Given how big TWOW will be should it be released in two volumes?

[Jaenara Belarys]

16 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I wish we could get inside his head a bit. Because it’s really hard to figure out what’s causing him so much trouble—is it anxiety, perfectionism, boredom? Is he procrastinating, or is he blocked? Does he secretly hate all of us? There’s just no telling.

Probably a combination of all of them. He sees the shitshow he's got with all the plotlines and wants to finish his work as it deserves. He's probably thinking about how if he releases it right now, people will be pissed because such and such contrivance or whatever. 

Plus, he's got a bunch of TV projects, F&B 2, Dunk and Egg all on his plate. 

He might get us TWOW, but we will never see Dream. 

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

TWOW will always be 2 years away

You mean 3/4th's completed, lol

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

14 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I wish we could get inside his head a bit. Because it’s really hard to figure out what’s causing him so much trouble—is it anxiety, perfectionism, boredom? 

Perfectionism is definitely part of it, which likely leads to some of the other reasons. This is what he said when he was writing Dance:
"Although I had "completed" something on the order of five Jon chapters before deciding to divide the book, I was never really happy with them, and rereading them now has reinforced my feelings. They need to be much stronger, and I believe I see how to do that now. "

Now imagine this times ten for Winds, with both the audience and the expectations being much bigger. 

I have critisized GRRM for a variety of reasons over the years. I still stand by some of them, others not so much, in hindsight. But I certainly do not envy him in this situation.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[The Bard of Banefort]

Well, we now have a statistic even more depressing than ‘Daenerys has been in Meereen since the Clinton administration’: the LAPD managed the solve Tupac’s murder before George finished ASOIAF. Tupac died the same summer AGOT was published 

[Jaenara Belarys]

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Well, we now have a statistic even more depressing than ‘Daenerys has been in Meereen since the Clinton administration’: the LAPD managed the solve Tupac’s murder before George finished ASOIAF. Tupac died the same summer AGOT was published 

She's been there since before I was born. That's weird asf. 

And not done much I find particularly interesting. I'm curious to see, if we ever do, how GRRM resolves the Ghiscari situation. Unless she manages to deal with every slaver, they'll simply rush back in after she heads to Westeros. The freedman companies might put up a fight, and (if they win) the slavers would be definitely dealing with an insurgency, but they can still take it over. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

16 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

She's been there since before I was born.

To be fair, she isn't actually in Meereen anymore. A small win, but a welcome one. 

In all seriousness, though, if I was in GRRM's inner circle, I would tell him that it's impossible to please everyone and that he should just go with something. But that's simply not how he operates.

[Jaenara Belarys]

5 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

In all seriousness, though, if I was in GRRM's inner circle, I would tell him that it's impossible to please everyone and that he should just go with something. But that's simply not how he operates.

It's not how he operates, yes , but it's also hopelessly naive to try and please everyone. Even I know that, and I'm not anywhere close to being seventy years old.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Not to mention that, having watched this fandom now for the better part of a decade, I am certain that even if TWOW is junk, ASOIAF fans will come to regard it as a masterpiece within five years’ time. That’s just the nature of this fandom. (And I say this as someone who was genuinely excited when Fire & Blood was announced and didn’t need several years to start liking it). There will be a barrage of people online who don’t like it at first, and I expect that the arguments over what is or isn’t problematic will probably get much worse, but after a while the haters will drift off and the people who like the books will stick around (even if they also like to whine).

[SeanF]

On 10/26/2023 at 1:01 AM, Jaenara Belarys said:

She's been there since before I was born. That's weird asf. 

And not done much I find particularly interesting. I'm curious to see, if we ever do, how GRRM resolves the Ghiscari situation. Unless she manages to deal with every slaver, they'll simply rush back in after she heads to Westeros. The freedman companies might put up a fight, and (if they win) the slavers would be definitely dealing with an insurgency, but they can still take it over. 

I think that resolving the Ghiscari situation should be straightforward.  The armies outside Merreen are slaughtered, the Volantene slaves rebel, and the Meereenese freedmen lynch the Meereenese masters.

 

[Jaenara Belarys]

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think that resolving the Ghiscari situation should be straightforward.  The armies outside Merreen are slaughtered, the Volantene slaves rebel, and the Meereenese freedmen lynch the Meereenese masters.

 

And then what, everyone else that's left simply moves in with an army? The freedmen, for the most part, aren't going to have some training and discipline, would they not be a rabble? 

It just feels like if she wants to eliminate slavery entirely she has to stay in Essos. IMHO. 

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

And then what, everyone else that's left simply moves in with an army? The freedmen, for the most part, aren't going to have some training and discipline, would they not be a rabble? 

It just feels like if she wants to eliminate slavery entirely she has to stay in Essos. IMHO. 

The Shavepate rules as a strongman, with the Brazen Beasts and companies of freedmen.  The slavers are massively outnumbered.  Once they suffer a heavy defeat, and lose their monopoly on violence, that's it.  And, with many of the Dothraki out of the picture, that cuts the supply of potential slaves.

Edited October 27, 2023 by SeanF

[Jaenara Belarys]

13 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The Shavepate rules as a strongman, with the Brazen Beasts and companies of freedmen.  The slavers are massively outnumbered.  Once they suffer a heavy defeat, and lose their monopoly on violence, that's it.  And, with many of the Dothraki out of the picture, that cuts the supply of potential slaves.

How about the Lyseni, the Tyroshi, Qohor, Norvos? 

The distances might be too big, but I could see GRRM making them do it. 

[SeanF]

31 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

How about the Lyseni, the Tyroshi, Qohor, Norvos? 

The distances might be too big, but I could see GRRM making them do it. 

They have to get past Volantis first.  Qohor and Norvos don't seem to be big slaver powers.  That leaves the Three Daughters, but they're now trapped between Volantis, Braavos, and Westeros.  In the East, you have New Ghis, and Qarth, but the former is likely to have been hit hard at Meereen, and the latter is not a big military power.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 10/25/2023 at 1:20 AM, Quaithe from Asshai said:

TWOW will always be 2 years away.

But again, all we can do is hope for the best.

[Kyll.Ing.]

On 10/13/2023 at 5:05 PM, kav2001c said:

The scariest thing imo is how we have seen such detailed minutia (which in many ways is why fans love the books, we have no idea what is important and what is just world building) and yet we know nothing about the real conflict. Song of Ice and Fire. Others are barely mentioned (most of the world thinks its a myth) and Dragons have never set foot in Westeros (instead running wild out east).

This is partially why I'd be perfectly fine with discarding the idea that "the real conflict" is that with the Others. To be blunt and frank, if they haven't been important until this point of the series, they don't really need to be important as we go forward either. There's that famous GRRM quote along the lines of "the only conflict worth reading about is that of the human heart struggling with itself" or something to that effect, and having the series ultimately be about a war against the inhuman ice zombies runs quite contrary to that. So far, the most captivating moments of the series have been those where people have fought other people for the Iron Throne. The Others, and everything associated with them, has been lurking in the background. For all I care, it can stay there. It doesn't need to suddenly become the focus point of the series. As it were, this was always about the Game of Thrones.

Sure, it might be underwhelming if the Others mainly turned out to be a rather localized problem for the northern half of The North, and that most of the characters in the series had their thoughts on other problems without ever being bothered by them. But if there's no way to write the series into an "everyone vs. the zombies" showdown, then let it stay that way and focus on what is actually working.

Then again, I've always held that Daenerys' story really should end with her letting go of Westeros, where she has never set foot, where her army can't fight and where she has no extant character relations, and focus instead on the continent where she has actually built an empire of her very own. Sometimes, the short way to finish the story may simply be the best one. There's no need to cram the entire expansive saga into a dime-a-dozen-fantasy war of Humanity against The Evil Monsters, when the depiction of very human politics has always been the series' strongest suit.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Kyll.Ing.

[Gilbert Green]

On 10/24/2023 at 4:10 PM, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Yeah, that's a shame. He sounded way more optimistic a year ago. 

if GRRM is joking about Winds coming in 2025, it is time to mark your calendars for 2028.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 10/30/2023 at 11:23 AM, Gilbert Green said:

if GRRM is joking about Winds coming in 2025, it is time to mark your calendars for 2028.

But again, if GRRM has written around 1200 or so manuscript pages, why can’t he publish at least some of it? I know that he writes non-linearly, but it did somehow work with Feast and Dance. Can’t he do something similar with Winds?

[Gilbert Green]

46 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

But again, if GRRM has written around 1200 or so manuscript pages, why can’t he publish at least some of it? I know that he writes non-linearly, but it did somehow work with Feast and Dance. Can’t he do something similar with Winds?

This is going to be his last book, I think.  Whatever his good intentions, I doubt he will even start the next one.  So I am happy to let him cover as much ground as he can, however long it takes.  That will give readers, and any future authors he assigns to help him, a better idea of where he intends the story to go.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

But again, if GRRM has written around 1200 or so manuscript pages, why can’t he publish at least some of it? I know that he writes non-linearly, but it did somehow work with Feast and Dance. Can’t he do something similar with Winds?

With Feast and Dance it worked out that he had the material needed to make a complete book out of the characters he wanted to put in that book, and the ones he hadn't worked on a lot could be shunted to Dance. In fact, it was Daniel Abraham who pointed out the complete or semi-complete arcs he had in hand were for characters who were not geographically interacting with the incomplete characters.

I'm pretty sure that if George had his ducks lined up to produce a viable TWoW novel with 1200 (or 1000 or even 800) manuscript pages in hand at any point in the last few years, he and his publishers would have seriously considered that possibility. Conversely, if George is wedded to the 7-volume concept, he might prefer to issue a novel as large as possible, especially so it doesn't cause a really awkward problem later on (i.e. a final volume that goes 300 pages over the limit, requiring weird formatting or splitting that book in a strange and artificial way).

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

3 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I'm pretty sure that if George had his ducks lined up to produce a viable TWoW novel with 1200 (or 1000 or even 800) manuscript pages in hand at any point in the last few years, he and his publishers would have seriously considered that possibility.

But if they aren’t ready to make that move, then the only conclusion must be that Winds is a mess, with several arcs being incomplete. Or am I missing something?