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


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On 7/12/2018 at 6:56 PM, Tagganaro said:

It's really crazy to look back at all his "predictions" on when TWOW would be done.  In 2012 he said he thought he could finish in 2014.  In 2015, he claimed he had " a lot of pages done" in TWOW and that he wanted to get the book out by April 2016.  Then beginning of 2017 he's saying he thinks it will be done by the end of the year.

It's clear he either can't or won't write the book.  Either he has lost interest or can't get out of the Mereeneese Knot.  At this point not only am I doubting we will ever see ADOS but also TWOW.

When AGoT came out he said ACoK would be out 1 year later, max. When ASoS came out he said Book 4 would be out in 2002. When AFFC came out he thought ADWD could be out 1 year later. When he missed that, he said 2008 at the latest.

Absolutely nothing new in this. Hell, when he was being interviewed about Wild Cards and Beauty and the Beast in the early 1990s he even said, "Oh, the next thing I'm working on is a fantasy trilogy, the first book will be out in 1994."

George has always been incredibly rubbish at predictions, which is why he absolutely 100% refused to make any. It was only an actual avalanche of thousands of people in 2015 demanding an update that triggered one, even with him warning it was a very rough estimate that could be way off, and of course everyone ignored him and took it as an absolute promise signed in blood and got annoyed when it didn't come true. And so the wheel turns again.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

and of course everyone ignored him and took it as an absolute promise signed in blood and got annoyed when it didn't come true. And so the wheel turns again.

Which is something that is still happening on a weekly basis, sorta. 

Everyone and their dogs know Martin is stuck, and he's lying, and everything he says is bollocks, and everyone is sure he won't finish the series. What I don't understand is, for those who are so sure of all of the above, what does it matter then? :dunno:

Those who are convinced we won't get the next books should be pretty chill, right? And yet, they're not. I don't get it. 

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

When AGoT came out he said ACoK would be out 1 year later, max. When ASoS came out he said Book 4 would be out in 2002. When AFFC came out he thought ADWD could be out 1 year later. When he missed that, he said 2008 at the latest.

Absolutely nothing new in this. Hell, when he was being interviewed about Wild Cards and Beauty and the Beast in the early 1990s he even said, "Oh, the next thing I'm working on is a fantasy trilogy, the first book will be out in 1994."

George has always been incredibly rubbish at predictions, which is why he absolutely 100% refused to make any. It was only an actual avalanche of thousands of people in 2015 demanding an update that triggered one, even with him warning it was a very rough estimate that could be way off, and of course everyone ignored him and took it as an absolute promise signed in blood and got annoyed when it didn't come true. And so the wheel turns again.

Yeah, instead of ACOK coming out 1 year later it came out 2 years later.  I'd settle for that again:D.  And yeah, you'll get no argument from me that starting with Book 4, or I should say post-Book 3 is when all these issues began.  Predictions/expectations/hopes kind of blend together unfortunately, but at the end of the day it's not too relevant.  All that matters is that he can finish the book.

50 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Which is something that is still happening on a weekly basis, sorta. 

Everyone and their dogs know Martin is stuck, and he's lying, and everything he says is bollocks, and everyone is sure he won't finish the series. What I don't understand is, for those who are so sure of all of the above, what does it matter then? :dunno:

Those who are convinced we won't get the next books should be pretty chill, right? And yet, they're not. I don't get it. 

I mean, even assuming that people are convinced he won't finish the series, which I have to admit I am at this point, how can't you understand people being angry about?  Speaking for myself I love this series and this story and I think it's reasonable to expect an end to it.  Not getting that is pretty disappointing to say the least.

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33 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

I mean, even assuming that people are convinced he won't finish the series, which I have to admit I am at this point, how can't you understand people being angry about?  Speaking for myself I love this series and this story and I think it's reasonable to expect an end to it.  Not getting that is pretty disappointing to say the least.

That's actually exactly part of my issue w/ it. I get people feeling frustrated, anxious, disappointed even. But angry? Nope, don't get it at all. 

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After all this years of waiting and taking in consideration GoT seasons that used TWOW and probably ADOS information not written or official but with GRRM guidance on series ending, ideas and details, I would say he is heavily stuck mainly because TWOW has a HUGE length history to write and during the time of TWOW history it can pass from One to Three Years... and this is why :

- He has to get all the Main characters together in Westeros again in TWOW  ( Happened in HBO and GRRM also has said its going to happen).

- In order to get Daenerys to Westeros GRRM has to end Meereenese Knot, which means Daenerys has to obtain, escape, control the Dothraki ( in HBO she even went to Vaes Dothrak and in the books Dany had visions of what happened in the Series) , return to Meereen win the Battle of Fire and somehow connect Victarion, Tyrion , Euron, The Iron fleet, Volantis ships, etc..  AFTER ALL THIS she will be arriving Westeros presumably with Tyrion and the army ... I think this can easily take in the book time like 1 whole year or even 2 years, considering the time sailing from Meereen to Westeros... once she arrives Dany will have to deal with Euron , The Mini Dance of Dragons or Blackfyre conflict with fAegon, Dorne, ALSO fulfill the prophecy "younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear" with Cersei, all of this could also take several months and Dany has to be in Westeros in the middle of TWOW in order to get this done  or at the end and leave all of this to be done in ADOS..

- Meanwhile there is Arya ending his Batman training in Bravoos and returning to Westeros ( Months)

- Sansa taking control of the Vale and eventually moving North with Jon or getting involved in the Southern conflict( unlikely to happen) . (  this could take several months or a whole year) 

- Bran in the far north, and we know for sure he will have difficulties because HBO and GRRM leaked us Hodor's fate. ( Months)

- Jon still dead and from what we can expect, once hes back he will either go North ( unlikely to happen)  or go South for the Battle of Bastards ( all of this speculation) and eventually and presumably controlling the North during TWOW. ( 1 year at least) 

- Stanis, Theon, Asha, Mance, WF , Davos-Rickon, Jaime, Cersei, The Faith, Brienne, Lady Stoneheart, Riverlands, Samwell plots etc..

- The Others and the Long Night, The Wall falling ( this could happen at the end of TWOW or in the beginning of ADOS, but we can be sure that The Wall is falling).

In my opinion GRRM  had to make TWOW in to two books like he did with AFFC and ADWD or even three books, because the length is even bigger and whatever he wanted it or not during this Book it will pass a few years ( not the 5 years gap he wanted but 1-3 years) or else he will have to start teleporting people like HBO did (lol).

As a longtime Fan that love the books but not so very much the HBO series.. being optimistic I believe once the HBO series is finished for good  in 2019 will be matter of months or one year  to get TWOW.

About ADOS, if GRRM ( or his collaborators)  somehow gets done most of the plots mentioned before ( at least with Dany arriving to Westeros) , it will be a book friendly and easier  to write, because if there are still plots to solve, GRRM can easily wipe them out of existence with The Others and The final battles turn everything in to one single direction.

 

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13 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

That's actually exactly part of my issue w/ it. I get people feeling frustrated, anxious, disappointed even. But angry? Nope, don't get it at all. 

I try to explain it. And please forgive me, if I sound rude. I, myself, had for the past two years, that feeling of anger.

Now to the question why I felt anger, and I am sure, that this is the reason a lot of people have those feelings too:

I felt (and still think) that the Author has led down his readers in order of the profit. Since GoT became so popular, he has not published Winds. The atititude of the Author has rapidely changed, to the extent that he even does not want to talk about the series with his fans. He has made a lot of promisses and a lot of statements that just turned out to be (and I don't know how to call it otherwise) lies. He said in 2016 that he won't start other projects before he finishes Winds. And he also stated that Fire and Blood will come out after ADOS comes out. Well two years later: GoT prequels, Blood and Fire Vol. 1, Firefly, Ice Dragon animation, Wild Cards. And the list goes on. Well, if you read that, you might buy what he is saying. But you might also think: this guy is lying to me! And a normal human reaction to lying, letting down and money craving is anger. So that was what I felt, and why I felt the way I felt. Not to mention all the money I spent on those books for an unfinished product. 

Now I don't feel anger anymore. And the reason why I don't now, is just a time passing matter. I simply don't really care anymore about the books. At least not how I cared years before. Sure, here and there, I sometime visit the book forum. But it is getting lesser and lesser. I am now much more hyped about the upcoming season of GoT and the ending of the story. I am very well awared that this forum is famous for hating the show, but for me it is the conclusion of the story I started reading when I still was in College. Now 12 years later, I can finally know the resolution, so I don't care anymore like earlier. I know the show differs from the books in the later seasons (who doesn't?), but I still have the big outline, which gives me the satisfaction for the story. 

But please be aware, that I tried to describe human feelings. Those are never completely rational. Yours may differ. I just tried to explain my feelings back then, which is really hard if you beginn to write them, because as I stated, they are not something rational or something you can often explain. 

Anyway, have a nice day ;)

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2 hours ago, T and A said:

Now I don't feel anger anymore. And the reason why I don't now, is just a time passing matter. I simply don't really care anymore about the books. At least not how I cared years before. Sure, here and there, I sometime visit the book forum. But it is getting lesser and lesser. I am now much more hyped about the upcoming season of GoT and the ending of the story. I am very well awared that this forum is famous for hating the show, but for me it is the conclusion of the story I started reading when I still was in College. Now 12 years later, I can finally know the resolution, so I don't care anymore like earlier. I know the show differs from the books in the later seasons (who doesn't?), but I still have the big outline, which gives me the satisfaction for the story. 

This is pretty much me right now too.

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 It's a combination of anger and feeling misled along with massive frustration that the author's words and his actions do not match.  It seems objectively reasonable to feel misled, considering the author's many, many statements on finishing the ENTIRE SERIES before the show wraps and his statements of clearing the decks and taking on nothing new until at least Winds was finished and doing the opposite.  It's also very disappointing to see that GRRM appears to want to have his cake and eat it too in terms of fan interaction, he wishes to be praised, and to talk about his work only on his terms, if fans rightfully voice disappointment at the new ventures or want to know what is the roadblock on Winds, he becomes peevish,he deletes comments and so forth.  

But, as others have said, I care less and less about the books that I no longer expect, I will make do with the show.  It's a shame.

As to the OP, what caused him to lose his grip, I don't know, my speculation is that he cut too much bone at the ends of Storm of Swords, and that combined with his inability to make the 5 year gap work, caused him to create all the new POVS, which instead of helping the problem, simply layered on a whole new set of problems with the narrative, pacing and structure.  

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8 hours ago, T and A said:

I felt (and still think) that the Author has led down his readers in order of the profit. Since GoT became so popular, he has not published Winds. The atititude of the Author has rapidely changed, to the extent that he even does not want to talk about the series with his fans. He has made a lot of promisses and a lot of statements that just turned out to be (and I don't know how to call it otherwise) lies. He said in 2016 that he won't start other projects before he finishes Winds. And he also stated that Fire and Blood will come out after ADOS comes out. Well two years later: GoT prequels, Blood and Fire Vol. 1, Firefly, Ice Dragon animation, Wild Cards. And the list goes on. Well, if you read that, you might buy what he is saying. But you might also think: this guy is lying to me! And a normal human reaction to lying, letting down and money craving is anger. So that was what I felt, and why I felt the way I felt. Not to mention all the money I spent on those books for an unfinished product. 

The issue here is that the author has not lied. Whether you "feel" he's lied to you or not is immaterial: GRRM has not broken that promise not to engage in new writing or editing projects since 2016. Whether people are paying attention to when the projects that have come out since then or not is really not his problem.

He said in 2016 that he would not initiate any more writing projects before completing Winds and this has been the case. Wild Cards is editing work, which he differentiates (he has set time for writing and for editing and this has been the case since the 1990s), and anyway exempted Wild Cards from his promise to take on more editing work: Wild Cards is a pre-existing commitment to ASoIaF, many other authors rely on the income stream it provides, he has help editing it (Melinda Snodgrass does a lot of the work, 50% or more on the volumes she is co-credited on) and so forth.

Fire and Blood was completely written or almost so in 2012, constituting as it does the material he wrote for The World of Ice and Fire (published in 2014), with extracts of it already long-ago published as "The Princess and the Queen" (published 2013), "The Rogue Prince" (published 2014) and "Sons of the Dragon" (2017). His original plan was to finish the Targ history completely (going up to Aerys II and the Rebellion) before publishing it, but his publishers noted the completed material was about 270,000 words, or almost the length of AGoT by itself, so if he did complete the whole thing it would be too big to publish in one volume so why not just publish that first half now? So he said okay and that's what they've done. He hasn't done any new work on the material since 2016 (apart from some general edits and tidying up of the material). You could make an argument that the 2-3 months he lost writing this material in 2012 was unwise, but that makes no difference now.

George wrote The Ice Dragon in 1979 and another company is adapting it to film now. He's agreed to it but that's the total length of his commitment to the project.

He's taken some phone calls and exchanged some emails with the writers of the HBO spin-off projects, but he's turned down the opportunity to actively write these new projects directly because of his commitment to TWoW.

It could be argued some of these points are sailing close to the wind, but the bottom line is that he has not broken that promise not to take on any new writing commitments whilst TWoW remains incomplete, and not only that, but he has only written exactly four pieces of non-ASoIaF-related fiction since starting to write A Game of Thrones in 1991, and none at all since 2008.

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What I feel is not exactly anger, but rather bitterness. At this point I almost persuaded myself that I will never see WoW or DoS, but unless Martin officially announces that he's given up on continuing the series, I can't help hoping for them, and hope makes me suffer. And I have this irrational bitterness towards him for not killing this hope. Sometimes I'm like, well, if he's not gonna finish the books, JUST SAY IT so that I can get some peace. If he's going to finish it, then please let it be sooner rather than later.

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14 hours ago, Werthead said:

The issue here is that the author has not lied. Whether you "feel" he's lied to you or not is immaterial:

 

Well thank you. But obviously you have not even quitly understood the question that was asked, nor my answer. Feelings are allways subjective. And I was specifically speaking about my feelings back then, since that was the question. If you start your sentence with that, there is not much I can say, I must say.

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On 7/13/2018 at 8:14 PM, kissdbyfire said:

That's actually exactly part of my issue w/ it. I get people feeling frustrated, anxious, disappointed even. But angry? Nope, don't get it at all. 

Speaking for myself, I am angry.  As mentioned by numerous people, it doesn't seem as if we will ever get an end to this series that I love.  Which disappoints me rather than angers me to be fair.  What angers me is what was mentioned by @T and A and @Cas Stark above.  It's the feeling that whether GRRM has intentionally lied or misled us or unintentionally done the same, he's still done just that.  I can't help but feel he's been less than honest in his numerous statements over the past 7 or so years that he thought he could finish TWOW by so-and-so date, only to have that date pass then reveal that he's essentially no closer to finishing than he was before.  It certainly appears to me as if he has no intention or desire of ever finishing this, which leaves me disappointed (and angry) to say the very least.

On 7/14/2018 at 3:25 PM, Werthead said:

The issue here is that the author has not lied. Whether you "feel" he's lied to you or not is immaterial: GRRM has not broken that promise not to engage in new writing or editing projects since 2016. Whether people are paying attention to when the projects that have come out since then or not is really not his problem...It could be argued some of these points are sailing close to the wind, but the bottom line is that he has not broken that promise not to take on any new writing commitments whilst TWoW remains incomplete, and not only that, but he has only written exactly four pieces of non-ASoIaF-related fiction since starting to write A Game of Thrones in 1991, and none at all since 2008.

Yeah, I feel like these points are sailing close to the wind...I'd rather no updates at all or for him to just honestly say I can't give you any updates than for him to consistently seem to suggest "I think it will be out next year" which he's basically been saying for 3+ years now.  But again, a lot of these are just personal feelings and we as readers may just disagree on how we feel about them.  

 

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7 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

Yeah, I feel like these points are sailing close to the wind...I'd rather no updates at all or for him to just honestly say I can't give you any updates than for him to consistently seem to suggest "I think it will be out next year" which he's basically been saying for 3+ years now.  But again, a lot of these are just personal feelings and we as readers may just disagree on how we feel about them.  

 

But Martin didn't want t give any updates at all. The times where he's said something he was always vague and always at people's insistence. :dunno:

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Just now, kissdbyfire said:

But Martin didn't want t give any updates at all. The times where he's said something he was always vague and always at people's insistence. :dunno:

He said repeatedly that he intended and expected to finish the series before the show wrapped, this isn't vague.  He set an expectation that the show would not outpace the books, and that is obviously not going to happen.  

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1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

But Martin didn't want t give any updates at all. The times where he's said something he was always vague and always at people's insistence. :dunno:

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

He said repeatedly that he intended and expected to finish the series before the show wrapped, this isn't vague.  He set an expectation that the show would not outpace the books, and that is obviously not going to happen.  

What @Cas Stark just said.  Furthermore, he was under no obligation to give misleading updates.  There is nothing really vague about "I think [TWOW] will be out this year."

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I think he is both an optimist and a perfectionist.  He actually thinks he is close to completion, and then decides he doesn't like what he has written and therefore has to revise it, which takes time and puts him farther from completion.

I think he essentially needs to bite the bullet, and either set himself (or let his publisher set) a hard deadline for completion, or simply decide that what he has is going to have to do.  At this point, very good beats perfect, because perfect isn't going to get completed.  Very good might.

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3 hours ago, Nevets said:

I think he essentially needs to bite the bullet, and either set himself (or let his publisher set) a hard deadline for completion, or simply decide that what he has is going to have to do.  At this point, very good beats perfect, because perfect isn't going to get completed.  Very good might.

 

I agree with this.

As I said before, I believe GRRM is stuck in the book with the longest Time length of the series and with multiple plots ( I believe he needs from 1 year to 3 years to solve all plots and get everyone together in Westeros), I am pretty sure it would have work better for the novel, for him, for his earnings and for us fans if he would have split the TWOW in to two books or make it in to three books seeing as he haven't meet any deadline.

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14 hours ago, Melq said:

 

I agree with this.

As I said before, I believe GRRM is stuck in the book with the longest Time length of the series and with multiple plots ( I believe he needs from 1 year to 3 years to solve all plots and get everyone together in Westeros), I am pretty sure it would have work better for the novel, for him, for his earnings and for us fans if he would have split the TWOW in to two books or make it in to three books seeing as he haven't meet any deadline.

That's just kicking the can down the road, which is what he did when he split Feast and Dance, which is what , in my opinion, started him on the road to ruin.  He needs to solve whatever the problem is, not write more stuff that doesn't fix anything and then think about it tomorrow for 10 years.

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