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What are you least looking forward to?


Lucia Targaryen

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I fear it won't live up to the hype.

It's the same concern I had about Half-Life 3. I think some fans tend to think that if an installment of the series takes longer to come out, then that means it's going to have had more care and effort put into it, creating an overall better work. This continues for years until some people have an unrealistic expectation of the work's greatness; even if the work itself is still great, the time it took for the work to come out fed into the hype, creating a perceived greatness that the work's actual greatness can never match. And creators understand this; the longer they wait, the more they realize fans are going to want a better work, which causes them to take even more time to perfect it, which just feeds back into the hype even more. I think that this can destroy a creator's desire to create, out of fear of disappointing their fans, but the longer these creators spend on the work, the more their fans become disappointed.

Overall, the hype cycle is a kind of horrible self-fulfilling prophecy. Every second of waiting just adds more waiting on top of it, because creators are feeling the pressure to do better and better knowing that they've taken so long, and then when the work is eventually released, it can't help but disappoint the fans, because those fans waited so long and expected something so much better than what they got.

I'm not saying this is necessarily what is going to happen when Winds is released. And I'm not blaming fans of creators; I don't think we can help but do this. But I fear that this might happen.

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I'd say the only POV that's lost any interest for me is probably Cersei's. There's just no angle, no degree left to her arc that could surprise me anymore. Her machinations hold no spark. I'm excited for the characters tangentially involved with her story/King's Landing at large, but not for anything she may or may not do. The only part of her journey I now hold in a vice-grip is her end, and how it'll feel for her when Jaime turns out to be the valonqar (give this to me, George, is2g. Give.this.to.me). As I personally don't see Cersei's end coming in WoW, most of it will probably be an exercise in my patience to get through.

Also, not overly psyched for Arya. I'll only be excited when she finally ditches Braavos, even though I very much like the HoBaW. I just want to see a little movement out of her, and while the Mercy chapter was a step in the right direction for me, I crave a little more.

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- Jon Snows resurrection. This is the second cop out with that character. The first being that George had him chose the NW over the Wildlings; only to be allowed to muddle through with them anyway. The second being his death due to his failures.

- Bran becoming a biotic God and the inevitable yap yap on why ice is better than fire as he tries to push emotional stoicism. Also montage.

- Arya montage. 

- The North being given the moral blank cheque to kill Stannis and not face moral condemnation or any comeuppance for it. Or George tying it up in a little clean bow to make Stark ascendency easier.

- Just in general I don’t want George to start making short cuts. I could see him killing a lot of characters very quickly, like  Stannis, to simplify the plot line.

- In the same vein though. The pacing of this book will be very difficult. I am not expecting Mereen to be done until at least half way. He really should have considered splitting the novels between Essos and Westeros.

- If he does a time skip mid book to age the characters. That could be extremely jarring.

- The Others flip the table by invading and use the Deep Roads to attack all of Westeros.

- Too late reveals. For example the Others have been controlling Euron or orchestrating things with the Warlocks and Maesters for centuries to undermine humanity. IMO it’s far too late to introduce that Cthulhu cult element into the plot. At this point there’s very little to suggest they’ve had any influence south of the wall. I agree it’s a logical story element to have; but it’s absence seems total at the penultimate book.

 

 

 

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On 7/31/2019 at 3:09 PM, Tyrion1991 said:

- The Others flip the table by invading and use the Deep Roads to attack all of Westeros.

Brooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I forgot all about the Deep Roads. And then there's the Nightfort which seems to be sitting atop a major confluence of these roads.

Yikes.

On 7/31/2019 at 3:09 PM, Tyrion1991 said:

- Too late reveals. For example the Others have been controlling Euron or orchestrating things with the Warlocks and Maesters for centuries to undermine humanity. IMO it’s far too late to introduce that Cthulhu cult element into the plot. At this point there’s very little to suggest they’ve had any influence south of the wall. I agree it’s a logical story element to have; but it’s absence seems total at the penultimate book.

The Cthulhu cult element has already been introduced into the plot.

Case in point:

  • Patchface and his riddles
  • Moqorro's visions
  • Everything about the Ironborn and their unique religion
  • Davos' first POV chapter in A Dance with Dragons.
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Getting to the end 2 days after the book comes out knowing full well DoS will never be released. 

Seeing a ton of plot points get whittled down to the bare bones because 2 books isn’t enough to properly wrap this story up and he knows it.

Hearing how all his notes/manuscripts were burnt after he dies to avoid another WoT/Sanderson debacle.

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2 hours ago, King Wyman said:

Getting to the end 2 days after the book comes out knowing full well DoS will never be released. 

Seeing a ton of plot points get whittled down to the bare bones because 2 books isn’t enough to properly wrap this story up and he knows it.

Hearing how all his notes/manuscripts were burnt after he dies to avoid another WoT/Sanderson debacle.

 

I really hope he doesn’t start chopping up the story to make it more manageable. He should just accept that it’s going to take at least another book.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

I really hope he doesn’t start chopping up the story to make it more manageable. He should just accept that it’s going to take at least another book.

 

 

For real. I just don’t see any way it can be finished in 2 books, but he won’t admit it for some reason. 

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21 hours ago, King Wyman said:

For real. I just don’t see any way it can be finished in 2 books, but he won’t admit it for some reason. 

I think it CAN be done in two books.

It's just that:

  1. George has to exercise some self-discipline.
  2. This last book (A Dream of Spring) may need two parts or it will have to be similar to the Bible as far as length goes.
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10 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

I think it CAN be done in two books.

It's just that:

  1. George has to exercise some self-discipline.
  2. This last book (A Dream of Spring) may need two parts or it will have to be similar to the Bible as far as length goes.

I mean I’m down for a 2,000 page final book after a 1,600 page Winds. I do e-books on my phone at this point, so it’s no bother to me lol. 

I just think too much needs to happen, even if he does some how learn self-discipline. A 2-part Dream is fine, but they need to be meaty parts. 

We’re basically at the end of season 5, and he himself said the show should have been 10-12 seasons, which is like 4 more books, so who knows. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/7/2019 at 2:44 PM, King Wyman said:

I mean I’m down for a 2,000 page final book after a 1,600 page Winds. I do e-books on my phone at this point, so it’s no bother to me lol. 

I just think too much needs to happen, even if he does some how learn self-discipline. A 2-part Dream is fine, but they need to be meaty parts. 

We’re basically at the end of season 5, and he himself said the show should have been 10-12 seasons, which is like 4 more books, so who knows. 

Well I do not think it is so much about what size of a book can we read at this point, it is more about how much GRRM can realistically write and finish.

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23 hours ago, argonak said:

Well I do not think it is so much about what size of a book can we read at this point, it is more about how much GRRM can realistically write and finish.

By making a friggin huge book with words so small u need a microscope lol.

in all honesty he probably has a ton of manuscripts or rough stories, but it could just be hell to get it all together in one+ flowing, cohesive storie(s) 

(just idle speculation at this point btw).

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On 8/7/2019 at 5:44 PM, King Wyman said:

I mean I’m down for a 2,000 page final book after a 1,600 page Winds. I do e-books on my phone at this point, so it’s no bother to me lol. 

I just think too much needs to happen, even if he does some how learn self-discipline. A 2-part Dream is fine, but they need to be meaty parts. 

We’re basically at the end of season 5, and he himself said the show should have been 10-12 seasons, which is like 4 more books, so who knows. 

Well to be honest, you can split season 5 into two seasons. So, according to George, that's six seasons. 

  • A Game of Thrones - season 1
  • A Clash of Kings - season 2
  • A Storm of Swords - season 3-4
  • A Feast for Crows (relevant material from Dance) - season 5
  • A Dance with Dragons (relevant material from Feast) - season 6
  • The Winds of Winter - season 7-8
  • A Dream of Spring - season 9-10. Maybe even a short mini-season as the 11th season to deal with the "A Time for Wolves" Scouring of the Shire-esque aftermath

10-12 seasons doesn't necessarily mean 4 more books.

 

 

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On 8/18/2019 at 2:54 PM, Jabar of House Titan said:

Well to be honest, you can split season 5 into two seasons. So, according to George, that's six seasons. 

  • A Game of Thrones - season 1
  • A Clash of Kings - season 2
  • A Storm of Swords - season 3-4
  • A Feast for Crows (relevant material from Dance) - season 5
  • A Dance with Dragons (relevant material from Feast) - season 6
  • The Winds of Winter - season 7-8
  • A Dream of Spring - season 9-10. Maybe even a short mini-season as the 11th season to deal with the "A Time for Wolves" Scouring of the Shire-esque aftermath

10-12 seasons doesn't necessarily mean 4 more books.

 

 

I meant 4 more books including Winds and Dream....so 2 extra, 9 in total.

Winds will likely be season 6 too, not 7 and 8. Jon is still dead, Dany just got picked up by the Dothraki and Tyrion hasn’t even met her yet. Most characters are where they were at the end of season 5 (or the equivalent of) and the show left out a ton of other characters/subplots that need to be resolved.

And seasons 7 and 8 were crazy rushed, so I don’t know how he gets all of that in one book and have it be satisfying. 

But I highly doubt we get anything beyond Winds anyway, so it’s all a moot point. 

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