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.
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.