It has been roughly thirteen winters since George R.R. Martin promised us The Winds of Winter, the sixth instalment in his A Song of Ice and Fire series succeeding A Dance With Dragons. And the book is as elusive as a good explanation for why Bran Stark gets to sit on the throne in the end.
You know … because, the book was supposed to offer us that explanation and everything …
It’s the best of times, and it is the worst of times to be a fan of GRRM’s world of Ice and Fire. On the one hand, we have a Game of Thrones spin-off, House of the Dragon, which is giving us some great insight into the closer-to-God Targaryen dynasty and the Song of Ice and Fire prophecy, has a stellar cast, and is based on a book that is, thank the Gods, finished, so we won’t have to suffer a repeat of the GoT debacle.
We’re also getting another spinoff, A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms, based on the Tales of Dunk & Egg novellas, set some 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones, about Ser Duncan the Tall.
On the other hand, Game of Thrones season 8 is now so callously dismissed (even though I’ll maintain parts of it were some of the best television we’ve seen) that it has tainted the legacy of the entire series and become this cautionary tale to which every spinoff and series gets compared to.
Fans think the makers really sh*t the bed with the latter seasons because they didn’t have George R.R. Martin’s books to back them. So now, the slightest deviation House of The Dragon makes from Fire & Blood prompts a massive hue and cry and unfair comparisons from overly critical fans. The series’ second season finale was even rated poorly, much like the GoT series finale.
It doesn’t help that George R.R. Martin himself, despite being credited as creator and executive producer, has offered harsh words of criticism against the series from Ryan Condal and Sara Hess. In a blog post on his Not A Blog, GRRM’s critique of how certain changes on House of The Dragon would have a bad butterfly effect on the future seasons prompted HBO to officially respond to it right away, and might’ve been why the post was quickly deleted after publishing.
For some haters of HOTD, this was validation from the OP and fresh ammunition against the series.
However, a majority of fans do not care for the criticisms and are not so quick to overlook the elephant in the room: George R.R. Martin continues to write about things he seems to have no control over anymore. But he just won’t write the one thing that he does have control over: The Book That Was Promised.
Where is The Winds of Winter?
As a writer who is familiar with procrastination and writer’s block, reading the timeline of The Winds of Winter’s writing history is like looking in the mirror at my inner monologue every time I fail to complete a project.
Back in 2011, GRRM had hoped that he’d be able to finish the last two books in his ASOIAF series faster than A Dance with Dragons, which took him six years to finish. His estimate was that “at a good pace,” he’d be able to finish The Winds of Winter in three years. He had even begun posting character POV chapters starting the same year, and by 2016, some 11 chapters from POVs of characters like Theon Greyjoy, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Barristan Selmy, and Arianne Martell had been released or shared as samples.
However, it was in 2016 itself, as we now realize in hindsight, that the lull was starting to set in on what initially seemed good progress. Game of Thrones season 6 was airing in 2016, and it tackled events from the unpublished Winds of Winter, while George R.R. Martin struggled to meet his publishing deadlines, finally announcing in 2018 that there won’t be any more sample chapters released. The author also had his hands full with the publication of Fire & Blood, a couple of series he was helping developed and was executive producer on, and his other commitments.
GRRM’s promises since then were being taken with a pinch of salt by fans. There was this one moment, in 2019, when the author wrote on his blog:
“As for finishing my book… I fear that New Zealand would distract me entirely too much. Best leave me here in Westeros for the nonce. But I tell you this—if I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for Worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done.”
But we were all of us deceived, for another empty promise was made. The Winds of Winter writing history became legend. Legend became myth. And for the next few years, the book passed out of all knowledge, except GRRM’s occasional revelations that he had been writing lesser and lesser pages, he was struggling to complete the book, and he didn’t know when it would be finished.
Understanding the delay in The Winds of Winter
Now, we know we’ve got to cut George R.R. Martin some slack, alright? The author has repeatedly mentioned in his recent blog posts that he has been having a difficult year, and it is hard to create something when your mental health is suffering. In a blog post from September 9, 2024, GRRM wrote that he was churning out pages on two books that he was writing, plus working on his writing for TV projects, and was under a lot of stress that was making it all difficult.
“Nor did I find much solace in my work. Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both THE WINDS OF WINTER (yes) and BLOOD & FIRE (the sequel to FIRE & BLOOD, the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more. My various television projects ate up most of those months. Some of that was pleasant (DARK WINDS, and THE HEDGE KNIGHT), most of it was not. The stress kept mounting, the news went from bad to worse to worst, my mood seemed to swing between fury and despair, and at night I tossed and turned when I should have been sleeping. When I did sleep, well, my dreams were none too pleasant either.”
When you read a first-hand account of all that the author is upto and going through, and his own regrets about not being able to finish his books by adopting writing habits that have worked wonders for other authors, we can sympathize with the guy. Writing a book of this stature takes time, and until then, he has to pay bills. It would be stupid to turn down all the amazing TV projects (reportedly, he has eight other spinoffs he is working on) that are offered to him too. And there’s that argument that he doesn’t owe us anything.
But that argument is countered by another that after an artist creates his art and releases it out to the world for consumption, it belongs to the fans too, and they’re not wrong in their outrage against the delay. Chiefly because it is coloring how we perceive anything that is born of his world of ASOIAF.
Take, for example, the emphasis on the prophecy that is placed by House of The Dragon in context of the actions of the Targaryen kings and queens. It’s incredible to know that what is otherwise perceived as a war for power and vengeance on both sides did have a noble cause at its heart; the fear of Winter and the need to protect the kingdom from that threat. Which makes this quite the tragedy. But when fans realise that the endgame of all this is Bran Stark sitting on the throne, with the only explanation for it being the poor way that Game of Thrones handled the story, the events of HOTD lose gravitas. The books were supposed to bridge this gap, give us closure. But with no sight of them on the horizon, the future of any story about the world of Ice and Fire feels bleak and belittled.
Will A Dream of Spring remain a dream?
There’s an even greater problem that some fans are only now beginning to realise, as years pass, and George R.R. Martin ages (the author is 76). He is still struggling to finish The Winds of Winter as he writes and rewrites the chapters along with all the other work and social commitments he juggles. But that’s not even the last book in the series, is it? There’s still A Dream for Spring.
Back in 2013, GRRM had mentioned that he was not sure if he was going to write a seventh book, and that he didn’t want to stick to some number of books that he’d be forced to fit his story into. He had even mentioned that he would decide what he would write next after he finished Winds, but based on his recent blog updates, he seems to have picked writing a sequel to Fire & Blood over A Dream for Spring.
At this point, it’s hard not to assume that George R.R. Martin might be held back by his fears of how his books will be perceived, now that fans know roughly how it ends, and haven’t responded well to that ending. The author was keen to write a bittersweet ending for A Song of Ice and Fire à la J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings where a few core characters make it to the end, but it’s not all happy, of course.
Notably, GRRM had also expressed his fears about “doing a Lost” with the ending of ASOIAF where he wouldn’t be able to give an excellent payoff to his fans, which is how he felt about the ending of the iconic television series that celebrates its 20th anniversary this month (causing Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof to publicly call him out).
Well, at least Lost had an ending. Its fans got closure, and now, years later, fans are reconsidering how harshly they might’ve judged it. Will we ever be able to do that with A Song of Ice and Fire series? Unfortunately, that cliffhanger too, might only be resolved once George R.R. Martin writes his books and not just his blogs, which at this point, seem like a distraction.
Published: Sep 23, 2024 05:26 pm