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 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.
I know. Read what I posted.