GRRM confirms: TWOW not done yet

[Ran]

Werthead,

Note how Hibberd opens the quote. "Seven sounds okay to HBO, as well. Or perhaps eight." And see how Lombardo casually brings up eight: "I hate to sound greedy, but our longest shows have gone 7 or 8 seasons..."

What is he being greedy about? Well, clearly, he means -- and Hibberd took it to mean -- that in context, mentioning eight seasons is not "This is just factual information", but, "You know, this show too could go to 8... not that we're being greedy, mind you. seven sounds good too of course..."

Like I said, I think the fact that the Vanity Fair piece again starts mentioning 8 seasons makes it feel like maybe the execs at HBO, seeing the interest they're getting and revenue they're making, have told D&D that they're not utterly opposed to an eighth season and aren't closing the door on it. But I think it will all depend on contract renegotiations.

[Andrés Garcia]

In 10 years nobody will care about the show. TV shows are creatures of the moment. When's the last time you heard anybody talk about The Sopranos? Or Mad Men? People talk about them when they're on the air (if then) and then they're enjoyed once, like candy, and forgotten. Same with movies in many cases. Nobody thinks about the LOTR movies anymore - they're already a cultural artifact. The books however are as current now as they were then. Books are timeless.

Sarcasm and satire don't do well in discussion posts. I assume you're not being serious?

[Lady of Dragonstone]

This is inaccurate. It was the first Arya chapter that was supposed to take place after the five-year time skip. Multiple chapters even in AFFC were also supposed to take place after the time-skip (including, apparently, Cersei's arrest by the Faith, possibly the ending to Brienne's search and some of the Dorne/Iron Islands material), along with most of Dany's story in ADWD and it appears a large chunk of Tyrion's and Jon's. Dany's first post-five-year gap chapter was the chaining of the dragons, whilst Tyrion's was arriving in Volantis. Both storylines progressed reasonably far after that in ADWD-as-published (if not as far as wished).

Thank you for this Werthead, I did not realize this and it is important to put it in perspective.

I had hoped for a 2014 release but we're getting more side material this year with the WOIAF and the new Targaryen story. We'll have plenty to discuss until TWOW is out. Like others said, I'm a bit sad that it was probably the last sample chapter but I'm taking it as good news as well. It's GRRM's series, and I just hope he writes the best he can -- a rushed product wouldn't be nearly as good. As a past Harry Potter fan back in the day, when that series ended I felt a hopeless kind of lost... and I am NOT eager to feel like that again, so in a way I sorta dread the end of ASOIAF! The wait, the discussion, and the excitement are seriously half the fun.

Edited for spelling.

[Carey Snow]

Is this a joke?

I do think classic books out live TV shows. Especially if they become taught in school or college.

[Mark Antony]

I do think classic books out live TV shows. Especially if they become taught in school or college.

Books just don't "out live" other art forms cause they're books.

You realize Movies and TV can be taught in school and college as well right?

[mushroomshirt]

If we all praise GRRM and ASOIAF for it's unpredictability, it's ability to kill major charaters, for it's plot-changes, the grey characters where it is unknown who will die and who will 'win', then much is lost if you know the ending while traveling the journey. You do not have to fear for Tyrion b/c you know he will live, you will not be puzzled anymore about who will win the iron trone, because you already know it. You will get detached from certain characters b/c you know they'll die soon anyway.

As if the red wedding chapter would have had the same impact reading it for the first time if you already would have known what would happen.

I get the idea that the urge to 'defend' GRRM for some people have pulled a little bit of 'reality' out of them.

GRRM doesn't need to be defended, first of all not b/c almost everybody thinks he's great, is doing a great job, and is among the best writers dead and alive.

And GRRM doesn't need to be defended b/c he's a grown up strong man with a lot of capabilities, influence, famous friends, and most of all, he's a very very intelligent man.

Speaking for myself only, and as I mentioned up thread, I don't care about spoilers. This isn't because I'm trying to defend GRRM. (why would I? to suck up? He doesn't read these boards)

My main point is that I'm willing to bet that most people here have read the currently published books multiple times. Every time after the first the books have been spoiled for us. Why would we re-read if spoilers were really that important? Sure the first unspoiled time was a little more enjoyable than the re-reads. But if this were really that important, no one would re-read them.

Everyone knows how Romeo and Juliet ends, or Hamlet but people still watch the plays and read the books. Not that I'm directly comparing GRRM to Shakespeare but everyone knows what happens at the end of those plays. I remember as a kid getting spoiled for Empire Strikes Back (Darth is Luke's father, he gets his hand chopped off) I still went to see the movie and loved it and probably seen it 20 more times since then. So I really don't understand the doom and gloom about spoilers from the TV show ruining the books.

[Lord Varys]

I was not trying to imply that all the characters are still behind the point where their stories were supposed to begin with after the five-year-gap. But the gap would have enabled GRRM to not depict a lot of stuff he actually showed, and I'm pretty sure that a ADwD set after the gap would have extended farther into TWoW territory than AFfC, ADwD, and TWoW now could/can. The very fact alone that this way of telling the story would most likely not have caused GRRM to add this many new POV characters, as well as the fact that a lot of the events of the various travels (Tyrion, Brienne, Arya, Samwell etc.) would have addressed in a much different (i.e. most likely in short flashbacks/discussions of previous events, rather than in depicting all of that.

Events occurring during the gap would have mentioned as well, of course. But for all the characters would have begun new stories, since they would have been exactly at the spots GRRM needed them to be to kick of the next phase of the story. The difficulty that came with the cancellation of the gap was to get everyone where he needed to be in time for the new story to unfold, and it's pretty obvious that this was the most difficult challenge for the whole series up to this point because GRRM had originally envisioned skipping the details of all that.

[King of the Road]

They can always have a 20 episode Season 7 and split it like Breaking Bad did with their last season, Season 5.

So we could have Season "7A" and Season "7B" :cool4:

Regardless of what others think I reckon you're right with this one. Most producers and actors think that every TV show will begin doing this before long, note Mad Men Season 7 is being split over two years. With something as marketable as Game of Thrones HBO can afford to spin out the last season for as long as they can, which, for GRRM, is all to the good.

[Carey Snow]

Books just don't "out live" other art forms cause they're books.

You realize Movies and TV can be taught in school and college as well right?

Well, in this case we are discussing movies or TV shows that are adapted from works of literature. For the most part (and I can think think of a couple exceptions and I do not think Game of Thrones will be one of them) the original art work will far outlast its cinema/TV adaption. In 100 years will people be enthralled and taught Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings? Will they research and analyze Shakespeare's Hamlet or Mel Gibson's Hamlet? Collin's Hunger Games or Jennifer Lawrence's Hunger Games, Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade or Errol Flynn's adaption, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland or Disney's?

The two movies adapted from literature that will out last their book counterparts are probably The Wizard of OZ and A Clockwork Orange (off the top of my head). The reason being that they really changed movie making where as the books were not that revolutionary as far as literature is concerned.

So I guess what I am saying, is that I expect Martin's books to far outlast Dave and Dan's adaption for future generations. Of course, I could be wrong.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Last night I dreamt I had the book...

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

There were rumours that a release date was imminent? :lol:

[Rishav Banka]

Last night I dreamt I had the book...

And as everyone in Westeros knows, dreams are prophetic...

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

I ruddy hope so... I was trying to sit down to read it but couldn't find a chair and then when I opened the book I woke up!

[The Holy Goat]

I ruddy hope so... I was trying to sit down to read it but couldn't find a chair and then when I opened the book I woke up!

Sounds like a bloody nightmare to me.

[Mel_Rose]

They can always have a 20 episode Season 7 and split it like Breaking Bad did with their last season, Season 5.

So we could have Season "7A" and Season "7B" :cool4:

Very possible. It could work with contract negotiations too (i think?). It might be 16 episodes, not necessarily 20 but still it'd be better.

[Mel_Rose]

I generally agree with what you said about books vs films, but then:

The two movies adapted from literature that will out last their book counterparts are probably The Wizard of OZ and A Clockwork Orange (off the top of my head). The reason being that they really changed movie making where as the books were not that revolutionary as far as literature is concerned.

ehm what?

[Rockroi]

There were rumours that a release date was imminent? :lol:

Pretty much my sentiments exactly.

There was a story released a few month ago that basically said "Don't be surprised if the book is not released until 2017" and, frankly, nothing I have read in this thread or in other stories makes me think otherwise. The fact that Martin has not admitted to a "Mearanese Knot" reprisal is not news.

Unless or until I see the word "Done" on Martin's web page, its all just pointless conjecture about the release date of the books. And boarders here have been absolutely terrible at that kind of speculation since 2000.

I know the knee-jerk reaction is to take any news as "good news" and a sign of "progress." But experience on this topic has me thinking otherwise; we forget all the prior statements made by Martin or his publishers or Paris or everyone and anyone else even tangentially related to the books, take a statement they made and suddenly attach meaning to it. The most obvious example was the "Meanwhile Back at the Wall" "chapter" in Feast for Crows when Martin said Dance with Dragons would be released within one year. How'd that work out for us?

MY point is not to drag Martin's name through the mud, but to remind people of this: If you cannot believe the printed word of the author, what can you believe? Its all speculation, none of it promising.

[Carey Snow]

I generally agree with what you said about books vs films, but then:

ehm what?

Lol... I was trying to throw the film/TV lovers a bone. I do think that The Wizard of OZ movie will be around for forever. A Clockwork Orange is debatable. But you are probably right, the books were revolutionary as well.

[mister_white_walker]

Almost every single mention of turtles in ADWD takes place on the same, one page. One page out of a thousand. It it is a really useless argument to say, "ADWD is bad because of turtles, somehow" when it takes up such a miniscule part of the book.

On the other hand, Tyrion forming a vital political alliance with Magister Illyrio and the Golden Company, thus spurring the Golden Company to invade Westeros; helping save Aegon on the deck of the river boat; and forming another vital alliance with the Second Sons and starting to convince them to swap sides again to support Dany are all rather larger and more vitally important plot points for both ADWD and the over-arcing storyline of the series. Funny how those things are never mentioned, because it's funnier to say that all Tyrion achieved was looking at turtles.

This. So much this.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't view the book as garbage. Trust me even GRRM at his weakest is still better than 90% of the other authors I've read. A Dance with Dragons had some moments I loved, but every novel in a series should in an of itself have some sense of concision to it. Ironically enough Quentyn Martell was the only character who got a complete story by the end of the book. Dragons set up stuff on just about every front, but delivered on none of it. This was also a book I waited nearly 6 years for, which is why I was so disappointed by it. Tyrion my favorite character of the series started to bore me once he left Griff's group, which is never a good thing, IMO. Dany and Jon spent the entire book preparing for a threat that never came. Theon's chapters were awesome and so were Arya's. Asha's were pretty good, along with Jamie's one chapter. It's been a while since I read the book, but I remember enjoying the supporting POV's more than the main characters in that book, which is not what I would call a step in the right direction, IMO.

Yeah I guess I figured that you didn't DESPISE the book, seeing as you clearly visit this site regularly and if you had really hated it that much you may have just given up on the books (although many would argue that the first books were so good that it'd be worth reading a whole book devoted to describing Hodor's naked body just to get through to some resolution). I just feel overly protective over the last two books when they get so much heat from readers. I do get what you're saying about how the minor characters had more interesting arcs than the main ones in book 5. I think it's mostly because he had to constantly move around Jon/Tyrion/Dany's stories and break his own back to get them where he wanted them to be, where as for some of the minor characters (minor meaning not that trio, basically) he knew exactly where they were going and what would be happening to them all the way through the time gap and didn't really want to put them too far ahead of Jon/Tyrion/Dany. Anyway it seems like he's got things closer to where he wants them now; I guess we'll see when we read the next book.

[Mel_Rose]

Lol... I was trying to throw the film/TV lovers a bone. I do think that The Wizard of OZ movie will be around for forever. A Clockwork Orange is debatable. But you are probably right, the books were revolutionary as well.

:)