A Song Of Ice And Fire

My interest in the series has been waning for a few years so I'm not upset that TWOW is taking so long, but it's getting to the point that the long wait is looking less like steady work, quality control, and the demands of artistry, and more like an author who's lost interest in the story, is burned out, probably suffering from intense writer's block, has made enough money that writing is no longer a work-a-day pursuit, and with the show outpacing his books, lost the last incentive to write at anything approaching a steady clip. I think, at the very least, he's sort of bored of the main story because he's shown very little hesitation in writing ancillary Westeros stories.

edited 4th May '18 9:30:24 PM by CrimsonZephyr

That's missing the point - time isn't the issue. Heck, people have pestered the author for doing literally anything that isn't writing Winds of Winter - because how dare a person have a life outside of this one book people keep harassing them over.

edited 5th May '18 12:40:39 AM by DrunkenNordmann

In one hand, is truth people have pretty much told him to be their slave and work on the books and them die, is getting really annoying for him.

But on the other....well, is hard not critize him for taking so damn long, the series is already great, eventually being so late would afect the raiting of the books.

Let's say I loan a friend some money on the good faith that he'll pay me back. Which is, essentially, what you as a reader do when you buy a book. You give the author money to support them and to make it possible for them to continue their work.

Now, my buddy George, for a long time, he was pretty good about paying me back. And so, when one time it took a little longer, in good faith, I didn't mind. But then it took longer. And longer. And it's been ten years, George!

That's not how that works. You pay for the book to cover the cost of making it in the first place, and to reward the author for making it (so the profit is the author's wages). It's not a loan.

You'd be much closer if you had used an example where you back a Kickstarter or something and the author fails to deliver, but Martin has not raised funds for his next book via Kickstarter, nor has any reader (that I know of, at least) paid him an advance on it.

At least we have a bitchin' TV show that will have a conclusion. Problem is, it's probably going to be very different from the books' ending considering the split that happened in Season 5, but it will be an ending nonetheless.

But that does beg the question, will the Others have a Night King figure, will Night's King from Bran's fairy tale flashbacks turn out to be real, or will the Others just turn out to be their own race who want to kill all humans and take over Westeros because why the hell not? Because the show created the Night King so they could have a central antagonist, but Martin did have a say in that decision because he gave them a vague way that the books wre going to end during development.

GRRM's said that if D & D want to introduce aliens to Westeros, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

And he's said that he argued vehemently for LS' inclusion yet D & D said no to that so they can do anything they want with it.

Sharknado, creators don't owe you anything. Remember that, because that self-entitlement you share when you feel authors aren't cattering to your wants is jarring.

edited 7th May '18 2:45:13 PM by Eriorguez

I think that's a very unhelpful response, as is the general "George RR Martin is not your bitch" thing, which was framed in a more "moderate" way by Neil Gaiman (about 10 years ago!), but tends to be used as an attempt to silence discussion/criticism.

Of course, no writer "owes" fans anything. But like Martin has made a bunch of comments over time about things to expect in future books and has also given various predictions of his writing progress, which to some extent were "promises" of expected completion dates, all of which have been broken.

There's no shortage of other writers I can and do read, but I think it's more helpful when people, including Martin himself (as seen in recent posts), acknowledge that he has issues meeting deadlines, including self-inflicted ones because of his pursuing other commitments. And I don't mean just living his life and watching football. I mean the various spin-off shows/adaptations of his work as well as his "fake histories", whose appeal mostly escapes me.

What I don't find helpful and what has the result of making me more hostile to Martin is when all of his writing issues are framed as him being a unique genius/a "gardener" and even more so when people pull the "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch" and assert that readers aren't allowed to be critical of him or even feel disappointed about delays.

You're allowed to criticise him and be disappointed about delays, but it's his life and his career and his art so he sets the priorities, unless he signs a contract that says otherwise.

As for Gaiman's response being quoted as silencing criticism, let's look at the post that I responded to by linking to Gaiman's comment:

I'd argue that that criticism is not deserving of a more thought-out response than "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch" even without the link to Gaiman's blog post explaining why that is his position.

I think Gaiman's post is worth reading and re-reading because his reponse to the question is so well thought out and expressed, even if he expresses frustration at the fact that the best way he could summarise it is "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch". In the end, he does also rephrase it as "George R.R. Martin is not working for you".

We've had decent discussions here about why these delays exist, what parts of the process might be holding Martin back, why his motivation or inspiration might be dwindling, and how frustrating it is to live through this as a fan. It's completely fine to be frustrated.

The pushback comes when people act as if they're entitled to Martin's work, and the time and other resources it would take for Martin to write what any given fan, or a majority of fans, would like him to write.

Terry Pratchett also replied to questions about the influence of fan demands on what he chooses to write. The Annotated Pratchett File fansite has some of his replies. Let's look at one, which I'll cut to just the relevant bits:

Now, the situation with Pratchett and Martin is a bit different from the perspective of the fans, because an overwhelming majority want a specific installment to a specific series of his, whereas with Pratchett, fans were always happy to get non-Discworld stuff, but certainly preferred anything Discworld, even if the entries in the series and the auxiliary material became quite diverse in style and substance. Pratchett also tended to produce about 2-3 books per year, but of course his books were nowhere near as long and complex as Martin's.

From the author's perspective, or that of an outsider, though, it's the same: the author has not signed a formal agreement with the fans to produce what the fans would most prefer, and if the author was to retire or change their profession entirely, they would still not be betraying the fans because they did produce everything that the fans ever paid for.

We'd be sad, but attacking the author with anything other than polite criticism would be completely unacceptable because we're not entitled to the author's time and creativity with anything we haven't paid for, or committed to paying for, in a mutual contract with the author.

I'd say it would be far different if the novels were standalones rather than a series, and one that's very much dependent on further plot progression at that. I'm not interested in bashing Martin or calling him a hack or whatever, but I don't feel any need to excuse him for it either. He's a writer, but he appears to spend more time talking about how hard writing is than actually writing the books. Personally, I'd bet dollars to donuts that ASOIAF won't be finished in his lifetime, likely meaning it won't be finished at all, and GOT's plot will be held as the final canon of the series.

So, what are the odds Grumpkins and Snarks play a role (any at all beyond mere comedy) in taking down the Others? Or perhaps the Others utilize them?

At this point I'm not expecting ASOIAF to be completed by Martin. It's becoming pretty clear he's not especially engaged with it, whether due to writers' block or because he stopped being motivated when Game Of Thrones passed him. Combine that with the last two books providing far less plot progression than the previous ones, and it gives the very strong indication that Martin doesn't know how to wrap this up.

Even if he finished TWOW and ADOS, he'd likely find himself needing another 2-3 books to complete the plot.

AFFC + ADWD is really just one book. Even GRRM has called ADWD by the name Book 4 B. In those terms, the plot has sufficiently advanced, it's just that the plot advanced by introducing plot threads which throws things for a loop but if we believe the author, he's not going to be throwing anything else up into the air and the focus will be on resolving things.

I really don't think that's true at all. Taking the show as an example, the battle against the Others is not even going to need an entire book to accomplish.

And it seems that the Others are going to be taken care of first and the Game of Thrones is resolved afterwards although both will start at the same time.

At max, we'll need an eight book though.

edited 20th May '18 11:03:20 AM by MadSkillz

If you combine AFFC and ADWD, that makes a very long book. ADWD by itself is already longer than AGOT or ACOK. (I can tell because the paperback is about the same size as the earlier books but with smaller font.)

What the show did and what Martin will do are two very different things. He's shown an increasing tendency to drag things out. And the even the show has had Dany in Westeros for a full season and the battle against the Others has only just begun.

I'm only saying that we shouldn't get our hopes up.

edited 21st May '18 5:54:25 AM by Galadriel

The show takes an intense Cutting the Gordian Knot approach to the storyline, and I doubt the actual literary storyline that we haven't seen — and may never see — will be entirely different. There will be more meandering, possibly less stupidity, and more granularity, but probably all the same beats, in concept if not in literal execution. I can imagine that would take a lot of the motivation out of writing these tomes, where fifteen minutes of one episode condenses three hundred pages of painstakingly crafted text written at an agonizing pace. Most of the meat of these books is inconsequential — the obsessiveness of the worldbuilding, the commitment to deconstruction that makes the pacing of the story break down because there will always be an anti-narrative quality to real life that narrative will never be able to replicate, the excursions that go nowhere, etc. The self-indulgent "I'm not a planner, I'm a gardener!" nonsense is the classic justification of a serial procrastinator, and it's one his fellows are eager to support because he's living the dream — he's sitting on an unfinished manuscript that will likely follow him into the grave, and he's still making a big pile of cash.

Two things. I think the issue is that GRRM's prime objective isn't to move the plot along.. His prime objective is immerse you in the characters' thought and feel like you went on a journey. He says so himself:

Second, I think you vastly overestimate how much GRRM knows about his conceptual beats and how willing D & D are to follow that. GRRM has ideas but he's not committed to many of them besides the main 6's character endings.

tldr; GRRM revealed his endgame and everything he knew about the future of the series after season 3 was written. D & D are framing it pretty nicely but they're saying that they realized that he didn't know a lot of his endgame and that he mostly writes it as he goes along which didn't work for them because they're writing a TV show not a book series so they had to create their own outline of the ending with a little of GRRM's help.

The ending won't be the same because GRRM didn't know parts of the ending and some parts that he did tell them, they can't use. It'll be similarish in some respects and likely the most similar when it comes to the main characters' fates but every other character is liable to have a different fate.

Like GRRM doesn't even know what he's going to do with the Hound if he is going to do anything with him according to Cogman. And he's one of the more important secondary characters that's been in the series since book one.

edited 21st May '18 8:19:17 PM by MadSkillz

I understand the desire the make the story be immersive, but I feel like at the same time there does need to be plot progression, not just frequent uses of the "Shaggy Dog" Story. It's supposed to be a narrative, not The Tourist's Guide to Westeros. I enjoyed A World of Ice and Fire (or, at any rate, I enjoyed the maybe 50% that wasn't orientalist sterotypes, Darkest Africa stereotypes, or cribbed from other writers), but I expect a book series to offer something rather different from AWOIAF.

I like character development, but it's harder to get invested in characters in an Anyone Can Die world, and it's wellnigh impossible to get invested in characters who are just plain dreadful people (e.g., Victarion).

More content does not inherently mean better content. I think that, in AFFC and ADWD, Martin reached the point where trimming down the amount of content and detail would outright improve the books.

I agree.

I think that AFFC and ADWD was partially written the way they were is because they were originally one book that got split in two which led Martin down a path of over-indulgence. I can't say for sure, but something about him resisting the notion of splitting TWOW into two books seems like he's at least trying to control himself and to be a bit more concise along with him saying that the next book is going to be a POV bloodbath. Maybe that's one of the large problems, he's having. He's trying to ensure that he only needs one other book but he doesn't want things to be anti-climatic. Or I can hope.

Like....I get the sense that there would be way less Brienne chapters, Cersei chapters, Dany chapters, Jon chapters and Tyrion chapters if he had decided to keep it all in one book. Brienne and Sam's chapters especially do come off like he's trying to fill AFFC more with the excision of the ADWD PO Vs.

The original idea, which I preferred is that AFFC would start with a 200 page prologue going through the Ironborn and Dornish plot with one POV each until the reveal that Euron and Doran were after Daenerys and then would send Victarion and Quentyn to fetch her. I'm guessing those two PO Vs would've been Aeron Damphair and Arianne Martell because Asha and Areo Hotah/Arys Oakheart feel more like afterthoughts.

And then the rest of AFFC would proceed as normal but with less of everything and Victarion and Quentyn wouldn't have PO Vs.

I actually quite like Victarion. Sure, he's an awful person, but he was definitely a bit of spice in a book that needed it. (I mean, Cersei is also an awful person and her perspective is definitely needed).

Quentyn on the other hand... that plotline is probably going to get Vindicated by History, and that's the kindest thing I can say about it.

That one Kingsguard who can't keep his pants on, now you could cut his POV and I don't think anyone would care.

edited 21st May '18 11:37:36 PM by Sigilbreaker26

The only Greyjoy (apart from Theon) I find mildly interesting is Aeron, and he's shafted almost immediately, so we're left with anime OC Euron Grejoy and Victarion who's only better by virtue of not being a 12-year old's fantasy of a pirate.

The Martells likewise get lost on that dull Oakheart shenanigans rather than focusing on the much more interesting plan of Doran Martell which takes forever to get off the ground before just crashing and burning miserably.

This is actually something that bothered me about Doran Martell and Wyman Manderly both. They both have these extremely cool scenes where they unveil a master gambit to avenge their families, but otherwise do absolutely nothing. I'd be far more interested if the books focused on their machinations more rather than say, Brienne getting lost in the fucking woods and Cersei's one-note villainy.

I want more 12 year old's fantasy pirates then. I love me that occult feel that Euron brings to the table but then I read Stephen King because horror is great.

You really think Aeron was shafted immediately? I thought Aeron came off as pretty developed. Asha and Victarion seem more like afterthoughts. Asha doesn't really have a firm arc and Victarion is pretty simple, it's just that he gets by on being unintentionally funny and badass in a martial type way.

I assume that's what the next book is for.

Doran's story seem like it is going to boil down to him losing everything including most of his family and a realization that he forgot about the children when he enters the war against the Lannisters and presumably against Daenerys and perhaps Euron.

edited 22nd May '18 3:55:02 PM by MadSkillz

I think we've been through this once before. The horror isn't my issue with him, it's more that he's a rather flat edgy sociopath character who seems a tad overpowered. He shows up right out of left-wield as this charismatic, suave, womanizing seducer who's also a brilliant warrior, tactician, politician and sorcerer. He's shallow and overpowered in a setting where everyone has some depth to them and logical weakness. That's mostly what I mean by 12-year old fantasy pirate. The writing itself seems to find him cool beyond all measure, showering him with dramatic lines and descriptions.

Aeron is, indeed, the most developed character between the three but here's the thing: he's also the most inconsequential between them. Just when it seems like he's in the cusp of actually doing something (starting a religious uprising against Euron, which could have been a amazing storyline) he gets undercut immediately via being kidnapped by Euron (and the leaked chapter showing he just dies a pathetic palsy for Euro's Villain Sue altar). Victarion and Asha get to actually do stuff, with Victarion sailing around the world and stumbling upon eldritch shit and Asha's entire narrative in Westeros.

This is exactly what I am criticizing, however. The tendency of A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons to meander for a thousand pages then, when something is about to happen, leave that plotline off on a stylistic cliffhanger. Doran's scheming amounting to nothing much except two of the worst plotlines in the series (Queenmaker and Quentyn) and one cool scene of his "Fire and blood" speech, Wyman Manderly's grand northern gambit ending up in a handful of completely disposable Freys dead and one cool scene of his "The north Remembers" speech, e.t.c.

Aeron's case isn't as grave because his plotline actually goes somewhere, even if it is not what the character intended, but it's still vastly boring because we get this entire Drowned Men POV and religious perspective only for it to be completely inconsequential.

Those books are massive. There was more than enough time to actually do something with Doran's masterplan, Manderly's northern gambit and Aeron's religious uprising.

edited 22nd May '18 2:41:27 PM by Gaon

We have plenty of flat villains including the Others who are the central antagonists of the whole story and Euron's their southern counterpart. But I think Euron has more depth than Joffrey and Ramsay and as much as Roose. There's his whole religious angle to consider which he shares with Aeron.

And the overpowered part of his character is the only way that he could work without being inconsequential as a threat. He needs all those strengths to be the type of villain that could challenge Daenerys or the Reach or westeros. Without them, he's just a regional annoyance.

So how would you change Euron without deflating him as a threat and keeping his role the same as the third party that the heroes don't fight because they're too busy fighting each other?

Nothing wrong with cool villains.

I don't think that's completely true. Like Asha doesn't do anything but run away and get defeated and captured by Stannis. Her sole purpose so far being a POV on Stannis' camp. Like we'll get more but looking at it how things are atm, she's pretty inconsequential.

Fair point about Victarion but I think he's going to die at the same Euron altar that Aeron does. It's just that Victarion gets nice little adventure quest and a badass battle before that happens. Aeron and Victarion primarily exist to build Euron up.

Besides, Euron's politicking and use of propaganda is much less impressive when you realize he was doing it to the Ironborn. Easily the most reactionary group in Westeros, all Euron had to do was hit the right buttons and promise them more than Balon gave them.

edited 22nd May '18 4:16:55 PM by SilentColossus