SPECULATION Game of Thrones is finished...the writing will begin.

Speaking of trailing off, did you see GRRM gave hints at another probable delay for Winds?

 

I always feel bad for the pressure the guy's under.

Looking at his social media, he can't post a picture of his family without the top comment being someone complaining about his slowness with writing this series.

Still, A Dance with Dragons came out over eight years ago, and we still don't have any clue as to when Winds of Winter is coming. And I really, really don't think it's good odds that George has another eight years left in him for A Dream of Spring (I was hoping maybe he was writing both books concurrently for near simultaneous releases, thus the delay, but he recently confirmed he hasn't even started ADoS).

Either his time management is horrendous (seriously, working on projects like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Fire & Blood just seems like such a weird allocation of priorities) or he's actually hoping to die before he finishes so he can be the next Chaucer... which, given his love of English history and poetic destiny, actually seems relatively plausible.

 

The thing is, to me, his pressure feels so...self imposed.
He wrote such an intricate weaving story that paying off ALL those threads is nearly impossible. Even in book form. Especially in show form. But he's kept putting it off in fear, IMO, of losing his shine. And I think you are right, he's probably okay with never finishing them.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 17, 2019, Original Post Date: Jul 17, 2019 ---

I think once he wrote the second book that wasn't in ASOIAF we should have all just accepted it....

 

Not to mention the negative reaction so many had to GOT S8.

I hear a lot of "George surely has a different ending planned, wait for the books," but what if he doesn't?

Imagine being GRRM and seeing the rage of longtime fans at plot points that are really similar to what you've been penning. Even if there are some difference, and I'm sure there are, that's got to be incredibly disheartening.

 

The delay of WoW is not our of laziness or lack of work, but rather because of the gargantuan size, intricacy, complexity, and size of the ASoIaF project is. I do not envy GRRM the challenge of completing this series, which I'm sure gets a magnitude harder to pull off with each new book. It is definitely self-imposed on his part, and a painted-myself-into-a-corner type of situation, but at least GRRM is trying to create a work of high artistic value and historic significance. Writing is bloody hard and ASoIaF must be one of the hardest things that anyone could ever attempt. Best of luck and lots of love to GRRM!

 

I'm sure there are differences but IIRC, Bran being king was a "must" from George. Same with the Hodor moment.
The rest he gave them guidelines for then they had to write his story for him...not an easy task for anyone.

The inherent flaw in a story structure like GoT (and ASOIAF) is that the first several seasons/books are a set up for something that doesn't matter. The story basically resets after the Red Wedding, it's no longer about what it's been about for 3 seasons. Most of those characters are dead or displaced. So now new characters have to be introduced (there's a lot more story to tell still) because you aren't ready to bring Dany from Essos yet and all the living previous "protagonists" are displaced and meeting new people. So now there are even more threads building because you are essentially telling a new story.

The problem the show had, was it tried to treat the Long Night and The Game of Thrones as equal stories and there's really just no way to do that. One needed to be a clear A plot and the other the B plot. I get that it was done to keep tension up as most of Westeros is distracted by a throne...but then there is no way to payoff either story satisfactorily like they tried to do. Each story essentially needed it's own final season. The books are kind of mounting this way too. There's a million things going on that need endings. That's why I think people get upset at seasons 6-8. They start wrapping things up. Events have finality to them because they need it in a show or else you will just wear people out and make it feel like treading water. George needs to decide this soon-ish. Will the Game of Thrones and the Long Night tie into one another? If not, then one has to end soon. The mistake the show made was slow playing the Game. We all knew it was over as soon as Dany landed on Dragonstone. She had 3 dragons. She had the two best living players of the Game. There was no reason for it to take as long as it did tbh. It could have ended in season 7 with a more satisfactory ending IMO.

I don't think George knows which one he wants to matter the most yet.

 

Spoiler: S8 Spoilers

I think there's probably a better way to tie in these stories together than the show ended up doing.

The Dragonpit meeting actually set up for a potentially satisfying way to do this, but I think it ultimately didn't quite pay off in the end.

Like, sure, Cersei abandoned the North when it was attacked, but I'm not sure her army's presence would've done much to change the outcome of the battle anyway (unless someone would've been there to tell Jon his plan sucked), given how overwhelmingly bad the odds were, and Arya's "droid control ship" scene was really what ended up saving the day. Nor was the battle really terribly crippling to the North, it would appear. Despite the fact that it looked like the Dothraki and Unsullied were slaughtered, their ranks didn't appear particularly decimated by the time they arrived at King's Landing.

In fact, I think the real turning point was more when Euron killed Rhaegal in the ambush near Dragonstone. That seemed to enrage Daeny and the North more than Cersei's holding back of her troops.




So, I think a more satisfying way these stories could've been tied together is for the Battle of Winterfell to be absolutely devastating. The North loses the vast majority of its army, the dead overrun the city, and only a few key characters (including Daeny) escape. Rhaegal is killed, and perhaps even brought back by the NK. The fate of everyone else they leave behind is left unknown (perhaps more could end up surviving than previously thought).

Now, you've got an enraged Daenerys who's lost another of her dragons as well as a good chunk of her kingdom and allies, and she views Cersei as responsible- not because of an ill-advised and logically impractical ambush at sea, but simply because of her obvious betrayal and failure to act. So she's headed to King's Landing. And hey, so is the army of the dead (their ranks actually swelled by the battle), apparently, marching south after their oppressive victory at Winterfell.

Basically, you've made the Battle of Winterfell actually matter, and have set up the Army of the Dead and the Game of Thrones stories to actually converge in a meaningful way, instead of separately. And I hate to be a woulda/coulda/shoulda kind of fan, because I usually don't think it's productive- canon is canon, after all, and I accept the ending we got as fine enough. But it just seems so obvious to me that this could've been a bit tighter, and better for it.

 

Yes the ultimate downfall of the show was that half the show didn't end up mattering at all. It basically ended when Dany landed on Dragonstone. But people still wanted different payoffs for most of the characters.

 

Spoiler: S8 spoiler

True. I mean, we saw in the finale the utter destruction a single dragon was able to cause to King's Landing, and how literal rows of Qyburn's ballistae were no match for it (as long as that's what the plot needed).

I'll admit, much as I love the show's final seasons, it did eventually become a game about whose arbitrary and seemingly randomly fluctuating off-screen resources would outlast the other's.

 

And with the way GRRM writes, it's less that things come to a head or reach a climax but rather get re-set or have a twist etc that shifts the goal post a bit. His story isn't really written to have an end and staying so faithful to the books early on hindered the end of the show where it needed things to actually progress and not just 're-set'

 

Here's how I kind of look at it:
The Red Wedding is an ending. The story to that point is actually a moderately straight forward fantasy/medieval type story, evil family does something bad and the good family must make it right. And some broad is off in the distance with dragons. But then the Red Wedding happens. That story is over. Now it shifts more high fantasy as the focus moves to the Wall more. So it doesn't really end, the goals of the story just shift. It's sort of this perpetual story that keeps going without a defined ending in sight. He [GRRM] writes like a historian. And history has no end. It just keeps getting older and longer. The story of ASOIAF does this too. It's like when you learn about an event in history class at age 5. Then at 10. 15. And finally at 20. You realize how much more there is to the story at each age and how complex and convoluted things really are. "The Cold War was a thing" ----> "Here's what caused a lot of the tension" -----> "Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis" ----> "We're all f*cked" And that's how I feel ASOIAF is written. You just keep getting deeper and deeper without actual endings, but shifts in the story and resets.

And this is why I don't think people like the ending to a degree. Game of Thrones doesn't really have any endings before that so it never feels very, "Game of Thrones"

I hope this makes some sense. I'm very tired lol.

 

Exactly. The books could have legit ended at The Red Wedding. It was a fairly logical ending point. A story where the "bad" guys win. But this is more history text than singular story...kind of...as you pointed out. The problem ultimately in the show is, Jon's entire story was essentially just a long running gag to push Dany even more crazy. His acts of heroism and Arthurian legend status in the North is spreading through Westeros and then he's also a legit heir to the throne...it means nothing for the character Jon Snow in the end but means everything for Dany. His whole arc ended up being in service of another character. Which I suppose works fine for side characters and supporting roles (NED). Basically Jon needed to kill the NK or take the throne to have some payoff there for his character. If Martin sticks with Bran on the throne, Jon killing Dany and Arya killing the NK....he has to do some serious writing to do to have it actually work to where Jon Snow isn't just a character in service of another character but his own character.
And I'm sure it's incredibly daunting to make this all work in a book and is likely Martin's big hang up. He didn't just write about the Cold War, he's also writing about Kennedy and his family and Khrushchev and his family. Then he's got Castro in Cuba and writing about him too.....

 

Everyone has their own different spin on the story. The "journey" might be meaningless to some people, if it was not to you. Personally, I saw Dany's death as unnecessary, even if Martin had originally planned it. I found it unnecessary and repetitive . . . too similar to the second half of Cersei's arc. And yeah, I think the last two seasons were rushed.