I mean, by now I'm convinced he will end the books the same way Frank Herbert "finished" Dune; but GRR couldn't even have a son/daughter for us to hope for anything.
@@gustavocardoso9453 nope, it is actually has it in his will that if he dies before he finishes it all his notes and unpublished writings are to be destroyed so that no one will ever be able to finish it for him, this is the ultimate act of narcissism
A wise man once commented: "King writes like it's his job. George writes like it's a hobby that took off in a way he wasn't prepared for and now that there's so much pressure it's not so fun anymore."
@@johgu92 Eh, he's hit or miss. I would say he used to be excellent at his job, but now that he's immensely wealthy, he doesn't really care about the quality of the work anymore.
To be fair, the one time Stephen King had a 7 book fantasy epic to write, it took him 20 years to finish and he had to be run over with a car to be motivated to finish it.
I got my grandmother into ASOIAF after the first season of GoT came on. She re-reads all the books regularly. She is now 92 years old and increasingly frustrated at the prospect that she will never get to read the ending...
One thing I find interesting is that (according to wikipedia, sourcing his blog) he considered an October 2015 deadline achievable in May 2015. And a year-end deadline achievable in September 2015. So about 8-9 years ago he thought he was almost there. This tells me that he must have thrown out pretty much everything he had written and started over in late 2015 or early 2016. And may have done the same several times since then.
And he keeps getting distracted by other projects. I personally don't care at all about the HBO projects or his Wyldcards franchise. I don't really need to hear about "A Clash Of Kings" being released in a new, illustrated version! But I also know how long it took me to write my own book.
I vividly remember at the end of 2015 with the sixth season of Game of Thrones on the way, he wrote a post on his blog saying that the book was not finished or ready to be published but he stated that their agents told him that if he had written and subsequently finished within a deadline they could have released before the season premiere, so that definitely tracks cause I remember being optimistic about reading in 2016 lol
Several years ago I was of the mind we'd never see ADoS. Now I've lost all hope for Winds, as well. If we DO get it, then great! But there's no way this series gets finished. No way.
@@fengusburnt He already has a team around him, so yeah probably. And even if he does not, his publishers and heirs certainly won't leave the story unfinished and lose an opportunity for more money
I think you make a great point about the type of writer George is. Being a "gardener" type of writer is great in the first few novels where George is happily planting seeds and expanding the world, taking his characters on separate journeys and so on. However, at some point, these threads that have spun in different directions need to come back together in a cohesive story and then an ending. It's clear to me that George does NOT want to do that in his very heart of hearts. You can tell that from the way he introduces key characters with a lot of power to affect the world even in A Dance With Dragons and how he often avoids intersecting characters despite it being the logical thing to do (e.g. Arya Stark who is waylaid trying to go North then the Hound tries to take her to her mother and they arrive just slightly too late for the Red Wedding and then the same thing happens when the Hound tries to take her to Lysa). I honestly hope he does manage to finish ASOIAF. Regardless of what else he writes in that universe, ASOIAF will remain his magnum opus and it being unfinished would cast a stain on his legacy.
@@randomsmashplays3564 That's a complicated question with a divisive answer. Frank Herbert did intend to write a 7th Dune Book (the last one he did was Chapterhouse I think) but he died killed by cancer. His son, Brian, wrote more books (some with the help of Kevin J. Anderson) to finish his work based on his father's notes but many fans don't consider them part of the universe due to the drop in writing quality and style. There are 2 big differences here: - Frank literally wrote until he died, he published Heretics of Dune in 1984-5 and Chapterhouse in 1985-6. He never did a GRRM and sat on his ass doing Hollywood bullshit and complaining for over a decade. - The Dune books do not comprise a single ongoing story like GRRM's books do. I would argue that the main story of Dune is finished in the next book, Dune Messiah, after which a completely new chapter starts in Children of Dune. They all focus on humanity's struggle to survive in Frank Herbert's unique vision of future but the protagonists change and large chunks of time pass from novel to novel. In conclusion, I would say Frank Herbert DID finish his masterpiece but maybe didn't finish telling us all the stories he had in mind with his universe. At the same time, he was not a complaining time-waster, he worked until he died and in fact his rate of publishing books INCREASED in the past 5 years of his life.
Imo The problem with Grrm is that while he is a gardener, he is bad at pruning unnecessary branches. He gets too carried away by minor plots, characters and elaborate descriptions. It's like a hydra, every time he concludes a plot or character he creates several more in its aftermath. Best example is the red wedding and how that created even more spread out plot in riverlands.
Well, the showrunners tried the alternative by having the Red Wedding conclude the Riverlands storyline and having the Boltons and Freys not suffer any consequences, and it was boring and dumb as hell. A massive event like the Red Wedding SHOULD have enormous consequences, GRRM would be a bad writer if he used it to just end a plot line and left it at that.
I think he should've split the book into 3 or 4 books To carry on the struggle So he can Go in different ways And follow the story he intended plus he would've made a tun more money ❤
@@frankvandorp2059 There is a middle ground between those two extremes, though. There's several Riverlands subplots that are not necessary, nor particularly interesting. The metaphor of the OP is apt.
@@andi9161I’m assuming you mean splitting Winds up, similar to how Dance got split into Feast and itself? It could potentially work, but with everything coming together, if he releases half the characters up until the end of the book, he’s then locked in to writing the rest to fit into it. He he splits it by time, they he may end up realising he needed to add or change something early on to make work. I think this is kind of the problem he’s having with Winter AND Dreams, in that he’s begun thinking about how he wants Dreams to go down, and it requires Winter to be altered in small ways, and so he hanging onto it while he gets plots in place.
At least we know he's been writing even at a snails pace... unlike Patrick Rothfuss whose taken just as long and has virtually nothing to show for the wait.
It's quite simple. GRRM is old and not what he used to be as an author. He's grown slower and less passionate about his story in ASOIAF. Mix this with the crazy complicated plots and the countless POV characters.....it's a struggle, bruv. That's just my take using common sense
I get the impression that what Martin always truly wanted was to work in television. And now, with the success of his novels, he has the opportunity to work on multiple popular, critically acclaimed tv shows for HBO. This is his dream, and this is what is getting his attention. I don't blame him, but I also don't think the series will ever be finished.
I'll be less kind, because I've grown to despise GRRM and his arrogance. He managed good work with GoT to start, but started falling in love with his own mental masterbaition as he increased in popularity. I've heard he styles himself as "The Atheist Tolkien". Once GoT hit HBO, he suddenly imagined he was master of all he surveyed, and decided that he had just SO much more to offer than that icky old thing about, "you had one job". That's why he's got so many screen credits - who doesn't love getting money for doing essentially what Donald Trump used to? The "Dunk & Egg" adventures are a literal waste of time, because GRRM is bored & can't figure out how to write the ending properly. He's probably scared deep down, because D&D screwed up so badly by rushing the end with only the bare bone framework, and he can't abide that people no longer give a damn about him. I'm betting the fat fucqer dies of a heart attack before finishing the series.
That's an excellent point. George left TV writing in the first place because the means were not available to render his stories on a TV screen just as he wanted them. That isn't true any more. Thanks to CGI you can now show anything on a TV show and George's imagination can be fully realised without production problems. That's why he is once again heavily into TV spinoffs. Plus, he's super-popular now, so budgets are less of a problem.
If what you say is true then I wish George would come clean and announce that he has no intention of writing his books. I'm too tired, too old, it's too complicated, I want to enjoy my life and my money. Any excuse will be valid. But be honest with us instead of keeping us waiting while you announce that Wild Cards shit on Twitter that no one cares about.
@@santiagodiazlescano933 But he has come clean. He has repeatedly stated that he is continuing to write the series and that he does intend to finish it. If he had just given up on it, he would shut up and not mention it. That would have been the sensible and human thing to do. But instead he has repeatedly stated that he WILL continue to work on the book and that he WILL finish it. And yet fans go on and on and on and on with this same nonsense that he must "come clean" and announce that he has given up. Stop it.
A Dance With Dragons came out summer of 2011. I graduated high school a month before that. In this gap of time I graduated college, got married, had a kid (he’s almost FIVE) bought a house and The Winds of Winter still has no date in sight. He published A Game of Thrones back in ‘96 when I was a toddler. I’m hoping that we will see the day where this sixth novel comes out… it’s very likely going to be sometime in this decade, right? But A Dream of Spring is a novel I doubt I’ll ever see in my lifetime 😢
Being married to a writer, and hanging around the members of the HWA, I think I can recognize when a writer has lost the fire for a certain project and I'm afraid I see that in GRRM. I am certain he is being completely sincere when he says he intends to finish Winds and Dream, I am also certain he never will. Everyone, for any project, has to have that inner NEED to continue to make it to the finish line. Once that's gone, it's extraordinarily hard to get it back. Think about any project of your own that you never finished.
I agree with this assessment. I've said for a while now that it's a combination of having fun in television and not having the desire to deal with the massive scope of WoW.
I’m not a George hater by any means, but I think he misunderstands his legacy. If Tolkien had never finished Return of the King no one today would be saying “but at least he gave us the Silmarrillion”. The main story has got to be wrapped up as he intends it or all the rest will fall by the wayside a few years after his death.
Maybe individual completed stories would still be enticing after his passing, but nobody would embark on the whole series because the main story is not finished.
His legacy will be GoT season 8, and an unfinished series that started it, he is working hard to build a world like Tolkien did, but he forgets, Tolkien finished Lord of the Rings.
@@joperhop And Tolkien never did finished his world building. The Silmarillion only exists cause his son compiled all the separate stories and notes his father made. He did finish his mainline book trilogy. It would be pointless to read the expanded stuff if Tolkien never completed Return of the King. Authors need to be well aware that endings are important as the journeys, probably more so since they give the journey meaning and conclusion.
it is much easier to do something different ;-) He startet the books almost 30 years ago and has somehow be consistent with his own work. It can't be fun to reread your own books 2-3 times just to get a grasp what you started 1/4th of a century ago - and he is simply too old to handle this level of complexity he created. That would be the same if I enter an old save-file from a complex game like DysonSphereProgram, Factoria or Satisfactory and try to play on ... I don't envy his position. He is a great writer but he dropped the ball and can't finish his own work.
That's where the money is though. The GOT show is over. The cash cow is in the spinoffs now. Giving HBO more source content is the best financial decision.
If he finishes the core series he risks a backlash like the tv show's ending got. And rumor is GRRM wrote that ending for twice as many seasons, but the showrunners crammed it out too fast.
Dude the TV show is gonna be fan fiction when he finishes the books the only two things that are confirmed from show is bran gonna be king and danny is going to go mad which is fine @@hariman7727
George has changed as a person and writer over the 30 years that have passed since he started ASOIAF, and I wonder if he is hesitating about where the story is going. Having watched every interview and read every blog post, there are multiple instances where he has referenced this. Last year he conveyed this best when he said "Things are growing… and changing, as does happen with us gardeners. Things twist, things change, new ideas come to me, old ideas prove unworkable, I write, I rewrite, I restructure, I rip everything apart and rewrite again, I go through doors that lead nowhere, and doors that open on marvels". He goes on to talk about how the ending will be drastically different in the books and it is continuing to become more and more dissimilar. It's my own personal belief that George has even less of an outline than he lets on and that he is most likely struggling with and changing the character development and endings of Jon, Tyrion, Daenerys, and Bran.
@BusinessWork-nu3wi I've seen so many people, including myself, not necessarily mad at how things ended in the series, but more so how sloppily they got there. (i.e. Dany turning into Queen Barbecue Everyone in a span of an episode)
@@crazygemini82I was gonna say the same thing, I just watched the final three seasons for the first time (I was determined to wait for winds of winter but have finally given in) and like. The execution is terrible but I do stand by my opinion that had more care been put in almost the exact same plot could've happened without any major complaints. I don't hate how it ended but more how it got there. That being said I can see why he would want to deviate from that ending.
Quite frankly, I do not believe he will ever finish the series. It is my belief that he does not know how to get to the ending he wanted - the series keeps getting bloated with too many side stories, old and new ones yet to come. He will die before ever finishing.
There's truth to that I think. Being a gardener is fine, but you have to prune with the shears, not just plant seeds, if you want the story to conclude in a satisfying way.
Yeah, it's not getting done. He's probably trying not to have a LOTR ending, but he knows it's impossible. The only logical choice is that Jon does become a good guy and beat evil. That being said, personally, I didn't like the books. There is too much bloated writing. He will spend 30 pages trying to describe how someone took a shit. Lotr you can sit down and read it relatively quickly and be done there isn't too much more than the story.
@@Frothmeister that's why I'm only getting some fun facts or comparisons with the show in the meanwhile because I know it'll take me enough time to read all the material before he finally finishes it or doesn't. But no huge anticipation before that at least
Let’s not joke ourselves, the only reason George haven’t finished the Winds of Winter is that he doesn’t know how to end it. He have an idea how to wrap up certain plots in the story but on other plots, he is stuck and can’t wrap it up. The book has become too complicated for it’s own good. That’s why we can see him taking up other projects instead of completing the series.
he probably knew how to end it but saw how people reacted to the end of the series. If people thought one of my main end game villains (Daenerys) was terribly written, I wouldn't finish those books neither
In my opinion, the most important and most difficult challenge of telling a complicated story is wrapping it up cleanly. The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Tower, and Harry Potter did phenomenal jobs of wrapping things up nicely by cleverly addressing numerous plot points and providing some surprises along the way. On the other hand there are authors/screenwriters/directors (JJ Abrams?) that are good at raising interesting ideas, but are absolutely incapable of completing the thoughts. Perhaps due to some misguided notion of subverting expectations, laziness, or simply a lack of sufficient talent. I say this as an observation not a criticism. I hope I am wrong, but I am starting to think that GRRM has bitten off too much to chew. He is a magnificent author and has created a wonderful universe. But I do worry that he simply doesn't have the ability to untangle the hugely complicated story he has written thus far. The last book seemed to me to want to simplify things, but he introduced even more characters and plot lines. At some point the story needs to converge and not continue to spiral into new directions.
I believe he could’ve finished it but it would’ve been what many writers do.. finish it just to finish if & force the ending… we saw that happen already on HBO… it sucked lol. Again the best thing he can do is leave the story to other ppl to finish in case he can’t
GRRM has the unfortunate ailment of not wanting to write an ending that someone has thought of/ is predictable. Except too many are like myself and simply predict the most narratively satisfying conclusion. (Some get upset it was predictable in this case which is ludicrous) Game of Thrones is written as a history more than a narrative. Scarce few satisfying endings, and contradictory in many cases. The difference is motivation, objective. My advice to GRRM would be to have the throne tied to whomever kills the night king which relies on unification as a resolution to most plot angles. If he wants a big twist have one of the night king's lieutenants kill him in the end.
Do you know how long Lord of the Rings took? 12 years. Robert Caro's series on Lyndon B Johnson? There have been 8-12 years between each book. I am also bummed I don't have this 6th book of George's to enjoy. Having other books to read has really been personally helpful.
Does that sound kind of contradictory? Yes. But in actuality these two statements are NOT contradictory. "Rushed" doesn't imply a specific timeline. "Rushed" just implies that you're doing it in a hasty way. In other words, doing it faster than it would organically happen or than you feel comfortable doing it with insufficient consideration. I don't know why some people seem to have this idea that writing is like, idk, fixing a drain pipe or something. It's not. Good ideas have to come to you. Good ideas for characters, for plot twists, for prose. And while you can obviously sit down and try and you can try to get inspired and all of that stuff, at the end of the day you can only write down what comes to you. And as a writer you cannot determine what comes to you or whether it's any good. You can only decide to write it down or not. Writing something hastily or in a rushed way basically means that you just write down the first thing that comes to you. And if it isn't as good as it could've been, or it creates plot holes or whatnot, you don't care. Or you just don't think about it. You just put it on the page. And that is not at all what I want, nor what I think most people want. I'd rather have Martin take his time for the good ideas to come and be written down than rush by just writing down the first thing that pops into his head.
If I'm to speculate I think the story have become "too wide to handle easily" the story is like a ever branching tree with every story and plot forming it's own branch. The tree have become so wide that tying it all together at their intended end point in a satisfying way have become a herculean task, partially for a author like him who likes to let his "branches grow freely" I also think the time jump he intended to implement but didn't put some additional strain on his plans
I think that the TV show ending was definitively similar to George's original idea, at least in terms of outline. But the poor reception of it created a huge problem for him to write his final books.
@@Aydan2108 you missing the point of my comment. Yes Bran was useless in the show, but if used correctly, given his power, he would make an incredible king. Kind of like blood raven but with more of a moral center
@@Aydan2108 also I wouldn’t call Cersei “mad” she is just an awful person, as opposed to Dany’s madness which could have been developed more as someone with a genetic predisposition of madness and was tormented into that state
@@10ftSamsquanchythat's kind of dumb. When a series is that popular, basically every possible plot twist is going to be correctly anticipated by someone on Reddit. When you try to add unexpected twists to a story just for the sake of being unexpected, you end up with a disaster like Star Wars Episode VIII.
Yeah, I'm resigned to the fact that he'll never finish it. If he does, I'll read it, but there are only so many times I can hear "I made less progress than I hoped; but some progress doesn't mean no progress" before my anticipation level sinks to nothing.
I've seen a million versions of why GRRM hasn't finished yet, but two of the most compelling (aside from the obvious getting distracted by the wider Planetos TV & worldbuilding projects) are basically... 1. He's a pantser and goes where the story takes him (rather than a plotter who has a map for the story in place before they start writing) and this has resulted in a LOT of disparate threads over the five novels so far and trying to pull all (or even most) of them back together (without creating more along the way) is a herculean task. 2. GRRM has such a grim outlook and loves subverting tropes so much that he literally can't conceive of a way of neatly ending the story without compromising that outlook. Both of these are a lot of work and result in a lot of second guessing yourself and there's been more than a few indications that he's ripped the whole thing up at least once and regularly finds himself re-writing things to 'get it right' rather than getting to the finish. Maybe GRRM is feeling the pressure of the mainstream attention since GoT and maybe he could do with allow/receiving some more editorial support and stop trying to edit himself as he writes. Either way, he's a n old guy who's busy as hell. The book will come when and if it comes.
I’m sure this will tick off some folks, but I’m so over hearing “he’s a Gardner writter”…. I’ve grown my own forest, harvested the wood, and built my own darn house waiting for this book.
I looked it up and I if we get to 2032 without him publishing it, it will have officially taken him longer to write Winds of Winter than the first five books combined (according to google he started writing A Game of Thrones in 1991 and finished A Dance with Dragons in 2011)
George may not owe his fans a finished series, but at minimum he does owe us honesty. I'd respect him a lot more if he just came out and admitted that he's having trouble wrapping up the story, that his heart's just not in it anymore, etc. As opposed to what he's doing in real life, going on 12 years with no end in sight while still being like, "Yes of course I'm almost done with Winds of Winter, I'm working on it constantly, why would anyone doubt me?"
Agreed, but I feel that this is as much a business decision as it is a moral one. The moment he admits to ASoIaF not being finished, the interest in his other related stories and works will drop. And I'm sure both he and his publishers/producers don't want that to happen.
Remember, George is quite the chess player. House Of The Dragon lets him do what is more enjoyable and lucrative-but of course he has to appease his loyal book readers-or seem to. Thus the hints being dropped about Winds Of Winter release. Really, his heart just isn't into it, and as far as real progress toward a finished project goes well..... I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it all was rather fictitious itself-or to put it more harshly-a great big fat lie.The best solution would be for George to become "co-authors" with someone who could work with George well, respect his writing, and make sure the whole thing gets finished in a timely manner. I suspect George could have his pick of some VERY accomplished writers to co-author with him. why he hasn't done this I don't know. Greed? Selfishness? Denial? Your guess is as good as mine !
His problem is by the end of DoD he's got too many plates spinning. He's lost control of the story, quite literally lost the plot. He's got no idea how to pull it all together to finish it, and all these dozens of other projects are simply to distract him from that. I blame his editors, maybe they tried but by that stage of the series he was too powerful
I 100% agree. He bit more than he can chew. He also may have lost a lot of his motivation. He must have given away a lot for the showrunners to be able to finish the series; he sees that a lot of fans were disappointed. Being involved in Elden Ring was surely more productive than fighting this gigarnoumous challenge of rounding down 5234756 parallel storyline.
A Game of Thrones was first published in 1996. This book is never coming out and A Song of Ice and Fire will NEVER be finished. Martín is trying to build a legendarium like Tolkien did without finishing the foundation first like Tolkien did. I could say a lot more but I’ll leave it here. This series and Martin himself was meant to be the anti Tolkien and as a Tolkien fan I actually rocked with the concept. However, at the end of the day, Martin has just proved that Tolkien is and always will be THE GOAT. Period.
i agree eems like that hes lost interest in ASOIAF not interested anymore plus as long as HBO keep bringing him more ideas projects WOW will never come out
He enjoys his fame and meeting people and going to cons and parties. So unlike most authors, he doesn’t care to finish his legacy. And we’re stuck with the HBO ending
Yeah In Deep Geek gave GRRM too much credit in this video. Especially considering he said “if he dies, he doesn’t want anyone finishing them”, which in my eyes basically meant “these aren’t ever getting finished”. I personally think George is all upset that so many of the fan theories were far better than his own ending of G.O.T.
@@wolfpecker5710George has openly said he tries not to read fan theories, and that some are good and some are bad, but they won’t change his story. I see no reason to doubt that.
I've already gone through the 5 stages of grief a loooong time ago...at this point, I am happy that we got the 5 books we have! I've read his other works and they are great as well...just sucks that it appears that he's painted himself into a corner. C'est la Vie mon ami...
Same here. At least there's plenty of fanfiction tackling the various directions the story could go, and since the last few seasons of the tv show were so atrocious even the most amateurish fanfiction seems quite competent in comparison! 😄
Ditto, I was really annoyed with the TV series ending, and realized GRRM is unlikely to ever finish the series. Having said that, Westeros is definitely worth a revisit in the future, and I thank him for the world, characters & intrigue he created (even if it's based on the war of the roses which I should probably learn about).
Honestly, with so many pov characters and side plots, it’s a good time for there to be some cataclysmic enemy who comes in and starts killing off characters. Good thing there are White Walkers in the story!
@@pushista9322 Yep-he had a similar issue in The Stand, but of course King just killed off most of the cast to make it easier to write. Then everybody left is dealing with the horror of everybody dying, so it makes for dramatic storytelling.
I’m pretty sure the Night King must have fell, severely broken his ankle, and then decided that it wasn’t worth the long march south. Someone let the Starks know that winter isn’t coming.
I think one of the biggest problems is that GRRM keeps giving deadlines that he can't or won't commit to. Martin has offered repeated deadlines that he hasn't met: 1. In 2015, he said he wanted to have it published before Season 6 of Game of Thrones aired. In Jan 2016, he announced he hadn't met his end-of-year deadline. 2. In 2017, he said it would be released sometime that year. Never happened. 3. In April 2019, he said he didn't have a finished copy in-hand for the 2020 Worldcon New Zealand, then Air New Zealand had his permission to imprison him on White Island. Didn't happen. Neither the book, nor his imprisonment. 4. In February 2021, he said he was hopeful of finishing in 2021. The first rule of managing expectations is: Don't. Make. Promises. You. Can't. Keep. Honestly, I think people would have more patience for him if every time someone asked him, he just said "I am working on it, it will be done when it's done".
This is actually hilarious looking at his history and how off he was wtf. How can u be so off on when you think you’ll finish as the writer of ur own story? Naw man this guy ain’t finishing the series rip If he’s a gardener then all those times he promised a deadline and couldn’t follow up prolly meant he fucking found himself having 20 extra plot lines. Then when tryna wrap those up and giving a new deadline, fuck he’s wrote himself 40 more. Rinse and repeat. I don’t trust anything he says. I think he’s prolly done 50% of the book if he says 75%.
Let's call these what they are: lies. And then he turns around and uses the interest in the series to sell spinoffs and merch and whatnot. If a business does this, they get sued for securities fraud.
My theory is that as soon as he started to write about actual Targaryens, he lost interest in the "mundane" houses and politics of modern Westeros. He has a sort of dragon-sickness, his motivation centers accustomed to Balerion and The God's Eye so not even the greatest Battle on the Ice can satisfy him in the same way.
What are you saying ,are you talking about George writing Fire an Blood has taken him away from the rest of the story an is focused on House of the Dragon
Interesting theory, it definitely seems like it. I was bored of what was going on by the time I got to the end of the books. I always found the back stories more interesting.
Honestly I think the truth is he doesn't want to finish it (at least, doesn't plan on finishing Dreams himself). Resolving the Meereenese knot amongst the dozen other plot lines in a clean manor in a way that doesn't anger fans is a f*&*king nightmare. Meanwhile there are many funner distraction like con events and side writing projects like Elden Ring. I think Martin, consciously or subconsciously, knows there is no way to cleanly resolve ASoIaF. So, he plans to polish Winds to as much of a sheen as he can even if it takes twice as long as i should, so HIS written books end on a high note. Then A Dream of Spring will be left for someone else to resolve after he dies. He'll leave whoever that is a mountain of notes and ideas, but let them fall on the sword of resolving the series.
@@bassistguy13 Because when we speculate we look at what has happened in similar situations. I can't think of a single author who died with an entire novel unwritten but let some other random person finish their magnum opus.
@@lemmypop1300 I don't know enough about the Wheel of Time series to give my opinion on that. Haven't read that series. Do people like the books that Jordan did not write? How were the last 3 books received? Is the tone the same? I know even less about the Sanderson fellow.
I think the answer to "What was Aragorn's tax code?" is that answering every single question like that about a story while you're writing it turns it into sprawling, unfinishable mess.
Stuff like this is what makes George’s universe popular in the first place though…all the insanely detailed inner workings of Westeros is part of what makes it unique compared to other fantasy worlds. Fans enjoy stuff like that
@@donovan4222 *with* the premise that it all does ultimately make sense. Our brains have evolved to assume there are reasons for things we experience. GRRM's writing style is to spin out plot threads without knowing how they're going to tie into the ending - eventually, it breaks that assumption. I'd love the first half of a mystery book if it presented something I couldn't figure out. I'd be less impressed if the remaining pages were all blank.
@@Ovenman940 I think George knows how he wants to end major plot points, it’s just the amount of detail and world building he does getting there that probably makes his style of fantasy so challenging.
Rereading Malazan this year and I have so much respect for Erikson for pulling it off. 3.5 million words, tons of POV characters, 3 continents, hundreds of thousands of years of history, and it's completed. To boot, The Crippled God is hailed as one of the greatest finales in epic fantasy's history. And the contract gave him a deadline!!! We got a WoT ending, it would be great if we could get an ASOIAF ending too.
Got any advice for an aspiring Malazan reader? I read Gardens of the Moon not understanding s thing that happened and DNF'd Deadhouse Gates after about 200 pages because I just didn't have a clue what I Was reading.
@@desertraider8628 I would still say yes. There's no doubt that they're incredibly well written and Erikson truly is a word smith. They're just more difficult to read than your average fantasy book, because Erikson doesn't hold your hand and gives very little exposition. So, throughout, you will have to pay close attention to what you're reading and accept that you won't understand everything that's going on during the first couple of books, or even on your first read of the series. But, of course, this isn't for everyone. For me, English is also my second language, so I guess I had a more difficult time with it than most. But still, even after giving up on book two, I really want to give it another shot because I could tell that there is likely nothing to ever top the reading experience if you make it through. And me giving up wasn't because of the source material; it was because I was hitting the ceiling of my own limitations at the time.
Honestly it would be quite difficult if English is your second language, so it's super commendable that you made it through book 1! I have to admit, and this may have come from me reading fantasy for most of my life, I really enjoyed being thrown in with no exposition. It creates a unique experience (which Erikson had when reading Dune, and wanted to use that model) where you are constantly filling in data points and shifting relationships. Even Mark Lawrence, celebrated fantasy author that he is, didn't like Gardens of the Moon. When you don't know that the azath can pop up, it feels jarring. My advice: Read Deadhouse Gates. You don't have to reread Gardens to do it. Deadhouse was written ~8 years after Gardens and is a smoother read. It's a beautiful story in the end, for many people it is the first fantasy that makes them cry. That's an experience you've gotta have if you haven't already. Trust in Erikson. He makes mistakes for sure, but even the out of nowehere stuff that happens in Deadhouse Gates comes back in book 4, book 5, book 6, and later. In retrospect, it's insane that he pulls off what he does. Take notes if you have to! Visit the wiki if you have to, and note that they separate the spoilers. Also, for transparency, I don't understand everything that happened lol. Hence my lovely reread. Lastly, his interviews on TH-cam can be very helpful. As you finish each book, I recommend A Critical Dragon who makes brilliant content alone and with Erikson. The author is very intelligent and he makes odd decisions at times, but he also makes very compelling arguments for his decisions. Structurally, Malazan is very complex. It's not a series like WoT or ASOIAF, which have their own complexities. It's duologies and a trilogy and a huge overarching series all in one. I think you'll have an easier time with Malazan today. And I think for any fan of fantasy, even when it's not easy, it's incredibly rewarding.
The difference is that Tolkien finished his core work (LOTR) and some side works on the Middle Earth universe. Also before writing the Lord of The Rings he planned the whole world, languages, races cultures, legends and small tales of the universe he created. It was "easier" for him to just plan the adventure, instead of creating stuff on demand as it happens with RR Martin.
Thats from G.R.R. Martins latest blog update: "...Parris and I found one just last week; an animated series called BLUE EYE SAMURAI. I hardly know where to start on this one. Once we started watching it, we could not stop. Binged the whole thing in three nights, and I am already hungry for the second season. ..." 31.12.2023 AT 8:24 AM.
I think part of the problem is that the ending to the show was so poorly received that he now has to consider if he wants to end his books in a similar way or come up with an entirely new ending.
He would have too much rewriting to do on books that were already finished, but just needed polishing. If Benioff and Weiss were not following his outline, why didn't he complain, get a lawyer to halt production, sue HBO and Benioff and Weiss?
We have to remember that Geroge is a member of WGA. As a response to the studios refusing to negotiate in good faith, He's been striking from writing Winds for 13 years.
I’m honestly worried we’re not ever going to get to hear the true end to the Song of Ice and Fire story. With how long Winds of Winter is taking, I wouldn’t be surprised if George passes away before he completes a Dream of Spring. At this rate he’d be 90+ years old when he finally drops Dream of Spring and that’s assuming he finishes and releases Winds in the next couple years
Yeah I am not even sure if WInds of Winter will be released before he dies let alone Dream of Spring. Best case would be someone else finishing it some decades from now.
@@philwilson4167 As someone who never got to read Alexie Panshin's "The Universal Pantograph", I can only look towards you and ask "First time?". Charles Dickens died while writing "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". It was being published in installments and Dickens died after part 6 of 12 was published. Dickens had apparently kept the whole thing in his head, as no detailed plot line of the story was left behind nor a resolution to the mystery. Dickens had told a friend that there was a planned finish, divulging some details, but Dickens did not want to spoil the serialization, so the murderer and the motive were not given out.
@richardbell7678 I'm well aware it happens often, that writers don't get to finish their work before they die. And there are lots of legitimate reasons why it happens. But I can't think of another author off the top of my head who has actively chosen to pursue other works over completing the singular work of fiction that made them a success in the first place. And it's so blatantly a case of him choosing the things that are more lucrative over asoiaf.
My personal theory is when the directors were wrapping up the show they asked about how the story was going to end. (Denarys's death and bran getting the throne as possible examples.) And GRR gave them rough outlines, which we saw in the final season. But after seeing fan reactions he has to change the ending so they won't hate the books as well. Now he's in a corner, trying to make a new ending that makes sense, while also making the fans happy. He could be less and less confident about the ending he has planned, worrying it will have the same fan reaction as the final season of the show.
We only wish he was 30 years younger. I think we are all afraid he will not live long enough to finish the series. A Dream of spring may take another 10-15 years.. he will then be over 90! Will he live that long? Let's hope so...
In the world of Computer Science we have The Art of Computer Programming, at the moment a five volume set with smaller booklets with corrections and previews of later work. He's currently 85 years old and started in 1962 when he projected it would be a single volume of twelve chapters. By the time the first volume was published in 1968 the estimate was 7 volumes. He's still writing it. So we should still have hope for GRRM. :) Btw, in writing TAOCP, he had to write programs for typesetting and layout, which resulted in the basis for, among other things, LaTeX and PDF.
I agree. He did too much world building and he doesn’t know how to tie everything together to conclude it. He fell into a series that he doesn’t know how to finish and is doing other side projects instead
The one main advantage alot of popular fantasy authors had with long series was less distractctions they were writing books while at the same time series were coming out and no internet and constant scurutiny and immediate popularity . That's alot of pressure especially with happened with the show
Steven King, after the epilogue in the first book of The Dark Tower series, when typing about thé monumental task of finishing his own series, said that once an author loses passion for a major work in progress it's impossible to inorganically manufacture and finish it satisfactorily.
That's somewhat an effect of the position in the story. At the start you can do anything. Be wildy creative. But no matter what, the ending is 'a job'. Hard to be as passionate about. You now have responsibilities. You must conform to accepted narrative tropes, to make a satisfying ending.
What motivation would he have to finish SoFI after all those HBO dollars? It's probably worth it for him to get 1 more book out, but I doubt he's interested in finishing the series after that.
@@liftedmarco4976but he already has lots of money from the work he's already created and probably gets royalties from anything asoiaf related (tv shows,...). Is it worth it for him to spend the limited time he has on finishing the books vs doing other stuff he enjoys more? Like I completely understand him, if I were in his position I'd be using the money I already have to enjoy life and not force myself to write something just to make people happy.
@@liftedmarco4976He’s already got more than enough for him and his wife to live the rest of their lives lavishly doing pretty much whatever they want. He doesn’t have any kids to leave it too. At a point I would imagine the struggle of working on it isn’t worth the reward, especially when it’s clear he cares more about other projects and wants to enjoy however many years he has left.
@@liftedmarco4976 he can make (and made...) tens of millions just by signing a contract for adaptation, without making any real efforts, without producing the slightest amount of new material. A book requires tremendous efforts, and earns him absolutely nothing in comparison, dont be stupid.
Personally my biggest concern with the length of time TWOW is taking is will he be able to complete the series in his lifetime. There is still one book to go after the next and he's already in his mid-70s. It would be a real shame if he didn't get to complete what is essentially his life's work.
I agree 100% it would be a shame. But "gardener" is another term for "pantster" and as such he has no clear vision of the ending, he has ideas and a rough vision, but it is not clear. This epic in that writing style requires dedication to that project. He just has too much going on right now. Unless he abandons every other project, he will never finish that narrative.
Inb4: I have two theories that aren't mutually exclusive. 1) He just started to enjoy life more and what started as creative break turned into a spiral that he can't get out of. He no longer feels the drive to sit down for several weeks and get the foundation done, instead just noting bits here and there but never doing the treacherous work of connecting and polishing them. 2) He tried several times to connect the dots and come up with good ending but since he's more of a "just write and see where it takes me" guy (my pure speculation, just an asumption to get this theory going) rather than thorough planner, he can't really conclude the story at the same quality as he can add to it and therefore doesn't want to publish. It's way easier to create captivating setup than it is to tie everything together. It's easy to add mysterious cool characters that hint at something greater, it's hard to stop those characters from taking over the story, while keeping their plotline going and keeping their characters and actions intact. Curious to see what the video is about as I've just accepted that the books are over and haven't really checked onto the progress.
I've personally gotten over waiting for WoW... George has given so much and I don't dare asking for more. The dunk & egg books, Fire & Blood, Game of Thrones. I'm simply grateful I was able to experience this story as it reached it's max popularity. Stories like these need to be made and shared. Thank you George!!!
I would rather he would stop promising. I don't mind enjoying what we have. But I feel like a kid and it's been 12 christmases and he has promised for that bike. I'm getting older and it's starting to sound more and more bs. I'm a realist and not a blind fan, huge fan, but not blind.
I personally don't agree with comments like the first answer you received, but yeah... I can't say I disagree with it. I mean, he had a majn job. I refuse to follow any of the other stories he wrote about the ASOIAF because he should have finished his main story first. Everything else is embellishments. I have no use for any of them if the main story is to go unfinished. I don't care for the sidestories if there's not a main, satisfying story. Knowing it's not finished, why would anyone even start reading it. How many people, after he'll have sadly passed, will start his books knowing that? He decided to dedicate overstretch himself, but it was HIS choice. And he's entitled to it, just as much those of us who decide to stop supporting him for it are entitled to their decision. I really hope he's just pulling a massive prank on us and is waiting to give the last books to the public only after his passing, so he won't hear any critics about what he decided to write. Because otherwise, I'll have to accept that he decided to waste his time on countless, easy-to-avoid/write-in-shorter-terms backstories without finishing that amazing, wonderful, intricate story I started reading as a 13 year old.
You don't dare ask for more? The story isn't over; you are owed more. This isn't a case of a standalone story being finished and fans asking for just a sequel, this is a case of one long story being told across multiple books, which is currently unfinished and may remain unfinished forever if George doesn't stop procrastinating. WoW was promised to you, and you'd have every right to ask for it.
12:08 This is only technically accurate. Wheel of Time has about 680 more named characters (2782) but the audiobook narration is split up between Kate Reading and Michael Kramer with each reading different chapters depend on if it focuses more on female or male characters. It is entirely possible that 40-60% of the characters are not voiced by both narrators especially if they only appear for a few chapters. So the WoT audiobooks have more speaking characters but the ASOIAF audiobooks are all read by one narrator. As I said, the record is only technically true based on the narrator but not true based on the voiced characters. Rosamund Pike (who plays Moiraine on the Amazon WoT show) is currently re-recording the WoT audiobooks by herself and is up to book 4 out of 14. When she finishes then ASOIAF will no longer hold the Most Characters in a Series Voiced By a Single Narrator record.
she will never finish the audiobooks, the show will be cancelled soon after season 3, the too many changes, the character phisically swaps attribute, the lack of consistency in the magic system the lack of understanding of culture geography, the witcher made the same mistake maybe im wrong but many book fans were angry at the show come on the dragonreborn being female, egwene ressurecting Nynaeve fully burn with no experience of channeling bad staff to walk over, blacks aiel
@carlogiurizzato2441 MASSIVE WOT fan. grew up reading the books, and every time a new book came out 7 up, reread most of the series to catch up. couldnt watch more than 5 minutes of the TV show. turned off at the initial voice over "...search for the dragonborn, be it a boy or a girl" spat in the face of the entire premise of the magic and world building. blegh
@@carlogiurizzato2441 that won’t change how potentially well the audiobooks will sell. I mean… it might in the nebulous sense that it loses out on potential readers that would’ve started the books based on the hype a new season might bring, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t still be worth having her record the rest of the series. I mean, if it was worth it to have her narrate up to book 4, those readers are likely going to want to continue and that has no bearing on whether the show continues 🤷♂️
I've always taken it as an enthusiasm issue. He's a writer who feeds on pulling the rug from beneath the reader. With the TV show being finished he is probably struggling with the idea of either sticking to the ending that he now knows many people were disappointed with or taking the book down a different path which might feel more forced. It almost makes more sense that he has gone off to work on all the newer stuff as the book is essentially done in the terms of us knowing how things are going to play out.
Yes, I think people stated they disliked the tv version for reasons that are misleading. Daenerys complaints were somewhat misplaced as that was her setup, but for her not to face the night king was a huge misstep. He's like tolkien if tolkien was upset the ring falling into mt doom was predicted by audiences in many ways. Sometimes you need to cross the t's. It happens as you get older, you struggle to reach a satisfying climax.
But people didn't hate the ending because of how their favorite characters played out. We hated the ending because the writers left logic and coherent storytelling behind in season 5 and it got worse every season. GRRM literally couldn't write an ending like that in the show because it's absolute nonsense what happened on the show
I don't think pressure from the distaste over seasons 7 and 8 are bothering him much at all from the POV of similarity to his writing. It's very clear to fans of the book that it will end little like the show did.
@@nzcamel3 Is it clear? How so? I've not personally seen anything where he's ever distanced himself from the endings or how the TV story progressed but id happily be mistaken.
Let's say that's true-it definitely is him avoiding writing the main plots-how does having required reading outside of the main books make for a good, wrapped up story?
Thanks for summarising everything there is to consider when trying to answer this question - i tried multiple times to find an answer on the internet but was quickly either confronted with very emotional discussions and complains or overwhelmed by the amount of text i would have to read on GRRM blog. So thank you very much for organising the information! And lets hope that we will soon be able to discuss the contents of winds of winter, not the publication date 😊
I was just floored that with the pandemic, it still wasn’t done. Over a long period of time when many people were forced to stay in their houses, projects on hold, no parties or events to attend, I’m really surprised he didn’t use such a unique opportunity to make this book his priority.
Yeah it’s like God himself was calling him on his bullshit. If a worldwide pandemic that forced him to stay at home for months on end could produce the book, nothing will.
I doubt Martin feels "tremendous pressure" about the Winds of Winter. As you point out, he has produced a copious amount of other ASOIF content, I believe partly because Martin found it more interesting and rewarding to do so. But beyond that, his development agreements with HBO have been very lucrative, so financial incentives are also at play here. I applaud you for your optimism, but it could very well be that ASOIAF becomes the best known unfinished series in the history of literature.
Anyone who doubts GRRM feels tremendous pressure is absolutely CLUELESS. Outside of Rowling finishing the final Harry Potter books I doubt any author has been under this much pressure. I'm not making an excuse for how long he's taking, it's just beyond obvious if you rub 2 braincells together that he'd feel intense pressure.
@@telltellyn I really don’t think so. He feels pressure, sure. But he’s definitely come to terms with the fact that he won’t finish the series. He’s rich, he has enough work and he’s old enough to not give a f what other people think. I also totally understand that he’d rather do the stuff he was never able to, because he got successful so late in his career. He’s not planning on finishing the series, so I doubt that he feels tremendous pressure.
@@GaryCrant I seriously doubt GRRM gives 0 shits about his legacy, that doesn't remotely fit with the way he talks or acts. Money isn't the be all and end all of living a satisfying life. Not sure why you're so confident he's come to terms with not finishing, we've known for decades how delusional he is with his own progress. He's never given any indication that he's willing to stop, so you're claiming he's lying to us about wanting to finish... AND that he doesn't care what we think. Well which is it? It can't be both.
Writing from multiple POVs sounds like it would definitely get in the way more than anything. Now that he's approaching the point to where all of these threads actually have to start being resolved I can see him probably sitting on dozens of draft versions of the book and constantly writing more.
Yes. But he said that he was months away more than once and told his editor that he would have it done more than once in like 5 months or so. That was over 7 years ago. He also said many years ago that he wasn’t going to write anything else until he delivers Winds. So it is completely fair for fans to be angry with him for deceiving us and going back on his word about not writing anything else until it is finished. If you looks at how much he had written in 2012 and add how much he wrote during the pandemic, it’s almost like he wrote NOTHING between 2012-2019. If there wasn’t a pandemic that essentially forced him to stay inside and away from parties, red carpets, vacations, football games, and myriad other trips and events that he filled his time with then we probably never would’ve gotten the book. We STILL might not get it. I’m at the bargaining stage of grief where I just want to get winds and a summary of what happens to all of the main and larger supporting characters in ADOS. I’ve given up on getting ADOS or it being the end since he has added multiple books twice to the story before. But who knows? Maybe he will surprise me and write both 1500+ books and have them published along with the second half of fire and blood and all of the dunk and egg stories. But I’ve given up hope on that happening. We shall see everyone
I think this is what all these "In defence of GRRM" videos gloss over - the dishonesty of the author. One thing is to admit you want to enjoy what's left of your life and the fruits of your labor, quite another - to keep fans on edge pretending you're still writing. He at least owes fans some honesty for making him successful. He said he cares about his legacy - I wonder what kind of legacy he'll have after such behavior and most likely not finishing the remaining books and lying about it.
Jesus Christ dude, calm down. You act like the past 11 years have been nothing but a pleasure cruise for the guy. He spent time working on half a dozen spin-off shows, watched the guys he trusted to finish his show piss on his legacy, and had to deal with the deaths of a multitude of friends and loved ones. The world he’s created has inspired millions of people and permanently redefined the fantasy genre, and the fact of the matter is that he hasn’t been “lying” or “robbing the fans.” Winds was never ours to begin with; if George had dropped dead a day after a dance with dragons was published, that would be it. It’s only by the luck that he’s still alive and the effort that he’s put in that we’ll get book 6- maybe 7 if he actually picks up the pace, but even I’m not that optimistic. You’re acting like he’s personally scammed/betrayed you when in reality, his release schedule was always at his discretion.
I sincerely hope the delay is because he is actually writing both Winds of Winter and Dream of Spring in tandem, so that he has them both finished should anything happen to him. But I also realize that is a fool’s hope.
I think it started as a combination of the books and plots expanding and getting more complicated as well as him not being a fast writer in the first place, but now? He saw the reaction to the ending of his series and it killed his interest to do it in print form. I think what he may not realize or have confidence in, is that the audience didn't hate his ending , necessarily, they hated the way D@D got to it. I don't expect the book to ever come out. It is what it is.
I love what George said when asked about WoW about the 1000th time, "I stopped answering those questions because I tried to give a realistic timeline when it comes out, but I never got that far. So now I don't estimate. And when the book eventually comes out I know someone will tweet me the next day "I finished reading Winds of Winter, when will the Dream of Spring come out?"". NB! I paraphrased it.
I saw Bernard Cornwell in Guildford Theatre a few years back (he is friends with both George and Sean Bean) and one of the things he said was a writer cannot have writers block. At the end of the day it is their job to be a writer and there is now excuses. There is no excuse for George.
My biggest concern is that without its existence, I have created the rest of storyline in my head and it ended a particular way that was so satisfying to me, after all these years, reading it may only serve to disappoint me
What's your headcannon ending? I'm curious to know how would someone end it satisfyingly. What happens to the Others, Daenerys, the Realm, Arya and Jon?
1)for most of these years George did not write winds, the causes must be found in the TV series and in his relationship with Benioff and Weiss, George went into depression from the end of 2015 to 2019, in these years he wrote fire and blood part 1, he started writing winds again only thanks to the fans' reaction against Game of thrones and obviously to covid. 2)the POV structure, at the end of ADWD we have 20 POVs divided into around 10 locations, it is clear that Winds opens with a very difficult logistical and narrative situation, let's look at the positive side, if at the end of Winds there will be 10/12 POVs in 3/4 locations , we have serious chances to see the seventh book also .
This reminds of stories I’ve heard about George Harrison of The Beatles and his process for producing his songs. He recorded and re-recorded with different instruments and multiple harmony lines, trying out all possible options, etc. His output was very slow compared to John and Paul. But half the hits you’ll find on a “Best of the Beatles” type CD are by George, so his process obviously worked.
I love George Harrison but that's just not true at all. He has 1/27 songs on the Beatles 1 album, 0/26 on the Red Album, and 4/28 songs on the Blue Album. Also, George wrote prolifically during his time in the Beatles, he just didn't get more than one or two songs per album because Lennon/McCartney (and George Martin) wouldn't give him the space. That's why when the Beatles broke up he had so many songs for All Things Must Pass, and it's considered one of the greatest albums of all time.
This type of process can absolutely work! And frequently has very good results if done right. It just requires both more time and more commitment than a more linear process. George has had the time, commitment is another matter.
I might be completely wrong on this, but had this feeling for years, he was closer to finish it before he was involved with the TV show than how it is now. I started reading the saga in the late 90s, as you mentioned already for A Dance with Dragons the wait was long, it's there I stopped "waiting" for Martin to release the following chapters, when they come they come, if they don't... would be a pity (and trigger my completionist complex), but this is life.
Idk if it's possible or wise for the current plan for Winds of Winter to be one book. Based on title alone, the Others _must_ invade but the story doesn't seem ready for that. At a minimum, Dany needs to be in Westeros (I don't think GRRM wants her to sweep in like a chosen hero to save the day from the Others). But she's nowhere near ready to do that. Her return to Westeros can't just be a couple of chapters at the start of the next book - there are whole plotlines to resolve in Slaver's Bay and even more to begin when she gets to Westeros (Young Griff and Dorne at least). And I don't think anyone wants Dany's fight for Westeros to just be a sideshow while the Others are invading. I think it'll take another long (Dance-length) book to get Dany to Westeros and get the North, Riverlands, Bran and Ironborn plots to the point where they're ready for the Others. Then The Winds of Winter can come after that. I have no evidence for this but my personal theory is that GRRM is wrestling with this problem (among others, and his other projects) but since the Winds of Winter has been anticipated for so long he's reluctant to push it back by another book. (And you couldn't possibly call that book "The Winds of Winter" and have the Others' invasion begin in "A Dream of Spring")
As a beginner in the writing world, I just released the first book in my series last weekend and am already almost done with the second book. But sometimes the love runs low or you hit a wall or several, and the process grinds to a halt. I really hope we get to read TWoW though 🙏🏾
He did so much world building that he doesn’t know how to tie everything together to conclude. He fell into a series that he doesn’t know how to finish.
I'm basically just an indie writer at the moment and this series is just a culmination of hard work, money, and determination to manifest a whole universe into reality. And now I'm making it happen. A graphic novel and illustration books are also coming on the way too.
@@zacyule4674 TH-cam won't let me post the link to Amazon bro 😭 But the name of the first book is Rising Sun Requiem: Bushido Blitz The series is called Bleeding Chrysanthemums
@@King_Steffon_II Hey independent creators are the wave of the future. With an easier time setting things up online and selling your own work, to the fact that the mainstream has gone formulaic. Whether comics, cartoons, or etc the future will be independents who can gain funds. I finished my Novella for my anthology series in May, so good job even getting something out there. It's a long road, and hope you had fun. Yeah I get burned out sometimes myself and need breaks. Do that mostly when my editor is working over it after I have edited several times. OOH you went further than me, I don't have a graphic novel version. lol. Either way good luck.
The one thing I don't understand is, if he's over 75% done, surely he could've released the first third of it 500/600 page as the first volume. Not only does it give the fans more to read and satisfy them, it allows everything to continue ticking over.
ASOIAF has the following it has partly because of well-structured plot logic and subtle foreshadowing. So earlier text has to mesh with later text well for it to be "good enough". Adding something in the end means he has to change something at the start. So just releasing the first part as a whole book is risky. 75% may also not be in order. The missing parts may be spread throughout.
He did that for the last book and said he never wanted to do it again. The way I see it is wind's will be the biggest book in the series and the wait is justified by its length and complexity. The fact he's 75% done is a miracle and hopefully with most of the books plotlines having conclusions in sight he can face less writers blocks and convolution
@@CornG4397 George has not only, written himself into a corner with all those complex plots, he has CLEARLY loss all interest and passion for his own creation He is just too afraid to publicly admit this fact These books are NEVER going to be published
I think the one reasonable part of the worry and crys for a finished book is from the perspective of him ever finishing the series. GRRM has been set up as the next Tolkien, an heir of sorts and the first fantasy universe to achieve something close to the complexity and overall coherence that the grand master set. That may be well and good but for Song to ever be in contention of being one of the best works of fantasy fiction, it will need to be completed. I understand the difficulties and I wish GRRM only the best for finishing his grand project but the man is in his mid 70s, hasnt publiced book 6/7 and thus not begun on the last book. So yeah, the worry is just: will it ever be finished?
@@lilitharam44 Makes sense for what reason? Hate? This man hasn't given a fuck about fans wanting the books for 13 years, so why would he care about hating how he ended the books?
@@dullinreborn The books aren't about the fans. You're absolutely right. The fans don't even come into it. It's His story, it was hijacked and I'm sure he feel violated to some extent. I think the direction he's going with "Fire and Blood" is a good one. It's an excellent book. If he wrote of the Game of Thrones series with "and the Walkers came down from the far North and killed every living thing. The End." I would not be surprised.
I personally think he should allow himself some help from people he trust to get the books written more efficiently without it being rushed. It would allows more opinions and ideas.
Mark Twain, 1906: "As long as a book would write itself I was a faithful and interested amanuensis and my industry did not flag; but the minute that the book tried to shift to *my* head the labor of contriving its situations, inventing its adventures and conducting its conversations, I put it away and dropped it out of my mind."
I'm just worried he won't be able to finish it,people tend to die when they get old, and George is not the most "In shape" human I've seen sooo... I'm really getting anxious here....
I would bet folding money that the books will still be unfinished when he croaks. The odds of any other outcome are pretty low, so may as well accept it is going to go that way now.
We will be lucky to get winds. The series never be finished. Unfortunately. He knows it by now, I'm sure he is conserned with damaging his legacy with a bad book.
I appreciate this Robert, but I think we all got our answer in the infamous "I'm sorry for you" blog post where George hawked a coffee table book and trolled his own fans who are waiting for Winds. George's personal/professional immaturity and flaws are what is in the way of this series ever getting completed. Keep in mind, we all have flaws, but I haven't been promising to do something for the last ten years and never done it either....
Even though he has explicitly said this isn't the case I still choose to hope that it's taken so long because he's actually finishing both Winds and Dream currently and when he finally announce one is done the other will quickly follow. I know how much he's hated this pressure and he knows releasing Winds will get him a respite of approximately 30 seconds before people start asking how long until the next book is finished? I just don't believe he would willingly put himself through that again if he could help it.
Add to all the irons GRRM has in the fire as you detailed, he is also an executive producer on AMC's Dark Winds show, adapted from Tony Hillerman's books about Leaphorn and Che. While he may not be doing much day-to-day show running, I would think it would certainly take up some of his already precious time.
My pet theory is that he's already written Winds of Winter and possibly Dream of Spring too. He doesn't want to deal with the backlash of fans who don't like the ending so he's going to let his estate publish post humously and avoid the fire 😂
That would be impossible. His has contracts to uphold and TWOW would have removed the current backlash he experiences. This book would have boosted the franchise.
I know it probably won’t happen this way, but it would be cool if he could resolve a bunch of plot lines and kill off some characters in Winds, that way he can bring the final book back to the basics with only a handful of POV’s. As impressive as it’s been, it’s honestly overwhelming to have so many different characters to follow, and I’m of the mind that not *all* of these characters’ POVs are necessary to tell the full breadth of the story. I think it’s a really great example of the reader not needing to see every single thing with their own two eyes.
I think the final book will be easier to write than winds... I think right now he is stuck because he needs to resolve so many plot lines but once he does that it will become a lot easier... especially since he probably has a very clear ending in mind he wants to reach, I think he has no vision how to actually get there but the ending itself is probably in his head finished... so I think dream of spring will be much easier and faster but yeah he is old so it might not be fast enough... I am very convinced he will finish winds but for dream, I am not so sure...
@@mehmetfatihyilmaz1641 can’t imagine the strain and pressure that comes with writing 20+ POV characters, all in different parts of the world with their own cast of secondary and minor characters, in a book that is double, if not triple the length of other epic fantasies. I know GRRM has fully realized it by now but he really did back himself into a corner by the end of Dance because I can only imagine the burn out. He should have broken Winds into two books, honestly. can’t help but feel the only reason he didn’t was because he didn’t want to downscale after Dance.
What? The reader *_doesn’t see every single thing_* with their own eyes. There are a shitload of plot points that are merely whispered about after they have happened off-page.
An interesting irl parallel, the show became more narrow and focused, (which was ultimately it's downfall), and the books have a bit too much in them. The could have rectified the narrowness in the show but he just has to kill off some characters. But he cannot erase pllotlines that are already written. And the deaths, should they happen can't be abrupt and need foreshadwing
@@SnailHatan I don’t mean literally, genius. but there’s a fuck load more happening in these books that the reader sees first hand compared to normal books just because of the sheer number of POV characters. If there were only 1-5 POV characters, the amount of info the reader sees would be far more limited
I feel for the long-time fans. I'm glad I came into this fandom late, circa 2016/2017. I watched the show but kept promising myself I wouldn't start the books until I was convinced he's actually close to finishing Winds. After his "75% done" comment, I finally went out a couple weeks ago and found the full 5-book boxed set at the bookstore. I've got a marathon read ahead 😂
Lucky you. Thankfully at this point I've mostly forgotten everything I read so long ago, so I almost get to do the same thing. The longer I wait the better it will be. RR can take his time afaic. If he dies first then I guess I'll eat my words, but ain't nothing I can do about that either.
I just listened to a video expressing the opinion that Martin wrote in the spirit of post-modernism, which rejects the heros journey, as an ode to his own despair about the world we live in.
@@shaunhall960 Entitled? I stopped caring about this book years ago, I’ve already accepted that it’s coming out when Half Life 3 Is, im just pointing out that George MIGHT have a TINY bit less time on his hand than Gandalf did.
I read Fevre Dream not that long ago, and recently picked up Tuf Voyaging, as well as having read some of The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms collection. This is all to say that I am under the impression that Martin is best at shorter form pieces. At this point I would assert that A Song of Ice and Fire has become, while yes his "magnum opus", a symbol of hubris. I mean, we've all bit off a tad more than we could chew sometimes, it happens. And far be it for me to cast aspersions on him for this; I still enjoy his writing. Well... it's this philistine's view that a fair amount of both Feast and Dance could have been excised and very little of consequence would have been lost. I have a working theory that when Martin initially undertook to write the first book in what was originally to be a trilogy (first edition copies of A Game of Thrones I believe do list that as such, which is rather bold from the start), he just kept writing. And writing. And so on. Until at one point he had what was in essence the overview of most of the content of the first three books, and possibly some further points beyond. My postulation is supported in part by the release dates: Game on August 1, 1996, Clash on November 16, 1998 in the UK, Storm on August 8, 2000, in the UK. Fairy short turn around then it would seem. The counter to this of course being that the plot lines had not diverged as much and the series wasn't quite as complicated as it is now. Storm definitely started cranking that up though, which is reflected in its size comparison. The problem as I see it is Martin definitely has significant beats he wants to get to but has little notion of how to connect where we all are now to those said beats. His "gardener" approach in full force. I have little doubt that Daenerys is actually supposed to eventually burn King's Landing, and that Jon is actually supposed to stop her as shown in the "BEST SEASON EVER" (side note: it was not the best season of anything lol) but without some incompetent and impatient showrunners quite literally rushing to the finish line for no reason whatsoever. I really hope the negative response to the show ending on a wet fart did not inspire any rewrites, or more importantly doubt. I totally buy Dany going full FIRE AND BLOOD by the time she gets to Westeros. Where we leave her at the end of Dance it is heavily implied that's to be the case. I used to think the side projects were a bad thing, but looking at it from a different angle it's obvious why he was doing them: they're shorter more concise and most importantly end. He had, I believe, a 200-ish-page historical overview for the world of Elden Ring he collaborated with From Software on. I bet that was an entertaining diversion. His own world's historical books gave him an opportunity to fill out details he himself most assuredly had not ironed out about said world while not necessarily being unrelated to the "main" series. As you can see I've thought about this for quite some time and at some length hahaha. Not that my opinions amount to anything, and are probably just the ramblings of an insane person 🤷
GRRM promised no more conventions until he finished TWOW, and this was years ago. And yet he's still going to convention. He promised to stop writing for TV and other writing projects, but he's still working on TV and other projects. So much for promises.
Awesome video! I've been hyped by Winds of Winter since I finished the last book. No matter how much it takes, the story is amazing and it will be EPIC! My speculation, is that George might make a hellishly long Winds of Winter, to release a short-to the point Dreams of Springs, to deal a finishing blow in a way nobody expects.
I wonder how many "What if" Channels went through his other Scenarios for the "Merenese Knot" Problem without knowing about it and how much they alligned with his Versions
In this video, Robert mentions that GRRM probably views this as his legacy. But what I think is happening, is he’s actually diminishing the legacy by trying to become a Hollywood big shot. All of these shows are taking his attention away from being what he truly is: a novelist. Let’s keep it real, he is a senior citizen, he has limited time left. (As we all do.) So is an finishing an incomplete book series more important to his legacy than a show about the Targaryens? I think if he passes away without the book series finished, his legacy is tarnished.
His legacy would be the world that he leaves behind and all of the pieces of it he was a part of. The things he is doing all relate to the universe at large, and serve to flesh out aspects via the shows(changes from the books just being context added or the Dunk and egg Novellas showcasing the lead up to Rhaegars birth) which is how most people are introduced to his work. Any additions to the world strengthen his legacy, besides its not trying to be a “Hollywood Bigshot” when he already is one of the most well known authors on earth just because he’s working on TV Shows. It’s the best visual medium for him to tell his story, while he also still writes novellas and such.
Is he a novelist? I think someone needs to tell him, if so. He's spent a lot of his life being a TV producer or screenwriter - it's what he did before he started writing ASOIAF - and it's clear he views that as currently much more important than being a novelist. Actually he seems to view a lot of things as more important than being a novelist. I think in his heart, George has always wanted to do TV. Being a novelist was a part of his life, just something he did, between spells in TV. If the integrity or fidelity of being a novelist was remotely important to him, he wouldn't have OKd a TV adaptation of a series of novels he wasn't even close to completing at the time he got the ball rolling on the adaptation. That tells you a lot about the standing of TV versus being a novelist to him. I think if George's career in TV had taken off in the late eighties and early nineties, we would have got none of the novels. He'd have just adapted his ideas straight onto TV.
Agreed. Martin has become embroiled in his own cult of personality and become part of the Hollywood elite. Ironic considering he supports the 'strikes'.
One thing for sure, at least for me, is that I will never get invested in anyone's series until it is finished. I don't care how hot the books are, until the series is finished I will not be picking them up. I won't get fooled again.
The process of writing several versions reminds me of my ADHD brain having an idea and then running through several variables unable to settle on one - no wonder my fanfiction ideas never left my head 😂 But seriously, I can list a few factors: 1. The story is vast, sprawling and complex. And yet, he cannot expand it any further. He must force the vine to grow in a specific direction, so things start coming closer together again in the run up to the end. His writing style doesn't sound suitable to finishing stories. Now, it's not about dropping clues, foreshadowing, and prophecies (which is always more fun) but paying them off. 2. The longer you put off a task, the more it's looming over you. And if doing the thing doesn't sound exciting enough, you procrastinate even more. 3. The negative reception of GOT finale. Vast majority of people found the conclusion of the show disappointing. And even story beats that came directly from George were so poorly presented that people simply didn't connect with them. If I were him, I would feel that disappointment in my bones. He may write the story in a way that everything makes 100% sense, but this preview reaction probably didn't add motivation to his writing endeavours. I wouldn't be surprised if part of him struggled with staying on course with his planned ending and wanted to give people what they seem to want. And don't come at me about there being no happy ending in Westeros. There were plenty of love stories, peaceful years, and unlikely victories. No one was expecting Disney but bittersweet can have many forms. Personally, I consider the ending of LOTR bittersweet, and some may call it happy 🤷🏼♀️
If he is upset about fans' reactions to the show, then he is unwise with his own emotions. Taking it personally just doesn't make sense, considering how many factors contribute to the reaction to the show.
George is just breaking the trope of finishing a story, it's the ultimate cliff hanger
I mean, by now I'm convinced he will end the books the same way Frank Herbert "finished" Dune; but GRR couldn't even have a son/daughter for us to hope for anything.
Bravo for subverting expectations !
@@strangemolars If he dies i'm sure someone will print anything he has written
@@gustavocardoso9453 nope, it is actually has it in his will that if he dies before he finishes it all his notes and unpublished writings are to be destroyed so that no one will ever be able to finish it for him, this is the ultimate act of narcissism
@@Michael-bk5nz kafka leave to brod destroy his work, but he didin' t, we never know
A wise man once commented: "King writes like it's his job. George writes like it's a hobby that took off in a way he wasn't prepared for and now that there's so much pressure it's not so fun anymore."
That's why I love Sanderson. He writes because he legitimately enjoys it and would keep doing it even if no one ever read them.
Well then King is just excellent in his job.
It's art some are faster than others, but they are different all around.
@@johgu92 Eh, he's hit or miss. I would say he used to be excellent at his job, but now that he's immensely wealthy, he doesn't really care about the quality of the work anymore.
To be fair, the one time Stephen King had a 7 book fantasy epic to write, it took him 20 years to finish and he had to be run over with a car to be motivated to finish it.
I got my grandmother into ASOIAF after the first season of GoT came on. She re-reads all the books regularly. She is now 92 years old and increasingly frustrated at the prospect that she will never get to read the ending...
yeah, thats not happening
You can console you're grandmother with that NO ONE will get to read the ending
lmao imagine getting your grandma into your tooedgyforskool misery p*rn.
Unfortunately, given GRRM's age, it is unlikely we will ever actually get an ending from him. Possible, but not likely.
@@IsaiahINRI George will be dragged by the ear in the afterlife to personally read the book for grandmother!
One thing I find interesting is that (according to wikipedia, sourcing his blog) he considered an October 2015 deadline achievable in May 2015. And a year-end deadline achievable in September 2015. So about 8-9 years ago he thought he was almost there. This tells me that he must have thrown out pretty much everything he had written and started over in late 2015 or early 2016. And may have done the same several times since then.
Or the number of sub plots grew immensely
And he keeps getting distracted by other projects. I personally don't care at all about the HBO projects or his Wyldcards franchise. I don't really need to hear about "A Clash Of Kings" being released in a new, illustrated version!
But I also know how long it took me to write my own book.
He has actually said that he did exactly that in that time period
I vividly remember at the end of 2015 with the sixth season of Game of Thrones on the way, he wrote a post on his blog saying that the book was not finished or ready to be published but he stated that their agents told him that if he had written and subsequently finished within a deadline they could have released before the season premiere, so that definitely tracks cause I remember being optimistic about reading in 2016 lol
I still have hope for Winds. It's the Dream of Spring I'm really worried about.
Dream of Spring is aptly named: a dream not even a possibility.
He needs to put his ego aside and hire a co-writer already
@@Michael-bk5nz very true.
Dream will certainly be released, posthumous that is.
He's 75 years old now! I don't think we'll get DOS! He's also kind of overweight and as he ages dementia/Alzheimer's is a realistic possibility!
The most meta practical joke of all time. “the winds of winter” is literally “the dream of spring”
LOL
Also, the Stark words are Winter is coming but it just doesn't seem to be
If it’s going to be 1600 pages, it probably is both
@@Heatx79 1600 _manuscript_ pages, which can be around 1150 regular ones.
@@nayaab27 We are all children of summer and have yet to experience the long night. Winter is coming.
All these issues will just be compounded with the finale book, I find it extremely unlikely he finishes the series.
Several years ago I was of the mind we'd never see ADoS.
Now I've lost all hope for Winds, as well.
If we DO get it, then great! But there's no way this series gets finished. No way.
@@Quazi-Motothat’s sadly true. What’s annoying me the most is that GRRM has been blue balling us vor 12 years.
@@Quazi-Moto You think he'll pass the torch to someone?
@@fengusburnt no
@@fengusburnt He already has a team around him, so yeah probably. And even if he does not, his publishers and heirs certainly won't leave the story unfinished and lose an opportunity for more money
I think you make a great point about the type of writer George is. Being a "gardener" type of writer is great in the first few novels where George is happily planting seeds and expanding the world, taking his characters on separate journeys and so on. However, at some point, these threads that have spun in different directions need to come back together in a cohesive story and then an ending.
It's clear to me that George does NOT want to do that in his very heart of hearts. You can tell that from the way he introduces key characters with a lot of power to affect the world even in A Dance With Dragons and how he often avoids intersecting characters despite it being the logical thing to do (e.g. Arya Stark who is waylaid trying to go North then the Hound tries to take her to her mother and they arrive just slightly too late for the Red Wedding and then the same thing happens when the Hound tries to take her to Lysa).
I honestly hope he does manage to finish ASOIAF. Regardless of what else he writes in that universe, ASOIAF will remain his magnum opus and it being unfinished would cast a stain on his legacy.
Does George know that gardening involves watering for the garden to grow? Whole lot of not watering been going on for a decade now.
isn't dune an unfinished series? is that a stain on herbert's legacy? (this is a genuine question, i've not read either series)
@@randomsmashplays3564 That's a complicated question with a divisive answer. Frank Herbert did intend to write a 7th Dune Book (the last one he did was Chapterhouse I think) but he died killed by cancer. His son, Brian, wrote more books (some with the help of Kevin J. Anderson) to finish his work based on his father's notes but many fans don't consider them part of the universe due to the drop in writing quality and style.
There are 2 big differences here:
- Frank literally wrote until he died, he published Heretics of Dune in 1984-5 and Chapterhouse in 1985-6. He never did a GRRM and sat on his ass doing Hollywood bullshit and complaining for over a decade.
- The Dune books do not comprise a single ongoing story like GRRM's books do. I would argue that the main story of Dune is finished in the next book, Dune Messiah, after which a completely new chapter starts in Children of Dune. They all focus on humanity's struggle to survive in Frank Herbert's unique vision of future but the protagonists change and large chunks of time pass from novel to novel.
In conclusion, I would say Frank Herbert DID finish his masterpiece but maybe didn't finish telling us all the stories he had in mind with his universe. At the same time, he was not a complaining time-waster, he worked until he died and in fact his rate of publishing books INCREASED in the past 5 years of his life.
Imo The problem with Grrm is that while he is a gardener, he is bad at pruning unnecessary branches. He gets too carried away by minor plots, characters and elaborate descriptions. It's like a hydra, every time he concludes a plot or character he creates several more in its aftermath. Best example is the red wedding and how that created even more spread out plot in riverlands.
Well, the showrunners tried the alternative by having the Red Wedding conclude the Riverlands storyline and having the Boltons and Freys not suffer any consequences, and it was boring and dumb as hell. A massive event like the Red Wedding SHOULD have enormous consequences, GRRM would be a bad writer if he used it to just end a plot line and left it at that.
I think he should've split the book into 3 or 4 books To carry on the struggle So he can Go in different ways And follow the story he intended plus he would've made a tun more money ❤
@@frankvandorp2059 There is a middle ground between those two extremes, though.
There's several Riverlands subplots that are not necessary, nor particularly interesting. The metaphor of the OP is apt.
exactly. We see in very well in Tyrion's plot in book 5
@@andi9161I’m assuming you mean splitting Winds up, similar to how Dance got split into Feast and itself?
It could potentially work, but with everything coming together, if he releases half the characters up until the end of the book, he’s then locked in to writing the rest to fit into it. He he splits it by time, they he may end up realising he needed to add or change something early on to make work.
I think this is kind of the problem he’s having with Winter AND Dreams, in that he’s begun thinking about how he wants Dreams to go down, and it requires Winter to be altered in small ways, and so he hanging onto it while he gets plots in place.
I love that more has probably been written about why winds is taking so long than in the actual book😂
In leght, for sure, but definitely not in content.
Final book will definitely not be written. I think they should start preparing Joe Abercrombie to outline it.
@@brenorocha6687given that he’s probably written almost nothing, I don’t think that’s true.
At least we know he's been writing even at a snails pace... unlike Patrick Rothfuss whose taken just as long and has virtually nothing to show for the wait.
It's quite simple. GRRM is old and not what he used to be as an author. He's grown slower and less passionate about his story in ASOIAF. Mix this with the crazy complicated plots and the countless POV characters.....it's a struggle, bruv. That's just my take using common sense
I get the impression that what Martin always truly wanted was to work in television. And now, with the success of his novels, he has the opportunity to work on multiple popular, critically acclaimed tv shows for HBO. This is his dream, and this is what is getting his attention. I don't blame him, but I also don't think the series will ever be finished.
I think you're spot on. He was always a hollywood kinda guy.
I'll be less kind, because I've grown to despise GRRM and his arrogance.
He managed good work with GoT to start, but started falling in love with his own mental masterbaition as he increased in popularity. I've heard he styles himself as "The Atheist Tolkien".
Once GoT hit HBO, he suddenly imagined he was master of all he surveyed, and decided that he had just SO much more to offer than that icky old thing about, "you had one job". That's why he's got so many screen credits - who doesn't love getting money for doing essentially what Donald Trump used to?
The "Dunk & Egg" adventures are a literal waste of time, because GRRM is bored & can't figure out how to write the ending properly. He's probably scared deep down, because D&D screwed up so badly by rushing the end with only the bare bone framework, and he can't abide that people no longer give a damn about him.
I'm betting the fat fucqer dies of a heart attack before finishing the series.
That's an excellent point. George left TV writing in the first place because the means were not available to render his stories on a TV screen just as he wanted them. That isn't true any more. Thanks to CGI you can now show anything on a TV show and George's imagination can be fully realised without production problems. That's why he is once again heavily into TV spinoffs. Plus, he's super-popular now, so budgets are less of a problem.
If what you say is true then I wish George would come clean and announce that he has no intention of writing his books. I'm too tired, too old, it's too complicated, I want to enjoy my life and my money. Any excuse will be valid. But be honest with us instead of keeping us waiting while you announce that Wild Cards shit on Twitter that no one cares about.
@@santiagodiazlescano933 But he has come clean. He has repeatedly stated that he is continuing to write the series and that he does intend to finish it. If he had just given up on it, he would shut up and not mention it. That would have been the sensible and human thing to do. But instead he has repeatedly stated that he WILL continue to work on the book and that he WILL finish it. And yet fans go on and on and on and on with this same nonsense that he must "come clean" and announce that he has given up. Stop it.
A Dance With Dragons came out summer of 2011. I graduated high school a month before that. In this gap of time I graduated college, got married, had a kid (he’s almost FIVE) bought a house and The Winds of Winter still has no date in sight. He published A Game of Thrones back in ‘96 when I was a toddler. I’m hoping that we will see the day where this sixth novel comes out… it’s very likely going to be sometime in this decade, right? But A Dream of Spring is a novel I doubt I’ll ever see in my lifetime 😢
Cormac McCarthy said “An Author should spend there time writing instead of talking about writing” George immediately came to mind
Stephen King once said, "get me some blow and a type writer, I'll write the bitch in a fortnight."
@@john56801 no the Cujo manuscript was a weekend and an eight ball I beleive
Being married to a writer, and hanging around the members of the HWA, I think I can recognize when a writer has lost the fire for a certain project and I'm afraid I see that in GRRM. I am certain he is being completely sincere when he says he intends to finish Winds and Dream, I am also certain he never will. Everyone, for any project, has to have that inner NEED to continue to make it to the finish line. Once that's gone, it's extraordinarily hard to get it back. Think about any project of your own that you never finished.
I agree with this assessment. I've said for a while now that it's a combination of having fun in television and not having the desire to deal with the massive scope of WoW.
I’m not a George hater by any means, but I think he misunderstands his legacy. If Tolkien had never finished Return of the King no one today would be saying “but at least he gave us the Silmarrillion”. The main story has got to be wrapped up as he intends it or all the rest will fall by the wayside a few years after his death.
Maybe individual completed stories would still be enticing after his passing, but nobody would embark on the whole series because the main story is not finished.
or alternatively, the lack of an ending will make the legacy longer lasting.
@@andersbjrnsen7203longer lasting, perhaps. but definitely a different kind of legacy
His legacy will be GoT season 8, and an unfinished series that started it, he is working hard to build a world like Tolkien did, but he forgets, Tolkien finished Lord of the Rings.
@@joperhop And Tolkien never did finished his world building. The Silmarillion only exists cause his son compiled all the separate stories and notes his father made. He did finish his mainline book trilogy. It would be pointless to read the expanded stuff if Tolkien never completed Return of the King. Authors need to be well aware that endings are important as the journeys, probably more so since they give the journey meaning and conclusion.
Seems insane to work on spinoff projects over finishing the core work.
Exactly. 😊
it is much easier to do something different ;-)
He startet the books almost 30 years ago and has somehow be consistent with his own work.
It can't be fun to reread your own books 2-3 times just to get a grasp what you started 1/4th of a century ago - and he is simply too old to handle this level of complexity he created.
That would be the same if I enter an old save-file from a complex game like DysonSphereProgram, Factoria or Satisfactory and try to play on ... I don't envy his position.
He is a great writer but he dropped the ball and can't finish his own work.
That's where the money is though. The GOT show is over. The cash cow is in the spinoffs now. Giving HBO more source content is the best financial decision.
If he finishes the core series he risks a backlash like the tv show's ending got.
And rumor is GRRM wrote that ending for twice as many seasons, but the showrunners crammed it out too fast.
Dude the TV show is gonna be fan fiction when he finishes the books the only two things that are confirmed from show is bran gonna be king and danny is going to go mad which is fine @@hariman7727
George has changed as a person and writer over the 30 years that have passed since he started ASOIAF, and I wonder if he is hesitating about where the story is going. Having watched every interview and read every blog post, there are multiple instances where he has referenced this. Last year he conveyed this best when he said "Things are growing… and changing, as does happen with us gardeners. Things twist, things change, new ideas come to me, old ideas prove unworkable, I write, I rewrite, I restructure, I rip everything apart and rewrite again, I go through doors that lead nowhere, and doors that open on marvels". He goes on to talk about how the ending will be drastically different in the books and it is continuing to become more and more dissimilar. It's my own personal belief that George has even less of an outline than he lets on and that he is most likely struggling with and changing the character development and endings of Jon, Tyrion, Daenerys, and Bran.
I don't think the discontentment with the end of series aided in this directional problem.
@BusinessWork-nu3wi I've seen so many people, including myself, not necessarily mad at how things ended in the series, but more so how sloppily they got there. (i.e. Dany turning into Queen Barbecue Everyone in a span of an episode)
hes murdered himself into a corner to a large extent
@@lenorevanalstine1219 hard disagree there's all of Westeros for him to introduce new pov characters and then kill them
@@crazygemini82I was gonna say the same thing, I just watched the final three seasons for the first time (I was determined to wait for winds of winter but have finally given in) and like. The execution is terrible but I do stand by my opinion that had more care been put in almost the exact same plot could've happened without any major complaints. I don't hate how it ended but more how it got there. That being said I can see why he would want to deviate from that ending.
Quite frankly, I do not believe he will ever finish the series. It is my belief that he does not know how to get to the ending he wanted - the series keeps getting bloated with too many side stories, old and new ones yet to come. He will die before ever finishing.
There's truth to that I think. Being a gardener is fine, but you have to prune with the shears, not just plant seeds, if you want the story to conclude in a satisfying way.
Yeah, it's not getting done. He's probably trying not to have a LOTR ending, but he knows it's impossible. The only logical choice is that Jon does become a good guy and beat evil. That being said, personally, I didn't like the books. There is too much bloated writing. He will spend 30 pages trying to describe how someone took a shit. Lotr you can sit down and read it relatively quickly and be done there isn't too much more than the story.
I am the same age and I always hoped, that I would be able to read the last two books. After watching your video, I doubt it.
The problem is at this point if it does get finished it's almost certainly going to be disappointing just because of how long it's taken
@@Frothmeister that's why I'm only getting some fun facts or comparisons with the show in the meanwhile because I know it'll take me enough time to read all the material before he finally finishes it or doesn't. But no huge anticipation before that at least
Let’s not joke ourselves, the only reason George haven’t finished the Winds of Winter is that he doesn’t know how to end it. He have an idea how to wrap up certain plots in the story but on other plots, he is stuck and can’t wrap it up. The book has become too complicated for it’s own good. That’s why we can see him taking up other projects instead of completing the series.
Can't he get help?
Well he’s to busy endorsing house of the dragon & other stuff house of the dragon could of been fantastic but I only liked 2 episodes of that series.
He should just have AI write it for him then.
Yeah if you read the books it’s ridiculous, in ADWDs he’s still introducing major characters! It’s beyond complex
he probably knew how to end it but saw how people reacted to the end of the series. If people thought one of my main end game villains (Daenerys) was terribly written, I wouldn't finish those books neither
Do you know what The Winds of Winter is? A story we agreed to tell ourselves, over and over until we forget that it's a lie
A real life fiction.
Good one. Love that littlefinger line 😂
In my opinion, the most important and most difficult challenge of telling a complicated story is wrapping it up cleanly. The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Tower, and Harry Potter did phenomenal jobs of wrapping things up nicely by cleverly addressing numerous plot points and providing some surprises along the way. On the other hand there are authors/screenwriters/directors (JJ Abrams?) that are good at raising interesting ideas, but are absolutely incapable of completing the thoughts. Perhaps due to some misguided notion of subverting expectations, laziness, or simply a lack of sufficient talent. I say this as an observation not a criticism. I hope I am wrong, but I am starting to think that GRRM has bitten off too much to chew. He is a magnificent author and has created a wonderful universe. But I do worry that he simply doesn't have the ability to untangle the hugely complicated story he has written thus far. The last book seemed to me to want to simplify things, but he introduced even more characters and plot lines. At some point the story needs to converge and not continue to spiral into new directions.
20 POV characters, even Tolkien kept his cast small. I think George has made his own story too complex to satisfyingly wrap up in time.
HP is full of plot holes.
I believe he could’ve finished it but it would’ve been what many writers do.. finish it just to finish if & force the ending… we saw that happen already on HBO… it sucked lol. Again the best thing he can do is leave the story to other ppl to finish in case he can’t
GRRM has the unfortunate ailment of not wanting to write an ending that someone has thought of/ is predictable.
Except too many are like myself and simply predict the most narratively satisfying conclusion. (Some get upset it was predictable in this case which is ludicrous)
Game of Thrones is written as a history more than a narrative. Scarce few satisfying endings, and contradictory in many cases. The difference is motivation, objective. My advice to GRRM would be to have the throne tied to whomever kills the night king which relies on unification as a resolution to most plot angles.
If he wants a big twist have one of the night king's lieutenants kill him in the end.
@@mandowarrior123There is no night king character in the books. 🤷
"12 years" "don't want it to be rushed" you saidthese two things close together without irony
Do you know how long Lord of the Rings took? 12 years. Robert Caro's series on Lyndon B Johnson? There have been 8-12 years between each book.
I am also bummed I don't have this 6th book of George's to enjoy. Having other books to read has really been personally helpful.
@@nicholsonfile if you don't understand the point i actually made that's fine but don't change the subject.
Does that sound kind of contradictory? Yes. But in actuality these two statements are NOT contradictory.
"Rushed" doesn't imply a specific timeline. "Rushed" just implies that you're doing it in a hasty way. In other words, doing it faster than it would organically happen or than you feel comfortable doing it with insufficient consideration.
I don't know why some people seem to have this idea that writing is like, idk, fixing a drain pipe or something. It's not. Good ideas have to come to you. Good ideas for characters, for plot twists, for prose. And while you can obviously sit down and try and you can try to get inspired and all of that stuff, at the end of the day you can only write down what comes to you. And as a writer you cannot determine what comes to you or whether it's any good. You can only decide to write it down or not.
Writing something hastily or in a rushed way basically means that you just write down the first thing that comes to you. And if it isn't as good as it could've been, or it creates plot holes or whatnot, you don't care. Or you just don't think about it. You just put it on the page. And that is not at all what I want, nor what I think most people want.
I'd rather have Martin take his time for the good ideas to come and be written down than rush by just writing down the first thing that pops into his head.
@@nicholsonfileTLOR is 3 books. TWOW is 1 book. Pretty big difference there, mate.
@@gauntlettcf5669 Also, I don't remember Tolkien publishing several other works while working on LotR...
If I'm to speculate I think the story have become "too wide to handle easily" the story is like a ever branching tree with every story and plot forming it's own branch.
The tree have become so wide that tying it all together at their intended end point in a satisfying way have become a herculean task, partially for a author like him who likes to let his "branches grow freely"
I also think the time jump he intended to implement but didn't put some additional strain on his plans
Someone finished the book using A I
Might be the closest we get
@@Kibatsume1Who?
Yeah, in real history random shit happens and then historians identify a story in the mess. This is the opposite
I think that the TV show ending was definitively similar to George's original idea, at least in terms of outline. But the poor reception of it created a huge problem for him to write his final books.
mad daenarys is more a martin thing than a royal happy couple.@@MyIntelligenceIsSuperior2You
Problem is, a some of the concepts, weren’t bad in theory (bran becoming king, Dany going mad) they were just executed awfully
@nicholashines2403 yes they were, bran was useless, and dany is not meant to go mad, we don't need two mad queens.
@@Aydan2108 you missing the point of my comment. Yes Bran was useless in the show, but if used correctly, given his power, he would make an incredible king. Kind of like blood raven but with more of a moral center
@@Aydan2108 also I wouldn’t call Cersei “mad” she is just an awful person, as opposed to Dany’s madness which could have been developed more as someone with a genetic predisposition of madness and was tormented into that state
I love this channel and the kind, understanding tone that Robert strikes.
"Kind and understanding" is a great way to describe Robert and why I love this channel.
I want him as the judge if I was ever to be tried in court
This channel is the best of them imo.
Yeah I don't know him, but I know that Robert is a good dude.
@@Drowninginantimatter this would put my GRRM respect into new stratospheric levels
He’s written himself into a corner. So many characters and different ways they can go. It’s gonna be a while
The Mereeneese knot is real 😂
And he says that everytime he reads a fan theory that is close to what he was going to write he changes his plan to something new
@@10ftSamsquanchy Pretty sure he said the exact opposite
@@10ftSamsquanchythat's kind of dumb. When a series is that popular, basically every possible plot twist is going to be correctly anticipated by someone on Reddit. When you try to add unexpected twists to a story just for the sake of being unexpected, you end up with a disaster like Star Wars Episode VIII.
I have to imagine he knows how most stories will wrap up. When he dies we will find notes on how it all ends and someone else will finish it.
I’m pretty sure everyone has given up on winds of winter especially George
That's pretty much a fact. Anyone who says differently, especially Martin, is gaslighting you.
Yeah, I'm resigned to the fact that he'll never finish it. If he does, I'll read it, but there are only so many times I can hear "I made less progress than I hoped; but some progress doesn't mean no progress" before my anticipation level sinks to nothing.
I've seen a million versions of why GRRM hasn't finished yet, but two of the most compelling (aside from the obvious getting distracted by the wider Planetos TV & worldbuilding projects) are basically...
1. He's a pantser and goes where the story takes him (rather than a plotter who has a map for the story in place before they start writing) and this has resulted in a LOT of disparate threads over the five novels so far and trying to pull all (or even most) of them back together (without creating more along the way) is a herculean task.
2. GRRM has such a grim outlook and loves subverting tropes so much that he literally can't conceive of a way of neatly ending the story without compromising that outlook.
Both of these are a lot of work and result in a lot of second guessing yourself and there's been more than a few indications that he's ripped the whole thing up at least once and regularly finds himself re-writing things to 'get it right' rather than getting to the finish.
Maybe GRRM is feeling the pressure of the mainstream attention since GoT and maybe he could do with allow/receiving some more editorial support and stop trying to edit himself as he writes. Either way, he's a n old guy who's busy as hell. The book will come when and if it comes.
I’m sure this will tick off some folks, but I’m so over hearing “he’s a Gardner writter”…. I’ve grown my own forest, harvested the wood, and built my own darn house waiting for this book.
watch season 5-8 then
@Laketwig Why are you so mean? Why would you even, what kind of person even says something like this? No, just, no.
@@paulster185 if you dont want to for him to take his time and get it right, there is the alternative.
I looked it up and I if we get to 2032 without him publishing it, it will have officially taken him longer to write Winds of Winter than the first five books combined
(according to google he started writing A Game of Thrones in 1991 and finished A Dance with Dragons in 2011)
@@NinjaFlibble 😳 please lord nooooooo
George may not owe his fans a finished series, but at minimum he does owe us honesty. I'd respect him a lot more if he just came out and admitted that he's having trouble wrapping up the story, that his heart's just not in it anymore, etc. As opposed to what he's doing in real life, going on 12 years with no end in sight while still being like, "Yes of course I'm almost done with Winds of Winter, I'm working on it constantly, why would anyone doubt me?"
This
Agreed, but I feel that this is as much a business decision as it is a moral one. The moment he admits to ASoIaF not being finished, the interest in his other related stories and works will drop. And I'm sure both he and his publishers/producers don't want that to happen.
To borrow a phrase, We are not GRRM's bitch. George has insisted he's working on it and determined to finish. We're allowed to wonder if he can do it.
@@Banzai51 And to put it in Pulp Fictionesque terms-if we are not GRRM's bitch, why does he F**K us like bitches?
Remember, George is quite the chess player. House Of The Dragon lets him do what is more enjoyable and lucrative-but of course he has to appease his loyal book readers-or seem to. Thus the hints being dropped about Winds Of Winter release. Really, his heart just isn't into it, and as far as real progress toward a finished project goes well..... I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it all was rather fictitious itself-or to put it more harshly-a great big fat lie.The best solution would be for George to become "co-authors" with someone who could work with George well, respect his writing, and make sure the whole thing gets finished in a timely manner. I suspect George could have his pick of some VERY accomplished writers to co-author with him. why he hasn't done this I don't know. Greed? Selfishness? Denial? Your guess is as good as mine !
His problem is by the end of DoD he's got too many plates spinning. He's lost control of the story, quite literally lost the plot. He's got no idea how to pull it all together to finish it, and all these dozens of other projects are simply to distract him from that.
I blame his editors, maybe they tried but by that stage of the series he was too powerful
I 100% agree. He bit more than he can chew. He also may have lost a lot of his motivation. He must have given away a lot for the showrunners to be able to finish the series; he sees that a lot of fans were disappointed. Being involved in Elden Ring was surely more productive than fighting this gigarnoumous challenge of rounding down 5234756 parallel storyline.
A Game of Thrones was first published in 1996. This book is never coming out and A Song of Ice and Fire will NEVER be finished. Martín is trying to build a legendarium like Tolkien did without finishing the foundation first like Tolkien did.
I could say a lot more but I’ll leave it here. This series and Martin himself was meant to be the anti Tolkien and as a Tolkien fan I actually rocked with the concept. However, at the end of the day, Martin has just proved that Tolkien is and always will be THE GOAT. Period.
I fully believe he stopped writing the book years ago and has no plans on finishing it.
i agree eems like that hes lost interest in ASOIAF not interested anymore plus as long as HBO keep bringing him more ideas projects WOW will never come out
He enjoys his fame and meeting people and going to cons and parties. So unlike most authors, he doesn’t care to finish his legacy. And we’re stuck with the HBO ending
Yeah In Deep Geek gave GRRM too much credit in this video. Especially considering he said “if he dies, he doesn’t want anyone finishing them”, which in my eyes basically meant “these aren’t ever getting finished”. I personally think George is all upset that so many of the fan theories were far better than his own ending of G.O.T.
@@wolfpecker5710George has openly said he tries not to read fan theories, and that some are good and some are bad, but they won’t change his story. I see no reason to doubt that.
I fully believe he never started.
I've already gone through the 5 stages of grief a loooong time ago...at this point, I am happy that we got the 5 books we have! I've read his other works and they are great as well...just sucks that it appears that he's painted himself into a corner. C'est la Vie mon ami...
Same here. At least there's plenty of fanfiction tackling the various directions the story could go, and since the last few seasons of the tv show were so atrocious even the most amateurish fanfiction seems quite competent in comparison! 😄
That's a healthy attitude. We can be grateful that he gave us three great books and two additional books.
whatever will be, will be, we got some nice books to read.
Ditto, I was really annoyed with the TV series ending, and realized GRRM is unlikely to ever finish the series.
Having said that, Westeros is definitely worth a revisit in the future, and I thank him for the world, characters & intrigue he created (even if it's based on the war of the roses which I should probably learn about).
Honestly, with so many pov characters and side plots, it’s a good time for there to be some cataclysmic enemy who comes in and starts killing off characters. Good thing there are White Walkers in the story!
Euron also might be a character killer.
Haha Stephen King said as much in his interview!
@@pushista9322 Yep-he had a similar issue in The Stand, but of course King just killed off most of the cast to make it easier to write. Then everybody left is dealing with the horror of everybody dying, so it makes for dramatic storytelling.
I’m pretty sure the Night King must have fell, severely broken his ankle, and then decided that it wasn’t worth the long march south. Someone let the Starks know that winter isn’t coming.
I think one of the biggest problems is that GRRM keeps giving deadlines that he can't or won't commit to. Martin has offered repeated deadlines that he hasn't met:
1. In 2015, he said he wanted to have it published before Season 6 of Game of Thrones aired. In Jan 2016, he announced he hadn't met his end-of-year deadline.
2. In 2017, he said it would be released sometime that year. Never happened.
3. In April 2019, he said he didn't have a finished copy in-hand for the 2020 Worldcon New Zealand, then Air New Zealand had his permission to imprison him on White Island. Didn't happen. Neither the book, nor his imprisonment.
4. In February 2021, he said he was hopeful of finishing in 2021.
The first rule of managing expectations is: Don't. Make. Promises. You. Can't. Keep. Honestly, I think people would have more patience for him if every time someone asked him, he just said "I am working on it, it will be done when it's done".
This is actually hilarious looking at his history and how off he was wtf. How can u be so off on when you think you’ll finish as the writer of ur own story? Naw man this guy ain’t finishing the series rip
If he’s a gardener then all those times he promised a deadline and couldn’t follow up prolly meant he fucking found himself having 20 extra plot lines. Then when tryna wrap those up and giving a new deadline, fuck he’s wrote himself 40 more. Rinse and repeat.
I don’t trust anything he says. I think he’s prolly done 50% of the book if he says 75%.
Tbf he does say that now lol
" Hopes to be finished" aren't really self imposed deadlines, they are just hopes.
Let's call these what they are: lies. And then he turns around and uses the interest in the series to sell spinoffs and merch and whatnot. If a business does this, they get sued for securities fraud.
My theory is that as soon as he started to write about actual Targaryens, he lost interest in the "mundane" houses and politics of modern Westeros. He has a sort of dragon-sickness, his motivation centers accustomed to Balerion and The God's Eye so not even the greatest Battle on the Ice can satisfy him in the same way.
What are you saying ,are you talking about George writing Fire an Blood has taken him away from the rest of the story an is focused on House of the Dragon
@@cherylbaxter8986 Its pretty clear he is bored with a song of ice and fire and more interested in the history of westeros.
Interesting theory, it definitely seems like it. I was bored of what was going on by the time I got to the end of the books. I always found the back stories more interesting.
@@joperhophe is interested more in worldbuilding than finishing a story
@@kungalexander829 he is desperate to make a middle earth like rich world, and forgetting, Tolkien finish lord of the rings.
Honestly I think the truth is he doesn't want to finish it (at least, doesn't plan on finishing Dreams himself).
Resolving the Meereenese knot amongst the dozen other plot lines in a clean manor in a way that doesn't anger fans is a f*&*king nightmare. Meanwhile there are many funner distraction like con events and side writing projects like Elden Ring.
I think Martin, consciously or subconsciously, knows there is no way to cleanly resolve ASoIaF. So, he plans to polish Winds to as much of a sheen as he can even if it takes twice as long as i should, so HIS written books end on a high note. Then A Dream of Spring will be left for someone else to resolve after he dies. He'll leave whoever that is a mountain of notes and ideas, but let them fall on the sword of resolving the series.
Tolkien didn't do that. I have no strong reason to assume Martin would be any different.
@@SupremeGrand-MasterAzraelwhy does one indicate the other?
@@bassistguy13 Because when we speculate we look at what has happened in similar situations. I can't think of a single author who died with an entire novel unwritten but let some other random person finish their magnum opus.
@@SupremeGrand-MasterAzrael Robert Jordan.
@@lemmypop1300 I don't know enough about the Wheel of Time series to give my opinion on that. Haven't read that series. Do people like the books that Jordan did not write? How were the last 3 books received? Is the tone the same? I know even less about the Sanderson fellow.
I think the answer to "What was Aragorn's tax code?" is that answering every single question like that about a story while you're writing it turns it into sprawling, unfinishable mess.
Stuff like this is what makes George’s universe popular in the first place though…all the insanely detailed inner workings of Westeros is part of what makes it unique compared to other fantasy worlds. Fans enjoy stuff like that
I mean if you want an unfinished mess with tax codes more than a finished on without it than i dont know what else to say@@donovan4222
@@donovan4222 *with* the premise that it all does ultimately make sense. Our brains have evolved to assume there are reasons for things we experience. GRRM's writing style is to spin out plot threads without knowing how they're going to tie into the ending - eventually, it breaks that assumption.
I'd love the first half of a mystery book if it presented something I couldn't figure out. I'd be less impressed if the remaining pages were all blank.
@@Ovenman940 I think George knows how he wants to end major plot points, it’s just the amount of detail and world building he does getting there that probably makes his style of fantasy so challenging.
Rereading Malazan this year and I have so much respect for Erikson for pulling it off. 3.5 million words, tons of POV characters, 3 continents, hundreds of thousands of years of history, and it's completed. To boot, The Crippled God is hailed as one of the greatest finales in epic fantasy's history. And the contract gave him a deadline!!!
We got a WoT ending, it would be great if we could get an ASOIAF ending too.
Got any advice for an aspiring Malazan reader? I read Gardens of the Moon not understanding s thing that happened and DNF'd Deadhouse Gates after about 200 pages because I just didn't have a clue what I Was reading.
@@rhahnabunaidI wanna start that series ,is book one even worth it ?
@@desertraider8628 I would still say yes. There's no doubt that they're incredibly well written and Erikson truly is a word smith. They're just more difficult to read than your average fantasy book, because Erikson doesn't hold your hand and gives very little exposition. So, throughout, you will have to pay close attention to what you're reading and accept that you won't understand everything that's going on during the first couple of books, or even on your first read of the series. But, of course, this isn't for everyone. For me, English is also my second language, so I guess I had a more difficult time with it than most. But still, even after giving up on book two, I really want to give it another shot because I could tell that there is likely nothing to ever top the reading experience if you make it through. And me giving up wasn't because of the source material; it was because I was hitting the ceiling of my own limitations at the time.
Honestly it would be quite difficult if English is your second language, so it's super commendable that you made it through book 1!
I have to admit, and this may have come from me reading fantasy for most of my life, I really enjoyed being thrown in with no exposition. It creates a unique experience (which Erikson had when reading Dune, and wanted to use that model) where you are constantly filling in data points and shifting relationships.
Even Mark Lawrence, celebrated fantasy author that he is, didn't like Gardens of the Moon. When you don't know that the azath can pop up, it feels jarring.
My advice:
Read Deadhouse Gates. You don't have to reread Gardens to do it. Deadhouse was written ~8 years after Gardens and is a smoother read. It's a beautiful story in the end, for many people it is the first fantasy that makes them cry. That's an experience you've gotta have if you haven't already.
Trust in Erikson. He makes mistakes for sure, but even the out of nowehere stuff that happens in Deadhouse Gates comes back in book 4, book 5, book 6, and later. In retrospect, it's insane that he pulls off what he does.
Take notes if you have to! Visit the wiki if you have to, and note that they separate the spoilers.
Also, for transparency, I don't understand everything that happened lol. Hence my lovely reread.
Lastly, his interviews on TH-cam can be very helpful. As you finish each book, I recommend A Critical Dragon who makes brilliant content alone and with Erikson. The author is very intelligent and he makes odd decisions at times, but he also makes very compelling arguments for his decisions.
Structurally, Malazan is very complex. It's not a series like WoT or ASOIAF, which have their own complexities. It's duologies and a trilogy and a huge overarching series all in one.
I think you'll have an easier time with Malazan today. And I think for any fan of fantasy, even when it's not easy, it's incredibly rewarding.
Malazan is a masterpiece. Gets better every time you reread it
ASOIF will end up like some of Tolkiens final works where Chris his son finished them. With GRRM it will be the editor friends of his.
The difference is that Tolkien finished his core work (LOTR) and some side works on the Middle Earth universe. Also before writing the Lord of The Rings he planned the whole world, languages, races cultures, legends and small tales of the universe he created. It was "easier" for him to just plan the adventure, instead of creating stuff on demand as it happens with RR Martin.
I think it is a coin toss between which more likely, Tolkien finishing the Silmarillion or Martin finishing ASOIAF
you didnt specify JRR Tolkien
.....or The Doors Of Stone by Rothfuss. Which I honestly completely disregard at this point, the guy is a fraud
Thats from G.R.R. Martins latest blog update: "...Parris and I found one just last week; an animated series called BLUE EYE SAMURAI.
I hardly know where to start on this one. Once we started watching it, we could not stop. Binged the whole thing in three nights, and I am already hungry for the second season. ..."
31.12.2023 AT 8:24 AM.
I think part of the problem is that the ending to the show was so poorly received that he now has to consider if he wants to end his books in a similar way or come up with an entirely new ending.
It wasn't so much the ending but the dramatic dropoff in dialogue and writing that people hated. He shouldn't have that problem :)
He would have too much rewriting to do on books that were already finished, but just needed polishing.
If Benioff and Weiss were not following his outline, why didn't he complain, get a lawyer to halt production, sue HBO and Benioff and Weiss?
@@tessdurberville711 Because he would lose that case
We have to remember that Geroge is a member of WGA. As a response to the studios refusing to negotiate in good faith, He's been striking from writing Winds for 13 years.
Cool beans. As mentioned above, that means AI can finish the work he's not competent enough to complete.
That doesn’t effect authors
That only affects screenwriting
Woosh.
Oh dang I just realized this was a joke... I swa this video at like 1am hahaha
I’m honestly worried we’re not ever going to get to hear the true end to the Song of Ice and Fire story. With how long Winds of Winter is taking, I wouldn’t be surprised if George passes away before he completes a Dream of Spring. At this rate he’d be 90+ years old when he finally drops Dream of Spring and that’s assuming he finishes and releases Winds in the next couple years
Yeah I am not even sure if WInds of Winter will be released before he dies let alone Dream of Spring. Best case would be someone else finishing it some decades from now.
I've already given up on ever seeing his end to the story. Wouldn't surprise me if someone else carries on the books once he's gone though.
@@philwilson4167 As someone who never got to read Alexie Panshin's "The Universal Pantograph", I can only look towards you and ask "First time?".
Charles Dickens died while writing "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". It was being published in installments and Dickens died after part 6 of 12 was published. Dickens had apparently kept the whole thing in his head, as no detailed plot line of the story was left behind nor a resolution to the mystery. Dickens had told a friend that there was a planned finish, divulging some details, but Dickens did not want to spoil the serialization, so the murderer and the motive were not given out.
@richardbell7678 I'm well aware it happens often, that writers don't get to finish their work before they die. And there are lots of legitimate reasons why it happens. But I can't think of another author off the top of my head who has actively chosen to pursue other works over completing the singular work of fiction that made them a success in the first place. And it's so blatantly a case of him choosing the things that are more lucrative over asoiaf.
My personal theory is when the directors were wrapping up the show they asked about how the story was going to end. (Denarys's death and bran getting the throne as possible examples.) And GRR gave them rough outlines, which we saw in the final season. But after seeing fan reactions he has to change the ending so they won't hate the books as well.
Now he's in a corner, trying to make a new ending that makes sense, while also making the fans happy. He could be less and less confident about the ending he has planned, worrying it will have the same fan reaction as the final season of the show.
We only wish he was 30 years younger. I think we are all afraid he will not live long enough to finish the series. A Dream of spring may take another 10-15 years.. he will then be over 90!
Will he live that long?
Let's hope so...
Hes obese and definitely dosnt live a healthy life style..
In the world of Computer Science we have The Art of Computer Programming, at the moment a five volume set with smaller booklets with corrections and previews of later work. He's currently 85 years old and started in 1962 when he projected it would be a single volume of twelve chapters. By the time the first volume was published in 1968 the estimate was 7 volumes. He's still writing it. So we should still have hope for GRRM. :)
Btw, in writing TAOCP, he had to write programs for typesetting and layout, which resulted in the basis for, among other things, LaTeX and PDF.
74 years old, 350 lbs of nothing but fat, constantly working and travelling,...most likely won't see 77.
I agree. He did too much world building and he doesn’t know how to tie everything together to conclude it. He fell into a series that he doesn’t know how to finish and is doing other side projects instead
We got a good amount of AMAZING stories. We should be happy with what we got even tho it will not be finished,
This is a very respectful video. Well done. So much vitriol on the internet so it’s nice to listen to reasoned discourse
Nice to see your channel doing so well. Congratulations!
The one main advantage alot of popular fantasy authors had with long series was less distractctions they were writing books while at the same time series were coming out and no internet and constant scurutiny and immediate popularity . That's alot of pressure especially with happened with the show
Steven King, after the epilogue in the first book of The Dark Tower series, when typing about thé monumental task of finishing his own series, said that once an author loses passion for a major work in progress it's impossible to inorganically manufacture and finish it satisfactorily.
That's somewhat an effect of the position in the story. At the start you can do anything. Be wildy creative. But no matter what, the ending is 'a job'. Hard to be as passionate about.
You now have responsibilities. You must conform to accepted narrative tropes, to make a satisfying ending.
He’s not finishing that book. It’s that simple. He’s doing other things.
What motivation would he have to finish SoFI after all those HBO dollars? It's probably worth it for him to get 1 more book out, but I doubt he's interested in finishing the series after that.
@@TravisHi_YTbooks make a lot of money and Winds would easily sell millions.
@@liftedmarco4976but he already has lots of money from the work he's already created and probably gets royalties from anything asoiaf related (tv shows,...). Is it worth it for him to spend the limited time he has on finishing the books vs doing other stuff he enjoys more? Like I completely understand him, if I were in his position I'd be using the money I already have to enjoy life and not force myself to write something just to make people happy.
@@liftedmarco4976He’s already got more than enough for him and his wife to live the rest of their lives lavishly doing pretty much whatever they want. He doesn’t have any kids to leave it too. At a point I would imagine the struggle of working on it isn’t worth the reward, especially when it’s clear he cares more about other projects and wants to enjoy however many years he has left.
@@liftedmarco4976 he can make (and made...) tens of millions just by signing a contract for adaptation, without making any real efforts, without producing the slightest amount of new material. A book requires tremendous efforts, and earns him absolutely nothing in comparison, dont be stupid.
Personally my biggest concern with the length of time TWOW is taking is will he be able to complete the series in his lifetime. There is still one book to go after the next and he's already in his mid-70s. It would be a real shame if he didn't get to complete what is essentially his life's work.
I agree 100% it would be a shame. But "gardener" is another term for "pantster" and as such he has no clear vision of the ending, he has ideas and a rough vision, but it is not clear. This epic in that writing style requires dedication to that project. He just has too much going on right now. Unless he abandons every other project, he will never finish that narrative.
Inb4: I have two theories that aren't mutually exclusive.
1) He just started to enjoy life more and what started as creative break turned into a spiral that he can't get out of. He no longer feels the drive to sit down for several weeks and get the foundation done, instead just noting bits here and there but never doing the treacherous work of connecting and polishing them.
2) He tried several times to connect the dots and come up with good ending but since he's more of a "just write and see where it takes me" guy (my pure speculation, just an asumption to get this theory going) rather than thorough planner, he can't really conclude the story at the same quality as he can add to it and therefore doesn't want to publish. It's way easier to create captivating setup than it is to tie everything together. It's easy to add mysterious cool characters that hint at something greater, it's hard to stop those characters from taking over the story, while keeping their plotline going and keeping their characters and actions intact.
Curious to see what the video is about as I've just accepted that the books are over and haven't really checked onto the progress.
I've personally gotten over waiting for WoW... George has given so much and I don't dare asking for more. The dunk & egg books, Fire & Blood, Game of Thrones. I'm simply grateful I was able to experience this story as it reached it's max popularity. Stories like these need to be made and shared. Thank you George!!!
WoW has been out for a long time. Hardcore servers went live today!
I would rather he would stop promising. I don't mind enjoying what we have. But I feel like a kid and it's been 12 christmases and he has promised for that bike. I'm getting older and it's starting to sound more and more bs. I'm a realist and not a blind fan, huge fan, but not blind.
I personally don't agree with comments like the first answer you received, but yeah... I can't say I disagree with it. I mean, he had a majn job. I refuse to follow any of the other stories he wrote about the ASOIAF because he should have finished his main story first. Everything else is embellishments. I have no use for any of them if the main story is to go unfinished. I don't care for the sidestories if there's not a main, satisfying story. Knowing it's not finished, why would anyone even start reading it. How many people, after he'll have sadly passed, will start his books knowing that? He decided to dedicate overstretch himself, but it was HIS choice. And he's entitled to it, just as much those of us who decide to stop supporting him for it are entitled to their decision. I really hope he's just pulling a massive prank on us and is waiting to give the last books to the public only after his passing, so he won't hear any critics about what he decided to write. Because otherwise, I'll have to accept that he decided to waste his time on countless, easy-to-avoid/write-in-shorter-terms backstories without finishing that amazing, wonderful, intricate story I started reading as a 13 year old.
You don't dare ask for more? The story isn't over; you are owed more. This isn't a case of a standalone story being finished and fans asking for just a sequel, this is a case of one long story being told across multiple books, which is currently unfinished and may remain unfinished forever if George doesn't stop procrastinating. WoW was promised to you, and you'd have every right to ask for it.
I feel the same. Considering how many authors we have access too provides us with a wealth of reading for multiple lifetimes.
12:08 This is only technically accurate.
Wheel of Time has about 680 more named characters (2782) but the audiobook narration is split up between Kate Reading and Michael Kramer with each reading different chapters depend on if it focuses more on female or male characters. It is entirely possible that 40-60% of the characters are not voiced by both narrators especially if they only appear for a few chapters.
So the WoT audiobooks have more speaking characters but the ASOIAF audiobooks are all read by one narrator. As I said, the record is only technically true based on the narrator but not true based on the voiced characters.
Rosamund Pike (who plays Moiraine on the Amazon WoT show) is currently re-recording the WoT audiobooks by herself and is up to book 4 out of 14. When she finishes then ASOIAF will no longer hold the Most Characters in a Series Voiced By a Single Narrator record.
she will never finish the audiobooks, the show will be cancelled soon after season 3, the too many changes, the character phisically swaps attribute, the lack of consistency in the magic system the lack of understanding of culture geography, the witcher made the same mistake maybe im wrong but many book fans were angry at the show come on the dragonreborn being female, egwene ressurecting Nynaeve fully burn with no experience of channeling bad staff to walk over, blacks aiel
@carlogiurizzato2441 MASSIVE WOT fan. grew up reading the books, and every time a new book came out 7 up, reread most of the series to catch up. couldnt watch more than 5 minutes of the TV show. turned off at the initial voice over "...search for the dragonborn, be it a boy or a girl" spat in the face of the entire premise of the magic and world building. blegh
@@carlogiurizzato2441 that won’t change how potentially well the audiobooks will sell. I mean… it might in the nebulous sense that it loses out on potential readers that would’ve started the books based on the hype a new season might bring, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t still be worth having her record the rest of the series.
I mean, if it was worth it to have her narrate up to book 4, those readers are likely going to want to continue and that has no bearing on whether the show continues 🤷♂️
I've always taken it as an enthusiasm issue. He's a writer who feeds on pulling the rug from beneath the reader. With the TV show being finished he is probably struggling with the idea of either sticking to the ending that he now knows many people were disappointed with or taking the book down a different path which might feel more forced. It almost makes more sense that he has gone off to work on all the newer stuff as the book is essentially done in the terms of us knowing how things are going to play out.
Yes, I think people stated they disliked the tv version for reasons that are misleading. Daenerys complaints were somewhat misplaced as that was her setup, but for her not to face the night king was a huge misstep.
He's like tolkien if tolkien was upset the ring falling into mt doom was predicted by audiences in many ways. Sometimes you need to cross the t's.
It happens as you get older, you struggle to reach a satisfying climax.
But people didn't hate the ending because of how their favorite characters played out. We hated the ending because the writers left logic and coherent storytelling behind in season 5 and it got worse every season. GRRM literally couldn't write an ending like that in the show because it's absolute nonsense what happened on the show
@@willu842 The writing in the last few seasons was "does this make any sense? No but it looks cool so lets do it!"
I don't think pressure from the distaste over seasons 7 and 8 are bothering him much at all from the POV of similarity to his writing. It's very clear to fans of the book that it will end little like the show did.
@@nzcamel3 Is it clear? How so? I've not personally seen anything where he's ever distanced himself from the endings or how the TV story progressed but id happily be mistaken.
I think getting involved with all these side projects is actually his way of building towards wrapping up the story
More like his way of avoiding the story.
Lol how?
He’s not wrapping up the story, he’s just retelling it in a different medium.
Let's say that's true-it definitely is him avoiding writing the main plots-how does having required reading outside of the main books make for a good, wrapped up story?
Idk he goes back in time and writes about then cuz the present is too hard to wrap up.
Thanks for summarising everything there is to consider when trying to answer this question - i tried multiple times to find an answer on the internet but was quickly either confronted with very emotional discussions and complains or overwhelmed by the amount of text i would have to read on GRRM blog. So thank you very much for organising the information!
And lets hope that we will soon be able to discuss the contents of winds of winter, not the publication date 😊
I was just floored that with the pandemic, it still wasn’t done. Over a long period of time when many people were forced to stay in their houses, projects on hold, no parties or events to attend, I’m really surprised he didn’t use such a unique opportunity to make this book his priority.
he has no real reason to finish anything hes made his money and then some
He's bored of writing ASoIaF. He's not bored of Westeros, but the saga we know he's through spending time there
Yeah it’s like God himself was calling him on his bullshit. If a worldwide pandemic that forced him to stay at home for months on end could produce the book, nothing will.
We don't know that he didn't.
No writer wants to leave unfinished work if he or she can help it. @@qwopiretyu
I doubt Martin feels "tremendous pressure" about the Winds of Winter. As you point out, he has produced a copious amount of other ASOIF content, I believe partly because Martin found it more interesting and rewarding to do so. But beyond that, his development agreements with HBO have been very lucrative, so financial incentives are also at play here. I applaud you for your optimism, but it could very well be that ASOIAF becomes the best known unfinished series in the history of literature.
My thoughts exactly.
It definitely won’t be finished. Even if TWOW will come out, which I don’t believe, ADOS will never be written. At least not by GRRM
Anyone who doubts GRRM feels tremendous pressure is absolutely CLUELESS. Outside of Rowling finishing the final Harry Potter books I doubt any author has been under this much pressure. I'm not making an excuse for how long he's taking, it's just beyond obvious if you rub 2 braincells together that he'd feel intense pressure.
@@telltellyn I really don’t think so. He feels pressure, sure. But he’s definitely come to terms with the fact that he won’t finish the series. He’s rich, he has enough work and he’s old enough to not give a f what other people think.
I also totally understand that he’d rather do the stuff he was never able to, because he got successful so late in his career. He’s not planning on finishing the series, so I doubt that he feels tremendous pressure.
@@GaryCrant I seriously doubt GRRM gives 0 shits about his legacy, that doesn't remotely fit with the way he talks or acts. Money isn't the be all and end all of living a satisfying life. Not sure why you're so confident he's come to terms with not finishing, we've known for decades how delusional he is with his own progress. He's never given any indication that he's willing to stop, so you're claiming he's lying to us about wanting to finish... AND that he doesn't care what we think. Well which is it? It can't be both.
Writing from multiple POVs sounds like it would definitely get in the way more than anything. Now that he's approaching the point to where all of these threads actually have to start being resolved I can see him probably sitting on dozens of draft versions of the book and constantly writing more.
Yes. But he said that he was months away more than once and told his editor that he would have it done more than once in like 5 months or so. That was over 7 years ago. He also said many years ago that he wasn’t going to write anything else until he delivers Winds. So it is completely fair for fans to be angry with him for deceiving us and going back on his word about not writing anything else until it is finished. If you looks at how much he had written in 2012 and add how much he wrote during the pandemic, it’s almost like he wrote NOTHING between 2012-2019. If there wasn’t a pandemic that essentially forced him to stay inside and away from parties, red carpets, vacations, football games, and myriad other trips and events that he filled his time with then we probably never would’ve gotten the book. We STILL might not get it. I’m at the bargaining stage of grief where I just want to get winds and a summary of what happens to all of the main and larger supporting characters in ADOS. I’ve given up on getting ADOS or it being the end since he has added multiple books twice to the story before. But who knows? Maybe he will surprise me and write both 1500+ books and have them published along with the second half of fire and blood and all of the dunk and egg stories. But I’ve given up hope on that happening. We shall see everyone
I think this is what all these "In defence of GRRM" videos gloss over - the dishonesty of the author. One thing is to admit you want to enjoy what's left of your life and the fruits of your labor, quite another - to keep fans on edge pretending you're still writing. He at least owes fans some honesty for making him successful.
He said he cares about his legacy - I wonder what kind of legacy he'll have after such behavior and most likely not finishing the remaining books and lying about it.
Jesus Christ dude, calm down. You act like the past 11 years have been nothing but a pleasure cruise for the guy. He spent time working on half a dozen spin-off shows, watched the guys he trusted to finish his show piss on his legacy, and had to deal with the deaths of a multitude of friends and loved ones.
The world he’s created has inspired millions of people and permanently redefined the fantasy genre, and the fact of the matter is that he hasn’t been “lying” or “robbing the fans.” Winds was never ours to begin with; if George had dropped dead a day after a dance with dragons was published, that would be it. It’s only by the luck that he’s still alive and the effort that he’s put in that we’ll get book 6- maybe 7 if he actually picks up the pace, but even I’m not that optimistic.
You’re acting like he’s personally scammed/betrayed you when in reality, his release schedule was always at his discretion.
Bingo
he will croak way before finishing winter, and maybe then his assistants will finish the series
@@thedemonhater7748He’s been lying to his fans for years, period.
I sincerely hope the delay is because he is actually writing both Winds of Winter and Dream of Spring in tandem, so that he has them both finished should anything happen to him. But I also realize that is a fool’s hope.
He's said before that he isn't unfortunately.
I think it started as a combination of the books and plots expanding and getting more complicated as well as him not being a fast writer in the first place, but now? He saw the reaction to the ending of his series and it killed his interest to do it in print form. I think what he may not realize or have confidence in, is that the audience didn't hate his ending , necessarily, they hated the way D@D got to it. I don't expect the book to ever come out. It is what it is.
I love what George said when asked about WoW about the 1000th time, "I stopped answering those questions because I tried to give a realistic timeline when it comes out, but I never got that far. So now I don't estimate. And when the book eventually comes out I know someone will tweet me the next day "I finished reading Winds of Winter, when will the Dream of Spring come out?"".
NB! I paraphrased it.
I saw Bernard Cornwell in Guildford Theatre a few years back (he is friends with both George and Sean Bean) and one of the things he said was a writer cannot have writers block. At the end of the day it is their job to be a writer and there is now excuses. There is no excuse for George.
My biggest concern is that without its existence, I have created the rest of storyline in my head and it ended a particular way that was so satisfying to me, after all these years, reading it may only serve to disappoint me
I think this is the best way to do it honestly. I suspect ASOFAI will never be completed
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😊 pp pp 14:45
What's your headcannon ending? I'm curious to know how would someone end it satisfyingly. What happens to the Others, Daenerys, the Realm, Arya and Jon?
Can you imagine if Stephen King didn't finish the Dark Tower, he got hit by a transit van and nearly died but still managed to finish it.
And the ending blew my mind the first time I read it. Totally unexpected.
Thank you for doing a hopeful & sympathetic take on TWoW delays.
1)for most of these years George did not write winds, the causes must be found in the TV series and in his relationship with Benioff and Weiss, George went into depression from the end of 2015 to 2019, in these years he wrote fire and blood part 1, he started writing winds again only thanks to the fans' reaction against Game of thrones and obviously to covid.
2)the POV structure, at the end of ADWD we have 20 POVs divided into around 10 locations, it is clear that Winds opens with a very difficult logistical and narrative situation, let's look at the positive side, if at the end of Winds there will be 10/12 POVs in 3/4 locations , we have serious chances to see the seventh book also .
This reminds of stories I’ve heard about George Harrison of The Beatles and his process for producing his songs. He recorded and re-recorded with different instruments and multiple harmony lines, trying out all possible options, etc. His output was very slow compared to John and Paul. But half the hits you’ll find on a “Best of the Beatles” type CD are by George, so his process obviously worked.
I love George Harrison but that's just not true at all. He has 1/27 songs on the Beatles 1 album, 0/26 on the Red Album, and 4/28 songs on the Blue Album. Also, George wrote prolifically during his time in the Beatles, he just didn't get more than one or two songs per album because Lennon/McCartney (and George Martin) wouldn't give him the space. That's why when the Beatles broke up he had so many songs for All Things Must Pass, and it's considered one of the greatest albums of all time.
2nd best triple LP I ever listened to
Stop making shit up about George Harrison bud.
This type of process can absolutely work! And frequently has very good results if done right. It just requires both more time and more commitment than a more linear process. George has had the time, commitment is another matter.
I might be completely wrong on this, but had this feeling for years, he was closer to finish it before he was involved with the TV show than how it is now.
I started reading the saga in the late 90s, as you mentioned already for A Dance with Dragons the wait was long, it's there I stopped "waiting" for Martin to release the following chapters, when they come they come, if they don't... would be a pity (and trigger my completionist complex), but this is life.
Idk if it's possible or wise for the current plan for Winds of Winter to be one book. Based on title alone, the Others _must_ invade but the story doesn't seem ready for that. At a minimum, Dany needs to be in Westeros (I don't think GRRM wants her to sweep in like a chosen hero to save the day from the Others). But she's nowhere near ready to do that. Her return to Westeros can't just be a couple of chapters at the start of the next book - there are whole plotlines to resolve in Slaver's Bay and even more to begin when she gets to Westeros (Young Griff and Dorne at least). And I don't think anyone wants Dany's fight for Westeros to just be a sideshow while the Others are invading.
I think it'll take another long (Dance-length) book to get Dany to Westeros and get the North, Riverlands, Bran and Ironborn plots to the point where they're ready for the Others. Then The Winds of Winter can come after that.
I have no evidence for this but my personal theory is that GRRM is wrestling with this problem (among others, and his other projects) but since the Winds of Winter has been anticipated for so long he's reluctant to push it back by another book. (And you couldn't possibly call that book "The Winds of Winter" and have the Others' invasion begin in "A Dream of Spring")
Yeah there's no way this story can be wrapped up in two books
Really seems like it's heading for a Sanderson Wheel of Time situation, definitely for A Dream of Spring at least.
Let's hope Martin has as many notes as Jordan did
Sanderson has said many times he's not interested. Who else could do it?
As a beginner in the writing world, I just released the first book in my series last weekend and am already almost done with the second book. But sometimes the love runs low or you hit a wall or several, and the process grinds to a halt. I really hope we get to read TWoW though 🙏🏾
Post link to ya work homie
He did so much world building that he doesn’t know how to tie everything together to conclude. He fell into a series that he doesn’t know how to finish.
I'm basically just an indie writer at the moment and this series is just a culmination of hard work, money, and determination to manifest a whole universe into reality. And now I'm making it happen. A graphic novel and illustration books are also coming on the way too.
@@zacyule4674 TH-cam won't let me post the link to Amazon bro 😭
But the name of the first book is
Rising Sun Requiem: Bushido Blitz
The series is called Bleeding Chrysanthemums
@@King_Steffon_II Hey independent creators are the wave of the future. With an easier time setting things up online and selling your own work, to the fact that the mainstream has gone formulaic. Whether comics, cartoons, or etc the future will be independents who can gain funds. I finished my Novella for my anthology series in May, so good job even getting something out there.
It's a long road, and hope you had fun. Yeah I get burned out sometimes myself and need breaks. Do that mostly when my editor is working over it after I have edited several times. OOH you went further than me, I don't have a graphic novel version. lol. Either way good luck.
The one thing I don't understand is, if he's over 75% done, surely he could've released the first third of it 500/600 page as the first volume. Not only does it give the fans more to read and satisfy them, it allows everything to continue ticking over.
ASOIAF has the following it has partly because of well-structured plot logic and subtle foreshadowing. So earlier text has to mesh with later text well for it to be "good enough". Adding something in the end means he has to change something at the start. So just releasing the first part as a whole book is risky. 75% may also not be in order. The missing parts may be spread throughout.
He did that for the last book and said he never wanted to do it again. The way I see it is wind's will be the biggest book in the series and the wait is justified by its length and complexity.
The fact he's 75% done is a miracle and hopefully with most of the books plotlines having conclusions in sight he can face less writers blocks and convolution
@@CornG4397 George has not only, written himself into a corner with all those complex plots, he has CLEARLY loss all interest and passion for his own creation
He is just too afraid to publicly admit this fact
These books are NEVER going to be published
@@jaymart7436 he litterally said he wrote more of the book in the last few years than before
@@CornG4397 Ole George says a lot doesn’t, he?
"Rather it'd be good than rushed." well if he finished it tomorrow, I wouldn't say that 12 years is a rush so...
I think the one reasonable part of the worry and crys for a finished book is from the perspective of him ever finishing the series. GRRM has been set up as the next Tolkien, an heir of sorts and the first fantasy universe to achieve something close to the complexity and overall coherence that the grand master set. That may be well and good but for Song to ever be in contention of being one of the best works of fantasy fiction, it will need to be completed. I understand the difficulties and I wish GRRM only the best for finishing his grand project but the man is in his mid 70s, hasnt publiced book 6/7 and thus not begun on the last book. So yeah, the worry is just: will it ever be finished?
Let’s be honest at this point. This story will never be finished. Age will catch up with him before he finishes at this rate
I think that he's already finished it and is waiting for it to be published posthumously.
@@lilitharam44That makes no sense, and he has said it’s not true. Why do people make stuff like this up?
@@Karlonstark Because it makes sense.
@@lilitharam44 Makes sense for what reason? Hate? This man hasn't given a fuck about fans wanting the books for 13 years, so why would he care about hating how he ended the books?
@@dullinreborn The books aren't about the fans. You're absolutely right. The fans don't even come into it. It's His story, it was hijacked and I'm sure he feel violated to some extent. I think the direction he's going with "Fire and Blood" is a good one. It's an excellent book. If he wrote of the Game of Thrones series with "and the Walkers came down from the far North and killed every living thing. The End." I would not be surprised.
I personally think he should allow himself some help from people he trust to get the books written more efficiently without it being rushed. It would allows more opinions and ideas.
Mark Twain, 1906: "As long as a book would write itself I was a faithful and interested amanuensis and my industry did not flag; but the minute that the book tried to shift to *my* head the labor of contriving its situations, inventing its adventures and conducting its conversations, I put it away and dropped it out of my mind."
I'm just worried he won't be able to finish it,people tend to die when they get old, and George is not the most "In shape" human I've seen sooo... I'm really getting anxious here....
Man is a cheeseburger away from the type 2 or a stroke.
I would bet folding money that the books will still be unfinished when he croaks. The odds of any other outcome are pretty low, so may as well accept it is going to go that way now.
"people die when they get old" not exclusively.
its ok if you die George just finish the series first, ta.
We will be lucky to get winds. The series never be finished. Unfortunately. He knows it by now, I'm sure he is conserned with damaging his legacy with a bad book.
I appreciate this Robert, but I think we all got our answer in the infamous "I'm sorry for you" blog post where George hawked a coffee table book and trolled his own fans who are waiting for Winds. George's personal/professional immaturity and flaws are what is in the way of this series ever getting completed. Keep in mind, we all have flaws, but I haven't been promising to do something for the last ten years and never done it either....
Robert was always gonna kiss his ass, it’s him Mo
one thing is 100% sure: he will NEVER finish A dream of spring alone. IMPOSSIBLE.
He will most likely join Kentaro Miura as someone who will die without ever having finished their Magnum Opus.
Even though he has explicitly said this isn't the case I still choose to hope that it's taken so long because he's actually finishing both Winds and Dream currently and when he finally announce one is done the other will quickly follow. I know how much he's hated this pressure and he knows releasing Winds will get him a respite of approximately 30 seconds before people start asking how long until the next book is finished? I just don't believe he would willingly put himself through that again if he could help it.
@@paradoxicalbum4489 yeah right, that's just a major cope attempt, mate.
Add to all the irons GRRM has in the fire as you detailed, he is also an executive producer on AMC's Dark Winds show, adapted from Tony Hillerman's books about Leaphorn and Che. While he may not be doing much day-to-day show running, I would think it would certainly take up some of his already precious time.
My pet theory is that he's already written Winds of Winter and possibly Dream of Spring too. He doesn't want to deal with the backlash of fans who don't like the ending so he's going to let his estate publish post humously and avoid the fire 😂
Honestly that's my theory 😂
That would be impossible. His has contracts to uphold and TWOW would have removed the current backlash he experiences. This book would have boosted the franchise.
You keep hoping that and I'll keep tweaking chat gpt to make the ending the right way
Then he would have to deal with all the mad spirits who died not finishing the series.
@@MrBell-iq3sm ob iously those contracts dont mean crap, and do you reallly think a 75 year old man gives a crap about some contractural obligations
I know it probably won’t happen this way, but it would be cool if he could resolve a bunch of plot lines and kill off some characters in Winds, that way he can bring the final book back to the basics with only a handful of POV’s. As impressive as it’s been, it’s honestly overwhelming to have so many different characters to follow, and I’m of the mind that not *all* of these characters’ POVs are necessary to tell the full breadth of the story. I think it’s a really great example of the reader not needing to see every single thing with their own two eyes.
I think the final book will be easier to write than winds... I think right now he is stuck because he needs to resolve so many plot lines but once he does that it will become a lot easier... especially since he probably has a very clear ending in mind he wants to reach, I think he has no vision how to actually get there but the ending itself is probably in his head finished... so I think dream of spring will be much easier and faster but yeah he is old so it might not be fast enough... I am very convinced he will finish winds but for dream, I am not so sure...
@@mehmetfatihyilmaz1641 can’t imagine the strain and pressure that comes with writing 20+ POV characters, all in different parts of the world with their own cast of secondary and minor characters, in a book that is double, if not triple the length of other epic fantasies. I know GRRM has fully realized it by now but he really did back himself into a corner by the end of Dance because I can only imagine the burn out. He should have broken Winds into two books, honestly. can’t help but feel the only reason he didn’t was because he didn’t want to downscale after Dance.
What? The reader *_doesn’t see every single thing_* with their own eyes. There are a shitload of plot points that are merely whispered about after they have happened off-page.
An interesting irl parallel, the show became more narrow and focused, (which was ultimately it's downfall), and the books have a bit too much in them. The could have rectified the narrowness in the show but he just has to kill off some characters. But he cannot erase pllotlines that are already written. And the deaths, should they happen can't be abrupt and need foreshadwing
@@SnailHatan I don’t mean literally, genius. but there’s a fuck load more happening in these books that the reader sees first hand compared to normal books just because of the sheer number of POV characters. If there were only 1-5 POV characters, the amount of info the reader sees would be far more limited
I feel for the long-time fans. I'm glad I came into this fandom late, circa 2016/2017. I watched the show but kept promising myself I wouldn't start the books until I was convinced he's actually close to finishing Winds. After his "75% done" comment, I finally went out a couple weeks ago and found the full 5-book boxed set at the bookstore. I've got a marathon read ahead 😂
Lucky you. Thankfully at this point I've mostly forgotten everything I read so long ago, so I almost get to do the same thing. The longer I wait the better it will be. RR can take his time afaic.
If he dies first then I guess I'll eat my words, but ain't nothing I can do about that either.
You'll definitely finish reading before he finishes TWoW.
George, did you ever hear tell of The Heroes Journey? There you go, pick a hero, and use those 17 stages (or the later ones) to finish your book(s).
I just listened to a video expressing the opinion that Martin wrote in the spirit of post-modernism, which rejects the heros journey, as an ode to his own despair about the world we live in.
A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to...
Yeah, that works because Gandalf can live for centuries. Georgie boy can’t
@@stingerjohnny9951 A little entitled I see.
@@shaunhall960No, just realistic.
@@shaunhall960 Entitled? I stopped caring about this book years ago, I’ve already accepted that it’s coming out when Half Life 3 Is, im just pointing out that George MIGHT have a TINY bit less time on his hand than Gandalf did.
This doesn’t apply at all as GRRM has missed many of his own self-imposed deadlines, far from completing Winds “precisely when he means to”
I read Fevre Dream not that long ago, and recently picked up Tuf Voyaging, as well as having read some of The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms collection. This is all to say that I am under the impression that Martin is best at shorter form pieces. At this point I would assert that A Song of Ice and Fire has become, while yes his "magnum opus", a symbol of hubris. I mean, we've all bit off a tad more than we could chew sometimes, it happens. And far be it for me to cast aspersions on him for this; I still enjoy his writing. Well... it's this philistine's view that a fair amount of both Feast and Dance could have been excised and very little of consequence would have been lost.
I have a working theory that when Martin initially undertook to write the first book in what was originally to be a trilogy (first edition copies of A Game of Thrones I believe do list that as such, which is rather bold from the start), he just kept writing. And writing. And so on. Until at one point he had what was in essence the overview of most of the content of the first three books, and possibly some further points beyond. My postulation is supported in part by the release dates: Game on August 1, 1996, Clash on November 16, 1998 in the UK, Storm on August 8, 2000, in the UK. Fairy short turn around then it would seem. The counter to this of course being that the plot lines had not diverged as much and the series wasn't quite as complicated as it is now. Storm definitely started cranking that up though, which is reflected in its size comparison.
The problem as I see it is Martin definitely has significant beats he wants to get to but has little notion of how to connect where we all are now to those said beats. His "gardener" approach in full force. I have little doubt that Daenerys is actually supposed to eventually burn King's Landing, and that Jon is actually supposed to stop her as shown in the "BEST SEASON EVER" (side note: it was not the best season of anything lol) but without some incompetent and impatient showrunners quite literally rushing to the finish line for no reason whatsoever. I really hope the negative response to the show ending on a wet fart did not inspire any rewrites, or more importantly doubt. I totally buy Dany going full FIRE AND BLOOD by the time she gets to Westeros. Where we leave her at the end of Dance it is heavily implied that's to be the case.
I used to think the side projects were a bad thing, but looking at it from a different angle it's obvious why he was doing them: they're shorter more concise and most importantly end. He had, I believe, a 200-ish-page historical overview for the world of Elden Ring he collaborated with From Software on. I bet that was an entertaining diversion. His own world's historical books gave him an opportunity to fill out details he himself most assuredly had not ironed out about said world while not necessarily being unrelated to the "main" series.
As you can see I've thought about this for quite some time and at some length hahaha. Not that my opinions amount to anything, and are probably just the ramblings of an insane person 🤷
adding to that i think he also lost a lot of enthusiasm he had for this story(the main story with jon,arya,danerys etc..)
GRRM promised no more conventions until he finished TWOW, and this was years ago. And yet he's still going to convention. He promised to stop writing for TV and other writing projects, but he's still working on TV and other projects. So much for promises.
He’s a liar. It’s time we all admit it.
If he dies, we will never see the end... the characters if not us deserve a conclusion.
Awesome video! I've been hyped by Winds of Winter since I finished the last book. No matter how much it takes, the story is amazing and it will be EPIC!
My speculation, is that George might make a hellishly long Winds of Winter, to release a short-to the point Dreams of Springs, to deal a finishing blow in a way nobody expects.
I wonder how many "What if" Channels went through his other Scenarios for the "Merenese Knot" Problem without knowing about it and how much they alligned with his Versions
In this video, Robert mentions that GRRM probably views this as his legacy. But what I think is happening, is he’s actually diminishing the legacy by trying to become a Hollywood big shot. All of these shows are taking his attention away from being what he truly is: a novelist.
Let’s keep it real, he is a senior citizen, he has limited time left. (As we all do.) So is an finishing an incomplete book series more important to his legacy than a show about the Targaryens? I think if he passes away without the book series finished, his legacy is tarnished.
His legacy would be the world that he leaves behind and all of the pieces of it he was a part of. The things he is doing all relate to the universe at large, and serve to flesh out aspects via the shows(changes from the books just being context added or the Dunk and egg Novellas showcasing the lead up to Rhaegars birth) which is how most people are introduced to his work. Any additions to the world strengthen his legacy, besides its not trying to be a “Hollywood Bigshot” when he already is one of the most well known authors on earth just because he’s working on TV Shows. It’s the best visual medium for him to tell his story, while he also still writes novellas and such.
Is he a novelist? I think someone needs to tell him, if so. He's spent a lot of his life being a TV producer or screenwriter - it's what he did before he started writing ASOIAF - and it's clear he views that as currently much more important than being a novelist. Actually he seems to view a lot of things as more important than being a novelist.
I think in his heart, George has always wanted to do TV. Being a novelist was a part of his life, just something he did, between spells in TV. If the integrity or fidelity of being a novelist was remotely important to him, he wouldn't have OKd a TV adaptation of a series of novels he wasn't even close to completing at the time he got the ball rolling on the adaptation. That tells you a lot about the standing of TV versus being a novelist to him.
I think if George's career in TV had taken off in the late eighties and early nineties, we would have got none of the novels. He'd have just adapted his ideas straight onto TV.
Agreed. Martin has become embroiled in his own cult of personality and become part of the Hollywood elite. Ironic considering he supports the 'strikes'.
One thing for sure, at least for me, is that I will never get invested in anyone's series until it is finished. I don't care how hot the books are, until the series is finished I will not be picking them up. I won't get fooled again.
The process of writing several versions reminds me of my ADHD brain having an idea and then running through several variables unable to settle on one - no wonder my fanfiction ideas never left my head 😂
But seriously, I can list a few factors:
1. The story is vast, sprawling and complex. And yet, he cannot expand it any further. He must force the vine to grow in a specific direction, so things start coming closer together again in the run up to the end. His writing style doesn't sound suitable to finishing stories.
Now, it's not about dropping clues, foreshadowing, and prophecies (which is always more fun) but paying them off.
2. The longer you put off a task, the more it's looming over you. And if doing the thing doesn't sound exciting enough, you procrastinate even more.
3. The negative reception of GOT finale. Vast majority of people found the conclusion of the show disappointing. And even story beats that came directly from George were so poorly presented that people simply didn't connect with them. If I were him, I would feel that disappointment in my bones. He may write the story in a way that everything makes 100% sense, but this preview reaction probably didn't add motivation to his writing endeavours. I wouldn't be surprised if part of him struggled with staying on course with his planned ending and wanted to give people what they seem to want. And don't come at me about there being no happy ending in Westeros. There were plenty of love stories, peaceful years, and unlikely victories. No one was expecting Disney but bittersweet can have many forms. Personally, I consider the ending of LOTR bittersweet, and some may call it happy 🤷🏼♀️
Ain’t no one reading allat
If he is upset about fans' reactions to the show, then he is unwise with his own emotions. Taking it personally just doesn't make sense, considering how many factors contribute to the reaction to the show.