TWOW in 2021 seems ever more likely

[SeanF]

29 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I'm curious as to how the backlash to the show is affecting George's approach to the rest of the books. Does he find it spirit-crushing, or is it encouraging since the books are going to diverge so much, even if the conclusion is similar?

I don't think it can have helped.  Either, D & D gave us his ending (in some garbled form) and Martin now realises his readers will loathe it.  (And, while he's said he'll write the story he wants, it would be very dispiriting for an author to get the sort of response that D & D got).  Or, he thinks D & D really screwed up, by going off on a frolic of their own, and that may have depressed him.  

[Lord Varys]

It cannot be hard in relation to ending since that's nowhere in sight at this point.

And the ending will be shaped by what comes before, not by the vague notions and intentions he may have about it right now. George isn't an author who forces his characters in a direction they don't want to go.

Unlike the shit show.

[The Bard of Banefort]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I don't think it can have helped.  Either, D & D gave us his ending (in some garbled form) and Martin now realises his readers will loathe it.  (And, while he's said he'll write the story he wants, it would be very dispiriting for an author to get the sort of response that D & D got).  Or, he thinks D & D really screwed up, by going off on a frolic of their own, and that may have depressed him.  

The ironic thing is, George has said that Breaking Bad inspired him to want to create his own Walter White, who would begin a hero and end as a villain. At the time, most of us assumed that he was talking about Tyrion, but after season 8, it looks much more likely that it's actually Daenerys. So to have the show butcher that plotline the way they did is the cherry on top of this whole fiasco.

That said, in his blog posts after the finale, George seemed pretty upbeat, which is another reason why I think the ending is closer to the books than a lot of people want to accept. From what I've heard about FCKAD so far, he was a lot more upset about earlier changes like RamSan (thank God). Of course, the ensuing backlash probably put a damper on whatever good feeling there was at first.

Speaking of which, when are we finally going to get an inside look into HBO and D&D's reactions to the fan outcry? James Hibberd was obviously never going to give us that, but there has to be a reporter out there who wanted to do some snooping. At the very least, I'm surprised there hasn't been a reddit leak by an HBO employee. (There was one a few years ago, but I can't find the link to it now).

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

The ironic thing is, George has said that Breaking Bad inspired him to want to create his own Walter White, who would begin a hero and end as a villain. At the time, most of us assumed that he was talking about Tyrion, but after season 8, it looks much more likely that it's actually Daenerys. So to have the show butcher that plotline the way they did is the cherry on top of this whole fiasco.

That said, in his blog posts after the finale, George seemed pretty upbeat, which is another reason why I think the ending is closer to the books than a lot of people want to accept. From what I've heard about FCKAD so far, he was a lot more upset about earlier changes like RamSan (thank God). Of course, the ensuing backlash probably put a damper on whatever good feeling there was at first.

Speaking of which, when are we finally going to get an inside look into HBO and D&D's reactions to the fan outcry? James Hibberd was obviously never going to give us that, but there has to be a reporter out there who wanted to do some snooping. At the very least, I'm surprised there hasn't been a reddit leak by an HBO employee. (There was one a few years ago, but I can't find the link to it now).

I've always thought that Walter White's arc is that of power reveals, rather than power corrupts.  Walter showed what type of man he was very early on, when he rejected Elliot and Gretchen's offer.  Walter is very much like Tyrion, driven by the same anger, bitterness, and pride.  Show Tyrion ceased to bear any resemblance to book Tyrion, at the point he strangled Shae and became D & D's self-insert.  That's also the point at which Martin ceased to have any input into the show.  He says little about later seasons because he had nothing to do with them.

A good to (if not bad, at least much greyer) arc, is that of Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul. She goes from having real empathy for victims of injustice to dealing out rewards and punishments as she see fit.

[The Bard of Banefort]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I've always thought that Walter White's arc is that of power reveals, rather than power corrupts.  Walter showed what type of man he was very early on, when he rejected Elliot and Gretchen's offer.  Walter is very much like Tyrion, driven by the same anger, bitterness, and pride.  Show Tyrion ceased to bear any resemblance to book Tyrion, at the point he strangled Shae and became D & D's self-insert.  That's also the point at which Martin ceased to have any input into the show.  He says little about later seasons because he had nothing to do with them.

A good to (if not bad, at least much greyer) arc, is that of Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul. She goes from having real empathy for victims of injustice to dealing out rewards and punishments as she see fit.

I still haven't watched BB/BCS, so I'm going off more of what I know based on cultural osmosis. 

I know Lindsay Ellis talked about power revealing in her analysis of GOT, but it seemed pretty clear to me that she's a Dany-stan, and I think that Ellis was unwilling to admit to Dany's entitlement, desire for love and belonging, and belief that love was the same as subjugation (all cumulating in a massive Messiah Complex) that were all present in the books. 

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I still haven't watched BB/BCS, so I'm going off more of what I know based on cultural osmosis. 

I know Lindsay Ellis talked about power revealing in her analysis of GOT, but it seemed pretty clear to me that she's a Dany-stan, and I think that Ellis was unwilling to admit to Dany's entitlement, desire for love and belonging, and belief that love was the same as subjugation (all cumulating in a massive Messiah Complex) that were all present in the books. 

Well, I’m sceptical that “messiah complex” means very much, in psychological terms. Like “Stockholm syndrome” it’s part of pop psychology, rather than professional psychology.  But, Daenerys’ empathy and self-criticism would seem to run counter to it.

[Cas Stark]

31 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Well, I’m sceptical that “messiah complex” means very much, in psychological terms. Like “Stockholm syndrome” it’s part of pop psychology, rather than professional psychology.  But, Daenerys’ empathy and self-criticism would seem to run counter to it.

Her empathy is inconsistent, and is often accompanied by anger and then rash actions.  Whether you call it a messiah complex or believing her own propaganda, I expect it will only get worse.

[Mithras]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

George isn't an author who forces his characters in a direction they don't want to go.

That is a big problem which is killing the saga.

[The Bard of Banefort]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Well, I’m sceptical that “messiah complex” means very much, in psychological terms. Like “Stockholm syndrome” it’s part of pop psychology, rather than professional psychology.  But, Daenerys’ empathy and self-criticism would seem to run counter to it.

To be clear, Daenerys is no different than the other characters in the sense that she has both positive and negative attributes. Any of them could go over the deep end under the right circumstances. My issue is more that many people don't want to admit that Dany does have a dark side that could have disastrous consequences at some point.

I think that we could probably find historical examples for show-Dany in people like Lenin or Robespierre, who were true believers that grew drunk with their own power. As for the books, we'll have to wait and see.

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Her empathy is inconsistent, and is often accompanied by anger and then rash actions.  Whether you call it a messiah complex or believing her own propaganda, I expect it will only get worse.

If Dany meets the same end in the books as the show, I reckon it will be a long and winding road that will be heavily compounded by her rejection by the Westerosi in favor of Aegon, a pretender. This is also why I think her burning KL after defeating the Other's makes sense too, since their refusal to accept her after she sacrificed so much for them will inflame her anger and finally push her past the breaking point. 

And to be fair to Daenerys, her messiah complex isn't even necessarily her fault. The woman walked out of a fire with three newborn dragons. She has Quaithe constantly dropping in to remind of her destiny without ever actually telling her what her destiny is. Her brother raised her to believe that they had to go to a foreign country and avenge their family. She has an entire city of former slaves looking to her to protect them. That would mess with anyone's head.

The one plot point that I'm having the hardest time wrapping my head around is the Jon-Dany romance. First there's the matter of pacing, and how they'll even have time to fall in love over the span of two books. Then there's the resurrection thing; in the books, when people are brought back to life, they're essentially subhuman. Daenerys is going to fall in love with a cold, subhuman Jon? I just can't see it.

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

To be clear, Daenerys is no different than the other characters in the sense that she has both positive and negative attributes. Any of them could go over the deep end under the right circumstances. My issue is more that many people don't want to admit that Dany does have a dark side that could have disastrous consequences at some point.

I think that we could probably find historical examples for show-Dany in people like Lenin or Robespierre, who were true believers that grew drunk with their own power. As for the books, we'll have to wait and see.

If Dany meets the same end in the books as the show, I reckon it will be a long and winding road that will be heavily compounded by her rejection by the Westerosi in favor of Aegon, a pretender. This is also why I think her burning KL after defeating the Other's makes sense too, since their refusal to accept her after she sacrificed so much for them will inflame her anger and finally push her past the breaking point. 

And to be fair to Daenerys, her messiah complex isn't even necessarily her fault. The woman walked out of a fire with three newborn dragons. She has Quaithe constantly dropping in to remind of her destiny without ever actually telling her what her destiny is. Her brother raised her to believe that they had to go to a foreign country and avenge their family. She has an entire city of former slaves looking to her to protect them. That would mess with anyone's head.

The one plot point that I'm having the hardest time wrapping my head around is the Jon-Dany romance. First there's the matter of pacing, and how they'll even have time to fall in love over the span of two books. Then there's the resurrection thing; in the books, when people are brought back to life, they're essentially subhuman. Daenerys is going to fall in love with a cold, subhuman Jon? I just can't see it.

She may not even burn KL in the books that will never be written.  I believe KL will burn, but it might be Cersei who does it, it could be Dany too but that seems a little off to me.  If I had to guess I would say that Dany and Jon will not fall in love, he's not her type, and she's not his type, but they will form an alliance and he will end up somehow being involved in her death but not the Romeo kills Juliet farce done in the show.  One thing the show may have accidentally gotten correct was her rage and anger at Westeros being hostile to her and how it made her paranoid.

[SeanF]

9 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

 

The one plot point that I'm having the hardest time wrapping my head around is the Jon-Dany romance. First there's the matter of pacing, and how they'll even have time to fall in love over the span of two books. Then there's the resurrection thing; in the books, when people are brought back to life, they're essentially subhuman. Daenerys is going to fall in love with a cold, subhuman Jon? I just can't see it.

In the show, Jon plainly lost much of his brain when he was resurrected, but I suspect that was down to bad writing, rather than coming from the author.

WRT Jon, there is Dany's dream about having sex with a man with an ice cold manhood, that could be foreshadowing a relationship with Jon (although it was part of demonology that sex with the devil was similar).

9 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

 

I think that we could probably find historical examples for show-Dany in people like Lenin or Robespierre, who were true believers that grew drunk with their own power. As for the books, we'll have to wait and see.

 

IMHO, Lenin was always rotten to the core.  Robespierre may come closer to Daenerys, in that his aims were good ones, but he came to believe that absolutely anything was justified in order to secure the Revolution, and came to see all forms of opposition as counter-revolutionary.  My own view is that actually, the French Revolution was necessary (like the English revolutions of the previous century) even if some of the methods, and some of the people involved, were awful.  The Russian version was just a blind alley.

Overall, my main objection to the Lord Acton's "power corrupts " argument is that it would simply seem to rule out any form of participation in public life.  Acton was a wealthy aesthete, who failed at politics.   It was easier for him to believe he was too good for politics, rather than he was no good at it.  One of his principal examples of "power corrupts" was actually Lincoln, who he thought a monster for attacking the Confederacy.

[AlienCarnivore]

On 12/20/2020 at 11:15 AM, SeanF said:

Or, he thinks D & D really screwed up, by going off on a frolic of their own, and that may have depressed him.  

I don't care what George has stated publicly, there is no way a very opinionated man like himself is happy with what Dan and Dave did to his world. He simply did not vet them well enough before giving them the rights to his most successful work. Game of Thrones merchandise is essentially forgotten about. People are not rewatching the show on HBO or HBO Max in droves like what would've happened even if the ending was just "okay". The only places I still see praise for the show is on very specific Subreddits with people who are not true A Song of Ice and Fire fans and have low standards for entertainment. 

I believe George was depressed about the show before the final season aired, but there's no way he would publicly criticize the people he gave creative rights to. The man is full of regrets and it helped affect his writing pace for years. 

Somebody somewhere on these forums claimed that BryndenBFish has insider information that George barely wrote Winds for a couple years after that 2015 New Year's Eve Not a Blog post and at this point I'm willing to believe that. 

[SeanF]

25 minutes ago, AlienCarnivore said:

I don't care what George has stated publicly, there is no way a very opinionated man like himself is happy with what Dan and Dave did to his world. He simply did not vet them well enough before giving them the rights to his most successful work. Game of Thrones merchandise is essentially forgotten about. People are not rewatching the show on HBO or HBO Max in droves like what would've happened even if the ending was just "okay". The only places I still see praise for the show is on very specific Subreddits with people who are not true A Song of Ice and Fire fans and have low standards for entertainment. 

I believe George was depressed about the show before the final season aired, but there's no way he would publicly criticize the people he gave creative rights to. The man is full of regrets and it helped affect his writing pace for years. 

Somebody somewhere on these forums claimed that BryndenBFish has insider information that George barely wrote Winds for a couple years after that 2015 New Year's Eve Not a Blog post and at this point I'm willing to believe that. 

Yes, it’s puzzling.  What did Martin see in Ding & Dong, at the outset?.

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Yes, it’s puzzling.  What did Martin see in Ding & Dong, at the outset?.

I am totally sure that Benioff makes a great impression, he did afterall convince HBO to pay for a second pilot, after he totally failed at the first one, wasted all their money, which they directly complained about, and still, the project went forward and with no minder to keep an eye on things. I am not surprised at all that he made a good impression on GRRM, he probably knew just enough lingo and had a crib sheet on the books to make it work.

[The Bard of Banefort]

On 12/20/2020 at 7:00 PM, Cas Stark said:

She may not even burn KL in the books that will never be written.  I believe KL will burn, but it might be Cersei who does it, it could be Dany too but that seems a little off to me.  If I had to guess I would say that Dany and Jon will not fall in love, he's not her type, and she's not his type, but they will form an alliance and he will end up somehow being involved in her death but not the Romeo kills Juliet farce done in the show.  One thing the show may have accidentally gotten correct was her rage and anger at Westeros being hostile to her and how it made her paranoid.

I actually suspect that in the books, Daenerys will be at her most sympathetic in the chapters leading up to her breaking point. We'll see her frustration and pain and remember all that she's been through. 

I'm hoping that after TWOW comes out, George will see how obsessed and enthralled book fans are with it, and that will give him the boost of confidence he needs. (And I do think we'll all be obsessed with it, judging by just how much we've already dissected the sample chapters).

[Werthead]

15 hours ago, AlienCarnivore said:

Somebody somewhere on these forums claimed that BryndenBFish has insider information that George barely wrote Winds for a couple years after that 2015 New Year's Eve Not a Blog post and at this point I'm willing to believe that. 

Brynden is a great guy with some strong analyses but he does not have access to "insider information" at all.

Quote

I am totally sure that Benioff makes a great impression, he did afterall convince HBO to pay for a second pilot, after he totally failed at the first one, wasted all their money, which they directly complained about, and still, the project went forward and with no minder to keep an eye on things. 

HBO did assign several producers of their own to act as minders on the project, most notably Bernadette Caulfield, a HBO insider going back to Carnivale (and whose hand on the tiller stopped the showrunner going completely berserk on that show). As the show's popularity ballooned, HBO simply gave D&D more and more rope and didn't appreciate that they were going to hang themselves with it.

It is also notable that D&D followed up GoT by delivering them the Confederate controversy and HBO were glad to cut ties with them and send them to Netflix, and since then have teamed with GRRM more decisively on House of the Dragon and other projects. It seems that HBO has realised - belatedly - that GRRM's story and characters were more responsible for the success of the show than D&D's delivery. Alas they did not realise this in 2015 rather than 2020.

[Jekse]

20 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I actually suspect that in the books, Daenerys will be at her most sympathetic in the chapters leading up to her breaking point. We'll see her frustration and pain and remember all that she's been through. 

Our author wouldn't write five books portraying her as a good, amiable person just to have her snap and be evil. 
If he does do that, it would be in the same vein as building up Viserys as someone who has been made evil by all the begging he had to do, only for Barristan to say ''Yeah, he was just bad from the start lol''

[The Bard of Banefort]

2 hours ago, Jekse said:

Our author wouldn't write five books portraying her as a good, amiable person just to have her snap and be evil. 
If he does do that, it would be in the same vein as building up Viserys as someone who has been made evil by all the begging he had to do, only for Barristan to say ''Yeah, he was just bad from the start lol''

I don't think she's going to snap. I think it's going to take a lot of tragedy and betrayal before Daenerys reaches her breaking point. We've seen that before, with Rhaenyra and Aegon II, and even with Cat, who didn't break until her husband and all of her children died, and her last child was killed right in front of her. 

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

It is also notable that D&D followed up GoT by delivering them the Confederate controversy and HBO were glad to cut ties with them and send them to Netflix, and since then have teamed with GRRM more decisively on House of the Dragon and other projects. It seems that HBO has realised - belatedly - that GRRM's story and characters were more responsible for the success of the show than D&D's delivery. Alas they did not realise this in 2015 rather than 2020.

So GRRM does have some creative input on HOTD? That's good news at least.

[Rose of Red Lake]

6 hours ago, Jekse said:

Our author wouldn't write five books portraying her as a good, amiable person just to have her snap and be evil. 
If he does do that, it would be in the same vein as building up Viserys as someone who has been made evil by all the begging he had to do, only for Barristan to say ''Yeah, he was just bad from the start lol''

I think a perspective shift will be happening in some form, so that Dany's perception about who is her "enemy" or who is "guilty" or "deserving of death" doesn't change, but the reader's perception does and they can't agree. I really like this Quora write up that explains more. 

[Mithras]

The Complete Rolling Stone Interview with GRRM dated to JUNE 13, 2014.

Quote

 

Q: That seems to apply as well to your fantasy or magic elements: If there’s a God of Light, he seems awful. Are the walking dead out of the north beyond any reclaim? And then there’s Daenerys’s dragons: They seem kind of promising, like they could be a force of justice or good.

GRRM: Yes, that’s the way they seem. I hope. [Laughs] I don’t necessarily want to tell you what I’m thinking but to return to what I pointed at earlier, I like people that ask these questions, not necessarily provide them with the answers. So as the books unfold, there will be more and more to think about in these regards.

...

Q: The Red Wedding, upon broadcast, became the most infamously shocking scene in TV history. It angered a lot of the people who watched it.

GRRM: It did so in the books too. In 2000, when the book came out, I got tons of letters from people: “I’m so angry with you – I’m never going to read your work again. I threw the book into the fire, then a week later I had to know what happens, so I went out and bought another copy.” Some people were so horrified that they said they will not read any more of my work. I understand that.

Q: Those characters mattered – the readers took them seriously, couldn’t bear those fates.

GRRM: One letter I got was from a woman, a waitress. She wrote me: “I work hard all day, I’m divorced, I have a couple of children. My life is very hard, and my one pleasure is I come home and I read fantasy, and I escape to other worlds. Then I read your book, and God, it was fucking horrifying. I don’t read for this. This is a nightmare. Why would you do this to me?” That letter actually reached me. I wrote her back and basically said, “I’m sorry; I do understand where you’re coming from.” Some people do read . . . I don’t like to use the word escape, because escapism has such a pejorative aspect, but it takes you to another world. Maybe it is escape. Reading fiction has helped me through some bad times in my own life. The night my father died, I was in Michigan and I got word from my mother. I couldn’t get to a plane until the next day, so I sat around thinking about my father, the good and the bad in our relationship. I remember I opened whatever book I was reading, and for a few hours, I was able to stop thinking about my father’s death. It was a relief.

GRRM: There are some people who read and want to believe in a world where the good guys win and the bad guys lose, and at the end they live happily ever after. That’s not the kind of fiction that I write. Tolkien was not that. The scouring of the Shire proved that. Frodo’s sadness – that was a bittersweet ending, which to my mind was far more powerful than the ending of Star Wars, where all the happy Ewoks are jumping around, and the ghosts of all the dead people appear, waving happily. [Laughs] But I understand where the other people are coming from. There are a lot of books out there. Let everyone find the kind of book that speaks to them, and speaks to what they need emotionally.

GRRM: You hate to lose any reader, but it is going to happen, regardless. In a long series, readers who loved the early books may envision the story going in certain directions. Often those directions are wildly divergent. When the later books actually come out, some of those readers are inevitably going to be upset, because the story on the page does not correspond with the one in their heads. Others may be delighted. I have lost readers with every book, I am sure… but I’ve gained a lot more. The fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons, was far and away the most popular in the series. In any case, no, it’s not something I worry about. When this question came up on my Not A Blog a few years ago, I embedded a clip from Rick Nelson singing “Garden Party. “You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself. Truer words were seldom sung.

 

GRRM made it clear that any reader who reads ASOIAF as wish fulfillment for the characters they identify with are bound to be disappointed.