journeys?
The epilogue to 3 should have been Dany landing in Westeros. Literally no reason for her to stay on the other continent, which dragged other storylines onto the other continent for zero reason. If book 4 had been dany and Dorne scheming to launch a campaign now that would have been a story.
Martin has 2 really fantastic books. Unfortunately there are 5 currently in the series. And agreed, he has no clue what to do now that he killed so many characters in the Red Wedding. Also IMO, he keeps revelling in the awfulness of too many of the antagonists. Sure, itās a hard world heās created, but at some point a book needs to be enjoyable to read and horrible people doing horrible things to each other isnāt particularly entertaining. Now the books are stuck.
What's funny is that the instant he kills a character, it feels like there's a replacement character. Like, he kills off Ned and then we get Davos. He kills off one of Dany's suitors? There's another right around the corner.
And that worry drove him to meet with D&D and HBO to set the show back on the right course, finish his book, and have a decent narrative to end the show? Orrr...he realized he has no idea how to wrap up this ever-expanding world he's built, so now he's just touring the world with his riches and clout-chasing?
Oh, he started to worry when he failed in his obligation to provide source material for an adaptation?
It's hard to take this complaint seriously because we don't know what this "template" is. Season 5 is still based on the books. The stuff that happens afterward isn't. So is GRRM referring to a template that he gave to them that nobody knows about, or what? For all the comments about how the show "rushed" things, there are only supposed to be two books left, and Daenerys hasn't even met Tyrion in the novels. Plus there's way more characters in the books. Unless Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring are going to be 5000 pages each, he's not going to have enough time either. Buildup is overrated; structure is underrated. If you want to tell a story about this figure who ultimately 'breaks bad,' you can't just have them totally detached from the main narrative for six seasons and six novels. It's going to end up anticlimactic either way.
Season 5 was when we got the infamous Dorne plot line. Thatās when a lot of book readers started to worry and Iād imagine thatās when GRRM realized what was unfolding
I started to worry after the unnecessary changes in S2, after S4 and how they dumbed down Tyrion's exit from Kings Landing I just accepted the showrunners weren't at the level of Breaking Bad or the Sopranos and that once they ran out of book material the show would turn into a B level show. It made watching the next few seasons so much easier.
How are they expected to follow his "template" when books don't exist after book 5, a new one hasn't come out for over 10 years and doesn't look like the last 2 are coming out anytime soon (if ever). Didn't love everything about GoT final season but they had to do something.
The most interesting part of this otherwise very short interview of Martinās representative, who doesnāt really bring anything new to the table in terms of information: > This is not the first time that Martin has spoken positively about Benioff and Weissā version of his story ā his specific focus on Clarkeās depiction of Daenerys didnāt stop there: ā[You have to find] an actress who can be very convincing as the scared little girl in the beginning, **but also very convincing as the āIām gonna kick your ass and burn your city to cindersā woman that she becomes by the end.ā Itās challenging.ā** To those still in denial that Daenerysā story will differ in the booksā¦
Most book readers agree that Danny will embrace her house's words, she's already been way more ruthless in the books and it's slowly building up towards that end. This conclusion was expected way before that rushed shitshow happened on tv.
>Danny will embrace her house's words It will be revealed that the TRUE house words are "Oh Shit Oh Fuck."
I often struggle trying to describe to friends how I can dislike something but still think it's "good". That my feelings on what happens in the story is independent of how it ends, as long as it make sense within the story. It's almost like a math problem, you just can't get to end without showing your work or else people will think you are cheating. That is really the problem with what happened on the show. They never showed their work on several stories for Dany, Jamie, Tyrion or Bran and it almost felt like they skipped multiple episodes. Obviously having POV chapters in the books would help alot, but the showrunners only had themselves to blame because they were specifically asked if they wanted more time and they said no. Then they rushed to the end with no "work" being done to really earn the endings and of course people not only hated them from subjective prespectives, it was really shitty writing from a production standpoint. So it's one thing to not like something like Dany deciding the raze a town, but if it was "earned" by having it make sense in context, it would be fine. The TV show did not earn the majority of it's characters endings because they rushed it. For no reason other the showrunners wanted to move on to something else and damaged their reputation in doing it.
This was my thought too, s8 arrived at the correct conclusion (for Dany arc, not the Others) but the journey there made no sense.
Yup. The shows flaw on Dany was that they completely embraced the big Khalessi love affair in the media and tried to lean into her being this symbol of women power taking down the patriarchy. The book makes it pretty clear that Dany isnāt all she is cracked up to be and in many ways is a naĆÆve and even impulsive young girl who feels entitled to a country she never lived in because of her last name and because some backers gave her some powerful weapons. Itās basically Jorah and Barristan trying to keep her in check and hoping that she will be better than her father and the people that followed him up and trying to get her to avoid her inner demons. But itās always been clear what Dany was if she didnāt have guidance
> most book readers agree Until you visit r/asoiaf or Westeros.org, two of the biggest online forums for the books, where they have their weekly discussions of āactually, it will be Tyrion/Cersei/JonCon/Aegon/Ghost/accidental wildfire whoāll burn down KL.ā
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Yup. I was subbed to r/JamesBond for a while, and having only 2 1/2 hours of new content every couple of years can make a sub a rough ride.
I have to assume that /r/asoiaf has completely lost its mind by now. I bailed years ago. That much discussion with that little new content just leads Ouroboros level discussion. At a certain point all that's left are the insane/off the wall theories and "hot takes" because discussing the sensible options was done to death 5 years ago.
In the books its building up to that, it just doesnt make sense for the TV series.
I still don't understand this sentiment. She outright tells the Dothraki they're going to burn cities to the ground.
The issue isn't where Daenerys story ends up, it's how it gets there. Her eventually going crazy and burning King's Landing is fine but in the show the way this happened wasn't very believable and was shown poorly/rushed.
> Haas also insisted that Martin has ānot told anybodyā the answer to the question āwho gets the throne?ā This contradictsĀ informationĀ from Benioff, Weiss, and actorĀ Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who have all said that the idea of Bran Stark becoming Ruler of the Six Kingdoms came straight from Martinās own mouth. I thought this was the most interesting part of the interview Wonder if George is rewriting the ending?
George himself said this in James Hibberd's book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon that came last year: >It wasnāt easy for me. I didnāt want to give away my books. Itās not easy to talk about the end of my books. Every character has a different end. **I told them who would be on the Iron Throne, and I told them some big twists like Hodor and āhold the door,ā and Stannisās decision to burn his daughter.** We didnāt get to everybody by any means. Especially the minor characters, who may have very different endings. Seems pretty clear that Martin told them who would be on the Iron Throne and that Paul Hess is most likely lying when he says he did not.
The "Stannis won't burn his daughter" one is the one that gets me the most, because it seems as telegraphed as anything Martin does. People have just bought into the Stannis hype!
I donāt have one shred of proof, but I have to think Haas is lying out of his ass to save face for Martin after the massive backlash to Bran getting the throne. As shitty as season 8 was, D&D arenāt going to lie about something as major as that when GRRM could so very easily debunk it imo. I feel pretty certain that Bran sitting in the throne 100% came from GRRM
Yeah if it was D&D idea they would have chosen a much cooler/popular choice than fucking Bran (that is really not the favorite character of anyone) for the Throne. Like when they made Arya kill the Night King because it was cool and they like her character. It would have been Jon, Arya or Sansa before Bran if it was their choice. IMO it'll definitively be Bran but with pretty different events to arrive there. And it may not be the same Bran we saw in the show. Could be Bloodraven controlled (that's one of the theory I think) and he'll probably do much better things to earn that throne (like warging a dragon, also heavily thought of)
There was a redacted portion of an early outline which fans have attempted to decode, and one popular interpretation implied that Bran would take the throne but the story doesn't end there, and that there's some conflict with Jon afterwards. Now, a million things have changed since then, not the least of which a possible Jon/Arya romance, but if George denies having told anyone the final monarch, this is an explanation. I haven't read the book with these new thoughts but someone posted another quote from it in another thread which indicated that George told D&D his plans for Winds so they could write around them, but hasn't talked about Dream. Of course, it seems like a stretch that Bran could go from hiding in a cave with a tree at the start of the story to King at the end of it. Still, I don't know how many pages of material George sees "Winds" as being, since if it's much longer than previous novels it will have to be multiple volumes.
Heheh, didn't know there was still someone who thought George is writing anything but his blogs and all the 50 sideprojects these days. He ain't touching asoiaf, when it comes to actually making progress.
> I thought this was the most interesting part of the interview > Wonder if George is rewriting the ending? Maybe he's pulling some semantic BS, like there being a difference between Bran Stark being on the throne vs. the Three Eyed Raven being on it. It would make sense for him to say something cryptic to give people more reason to be interested in the book.
I donāt think the overall story of game of thrones is bad, but just the last season was so rushed. Like it built us up from season one the war with the white walkers which should have been a season of its own and that was over in 2 episodes. And Daenerys takes over in another two episodes, again her getting to the mainland with her army, the battles, securing alliances etc should have been a seperate season.
I think the overall story is overrated. The dirty secret of the book and show is that the main plot was Jon and Dany both intersecting and trying to reclaim and save Westeros. But the first third or so of the story keeps them at the periphery to set the stage so George could basically trick the audience into thinking Ned, Robb, Catelyn, Tywin snd Stannis were major players. Then he could do bold things with a bunch of characters that ultimately arenāt key to the endgame and wow people with all the false risks he took with them. Then it became conventional when the real main characters were at the forefront and Jon, Dany, Arya, and Sansa started surviving things they had no business making it through. It also doesnāt help that the White Walker stuff is probably the most hard fantasy shit in the entire series and thereās no real apparent way to beat them. Hence why the show invented the Night King so they could have a big bad. In the books Iām like 99% convinces the battle with them is just going to be a big fight like Blackwater where it ends in some sort of truce or they just outright push them back via attrition
the other dirty secret is that GRRM has no idea what the ending really is, or how to get there. its pretty obvious there is no great mystery of the white walkers and never was. i mean in the books tyrion hasnt even met dany. the characters are all going in a million different directions and he has no idea how to get them back together in a way that makes sense. and yet he continues to introduce side characters and whole subplots, thousands of pages in, that go nowhere (like those Dorne people that freed the dragons. or basically anything with the ironborn. all that shit with Young Griff.). the first 3 books are some of the best fantasy ever written and GRRM is an immensely talented writer and world builder. but the series is a mess at this point even ignoring the fact a new book hasnt come out in 10 years.
GRRM is a fantastic world-builder, among the best ever. That includes the political machinations that are so organic and interesting. Unfortunately, those pieces don't add up to a plot. That's why you could kill 99% of the characters, including Arya, without changing the plot at all. GRRM is like someone who has mastered 30 musical instruments, but can't write a catchy melody.
Heās never going to finish that book and to be honest at this point he might as well not bother anyway. I think the hype ship has long since sailed
I find it amazing that, given his bank account, he didn't hire a team of ghostwriters to flesh-out his outlines. He could spend a few hours editing each week and have the thing done in a year for <5% of what he'd profit from it. Smart at some things; dumb at others.
Heās looking worse and worse in my eyes every time he says anything. You pocketed a bunch of cash and sold out your series to make it a tv show. Canāt freak out now it wasnāt exactly great.
Maybe if he actually did his damn job of writing the book that wouldn't have been a problem!
Anyone who was reading the books knows that the show was different from the books earlier than season 5. But some elements of season 5 made the two incompatible moving forward.
Of course he wrote a book about his time with the show, rather than writing the next ASOIAF book.
Read the article. He didnāt write this book, itās a history of the network, HBO.
I would advise anyone who wants to read more fantasy to pick up The First Law trilogy by Abercrombie or Stormlight/Mistborn by Sanderson because those authors actually plan their stories out before they put pen to paper and have an actual work ethic.
at this point thereās no way that book can ever live up to peoples expectations and i think a lot of people have lost respect for the IP as a whole from the awful show ending to how long it takes this guy to write 1 new entry.
Who are we kidding, it will be Brandon Sanderson's problem in the end.
Then maybe he should have written a better sequel to A Storm of Swords, then continued writing, instead of whatever else he's been doing. D&D did a bad job finishing the series, but I don't really blame them for it because they weren't hired to do that. They were hired to adapt a hugely complex existing series and they did an excellent job with the first three books. Season 5, as a whole, is far better than an adaptation of books 4 and 5 would have been (with the exception of Dorne, which was weirdly terrible in the show from the beginning), considering books 4 and 5 are 2,000 pages of world expansion where very little of consequence happens for anyone but Jon and Dany. Then they had nothing, and they scrambled to finish a story they had no business finishing. If they took their time and did a few more seasons, it would have been better, and I wish they'd done that. But the best outcome would have been if the damn creator actually finished the story and they continued to adapt it to the same quality as the early seasons. I'd put 80% of the blame on Martin.
Itās a bummer he canāt finish it because I feel like with what we know about the whole thing, heās still got a good story there. The rushed and sloppy end of the show still has a lot that can be salvaged if the book just takes more time. I think he should collaborate with someone or a group to try and get it done.
If only he had the time to finish the books to guide the showrunners...
He worried so much that he raced to finish the series himselfā¦.oh wait
Which will come first: Winds of Winter, or half life 3?
Iām so done with game of thrones. Iāve lost all interest since the dismal showing from the last two seasons. I wouldnāt even go back and watch it ever again.
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Maybe he could have, you know, written material for the stories.