The Dragon Demands

Do you consider "we hate gay people" to be a valid reason on general principal? I mean if someone said "I hate Renly/Loras in Got Season 1 because they're gay"? Saudi Arabia review bombed HotD 2.6 for having a gay kiss in it. Or what about "we wanted nothing but action spectacle with dragon battles in every episode"? Yes - there ARE "invalid" reasons to dislike something. But also valid reasons.

I've been going over reactions to HotD Season 2... what strikes me is the divide between "grounded criticisms"....and the truly outlandish, hype-based criticisms. MOST YouTube reaction channels were at least understanding about the writers strike. SOME, who I respect, argued the character arcs for some characters were not self-consistent (I disagreed). This is NOTHING like the "hype viewer" complaints....MANY remarked on how insane their comments sections were even by mid-season. Large numbers saying "episode 2.2 was so boring!" when...it was one of the best episodes in the franchise. I'm not the only one who noticed this, a common refrain was "our comments sections are crazy"...by MIDSEASON, after episode 3 asking "where are the big dragon battles?!"....which came in episode 4? In the trailer for it? The complaint I've seen being peddled by the casuals is "HBO's deceptive marketing campaign hyped dragon battles in literally every episode! ALL MUST CHOOSE!" ....no, they didn't. It had as much action as a normal trailer. -->The point where I put two and two together is when I realized that these same people were complaining that Blood & Cheese didn't turn out as exciting as they'd been hyped up to think it would be. This is DISTINCT from book fans who complained it deviated from the text (Condal did the right thing, came straight to a major fansite - here! - and explained why he did it this way, and I respected that) But then it hit me: HBO itself never "overhyped" Blood & Cheese, never even mentioned it because it's a spoiler. So...what, are they also blaming that on a "deceptive HBO marketing campaign"? While Season 2 did have issues (which I hope were due to strike and budget problems) this is...a world away, from the complaints going around in comments sections, who expected....final season level action scenes? Avengers Endgame level action scenes? Again, I'm not the only one who noticed this sharp divide: actual critics or YouTube channel creators, even a lady who ran a TikTok channel but expanded to YouTube recently, openly remarked on how bizarrely impatient their comments sections were. Remember that article in The Verge last year from the former GQ writer who admitted how badly the hype around late GoT starting 2016 abandoned "journalism" and degenerated into clickbait? That's...that's gotten worse. HotD Season 1 wasn't hyped this much, not by the usual mass-produced clickbait sources. Even after trailers. Only after the season aired and was a hit did they really take notice. Really two related things happened: first, the clickbait sources spent the gap between seasons overhyping "shocking" or action-packed things in Season 2, like dragon battles or Blood & Cheese....second, this coincided with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022: fully automated, MASS PRODUCED clickbait. It wasn't even humans making the clickbait anymore, but "the Algorithm" bombarding casual viewers with spoilers overhyping "Blood & Cheese is the next Red Wedding!" (Structurally it never was, that was about killing established POV characters, B&C was not)....or even...hyping dragon battles which would never have been in Season 2 (not just the Gullet, but the Battle Above the Gods Eye?! This is Season 2!) ...I actually think these complaints that it was "boring and nothing happened" would have been leveled by these hype fans....even if Season 2 was as tightly paced as Season 1. Consider the stretch from episodes 4 through 8 or so - how the heck many "battles" were in that? heck, you all remember how annoyed the casuals were back in Game of Thrones Season 2, when Daenerys and her baby dragons didn't immediately return to Westeros?! :) The worst part is that no one person was driving this overhype, it's a decline in journalism in general. That's not to say HotD didn't have some problems, but it was....this dark synergy, that they could latch onto. Again: MANY channel creators remarked with disgust at how their comments sections for episode 2.2 "Rhaenyra the Cruel" were filled with people remarking on how "BORING" it was; "where's my dragon battle?" Also we all saw how the algorithm - in an election year - was pushing antagonistic posts that "the show has gone woke!" (it always was, no one complained). WE complained that they focused too much on Rhaenyra & Alicent in what should be more of an ensemble format; but the algorithm heavily promoted anyone mouthing off on Twitter/X that "This is pushing a Rhaenicent Woke Agenda!".....clearest case of this was the Rhaenyra/Mysaria kissing in episode 6 - it didn't really work, I felt it wasn't set up well enough, but I didn't object to it on general principle. Then the next day we found that homophobes were review-bombing it on IMDb on general principle. Social media algorithms amplifying that type of thing because algorithms promote confrontational posts more, they're more likely to elicit responses. I spend a lot of time watching YouTube reaction channels, and...the ones who walked into it blind, who had no idea what Blood & Cheese was, were VERY impressed with the first half of the season, and understanding of the second half ("we know there was a strike, let's hope this doesn't affect next season") HBO and Condal didn't overhype Blood & Cheese, and they aren't the ones who "overhyped" Season 2.

Ormund: "Lyonel, my eldest son, you are still only a lad 15 years old. I march to war, but you must stay behind to take care of Oldtown and your beautiful stepmother Sam Tarly." Lyonel: "Take care of her? Well if I must, I must."

And so it begins

https://x.com/ADragonDemands/status/1885401685389918324

FIRST CASTING NEWS OF HOTD SEASON 3!!! James Norton as Ormund Hightower https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/house-of-the-dragon-season-3-cast-james-norton-ormund-hightower-1236292789/ https://x.com/Variety/status/1885388539535225258

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2025/01/28/dunk-egg-a-few-random-mutterings/ I really wish we just KNEW specifically what Martin took issue with in planning for upcoming seasons. Every moron on social media is co-opting is vague remarks in support of their own personal opinions on Season 2 - too many saying "Martin must hate all the lesbian stuff!" "Martin must hate they're presenting that character I like as a villain!" etc. We're not really sure what's going on.

I can’t get a read on this: “reasonable” not “how much I care” —- is this a knock on HotD that “I was reasonable, THEY are changing things!” …or self-deprecation that “so…might last post on that caused quite the stir up, didn’t it?” I hope they smooth things out between them. He wouldn’t have bothered with a warning shot if he wanted to totally give up on them. @Ran

I don't know where else to post this because we don't have a dedicated "Dunk & Egg" thread or subforum yet: GRRM just made his first significant blog post in over a month - mostly on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms : https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2025/01/28/dunk-egg-a-few-random-mutterings/ Martin has seen all six episodes (the last two as rough cuts) and it has his full seal of approval. "It’s as faithful as adaptation as a reasonable man could hope for (and you all know how incredibly reasonable I am on that particular subject). " I can't tell if this is self-deprecation for his high standards, or saying "I've been nothing but reasonable yet HotD still causes me issues" Martin praises the new cast - beyond Dunk & Egg themselves he singles out "wait until you see the Laughing Storm and Tanselle Too-Tall". He brings up a point I worry about: this is a character piece without much action in it, as in battles - there's no dragons in it. There are jousting scenes it's set at a tournament. But "the focus is on duty and honor, chivalry and what that means" Personally I think the tighter focus makes up for that - a smaller cast, it's NOT an ensemble but basically two main leads "Dunk & Egg" so it's a lot easier to follow than GoT or HotD. He only refers to Aziza Barnes' recent death in passing rather than draw attention to it (this was sensitive) He still wants to make blog posts about 2024, continuing with WorldCon and the Alfies in August, then visiting Tolkien's grave. Martin strongly indicates that the series will most probably release in "Late 2025", NOT "Summer" as earlier stated by HBO (though within the same article, Variety said "ALL of our internal sources say a Late 2025 release is more likely"). Martin outright says he doesn't know what "Late" means except "Maybe in the Fall?" Martin reiterates that after he's done with The Winds of Winter he'll go back to some Dunk & Egg novellas...though oddly he says "The Village Hero" - I thought "The She-Wolves of Winterfell" was next. Does that mean She-Wolves is already done?

With the resignation of WB Games chief David Hadad, here's an update on all the major department heads in WBD's subdivisions. At the top level there are 3 major subdivisions, below that 9 or 10 depending on how you count them. Under the OLD system, the 3 main ones were Movie Studios, Cable Networks, and Direct-to-Consumer (subscription based stuff, so streaming + HBO Cable channel). Video Games used to be part of Studios (similar release schedule) but they're now part of DTC (because up to now WBD wanted to make live-service games that are subscription based - we hope Hadad's departure means they abandon that) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Warner Bros. Discovery" has basically nine divisions/departments or "operating segments" (depending on how you count; not including internal things like tech, HR, finance, etc.). A major focus of this list is if they're older veterans of the pre-2019 Time Warner era (who...were not doing a good job) or Zaslav's people (who we don't entirely trust either because they're new). Streaming & Studios WB Film Studios - jointly run by Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, veterans promoted up from within New Line Cinema WB Games - the video game division has been run by David Hadad since 2012...but on January 23rd 2025, it was announced that David Hadad will step down. It appears they pressured him to resign but the more gentle variation of this, where they give him 3 months to smooth out the transition to a new, as-yet-to-be-determined replacement. "Direct-to-Consumer" - subscription based services, including both the Max streamer and premium channels such as HBO. JB Perrette, a longtime Zaslav ally, is in charge....but he seems to be more in charge of the business side of things, focused on international expansion deals. The actual content chief on HBO is Casey Bloys, head of HBO comedy in the early 2010's who worked his way up the ranks. "WBD Global Brands and Enterprises" is an umbrella term for what are functionally 3 other subdivisions: Theme Parks (i.e. Harry Potter experience) Consumer Products DC Studios - Founded by Geoff Johns in the 2010s, replaced by Walter Hamada in 2018. Apparently Hamada was internally sidelined due to executive meddling and he actually did vocally complain about decisions later derided as huge mistakes. Quit in protest. Thankfully, in one of his few good decisions, when Zaslav come in 2022 he replaced him with James Gunn of the MCU, along with Gunn's longtime producer partner Peter Safran. Global Linear Networks Cable TV Networks - was run by longtime Zaslav inner circle member Kathleen Finch, but she was just pressured to resign after the disastrous cable numbers in 2024, and will be replaced by promoting up Channing Dungey, a longtime veteran with Warner studios, who in the late 2010s worked at ABC entertainment, then became a top exec at Warner TV in 2020. TNT Sports - Sports rights are significantly different from scripted or unscripted TV, even though they air on TNT, and they're the most lucrative. Currently run by Luis Silberwasser, former president of Telemundo, and before that did Discovery international channels. Became head of Turner Sports in 2018, so not part of the old Warner regime. CNN - Currently headed by respected veteran exec Mark Thompson, after the debacle of Zaslav appointing Chris Licht to run CNN after the prior head resigned in scandal. Disastrously bad performance is leading to significant restructuring this year. International Cable (outside the USA) - Headed by Gerhard Zeiler, an old mainstay who has been in charge of Turner's international branches since 2012. These are the heads of the 9 "operating divisions", but Zaslav's inner circle are the overall core positions at "WBD" itself, several of which were Zaslav's people from before the merger. Major figures include: Gunnar Wiedenfels, CFO. Since 2017. Used to work for the McKinsey group, which unsurprisingly is a strong advocate of the business strategy: "cut spending on everything, fire workers, and raise executive pay = profit!" Basically Zaslav's Hand of the King. Bruce Campbell - Chief Revenue Officer. Since 2007. Zaslav's Master of Coin. David Leavy - Chief Corporate Officer (whatever that means...negotiating with other corporations?), but was reassigned last year as the new Chief Operating Officer / COO of CNN. Savalle Sims - Chief Legal Officer. Since 2011. Oversaw much of the legal wrangling for the merger. Announced she was stepping down in September she's stepping down, another major shakeup to Zaslav's core team. Two days ago they announced her replacement is Priya Aiyar, who used to work for American Airlines. Adria Alpert Romm - Chief People Advisor (HR and so forth) - WAS a key member of Zaslav's Discovery since 2018, she resigned late 2023, replaced by WPP's Jennifer Remling. There are a few other corporate positions listed on their website ( https://www.wbd.com/leadership ) such as Tech, Marketing, Accounting, etc. but these are all the major ones. With the major departures of Kathleen Finch and David Hadad, hardly anyone (at the topmost level) is left from the old Time Warner regime of pre-2018. Only Gerhard Zeiler for their international cable channels, and arguably the pair of Abdy & De Luca at WB Film Studios (who only got appointed in 2022; they had worked at New Line before but worked at MGM in the late 2010s so they probably don't count). -------- This of course doesn't get into the internal leadership at "HBO" itself. Richard Plepler and Chris Albrecht before him ran it like their own fiefdom, not a subsection of a larger company. Warner-Discovery has a shorter leash. They put Casey Bloys in charge of HBO, who was head of the Comedy division since 2006. He was suddenly made head of programming in 2016 with the surprise departure of Mike Lombardo after a string of failures, then when Plepler left Bloys ended up in charge by the House of the Dragon era. New head of the Drama division is Francesca Orsi. I don't THINK Carolyn Strauss works for HBO anymore.

BIG news: David Hadad will resign as head of WB Games. He's been head of their video games division since 2012 - pretty much the entire run of the Game of Thrones franchise up to this point (during which Westeros content was WOEFULLY underserved by video games). https://variety.com/2025/gaming/news/warner-bros-games-chief-david-haddad-exit-1236283177/ @Ran Does this signal a significant shift is finally coming to prioritize Westeros games? We can only hope. For about a year now WBD has said they want to refocus video games on only their four core franchises: Harry Potter, DC Comics, Mortal Kombat, and Game of Thrones....but only the first three got games so far, Game of Thrones has only had some mobile games (though last spring 2024 they did state that a high-quality game takes 3 to 4 years to make so don't expect a big GoT one before 2027).

All my prior research went into this "State of Warner" video - covers all news for the past 3 months since first week of November (quite a lot happened) - but I managed to focus it down to 35 minutes (by splitting off international expansion and video game news into separate videos). I hope this is a good catchup: Within hours of posting it, leaks came out that reliable sources say Season 3 is still only 8 episodes. I...I just can't catch a break...

There are basically three more sets of awards shows that HotD Season 2 is up for, coming in February: Saturn Awards (Feb 2) and Costume Designers Guild Awards (Feb 6) - in the week leading up to Sunday Feb 9. The next two sets of awards are on the following Sundays: Feb 15 - Art Directors Guild and Makeup/Hairstylists Feb 23 - SAG award for best stunt team, and American Society of Cinematographers (2 nominations: Alejandro Martinez for "Rhaenyra the Cruel" and Catherine Goldschmidt for "The Queen Who Ever Was")

Rumor now from reliable YouTube channel House the Dragons that there will be only 8 episodes: https://winteriscoming.net/it-sounds-like-house-of-the-dragon-season-3-will-repeat-this-disappointing-trend Not 100% confirmed and subject to change, of course. More hopeful about later seasons. Would prefer 5 seasons of 8 eps.

....they can't just refilm the last two seasons, it wasn't "the ending" it was the entire second half since Season 5. and...a "continuation" is an even worse idea because it's impossible to retroactively fix all that. You...you oppose prequels, but support a sequel that magically fixes the show retroactively? That wasn't the real story. The story of the books. They chose not to do it.

Rhys Ifans cracked a joke in an unrelated interview with ScreenRant today; he says he doesn't know the exact start date for filming but it's soon, "I can smell the sulfur", - then he joked that filming this year means "it will be on screens in 25 years" -- referring to the long production gaps that are commonplace now (i.e. Severance). https://winteriscoming.net/house-of-the-dragon-star-mocks-how-long-it-takes-for-hbo-to-make-new-seasons This thread's been on break since Christmas, but major things will start coming by the day: Production List and Production Weekly have started early postings for Season 3 info so new things pop up all the time. These posting confirmed what Condal already said: filming will start in March and extend into October. But the fact that this is confirmed in print now has major news sites repeating it, obviously wondering if a filming period two months longer than Season 2's might indicate an episode extension - though it could just be for larger battle scenes. But just imagine how much the online mood will improve if we confirm more than 8 episodes again... https://winteriscoming.net/house-of-the-dragon-will-reportedly-film-season-3-from-march-to-october Other info from these production website posts: we can confirm that directors Clare Kilner and Alan Taylor will return for Season 3, and probably Loni Peristere (still listed as a producer), but unclear if Patel will return yet. Also confirmed that Caroline McCall will return as costume designer. No new filming regions this year: sticking to Spain on the one hand, and then in the UK, Surrey (southeast England) and northern Wales. Condal has openly said in his podcast it's great that all the logistics are already set up, everyone knows everyone and what to do, no more hassle of a new location; combined with lack of pandemic or writers strike, he's looking forward to Season 3 filming going much more smoothly. I'm editing together a 40 minute long video I made on "State of Warner", the basic point of which I wrote up on a separate thread here over many weeks: EVERYTHING that could go well for Warner has gone well these past few months, why not you know, give more episode funding to one of your most profitable, flagship projects?

Minor update: Warner Discovery actually got its ass in gear and is starting to sell Polish cable channel TVN, valued at $1 billion. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/polish-broadcaster-tvn-owners-begin-sale-process-sources-say-2024-12-20/ With each passing week (these past 2 months) it’s getting more difficult for Zaslav to claim they don’t have the cash on hand to give House of the Dragon, one of their core flagship franchises, a full 10 episode season. i wonder if the video game division is next

AKOT7K staff writer Aziza Barnes has committed suicide, age only 32. https://variety.com/2024/tv/obituaries-people-news/aziza-barnes-dead-snowfall-teenage-bounty-hunters-1236257189/ @Ran

I’m getting the new “making of season 2” book for Christmas, I look forward to sharing all details. Many just skim for major quotes and revelations, but I think all aspects of production are interesting. Like costuming decisions or cinematography decisions. It has to be thoroughly grokked / “analyzed to the point of exhaustion”

Yes. I hope Condal’s comments aren’t just fluff but cause for optimism: if nothing else, season three is the first season not produced during a national crises (pandemic or strike)

Random thoughts, after watching Meera Reads' video: not letting others' opinions cloud my own, why did *I* personally have to complain about Season 2? Given that I'm someone who WAS NOT expecting a full scale dragon battle in literally every episode? Obviously there were some pacing issues by mid-season, which I understand were due to the strike preventing rewrites - slow Daemon scenes particularly in episode 5 were redundant enough to be trimmed for time, but it's not "character assassination" and I know why they happened, the strike (some of the hype fans were loudly complaining "why isn't Daemon being this cool badass warrior? The woke mob nerfed him!" - when in principle this was necessary character development). --- Second of course is that the final two episodes were just plain cut at the last minute, so we got no Battle of the Gullet or clear climax. MOST, even among the mainstream "Reactor" channels, recognize that this was due to issues with the studios, not the writing staff. But then you have the YouTube channels, TikTok channels, Reddit where the algorithm rewards black and white negative remarks (what really got me was the ones that inflated or INVENTED criticism, like Savage Books, who...tried to claim logistics fell apart without GoT veteran Sapochnik, ignoring the fact that GoT veteran Alan Taylor was on Season 2 and Sapochnik was never a writer - or things like "characters teleported! Travel times made no sense!" ....not really, no). We DID have complaints, from the veteran ASOIAF channels like Alt Shift X or RedTeamReview, but....they were measured acknowledgements that "we know the pacing issues were due to the strike and the episode count truncated due to last minute Zaslav budget cuts". ----- BEYOND that, the main criticism is "they tried to bend the story to focus on the core trio of Rhaenyra, Alicent, and Daemon, even though they have the least to do at this point in the source material, and it would have been difficult to write even under ideal circumstances". I honestly didn't feel there was "character assassination" for anyone: my SOLE complaint boils down to "screentime balance between the primary and secondary characters". Maybe...I hope this was due to the lack of rewrites, that they'd have refined this had they been allowed to do rewrites (the lack of rewrites certainly didn't help). But despite the complaints that they overfocused on the core trio, by process of elimination, not that many characters felt "shorted": they shifted Jace's story around but generally good (they cut the North but added the Freys, they were trying) and Baela got more to do than in the book. Corlys was...a bit underused? Should have been on the council more (the Black council scenes dragged more than they should) but he got new developments with his bastard sons, and given we were building up to a naval battle I think he'll have more to do next season (it's not as if he's Rhaenys, killed off in Season 2 so they can't improve later). On the Greens' side, the Green council scenes were always a highlight. The only "underused" one was Helaena....only because they built her up a lot and I suspect there were more deleted scenes trimmed for time (then again she does little in the source material after this). Daemon's storyline actually gave us three new interesting characters that were well-received: Simon Strong, Alys Rivers, Oscar Tully. ...While I'm annoyed they cut out Cregan Stark from all but the Prologue, we later saw that they filmed shots of him coming south with the Winter Wolves in the finale; I'm okay with that. We built it up a lot in our heads, but I'm okay with shifting more of his content to Season 3 just to space it out. Problem is most viewers aren't aware of deleted scenes. But I'll GIVE them Cregan, I won't count that against the writers, given it seems they consciously planned to do more in Season 3. The real failure to me was the Rhaena/Nettles/Jeyne Arryn/Vale storyline. Even accepting as a given that they merged her with Nettles (it seems they chose to remain on the fence when they filmed season 2)....it barely has any screentime. It was GOOD in episode 5, but as even Elio & Linda noted, it was really short after that, and the rest of the Vale could easily have gotten development in barely five minutes of screentime (would it have killed them to have a nonspeaking Jess Redfort standing next to Jeyne Arryn? Not that she's a big character, but in terms of how little effort it would have taken). ---- So in terms of "who got shorted on screentime": Some of the core trio's scenes were a bit redundant and should have been trimmed during the rewrites that might have happened (I'd have cut Rhaenyra disguised as a septa in episode 3 simply for length) We missed Cregan Stark and the North being so short in episode 1, all would have been well had the general audience seen him in the finale with promise of more to come, and cutting him from that shot after filming it does not bode well. After building up Helaena so much, I get the strong feeling there were more scenes with her that got cut for time, which were kind of necessary to show the shift in her character (embracing the visions, as the actress explained) All of these would have been HELPED by rewrites and full 10 episode count for seasons. But add to this: Merging Nettles and Rhaena is going to be controversial; in my view not "Sansa rape" controversial but "Peter Jackson chose to cut the Scouring of the Shire from the LOTR trilogy" controversial (in that I still love the trilogy but I'd politely tell him to his face that this was a mistake). HOWEVER, even accepting as a given that they merged the Nettles and Rhaena-in-the-Vale storylines, they got PAINFULLY little screentime after episode 5 (though thinking on it, maybe they DID intend more in episodes 9 and 10, and rewrites may have added a scene or two) None of these are crippling problems...necessarily. I didn't...actively notice the absence of anyone else (I didn't think we'd get Daeron Targaryen, Dalton Greyjoy, or Johanna Lannister on-screen this season). I've mostly been watching reviews from ASOIAF channels, however: I need to check out more of the "mainstream" reviews from YouTube channels actively DEDICATED to negative reviews....I strongly suspect that many of the inaccurate talking points we see on social media and comments sections ("the travel times make no sense!"....not really) may have originated as their clickbait talking points them spread like memes....

How long did it take him to write the Red Wedding chapter, which he saved for last because he knew it was difficult? I will show you terror in a handful of dust.

There's very little I myself watch coming in Winter season: it's all dominated by The White Lotus Season 3, Yellowjackets Season 3, and Squid Game 2. I never got into any of those. At least Invincible season 3 is coming February 4th - Creature Commandos is outstanding, that ends January 9th....just found out Harley Quinn Season 5 premieres the week after that. So I think the only stuff I'm watching between Xmas and March is Invincible and Harley Quinn. Thankfully some heavy hitters DO come back by Spring: Daredevil, Andor Season 2. Never got into Wheel of Time but seems nice, Season 3 is coming in March as well. (shrug) we got spoiled on a good run of content this Fall....YES things were slow in August after HotD ended that first week, but it was summer we could go to the beach. But after that we got Rings of Power Season 2 August 29 (drastically improved from Season 1) which ran to October 3....in the process, overlapping with Marvel's Agatha All Along and HBO's Penguin, and Penguin was followed immediately by Dune:Prophecy So yeah I think it's just coming down from a continuous stream of pretty good content that lasted FOUR MONTHS since August 29.

This is an INCREDIBLY good video that veteran ASOIAF analyst Meera Reads posted last week, on what many feel is the overreaction to House of the Dragon Season 2: While even I think the season had flaws....we've noticed that most of the ASOIAF themed YouTube channels didn't "hate" the season but were understanding about the strike. So where was all the heated rhetoric coming from? If you actually sit down and try to list off who is saying what, major TV critics also generally liked it. And the TV viewership numbers are stable. ....as she talks about in this, we're starting to coalesce around the theory that "the algorithms" are rewarding short, simplistic, negative content rather than long-form measured responses. Thus there's all this nonsense spreading like memes on Reddit, Tiktok, Twitter, from....random people. But there aren't major channels actually championing things like "surely Sara Hess must be the boogeyman who ruined this with her wokeness!" I don't know if you guys are familiar with this, but accusations spread like memes which were...objectively wrong. Such as "Miguel Sapochnik was the last link to Game of Thrones! Season 2 was bad because he left!" (are you blind or a fool that you didn't know Alan Taylor, director of Rook's Rest, was a GoT veteran since SEASON ONE?!)...another one that Meera herself talks about is the meme many in comments sections were hurling around that "the travel time makes no sense! People teleport between King's Landing and Dragonstone!"....when....that wasn't really a major problem we cited (time passes off-screen). Basically they're pizza-gating the show: they don't like the direction they went with Alicent, for example (which is well and good).....therefore, the writers must literally be cannibals, or be making mistakes about travel time (because that's something Game of Thrones got wrong, regardless of the fact this wasn't really a problem on HotD). Just...psychological "Projection" of what they perceive as "bad qualities" even though they didn't HAPPEN, instead of sticking to the ACTUAL criticisms (some of the secondary characters didn't get enough screentime, the pacing was a bit off due to lack of rewrites). Social media allows false memes to spread which we can CONFIRM didn't happen, it's bizarre. Everyone just wants their black and white easy shot at season two. I'm in no way trying to dismiss measured criticisms of the season, let me be clear. Generally I've seen grounded criticism here on the forums. From longtime readers etc. No what we're talking about is the "bandwagon effect" that went around the past year....you might not be familiar with it if you've been avoiding X/Twitter and Reddit. Basically Meera's deep-dive on this is on how he's easy to make a quick confrontational "opinion" as a meme, but it's harder to produce an "informed opinion".

I think this was all blown out of proportion. The simplest answer being the most probable: Martin has stated he's "three quarters" done, which means there's some twenty (20) odd chapters or so left, and he probably knows who the POV of each is along with some general story beats in each chapter (subject to change). HOWEVER, the big thing I keep coming back to is how he said he left writing the Red Wedding chapter from ASOS for LAST and it was the most difficult to write. Martin's not just chugging along with "a chapter" as a standardized unit. I think it's probable we're getting some major character deaths or key moments on that scale in some chapters, and he's agonizing over refining them. The worst case yet entirely possible scenario is that Martin finishes all but two or three chapters but they're Red Wedding scale chapters...which on their own take a full year to write, even under ideal conditions! You can't just measure this by manuscript count. The MOST I'd ever ask Martin is "are you facing another massive writer's block on the scale of the infamous Meereenese Knot?" (I don't think he is) So...Shawn may well have been telling the truth: with three quarters of chapters done it's possible that months ago Martin asked for a guess-timate on how many chapters / manuscript pages they can produce at maximum without the book falling apart. He has OUTLINES for these chapters. BUT they don't need to be finished, he just has a rough idea how long they'll be. Which is to say...this isn't really news.