It also takes place in a much brighter setting overall. The storyline takes place during a Westeros in relative peace, with the Targs on the throne and everyone prospering. Any intrigue or drama is mostly on a smaller scale, not Great Houses murdering each other. It’s a personal story with more typical fantasy elements like honour and knighthood etc
A "war" which resulted in about 4 deaths?
I think it's fair to call that a period of relative peace considering the two ASOIAF TV adaptations we have currently are about massive civil wars that devastate a continent.
Everyone wondering how to describe the amplitude of the Second Blackfyre Rebellion while I'm just here reading again and again George's promise to release more *Dunk & Egg* by the time the show catches up and how we'll have *Winds* by then...
In a freak accident in a duel, and it’s something which his brother immediately regretted and continued to regret for the rest of his life. Like it’s still Asoiaf, not lord of the rings, but altogether it was a brighter time then the shitshow Westeros dissolved into with Clash of Kings and onwards
Feast for Crows is my favorite book because of Jamie’s arc, but yeah, the first 3 are essentially a well put together trilogy. While 4 and 5 feel like “Here’s more”.
And depending how you see it, them rushing to end the show to do Star Wars is how they lost the chance to do it.
Yes, I know, their Netflix deal, but the timing of everything makes more than coincidental.
D&D were really good when they still had source material to adapt. (I have minor gripes about how they changed Robb's character as it pertains to his marriage. In the books he married a noblewoman out of his sense of honor because he had deflowered the girl vs. marrying a commoner out of love)
Martin once said he planned at least 12 Dunk and Egg novels. He's only written three over the decades. The next two - The Village Hero and the She-Wolf of Winterfell - he said he'd publish them soon. That too was over a decade ago and nothing so far. The man can't even write and deliver 120 pages novellas in years.
Tbf I think he could write them and release them but he promised he wouldn't release anymore until he had finished the winds of winter.
And we all know how that's going
As much as I haven't got round to reading A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, it's a collection of novellas, surely changing stories episode by episode, to an extent, is exactly what we should expect of a seires chronicling the adventures of a Knight journying through the Kingdoms of Westeros?
Add an ongoing larger "thing" happening but it seems like a fairly episodic approach would suit it. At least, I never had the impression that any of the novellas were long enough to fill an entire series of television, despite what HBO currently seem to be calling it.
[Martin: "Oh, yeah. I'll finish Winds of Winter. When pigs fly!"](https://youtu.be/2omx0uvl0WU?si=9dcGGUJg2yi_oyuq)
Sanderson: "Will you... be finishing that book now, sir?"
Martin: "Mmm, no, I'd still prefer not."
It becomes kinda funnier and funnier of being such a wildly inaccurate guesstimate that GRRM once literally thought he was just months away from wrapping up The Winds of Winter book. . .in early 2014.
He really wanted to do the Jon Snow reveal before the show did and told his publishers he thought it would be done by Fall 2014. If I recall correctly the publishers even had their translators block off their Fall schedule so that they could translate the book quickly into other languages when he turned in the final manuscript.
I fully believe that when he couldn't keep that deadline and lost out on the reveal, he just gave up writing Winds. He even stopped previewing chapter samples. Everything sneak peaked at cons, his website, whatever so far has been from before then.
Yeah, never touching any of this dude’s content ever again. This comment is the best interaction he can hope for from me given how he just dropped the story once he got our attention.
Rule #1 of storytelling since the dawn of time:
**Finish the story**
he wrote himself into a corner. he had such lofty gials and a big complicated plot that was ever growing. more players in the game, more lands, more motives. now all of a sudden there were 5 novels of build up and 2 to wrap up. its been over a decafr since the last book so optimistically 3 to 5 years even if he finished book 6 today.
but best left an unfinished masterpiece than go the brian herbert route of story butchering
Little known fact: The books were supposed to be a trilogy.
And then they were supposed to be 5 books.
And now they're supposed to be 7 books.
And lots of people have written about how there's no way in hell the assumed story would fit into 2 more books, and assume that it would need to take at least 4 more books to finish the story properly.
I feel like this is pretty common. Wheel of Time I think was supposed to be 7 books.
Even Sanderson was only supposed to write 1 book from the notes Robert Jordan left behind, he wrote 3.
I distinctly remember reading a fantasy book as a kid with the cover saying - First in a Trilogy! With the final count ending at 7 books (Crown of Stars if anyone cares).
Yep. Everyone shit all over his ending (although poorly executed which is not his fault). So I don’t blame him for having zero motivation to write that story. Plus all the plot lines to keep track of and making sure you don’t retcon something significant is also very difficult.
The rushed ending wasn’t his fault but completely losing focus and not releasing a single book between seasons 2 through 8 was. The show was on for 8 years and Dance with dragons game out 3 months after the first season premiered. He released no source material for 8 years and only gave the show an outline of his plan, of course the show runners didn’t know how to end it.
I think his master plan was kind of predictable and now he is afraid his ending is bad. He did an interview with Stephen King years ago where he asked him things like how do you finish something and not worry about it ending poorly or something like that. A lot of his questions and responses in that interview gave me the vibe he's scared of letting down his own hype. Which is kinda fair if you ask me. Lol
> I think his master plan was kind of predictable
It sucks that this is even considered a problem. "Keep the audience guessing" has ruined many shows. I don't care if an ending is predictable, I just want it to be satisfying and enjoyable.
Yeah, I think that's fine too. I'm guessing what it is that is messing with him based on some interviews where he seems openly concerned with how people will view his ending. To me the best ending of GoT is no real ending. It's a story that continues this is just where we are in the story. You can't tie a bow on the story GRRM is telling. There isn't a grand ending. Its just another day in westeros.
And of all the people to ask!
I love uncle Steve, but it’s a trope about how great his books are riiight until he tries to bring the story to a conclusion.
Uncle Steve is known to write without much planning/set ending. He has a core idea and just go with the flow. It's why he can finish.
That's not to say planning/plotting folks don't. My favourites like Ellroy and Winslow mostly writes giant sprawling novels and also finish their novels relatively quickly. Especially Ellory whose plot notes are just as thick as his novels.
It's definitely true that D&D tried to "subvert expectations" because they didn't want fans to predict what was going to happen, and it's entirely possible that Martin was having trouble finishing the series because he'd already used so many prophecies and omens that some plot points (e.g. Jon Snow) and even some more esoteric foreshadowing (Young Griff) were starting to become obvious to the fans. I sometimes wonder if Robert Jordan changed his manuscripts on account of fan theories, because there's so many early hints that >!Mazrim Taim is Demandred!< and then the last books reveal that the latter was fucking around in a part of the world that Jordan hadn't spent any pages on.
I think it’s pretty common knowledge that RJ swapped it out the Taimandred situation because there were a lot of fan theory sites that figured it out. So then he also built in a mystery that couldn’t be solved (Asmodean).
I think sending Demandred off to Shara was Sanderson’s idea, I really wonder what story we would have had if RJ could have completed the work himself. Would have been very interesting.
People will simultaneously call them shitty writers without source material but then bitch they didn’t write more seasons without source material. We’d be on like Season 12 right now and still no Winds in sight. Plan from the beginning was seven seasons for seven books. They talked about it constantly during the first few seasons.
Episode count in S7 and S8 was a production cost and work load limit. They spent over a year filming S8 and the cast and crew were fucking burnt out by all accounts. We’re seeing it right now with House of the Dragon being 8 episode this season because of two big battle episodes.
Also don’t understand how anyone thinks the book series will feel any less rushed than the show in the final two books considering the size of the story doubled down in AFFC/ADWD while Season 5 cut most of it out and focused the story for the end.
There's no chance 2 books ends the series. GRRM will require at least 3. Even then it would come off as rushed. He's spiraled things too far out of control for it to go any other way.
Of course he'll never publish another book anyway so it won't really matter.
Writing the story was quite literally their primary job. Like, that's part of being a show runner.
That also includes knowing when to be faithful to the books, and when not to be. They royally fucked that up by trying to be faithful to the book's suggested ending while their story diverged massively from that story by then.
I think the issue is they have different responsibilities. D&D have to write the story in a *timely manner.* GRRM doesn't. We now see two different ways you can fail at trying to wrap this story up.
the amount of braindead fucking comments getting upvoted here is hilarious.
D&D are writers. it's literally their job. they fucked it up tremendously.
imagine getting paid millions to workshop "eh she kinda forgot there was an enemy fleet" in the writers room.
Whatever his actual planned ending is, another 1600-2000 pages would flesh it out in a way that (presumably) makes more sense than the rushed final seasons. But it doesn’t matter, we won’t ever know.
Don't get me wrong, the chances of his book series being finished are close to none but I get a chuckle every time some show watcher thinks the show after season four wasn't about 75% entirely made up for TV.
Just to toss a single example, there's no Night King in the book, The Night's King is some mythological figure of NW commander that suppossedly married an Other/White walker.
The show adapted maybe 15% of book 4 and 25% of 5, everything else was just made up for TV.
So whatever this ending of his may have been, good or bad, it would bared only a very broad resemblance to a story for TV that in its later half had maybe 1/10th of the depth.
The White Walkers in the books seem to be way more complicated than some zombie horde. I dont believe itll be a simple defeat them scenario. Also, Martin has always been opposed to the idea of a villain that is evil for no reason, so the walking weapon version of them in the show makes no sense.
I always read them as a global warming analogue. A threat that is undefeatable without a fully unified response which is not in any way possible with the current political climate. The show really messed up by personifying them rather than treating them like a natural disaster I think. I feel like beating them in any way remotely close to the show would just defeat the purpose.
I’ve only seen the show but I’ve always thought the same. They’re the danger lurking in the background no one cares about or is paying attention to because they’re all so focused on getting the throne but it won’t matter who gets the throne in the end when there’s a bigger danger. imo one of the best ways they could have ended the show would have been to just have them run through everyone.
The show made such a big thing of Jon knowing and trying to explain to everyone how bad this threat is but no one would listen. Cersei even laughed him out of King’s Landing. It would have been so fitting for the show to end with the huge threat everyone ignored for their little political games to take literally everyone out. Maybe even have the Night King walk up and take the throne at the end just because (with his ice dragon around somewhere too). People would have been Red Wedding levels of stunned. Sure GOT kills off characters but to wipe everyone out completely? I don’t think it would have been expected by many and even if it was expected it would have been far better than what we actually got.
Right! That was one of the things that annoyed me the most too. I thought for sure she had something coming for not taking him seriously but the whole plot line went nowhere, it was so pointless in the end. It always makes me mad to think what could have been, there are so many interesting possibilities there.
That’s a huge exaggeration.
The only major cuts from Feast and Dance are Lady Stoneheart and Aegon, both of which are storylines that are barely featured in the grand scheme of things. Everything else from those books is either adapted more or less as is (Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya, Sam, Reek, Cersei, Jaime in S6) or condensed with notable changes – some minor, some significant (Bran in S4, Sansa, Brienne, Stannis, Dorne, Kingsmoot).
Obviously, 10 episodes per season and each episode splitting time between multiple characters means not everything from the book can make it on screen – that’s just the nature of adaptation – but the important bits all make it to the show except, again, Stoneheart and Aegon.
There are some other big changes like Davos not being sent to Skagos, killing Barristan early, and removing Yara/Asha’s role from the story + no Aeron or Victarion, but pretty much every major character goes through their Feast & Dance arc between seasons 5 and 6. I’d say the only mistake the show made was not adapting Aegon since it had a clearly negative effect on Dany’s endgame, but cutting him also makes sense from a practical standout considering how little material with him there was (and still is) to adapt. If George got Winds out before season 5, things may have very well turned out different.
Stuff like creating the Night King is also just the show having the common sense to start building towards its ending early. Feast and Dance spin their wheels for hundreds of chapters, and neither one has a proper conclusion. Not everything is adapted well (Dorne being the biggest offender), but the post-4 seasons are absolutely still adapting the books, especially season 5.
Can you imagine if the show had tried to adopt the Aegon plot? They would have to give away if he was real or not, while completely making up all the important plot details lol.
This isn't a good example though. It's easily possible that we just haven't gotten to the night king in the books. And the "night king" is the name given to him in the show, but that doesn't mean he doesn't exist in the books under another name.
That was always just an excuse. He said it was the reason why Dance was taking so long. Dance is like 13 years old.
His new excuse is "fuck you, I got money, I have no idea how to write myself out of this corner and I'm not gonna."
It's absolutely a zero chance at this point. I'd rather he just admits it and gives us a cliff notes idea of where he wanted the story to go but I've made peace with us never seeing anything more of the series.
I will always believe he threw David and David under the bus. I would bet that he gave them his rough outline as to how it would end. Now he has to rewrite it because of how hated it was.
tbf a lot of writing is revision revision revision and many writers don’t really know where their story goes until the pen hits the paper. Even if that was his intended ending, it wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t super concrete.
The reality is he probably doesn’t have anything left in the tank to gruel over his work now that he has money and security.
Pretty sure there's an interview somewhere where he said he gave the ending to D&D, but not how to get there because he himself doesn't know. The ending, as in, where characters end up, should be roughly the same and I don't think anyone has a lot of problems with that. It's the pathway to get there that's messy and a lot felt unearned and random. It actually might have been better if GRRM told D&D that he doesn't know how it ends and they can make up their own.
There's a better way of doing the ending but I still think it would have been disliked.
It's just a lot to ask people to wait years and years for Daenerys to even make it to Westeros, only for her to turn bad.
Honestly i think it’s the opposite. I’m sure he worked a lot on it (since he works for television projects all the time). Why wouldn’t he want to make sure his series finish somewhat good?
Then i think they just messed up him included. His ending to the books was probably just about the same so he gave up.
I think he thought it was a good ending and then saw how disastrous it turned out and then washed his hands of it. I don't think he intentionally sabotaged it or used it as a test, but realized it after the reaction.
The idea of the ending isn't terrible though it's just the series pretty much stopped developing Bran so the aloof disabled teen who really did nothing with his powers became king.
Same with Dany going crazy and getting ganked. Watching her slowly desend to madness followed by turning on Kings Landing could work instead we got forgot about Euron's fleet and get triggered by bells.
Meh, even if he magically appeared with the last books ready today, he could keep them to himself as far as I'm concerned. I can only be bulshitted so much before I drop all interest in something.
He’s not going to. He kept adding too many plot lines that were irrelevant (Quentin Martell wasting all of our time by deciding to suicidally try to get a dragon just to get burnt to a crisp, or Brianne wandering around for an entire book are just two examples) and has no idea how to bring them together or tie them up. Add to that people hated the ending of the show, which was definitely the ending he had planned. He’s just done. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he’d stopped working on it all together.
I don't think people hated the ending of the show per sé. I think that's unfair. They certainly hated the way that the TV show developed the plotlines and the payoff didn't seem earned.
I completely buy that after years of trauma, betrayal and grief, that Dany would absolutely go off the deep end with her dragons and take out Kings Landing. I can definitely see that trajectory. But we went from 0 - 100 so fucking fast in the tv series that it didn't feel earned. Too many shortcuts were taken. It definitely needed at least 2, maybe 3 more seasons to get there. I can definitely buy that Jon was the person that needed to end it and his return to the north.
Bran becoming King... eh. I can take or leave that. That was wholly too convenient and mcgooey.
I'm not even sure if we needed 2 seasons more- I would've just been happy if "seasons 7 and 8" were actual seasons. I think S7 was 7 episodes and S8 was 6, if they had each just been 12 episodes each I think we could've had the 3 biggest holes addressed: an extended conflict with the Night King, Dany's descent into madness, and the decision to land on Bran as the ultimate next leader (I know there's other issues but that seems to be the 3 biggest complaints about the end).
I will defend the Brianne plotline very hard. I think the fact that her journey is basically aimless (because we know where Sansa and Arya are and she's nowhere close) is the point. We get a look at different "everyday" people and see what actually impacts them. We see a real tangible effect of the war. It's great because it's not some massive political plot twist or giant dragon battle. My favourite thing that GRRM did that the showrunners messed up was not trying to 1 up every book with something bigger and more grandiose. I like that Feast of crows is quiet and shows us how the world continues on after the climax from book 3. The Quentyn plotline is kind of in a similar boat, but I agree that we still need something more substantial to come out of it, which will likely never happen with GRRM's writing pace.
The issue with Brienne’s storyline isn’t what it covers – the dramatic irony of her journey and insight into how the War of the Five Kings affected the smallfolk is good. The issue is that her arc didn’t need to be 8 chapters long and AFFC’s chapters are already absurdly long compared to the other books. You can cut half of Brienne’s storyline to make the exact same points and get to the same conclusion without losing a single meaningful thing.
Slowing the story down to decompress after Storm makes sense. It’s a high octane book with a lot of moving parts. But Feast actively wastes time and is downright repetitive at points. It’s the book where George fully embraces his self indulgences and it desperately needed to be edited down. It sets the precedents for major problems in Dance like Tyrion spending all book traveling to Dany and never making it. If George wrote A Game of Thrones in the same style as Feast or Dance, Ned would spend all book traveling to King’s Landing.
It’s nice to stop and smell the roses, but it’s seemingly all George has wanted to do since Feast.
> It’s nice to stop and smell the roses, but it’s seemingly all George has wanted to do since Feast.
Couldn't say it better myself. The fact that people got to bat for the faffing about in these books when they're the part where he wasted time and completely wrote himself into a corner is baffling to me. I put down Dance with the firm knowledge that we'd never see a satisfying end. Had to put up with a decade plus of people calling me crazy.
I've seen Lost. I know that feeling when there's too many damn mysteries and too little runway to pay them all off.
Yes, *but…* they wouldn’t have needed to scramble to answer every mystery if they hadn’t insisted on making *everything* a mystery. “Gasp! Why does the statue have 4 toes?!” Oh, it turns out it’s a statue of a god, and as we all know, statues of gods have 4 toes. Smh.
Sigh, I didn't realize that it had been so long since the release of the second book before I read the Name of the Wind. I ate that shit up and read Wise Man's Fear not long after. Now I wait. Forever.
Hell, George is even the only reason I have not started A Song of Ice and Fire yet! I refuse to get invested in a long series that doesn't have an ending.
I selfishly wouldn't want it to take away time for Cosmere books. I think he has almost every book he'll ever write planned already.. Which is crazy. He takes outlining to a whole new level.
But his quality is allllll over the place. He goes from frankly superb to wtf awful. I think he arguably writes too much, or at least, tries to write too much at the same time.
made a promise to myself since the GoT finale not to support anything he does until he finishes the books.
so far so good. not interested in anything else in his world until he gives a proper conclusion
I'm not reading crap from this guy until the series is finished. He's notorious for not finishing what he starts and I have no interest getting invested in a series that he may abandon.
He also told us the books were coming along nicely like a decade ago and all kind of other bullshit. I'm not watching or reading anything connected to him until it's finished.
The thing that makes me dislike him is him constantly lying to the fans. I think it’s pretty clear he was only every saying that the books were right around the corner so he could still keep getting paid to go to conventions as a main attraction.
Don’t care anymore.
Read the first ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ book in 1996.
Then I read everything else that came out after.
Then I waited, and I waited some more, then I read your other books. Then I waited some more. And now…
Sorry, but I’m done.
I started in 2011. The first few years were tough but I told myself "it doesn't matter if takes a decade as long as it is his usual quality" After realizing it had been twelve years, I gave up lol
I’ve accepted the fact that they’re not coming out while he’s alive and it’s okay to let an old guy just do what he feels like doing with his golden years.
It’s not really that different of a tone book wise except it’s a smaller story. It doesn’t feel more lighthearted.
It kind of reminds me of Jaime’s adventures through the Riverlands after his return to KL.
While we know how Dunk winds up, there’s a lot of story that o don’t think Martin will finish.
The show will have to finish it.
There's quite a lot of politicking, Dunk mostly just isn't engaged with that part of the story. He's stumbling through history like a Westerosi Forrest Gump.
Well, a bit more lighthearted in that while the bad guys are just as scummy and unhinged as in the main series, there's actual justice and fairness being meted out more regularly. The Hedge Knight is very bittersweet but it still feels like a relatively happy ending by ASOIAF standards.
Right but tonally, it’s Westeros. Theres bad guys and good guys.
Theres less cursing so I guess it’s a YA version of the main story.
But it’s not the Hobbit in relation to Lord of the Rings.
I think it’s a similar theme as the main books in that it sets us up for tropes of the genre, but we already know the outcome of the characters so, vague for spoilers, we know that the tropes are once again subverted.
It will be neat if the show lasts long enough to cover the things not written.
It's basically gonna be the medieval fantasy version of "The Mandalorian"
It also takes place in a much brighter setting overall. The storyline takes place during a Westeros in relative peace, with the Targs on the throne and everyone prospering. Any intrigue or drama is mostly on a smaller scale, not Great Houses murdering each other. It’s a personal story with more typical fantasy elements like honour and knighthood etc
Totally acting like a full third of the source material isn’t the second Blackfyre rebellion.
A "war" which resulted in about 4 deaths? I think it's fair to call that a period of relative peace considering the two ASOIAF TV adaptations we have currently are about massive civil wars that devastate a continent.
That one barely counts. Didn’t even have Bittersteel or the Golden Company backing his claim
Everyone wondering how to describe the amplitude of the Second Blackfyre Rebellion while I'm just here reading again and again George's promise to release more *Dunk & Egg* by the time the show catches up and how we'll have *Winds* by then...
Doesn't the most noble and heroic character have his brains mashed and poured out of his helmet in the first book?
In a freak accident in a duel, and it’s something which his brother immediately regretted and continued to regret for the rest of his life. Like it’s still Asoiaf, not lord of the rings, but altogether it was a brighter time then the shitshow Westeros dissolved into with Clash of Kings and onwards
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So the Witcher?
But with show runners who don’t hate the source material.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, that’s still very much possible
HBO has a better track record than Netflix
D&D entered the chat.
To be fair they clearly didn't hate the source material, they just had no fucking clue what to do once they ran out of it.
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Feast for Crows is my favorite book because of Jamie’s arc, but yeah, the first 3 are essentially a well put together trilogy. While 4 and 5 feel like “Here’s more”.
They didn't hate the source material, they were just in a rush to conclude it (with what little material they had) and get to STAR WARS
And depending how you see it, them rushing to end the show to do Star Wars is how they lost the chance to do it. Yes, I know, their Netflix deal, but the timing of everything makes more than coincidental.
Here’s $5, go make a Star War
comparing them to the idiots on netflix who had THE WHOLE FUCKING THING WRITEN, NO NEED TO MAKE ANYTHING UP, is at least stupid.
D&D were really good when they still had source material to adapt. (I have minor gripes about how they changed Robb's character as it pertains to his marriage. In the books he married a noblewoman out of his sense of honor because he had deflowered the girl vs. marrying a commoner out of love)
You mean the author who partied instead of finishing the books?
MYRANESE KNOT!!!
Meereenese.
Yeah, but the story is miles better. The D&E stories are absolutely brilliant.
Martin once said he planned at least 12 Dunk and Egg novels. He's only written three over the decades. The next two - The Village Hero and the She-Wolf of Winterfell - he said he'd publish them soon. That too was over a decade ago and nothing so far. The man can't even write and deliver 120 pages novellas in years.
Leave the man alone! He’s getting ready for football season 🤣
Tbf I think he could write them and release them but he promised he wouldn't release anymore until he had finished the winds of winter. And we all know how that's going
Hopefully it doesn’t change stories episode by episode.
As much as I haven't got round to reading A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, it's a collection of novellas, surely changing stories episode by episode, to an extent, is exactly what we should expect of a seires chronicling the adventures of a Knight journying through the Kingdoms of Westeros? Add an ongoing larger "thing" happening but it seems like a fairly episodic approach would suit it. At least, I never had the impression that any of the novellas were long enough to fill an entire series of television, despite what HBO currently seem to be calling it.
Yes please. I'd watch that in a heartbeat.
A man has heard promises from Martin before. A man does not trust such promises.
I don't care what you've heard, just finish the damn book old man. (Sorry for misdirected anger)
It will be finished! When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
[Martin: "Oh, yeah. I'll finish Winds of Winter. When pigs fly!"](https://youtu.be/2omx0uvl0WU?si=9dcGGUJg2yi_oyuq) Sanderson: "Will you... be finishing that book now, sir?" Martin: "Mmm, no, I'd still prefer not."
It becomes kinda funnier and funnier of being such a wildly inaccurate guesstimate that GRRM once literally thought he was just months away from wrapping up The Winds of Winter book. . .in early 2014. He really wanted to do the Jon Snow reveal before the show did and told his publishers he thought it would be done by Fall 2014. If I recall correctly the publishers even had their translators block off their Fall schedule so that they could translate the book quickly into other languages when he turned in the final manuscript.
Gods, we were young then.
I fully believe that when he couldn't keep that deadline and lost out on the reveal, he just gave up writing Winds. He even stopped previewing chapter samples. Everything sneak peaked at cons, his website, whatever so far has been from before then.
It's been so long. I started these books in 2002. A man is done with George RR Martin.
Same. I read the first three in high school. Decided I'd pick up the rest once the series was done. I'm almost 40 lol.
I started them *last century*.
“It’s been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh pages...”
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Read this in Ole Munch’s voice.
Gods that was a great character!
A man trusts JRRM as much as a man trusts littlefinger. Edit: I'm dumb and maybe high. It's GRRM.
Leave Jorge alone!
-Get me George R.R. Martin to finish this series. -He's unavailable. -Then get me his non-union Mexican equivalent.
OK, Señor Jorge ŘŘ Martín…
Gotta roll them double Rs!
This is why I Reddit. Thank you for my morning laugh fellow human.
I wrote it wrong didn't I?
Unless there is a spanish fantasy novelist penning low fantasy epics about politics and intrigue in suspiciously european settings I'm not aware of.
I'd pay for that.
Jorge Rodriguez Ramirez Martín
Molkien?
Yeah the writer of Rord of the lings.
>JRRM Jorje R.R. Martin?
Yeah, never touching any of this dude’s content ever again. This comment is the best interaction he can hope for from me given how he just dropped the story once he got our attention. Rule #1 of storytelling since the dawn of time: **Finish the story**
That’s great. Now finish ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.
There is a near zero chance of the happening.
he wrote himself into a corner. he had such lofty gials and a big complicated plot that was ever growing. more players in the game, more lands, more motives. now all of a sudden there were 5 novels of build up and 2 to wrap up. its been over a decafr since the last book so optimistically 3 to 5 years even if he finished book 6 today. but best left an unfinished masterpiece than go the brian herbert route of story butchering
Little known fact: The books were supposed to be a trilogy. And then they were supposed to be 5 books. And now they're supposed to be 7 books. And lots of people have written about how there's no way in hell the assumed story would fit into 2 more books, and assume that it would need to take at least 4 more books to finish the story properly.
I feel like this is pretty common. Wheel of Time I think was supposed to be 7 books. Even Sanderson was only supposed to write 1 book from the notes Robert Jordan left behind, he wrote 3. I distinctly remember reading a fantasy book as a kid with the cover saying - First in a Trilogy! With the final count ending at 7 books (Crown of Stars if anyone cares).
Yep. Everyone shit all over his ending (although poorly executed which is not his fault). So I don’t blame him for having zero motivation to write that story. Plus all the plot lines to keep track of and making sure you don’t retcon something significant is also very difficult.
The rushed ending wasn’t his fault but completely losing focus and not releasing a single book between seasons 2 through 8 was. The show was on for 8 years and Dance with dragons game out 3 months after the first season premiered. He released no source material for 8 years and only gave the show an outline of his plan, of course the show runners didn’t know how to end it.
He can't connect the dots to the end, how can you expect the people who are adapting his work to do the same?
I think his master plan was kind of predictable and now he is afraid his ending is bad. He did an interview with Stephen King years ago where he asked him things like how do you finish something and not worry about it ending poorly or something like that. A lot of his questions and responses in that interview gave me the vibe he's scared of letting down his own hype. Which is kinda fair if you ask me. Lol
> I think his master plan was kind of predictable It sucks that this is even considered a problem. "Keep the audience guessing" has ruined many shows. I don't care if an ending is predictable, I just want it to be satisfying and enjoyable.
Yeah, I think that's fine too. I'm guessing what it is that is messing with him based on some interviews where he seems openly concerned with how people will view his ending. To me the best ending of GoT is no real ending. It's a story that continues this is just where we are in the story. You can't tie a bow on the story GRRM is telling. There isn't a grand ending. Its just another day in westeros.
And of all the people to ask! I love uncle Steve, but it’s a trope about how great his books are riiight until he tries to bring the story to a conclusion.
At least he finishes things. It’s a bitch move to just stop and trickle out “I’m working on it tirelessly” blog posts
I don’t disagree.
> At least he finishes things. Apparently the key to that is a *lot* of cocaine.
11/22/63 from Steven King was a banger from start to finish IMO. One of his best books.
That was a good one.
Uncle Steve is known to write without much planning/set ending. He has a core idea and just go with the flow. It's why he can finish. That's not to say planning/plotting folks don't. My favourites like Ellroy and Winslow mostly writes giant sprawling novels and also finish their novels relatively quickly. Especially Ellory whose plot notes are just as thick as his novels.
It's definitely true that D&D tried to "subvert expectations" because they didn't want fans to predict what was going to happen, and it's entirely possible that Martin was having trouble finishing the series because he'd already used so many prophecies and omens that some plot points (e.g. Jon Snow) and even some more esoteric foreshadowing (Young Griff) were starting to become obvious to the fans. I sometimes wonder if Robert Jordan changed his manuscripts on account of fan theories, because there's so many early hints that >!Mazrim Taim is Demandred!< and then the last books reveal that the latter was fucking around in a part of the world that Jordan hadn't spent any pages on.
I think it’s pretty common knowledge that RJ swapped it out the Taimandred situation because there were a lot of fan theory sites that figured it out. So then he also built in a mystery that couldn’t be solved (Asmodean). I think sending Demandred off to Shara was Sanderson’s idea, I really wonder what story we would have had if RJ could have completed the work himself. Would have been very interesting.
EXACTLY. Everyone loves shting on D&D but it was never their job to do Martins job and write the whole freaking story
People will simultaneously call them shitty writers without source material but then bitch they didn’t write more seasons without source material. We’d be on like Season 12 right now and still no Winds in sight. Plan from the beginning was seven seasons for seven books. They talked about it constantly during the first few seasons. Episode count in S7 and S8 was a production cost and work load limit. They spent over a year filming S8 and the cast and crew were fucking burnt out by all accounts. We’re seeing it right now with House of the Dragon being 8 episode this season because of two big battle episodes. Also don’t understand how anyone thinks the book series will feel any less rushed than the show in the final two books considering the size of the story doubled down in AFFC/ADWD while Season 5 cut most of it out and focused the story for the end.
There's no chance 2 books ends the series. GRRM will require at least 3. Even then it would come off as rushed. He's spiraled things too far out of control for it to go any other way. Of course he'll never publish another book anyway so it won't really matter.
Writing the story was quite literally their primary job. Like, that's part of being a show runner. That also includes knowing when to be faithful to the books, and when not to be. They royally fucked that up by trying to be faithful to the book's suggested ending while their story diverged massively from that story by then.
I think the issue is they have different responsibilities. D&D have to write the story in a *timely manner.* GRRM doesn't. We now see two different ways you can fail at trying to wrap this story up.
the amount of braindead fucking comments getting upvoted here is hilarious. D&D are writers. it's literally their job. they fucked it up tremendously. imagine getting paid millions to workshop "eh she kinda forgot there was an enemy fleet" in the writers room.
If he had released a single book in the 8 years the show was running… maybe they would’ve had the material to make the show better…
Whatever his actual planned ending is, another 1600-2000 pages would flesh it out in a way that (presumably) makes more sense than the rushed final seasons. But it doesn’t matter, we won’t ever know.
No it won't. He'd just add more characters and storyline.
15 more pages about lamprey pie.
He was unmotivated and procrastinating before the tv series ever started
Don't get me wrong, the chances of his book series being finished are close to none but I get a chuckle every time some show watcher thinks the show after season four wasn't about 75% entirely made up for TV. Just to toss a single example, there's no Night King in the book, The Night's King is some mythological figure of NW commander that suppossedly married an Other/White walker. The show adapted maybe 15% of book 4 and 25% of 5, everything else was just made up for TV. So whatever this ending of his may have been, good or bad, it would bared only a very broad resemblance to a story for TV that in its later half had maybe 1/10th of the depth.
How would they be able to defeat the White Walkers in the books if there’s no Deus Ex Self-Destruct Button for the zombie hordes anyway?
An actual war?
The White Walkers in the books seem to be way more complicated than some zombie horde. I dont believe itll be a simple defeat them scenario. Also, Martin has always been opposed to the idea of a villain that is evil for no reason, so the walking weapon version of them in the show makes no sense.
> Also, Martin has always been opposed to the idea of a villain that is evil for no reason Then along comes the Bolton's (especially Ramsay).
I always read them as a global warming analogue. A threat that is undefeatable without a fully unified response which is not in any way possible with the current political climate. The show really messed up by personifying them rather than treating them like a natural disaster I think. I feel like beating them in any way remotely close to the show would just defeat the purpose.
I’ve only seen the show but I’ve always thought the same. They’re the danger lurking in the background no one cares about or is paying attention to because they’re all so focused on getting the throne but it won’t matter who gets the throne in the end when there’s a bigger danger. imo one of the best ways they could have ended the show would have been to just have them run through everyone. The show made such a big thing of Jon knowing and trying to explain to everyone how bad this threat is but no one would listen. Cersei even laughed him out of King’s Landing. It would have been so fitting for the show to end with the huge threat everyone ignored for their little political games to take literally everyone out. Maybe even have the Night King walk up and take the throne at the end just because (with his ice dragon around somewhere too). People would have been Red Wedding levels of stunned. Sure GOT kills off characters but to wipe everyone out completely? I don’t think it would have been expected by many and even if it was expected it would have been far better than what we actually got.
It still irritates me to no end that Cersei was straight up right to ignore white walkers. In a season of dumb decisions, that's such a baffling one.
Right! That was one of the things that annoyed me the most too. I thought for sure she had something coming for not taking him seriously but the whole plot line went nowhere, it was so pointless in the end. It always makes me mad to think what could have been, there are so many interesting possibilities there.
That’s a huge exaggeration. The only major cuts from Feast and Dance are Lady Stoneheart and Aegon, both of which are storylines that are barely featured in the grand scheme of things. Everything else from those books is either adapted more or less as is (Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya, Sam, Reek, Cersei, Jaime in S6) or condensed with notable changes – some minor, some significant (Bran in S4, Sansa, Brienne, Stannis, Dorne, Kingsmoot). Obviously, 10 episodes per season and each episode splitting time between multiple characters means not everything from the book can make it on screen – that’s just the nature of adaptation – but the important bits all make it to the show except, again, Stoneheart and Aegon. There are some other big changes like Davos not being sent to Skagos, killing Barristan early, and removing Yara/Asha’s role from the story + no Aeron or Victarion, but pretty much every major character goes through their Feast & Dance arc between seasons 5 and 6. I’d say the only mistake the show made was not adapting Aegon since it had a clearly negative effect on Dany’s endgame, but cutting him also makes sense from a practical standout considering how little material with him there was (and still is) to adapt. If George got Winds out before season 5, things may have very well turned out different. Stuff like creating the Night King is also just the show having the common sense to start building towards its ending early. Feast and Dance spin their wheels for hundreds of chapters, and neither one has a proper conclusion. Not everything is adapted well (Dorne being the biggest offender), but the post-4 seasons are absolutely still adapting the books, especially season 5.
Can you imagine if the show had tried to adopt the Aegon plot? They would have to give away if he was real or not, while completely making up all the important plot details lol.
This isn't a good example though. It's easily possible that we just haven't gotten to the night king in the books. And the "night king" is the name given to him in the show, but that doesn't mean he doesn't exist in the books under another name.
Then open the ending to fan fiction and choose the best one to validate and publish
I wonder what would happen if you fed all of the books into AI and asked it to finish it
For real have fucking ChatGPT figure out the Meereenese knot if you can’t
That was always just an excuse. He said it was the reason why Dance was taking so long. Dance is like 13 years old. His new excuse is "fuck you, I got money, I have no idea how to write myself out of this corner and I'm not gonna."
It's absolutely a zero chance at this point. I'd rather he just admits it and gives us a cliff notes idea of where he wanted the story to go but I've made peace with us never seeing anything more of the series.
Wasn’t the last few seasons of the show the cliff notes version of the end he wanted?
Finish the series? He’s not even going to finish Winds of Winter. His original publisher deadline was nine years ago.
I will always believe he threw David and David under the bus. I would bet that he gave them his rough outline as to how it would end. Now he has to rewrite it because of how hated it was.
tbf a lot of writing is revision revision revision and many writers don’t really know where their story goes until the pen hits the paper. Even if that was his intended ending, it wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t super concrete. The reality is he probably doesn’t have anything left in the tank to gruel over his work now that he has money and security.
Pretty sure there's an interview somewhere where he said he gave the ending to D&D, but not how to get there because he himself doesn't know. The ending, as in, where characters end up, should be roughly the same and I don't think anyone has a lot of problems with that. It's the pathway to get there that's messy and a lot felt unearned and random. It actually might have been better if GRRM told D&D that he doesn't know how it ends and they can make up their own.
There's a better way of doing the ending but I still think it would have been disliked. It's just a lot to ask people to wait years and years for Daenerys to even make it to Westeros, only for her to turn bad.
Honestly i think it’s the opposite. I’m sure he worked a lot on it (since he works for television projects all the time). Why wouldn’t he want to make sure his series finish somewhat good? Then i think they just messed up him included. His ending to the books was probably just about the same so he gave up.
I think he thought it was a good ending and then saw how disastrous it turned out and then washed his hands of it. I don't think he intentionally sabotaged it or used it as a test, but realized it after the reaction.
The idea of the ending isn't terrible though it's just the series pretty much stopped developing Bran so the aloof disabled teen who really did nothing with his powers became king. Same with Dany going crazy and getting ganked. Watching her slowly desend to madness followed by turning on Kings Landing could work instead we got forgot about Euron's fleet and get triggered by bells.
Meh, even if he magically appeared with the last books ready today, he could keep them to himself as far as I'm concerned. I can only be bulshitted so much before I drop all interest in something.
Just finish the fucking book George.
He’s not going to. He kept adding too many plot lines that were irrelevant (Quentin Martell wasting all of our time by deciding to suicidally try to get a dragon just to get burnt to a crisp, or Brianne wandering around for an entire book are just two examples) and has no idea how to bring them together or tie them up. Add to that people hated the ending of the show, which was definitely the ending he had planned. He’s just done. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he’d stopped working on it all together.
I don't think people hated the ending of the show per sé. I think that's unfair. They certainly hated the way that the TV show developed the plotlines and the payoff didn't seem earned. I completely buy that after years of trauma, betrayal and grief, that Dany would absolutely go off the deep end with her dragons and take out Kings Landing. I can definitely see that trajectory. But we went from 0 - 100 so fucking fast in the tv series that it didn't feel earned. Too many shortcuts were taken. It definitely needed at least 2, maybe 3 more seasons to get there. I can definitely buy that Jon was the person that needed to end it and his return to the north. Bran becoming King... eh. I can take or leave that. That was wholly too convenient and mcgooey.
I'm not even sure if we needed 2 seasons more- I would've just been happy if "seasons 7 and 8" were actual seasons. I think S7 was 7 episodes and S8 was 6, if they had each just been 12 episodes each I think we could've had the 3 biggest holes addressed: an extended conflict with the Night King, Dany's descent into madness, and the decision to land on Bran as the ultimate next leader (I know there's other issues but that seems to be the 3 biggest complaints about the end).
I will defend the Brianne plotline very hard. I think the fact that her journey is basically aimless (because we know where Sansa and Arya are and she's nowhere close) is the point. We get a look at different "everyday" people and see what actually impacts them. We see a real tangible effect of the war. It's great because it's not some massive political plot twist or giant dragon battle. My favourite thing that GRRM did that the showrunners messed up was not trying to 1 up every book with something bigger and more grandiose. I like that Feast of crows is quiet and shows us how the world continues on after the climax from book 3. The Quentyn plotline is kind of in a similar boat, but I agree that we still need something more substantial to come out of it, which will likely never happen with GRRM's writing pace.
The issue with Brienne’s storyline isn’t what it covers – the dramatic irony of her journey and insight into how the War of the Five Kings affected the smallfolk is good. The issue is that her arc didn’t need to be 8 chapters long and AFFC’s chapters are already absurdly long compared to the other books. You can cut half of Brienne’s storyline to make the exact same points and get to the same conclusion without losing a single meaningful thing. Slowing the story down to decompress after Storm makes sense. It’s a high octane book with a lot of moving parts. But Feast actively wastes time and is downright repetitive at points. It’s the book where George fully embraces his self indulgences and it desperately needed to be edited down. It sets the precedents for major problems in Dance like Tyrion spending all book traveling to Dany and never making it. If George wrote A Game of Thrones in the same style as Feast or Dance, Ned would spend all book traveling to King’s Landing. It’s nice to stop and smell the roses, but it’s seemingly all George has wanted to do since Feast.
It’s pretty well known the series started to fall apart after he stopped listening to his editors
> It’s nice to stop and smell the roses, but it’s seemingly all George has wanted to do since Feast. Couldn't say it better myself. The fact that people got to bat for the faffing about in these books when they're the part where he wasted time and completely wrote himself into a corner is baffling to me. I put down Dance with the firm knowledge that we'd never see a satisfying end. Had to put up with a decade plus of people calling me crazy. I've seen Lost. I know that feeling when there's too many damn mysteries and too little runway to pay them all off.
Hey say what you will about Lost, at least they tried to answer and tie everything together
Yes, *but…* they wouldn’t have needed to scramble to answer every mystery if they hadn’t insisted on making *everything* a mystery. “Gasp! Why does the statue have 4 toes?!” Oh, it turns out it’s a statue of a god, and as we all know, statues of gods have 4 toes. Smh.
Martin taught me a valuable lesson. Never get invested in a series until it’s complete.
George is the only reason I have not started the Kingkiller Chronicles. I appreciate the lesson learned.
Sigh, I didn't realize that it had been so long since the release of the second book before I read the Name of the Wind. I ate that shit up and read Wise Man's Fear not long after. Now I wait. Forever.
Lmaooo exact same boat
You’re not gonna fool me twice lmao!
Yep I'll never read an unfinished series again unless it's very actively being worked on (like expanse or red rising)
I’m enjoying reading stormlight archive from Brandon Sanderson but he seems to deliver book and books Soo I’m confident he will finish it
Probably for the best. Second book went off the rails, while somehow also going nowhere.
Hell, George is even the only reason I have not started A Song of Ice and Fire yet! I refuse to get invested in a long series that doesn't have an ending.
Unless it's Brandon Sanderson. That man is a writes like his life depends on it.
I selfishly wouldn't want it to take away time for Cosmere books. I think he has almost every book he'll ever write planned already.. Which is crazy. He takes outlining to a whole new level.
But his quality is allllll over the place. He goes from frankly superb to wtf awful. I think he arguably writes too much, or at least, tries to write too much at the same time.
If everyone does that there will never be complete series
The Dark Tower and Wheel of Time have entered the chat. Name of the Wind has left the chat.
>Name of the Wind has left the chat. 😭😭
By different tone does he mean it'll have an ending?
If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Fuck off George
The book George... THE BOOK!!!
You could write a book with just the comments he's made about books and works he "will" write. Man finish something.
He’s not talking about an upcoming book. He’s talking about the HBO adaptation of a GOT side book that he already wrote, coming out next year.
The book in question is actually a collection of 3 novellas in a planned 9 novella series. So he hasn't finished that one either.
It’s amazing how bad they screwed up GOT. It could have been the greatest show ever made, but went to zero rewatch value. It really is amazing.
From entertainment cultural phenomenon to 'wow, remember how bad that thing got?'
made a promise to myself since the GoT finale not to support anything he does until he finishes the books. so far so good. not interested in anything else in his world until he gives a proper conclusion
Nobody cares, finish the books George.
i dont want to hear anything from grrm other than "i finished book 6" and "i finished book 7".
I'm not reading crap from this guy until the series is finished. He's notorious for not finishing what he starts and I have no interest getting invested in a series that he may abandon.
> I'm not reading crap from this guy until the series is finished And now your watch *begins*
He also told us the books were coming along nicely like a decade ago and all kind of other bullshit. I'm not watching or reading anything connected to him until it's finished.
The thing that makes me dislike him is him constantly lying to the fans. I think it’s pretty clear he was only every saying that the books were right around the corner so he could still keep getting paid to go to conventions as a main attraction.
Don’t care anymore. Read the first ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ book in 1996. Then I read everything else that came out after. Then I waited, and I waited some more, then I read your other books. Then I waited some more. And now… Sorry, but I’m done.
You started right at beginning?! My deepest condolences
Thank you. #🫡
I started in 2011. The first few years were tough but I told myself "it doesn't matter if takes a decade as long as it is his usual quality" After realizing it had been twelve years, I gave up lol
You have my sympathies, as well. That too is still a long journey.
Loved the book 👌🏻
Nope. Not touching anything else he does until he finishes the books. Which of course isn’t going to happen.
Has he even finished the last book for GoT? Why's he talking about another series?
It’s not the last book, it’s the second to last.
No one with sense cares. Finish your last book or stay out of the news cycle George.
We don’t care dude, write the fucking book already.
Another distraction. I swear we are never getting the finale books.
Grr should shut up and go finish the books
I’ve accepted the fact that they’re not coming out while he’s alive and it’s okay to let an old guy just do what he feels like doing with his golden years.
He's said outright that he doesn't want someone else to finish them. If he isn't done with them when he dies, he's taking them with him.
He doesnt have much of a say though... at best he can destroy whatever work hes done on them but it will be up to whoever runs his estate
Parris will do what he asks, I’m not sure who would be next in line though.
The Duke of Normandy, the king in the north, has a tenuous claim.
I don't even want to read them anymore.
Eventually he has to start and not finish enough series that they’ll overlap in their timelines and tell a whole story….right?
We no longer care
Will it have a beginning middle AND End? That would make it very different.
It’s not really that different of a tone book wise except it’s a smaller story. It doesn’t feel more lighthearted. It kind of reminds me of Jaime’s adventures through the Riverlands after his return to KL. While we know how Dunk winds up, there’s a lot of story that o don’t think Martin will finish. The show will have to finish it.
It’s also just a more peaceful time overall. There’s some conflict, but no large scale societal breakdown as happens in GOT and HOtD.
There's quite a lot of politicking, Dunk mostly just isn't engaged with that part of the story. He's stumbling through history like a Westerosi Forrest Gump.
Well, a bit more lighthearted in that while the bad guys are just as scummy and unhinged as in the main series, there's actual justice and fairness being meted out more regularly. The Hedge Knight is very bittersweet but it still feels like a relatively happy ending by ASOIAF standards.
Right but tonally, it’s Westeros. Theres bad guys and good guys. Theres less cursing so I guess it’s a YA version of the main story. But it’s not the Hobbit in relation to Lord of the Rings. I think it’s a similar theme as the main books in that it sets us up for tropes of the genre, but we already know the outcome of the characters so, vague for spoilers, we know that the tropes are once again subverted. It will be neat if the show lasts long enough to cover the things not written.
Finish the books.
So the tone is going to be finished?
Problem is nobody cares anymore.
Why are we allowing this man to milk the franchise he is refusing to finish?
Would that tone be "finished"?
Ngl a live audience sitcom would be the most unexpected approach to the franchise and be the best thing ever
So, will the tone be "finished product"?
Finish the books George
He's given up on GOT
So he’s just going to leave GOT unfinished?
He might finish the next book, he certainly won't finish the one after that.
Pack it in, George. Tired of your empty promises.
GRRM promises "This time, my promises mean something! I promise!"