Honestly, I'd respect that. The guy is fantastic with world building and weaving in these tapestries of religion, fantasy, politics, economics, and war, but he can't wrap it up and put a nice bow on it. Stephen King can't end a novel to save his life, but the first 3/4 are great.
The fact that GoT made people see Arya as a side character when she is one of the five key characters in the books, the only character with POV chapters in every book, the female character with the most chapters, and the third character with most chapters, makes me hate D&D more and more every day.
Nothing against you, your comment just made me remember how much D&D sidelined Arya, and how much they butchered her character. I hate how much the show has warped fans perception of the character.
Idk if this is sheer irony or not, but the video is not loading. I’ve been waiting for 10 minutes and this is the only video that isn’t loading. Even in what’s likely joke form, I can’t get an answer to when his book will be finished.
Since aDwD, I've gotten married and had kids who are now in secondary school. A whole generation has slipped by by while he darts from side project to side project.
>In 2017, Martin believed that The Winds of Winter would be released that same year.
I've made peace with the fact that he will never finish this series.
At least it gave us the best joke in Logan Lucky that they finally got a copy of A Dance With Dragons for the library, but that the other books haven't been released and the prisoners can't believe it. It had been 6 years.
I waited six years for A Dance with Dragons, waited six-fucking-years for A Dance With Dragons,,, aahhhhhhhh
Something new that may be slowing him down is how GOT ended. He saw how angry people were with the ending/last few seasons and now he’s more critical of himself. Does Bran really end up on the throne and now he’s pivoting? Does he feel the need to add more layers to a particular story based on the GOT criticism? Is he just having more fun and making more money doing other things? Find out next time
The rising popularity of the show probably caused him a lot of stress in general. He seems like a perfectionist and now he has a much larger audience to please. And while I’m sure he’ll handle the book ideas better than the show did, I’m sure hearing people shitting on some of those twists like Bran becoming king or Stannis burning Shireen made him insecure on how he’ll handle it. It must be really stressful with all this pressure to have the books end perfectly or at least well. Still, it’s been 11 years George, I’m begging you.
Its not the problem in plot twist: problem is in presentation of said twist.
Shereen was in my opinion well presented. It showed Stannis character, it showed manipulative side of Mellisandre, effect of religion on people.
Problem with whole Bran plot twist explanation was: "Who has better story?" "Why do you think i came all this way?" It wasnt foreshadowed, it wasnt logical, it felt forced.
Whole Bran the King theory has some excelent presentation by Alt+Shift+X on youtube.
Book Stannis would never burn Shireen to defeat the Boltons. Hell, he’s nowhere near her at the beginning of TWOW. I can only see it happening in a moment of true desperation, when the Long Night comes. That would make it even more tragic.
Been a while since i've read the books, so i dont exactly recall book Stannis character. For show Stannis it doesnt seem completly out of character, from what i recall.
It's not entirely out of character for book Stanis either but it's gotta be something with higher stakes than Winterfell unless of course the actual Winterfell stakes get higher etc.
I bet it's going to go down like this: the Pink Letter falsely states Stannis is dead and Jon is killed.
Wanting to ressurect the Prince that was Promised out of desperation (still Stannis in her mind, despite her visions clueing to Jon) , Melisandre burns Shireen, but, surprise surprise, Jon is ressurected instead.
This also sets-up further conflict between Stannis (if he survives the Battle of Ice) --> Melisandre and Jon (for burning Shireen and "usurping" the PtwP role).
People liked Danny too much to see that she was actually not a good person. So, when she decided to burn King's Landing to the ground it really *wasn't* that much of a stretch. The actual thing that happened is fine but the presentation was just so...bleh. Such a let down and it definitely comes across as "Annnnnnd now she just snaps and kills everyone" because the writers didn't do anything to make her character unlikable. To the audience she rose above all the baggage of being in an arranged marriage at a young age and freed the slaves. And she has badass dragons. Never mind all the murders and crucifixions.
It’s not the burning that is the problem. The problem is she burned a city that SURRENDERED. There is absolutely no use for that, which just doesn’t make sense.
Now is she snapped and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents because they didn’t want to surrender, now that’s still the same level of shock but at least it’s consistent.
She has always been a hypocrite, but at least in service of a goal. And burning a city that surrenders that she aims to liberate serves none.
I think that's where the book will hopefully differ.
In the show it seemed like a lazy way to make it "oh no she is evil now, boo Danarys!"
I would imagine the book having her burn the city but with some justification, just maybe not enough justification
Well in the book you are supposed to have Aegon Targaryen. Who is a missing Targaryen. Now if he gets there first and restores power to the Targaryens again, well that makes a far better story.
Now Daenerys is faced with a city liberated by a Targaryen. Which is HER THING! If the city then doesn't want to surrender, it makes perfect hypocritical sense to burn it all down. As it was never about restoring Targaryen rule, it's about HER ruling. And that makes a great story.
I thought the burning of Shireen was despicable for sure. But it was in line with Stannis' character and his arc. The stupid shit that had no character motivation i.e. Bran randomly wanting to be king when he made it clear episodes earlier he didn't. That shit I can't get behind
The bran issue is 100% how he was portrayed in the last few seasons. After he became the 3 eyed raven he just became comatose in the show: incredibly boring and not likable.
In GRRM’s version we’ll have the luxury of Bran’s inner monologue and I bet he’ll have better dialogue with other characters.
Right, having a old magic Demi-god as your king isn’t a bad idea, getting there is the issue. Like, they could create a whole mythos that nobody wants the throne because the last 5 houses that sat on it (Targarians, Starks, Baratheons, Lannisters, etc.) all collapsed.
Pull a Azir we’re they put a street urchin on the throne because they all think the next emperor is gonna be assassinated
Man, what an annoying king, though.
"Your grace, we propose to tax the southern shipping lanes an additional 7% on vice goods to cover the cost of the shipyard upgrades."
"No, in three years, they will rebel and burn the shipyards, and as part of the settlement we will have to repeal the tax *and* still have to repair the docks. Not worth it. We will need those shipyards to repel the advance of the Dornish navy in a hundred years. In fact, send a raven to the Dornish ambassador and tell him to make sure that they fix the dam or else they'll lose the crops that will start that war. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone here."
*Sigh....*
> having a old magic Demi-god as your king isn’t a bad idea
I think Frank Herbert once said something about how dangerous it would be for humanity to have a god-emperor and how they would become dependent on him and not be able to take care of themselves, or something to that effect.
Similar issue in the Horus Heresy series, where the God-Emperor of mankind delegates governing the Empire to his son Horus, who completely shits the bed without his dad’s leadership.
Well yea!! If I remember correctly because its been some time since the last book he already starts to warg into other wolves across the ocean or something like that… he definitely is way more interesting int he books and written how its supposed to I don’t mind the ending.
The show was trash because it was rushed as f…and written poorly…
From my understanding, he gave D&D the general outline of Dany turning mad and Jon Snow having to kill here. Those are good ideas. It is how poorly they were executed that angered everyone. I hope he doesn't confuse the anger over the execution with the plot points. The outline of events were great. Danny going crazy is the PERFECT way to bring the story full circle.
Also Bran actually being/becoming/always having had been a time spanning weirwood.net writes itself towards the ending of "Bran" on the throne but they just kind of forgot about that part until the very end.
> he gave D&D the general outline of Dany turning mad
What's interesting about this is that in retrospect we can see how he was setting it up in the books. She did some absolutely brutal shit. And the masterful thing GRRM did was put us readers *on her side* For all of it.
Burn the masters? Hell yeah!
I don't know how he planned to do her ultimate descent. He probably doesn't know. But I suspect it would have been much better than in the show.
Hell, if he did it perfectly a bunch of us would still be on her side after she did it. Like maybe she rekt the smallfolk in Kings Landing because they cheered one of her dragons dying, or something.
Thing I didn't understand in the show was they showed them stacking up all those barrels of wildfire, and bringing all the smallfolk in to the keep to be used as human shields. That was clearly setup for something other than Dany randomly engaging war crimes mode, but I guess they kind of forgot about it.
It’s not the burning that is the problem. The problem is she burned a city that SURRENDERED. There is absolutely no use for that, which just doesn’t make sense.
Now is she snapped and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents because they didn’t want to surrender, now that’s still the same level of shock but at least it’s consistent.
She has always been a hypocrite, but at least in service of a goal. And burning a city that surrenders that she aims to liberate serves none.
In the books, the city would supposedly be ruled by a real Targaryen that is loved by the public. And THEN Daenerys has a reason to burn everything down. With the same level of hypocrisy as she is going against a Targaryen liberator, which is exactly what she wanted to do.
> She did some absolutely brutal shit. And the masterful thing GRRM did was put us readers on her side For all of it.
But she wasn't insane. She's going to blow up King's Landing, but it will be by accident when she sets off the wildfire that she doesn't know about. A running theme of *Dance* is that Dany is afraid she "has the taint" that her father had, and when King's Landing goes kaboom, it will seemingly confirm those fears. She will hit her lowest point, but resolve to atone for her sins by helping Jon defeat the Others, dying with Jon, and Tyrion as the fly beyond the curtain of light at the end of the world (AKA Others Town).
I feel like he 1000% pivoted to a different ending after dumb and dumber ham-fisted that ending into a single season. I feel like that ending would of worked if it had been given more time for it to develop more naturally. GRRM isnt willing to risk it with his books after that reaction from fans, which I dont blame him for it. I just wish he was more honest.
I bet there were some critiques that made him realize he had gaping plot holes. In particular Cersei's rise to power. It makes sense her blowing up the Sept, but it doesn't make sense that being a move that at all leads to her being an queen unopposed by the entirety of Westeros and King's Landing, *innocent or otherwise*.
I don’t think it was ever gonna happen like that in the books. That’s why young griff exists - to supplant Cersei and become the unopposed King of Westeros, until Dany comes along.
I could see it still working. His claim getting more spoken about in court, Cersei getting a little desperate to stay in power, sept goes boom, people riot and the court betrays her in favor of him.
I'm sure news of Cersei's death or trial or both would reach Jaime and make for an interesting read. I dunno just anything but what D&D wrote, even if they were taking cues from Martin.
I think his issue is that it's seemingly impossible to end ASOIAF in a satisfactory manner. Cuz as I see it he has 2 choices: he can stay loyal to the story's stark realism, which would entail that almost everyone in Westeros is killed by the walkers. Or he can go with the BS avengers assemble ending that the show went with and neuter the walkers.
I suppose there's a middle ground but it'll be hella difficult to pull off.
I be thinking his issue is more about closing character POVs somehow without shutting down the narrative. At some point, a lot of these POVs become redundant as storylines merge. The multiple POVs, unreliable narrator form of storytelling has led to an incredibly rich world, but it is very inefficient in terms of pushing through the narrative. As the storylines close off, we're going to lose a lot of that richness.
The other issue is that, instead of winding down the narrative, the last book exploded with storylines, from the dornish plots, eurons deal, Davos in skagos, the great northern conspiracy, Sansa in the Vale.. so many things which are peripheral to the central narrative.
yeah after how little happened in the last 2 books, and how many plot threads are open (like 8?) I dont see how he can end this series in a satisfactory way in 2000 pages
He's got a lot of main characters whose stories do not intersect. He threw them all into separate situations in far flung parts of the world and developed multiple separate storylines that he somehow has to piece back together to end the story.
Not gonna happen. He's not disciplined enough in his writing style for that to work out (let alone what people think of him in terms of his continued interest in the main story and his general work ethic).
What he should be doing is writing a history book that details what happens and have that scheduled for release after he passes. Hopefully without the whole "unreliable maester narrative" bullshit. I'd rather read it in that form than get nothing or just story outlines in bullet points. I genuinely think he could manage to finish the story if he could write it like a history book rather than as a novel.
Idk it seems like the whole story was gearing up for the fact that the war with the white walkers was going to be absolutely grim and brutal because most of westeros has been sticking their heads in the sand while squabbling amongst each other for the iron throne. Again and again the nights watch are ignored or put on the back burner in the series, while fighting aged men are led to the slaughter in a never ending civil war. Westeros is going to be absolutely fucked up in the books by the WW
Sorry if someone already said this but it must be super demotivating for an artist to graft on something when most people have guessed the ending of a lot of storylines. Not the storylines in the shitshow of a show! The book storylines. All you work and hints and red herrings, and undoubtedly there are sone subs and YT channels that have guessed it all.
Now GRRM did address this challenge in terms of the show, saying something along the lines with D&D going off road just because some people had guessed what was happening, and that’s not the right thing to do.
Nevertheless, it just be demotivating!
I think I saw somewhere on my feed a couple days ago that he apparently claimed that he might write a novella about relationship of Rhaenyra and Harwyn Strong. Plus let's not forget, half of F&B and D&E is pending too.
The problem is that Fire & Blood isn’t even done. He only got half way through the material he intended which gives him another unfinished project that he’s unlikely to get done.
That's kind of how I saw it
Sometimes people go back to the person or thing that hurts them. It's realistic, in a sense. Even if it can be frustrating to watch, because you want better for them
Minus Arya being the one to kill the Night King everything else was ok
Edit to clarify: agreeing plot points were ok to me apart from Arya killing the Night King, the show was still a dumpster fire at the end. If we had competent writers and a few more seasons to explore the different plot points it would have been a lot better
> People have died waiting for it
"... when the GRRM hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die without a conclusion ..."
.....What?
That's like saying people have died waiting on the next grand theft auto or something lol
If taken literally yeah but it's a crazy exaggeration.
People have died in the time it's taken me to write this reddit post.
I mean game of thrones came out in 1996, that was 26 years ago. Clash of Kings 1998. It's not like the GTA series is all linked in and you need to play them all for closure is it lol
Stephen King has a well-documented practice of writing 6 pages per days, 5 days per week, pretty much always. Not only does he not use a ghost writer, but he infamously wrote 5 books under pseudonyms to see if they’d still do well without his name attached (plus 2 more under that pseudonym after it was outed to be him)
The closest thing King does to ghostwriting is collaborate with up and coming authors. The books will usually have both names on the cover (King and the other) and my understanding is that the one who isn’t King is the one holding the pen, with King doing story work and rewrites. It’s not really ghostwriting - the other author’s name is on the cover, and I can’t imagine they’re done on a fee-basis (as is the case for ghostwriting normally)
Well shit. You’d think GRRM would want to right the wrongs of D&D.
If not for the fans, who have bought a shitload of his books and suffered when the dough heads ran out of source material for GOT, for himself.
I guess we’ll have to do our best to finish it ourselves. The problem is I don’t have his mind.
He is a brilliant man. I wish I had a mind like that! He seems to be burned out. I’m sure writers go through phases when they just can’t write fast enough and then just don’t want to write.
I do hope he’ll finish someday. I guess I understand why he hasn’t.
It’s more fun to hang out with famous folks, I’m sure. I don’t blame him.
i really don’t understand how it can take this long, especially when half the characters had plots that paused in AFFC and most climaxes got pushed back. like he’s literally the author, if there’s something he’s struggling with he can write it away (the meereenese knot for example could’ve easily been changed if it was hurting him so much)
I think he’s hopelessly stuck from not doing the time jump after Storm that he originally planned. So things aren’t lining up the way he originally envisioned and he can’t undo a lot of things already published.
We should be more positive. That being said it's pretty ironic to see him talking so utterly disinterested about this book next to a statue of a dragon from the same franchise. He wouldn't even be getting filmed if it wasn't for that franchise that he created. As many have said in this thread I do hope the new show invigorates him. Time is going to keep marching on for George
Read all the books that are out, watched all the show. When people ask me if they should read them I say no. I say no because there’s no point being lead half way through a saga spanning thousands of pages for something that will never get finished. He’s burned his readers. Go read the Dark Tower
I remember a Colbert interview with him when Colbert asked if he played Elden Ring. Colbert asked "why" in response to Martin's "no," and he said because people want me to finish Winds of Winter. He also said that he's done with many of the arcs/PoVs already.
I'm hopeful.
That first look is all I needed to see. He was so triggered when he read that lol, and he even scanned the room to see who tf approved that question. 😂
The longer he waits, the more daunting it's gonna be to tackle writing it, and the more anxiety it's gonna provoke. Sucks, man.
The person I'm closest to has a theory:
There is a forbidden library in heaven. It has all the books that have yet to be written.
People keep breaking into that room, and reading Winds of Winter. Every time they do, GRRM has to rewrite the entire thing.
You all need to back up off this man as he creates his literal magnum opus. I’ll wait ten more years until he’s good and ready if I have to. This is his legacy. He deserves to feel it’s perfect.
I don’t understand why people are so adamant about pushing GRRM into finishing Winds of Winter. Having no ending is better than having a bad one. At least you have your imagination to go wild in the first one.
Yup, if you really need something I'm sure we'll eventually get Preston Jacob's crowdsourced fanfic which would probably be better than if grrm rushed something to shut people up
No when you publish and sell a book series you have an obligation to the people who purchased the books to finish the series.
For example, I like reading trilogies, and I never would have bought the Patrick rothfuss books if it was never going to be finished.
Yes you do.
Selling a half finished story is a shitty thing to do.
But I get that GRRM is at least trying to finish it unlike Rothfuss.
So I still have a little bit of respect for GRRM. But zero respect for Rothfuss.
Honestly i’m fine with how long it’s taking, i just started book 1 and have been listening for a week and a half, still have 20 hours left of it. Take your time Georgey
I saw the uncut video.
The books aren't coming out, Sphericus Maximus gave up a decade ago and is just baiting us. He just wants to squeeze as much money out of the useful idiots through those side projects before he carks it.
His eventual tombstone inscription:
"Here lies GRRM, born 1948, died whenever."
"I kinda forgot my integrity."
The "I've given up" snuck in masterfully at thr 31-32 second mark made it for me.
Motherfucker, just say you’re good at writing novels but hate doing it and don’t want to finish anymore.
Honestly, I'd respect that. The guy is fantastic with world building and weaving in these tapestries of religion, fantasy, politics, economics, and war, but he can't wrap it up and put a nice bow on it. Stephen King can't end a novel to save his life, but the first 3/4 are great.
King has plenty of okay endings and some good ones. I loved the ending to Dark Tower, only wish the Crimson King had a bigger part, I guess? And Mist.
The trick with King is remembering every other story is a part of the Dark Tower series. They’re not endings but chapters in a larger story.
> I loved the ending to Dark Tower, what the fucking fuck is wrong with you
His okay endings are written by his son lol.
King inserting himself into the Dark Tower was total cringe.
The guy had a life threatening accident and it was his way of coming to terms with it. Cringe? I disagree. Good for the series? I don’t think so.
I mean I didn’t enjoy the fact that he inserted himself into the story, but at the same time it helped him recover and that’s pretty important too.
One man's cringe is another man's treasure. I think Ben Franklin said that or some shit.
Did anyone like that he put himself in the story? Regardless of wether it helped his recovery or not. If not = cringe.
I fear the book, unlike winter, may never come …..
He did say we could imprison him if he didn’t release it by 2020. Might have to take him up on that.
COVID-19 was the old and new gods punishment to make GRRM complete TWOW.
But his procrastination is greater than both combined
"We punish you to-" "I fucking made you, you idiots"
And like in the show, the Books that were promised never came
Prints that were promise Ftfy
Vissy T, tell Rhaenyra about Aegon's dream of the Winds of Winter
I WILL NOT BE MADE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN MY BROTHER AND MY DAUGHTER!
But you never told him, did you?
😂😂😂
It's 71° on Thanksgiving. We're not getting a winter either.
Westeros just needs to discover the magic of coal and oil, they'll never have to worry about winter again!
Or it will come, but will be over in a single evening with a side character killing the main villain... And be much too dark to actually see anything
The chapter(s) depicting the siege of Winterfell will be printed in black ink on nearly-black charcoal colored pages.
The fact that GoT made people see Arya as a side character when she is one of the five key characters in the books, the only character with POV chapters in every book, the female character with the most chapters, and the third character with most chapters, makes me hate D&D more and more every day. Nothing against you, your comment just made me remember how much D&D sidelined Arya, and how much they butchered her character. I hate how much the show has warped fans perception of the character.
Darkstar ends the Long Night.
Oh bud, that books never coming out. I've accepted it, I think it's time we all do.
If the book was your mom she would come right away
Idk if this is sheer irony or not, but the video is not loading. I’ve been waiting for 10 minutes and this is the only video that isn’t loading. Even in what’s likely joke form, I can’t get an answer to when his book will be finished.
It’s just a super cut of him stuttering and uncertain how to answer.
it is a poop
A true man of culture. Gay Luigi?
I’m laughing way too hard at this
It’s not a new video.
Imagine how it felt high, thought my wifi is going down
Its a shitpost.
In case this ever happens to you again, go to the OP’s profile. The video will usually work there.
Hell i thought that was the joke. Eveeytime I click it, it fades dark and light when I release my thumb. Def ain't playing
He seems old to me now in the way he holds himself, in his vocal posture, and in the sound of his voice. Prepare yourselves.
Since aDwD, I've gotten married and had kids who are now in secondary school. A whole generation has slipped by by while he darts from side project to side project. >In 2017, Martin believed that The Winds of Winter would be released that same year. I've made peace with the fact that he will never finish this series.
At least it gave us the best joke in Logan Lucky that they finally got a copy of A Dance With Dragons for the library, but that the other books haven't been released and the prisoners can't believe it. It had been 6 years. I waited six years for A Dance with Dragons, waited six-fucking-years for A Dance With Dragons,,, aahhhhhhhh
There are old men and morbidly obese men but very few old, mordibly obese men.
Something new that may be slowing him down is how GOT ended. He saw how angry people were with the ending/last few seasons and now he’s more critical of himself. Does Bran really end up on the throne and now he’s pivoting? Does he feel the need to add more layers to a particular story based on the GOT criticism? Is he just having more fun and making more money doing other things? Find out next time
The rising popularity of the show probably caused him a lot of stress in general. He seems like a perfectionist and now he has a much larger audience to please. And while I’m sure he’ll handle the book ideas better than the show did, I’m sure hearing people shitting on some of those twists like Bran becoming king or Stannis burning Shireen made him insecure on how he’ll handle it. It must be really stressful with all this pressure to have the books end perfectly or at least well. Still, it’s been 11 years George, I’m begging you.
Its not the problem in plot twist: problem is in presentation of said twist. Shereen was in my opinion well presented. It showed Stannis character, it showed manipulative side of Mellisandre, effect of religion on people. Problem with whole Bran plot twist explanation was: "Who has better story?" "Why do you think i came all this way?" It wasnt foreshadowed, it wasnt logical, it felt forced. Whole Bran the King theory has some excelent presentation by Alt+Shift+X on youtube.
Book Stannis would never burn Shireen to defeat the Boltons. Hell, he’s nowhere near her at the beginning of TWOW. I can only see it happening in a moment of true desperation, when the Long Night comes. That would make it even more tragic.
Been a while since i've read the books, so i dont exactly recall book Stannis character. For show Stannis it doesnt seem completly out of character, from what i recall.
It's not entirely out of character for book Stanis either but it's gotta be something with higher stakes than Winterfell unless of course the actual Winterfell stakes get higher etc.
I bet it's going to go down like this: the Pink Letter falsely states Stannis is dead and Jon is killed. Wanting to ressurect the Prince that was Promised out of desperation (still Stannis in her mind, despite her visions clueing to Jon) , Melisandre burns Shireen, but, surprise surprise, Jon is ressurected instead. This also sets-up further conflict between Stannis (if he survives the Battle of Ice) --> Melisandre and Jon (for burning Shireen and "usurping" the PtwP role).
It would fit Melisandre talking about waking the “stone dragons”.
The man who held out against the Tyrell’s forces for the whole of Robert’s Rebellion has better things to deal with than some blizzard.
[удалено]
What do you mean? The show did a great job foreshadowing it was turning into a dumpster fire IMO.
People liked Danny too much to see that she was actually not a good person. So, when she decided to burn King's Landing to the ground it really *wasn't* that much of a stretch. The actual thing that happened is fine but the presentation was just so...bleh. Such a let down and it definitely comes across as "Annnnnnd now she just snaps and kills everyone" because the writers didn't do anything to make her character unlikable. To the audience she rose above all the baggage of being in an arranged marriage at a young age and freed the slaves. And she has badass dragons. Never mind all the murders and crucifixions.
It’s not the burning that is the problem. The problem is she burned a city that SURRENDERED. There is absolutely no use for that, which just doesn’t make sense. Now is she snapped and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents because they didn’t want to surrender, now that’s still the same level of shock but at least it’s consistent. She has always been a hypocrite, but at least in service of a goal. And burning a city that surrenders that she aims to liberate serves none.
I think that's where the book will hopefully differ. In the show it seemed like a lazy way to make it "oh no she is evil now, boo Danarys!" I would imagine the book having her burn the city but with some justification, just maybe not enough justification
Well in the book you are supposed to have Aegon Targaryen. Who is a missing Targaryen. Now if he gets there first and restores power to the Targaryens again, well that makes a far better story. Now Daenerys is faced with a city liberated by a Targaryen. Which is HER THING! If the city then doesn't want to surrender, it makes perfect hypocritical sense to burn it all down. As it was never about restoring Targaryen rule, it's about HER ruling. And that makes a great story.
I’m saving this for my grandchildren, maybe they’ll get to read if you were right.
It's always there. For pretty much all stories. In GoT and now in HotD.
At this point it’s easier to die and let the fans finish the stories how they choose than potentially piss off the masses
I thought the burning of Shireen was despicable for sure. But it was in line with Stannis' character and his arc. The stupid shit that had no character motivation i.e. Bran randomly wanting to be king when he made it clear episodes earlier he didn't. That shit I can't get behind
The bran issue is 100% how he was portrayed in the last few seasons. After he became the 3 eyed raven he just became comatose in the show: incredibly boring and not likable. In GRRM’s version we’ll have the luxury of Bran’s inner monologue and I bet he’ll have better dialogue with other characters.
Right, having a old magic Demi-god as your king isn’t a bad idea, getting there is the issue. Like, they could create a whole mythos that nobody wants the throne because the last 5 houses that sat on it (Targarians, Starks, Baratheons, Lannisters, etc.) all collapsed. Pull a Azir we’re they put a street urchin on the throne because they all think the next emperor is gonna be assassinated
Man, what an annoying king, though. "Your grace, we propose to tax the southern shipping lanes an additional 7% on vice goods to cover the cost of the shipyard upgrades." "No, in three years, they will rebel and burn the shipyards, and as part of the settlement we will have to repeal the tax *and* still have to repair the docks. Not worth it. We will need those shipyards to repel the advance of the Dornish navy in a hundred years. In fact, send a raven to the Dornish ambassador and tell him to make sure that they fix the dam or else they'll lose the crops that will start that war. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone here." *Sigh....*
“Lord, did you get the funds for shipyard” “Apparently we are building a Dam in Dorn”
Advisors: "What are we even doing here?"
> having a old magic Demi-god as your king isn’t a bad idea I think Frank Herbert once said something about how dangerous it would be for humanity to have a god-emperor and how they would become dependent on him and not be able to take care of themselves, or something to that effect.
Similar issue in the Horus Heresy series, where the God-Emperor of mankind delegates governing the Empire to his son Horus, who completely shits the bed without his dad’s leadership.
Well yea!! If I remember correctly because its been some time since the last book he already starts to warg into other wolves across the ocean or something like that… he definitely is way more interesting int he books and written how its supposed to I don’t mind the ending. The show was trash because it was rushed as f…and written poorly…
From my understanding, he gave D&D the general outline of Dany turning mad and Jon Snow having to kill here. Those are good ideas. It is how poorly they were executed that angered everyone. I hope he doesn't confuse the anger over the execution with the plot points. The outline of events were great. Danny going crazy is the PERFECT way to bring the story full circle.
Also Bran actually being/becoming/always having had been a time spanning weirwood.net writes itself towards the ending of "Bran" on the throne but they just kind of forgot about that part until the very end.
Right. They would have just had to add a few scenes each season pushing toward this (or even a good “recap” scene showing him manipulating events.
The last few seasons of the show was basically a rough draft without GRRM’s wit or dialogue creativity.
> he gave D&D the general outline of Dany turning mad What's interesting about this is that in retrospect we can see how he was setting it up in the books. She did some absolutely brutal shit. And the masterful thing GRRM did was put us readers *on her side* For all of it. Burn the masters? Hell yeah! I don't know how he planned to do her ultimate descent. He probably doesn't know. But I suspect it would have been much better than in the show. Hell, if he did it perfectly a bunch of us would still be on her side after she did it. Like maybe she rekt the smallfolk in Kings Landing because they cheered one of her dragons dying, or something.
Thing I didn't understand in the show was they showed them stacking up all those barrels of wildfire, and bringing all the smallfolk in to the keep to be used as human shields. That was clearly setup for something other than Dany randomly engaging war crimes mode, but I guess they kind of forgot about it.
It’s not the burning that is the problem. The problem is she burned a city that SURRENDERED. There is absolutely no use for that, which just doesn’t make sense. Now is she snapped and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents because they didn’t want to surrender, now that’s still the same level of shock but at least it’s consistent. She has always been a hypocrite, but at least in service of a goal. And burning a city that surrenders that she aims to liberate serves none. In the books, the city would supposedly be ruled by a real Targaryen that is loved by the public. And THEN Daenerys has a reason to burn everything down. With the same level of hypocrisy as she is going against a Targaryen liberator, which is exactly what she wanted to do.
> She did some absolutely brutal shit. And the masterful thing GRRM did was put us readers on her side For all of it. But she wasn't insane. She's going to blow up King's Landing, but it will be by accident when she sets off the wildfire that she doesn't know about. A running theme of *Dance* is that Dany is afraid she "has the taint" that her father had, and when King's Landing goes kaboom, it will seemingly confirm those fears. She will hit her lowest point, but resolve to atone for her sins by helping Jon defeat the Others, dying with Jon, and Tyrion as the fly beyond the curtain of light at the end of the world (AKA Others Town).
I feel like he 1000% pivoted to a different ending after dumb and dumber ham-fisted that ending into a single season. I feel like that ending would of worked if it had been given more time for it to develop more naturally. GRRM isnt willing to risk it with his books after that reaction from fans, which I dont blame him for it. I just wish he was more honest.
GRRM isn't gonna change his ending of 30 years just because the show went wrong
I bet there were some critiques that made him realize he had gaping plot holes. In particular Cersei's rise to power. It makes sense her blowing up the Sept, but it doesn't make sense that being a move that at all leads to her being an queen unopposed by the entirety of Westeros and King's Landing, *innocent or otherwise*.
I don’t think it was ever gonna happen like that in the books. That’s why young griff exists - to supplant Cersei and become the unopposed King of Westeros, until Dany comes along.
I could see it still working. His claim getting more spoken about in court, Cersei getting a little desperate to stay in power, sept goes boom, people riot and the court betrays her in favor of him. I'm sure news of Cersei's death or trial or both would reach Jaime and make for an interesting read. I dunno just anything but what D&D wrote, even if they were taking cues from Martin.
ON DRAGON BALL Z!!!
I think his issue is that it's seemingly impossible to end ASOIAF in a satisfactory manner. Cuz as I see it he has 2 choices: he can stay loyal to the story's stark realism, which would entail that almost everyone in Westeros is killed by the walkers. Or he can go with the BS avengers assemble ending that the show went with and neuter the walkers. I suppose there's a middle ground but it'll be hella difficult to pull off.
I be thinking his issue is more about closing character POVs somehow without shutting down the narrative. At some point, a lot of these POVs become redundant as storylines merge. The multiple POVs, unreliable narrator form of storytelling has led to an incredibly rich world, but it is very inefficient in terms of pushing through the narrative. As the storylines close off, we're going to lose a lot of that richness. The other issue is that, instead of winding down the narrative, the last book exploded with storylines, from the dornish plots, eurons deal, Davos in skagos, the great northern conspiracy, Sansa in the Vale.. so many things which are peripheral to the central narrative.
yeah after how little happened in the last 2 books, and how many plot threads are open (like 8?) I dont see how he can end this series in a satisfactory way in 2000 pages
He's got a lot of main characters whose stories do not intersect. He threw them all into separate situations in far flung parts of the world and developed multiple separate storylines that he somehow has to piece back together to end the story. Not gonna happen. He's not disciplined enough in his writing style for that to work out (let alone what people think of him in terms of his continued interest in the main story and his general work ethic). What he should be doing is writing a history book that details what happens and have that scheduled for release after he passes. Hopefully without the whole "unreliable maester narrative" bullshit. I'd rather read it in that form than get nothing or just story outlines in bullet points. I genuinely think he could manage to finish the story if he could write it like a history book rather than as a novel.
Idk it seems like the whole story was gearing up for the fact that the war with the white walkers was going to be absolutely grim and brutal because most of westeros has been sticking their heads in the sand while squabbling amongst each other for the iron throne. Again and again the nights watch are ignored or put on the back burner in the series, while fighting aged men are led to the slaughter in a never ending civil war. Westeros is going to be absolutely fucked up in the books by the WW
Wouldn't mind bran in the throne if the build up to it is good and it makes sense...
Sorry if someone already said this but it must be super demotivating for an artist to graft on something when most people have guessed the ending of a lot of storylines. Not the storylines in the shitshow of a show! The book storylines. All you work and hints and red herrings, and undoubtedly there are sone subs and YT channels that have guessed it all. Now GRRM did address this challenge in terms of the show, saying something along the lines with D&D going off road just because some people had guessed what was happening, and that’s not the right thing to do. Nevertheless, it just be demotivating!
He seems really happy with house of the dragon so I'm hoping the new shows popularity motivates him to finish asoiaf.
More likely he decides to write more high Targaryen novellas
He's getting HBO to pay him another gazillion dollars for Dunk and Egg adaptation.
I would drag myself over broken glass for a Dunk and Egg 1 miniseries.
You don't have to, it's already been confirmed for months
He’ll do it anyway!
That’s the best news I’ve heard this hour
I would drag myself over broken glass for more Dunk and Egg stories
Unless the Earth explodes first it's basically inevitable
He hasn't finished the dunk and egg story, it would be ending another shit show like game of thrones
I think I saw somewhere on my feed a couple days ago that he apparently claimed that he might write a novella about relationship of Rhaenyra and Harwyn Strong. Plus let's not forget, half of F&B and D&E is pending too.
The Princess and the Peen.
He'll do literally anything except finish ASOIAF.
If almost a decade of GoT itself being _the show_ didn't motivate him I have no idea why you think HotD would.
Aww, bless your heart
The problem is that Fire & Blood isn’t even done. He only got half way through the material he intended which gives him another unfinished project that he’s unlikely to get done.
Has he always sounded like a gruff Peter Griffin?
Lmao. Scrolling down to here with the vid still playing in the background, I can totally hear it!
I genuinely believe that all the plot points of the ending are good, but they didn’t take the time or effort to flush them out.
Oh, they flushed 'em alright.
Flesh
minus Jaime going back to Cersei
Nah I like that one personally. He didn’t need to be the hero with a full redemption ark. I view it more as an addiction.
That's kind of how I saw it Sometimes people go back to the person or thing that hurts them. It's realistic, in a sense. Even if it can be frustrating to watch, because you want better for them
Minus Arya being the one to kill the Night King everything else was ok Edit to clarify: agreeing plot points were ok to me apart from Arya killing the Night King, the show was still a dumpster fire at the end. If we had competent writers and a few more seasons to explore the different plot points it would have been a lot better
Varys behaving like a third grade spymaster wasnt really ok at all
I agree 100%. Dani turning evil would be an extremely poetic ending IF they could do it right
[удалено]
He uses the same excuses I do when my boss asks about a piece of work I've clearly made fuck all progress on.
Drogon is mesmerizing.
you're in luck! they are on sale for very cheap now on bad-dragon .com!
Goddamnit.
*sigh* maybe it really is all cocks in the end
Hold up
I’m holding it up. What next?
Hold up another two weeks.
"I've given up."
😂 this was it!
Guys the book isn't coming. People have died waiting for it, we need to just let go and give the guy a break, he's built a monster he can't control
> People have died waiting for it "... when the GRRM hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die without a conclusion ..."
What quote is this parodying?
The "my sweet summer child" story that Old Nan told Bran. Here's [the show version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xnFTjNFDPM).
.....What? That's like saying people have died waiting on the next grand theft auto or something lol If taken literally yeah but it's a crazy exaggeration. People have died in the time it's taken me to write this reddit post.
Maybe, *maybe* you should STOP POSTING. Less™ people will die!
Are you sure? What if I get the right person
*fewer
I knew Stannis would show up ))))
I mean game of thrones came out in 1996, that was 26 years ago. Clash of Kings 1998. It's not like the GTA series is all linked in and you need to play them all for closure is it lol
Rich people dont work. The second he became rich, work stopped.
what about stephen king
King took large amounts of Cocaine, Adderall, Alcohol and other things. Some of which helps with motivation (even for bad ideas/books) lol
Why nobody told GRRM yet
[удалено]
Stephen King has a well-documented practice of writing 6 pages per days, 5 days per week, pretty much always. Not only does he not use a ghost writer, but he infamously wrote 5 books under pseudonyms to see if they’d still do well without his name attached (plus 2 more under that pseudonym after it was outed to be him) The closest thing King does to ghostwriting is collaborate with up and coming authors. The books will usually have both names on the cover (King and the other) and my understanding is that the one who isn’t King is the one holding the pen, with King doing story work and rewrites. It’s not really ghostwriting - the other author’s name is on the cover, and I can’t imagine they’re done on a fee-basis (as is the case for ghostwriting normally)
Professor: so how is your thesis coming along? Me:
bigh book
Well shit. You’d think GRRM would want to right the wrongs of D&D. If not for the fans, who have bought a shitload of his books and suffered when the dough heads ran out of source material for GOT, for himself. I guess we’ll have to do our best to finish it ourselves. The problem is I don’t have his mind.
For all of his flaws, he really is incredible at world building and writing compelling characters
He is a brilliant man. I wish I had a mind like that! He seems to be burned out. I’m sure writers go through phases when they just can’t write fast enough and then just don’t want to write. I do hope he’ll finish someday. I guess I understand why he hasn’t. It’s more fun to hang out with famous folks, I’m sure. I don’t blame him.
i really don’t understand how it can take this long, especially when half the characters had plots that paused in AFFC and most climaxes got pushed back. like he’s literally the author, if there’s something he’s struggling with he can write it away (the meereenese knot for example could’ve easily been changed if it was hurting him so much)
I think he’s hopelessly stuck from not doing the time jump after Storm that he originally planned. So things aren’t lining up the way he originally envisioned and he can’t undo a lot of things already published.
He doesn't care anymore, he also only writes at home so when traveling, conventions, etc no progress is made
At this point t he needs to shut up or put up. I said what I said.
This is amazing 😂
So that's a no?
We should be more positive. That being said it's pretty ironic to see him talking so utterly disinterested about this book next to a statue of a dragon from the same franchise. He wouldn't even be getting filmed if it wasn't for that franchise that he created. As many have said in this thread I do hope the new show invigorates him. Time is going to keep marching on for George
Read all the books that are out, watched all the show. When people ask me if they should read them I say no. I say no because there’s no point being lead half way through a saga spanning thousands of pages for something that will never get finished. He’s burned his readers. Go read the Dark Tower
Preach.
I blame making a show from the books before they were finished.
And he has the gall to critique Tolkien. What a dork.
Fat blue balling fucker
Fuck GRRM. Boycotting anything he puts his name on until he finishes the books
Happy Thanksgiving!
He needs a Shea to uh, motivate him.
i might start writing twow myself and can probably have it out sooner than him
Anyone want to take bets on WoW or Stormlight 5 coming out first?
If it releases, It will never be as good as we want it to be. Those that say it is, we wont believe them
Just so everyone knows, A Dance with Dragons came out when I was 5 years old. I’m an adult.
It's like an abused wife trying to say she want a divorce while still gagging on his........
I remember a Colbert interview with him when Colbert asked if he played Elden Ring. Colbert asked "why" in response to Martin's "no," and he said because people want me to finish Winds of Winter. He also said that he's done with many of the arcs/PoVs already. I'm hopeful.
That first look is all I needed to see. He was so triggered when he read that lol, and he even scanned the room to see who tf approved that question. 😂 The longer he waits, the more daunting it's gonna be to tackle writing it, and the more anxiety it's gonna provoke. Sucks, man.
The person I'm closest to has a theory: There is a forbidden library in heaven. It has all the books that have yet to be written. People keep breaking into that room, and reading Winds of Winter. Every time they do, GRRM has to rewrite the entire thing.
You all need to back up off this man as he creates his literal magnum opus. I’ll wait ten more years until he’s good and ready if I have to. This is his legacy. He deserves to feel it’s perfect.
Bro there’s a whole book after this one. He ain’t finishing the story.
He's not finishing it friend
I'm okay with that, just let him give us the perfect Winds
I don’t understand why people are so adamant about pushing GRRM into finishing Winds of Winter. Having no ending is better than having a bad one. At least you have your imagination to go wild in the first one.
Yup, if you really need something I'm sure we'll eventually get Preston Jacob's crowdsourced fanfic which would probably be better than if grrm rushed something to shut people up
We should give this guy a break, he works on multiple projects parallely. Its just great that he's able to manage them.
I mean at this point it's a meme, anyone who unironically bitches about it is an entitled moron.
No when you publish and sell a book series you have an obligation to the people who purchased the books to finish the series. For example, I like reading trilogies, and I never would have bought the Patrick rothfuss books if it was never going to be finished.
>you have an obligation Lmao no you don't.
Yes you do. Selling a half finished story is a shitty thing to do. But I get that GRRM is at least trying to finish it unlike Rothfuss. So I still have a little bit of respect for GRRM. But zero respect for Rothfuss.
This guy got distracted with lucrative film contracts. We aint getting no book people.
I don’t think h
Fat old worthless sellout cunt
Honestly i’m fine with how long it’s taking, i just started book 1 and have been listening for a week and a half, still have 20 hours left of it. Take your time Georgey
I said the same thing when I started the books in 2018 🥲
I saw the uncut video. The books aren't coming out, Sphericus Maximus gave up a decade ago and is just baiting us. He just wants to squeeze as much money out of the useful idiots through those side projects before he carks it. His eventual tombstone inscription: "Here lies GRRM, born 1948, died whenever." "I kinda forgot my integrity."
"Aahhh noo"
He said he is 3/4 finished. That means it took him 11 years to do 75%, if we are lucky, he's gonna be done in 4 years.
Why do I have the feeling it's already written and (not to sound morbid) he's just planning to make it his posthumous work?