Enigmatic 'Not a Blog' Post: Alas, Valyria

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, SuperMario said:

Not so sure on that. Two years ago during the summer, he said he thought he was close to finishing and told his publishers it would be done by Halloween 2015. Then after a delay he told them it would be done by New Years 2016. Here we are 19 months after NYE with no book. If he thought he was close to finishing two years ago, then it seems likely he did some pretty big rewrites to not have a book out at this point.

Or no writing at all.  Or he was just as wrong about his timing as he was about Dance, which he thought would take 1 year and instead took 6.  Sadly, there is good reason why GRRM doesn't and shouldn't give any updates relating to timing, as he is almost always off by massive margins.

I think this is about a spin off or about Fire and Blood, not Winds.  If Winds is done, what's he waiting for?  If he's waiting until the show wraps to announce, why bother with the 'enigmatic' post at all?  If it was a crazy mood that overtook him on the anniversary of Dance's release and a feeling of doom over Winds....which is possible....he should have said so. 

[Eduardo Aranha]

4 minutes ago, Yuri Lobão said:

I think that he gave us an Enigma to solve. And the hint was his "enigmatic mood". 

For me, its solved. 

1) The sentence from *revelations* tell us the release date. 10/18/17

2) The post was in the same date as the realease date of ADwD. 7/12.

3) The tag ASOIAF.

4) The link between the images of Valirya and Greyjoy banners is the dragonbinder horn, wich is the book cover.

I am on board the hype train and crying of joy. Lol.

(Sorry for any English mistakes. Brazilian here)

 

Olá Yuri (I'm from Portugal!)

I don't think he would tease us about the release date with an enigma.

He said he would be straight-forward about it and would tell us as soon as he was sure the book was finished, and I'm certain he will do so. However, if this post has any meaning at all, I believe it is an indication that the end is near. Maybe he is now doing the last revision, or sharpening some edges... 

Even so, I would've preferred that he hadn't post anything at all. 

[Ser Greg of House House]

I'm trying to understand why he would choose to deliver such an enigmatic announcement. I read somewhere that he was very clear that when he was done he would be straight forward about it.

Assuming he really finished the book, an explanation could be the coincidence that he completed his work almost at the same time as the show's last season was about to start. He might feel that announcing the new book at that moment could be seen as a move to prevent people who wanted to read first from watching the last season right now. Of course the impact on the ratings would probably be negligible, but people from HBO might see that as an unfriendly move from him. There are people, after all, who gave up reading the books first since it's not absurd to think the TV show will spoil a great deal.

[SuperMario]

19 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Or no writing at all.  Or he was just as wrong about his timing as he was about Dance, which he thought would take 1 year and instead took 6.  Sadly, there is good reason why GRRM doesn't and shouldn't give any updates relating to timing, as he is almost always off by massive margins.

I think this is about a spin off or about Fire and Blood, not Winds.  If Winds is done, what's he waiting for?  If he's waiting until the show wraps to announce, why bother with the 'enigmatic' post at all?  If it was a crazy mood that overtook him on the anniversary of Dance's release and a feeling of doom over Winds....which is possible....he should have said so. 

Good point. Could be no writing.

And I think you are right on the Fire and Blood announcement.

[Ser Greg of House House]

22 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

If it was a crazy mood that overtook him on the anniversary of Dance's release and a feeling of doom over Winds....which is possible....he should have said so. 

Now you have me worried that he might be giving up. It is very possible that the show's last season overwhelmed him with a sense of defeat. Things will not be easy for him. Even if he manages to finish TWOW today, what then? He has a whole new book to finish before he can move on to new stuff. And when he does, people will say "well, it was about time". The impact will never compare to the show's finale, unfortunately.

[divica]

18 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Good point. Could be no writing.

And I think you are right on the Fire and Blood announcement.

The problem with fire and blood is that it is a book about the targs in westeros. It isn t really related to valyria, its doom or the greyjoys... it simply doesn t fit.

About the spinoff, I doubt anyone would try to make a series about valyria because there would be a lot of dragons involved. It would mean a budget similar to got from the very beguining... 

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, divica said:

The problem with fire and blood is that it is a book about the targs in westeros. It isn t really related to valyria, its doom or the greyjoys... it simply doesn t fit.

About the spinoff, I doubt anyone would try to make a series about valyria because there would be a lot of dragons involved. It would mean a budget similar to got from the very beguining... 

But the Targaryens came from Valyria because of the impending doom.  The only thing that doesn't fit is the Greyjoys.  However, the author could always have added in a back history for the Greyjoys having visited Valyria in the past.

I just can't square the actual revelation quote, which is about loss, as being a pre pre announcement that would be about Winds, a huge positrive.

[divica]

6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

But the Targaryens came from Valyria because of the impending doom.  The only thing that doesn't fit is the Greyjoys.  However, the author could always have added in a back history for the Greyjoys having visited Valyria in the past.

I just can't square the actual revelation quote, which is about loss, as being a pre pre announcement that would be about Winds, a huge positrive.

Actually you could relate the quote about punishment for about trying to achieve something you shouldn t do.

 

If you want it could be related to the punishment for using the horns to try to enslave dragons against their will. And we have the greyjoys and valyria again!

 

I think that at worst we will have a new chapter from twow. It just fits too well.

[Yuri Lobão]

59 minutes ago, Eduardo Aranha said:

Olá Yuri (I'm from Portugal!)

I don't think he would tease us about the release date with an enigma.

He said he would be straight-forward about it and would tell us as soon as he was sure the book was finished, and I'm certain he will do so. However, if this post has any meaning at all, I believe it is an indication that the end is near. Maybe he is now doing the last revision, or sharpening some edges... 

Even so, I would've preferred that he hadn't post anything at all. 

Tudo bem, amigo? Vamos ao inglês:

Or he finished the book and can't tell us more because his editors didn't give the green light for it. 

He likes to tease us. He likes to give the information between the lines. Just like he does in the books. 

I also think he will be straight-foward very soon. 

[SuperMario]

9 minutes ago, divica said:

Actually you could relate the quote about punishment for about trying to achieve something you shouldn t do.

 

If you want it could be related to the punishment for using the horns to try to enslave dragons against their will. And we have the greyjoys and valyria again!

 

I think that at worst we will have a new chapter from twow. It just fits too well.

Not another chapter. If I recall correctly, he said he would not be releasing any other chapters from Winds. He's already released about 10 to 15 percent of the book.

[divica]

5 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Not another chapter. If I recall correctly, he said he would not be releasing any other chapters from Winds. He's already released about 10 to 15 percent of the book.

That is within the normal range... and he only released chapters that should be in affc or adwd. They are pretty old chaps that shouldn t even be part of the book

[Tomcat]

I can't believe this post is a way to tell us he stopped writing :

- The interview in the Time seems to say otherwise : game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-interview, it was published on july 13, 2017.

- Why the mood "enigmatic", at least it would have been "depressed" or "sad" or whatever negative emotion. Enigmatic is more teasing to me.

- I could understand that the huge buzz around the show isn't motivating, but it is a buzz, it won't last. GRRM knows it well. He said that ASOIAF is the work he will be remembered for. 

- Comments blocked. On all posts. He knows we are boiling. That's pure GRRM's teasing style. 

If he stop writing, he will say it. Point. (and then hide in a bunker).

That's  f**ing good teasing. And it works completely on me (damned !).

 

(Sorry for my english, my native langage is french)

 

[Sour Billy Tipton]

56 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Not another chapter. If I recall correctly, he said he would not be releasing any other chapters from Winds. He's already released about 10 to 15 percent of the book.

Let us hope it's only around 10%.  If we go on the fact that ADWD had 73 chapters (including the prologue and epilogue).  I believe we have received 8 TWOW chapters(Victarion's "The Forsaken" wasn't complete but it seemed like he read the bulk of it) thus far.

(Sorry for my English, I'm an American)

[divica]

11 minutes ago, Sour Billy Tipton said:

Let us hope it's only around 10%.  If we go on the fact that ADWD had 73 chapters (including the prologue and epilogue).  I believe we have received 8 TWOW chapters(Victarion's "The Forsaken" wasn't complete but it seemed like he read the bulk of it) thus far.

(Sorry for my English, I'm an American)

Arya, alisane, ariane(2), barristan (2), tyrion (2), victarion, jon con, theon

I think he released this chaps so far (11)

[SuperMario]

3 minutes ago, divica said:

Arya, alisane, ariane(2), barristan (2), tyrion (2), victarion, jon con, theon

I think he released this chaps so far (11)

And with the Damphair chapter that makes 12. I've stated it before, but for people who think the plot is going to move forward drastically in Winds, the fact that 12 of the chapters have been released, which would be 17% of the book if he matched 73 chapters from ADWD, they might be in for a rude awakening.

Almost 20% of the book released with not a lot of plot advancement....you can figure it out from there.

[divica]

40 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

And with the Damphair chapter that makes 12. I've stated it before, but for people who think the plot is going to move forward drastically in Winds, the fact that 12 of the chapters have been released, which would be 17% of the book if he matched 73 chapters from ADWD, they might be in for a rude awakening.

Almost 20% of the book released with not a lot of plot advancement....you can figure it out from there.

I think he said twow would be the biggest book yet. If we take into account that with the chapters that were moved adwd would have around 80 chaps then twow can easily have between 90 to 100 chaps.

I think it is more acurate to say he released around 15% of the book if all chaps have around the same number of characters... (which you aren t taking into consideration)

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, SuperMario said:

And with the Damphair chapter that makes 12. I've stated it before, but for people who think the plot is going to move forward drastically in Winds, the fact that 12 of the chapters have been released, which would be 17% of the book if he matched 73 chapters from ADWD, they might be in for a rude awakening.

Almost 20% of the book released with not a lot of plot advancement....you can figure it out from there.

Yep.  Even if we credit that he released the absolute slowest no action chapters, they still have the same meandering, over long, overly descriptive tone as Dance.  Lots of words, no forward movement.  

But, I really don't know what that weird blog post was about, other than the content and timing make me think nothing to do with an announcement on Winds.  If he was holding off for 2 months until the show wrapped, why post anything at all let alone that cryptic weirdness...oh well, that's GRRM in a nutshell I guess.

[divica]

10 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Yep.  Even if we credit that he released the absolute slowest no action chapters, they still have the same meandering, over long, overly descriptive tone as Dance.  Lots of words, no forward movement.  

But, I really don't know what that weird blog post was about, other than the content and timing make me think nothing to do with an announcement on Winds.  If he was holding off for 2 months until the show wrapped, why post anything at all let alone that cryptic weirdness...oh well, that's GRRM in a nutshell I guess.

I think that is unfair. from what I read I think the battle of meereen chapters were pretty good. We had the tyrion twist, victarion appearing and the battle ending. All this in 5 chapters... it can t be much better than this. On the other hand the arianne chaps were bad like you were saying.

[aryagonnakill#2]

26 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Yep.  Even if we credit that he released the absolute slowest no action chapters, they still have the same meandering, over long, overly descriptive tone as Dance.  Lots of words, no forward movement.  

But, I really don't know what that weird blog post was about, other than the content and timing make me think nothing to do with an announcement on Winds.  If he was holding off for 2 months until the show wrapped, why post anything at all let alone that cryptic weirdness...oh well, that's GRRM in a nutshell I guess.

The battle chapters are short tho, they seem to follow the same style as the blackwater where it will be flashing between POV's.  The Mereen and Dothraki situations will be finished relatively quickly imo, same with the Bolton situation. 

[SuperMario]

44 minutes ago, divica said:

I think he said twow would be the biggest book yet. If we take into account that with the chapters that were moved adwd would have around 80 chaps then twow can easily have between 90 to 100 chaps.

I think it is more acurate to say he released around 15% of the book if all chaps have around the same number of characters... (which you aren t taking into consideration)

It might be the biggest book yet, but it won't be much bigger than Storm or Dance. Book bindings wouldn't allow it. No way he could fit 100 chapters in a book with the chapter sizes he has been writing. Below are the average page per chapter for the five books in the series:

AGOT: 9.6

ACOK: 11

ASOS: 12.1

AFFC: 16.4

ADWD: 14.5

If you notice the trend, his chapters have been getting longer the last two books. Also why the story has meandered more in the last two books as well. But say you average the chapter length between Feast and Dance at 15.45, 100 chapters would be over 1500 published pages. That book would be a monster.