What do you think caused Martin to loose his grip on the material?

[Angel Eyes]

20 minutes ago, Ser Wun Wun said:

George confirmed it was official a couple years ago (with the caveat that it could change):  Link

That would be the US/UK cover though.  This cover artist does the Spanish cover, which is usually different than the US/UK one.  For Dance, he drew Dany riding Drogon in the dragonpit. for instance.  He likes to draw an actual scene from the book for his cover, even if it's a spoiler.  

And he hinted in a twitter reply that the cover he just did for George is "spoilerly",  Plus he retweeted someone who replied to him that they had a weird dream about Winds.  The publishing house he works for in Spain doesn't do Wild Cards books, so that's probably not it either.  

All in all, I am leaning about 80% towards him teasing a Winds cover.  But there is also a chance he did a new cover from some anniversary issue of one of the first 3 books I suppose....although I don't know why he would say this new cover is "spoilery" in that case, since it would be for a 20  or so year old book.  You'd have to be one hell of a prick troll to do that.  I don't know this guy well enough to rule that out though.

Even if it is a Winds cover, it doesn't necessarily mean the book is going to be finished soon.  The Spanish publisher could have ordered it without even asking George, or George could only think he close to done, like in 2015, and we all know how that turned out.

So he’s lied the entire time when he said he was going to finish it.

[M.Alhazred]

He'll finish it,it'll be a in history book of Robert's Rebellion but we'll at least know how it ends.

[Kyll.Ing.]

19 hours ago, M.Alhazred said:

He'll finish it,it'll be a in history book of Robert's Rebellion but we'll at least know how it ends.

That would be an interesting way to write a whole series, actually. Starting at the end and then going backwards. Maybe a little hard to pull off, though. I've seen a game do it with great success (Return of the Obra Dinn - check it out!), which is a slightly different medium, but I suppose it could be done in a book series too. Instead of fans asking "and then what happens?", they would be asking "What led up to this moment?".

Probably not a very good way to write a series that's halfway through already, though, with millions of fans well into the "and then what happens?" stage. It needs a narrative end point to start backwards from.

[M.Alhazred]

3 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

That would be an interesting way to write a whole series, actually. Starting at the end and then going backwards. Maybe a little hard to pull off, though. I've seen a game do it with great success (Return of the Obra Dinn - check it out!), which is a slightly different medium, but I suppose it could be done in a book series too. Instead of fans asking "and then what happens?", they would be asking "What led up to this moment?".

Probably not a very good way to write a series that's halfway through already, though, with millions of fans well into the "and then what happens?" stage. It needs a narrative end point to start backwards from.

It's really the most realistic way I see any of us finding out what happens in the end,to me anyways.Just a chapter that quickly recounts WO5K and The Targ Restoration.I've long since accepted we won't be getting those last books because to be brutally honest he lost interest years ago.

[Cas Stark]

On 10/24/2018 at 8:01 PM, Angel Eyes said:

So he’s lied the entire time when he said he was going to finish it.

Not so much 'lie' as fool himself which results in him fooling his audience.  I'm sure he fully intended to finish the series before the show wrapped, but he is not very good at taking the actions needed to get the desired result.  Just as now he fully intends to still finish the series even though it's abundantly clear this is not very likely to happen.

[T and A]

22 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Not so much 'lie' as fool himself which results in him fooling his audience.  I'm sure he fully intended to finish the series before the show wrapped, but he is not very good at taking the actions needed to get the desired result.  Just as now he fully intends to still finish the series even though it's abundantly clear this is not very likely to happen.

The question tho, is when does fooling ends and lying beginns. If I do a statement that I know it seems redicoulous, am I not lying? I am sure GRRM knows right now, that he will under considering all sircumstances not finish the series. If I still have little hope, I should still say that it is still pretty much not very likely for that scenario to happen. Yet it is not completely sure. But you have to compare the probabilities. If one scenario is much more likely to happen, then the other, you should concider that scenario as the more realistic one, even GRRM. I for example played Lotto last week. Of course there is also the probability that I could have won. But I would not say to other people, that my plan is to win. That is redicoulous.

[Cas Stark]

3 hours ago, T and A said:

The question tho, is when does fooling ends and lying beginns. If I do a statement that I know it seems redicoulous, am I not lying? I am sure GRRM knows right now, that he will under considering all sircumstances not finish the series. If I still have little hope, I should still say that it is still pretty much not very likely for that scenario to happen. Yet it is not completely sure. But you have to compare the probabilities. If one scenario is much more likely to happen, then the other, you should concider that scenario as the more realistic one, even GRRM. I for example played Lotto last week. Of course there is also the probability that I could have won. But I would not say to other people, that my plan is to win. That is redicoulous.

Self-delusion is pretty powerful, especially if one is also surrounded by enablers who keep feeding your delusions instead of helping you overcome whatever issues have caused you to lose your grip on the material. Once he started making statements that many other famous authors died with various worked unfinished which were still read, that was kind of the last nail in the coffin for me, it sounds like he has already made some level of peace with the fact that he is not able to finish the series.  He knows, but still can't consciously admit it.

Certainly, when and if Winds comes out in a couple more years, it will become more clear how far his grip has been lost or recovered in terms of the narrative, pacing, story, etc. but even if Winds is a masterpiece, which I think is very, very unlikely, it seems long odds he will finish the series.

[A wilding]

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Self-delusion is pretty powerful, especially if one is also surrounded by enablers who keep feeding your delusions instead of helping you overcome whatever issues have caused you to lose your grip on the material. Once he started making statements that many other famous authors died with various worked unfinished which were still read, that was kind of the last nail in the coffin for me, it sounds like he has already made some level of peace with the fact that he is not able to finish the series.  He knows, but still can't consciously admit it.

My guess is that the tipping point was when he finally had to admit publicly, and I think at the same time also to himself, that the show was going to overtake the books. It felt that there was a real change of tone about then.

 

[Hello World]

On 7/17/2018 at 7:51 PM, The hairy bear said:

This is absurd. Why on the seven hells would Martin leave the saga unfinished willingly?

I've only read up to page 4 of this thread but here is my two cents. GRRM is an old man and I'm guessing he's very rich at this point. If I were in his position I would focus on living as stress free a life as possible and doing the things that I enjoy doing the most, working on projects that I want to work on now and not a story I wanted to write 20/30 years ago just because I have to finish what I started. If trying to get those last 2 (or however many books are needed) out is causing him more headaches than he can deal with and he's sick of the whole thing I would not blame him one bit if he drops the series and is content with the show finishing the story for readers.

This may even be a break that he needs. Who knows if years later he gets the inspiration and motivation to get back to those two books.

I don't think that this is where he's at right now but I think this is the right thing for him to do. So if there is any answer to your question it's probably something like that.

[Wagshell]

I posted about a year or more ago, to a lot of derision, that it's pretty clear that George RR Martin will not finish another ASOIAF book in his lifetime and I still stand by that. The final books will be released after his death and completed by another writer using his unfinished work. To be honest he should have brought in another writer to help him ages ago as it's clearly what he needs.

[T and A]

12 hours ago, Hello World said:

I've only read up to page 4 of this thread but here is my two cents. GRRM is an old man and I'm guessing he's very rich at this point. If I were in his position I would focus on living as stress free a life as possible and doing the things that I enjoy doing the most, working on projects that I want to work on now and not a story I wanted to write 20/30 years ago just because I have to finish what I started. If trying to get those last 2 (or however many books are needed) out is causing him more headaches than he can deal with and he's sick of the whole thing I would not blame him one bit if he drops the series and is content with the show finishing the story for readers.

This may even be a break that he needs. Who knows if years later he gets the inspiration and motivation to get back to those two books.

I don't think that this is where he's at right now but I think this is the right thing for him to do. So if there is any answer to your question it's probably something like that.

That is basically what everyone, who uses his brain and analyse the situation rationally, will say. But there are of course people here (and only here and nowhere else), that would disagree with you completely. They won't have any sane arguements, except emotional arguements, but nevertheless they will bully you here for your reasonable arguement. Some of the "OG's" here will also try to change the direction of the discussion by adding the show to the discussion and how bad it is. The reason is that they just don't want to hear reason. It is of course understandable, since deny is a very common reaction when it comes to accept the unacceptable. So this leads to 20 Pages of discussion. To make it short: most of us are aware that he won't finish the series for the reasons many times were mentioned: Money and age.

[Cas Stark]

5 hours ago, Wagshell said:

I posted about a year or more ago, to a lot of derision, that it's pretty clear that George RR Martin will not finish another ASOIAF book in his lifetime and I still stand by that. The final books will be released after his death and completed by another writer using his unfinished work. To be honest he should have brought in another writer to help him ages ago as it's clearly what he needs.

I still have hope that something called Winds of Winter will come out sometime around 2020-2022, I expect it will be something cobbled together from existing material and may lack more cohesion than the dance of the feasting dragon crows...but since at one point he believed he could finish it, it seems more probable than not that his publishers can put something together.  Although I once was completely certain Wind would come out and now give it about a 60% chance, since as other have said, not only has GRRM lost control of his material he has, to all appearances, lost the interest in regaining any control, and simply does other stuff while waiting for his muse to strike again. 

[Ser Gareth]

On ‎10‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 1:01 AM, Angel Eyes said:

So he’s lied the entire time when he said he was going to finish it.

I personally have doubts he has been working on it the last few years.  I've believed for sometime that he is waiting for the show to end to either

a) beginning writing on the series again, so that he can ensure his books are completely different from the show.  And yes, I do believe that he'll work on a completely different ending.

b) So he can announce the show has finished the story the way he intended it and that as a result he is ceasing to work on ASIOAF.

[M.Alhazred]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:54 AM, Cas Stark said:

I still have hope that something called Winds of Winter will come out sometime around 2020-2022, I expect it will be something cobbled together from existing material and may lack more cohesion than the dance of the feasting dragon crows...but since at one point he believed he could finish it, it seems more probable than not that his publishers can put something together.  Although I once was completely certain Wind would come out and now give it about a 60% chance, since as other have said, not only has GRRM lost control of his material he has, to all appearances, lost the interest in regaining any control, and simply does other stuff while waiting for his muse to strike again. 

I'm convinced we'll get the ending in a history of Robert's Rebellion and that's it.No Winds,no Dream.

[divica]

In regards to winds.

Is it only my impression or after he missed his 2015 deadline the book became a taboo in his interviews and he stoped talking about it while in the last year he has mentioned the book several times?

[AlienCarnivore]

6 hours ago, Ser Gareth said:

I personally have doubts he has been working on it the last few years.  I've believed for sometime that he is waiting for the show to end to either

a) beginning writing on the series again, so that he can ensure his books are completely different from the show.  And yes, I do believe that he'll work on a completely different ending.

b) So he can announce the show has finished the story the way he intended it and that as a result he is ceasing to work on ASIOAF.

No...just no. People like you are basically calling GRRM a liar when he's said continuously over the years that he's been working on it, but that progress is slower than he would've liked. It's pretty obvious that George wants to complete the series himself if you bother to read his blog posts and comments. 

[T and A]

11 hours ago, AlienCarnivore said:

No...just no. People like you are basically calling GRRM a liar when he's said continuously over the years that he's been working on it, but that progress is slower than he would've liked. It's pretty obvious that George wants to complete the series himself if you bother to read his blog posts and comments. 

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, you call it a duck. We can not possibly know what GRRM really thinks. We just can analyse his work published. And all of us here read his blog, so don't make the mistake thinking that others are not aware what he is writing. That being said, he has said so many things, that at some point some just don't believe it. And if you read all the accusations that are made here, you will clearly find out that no one believes he is lying on purpose. He is rather lying to himself. Could we be wrong? Sure. Is that very likely? Doubt it. 

[Cas Stark]

18 hours ago, Ser Gareth said:

I personally have doubts he has been working on it the last few years.  I've believed for sometime that he is waiting for the show to end to either

a) beginning writing on the series again, so that he can ensure his books are completely different from the show.  And yes, I do believe that he'll work on a completely different ending.

b) So he can announce the show has finished the story the way he intended it and that as a result he is ceasing to work on ASIOAF.

 

a) this is possible, but it would be a betrayal not only of his deal with HBO but of himself, having said again and again that he has always known the end for the main characters, that said, I believe he is fully capable of doing something so nuts, but I doubt he will, simply because I can't see him ever regaining enough control to finish the series in 2 more books, and that is taking the super optimistic view that Winds will wrap up enough plot to allow for the series to end in a 7th book.

b) i don't think he will ever admit he can't finish in any definitive way, maybe if he hits the 20 year mark without the next book, he would do this, but not for many years of further delusions.

 

[Ser Gareth]

13 hours ago, AlienCarnivore said:

No...just no. People like you are basically calling GRRM a liar when he's said continuously over the years that he's been working on it, but that progress is slower than he would've liked. It's pretty obvious that George wants to complete the series himself if you bother to read his blog posts and comments. 

I've been an avid reader of the series since 1998.  I was one of those waiting patiently for a AFFC.  I've read a lot of things GRRM has said.  Like the time he said that TWOW was his only focus and he had ceased work on everything else.  Then a couple of years down the line it turns out he edited a Wildcards book (which he has freely admitted takes a lot of time and focus) and now we have another book coming out before TWOW.  Speaking of TWOW, he was months away from finishing it years ago.  Make of that what you will.....

[Ser Gareth]

On ‎11‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 5:54 PM, Cas Stark said:

 

a) this is possible, but it would be a betrayal not only of his deal with HBO but of himself, having said again and again that he has always known the end for the main characters, that said, I believe he is fully capable of doing something so nuts, but I doubt he will, simply because I can't see him ever regaining enough control to finish the series in 2 more books, and that is taking the super optimistic view that Winds will wrap up enough plot to allow for the series to end in a 7th book.

b) i don't think he will ever admit he can't finish in any definitive way, maybe if he hits the 20 year mark without the next book, he would do this, but not for many years of further delusions.

 

Not if he has already agreed it with them.  D&D's language about spoilers certainly changed after GRRM's obviously less than impressed reaction to their Shireen reveal.

I agree with everything else you have wrote.  The book series is over in my opinion.