George has betrayed ASOIAF

[miyuki]

 

It's been over a decade since the release of A Dance with Dragons. We will probably never see Winds of Winter getting released. But that's not what I want to complain about, that's been done to death already.

What I want to complain about and what irks me is GRRM's decision to embrace Game of Thrones as a multimedia franchise.  ASOIAF was literature, an unfinished series of low fantasy books. It is currently becoming another "universe", this time for HBO and there are many ASOIAF spinoffs in the making. A prequel in the form of House of the Dragon has already finished its first season.

Now, I'm very strongly against the idea of cinematic universes, unnecessary spinoffs and prequels in general. In case of ASOIAF they make no sense not just due to the original series being unfinished, but because treating written ASOIAF as a base material free to interpretate in order to create whichever new spin off series would make HBO most money just devaluates ASOIAF to same level as superhero comic books. And I feel so bad that George has decided to agree with it, that he thinks Game of Thrones cinematic universe written by others based on his notes will be a great legacy for him. I have read everything George has ever written and that I have got my hands on, from his college essays in the 60s to his tv scripts in the 90s to Fire and Blood in 2018. The anti-establishment George who wrote the corpse-handler trilogy would have never been such a sellout. The George who wrote "Portraits of His Children" would have never let others ruin his work the way he lets HBO ruin it.

I'm sorry but the world never needed House of the Dragon. And getting it was not better than nothing, it's success cemented the reality that finishing the novels will never be a priority to George and the future for the world of ice and fire will be seen on television and not written by GRRM.

Anyway, I'm not sure if a rant like this is allowed here and I might have come off pompous and snobbish for trashing comic books and HBO, but I'm not sorry for that. I do not like the direction this franchise is heading and I am wondering if I am being the only one... I'm interested what others think about this. I just regard the ASOIAF novels as genuinely good literature and I wish I could read all of it not watch it on tv. Revisiting this soul-sinking George's quote from NotABlog last year made me write this post: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/03/09/random-updates-and-bits-o-news/

Quote

I am sorry for you.   They ALL matter to me.

[miyuki]

I also believe that content for the sake of content has no artistic value and should not be encouraged. 

[Gilbert Green]

He did it for the money. 

The question of his priorities is not unrelated to the issue of finishing the books.  But you say you don't care about that or don't want to talk about that.  But that's still the issue.  If he is not going to finish the books anyway (and maybe he can't) then I don't care if he makes money in other ways.

I agree with you to the extent of not being personally interested in the broader franchise.

[sifth]

Honestly, I think the series just got too big for him.

[Craving Peaches]

I just hope that the books don't have TV-only plotpoints (Aegon's Others Prophecy) retconned into them.

[csuszka1948]

I don't think he is doing it for money, because he doesn't need money. He is doing it because he wanted to work on TV his whole life.

[Alester Florent]

I do think he has overcommitted and has got himself into a situation where he has too many projects on the go; not just ASoIaF, but the D&E novellas, F&B. his involvement in the various shows. I know from my own experience that trying to juggle that many big projects often results in none of them getting finished. It's notable for instance that while he says he still wants to do D&E, he hasn't published any of those since before ADwD, and they are surely much easier and quicker to write. His programme of live events etc, something effectively required of modern authors, will also eat into his writing time. But it also seems clear that the's got a pretty serious case of if not writer's block then at least writer's overwhelm with ASoIaF and if that's the case then spending his energies elsewhere isn't the worst use of his time.

I have little patience with accusations of "selling out" in general, to be honest. We as an audience are not reasonably entitled to demand that our creatives live in penury for the sake of conforming to our own arbitrary standard of "authenticity" or the like. If GRRM can make money and live in comfort by licensing his works, then good for him, frankly.

(I make an exception in certain cases for creatives who directly take the corporate/government dollar to compromise their core product: that is selling out in the purest and most objectionable sense. Especially when those creatives made their reputation as aggressive subculture or countercultural icons. It was deeply depressing to see Johnny Rotten doing adverts for Country Life butter; even more so though, Family Guy jumped the shark the moment it agreed to do an episode promoting Microsoft 7, even if Microsoft later abandoned the idea.)

On the "better than nothing" point, we won't know to what extent GRRM's TV commitments are actually affecting his writing. My suspicion is that their effect is largely negligible: if GRRM were really in the groove for writing TWoW, he'd fit it in, and since he's not, there'll be so much procrastination in his writing of it that he might as well fill the time with something worthwhile. And to be fair, while I wasn't at all excited for HotD, I was really impressed by the actual result.

As to the questoin of whether he has "betrayed" ASoIaF, though, I don't think that attitude is helpful or reasonable. Do we need Neil Gaiman to get involved again?

[Alester Florent]

10 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I just hope that the books don't have TV-only plotpoints (Aegon's Others Prophecy) retconned into them.

To be fair on this, and while I push back against those saying it's "canonical" or "semi-canonical" for the books, I do think the prophecy is consistent with the books and while I don't think it was likely to be in place from the outset of the series I have no problem imagining that he came up with it while writing ACoK and it's been kept in reserve not as a retcon but as a reveal.

(In which case it's a bit annoying that the reveal happened in a TV show rather than the books, but it's not the first time that's happened).

[miyuki]

1 minute ago, Alester Florent said:

I have little patience with accusations of "selling out" in general, to be honest. We as an audience are not reasonably entitled to demand that our creatives live in penury for the sake of conforming to our own arbitrary standard of "authenticity" or the like. If GRRM can make money and live in comfort by licensing his works, then good for him, frankly.

I somewhat agree, however, just as GRRM doesn't owe us anything, we do not owe him any understanding or sympathy and we can judge him for his behavior. We, his readers, made George what he is. His success comes from us reading his books. Him deciding that some tv projects are just as important to him is a slap on our (at least mine) face. I feel like some big media outlet should call him out openly for that just so he would at least feel obliged to explain himself on his blog. Yes I'm bitter.

[Alester Florent]

Personally I would rather GRRM spend his time writing (for whatever projects he's writing for) rather than having to act as a media personality defending himself against criticism. I don't see how publicly "calling him out" for his purported transgressions is going to help with that.

[miyuki]

9 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

Personally I would rather GRRM spend his time writing (for whatever projects he's writing for) rather than having to act as a media personality defending himself against criticism. I don't see how publicly "calling him out" for his purported transgressions is going to help with that.

It might bring him out of his bubble, for example, the man still thinks only mean people on the internet hated season 8 of Game of Thrones. No one big of noteworthy has actually ever criticized his approach to his work.

Crossing over from classical franchises to never ending and ever expanding multimedia franchises seems like a trend that everyone seems to be okay with, like it's something inevitable. Maybe that's why George chose this future for ASOIAF, he didn't want to miss out on the inevitable. I believe that when you transform a work of fiction or a series into a franchise it inevitably becomes content and content is to be consumed, it's not art.