"Only 500 pages to go" for Winds of Winter

[BlackLightning]

5 hours ago, sifth said:

Sorry, but the Dorne story can be cut almost entirely. Members of the family tried a coup, it failed. There I just saved you 100 pages. Euron becoming king can be summarized in an Asha flashback. There another 100 pages saved. So now we can focus on the main characters again, now that those side bars are gone. 

Your definition of what is and isn't a main character is both incorrect and ignorant. Asha is a brand new POV but yet she can be responsible for expositing on the death of her father and the ascension of her uncle at her expense...only for you to turn around and say we can focus on "the main characters again."

Didn't you see what happened to the show when all of the "side bars" were eliminated or sloppily minimized?

But it's pointless going back and forth with you. The five year gap would not have worked, you cannot cut Dorne, all roads lead back to Euron for a reason and the new POVs (excluding one-offs like Arys Oakheart) are main characters.

 

[sifth]

31 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Your definition of what is and isn't a main character is both incorrect and ignorant. Asha is a brand new POV but yet she can be responsible for expositing on the death of her father and the ascension of her uncle at her expense...only for you to turn around and say we can focus on "the main characters again."

Didn't you see what happened to the show when all of the "side bars" were eliminated or sloppily minimized?

But it's pointless going back and forth with you. The five year gap would not have worked, you cannot cut Dorne, all roads lead back to Euron for a reason and the new POVs (excluding one-offs like Arys Oakheart) are main characters.

 

Out of all of the many, MANY, new POV's GRRM introduced in AFFC/ADWD, Asha and Cersie seem like the two most important. I love the other characters, like Victarion and Arianne, but feel that GRRM falling in love with them and feeling that he needed to tell their story, has caused him to lose track of the entire series. The end result is, we're likely never going to get an ending to this series and if we are fortunate to get one, it likely wont be from George. Had he instead choose to focus on his main characters and not include his ten new POV's we would of had a much more structured story. I'm not saying all of his new POV's were not needed, just that most of them weren't. One Iron Island POV and one Dorne POV would have been enough.

[Mowgli]

I wonder how many total pages we're looking at 

[BlackLightning]

7 minutes ago, sifth said:

Out of all of the many, MANY, new POV's GRRM introduced in AFFC/ADWD, Asha and Cersie seem like the two most important.

I can respect that.

But you are contradicting yourself.

1 minute ago, sifth said:

I love the other characters, like Victarion and Arianne, but feel that GRRM falling in love with them and feeling that he needed to tell their story, has caused him to lose track of the entire series. The end result is, we're likely never going to get an ending to this series and if we are fortunate to get one, it likely wont be from George. Had he instead choose to focus on his main characters and not include his ten new POV's we would of had a much more structured story. I'm not saying all of his new POV's were not needed, just that most of them weren't. One Iron Island POV and one Dorne POV would have been enough.

So which is it? 

Is the inclusion and magnification of Arianne derailing the story? Or would she, as the sole Dornish POV, be enough? And if not Arianne, then who?

The Camera that Rides? Or would it be the Frog Prince?

Arianne is the singular most important Dornish POV that there is.

• Quentyn is a bit of a minor character who already served his purpose (i.e. establishing the complexities behind Dany's bad reputation, setting the dragons free, putting Dany in a position where she is forced to deal with Illyrio Mopatis, pitting Dany against Dorne) and is no longer a part of the story. Could he have done this as a side character in someone else's POV? No, not really. But it's water under the bridge. He was ultimately necessary in some capacity. It's not like we spent a lot of time on him and he is dead. The end.
• Areo Hotah's purpose is clear as far as I'm concerned. He's going to be mixing it up with the Daynes and the Daynes are obviously up to something. GRRM won't even reveal their house words because said house words are major spoilers. And then there's the R+L=J debacle: Eddard Stark showed up at the Dayne castle with a sword, a newborn and a corpse and Ashara Dayne just randomly kills herself? Eddard Stark snaps and becomes a hotheaded, totalitarian dictator at the mere mention of Ashara Dayne's name...even though she is the perfect cover? Why does Ned Dayne know more about Stark family history than Arya Stark does when Ned has never even been within 100 miles of Moat Cailin. Forget Chekov's Gun, try Chekov's Family. And since Areo is an ex-slave with no real agency of his own, he's now put in a position where he has to either stay silent and allow the Daynes to carry on with whatever they are doing or be assertive enough to speak up and take action...even though it would completely obliterate his identity and worldview.

On the note of the Ironborn...

8 minutes ago, sifth said:

Out of all of the many, MANY, new POV's GRRM introduced in AFFC/ADWD, Asha and Cersie seem[s] like the two most important. I love the other characters, like Victarion and Arianne, but feel that GRRM falling in love with them and feeling that he needed to tell their story, has caused him to lose track of the entire series. The end result is, we're likely never going to get an ending to this series and if we are fortunate to get one, it likely wont be from George. Had he instead choose to focus on his main characters and not include his ten new POV's we would of had a much more structured story. I'm not saying all of his new POV's were not needed, just that most of them weren't. One Iron Island POV and one Dorne POV would have been enough.

Asha cannot be in two places at once.

Either she replaces Victarion and goes east with Moqorro to get Daenerys or she goes North to provide closure for the ironborn invader subplot, become a major political player and a key fighter in the war against the Others.

You don't get both.

And both are important. Theon can't carry the big northern plotline by himself, Jon is indisposed, Melisandre has bigger fish to fry and Bran's attention is divided. And Dany can't get to Westeros without a fleet and a grand admiral.

To that end, you need two new Ironborn POVs.

I will allow that Aeron's POV can be seen as unnecessary and a case of GRRM getting carried away. But if GRRM wants to make Euron's apotheotic plans of grimdark world domination clear, then someone needs to narrate that. Prologue or epilogue. Doesn't matter.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

I can respect that.

But you are contradicting yourself.

So which is it? 

Is the inclusion and magnification of Arianne derailing the story? Or would she, as the sole Dornish POV, be enough? And if not Arianne, then who?

The Camera that Rides? Or would it be the Frog Prince?

Arianne is the singular most important Dornish POV that there is.

• Quentyn is a bit of a minor character who already served his purpose (i.e. establishing the complexities behind Dany's bad reputation, setting the dragons free, putting Dany in a position where she is forced to deal with Illyrio Mopatis, pitting Dany against Dorne) and is no longer a part of the story. Could he have done this as a side character in someone else's POV? No, not really. But it's water under the bridge. He was ultimately necessary in some capacity. It's not like we spent a lot of time on him and he is dead. The end.
• Areo Hotah's purpose is clear as far as I'm concerned. He's going to be mixing it up with the Daynes and the Daynes are obviously up to something. GRRM won't even reveal their house words because said house words are major spoilers. And then there's the R+L=J debacle: Eddard Stark showed up at the Dayne castle with a sword, a newborn and a corpse and Ashara Dayne just randomly kills herself? Eddard Stark snaps and becomes a hotheaded, totalitarian dictator at the mere mention of Ashara Dayne's name...even though she is the perfect cover? Why does Ned Dayne know more about Stark family history than Arya Stark does when Ned has never even been within 100 miles of Moat Cailin. Forget Chekov's Gun, try Chekov's Family. And since Areo is an ex-slave with no real agency of his own, he's now put in a position where he has to either stay silent and allow the Daynes to carry on with whatever they are doing or be assertive enough to speak up and take action...even though it would completely obliterate his identity and worldview.

On the note of the Ironborn...

Asha cannot be in two places at once.

Either she replaces Victarion and goes east with Moqorro to get Daenerys or she goes North to provide closure for the ironborn invader subplot, become a major political player and a key fighter in the war against the Others.

You don't get both.

And both are important. Theon can't carry the big northern plotline by himself, Jon is indisposed, Melisandre has bigger fish to fry and Bran's attention is divided. And Dany can't get to Westeros without a fleet and a grand admiral.

To that end, you need two new Ironborn POVs.

I will allow that Aeron's POV can be seen as unnecessary and a case of GRRM getting carried away. But if GRRM wants to make Euron's apotheotic plans of grimdark world domination clear, then someone needs to narrate that. Prologue or epilogue. Doesn't matter.

Truth be told I think the Dorne plot could be dropped entirely. As of now nothing has happened there that has had any major effect on the world of the main characters. Ideally if Dorne needed a POV, then GRRM should have had Tryion go there with Obyrn. That being said if the Dorne story needs to be told, with only a character who lives in that region, Arianne is the best choice, IMO

Truth be told we don’t need closure for the Iron Born in the North. Just have Ramsay or Stannis defeat them. GRRM use to be the master of telling us about battles that happened off page in the early books.

Having too many cooks in one kitchen is GRRM’s biggest problem and he should work on getting a few out of it.

Edited April 19, 2023 by sifth

[Cas Stark]

2 hours ago, sifth said:

Truth be told I think the Dorne plot could be dropped entirely. As of now nothing has happened there that has had any major effect on the world of the main characters. Ideally if Dorne needed a POV, then GRRM should have had Tryion go there with Obyrn. That being said if the Dorne story needs to be told, with only a character who lives in that region, Arianne is the best choice, IMO

Truth be told we don’t need closure for the Iron Born in the North. Just have Ramsay or Stannis defeat them. GRRM use to be the master of telling us about battles that happened off page in the early books.

Having too many cooks in one kitchen is GRRM’s biggest problem and he should work on getting a few out of it.

Agree.  If Aegon is going to have some kind of significant impact, we still don't necessarily need a POV.  We certainly didn't gain much by Quentyn's POV or Oakheart or Areo Hotah.  According to me, we didn't need to see this stuff in real time.  I know some people love, love the Dorne stuff and love Arianne.  I'm not one of those.  I would trade every word in all of those POVs and all the Greyjoy POVs except Asha to have gotten resolution to something/anything at the end of Dance.

500 pages or 50,000 pages, makes no matter, if you're not writing any pages for months or years at a time.

[sifth]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Agree.  If Aegon is going to have some kind of significant impact, we still don't necessarily need a POV.  We certainly didn't gain much by Quentyn's POV or Oakheart or Areo Hotah.  According to me, we didn't need to see this stuff in real time.  I know some people love, love the Dorne stuff and love Arianne.  I'm not one of those.  I would trade every word in all of those POVs and all the Greyjoy POVs except Asha to have gotten resolution to something/anything at the end of Dance.

500 pages or 50,000 pages, makes no matter, if you're not writing any pages for months or years at a time.

The funny thing is, I love all of the POV characters. I love the Dorne story, I love the Greyjoy story. I just fear they came at the price of derailing the entire series.

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

The funny thing is, I love all of the POV characters. I love the Dorne story, I love the Greyjoy story. I just fear they came at the price of derailing the entire series.

I like the Greyjoy chapters, but they're not necessary.  I don't really love the Dorne story, it's okay, sometimes interesting, but SO SO much time devoted to it, I can't see how I will ever feel the pay off, whatever it is, will have been worth derailing the books for 20 years or more.

[Craving Peaches]

13 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I can't see how I will ever feel the pay off,

Personally it will be worth it if Areo, Doran and the Sand Snakes all kick the bucket.

[Cas Stark]

4 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Personally it will be worth it if Areo, Doran and the Sand Snakes all kick the bucket.

Ha.  Yeah, I was so disappointed to find out Doran the great intriguer/planner/worthy adversary had been doing nothing at all for 20 years.  The Martells, and the end of the show, are huge reasons why I've lost so much interest in Winds.  The new characters to me were so inferior to the originals, and things became so complicated, convoluted and over written, I am kind of 'meh' now.  If Winds comes out, great.  My expectation for the quality is very low, maybe I'll be fabulously surprised and Winds will be a return to form, I doubt it.  I have no hope of Spring ever being published, so that still leaves the saga unfinished.  Sad.

[sifth]

2 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Ha.  Yeah, I was so disappointed to find out Doran the great intriguer/planner/worthy adversary had been doing nothing at all for 20 years.  The Martells, and the end of the show, are huge reasons why I've lost so much interest in Winds.  The new characters to me were so inferior to the originals, and things became so complicated, convoluted and over written, I am kind of 'meh' now.  If Winds comes out, great.  My expectation for the quality is very low, maybe I'll be fabulously surprised and Winds will be a return to form, I doubt it.  I have no hope of Spring ever being published, so that still leaves the saga unfinished.  Sad.

It will be finished, but I doubt GRRM will be the one to do it. The guy underestimates human mortality.

[Cas Stark]

3 minutes ago, sifth said:

It will be finished, but I doubt GRRM will be the one to do it. The guy underestimates human mortality.

It's not the same though.  Dune isn't the same without Frank Herbert.  Anyone else writing an end to ASOIAF other than GRRM is still a failure, it won't be the same, which is exactly why fans became angry at these delays.

[sifth]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It's not the same though.  Dune isn't the same without Frank Herbert.  Anyone else writing an end to ASOIAF other than GRRM is still a failure, it won't be the same, which is exactly why fans became angry at these delays.

I don't know, even the Frank Herbert Dune novels sort of fell apart after a while. God Emperor of Dune, being particularly bad, IMO

[divica]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Ha.  Yeah, I was so disappointed to find out Doran the great intriguer/planner/worthy adversary had been doing nothing at all for 20 years.  The Martells, and the end of the show, are huge reasons why I've lost so much interest in Winds.  The new characters to me were so inferior to the originals, and things became so complicated, convoluted and over written, I am kind of 'meh' now.  If Winds comes out, great.  My expectation for the quality is very low, maybe I'll be fabulously surprised and Winds will be a return to form, I doubt it.  I have no hope of Spring ever being published, so that still leaves the saga unfinished.  Sad.

I think winds will be a mess. grrm thought he would realease it for sure several years ago and even made a promise at some sf convention.

However, upon seeing the reaction to the end of the show and how his ending didn't work grrm probably decided to change the book so that people become more receptive of his ending. Or he realized that his ending didn't work and decided to change the book so that it fits his new ending.

The point is that whatever grrm spent years writing was certainly changed into something new as a reaction to GoT.

[Cas Stark]

10 minutes ago, divica said:

I think winds will be a mess. grrm thought he would realease it for sure several years ago and even made a promise at some sf convention.

However, upon seeing the reaction to the end of the show and how his ending didn't work grrm probably decided to change the book so that people become more receptive of his ending. Or he realized that his ending didn't work and decided to change the book so that it fits his new ending.

The point is that whatever grrm spent years writing was certainly changed into something new as a reaction to GoT.

I also think it will be a mess, based on the sample chapters, which are long and rambling just like in Dance ,combined with the ongoing, now very long term, creative issue(s)+life issue(s) that created the debacle to begin with.  His writing slowed to a crawl after Storm of Swords.  Meereen knot [yeah, whatever].  He's still struggling 10++ years later. It must have been a huge blow that he didn't even get Winds out before the show ended, let alone Spring.  As far as the show contents, I don't know how much the reaction will affect him, because I believe most of the show end points were from GRRM, just very poorly executed. He's also been all over the map in his comments, sometimes saying the ends haven't changed in decades and sometimes saying he's changing things, and on and on.

I was late to the party, reading the books during GOT first season.....but I can clearly remember when some people would say Winds wouldn't be out until 2018, most thought that was nuts and mean spirited.  Here we are 2023, and all we have is GRRM still being snippy [which is a sign to me things aren't going well because if he were sprinting to the end he wouldn't feel defensive] and saying he's 500 pages away from the end.  

[divica]

8 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I also think it will be a mess, based on the sample chapters, which are long and rambling just like in Dance ,combined with the ongoing, now very long term, creative issue(s)+life issue(s) that created the debacle to begin with.  His writing slowed to a crawl after Storm of Swords.  Meereen knot [yeah, whatever].  He's still struggling 10++ years later. It must have been a huge blow that he didn't even get Winds out before the show ended, let alone Spring.  As far as the show contents, I don't know how much the reaction will affect him, because I believe most of the show end points were from GRRM, just very poorly executed. He's also been all over the map in his comments, sometimes saying the ends haven't changed in decades and sometimes saying he's changing things, and on and on.

I could be wrong but I think you need to look at what he says chronologicallys so that he is consistent. I don't remember all his comments but he seemed very positive and making promises about releasing winds before the show aired. There were even rumors that he was doing his pre release rituals. Then the show happened and there was some discontentment and afterwards he stoped talking about the book except to say he was writing about x character once in a while.  

And I think it is impossible for the show not to have a huge impact on him. A lot of what happened until somewhere in season 7 are certainly things he plans to use in his books. And then I think everybody agrees season 8 just doesn t fit into the previous 7 seasons story. It should be clear that if the books somewhat follow the story of GoT until season 8 then he will need 10 books in order to make several elements of season 8 fit into the story. 

27 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I was late to the party, reading the books during GOT first season.....but I can clearly remember when some people would say Winds wouldn't be out until 2018, most thought that was nuts and mean spirited.  Here we are 2023, and all we have is GRRM still being snippy [which is a sign to me things aren't going well because if he were sprinting to the end he wouldn't feel defensive] and saying he's 500 pages away from the end.

I have no idea if being snippy is good or bad. He was sure he would release the book years ago and was being nice and talkative. Dispite that now he still says he needs to write 500 pages. It makes no sense.

[Mithras]

8 hours ago, divica said:

I think winds will be a mess. grrm thought he would realease it for sure several years ago and even made a promise at some sf convention.

However, upon seeing the reaction to the end of the show and how his ending didn't work grrm probably decided to change the book so that people become more receptive of his ending. Or he realized that his ending didn't work and decided to change the book so that it fits his new ending.

The point is that whatever grrm spent years writing was certainly changed into something new as a reaction to GoT.

It turns out Bran the Broken has the worst story.

[Equilibrium]

17 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Ha.  Yeah, I was so disappointed to find out Doran the great intriguer/planner/worthy adversary had been doing nothing at all for 20 years.  The Martells, and the end of the show, are huge reasons why I've lost so much interest in Winds.  The new characters to me were so inferior to the originals, and things became so complicated, convoluted and over written, I am kind of 'meh' now.  If Winds comes out, great.  My expectation for the quality is very low, maybe I'll be fabulously surprised and Winds will be a return to form, I doubt it.  I have no hope of Spring ever being published, so that still leaves the saga unfinished.  Sad.

Have no fear Cas, we are talking about the man that wrote entire ASOS in year and a half!

The quality trajectory is no where near concerning and mostly stems from editors being hesitant to edit him, due to scope, layers of symbolism, foreshadowing and representation, individual word significance, idiosyncratic style and deadlines as publishers can't afford having editors go back and forth on minor suggestions that Martin might consider disruptive.

And as I have expounded at length previously, Martin has no business dying anytime soon and endgame should be far easier to write than preparation, as his main problem is perfecting the timeline leading up to it and he is still playing with his method of writing out multiple paths to everything and seeing which ones work best. 

We'll have TWOW in 2027 and ADOS in 2034 and only because he will write Fire and Blood 2 in between, after he gets major ASOIAF spoilers out of the way in TWOW.

That said I am not excluding the possibility of one more book, but I think timeline would only marginally change as it likely won't be additional 1500 MS pages, more likely 600-700 of pages he already edited down that have to be included and necessitate the split.

[sifth]

7 hours ago, Mithras said:

It turns out Bran the Broken has the worst story.

Our future king, because what the realm needs is a story teller, lol

If GRRM can make Bran the Broken becoming king work, I'll take back everything I said about his writing of the last two books.

Edited April 21, 2023 by sifth

[divica]

5 hours ago, sifth said:

Our future king, because what the realm needs is a story teller, lol

If GRRM can make Bran the Broken becoming king work, I'll take back everything I said about his writing of the last two books.

faegon takes cersei role in the show. So he decides to let the north fight the ww alone. Bran decides to skinchange into faegon so that he can give the right orders and ends up deciding to live as faegon instead of as bran stark.

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by divica