I know I have talked about George RR Martin before, and I know I shouldn't be surprised but I thought he would know better than to say what he did. He was posting about the different projects he is working on, and of course they are all projects that are Ice and Fire spinoffs/take place in Westeros and he said he is sad to see that some people only care about Winds of Winter when there is so much Westeros content being put out.
I honestly was thinking how he could be so dense and honestly why should I give any time or money on side projects when he doesn't seem to care about finishing the main story. I remember a co-worker of mine was shocked when I told her I didn't plan on watching House of the Dragon, but honestly why should I?
Just a little nerd rant.
The bottom line is that he doesn't want to finish Winds of Winter, and he feels like he doesn't have to. He's just too much of a pussy to come out and say it.
Or he let the show catch up with him because he felt his ending was not very good compared to the groundwork he made in the early books, so to test and find out he gave them his outline of how it might end. And everyone hated it and he has no clue how to finish it. The logical answer is make a happier ending, but that’s the antithesis of his philosophy so he can’t do that
The ending is feminism taken to its logical conclusions of genocide, egomania, and the rule of the weak.
My guess is that he doesn't know how to finish it, and is afraid to try.
Oh he wants to finish it alright, he just doesn’t want to write it.
Words are wind
This is for you. If you like it - I highly recommend you watch the whole show.
Discussion with publisher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dWSN70KJiM&t=709s (watch til 13:00, about a minute)
Trying to imagine an ending https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dWSN70KJiM&t=900s (watch til 16:00, also a minute)
Endings are hard and also, george martin is a hack. That's why.
Thanks!
Can't the lazy fuck just get a ghost writer? Then again, we saw what happened to the show the moment the writers ran out of his material.
Allegedly ran out of his material.
For example. The first Harry Potter movie came out in 2001, the final Harry Potter book came out in 2007. JK Rowling told Alan Rickman Snapes character arc before filming the first movie and had him promise to keep it secret which lead to some arguments with directors with Rickman because he knew Snapes motivations but was sworn to secrecy.
I don’t think the HBO writers had nothing to go by. I think they were given an outline to the final 2 books but the show runners at the time had a Disney Star Wars offer and they needed this wrapped up. So they combined 2 unfinished books into 2 shorter seasons.
And we all saw how that turned out
And it worked extremely fucking well because Rickman was a great actor who followed the author's intentions. A lot of face/heel turns come out of fucking nowhere because the build up to the twist either doesn't happen at all or it's planned to be exposition after the reveal. Snape works because despite being painted as an antagonist throughout he still has moments where he's clearly trying to keep the children safe and it throws up questions but they're consistent questions rather than complete out of character moments.
I feel that too. You wouldn’t allow that absolute travesty of an ending to happen if you had an idea how you wanted it to end. That or he simply doesn’t care about it anymore, which I find quite hard to believe.
I've said it before on this board, but I'll say it again: As a fellow creator of art and fiction, the fact that he is working on other projects before finishing this one is a dead give away that he's lost interest in it.
When I pick up another project before finishing an old one, it virtually always means that old project is never gonna be completed.
I may go back to it every now and then, but it will get dropped for something else again before too long. It's hard to face the music and admit to myself that I've given up, because that's essential admitting failure and it has hints of 'this project is beyond my ability' no matter how certain you are that the real answer is 'I'm bored of this project' or 'this project is outdated' or 'this project is redundant now' - and that last one definitely applies to Winds of Winter.
I used to be upset about the Winds situation. A few years ago I stopped caring. I'll definitely read it if it comes out, but it's obvious that GRRM will never finish the series so even if we get TWOW we'll be right back to waiting for ADOS. (which will never come, not with George's age and weight)
I have fire and blood for years and never opened it.
I bought all of them almost ten years ago and was going through them at a fairly good pace. About halfway through storm of swords and I realized that he’s been working on winds of winter for over a decade at that point, and thought what’s the point. he clearly has no plans to finish the story so why should I keep reading just to be left with a cliffhanger when he dies. It’s not like he is taking care of himself.
There is a part of me that really wants to read it because I do like his writing but I decided that until he finishes I won't give any of his side stuff a chance. I also really want to check out Dunk and Egg. Maybe if I found them at a used book store or yard sale.
I've read some other books written by him but I just can't get myself to read in the Song of Fire and Ice world. The latter seasons of GOT put me off. Is the same thing that happened with Star Wars, I did not get myself to read Star Wars after the new trilogy. I even gave away my lego ship collection to a kid.
I can still watch episodes 1-6 and read the EU books/comic books that are pre Disney.
Finish the fucking book you hack!
My assumption is that it's a crisis of confidence: Martin wants to avoid the catastrophic reaction to the final seasons of the TV show and doubts his ability to do so. And so he procrastinates by working on literally anything else.
Of course I am being stingy lol. in all seriousness though, whenever someone recommends a book series I ask if it is finished because thanks to Ice and Fire I'll never start an unfinished series.
It could. I guess I was really invested in the story and ADWD ended on a cliffhanger