I was listening to the Critical Drinker's after hours stream and they were talking about Winds of Winter due to the fact that GRRM recently released something Westeros related that wasn't WOW along with his many projects with HBO. They all pretty much agreed that it is highly doubtful it will ever be released, at least while he is alive.
Someone in the comments put out the whole "he owes you nothing" argument and that fans are entitled, but he did say GRRM made a mistake in constantly promising that he would end the series.
What do y'all think? I understand that he owes me nothing and I read the books between season 5 and 6 so I haven't been waiting since the 90s, but I would respect him more if he just said that he didn't want to finish and hire someone to finish. I will say now that whenever someone recommends a book series to me the first thing I ask is if the series is completed or not. I also remember someone saying that now people will be less willing to give a new author a chance if he has a multi book series.
I personally believe that once he dies (assuming he never releases the books) that his publisher will take what he had written and publish that or find someone to make it a coherent story. GOT could've been an epic show from start to finish had he finished the source material and even if he does release the last two the interest will be far less than what it could've been.
I think there's an implicit agreement with the audience when the author puts the first volume of a multi-part series. Basically, "Hey, here's part 1. If there's enough interest, you'll get the rest." I don't think anyone can say the ASOIAF hasn't been successful enough. I suspect his publisher is begging him to finish.
However, I also think that Martin has written himself into a corner. We're basically left in a situation where everyone needs to band together. However, we've established everyone is a backstabbing snake who will absolutely work against the long-term goal if it benefits them in the short run.
So yes, I think you're right. The plan is probably to delay the rest of his life and let someone else try to square that circle.
Almost as if a story rooted in an ideology that heroism both doesn't exist and if it does, is morally repugnant, cannot possibly resolve.
Such a story could be resolved, but definitely not over a course of 10,000+ pages of text devoted to rubbing in how shitty, shortsighted, and prone to corruption people are and why all fantasy tropes are bunk. That could have easily been done over the course of one book, where the protagonists' assorted flaws lead them to a tragic end.
That's the problem with tragedy, subversion, and deconstruction. They can make for powerful stories, but only in relatively concise works that end once they've made their point, which would typically be after the massive swerve happens that dashes what the audience expected. Continuing after that point is just wallowing in bitterness and nihilism.
Agreed. I should have specified a high fantasy story, since the genre is just folktales writ large.
The tale ending in a tragedy is basically the only ideologically consistent resolution, given those themes you mentioned.
Whether that tragedy is GRRM's death being a full Viking funeral pyre on a raft made of HBO's money, or the story not getting an ending... I really no longer care.
I tried to reread the first book when Dances came out, couldn't, and dropped the 4 I owned in a used book bin. Detaching early strikes me as an optimal outcome, given the shit show that's happened since.
Probably around 10 years ago I checked how many separate plotlines were going on by the end of the most recent book and I think it came to somewhere in the low 30s.
Now sure there are still meant to be 2 more books so that's plenty of time to draw these together however there's no sign even the first of those 2 books is ever going to happen.
I fully believe 30 plot lines. I slogged through Dance and some of them are fantastic, but there is a whole raft of people and places that I just couldn't give a shit about. I can't decide if the Dorne stuff or Iron Islands is worse, probably Iron Islands.
At this point I'm done. It's been 10 years since I read the last book and I'll never be able to piece it all together again so fuck it.
Part of that stems from there being a lot more characters in the book, both in general but also specifically regarding how some of the show plotlines merged several book characters/plots or even just got rid of them
Lady Stoneheart just didn't happen in the show.
Strong Belwas didn't exist in the show.
Griff and Young Griff don't exist in the show, and Griff is the one in the books who contracts the stoneskin disease rather than Jorah who has gone off to capture Tyrion because the gladiator match where Drogon flies away with Dany happens before Tyrion gets a chance to meet Dany [infact the match Tyrion was part of almost ended with him being killed by animals he wasn't aware of until Dany forbid it from happening because the arena master simply wanted to give Dany some entertainment rather].
Barristan Selmy is still alive in the books, as are quite a few others like Gren in the Black Watch since it was the 1 armed cook who died fighting the giant in the cave instead, and Selmy as White Beard [or whatever he was called as it's been that long I've stopped caring] worked because book descriptions can purposefully obfuscate existing characters when they go off around the world and meet a POV character who doesn't know anything about them. Having the exact same actor show up spoils that so the hidden identity plot just got skipped.
Sansa isn't the one married to Ramsey, it's Jeyne Westerling, because Sansa is still down at the Eyrie. Jeyne even gets rescued by Theon and brought to Stannis long before the show version of the escape where Stannis was already dead [having been killed off screen of all things].
Rickon is on Cannibal Island.
Jon is dead still.
Bran is still with the Three Eyed Raven.
It's a very, very different story from what the show ended up doing even before they ran out of material.
Yes but he never met her before the assassination attempt at the arena which ended with her flying away on Drogon.
He was captured and made to fight in the pit after the boat he was travelling on with Griff sank. Griff dived in after Tyrion to save him, which is how Griff contracts the stoneskin disease. With time now running out Griff abandons his plans in the East and goes with Young Griff to attack Westeros and take back Griff's/Connington's ancestral castle.
The pit fight Tyrion ends up in involves him, a female dwarf, and almost several animals that would have torn them both to shreds because the pit fighter owner wanted to give Dany a spectacle. She vetoes it after it gets explained because it's not even a fight, just 2 dwarves being killed by animals. Tyrion and the other dwarf then get taken back into the pit fighter pens and that's when the assassination attempts happen. Strong Belwas eats all the poisoned locust snacks on his own but he's that large it doesn't outright kill him, just makes him ill. Then the actual assassins show up but before they manage to kill Dany she gets "saved" by Drogon reappearing which is something the show included. Then she flies away with him.
So there's a lot to address there because of how significant the heir involved is.
The heir is Young Griff whose identity, Aegon Targaryen, and existence are only revealed when Tyrion works it out then and there after noticing both Griff and Young Griff have dyed their hair blue to both conceal their identity and attempt to play off the fake father and son angle better. So no plan to meet that particular heir was in play at the time Aegon is raised as a man of the people working his hands with the peasants throughout the land so he understands the common man he is planned to rule over eventually. The reasons for this is partly due to the detachment from elites in general leading to problems, such as war between Houses for political reasons, and Targaryen's have their history of madness so a plan was put in place to try and ground Aegon and prevent him viewing his subjects as little more than cannon fodder.
Dany is/was the only known Targaryen at the time as Aegon was assumed to have died with the rest of the Targaryen line bar Viserys and Dany and her only other blood relative had taken The Black decades ago and everyone had forgotten about him.
However Young Griff/Aegon's claim, if legitimate as some readers think his identity is a lie, supersedes Dany's because Aegon is the second child and son of Rhaegar and Elia Martell. Rhaegar being the eldest sibling of himself, Viserys, and Dany was first in line to the throne after "The Mad King" Aerys II.
It's the situation the show puts Jon into as he's Dany's nephew and had a more direct line to the throne than she does however Aegon really is dead in the show because the show cut down on a lot of plot and intrigue as things went on because D&D were utterly devoid of creative talent.
This also puts Aegon's claim before Jon's who would be Rhaegar's second son with Lyanna Stark as Elia was extremely frail to the point that her first childbirth was bad enough and the second was that much worse she wouldn't be able to carry more to term let alone giving up her life so the child could live.
The 5th book ends with Jon being dead, having been assassinated by The Watch, Dany off in the middle of fucking nowhere after Drogon saves her from the assassination attempts at the arena, and Young Griff having taken Jon Connington's ancestral castle.
Excusing the issue of Jon coming back from the dead, which every knows is coming because the books deal with the prophecy of Azor Ahai far better than the show did, Aegon being the man of the people he is sits in a potential role as a redeeming figure for the peasants of Westeros which could lead Dany down her path of madness as after years or planning to return to King's Landing and claim the throne, Aegon may achieve it before her and do so in a manner that wins him over the hearts of the public. Dany showing up with her dragons and destroying the enemy woudl certainly be effective but it is just as likely to terrify the Westerosi because of the sheer scale of power involved.
As a side note I personally wanted Jon's real name to be "Aejon" rather than "Aegon" like his half-brother since it follows the Targaryen naming convention but with a North twist of the "-Jon" suffix instead of "-gon".
I know. Read what I posted.
I maintain the ending of ASoIaF as written by GRRM will be a complete and total victory for the white walkers.
He has. The whole point of ASOIAF was to be a refutation of LOTR, intrinsic heroes triumphing over evil. Unfortunately for Martin, he's come to realize there's no way to end his story in a satisfying manner without embracing those themes he wanted to subvert and/or rebel against. So he's stuck
What's keeping him from just novelizing the TV show? It's not a satisfactory ending, but it takes very little effort and with a few small edits it won't be complete shit.
GoT absolutely nose dives after book three. Whenever this question arises I feel like I've stumbled in to an asylum. When is WoW coming out? does GRRM owe us a finale? what will happen to these characters?????
Ummm, who the fuck cares? I don't know how you can get through DwD, and be asking for more. It was obvious back then that grrm bit off more than he could chew, and now it's been completely validated.
The books were always overrated and then became a lesson in scope creep.
Exactly.
Also worth noting A Game of Thrones came out in 96. In late-90 into early 2000s, a kind of dark pseudo-historical take on epic fantasy was a pretty fresh idea and the nihilistic perspective was unique & largely at odds with the overall tone of fantasy, fiction, and the world at large.
Since the series started we've had ~2 decades of time pass. The dark historical fantasy niche is old hat now. We've seen this done a lot by now, in fact it's pretty much the only kind of multimedia fantasy we get these days that's not coming out of Japan.
The gimmick is stale and anyone who was interested in the books would have to completely reread them to even know what's happening with a new book.
Moreover, people and times change. Does anyone feel optimistic in 2022? Do we need a nihilistic fantasy world where everyone are bastards, or is it bad enough having to live in a world with villains 100x worse than anything in the books?
Can we get a story that sets out to do a thing and delivers on it, instead of endless subversion/deconstruction? Does anyone still have hope GRRM reasonably conclude this series after endless subplots exploded the scope?
Yes. Unironic Klaus Schwab chin jowl shaking yes!
Seeing as how this is not Reddit I'm going with "That white knight is a whiny faggot."
Customers are by nature of their existence/transactions expecting a product of some quality and quantity. That isn't entitlement, it's an inherent aspect of being a customer.
When a product is well received then hyped up as ASOIAF has been over the years [in part due to the show] the product failing to materialise despite assurances from the writer is not a point of entitlement as the white knight is trying to deflect towards, but rather a consequence of the producer/writer being the one acting entitled towards having a persistent consumer group after having failed to publish 1 book in the last 11 years.
A Game of Thrones: Aug 1996
A Clash of Kings: Feb 1999 [2.5 years later]
A Storm of Swords: Nov 2000 [20 months later]
A Feast for Crows: Nov 2005 [5 years later]
A Dance with Dragons: July 2011 [5.5 years later]
The Winds of Winter: Still not out [10 years and 8 months later.] <- You are here.
A Dream of Spring: Yeah, right. More likely to have George Carlin do another comedy tour than have George RR Martin write another book at this point.
The show did ok because it had a basic outline with the books. Once they overtook that point the quality went to shit and the ending was up there with 'How I Met Your Mother' in terms of killing all rewatchability in the future.
His readers made him wealthy and have read at least 4000 pages each, so I think his readers are owed at least a good faith effort to finish the books. Failing that an admission of failure, an apology and handing over the reigns to another author would do.
I don't think GOT would have ended well either way though. The scale of the story was already too big to actually complete as a television series.
Good point. I love books for the depth and certain one are nearly impossible to adapt. I will say the first season was a very good adaptation of book 1.
What’s a fantasy or sci-fi or I guess any book series you felt stayed steadily good throughout?
LotR is an obvious choice, but it's really a single book so I'm not sure if that counts. The Expanse. The first Expanse book came out a month before DwD and the ninth and final book just came out last November. Dust (or Wool or Silo or whatever it's called) series.
The irony being that the two guys writing The Expanse were GRRM's proteges, meant to be backup writers.
Thanks. I’ve been meaning to check out the Expanse books. I’ve heard good things about the show although I heard later seasons got a bit woke.
I finally read LOTR trilogy. Really enjoyed it. I had read the hobbit years ago. Did you like Wheel of Time?
What do you want to know about the WoT books?
I’ve read them. I was asking if he had. Sorry for the confusion. I enjoyed them but figured Amazon wouldn’t do a good job.
Nobody was ever going to do a good job with a series that's 14 books plus additional material to explain side plots. There's just too much material there and even with the superfluous fluff removed it would still be far too much material to fit into a tv show without severely crippling core aspects of it.
Remember this isn't even the first live action adaptation, there was a one off pilot with Billy Zane likely made to retain the rights for the series and for as bad as that was it will still better than the disaster that is the Amazon series, Woke of Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZOCCEuROPk
And I heard that the showrunner changed some things Rand did to the women. Clearly it’s obvious why. One of the first thing he said was something about lgbt representation so I could tell his priorities
The show has a drop off in quality in the latest couple seasons. And they fired an actor for doing a misconduct and killed his character off and that's going to fuck shit up when trying to adapt the books. The books have a certain amount of woke to them but it's a consistent amount; there is an oppressed minority but they aren't portrayed as consistently good. I have not read Wheel of Time.
Cool. I’ll check out the books first.
Thanks!
I don't know if I'd consider their entire series great but the first couple entries of Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson and the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch are ones I can reread over and over.
Yea I figured Kathleen Kennedy is going nowhere and the ridiculous idea that they will retcon the sequel trilogy. Doomcock finally gave up hope I think. I just read the old EU before Disney took over.
That’s my response too. I get it I’m not owed anything but why should I care about his other projects. He should just come out and say he isn’t interested in finishing
The first book came out in 1996. If that isn't a red flag this thing is dead and he's lost his steam for the series I don't know what is.
I swore he had a clause in his contract that his publisher can’t continue the series after he died.
I heard that too but I doubt that will stop the publisher.
While I'm beginning to understand why all GoT fan communities insult the hell out of Railroad, I will disagree with this. If you had started reading this in the 1990s, then you would have enjoyed all the anticipation of the show, as well as of the new books that he would release.
I'll also say that while I'm sure he's a fat, lazy bastard - nothing would be easier than releasing a totally crap book in order to finish the series. I'm at least glad that he is not doing that.
I get your point but I can definitely understand fan anger when it seems like he writes everything but the books people want.
That's a point as well, and he's definitely wasting some time on that, but I imagine it's way easier than finishing the series.