We will never get a non shit ending to GoT. Sob.
I think he doesn’t want to deal with the people part and has already finished it with instructions to release it post mortem.
If I watched that last season and knew how much people hated it I wouldn’t want to see what happens to the book in the wild, even if they’re significantly different.
Yeah I 10/10 believe the world got too big and too detailed for him to handle. Hot take: I don’t think he’s nearly as talented a fantasy writer as he puts on. Readers already started pointing out inconsistencies. Then when you add in how the show ended, I’m sure that sealed the deal for him that the story will be “under construction” in perpetuity.
That’s a good point, he may just not be skilled enough to finish it. Annoying thing is that surely he could just get the white walkers to finish off loads of characters he’s stuck on!
This is going to go the way of the Wheel of Time series from Robert Jordan. He’ll fuck around long enough that he ends up dead before finishing the book and his estate will bring in another writer to finish it.
You know who would be a great candidate for such an author? Patrick Rothfuss.
/s if it wasn’t obvious
My theory is that the show ending was the way he was going to end the books, but doesn’t know what to do now that everyone hated the ending
That’s how the writers got the job. Correctly predicting the ending.
I think that’s true that the show ended the way he was supposed to do it. But my theory is that he told the showrunners what the ending should be, but didn’t elaborate how the story should get there (because he hadn’t written it yet), so the show did it themselves and executed it terribly.
IMO there’s nothing bad about how everything and everyone ends up in the show. It’s how they got there and how it hastily done that made it bad. If his fear is that people will hate the book because it has the same ending, I think it would still work if the events leading up to it are written better.
Thing is, this book isn’t even going to have the ending yet, and at this point he doesn’t exactly have a high bar to clear to make improvements on how GoT approached the ending. There’s also nothing wrong with outright making changes to the ending if he wants.
He’s clearly been in his own head about the series ever since after the fourth book. He still likes writing about the world, so my best guess is whatever progress he makes on Winds is occasional efforts to try to shed that emotional weight and free up some headspace for the side stories he likes more.
Exactly. Imagine if season two started with Stannis’s shadow murdering Renly. Then next episode Stannis attacks Kings Landing and Rob marries Talisa. Third episode is the Red Wedding. Fourth episode is the Purple Wedding. Fifth episode is Tyrion’s trial and Oberyn’s fight. Then we end with season short with the battle at the wall and Jon dies.
That would be an action packed but ultimately terribly confusing and paced season. All those events, when spread out over several episodes and seasons are excellent and exciting moments.
The first three books (roughly first four seasons) are the end of the first act of the story. The next two books are just the start of the second act of the story. The world grew. The world expanded. A time jump was added and then removed, and that’s where the problems started. The show needed to start working towards an ending, but the story wasn’t going that way.
I think in a world where the television series was never made, George would have likely finished the series by now. It’s difficult to sit in your house and type out a story while everyone is outside your house having fun and yelling at you to come outside.
This isn’t to absolve George. He’s a professional, he should have finished, but I get it.
I had just happened to watch a video the other day about all the hanging plot threads from the show ending, and I think that’s what bothers me. With any epic story, odds are that normally no ending could ever live up to what our hopes are, especially at an individual level, but there are now so many questions we’ll never get answers to and characters some of us invested many years of our lives thinking about just got done so dirty. Brienne, Jaime, The Hound, Varys, Littlefinger, the Children of the Forest, anyone from Dorne or the Iron Islands, the Facless Men. Everything just got such a weak wrap up. For so many people and events that got a huge emotional buildup, nothing seemed to matter for any character in the end. It feels like the showrunners lost interest as much as GRRM did and called it a day.
I think that’s part of it… plus he’s been fucking stuck for years
That may be true. The way I see it, he’s got nothing to gain and everything to lose if he finishes it. Since GOT, he’s now in great demand as a fantasy writer in the movie/video realm. Hollywood is showering him with lucrative deals. So, if he finishes WOW and it flops, after having worked on it for 13 years, it will call into question his status as the “go-to” fantasy guy. No one likes a loser, especially Hollywood, because investing millions into productions that flop hurts the bottom line. Conversely, if he finishes it and it’s a great success, it doesn’t really do much for him. He’s already in great demand, and it’s not like he’ll suddenly have more opportunities open to him as a result of the success of WOW. So finishing WOW is now a situation where it can only hurt him and not help him.
I decided when the show was on that I’d love to buy and read the books, when they’re finished. We’re over a decade past that and still haven’t bothered to even crack open the first. Doubt I ever will
[off topic?]
Wild Cards is Martin’s collaborative effort with dozens of other writers over more than three decades. In 1946 the WW2 hero JetBoy died when he prevented an alien bioweapon from being fully deployed. If it had gone off as intended millions would have died. As it was thousands were affected by the ‘Wild Card’ virus. Most people drew the Black Card and died. Many others drew a Joker and were turned into hideous freaks of all sorts. A luck few drew an Ace and gained fantastic powers for good or evil.
And if you like GOT for the intense, graphic stuff, this series has that in spades*
*sorry, I had to
I’d club you, but I haven’t got the heart for it.
At this point he should just feed the old books to an AI and have it write the next ones. Nobody will be able to tell the difference.
Hope to god this is a joke
Not the worst idea
Eoin Colfer is already salivating.
That dude’s official Hitchhiker’s sequel was not great.
