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

[The Coconut God]

2 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

It's 2 books, they are long enough for me to judge them on their own.  I didn't need to watch Revenge of the Sith to know that Phantom Menace and AOTC were awful. I did give Lucas the benefit of the doubt after Phantom.  But after 2 movies, I stopped.  

You are free to stop. Other people will check out if Winds is good and you'll find out eventually.

[Cas Stark]

8 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

I did not say I can't imagine him failing, of course he might, and if he does we'll see it when TWoW comes out. What I said was that this can't be our default stance when it comes to Feast and Dance, them being the set-up part of the post-Wot5K major ac. The pay-off for them is not in yet, you can't judge them based on what you were expecting from the previous three books; if we're going there, people were expecting a Robb + Dany marriage prior to ASoS.

As for what the show can tell us, butterfly wings and hurricanes and all that. They were probably waiting for Winds to come of before season 5 or season 6 at the latest so they could gauge the fan reaction to the big twist before committing to it. It didn't come out, so they cut all the risky Essos stuff and defaulted to the outline ending.

I suspect that the hard core fans will still say we need to wait until Dream of Spring to evaluate whether the filler is filler.  We can agree to disagree.  The same way they will say that the show ending isn't the ending that George gave them, but they changed it.  I guess that is part of the beauty of procrastination, that you can never be called on your mistakes as long as you keep putting off the finish.

And back to the topic, I do believe that the author has developed, even according to his own statements, huge anxiety issues around Winds that didn't exist before, so that compounded with the narrative mess that has been created in the last two books,  it is easy to see why he isn't finished and chooses now, in my opinion, to give his time to other activities that are more rewarding and less stressful.

 

[The Coconut God]

6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I suspect that the hard core fans will still say we need to wait until Dream of Spring to evaluate whether the filler is filler.

I'm pretty sure that if we don't find which way Dany is going and what the Others are up to in there, most people will call Winds itself filler.

[Nevets]

51 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

I am creating a possible scenario starting from the premise that these plot lines are NOT filler. Why? Because if it turns out that they are, the quality of the series as a whole will drop regardless of how well they are written or how quickly George disentangles his characters from them in TWoW.

This series is as popular as it is because of its enormous re-read value. Its clever twists are almost impossible to see the first time around, but on a second or third read you realize that they had a ton of set-up and foreshadowing going back an insane amount of chapters. There are little things you don't even notice without reading observations from the fandom. Leaving behind dozens of useless, bloated plot lines that don't lead anywhere is anathema to this kind of storytelling. Feel free to criticize the author if something truly turns out to be filler, but as long as you don't know for sure why it's there, "filler" should never be your go-to answer.

 

34 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

So your argument is "I can't imagine a good writer like GRRM writing filler so I have to operate on faith that all these things which walks like filler and talks like filler are, in fact, not filler."

I'm sorry, I'm just not willing to go there. GRRM is a good writer, but good writers screw up all the time, especially when they go big time and start ignoring other peoples' editorial input.  

I don't believe that Meereen is filler, at least in the sense that much of AFFC, for example is filler, or at least bloat.  But K also don't think it is important in its own right either.  It is important because of its effect on Daenerys.  It is her first real test, and she is having a rough time of it.  Ruling a hostile population is never easy, and it shows.    The events in Meereen are a window into Daenerys's thought processes and will likely shape how she approaches ruling in Westeros.   And once she leaves Meereen, it will seek to have any importance at all for the story.   Its importance is the fact that a central character is there and its effect on her.

Westeros is where the action is, and where the action will continue to be.  While I am not entirely averse to the idea of an exodus of some sort, I expect it to be at the end, and consist of either wildlings or other Northerners, if it occurs at all.  Due to some of the prophetic scenes in earlier books as well as some other factors, I expect that the Others will not get past the North.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

4 minutes ago, Nevets said:

 

I don't believe that Meereen is filler, at least in the sense that much of AFFC, for example is filler, or at least bloat.  But K also don't think it is important in its own right either.  It is important because of its effect on Daenerys.  It is her first real test, and she is having a rough time of it.  Ruling a hostile population is never easy, and it shows.    The events in Meereen are a window into Daenerys's thought processes and will likely shape how she approaches ruling in Westeros.   And once she leaves Meereen, it will seek to have any importance at all for the story.   Its importance is the fact that a central character is there and its effect on her.

Westeros is where the action is, and where the action will continue to be.  While I am not entirely averse to the idea of an exodus of some sort, I expect it to be at the end, and consist of either wildlings or other Northerners, if it occurs at all.  Due to some of the prophetic scenes in earlier books as well as some other factors, I expect that the Others will not get past the North.

But that's exactly the problem, he spent half the book there and we have yet to see much on how it shapes her at all.  Furthermore, we don't need to see all of it in exquisite detail to see how it shapes her.  We got 2 paragraphs about Viserys and how a life on the run has shaped him in AGOT, and we can fill in the blanks  and understand his development as a character.  We got one page from Samwell describing his life at Hornhill, and we understand how he came to be the person he is.   

[Nevets]

Just now, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

But that's exactly the problem, he spent half the book there and we have yet to see much on how it shapes her at all.  Furthermore, we don't need to see all of it in exquisite detail to see how it shapes her.  We got 2 paragraphs about Viserys and how a life on the run has shaped him in AGOT, and we can fill in the blanks  and understand his development as a character.  We got one page from Samwell describing his life at Hornhill, and we understand how he came to be the person he is.   

Actually it was 10 chapters out of 73 in ADWD.  I will admit that we didn't need 10 chapters on it, though.  It got tedious and repetitive.  I was merely pointing out that Meereen has some purpose, although not to the extent that Coconut God thinks it does.  Daenerys is a very central character so is going to need a lot more fleshing out.  At least I hope she is important.  I am getting impatient for her to actually have some impact on the overall story.

I am somewhat reminded of Arya's story in ACOK and ASOS.  They are frequently criticized as being travelogues, the therefore unimportant. However, Arya is one of the people the story is about, so their importance is that it is her experiences.  Same with Daenerys.  Although I am getting impatient.

By the way, ADWD is my second least favorite,, after AFFC, and I am not at all a fan of Daenerys, largely because her story seems so disconnected from the rest.  Hopefully, she makes it to Westeros soon.

[The Coconut God]

6 minutes ago, Nevets said:

Actually it was 10 chapters out of 73 in ADWD.  I will admit that we didn't need 10 chapters on it, though.  It got tedious and repetitive.  I was merely pointing out that Meereen has some purpose, although not to the extent that Coconut God thinks it does.  Daenerys is a very central character so is going to need a lot more fleshing out.  At least I hope she is important.  I am getting impatient for her to actually have some impact on the overall story.

I was discussing this in a different thread earlier today, and there are 33 chapters connected to the anti-slavery conflict in Slaver's Bay, with at least 6 more that we know of in Winds, which is less than what will take to complete the Battle of Fire. 6 of those 33 are from ASoS, but that still leaves 27 chapters, 10 of which are Dany's. Yes, some of them are in Volantis, not Meereen, but Volantis is embroiled in the same conflict and part of those chapters are setting up the Volantene armies heading to Slaver's Bay and potential allies for Dany, not to mention PoVs who are seeking her, so they most certainly count.

I don't think that Dany learning to rule or her switching to fire and blood mode warrant such a deep story line on their own. Given how deeply invested she has been in fighting slavery, if she leaves on a whim that will influence how we, the readers, view her. She wouldn't be an assertive, wise ruler, but a fickle girl who changes priorities on a whim and is cruel enough not to care about the woe she leaves behind. Granted, that may be the desired effect, but it's very different than "she's ready for Westeros now".

And no, I don't think her reaching Westeros is mandatory. She has no "hook" there, no plot line waiting for her. She wouldn't be fighting the people responsible for taking her father's throne, not truly. Any conflict she might encounter on Westeros would have to be set up when she arrives. In spite of what you may think, the impetus to get her there mostly comes from fan theories and expectations.

[sifth]

10 minutes ago, Nevets said:

Actually it was 10 chapters out of 73 in ADWD.  I will admit that we didn't need 10 chapters on it, though.  It got tedious and repetitive.  I was merely pointing out that Meereen has some purpose, although not to the extent that Coconut God thinks it does.  Daenerys is a very central character so is going to need a lot more fleshing out.  At least I hope she is important.  I am getting impatient for her to actually have some impact on the overall story.

I am somewhat reminded of Arya's story in ACOK and ASOS.  They are frequently criticized as being travelogues, the therefore unimportant. However, Arya is one of the people the story is about, so their importance is that it is her experiences.  Same with Daenerys.  Although I am getting impatient.

By the way, ADWD is my second least favorite,, after AFFC, and I am not at all a fan of Daenerys, largely because her story seems so disconnected from the rest.  Hopefully, she makes it to Westeros soon.

At least with Arya the people around her are interesting. We got to see Yoren, Jaqen, Beric, Thoros, Gendry, Hot Pie, The Hound and so on. We also got to see how things were like in Tywin's camp and how the war effected people from a civilians POV. I'd go so far as to say Arya's chapters were some of the best in those two books. I mean for crying out loud she was at the Red Wedding, I don't know how any yoyo can view that as filler.

 

Now compare that to Tyrion's chapters in ADWD, which are what a real travelogue looks like. They start out with a lot of potential, with him meeting Illroy and later on Jon Con, but once Jorah shows up, they turn into a boring mess. I mean at first I was insanely excited when Jorah return to the story, through Tyrion's POV..............but then nothing happened................then they picked up Penny, one of the worst characters in the series.....................then nothing continued to happen when they boarded that boring boat for two chapters........................then they're slaves, so we're treated to more filler on how much it sucks to be a slave, because this is something we needed to know, we really needed to know how miserable being turned into property was...................and then finally, in his very last chapter Tryion is Tyrion again, so we get some small light at the end of the turd that was the second half of Tyrion's ADWD chapters.

[Nevets]

7 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

I don't think that Dany learning to rule or her switching to fire and blood mode warrant such a deep story line on their own. Given how deeply invested she has been in fighting slavery, if she leaves on a whim that will influence how we, the readers, view her. She wouldn't be an assertive, wise ruler, but a fickle girl who changes priorities on a whim and is cruel enough not to care about the woe she leaves behind. Granted, that may be the desired effect, but it's very different than "she's ready for Westeros now".

And no, I don't think her reaching Westeros is mandatory. She has no "hook" there, no plot line waiting for her. She wouldn't be fighting the people responsible for taking her father's throne, not truly. Any conflict she might encounter on Westeros would have to be set up when she arrives. In spite of what you may think, the impetus to get her there mostly comes from fan theories and expectations.

Well,, I am on record as saying that there is way too much material on Essos in the first place.  The fact is, not everything in the books is going to have a maximal payoff.  I still think Meereen is mainly about giving us insight into her character, and possibly Tyrions abilities as well.  As for Westeros, she still considers herself to be its rightful ruler.  That can be, in itself, a powerful motivator.  Just ask Stannis.

8 minutes ago, sifth said:

At least with Arya the people around her are interesting. We got to see Yoren, Jaqen, Beric, Thoros, Gendry, Hot Pie, The Hound and so on. We also got to see how things were like in Tywin's camp and how the war effected people from a civilians POV. I'd go so far as to say Arya's chapters were some of the best in those two books. I mean for crying out loud she was at the Red Wedding, I don't know how any yoyo can view that as filler.

 

Now compare that to Tyrion's chapters in ADWD, which are what a real travelogue looks like. They start out with a lot of potential, with him meeting Illroy and later on Jon Con, but once Jorah shows up, they turn into a boring mess. I mean at first I was insanely excited when Jorah return to the story, through Tyrion's POV..............but then nothing happened................then they picked up Penny, one of the worst characters in the series.....................then nothing continued to happen when they boarded that boring boat for two chapters........................then they're slaves, so we're treated to more filler on how much it sucks to be a slave, because this is something we needed to know, we really needed to know how miserable being turned into property was...................and then finally, in his very last chapter Tryion is Tyrion again, so we get some small light at the end of the turd that was the second half of Tyrion's ADWD chapters.

I basically agree with you.  but I have seen them described as travelogue and filler.  Their importance is the fact that it is Arya's story.

As for Tyrion, I agree with you there.  The stuff with Illyrio and Griff is great,, but boy the rest is a rough slog.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

Actually it was 10 chapters out of 73 in ADWD.  I will admit that we didn't need 10 chapters on it, though.  It got tedious and repetitive.  I was merely pointing out that Meereen has some purpose, although not to the extent that Coconut God thinks it does.  Daenerys is a very central character so is going to need a lot more fleshing out.  At least I hope she is important.  I am getting impatient for her to actually have some impact on the overall story.

I am somewhat reminded of Arya's story in ACOK and ASOS.  They are frequently criticized as being travelogues, the therefore unimportant. However, Arya is one of the people the story is about, so their importance is that it is her experiences.  Same with Daenerys.  Although I am getting impatient.

By the way, ADWD is my second least favorite,, after AFFC, and I am not at all a fan of Daenerys, largely because her story seems so disconnected from the rest.  Hopefully, she makes it to Westeros soon.

Well as somebody else pointed out, it's a lot more than 10 chapters if you include all the other people either on their way there, or already there. Quentyn, Barristan, Tyrion, Victarion,etc. All of their purpose is to take place in the Meereen plot, which even by the end of the book, has not actually happened yet, all of it has been about waiting for the Meereenese plot to happen, but very little has happened.  Meereen is not in substantially a different position as it was when the book started. There is a conflict in the city with the former slavers and former masters and threatens to disstabilize Dany's regime. There is a hostile force in Slaver's Bay that wants to end Dany's regime.  That is true in the begining of ADWD and still true at the end of ADWD. 

 

[The Coconut God]

6 minutes ago, Nevets said:

Well,, I am on record as saying that there is way too much material on Essos in the first place.  The fact is, not everything in the books is going to have a maximal payoff.  I still think Meereen is mainly about giving us insight into her character, and possibly Tyrions abilities as well.  As for Westeros, she still considers herself to be its rightful ruler.  That can be, in itself, a powerful motivator.  Just ask Stannis.

Thing is, she already had that moment of temptation when Xaro offered her the ships. All her dreams of Westeros came flooding to her, and she chose to stay. That was an arc defining chapter, the Heroine growing into her own and choosing the need over the want. At a superficial level you can gloss over that (I did too on the first read), but it would actually be a jarring character development if she goes back on this. If she leaves, either the freedmen are safe and don't need her anymore, or it's meant to show her moral failure.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

13 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

Well as somebody else pointed out, it's a lot more than 10 chapters if you include all the other people either on their way there, or already there. Quentyn, Barristan, Tyrion, Victarion,etc. All of their purpose is to take place in the Meereen plot, which even by the end of the book, has actually happened yet, all of it has been about waiting for the Meereenese plot to happen, but very little has actually happened.  Meereen is not in substantially a different position as it was when the book started. There is a conflict in the city with the former slavers and former masters and threatens to disstabilize Dany's regime. There is a hostile force in Slaver's Bay that wants to end Dany's regime.  That is true in the begining of ADWD and still true at the end of ADWD. 

 

Yup. 959 pages of text and the most significant thing that happened in Meereen was that Strong Belwas got a tummy ache.

[Cas Stark]

The author is going to have a tough time getting Dany out of Meereen with a believable story on how she can leave and Meereen will succeed and not fall back into slavery....another reason why all the detail on Meereen was a mistake, he has made the situation so bad and hopeless that for her to now succeed in fixing it will be a huge unrealistic plot gift.  IMO

[Three-Fingered Pete]

12 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

The author is going to have a tough time getting Dany out of Meereen with a believable story on how she can leave and Meereen will succeed and not fall back into slavery....another reason why all the detail on Meereen was a mistake, he has made the situation so bad and hopeless that for her to now succeed in fixing it will be a huge unrealistic plot gift.  IMO

 

The only way out of that region while keeping Dany's anti-slavery platform intact is to somehow get the leaders of all the slave holding cities to come around to her way of thinking. The only quick way I can see of Dany doing that is to level a city to ruins. Possibly with some fundamental change in her perspective while with the Dothraki will Dany come to this conclusion, but I'm not sure GRRM wants her to go that low just to speed up the pacing.

[Big Daddy]

I think the only way to get out of the Meereen plot and not waste more chapters there than needed is to cut the Gordian knot. Have Dany take command of the Dothraki and mount Drogon to go back, only to find that everybody in the city died from the bloody flux or some other plague. Basically give nobody to protect there anymore so she is no longer honor bound to stay.

I might not even have her go back. Maybe have her surviving forces meet her and they continue west. Martin isn't big on having characters go back and forth in the series. Usually when someone leaves a locale, its a big deal and the story is taking them somewhere else for quite a while. Perhaps Martin doesn't intend for Dany to return to Meereen.

[Big Daddy]

Same thing with other characters. Move the plot forward by crwating circumstances that push them along. Sansa thinks their plans are one thing, but Shadrich the Mad Mouse is going to do something that screws up the plan completely.

Jaime and Brienne won't return to LS because some other event or people will intercept them and send them on another path. There are lots of ways to move the plot along without endless travelogues or chapters wallowing in the same location.

[Cas Stark]

59 minutes ago, Big Daddy said:

I think the only way to get out of the Meereen plot and not waste more chapters there than needed is to cut the Gordian knot. Have Dany take command of the Dothraki and mount Drogon to go back, only to find that everybody in the city died from the bloody flux or some other plague. Basically give nobody to protect there anymore so she is no longer honor bound to stay.

I might not even have her go back. Maybe have her surviving forces meet her and they continue west. Martin isn't big on having characters go back and forth in the series. Usually when someone leaves a locale, its a big deal and the story is taking them somewhere else for quite a while. Perhaps Martin doesn't intend for Dany to return to Meereen.

That's an elegant solution, but one I doubt the author will go for, but then, I am still perplexed as to why he rewrote so many chapters on who arrives in Meereen when, because to my eyes, that is all meaningless and it doesn't matter who arrives first or last.  Realistically, Dany can't leave Meereen and have anything happen but more tragedy and a slip back to slavery...but that would really damage her character, so I expect some type of plot gift that fixes Meereen and allows her to leave having mostly achieved her anti slavery goal.

[Kyll.Ing.]

59 minutes ago, Big Daddy said:

I think the only way to get out of the Meereen plot and not waste more chapters there than needed is to cut the Gordian knot. Have Dany take command of the Dothraki and mount Drogon to go back, only to find that everybody in the city died from the bloody flux or some other plague. Basically give nobody to protect there anymore so she is no longer honor bound to stay.

If he really wanted a Gordian knot cut, he could have Daenerys die from the bloody flux. There, whole Essos plotline resolved, no need for a second dance of the dragons, focus back to Westeros, never mention Slaver's Bay again.

Makes me wonder if GRRM has ever considered (or indeed, gone through with) killing off a character just to make writing easier. He's writing like a gardener, and what would a gardener do if one of his biggest trees was blown over and toppled over the greenhouse in a storm? Sure, it would be a lot of work for a very anticlimactic payoff, but is that really worse than a lot of work for no payoff at all?

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

That's an elegant solution, but one I doubt the author will go for, but then, I am still perplexed as to why he rewrote so many chapters on who arrives in Meereen when, because to my eyes, that is all meaningless and it doesn't matter who arrives first or last.  Realistically, Dany can't leave Meereen and have anything happen but more tragedy and a slip back to slavery...but that would really damage her character, so I expect some type of plot gift that fixes Meereen and allows her to leave having mostly achieved her anti slavery goal.

But I think a version of that is already going to happen, the battle of fire is going to leave Meereen a pile of ashes of ruin.

[Cas Stark]

7 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

But I think a version of that is already going to happen, the battle of fire is going to leave Meereen a pile of ashes of ruin.

That is what should happen, but if that does happen, it negates Dany's entire arc in Meereen, because she will have left it worse than she found it, I mean, it's nice, I guess that dead people are 'free' but they probably would have preferred to be alive, which is why I think we will get a deux es machina type of ending that allows Meereen to be stable and on the mend when she leaves, otherwise, she's just a 100% useless ruler whose good intentions destroyed an entire region, that isn't heroic.  But, as I've been saying for years, he wrote himself into a bad corner with Meereen, not the "knot" he obsessed over, of who is where when, but having made Dany fail so spectacularly, it has become unrealistic that she pulls victory from the ashes of her many defeats.