I gave up on finishing those books years ago. It's been long enough I hardly remember what happened in the last one and the next one isn't even on the horizon as far as I can tell. It's not happening.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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I've been telling people this since somewhere around 2014/2015 when I read the third book. The first two books were well thought out, the plot moved, the exposition had purpose and was driving toward something. While I was about 2/3 of the way through the book I realized that it felt like GRRM had changed his mind about what he wanted to do with the story. The book no longer seemed focused on a destination, it seemed focused on moving characters around so that he could make something different work instead. But doing that new thing meant killing off 75% of the characters he'd spent two books developing, so he had to replace them with new ones, who were less developed, kind of cardboard cutouts of the previous ones. But now these new characters stories needed to be fleshed out so he could make their involvement make sense. In doing that he realized he couldn't slot them in to accomplish the goals he needed to complete the story. So he kept expanding the web, expanding the universe, but never really having a plan or path in place to make it all come back together. And that's where he's been for over a decade.
He hasn't finished the books because he doesn't know how to at this point. He can't get everything tied together, he can't go back to the story he wanted to tell because he killed off pieces necessary to make it happen, and the replacements didn't fit where he needed them to.
I stopped reading after the third book too, and that's exactly the sense I got.
There's no conclusions, just character deaths. It's just an unraveling web that becomes less and less coherent the further it goes.
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This is why I just do not buy any story that’s unfinished.
As sad as it is, no matter how cool Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth looks, I just can’t emotionally bring myself into it knowing it could be another Kingdom Hearts 3 “we don’t know where we’re going” ending. Even my childhood classic Half-Life both couldn’t commit to an ending, and when their writer frustratedly uploaded “fanfiction” of its ending, it basically ended on a Cthulu Mythos style downer.
From now on, I’m only getting into stories if I can see a review that says “It ended very well!” not “I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
The only author I feel comfortable reading an unfinished series by is Brandon Sanderson. But that's just because the dude can write two books in the time it takes me to read one.
Edit: Son of a bitch, he wrote another book while I was writing that comment. Skip to the very end for new book announcement
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My theory is he actually helped write the ending of the TV show, and when the fans absolutely despised it, realized he had to scrap his entire ending.
The problem was the execution. A tyrannical Daenarys as the final villain after the White Walkers were defeated makes sense, but she was never actually given the time to be the Mad Queen. She should have gotten a whole season as the big bad after her entire arc from book 1 to present being the buildup to her reign. It's like they were given the bullet points of the ending and instead of fleshing it out into a proper story, they just used the bullet points as the entire source for the script.
Yeah, it could have been interesting to watch her slow decent into madness, but it was like they crammed all the major plot points into a day or two.
Not that I'm going to watch the last season again to verify, but it felt like she went from savior to genocidal maniac in about 3 minutes of screentime. It was jarring.
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This was a show that was totally cool spending 2-3 seasons for a payoff. I can't believe I'm still upset by how they speedran through everything.
I'm still surprised how GoT was on the forefront of pop culture and within 2 seasons any and all interest was morphed to apathetic disdain. No one really talks about it anymore. It's only "they fucked up the ending". Blue balled an entire fandom so bad that it impacted the show runners careers. I'm really hoping HotD brings the fandom back (also, a reboot of the last 2 seasons as a whole new show would be dope)
I can't think of another pop culture fall from grace as dramatic and quick. It's always amusing seeing all the overstock GoT merch at hobby stores that they can't unload. Nobody gives a fuck.
The final season fucked up so badly that it killed not only my love for the show, but the Game of Thrones universe as a whole. I had planned to read the books and certainly would have watched HotD, but now I just don't care anymore.
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Fans had been predicting that Dani would have a heel turn since the first book so it's not like it wasn't built up. D&D were just admittedly fanboys of the character and white washed her on the TV show so the twist came seemingly out of nowhere.
Edit: Thinking on it a bit more, it's also in the books favor that we have access to Dani's internal dialogue. It's through this that we get a lot of foreshadowing about her future turn, and is definitely a way the books would have handled it better.
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I hope not. The ending didn't suck, the build up did. I can absolutely see dragon girl nuking kings landing but it'll take more than one episode between "I don't want to rule over ashes" and her actually ruling over ashes for me to say "yeah I can see how she got there."
This is the best take. It really was the speed run buildup, not the actual events and decisions that ruined it.
Yep, been saying this for years.
We know he told the show creators huge future plot points. That ending was the ending, it sucked, he’s embarrassed, the series will never be finished.
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I disagree, but only because I think I figured out the ending, how GRRM told the show writers, and I can see how they interpreted it.
Possible spoilers: I think Jon is supposed to kill Daenerys and the writers couldn't figure out why so they just made up dumb shit. But the reason he kills her is to forge a sword (Lightbringer) to destroy the white walkers. And Daenerys agrees to it.
"To fight the darkness, Azor Ahai needed to forge a hero's sword. He labored for thirty days and thirty nights until it was done. However, when he went to temper it in water, the sword broke. He was not one to give up easily, so he started over.
The second time he took fifty days and fifty nights to make the sword, even better than the first. To temper it this time, he captured a lion and drove the sword into its heart, but once more the steel shattered.
The third time, with a heavy heart, for he knew beforehand what he must do to finish the blade, he worked for a hundred days and nights until it was finished. This time, he called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her living heart, her soul combining with the steel of the sword, creating the weapon known as Lightbringer." -Tyrion tells this story in book 2 I believe
"According to prophecy, our champion will be reborn to wake dragons from stone and reforge the great sword Lightbringer that defeated the darkness those thousands of years ago. If the old tales are true, a terrible weapon forged with a loving wife's heart. Part of me thinks man was well rid of it, but great power requires great sacrifice. That much at least the Lord of Light is clear on." -Book 2
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Similar writers who for some reason are fixated on completing their series in one or two books.
My hot take is it's this constraint they put on themselves that caused them to feel overwhelmed and lose interest.
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Yes. I need to know what the hell happens to kvothe
See, Rothfuss made a Mary Sue. Since the story is being told by the guy the story is about, after the fact, to someone who the narrator has no respect for, Rothfuss has an out: He can let Kvothe keep telling his story and then out it all as complete bullshit, or he can let it be just an embellished truth and then let us learn exactly why Kvothe is essentially in hiding after living such a fantastical life - either way Kvothe gets his punishment / redemption and we learn about what real tragedies have befallen him. This story is deep and good.
What he cannot do is pretend that all that ACTUALLY happened, and that Kvothe went on to kill a king and retired to an easy life as an in keeper. That story would suck hard ass and make everyone's eyes roll out of their heads.
I'm convinced he wrote #2 and is basically waffling over how to turn it into #1, or arguing with his publisher over it, because he knows it's inherently bad.
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The most annoying part is he's written several books since then, just not in the main story.
He's probably getting so much done by avoiding working on Winds of Winter.
Relatable.
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I am 💯 convinced he's been done with all the material for years and it will all get released on his death. He had a huge amount of leverage for those last deals and he's paid for all time based on what he made from HBO.
My guess? He just didn't like what he saw in those last seasons, and doesn't feel like he owes anyone anything. Maybe we'll get the rest when he passes, but he's probably just not worried about it and living his life.
I think the last few seasons demonstrated that a lot of his conclusions for these characters is going to feel rushed if he tries to do it in just two books.
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A big ASOIAF YouTuber Preston Jacobs went through George's statements and interpreted them and determined he had a bunch of leftover material that didn't fit in the last book, and he has since added less than 100 pages total over the last 13 years or whatever. The guy is not working on Winds of Winter.
And he was supposed to get Winds out during the show, it was going to be season 6 which came out in the Obama administration. And think of how much money he would have made if he released a book during the show.
Yeah I saw that. He made a pretty convincing case that the only new content George had written was during lockdown in the pandemic, the rest was all stuff that he cut from Dance of Dragons.
Now, George Martin doesn't owe anyone anything, it just makes me sad that this series will never be finished.
He doesn't owe us anything, but I wish he would at least be honest and say, "hey y'all, sorry but I'm not really interested in these books anymore".
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Except he doesn't wake up on a chair, he wakes up on a giant pile of money.
And he's writing it on like an Apple 2, so like a good 30 minutes is spent waiting for his machine to boot up. By the time it does, he probably forgets that he was gonna do it.
I think it is an old PC with WordStar
You're right, it's an old DOS machine. I misremembered
I can't tell if this is satire or real, because I know artists do weird things to get in the right zone.
He absolutely does. Supposedly it helps limit distractions. I don't think it's helping.
Man loves his solitaire.
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I started the first one then came into the realisation he is never gonna finish it and abondoned it.
You can stop at book 3, it's fine.
I tell people this about wheel of time. It was originally supposed to be a trilogy and then they all saw $$$ and went "JUST KIDDING" on that ending and wrote 11 more books.
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He realised a few years back that a revered scion of a massacred noble line riding massive scaly creatures into battle at the head of an army of fanatics and ultimately turning into an even worse despot is just Dune again and has lost all interest in it.
He should just go balls to the wall left field like Life of Brian and have aliens pick them up for some zany flight or do Quest for the Holy Grail and have it be a movie at the end and the police show up to arrest the cosplayers.
Yes, I also agree he shold use cocaine.
The guy is 75. He deserves a bit of a bloody rest.
I saw a conversation between him and Stephen King where he talked about how laborious he found it to write consistently. He could get someone to ghost-write for him to make everyone shut up and rake in the money tho.
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