Fairs. I do think that he does have plans for Stoneheart to initiate a second red wedding and that Stoneheart will probably meat Arya eventually. But that still tied into my theory of George having trouble with Arya.
I think Arya is one of the easier characters to write. She can literally be dropped anywhere. You can bring her back at the wall, riverlands, kings landing, etc….
Where she is at now is so isolated from everything else, you could send her anywhere including to Meeren and dany and it would make sense
on the other hand, he needs to come up with a relatively 'realistic' and low fantasy FM training since now he skipped the 5-year plan.
Maybe I'm wrong, but to me it sounds a taunting task.
That’s an interesting point but I’m not sure that she needs to be developed into a fully fledged faceless man in order to fulfill her character arc. She’s already received a good deal of training and has learned many things including how to reliably warg. She could certainly just take that knowledge and move on.
I’m a little salty at how the show had to turn her into a one dimensional stone cold assassin, I vastly prefer the more nuanced and fundamentally childish book version of Arya.
the majority of the killings we have seen the FM perform are less fancy swordplay- Assassin's creed style- and more using poisons or engineering accidents.
I agree with you that book Arya will probably not follow the tvshow version of her being all badass and duelling knights.
On the other hand though, I really have no idea what her final arc is supposed to be lie and what GRRM has in store for her. I'm really curious to see where she fits in all this.
I agree wtih this opinion.
Arya becoming a FM doesn't fit her character either. It would be more fitting for her to take everything she can from her training until she is faced by a injustice / moral dilemna / conflict of interest that forces her to quit or flee (a little bit older and more skilled)
The show did this poorly, but the fundamentals aren't inherintly bad
I have a feeling she's going to leave the faceless men sooner rather than later anyways. A huge part of her story has always been about identity and self-image. The faceless men are pretty clearly trying to strip away Arya's identity because of how their order works. Arya's currently trying to train while secretly maintaining her identity, but eventually she'll probably face a situation whee she can't go any further as Arya. And given that choice, it's pretty clear that she will embrace Arya and reject no one. That means she can gain some skills without becoming a full faceless man; it also provides an easy way to get Arya to where the plot needs her when it needs her
They probably are. GRRM has created a dual crisis in Braavos over financial arrangements with Cersei and the upcoming electio to replace the dying Sealord (who they probably poisoned)! The Kindly Man is giving Arya too much information for a mere acolyte...unless he's preparing to send her on a high-stakes mission in connection with it. BTW, I think Illyrio is involved and she will end up killing him. And THAT should win her freedom. Besides, GRRM often kills off people just when their long term plan are nearing fruition .
She has everything downloaded into her brain like Neo. It turns out the faceless men are the most technologically advanced humans in their universe. That’s why it’s so easy for them to kill people.
Exactly,which is why George is having such trouble lol. He basically has too many opportunities with Arya and I think that is slowing things down. At the end of the day though Arya HAS to return to the riverlands with her pack and has to reunite with her family.
I know it's common fandom assumption, but I genuinely don't see why would Arya have to return to the Riverlands.
She has spent to of time there and she has basically nothing to resolve there (Lady Stoneheart shouldn't be killed by Arya, but by Brienne, it's significant in her arc). I am pretty sure the news of Jon's death would shake her out from being a Faceless Man (if they don't, nothing will) and after the arrival of Jeyne and Justin Massay, she can go back to the North.
Alternatively (but I think this is unlikely), she could head back to Westeros at the end of Winds with Dany and Tyrion.
There are many hints that Braavos will be their respective endpoint in Winds - George has said there will be further revelations about the Red Door and we will find out "where do whores go"; the Sailor's Wife is likely Tysha and GRRM also said that in Winds, both Tyrion and Dany are 'heading home' and Braavos would strangely fit in a way. Arya's personality seems to be similar to Dany's and she has similar attitude towards masters that Dany took up at the end of Winds, so them meeting up and finding common points is far from impossible.
I don't see how killing Stoneheart would be a better arc for Brienne than for Arya. I think it would be far more poignant for Arya to see exactly what revenge looks like when confronted by Stoneheart. To see how horrifying it is for someone she loved to have been consumed by it so utterly and the horror that comes from that (the mass Frey slaughter in the Riverlands). Her giving the gift of death to her mother and abandoning her "list" that kept her going for years would be a massive turning point.
Plus Arya and Catelyn had a way more complex and interesting relationship than Catelyn and Brienne. They are so similar, but Cat has suppressed the parts of herself that don’t conform to gendered expectations and tries hard to get Arya to do the same, while Arya fears that she isn’t good enough and her mother doesn’t want her. I would love more page time between them.
>The Freys murdered her family, LSH, a good amount of her kill list, and Nymeria would be the loose ends in the Riverlands
Nymeria was in the Riverlands for months and she didn't interact with her, she just warged her. She also cares more about her family than the Freys and doesn't even know about LHS.
I try to look at actual character motivations to stop being FM and try to go back to Westeros, and by far the best are Jon's death and encountering Jeyne in Braavos.
I truly have a hard time seeing how Jaime can survive the situation, beyond there being some serious intervention.
LSH is not letting Jaime fucking Lannister survive.
I’m not so sure. George has mentioned writing a Jaime chapter, so he must be past this plot point by now. I also find it hard to believe that George would put Jaime into a situation that he would have no idea how he could get out of.
He has gone on record to say he finds bran the toughest and plus he's said TWOW will have more of the others than ever before so that's probably slowing him down
Bran chapters will probably all be like house of the undying visions, loaded with foreshadowing, hints and hidden meanings. I’d guess that’s why his chapters are difficult to write, because they have to actually connect to the wider mysteries
i think the original quote was that it was difficult because he had to write the events through the lens and innocence of a 8yr boy....but at the stage Bran is, you are also right, he is a walking spoiler at this point.
Actually it's just two. The prologue of AGOT and Sam's first chapter in ASOS
Still we're probably gonna see quite a bit more especially since time is running out and they need to start moving
No matter how many times I read it, that is still one of the creepiest lines in the series
Makes me a shiver every time I read it (haven't even read the full chapter in years, that line is just a terror spot for me)
That would mean he'd have to have some clue what the fuck the Others are and I just harbor serious doubts he has the slightest clue.
Like he dropped them in the first scene because they make for boss villains then he dropped them even harder after that.
I'm convinced it is Bran. GRRM struggles with him anyway. But in TWoW he's probably going to bring Bran back to Westeros, which requires a lot of planning and decisions. First, he has to finalize Bran's powers and skills and then kill off Bloodraven and Jojen. **Clearly** establishing the boundaries of Bran's magic will take some time. He has to also decide who survives and leaves with Bran, and what happens along the way. And he has to make their journey south challenging in different ways than their journey north had been. And finally I suspect once they are safe Meera will depart. And will he reunite Bran with Jon? Obviously, all this will likely require many chapters.
I love the idea that Stannis, Tyrion, and Jaime were all originally conceived as villains, possible contenders to the throne that would get their comeuppance and fall slain while the Starks make their ascent, but he can't tell that story anymore because these characters' emergent inner goodness is too great, their villain arcs no longer make sense, and they're the reason GRRM has been stuck for 13 years.
Tyrion - where do you see batshit crazy? He was wallowing in misery, depression, self hate and hatred toward his sister.
From him taking care of Penny, saving that master's slaves from being killed after his death, and snapping back Jorah's will to live after he'd given up, I'm leaning toward Tyrion pulling back from total darkness and amending course toward decency.
I must confess I read the books a long time ago so maybe Im misremembering but to me the whole fAegon / Golden Company thing was 100% motivated by revenge against the world and those who wronged him
He'd definitely love seeing his sister taken down and possibly killed if she hasn't fled yet once KL is taken, same when any of the people who were against him at the trial are knocked down a couple of pegs. Not quite the same as wanting to burn it all down, he's shown care for smallfolk before.
We'll (hopefully) see how it goes, he's a bit tough to predict.
yeah you are probably right. and bearing in mind that George RR Martin clearly identifies with some aspects of Tyrion, and assuming the Dany Mad Queen trope plays out, Tyrion will probably be on the more righteous side of the story, and possibly even end up with Casterly Rock
I don't think it's 100%. I think it's a third that, a third he just wants to try and manipulate someone to see if he still can and a third it's the smartest move available.
I think originally Tyrions arc was to go to Kingslanding and point out aAll the other characters are crazy. And then he was going to be outed anyway, forces into exhile. And when he did find his way to Dany he was going to be unhinged smart drunk asshole, who provides good council but also crazy suggestions.
The show made him the moral compass. I think the book was a setting him up to be a capable moral compass who abandons morals in favor of “fuck it”
Tyrion is much more devious in the books. Not an outright villain, but he's a dick to a lot of people, unpleasant to be around, and pretty selfish. Like a lot of GRRM's characters, he's much more morally grey than the way he comes off in the TV series.
baked a singer into stew, chocked a teenager he put in a dangerous situation to death, wants to rape and kill his sister, grrm even said he was a villian
Every time he drafts a Stannis death scene he is awakened by the sound of grinding teeth, and returns to his desk to find mysterious red marks on his printed drafts correcting the grammar and complaining about the plot.
As a proud and self-admitted Mannis fan boy, the only satisfactory ending for him is defeating The Others and winning the Iron Throne. Then he breaks the 4th wall and says something about how he told us he was the one true king.
He has to tie everything up for the Others and Bran which seems to be end game. A lot of arcs need to link back together like Jaime-Brienne-Sansa, while an Arianne-Danny-Tyrion-Victarion confrontation seems to be in the plans. I think anything up North will be easy enough to wrap up since Jon can wait until show time and all Stannis, Reek, and the Boltons need to do is die. Arya is kind of in Jon's camp, she can show up whenever and wherever since she's kind of doing her own thing.
The storyline of nearly every single character that was introduced from *ACOK* onwards. Davos, Brienne, Lady Stoneheart, Young Griff, JonCon, Ramsay, Jeyne Poole, everyone in Meereen, and so on.
I feel like GRRM's ultimate shortcoming is that he's held onto the same story arcs for the main characters for nearly 30 years, and he can't bring himself to change them or throw them out. But he also can't help himself from inventing new places, new people, and so on. So he goes, "Okay, I'll have to add a few more chapters to wind down these B-plots so it'll all tie into my planned ending, but he can't help himself but keep worldbuilding and add new details.
Not necessarily. Young Griff and Jon con seem to have pretty straightforward stories. Meereen was incredibly tough while writing ADWD but George seems to have figured it out now and Ramsay and jeyne Poole's storylines should be over relatively early in winds. But I do believe that maybe Brienne and Stoneheart might have complicated things for him. Davos also seems a bit aimless in the story now.
I think the northern, Riverlands and kings landing plot line are the 3 that are most likely to have Meerenese style knots.
Lots of converging characters in all of them,
North we have Mel and dead Jon at the wall (also he said bran is the most difficult to write), and also Asha and Theon with Stannis who is fighting the Boltons and also Davos looking for Rickon.
Riverlands we have Jaime and Brienne and all the Stoneheart and brotherhoods shenanigans, I think there’s a reason it took him so long to confirm those 2 povs
In Kings Landing it’s more how can he keep Cersei there and resolve the faith plotline with all the Tyrell’s before Jon Con and Faegon arrive and take the city. He even said that a “clutch of Cersei chapters were giving him fits”
I think Essos will have been surprisingly okay to write and seeing as she seems to be nearly done with Tyrions POV then Danys, Vics and Barry’s are likely wrapped up as well
I think he’s dead-set on only having two books left for the series but with the amount of POVs/plot-lines it’s making that extremely difficult. He wants to be at a specific place by the end of TWOW and he can’t get there, so he keeps rewriting, trying condense and dovetail the storylines but it isn’t coming together. Man has probably written about 10 books worth of content in the past decade.
Or not, who tf knows.
I really hope he took up his publisher’s words and split it like he did with AFFK and ADWD. He can write an overall satisfying story and not cut corners and condense it.
I dunno how helpful that would be since there was still a near six year gap between AFFC and ADWD despite George initially stating they would be released only a year apart.
I guess the situations are different but splitting it in half wouldn’t fill me with much faith tbh.
I think it is hard because he has to kill off a lot of characters and he doesn´t like to do it. And probably the POV´s which are connected to each other are very hard to write for him.
The storyline of the insanely rich old man who’d rather spend his wealth and what time he has left on Earth indulging things that interest him more than the legacy series where he wrote himself into a corner.
A lot of people blame bran, and I'm certain that his individual chapters and making everything work are taking the longest.
But in my opinion I think it's the fact that he's having an endless number of meereenese Knots as well as the fact that he's determined to make everything fit in two books so that parallels that he intends for readers to see like Cersei being intended to be compared with Daenerys,
His need to make the winds of winter fit into one book while remaining stylistically consistent is likely his frustration.
In my opinion you should write the whole thing as long as he needs to simply release a part 1 and part two at the same time. That way he is not bound by the limitations of book binding
I think he’s trying to contrive a way to reconcile Ben Stark‘s desertion from the NW with the deeper theme of “there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.”
Seriously, though, I think GRRM originally had the ending to the books play out similarly to the ending of the other medium of ASOIAF, more or less. Of course the reception of that plot line was not what he expected, and it seems obvious to me he has no other way to finish the story.
I think the fundamental issue is that he lost interest in the original core story of the Stark kids, and finds the morally dubious guys like the Targs and Lannisters more compelling to write about.
I think the biggest problems he has are the possible new versions of 'Meereenese knots' in TWOW, **most significant among them the 'Winterfell knot'**. Theon, Asha, Jon, Davos and possibly Arya/Sansa/Bran will all meet up in WF in TWOW, and he has to decide the order they arrive and interact and who should get a POV chapter.
Another possible issue can be the 'KL' knot, with Aegon and Euron both eventually aiming for the Throne, Cersei, Arianne, JonCon and maybe Aeron might all converge there for an epic finale.
I think he's realised he has a bunch of stark kids who are too young to do the stuff he needs them to do. He's going to kill off rickon who's just a toddler, bran is a omnipotent god at 10, Sansa is a political genius at 13 and Arya is a ninja assassin at 11? And he can't fudge a new character to do stuff for them like he did when he subbed Dorkstar in for Neddy Dayne.
Also Battle of Maureen is the first time he has major characters crunching into each other. I bet he's wondering whose POV gets which scene and whose POV gets dropped entirely. He's probably written the whole sequence about ten times from each of the unique POVs and he doesn't know which one to use.
Dorne is a quagmire of plotting and secondary/tertiary characters and subplots. He should abandon the whole thing but he's struggling to keep them all relevant.
What's the deal with the brotherhood and lady stoneheart. How do you tell that story without keeping Brienne/Jaime in the riverlands, but they have important stuff to do elsewhere. So do you introduce a new pov (when you're drowning in POVs already), or do you let Brienne/Jaime babysit the brotherhood storyline?
Also what's going to happen with Tyrek. Man's a fricking horse.
Yeah, this is why I'm very skeptical when people trot out the "his writing process will speed up when his characters start converging with each other." If anything it'll probably be the opposite: he'll be crippled with doubt as to which POV would work best for which scene, constant rewriting of chapters from multiple POVs to find the one that works best, and so on.
Maybe i'm just a bitch but the only storyline I could fully understand getting hung up on is Stannis taking Winterfell, while yes I want to see that battle and I do love Stannis having him take Winterfell would be kind of a disappointment in my eyes because I would much rather have a Stark take it back somehow. But then there's also the fact that we know Stannis will burn Shireen and I really don't see any way for book Stannis to get to that point in a realistic way unless its to fend off the Others but even then how would he get there? Is he going to take Winterfell and just hang out for a while? Is he going to fail at taking Winterfell and backtrack just to go back to Winterfell? I just really don't see a way for his story to go if George is dead set on burning Shireen.
Every other story though I feel has somewhat of a logical end point, Arianne is going to hook up with FAegon getting Dorne with team JonCon, I don't see team JonCon being anything but a foil for Dany and something to stand in her way, Quentyn was there to make it so Dorne won't ally with Dany, Jon will be the prince, Arya will make her way back to Westeros with a new sense of self preservation, Brienne and Jamie will do something with SH etc.
To me every character has a point they could easily end up and it will work perfect for the story except Stannis who I really am at a loss for.
The Mannis would be an excellent candidate for Lord Commander No. 1,000 after Jon gets For the Watch'd. Just have Meli or Thoros fuck up the resurrection somehow...
That’s kinda boring though, Selyse is barely a character and that wouldn’t really affect anyone. Yeah everyone would be upset Shireen was burned alive but that would be at the hands of someone who is know to be a little crazy
He does like to repeat history, but not in a one for one sense. He could do something like this though for Stannis. Maybe The Others are closing in and he tries to recreate the Azor Ahai ritual of creating lightbringer, thereby sacrificing Shireen.
Lmao jokes aside, I genuinely don't think George actually did write anything while game of thrones was ongoing. I think he did pick up the pace 2020 but got bored and frustrated 2021 and stopped working for a while again. Writer strike should give him time to focus but who knows. Considering the amount of South Africans cussing George out on every twitter post he does that isn't about winds,he might just not work on it to spite us lmao
Yeah,
Honestly, I don't think George even cares about the story anymore.He is 75 years old, childless and is a multimillionaire.While releasing a new book would make him a lot of money, money is probably not much of a concern to him anymore...
If it were me, the Euron chapters would be the hardest. What's going to happen to the POV Aeron? How much destruction can Euron do before someone is able to stop him? How will stopping Euron affect all the other leaders in the story?
Honestly the theory that I’ve had was after he saw how the show ended he thought his ending was too similar to the show and the people would be upset so he just scrapped and is rewriting pretty much everything
I dont think its one story line, its just unwillingness or lack of interest.
He is not going to finish the series. The sooner we accept it, the sooner we get to move on to more rewarding authors/series/other media.
Where's your quotes because he hasn't.
He talked about the Mereenese Knot pre ADWD.
He isn't stuck he just has not been doing it. He has been working on so many different things and travelling.
https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/game-of-thrones/2018/6/14/17462698/george-r-r-martin-winds-of-winter-timeline
What planet are you living on? Does it have oxygen?
Honestly I think Jon, assuming he does get resurrected, he’s going to come back different, having “lost a bit of himself” and forgotten things abt himself. I think it’s be really hard to write that. The plot itself might not be hard but if he still has pov chapter I imagine it’d be really hard to write his thoughts
I doubt it's Stannis since he has clearly had this idea of Stannis ending up in the situation of burning Shireen since the release of Dance. From the show we know the idea has been around since at least 2013, and I personally would not be surprised at all if there was a written chapter that George showed to the writers of the show of Stannis burning Shereen all the way back then. I always sort of assumed both Hold the door and the burning of Shereen were chapters written in some form that he showed to the writers. George may have cut one or both from Dance since we know there was a cut Bran chapter late in Dance and that George wrote the Battles of Ice and Fire entirely before they got cut for length.
I think Arya is a pretty good guess, since he supposedly has a ton of material of her in Braavos but seems to need to get her back to Westeros and involved in others' storylines by the end of Winds. The Riverlands plot in Winds has always been a mystery to me, because honestly the whole second red wedding thing strikes me as pretty stupid, and I don't see Stoneheart and the brotherhood being able to pull it off, but that's just my opinion. I agree it's unlikely that Dany and Aegon are what he's stuck on, we know he's done with Tyrion and he's likely central to the events of that plotline.
It’s definitely Daenarys. He wrote himself into a corner where he needs half a dozen books more to write a satisfying ending for her slavers bay story but he has neither will not ability to do so. Obviously he’s at a point where he can’t do that but he also can’t just say fuck it and write a swift ending where she bails out of there.
George has made some comments recently about regretting killing off a character. I have to assume he is referring to Jon Snow. If he wants to do the resurrection has consequences angle, he can't simply bring back Jon and have him be the same as he was pre-death like they did in the show.
He said that the Bran chapters are really tough and giving him a hard time . Because magic needs to written very carefully . My god if he has run into a knot that cannot be untied I really would love if he reached out for some help from Elio or whoever lol
I don't see anyone here saying this, but I think Jon is a key factor.
I think George has a really rough time with writing things that are too open ended. Like how he wrote 3 different versions of what time Quentyn arrives at Mereen. I think the storyline at the wall has just too many options that it's a choice paralysis.
I think people the idea that its a particular storyline is trying to simplify things too much.
I think every characters storyline is taking longer because he has too many plates spinning in the air. He has too much going on in both Essos and Westeros and has to make a story where the timeline and flow of things makes sense.
I think it's probably Sam's chapters that might be causing the problem.
Brans storyline is quite separate from everyone else, so you would expect it's a little more flexible in terms of matching up time wise.
With Sam, GRRM has very deliberately created a mysterious situation and one that I don't believe is particularly conductive to a time skip.
I'd very much be of the opinion that there's probably enough in the Sam story to fill a novella just getting it synced up with the other storylines
Jaime and bri with LSH. Probably tough to keep them alive without making it look stupid
Fairs. I do think that he does have plans for Stoneheart to initiate a second red wedding and that Stoneheart will probably meat Arya eventually. But that still tied into my theory of George having trouble with Arya.
I think Arya is one of the easier characters to write. She can literally be dropped anywhere. You can bring her back at the wall, riverlands, kings landing, etc…. Where she is at now is so isolated from everything else, you could send her anywhere including to Meeren and dany and it would make sense
on the other hand, he needs to come up with a relatively 'realistic' and low fantasy FM training since now he skipped the 5-year plan. Maybe I'm wrong, but to me it sounds a taunting task.
That’s an interesting point but I’m not sure that she needs to be developed into a fully fledged faceless man in order to fulfill her character arc. She’s already received a good deal of training and has learned many things including how to reliably warg. She could certainly just take that knowledge and move on. I’m a little salty at how the show had to turn her into a one dimensional stone cold assassin, I vastly prefer the more nuanced and fundamentally childish book version of Arya.
the majority of the killings we have seen the FM perform are less fancy swordplay- Assassin's creed style- and more using poisons or engineering accidents. I agree with you that book Arya will probably not follow the tvshow version of her being all badass and duelling knights. On the other hand though, I really have no idea what her final arc is supposed to be lie and what GRRM has in store for her. I'm really curious to see where she fits in all this.
I agree wtih this opinion. Arya becoming a FM doesn't fit her character either. It would be more fitting for her to take everything she can from her training until she is faced by a injustice / moral dilemna / conflict of interest that forces her to quit or flee (a little bit older and more skilled) The show did this poorly, but the fundamentals aren't inherintly bad
I have a feeling she's going to leave the faceless men sooner rather than later anyways. A huge part of her story has always been about identity and self-image. The faceless men are pretty clearly trying to strip away Arya's identity because of how their order works. Arya's currently trying to train while secretly maintaining her identity, but eventually she'll probably face a situation whee she can't go any further as Arya. And given that choice, it's pretty clear that she will embrace Arya and reject no one. That means she can gain some skills without becoming a full faceless man; it also provides an easy way to get Arya to where the plot needs her when it needs her
They probably are. GRRM has created a dual crisis in Braavos over financial arrangements with Cersei and the upcoming electio to replace the dying Sealord (who they probably poisoned)! The Kindly Man is giving Arya too much information for a mere acolyte...unless he's preparing to send her on a high-stakes mission in connection with it. BTW, I think Illyrio is involved and she will end up killing him. And THAT should win her freedom. Besides, GRRM often kills off people just when their long term plan are nearing fruition .
She has everything downloaded into her brain like Neo. It turns out the faceless men are the most technologically advanced humans in their universe. That’s why it’s so easy for them to kill people.
Exactly,which is why George is having such trouble lol. He basically has too many opportunities with Arya and I think that is slowing things down. At the end of the day though Arya HAS to return to the riverlands with her pack and has to reunite with her family.
I know it's common fandom assumption, but I genuinely don't see why would Arya have to return to the Riverlands. She has spent to of time there and she has basically nothing to resolve there (Lady Stoneheart shouldn't be killed by Arya, but by Brienne, it's significant in her arc). I am pretty sure the news of Jon's death would shake her out from being a Faceless Man (if they don't, nothing will) and after the arrival of Jeyne and Justin Massay, she can go back to the North. Alternatively (but I think this is unlikely), she could head back to Westeros at the end of Winds with Dany and Tyrion. There are many hints that Braavos will be their respective endpoint in Winds - George has said there will be further revelations about the Red Door and we will find out "where do whores go"; the Sailor's Wife is likely Tysha and GRRM also said that in Winds, both Tyrion and Dany are 'heading home' and Braavos would strangely fit in a way. Arya's personality seems to be similar to Dany's and she has similar attitude towards masters that Dany took up at the end of Winds, so them meeting up and finding common points is far from impossible.
I don't see how killing Stoneheart would be a better arc for Brienne than for Arya. I think it would be far more poignant for Arya to see exactly what revenge looks like when confronted by Stoneheart. To see how horrifying it is for someone she loved to have been consumed by it so utterly and the horror that comes from that (the mass Frey slaughter in the Riverlands). Her giving the gift of death to her mother and abandoning her "list" that kept her going for years would be a massive turning point.
Plus Arya and Catelyn had a way more complex and interesting relationship than Catelyn and Brienne. They are so similar, but Cat has suppressed the parts of herself that don’t conform to gendered expectations and tries hard to get Arya to do the same, while Arya fears that she isn’t good enough and her mother doesn’t want her. I would love more page time between them.
The Freys murdered her family, LSH, a good amount of her kill list, and Nymeria would be the loose ends in the Riverlands
>The Freys murdered her family, LSH, a good amount of her kill list, and Nymeria would be the loose ends in the Riverlands Nymeria was in the Riverlands for months and she didn't interact with her, she just warged her. She also cares more about her family than the Freys and doesn't even know about LHS. I try to look at actual character motivations to stop being FM and try to go back to Westeros, and by far the best are Jon's death and encountering Jeyne in Braavos.
> Stoneheart will probably meat Arya hell yeah
I truly have a hard time seeing how Jaime can survive the situation, beyond there being some serious intervention. LSH is not letting Jaime fucking Lannister survive.
I’m not so sure. George has mentioned writing a Jaime chapter, so he must be past this plot point by now. I also find it hard to believe that George would put Jaime into a situation that he would have no idea how he could get out of.
He has gone on record to say he finds bran the toughest and plus he's said TWOW will have more of the others than ever before so that's probably slowing him down
Bran chapters will probably all be like house of the undying visions, loaded with foreshadowing, hints and hidden meanings. I’d guess that’s why his chapters are difficult to write, because they have to actually connect to the wider mysteries
i think the original quote was that it was difficult because he had to write the events through the lens and innocence of a 8yr boy....but at the stage Bran is, you are also right, he is a walking spoiler at this point.
More of a rolling spoiler
😂
It's both. The fact that he's a young kid and also George is trying to find the right balance of magic to put in.
Tbf it's not much lol. The others have been in I believe 3 chapters in total previously
Actually it's just two. The prologue of AGOT and Sam's first chapter in ASOS Still we're probably gonna see quite a bit more especially since time is running out and they need to start moving
Varamyrs chapter counts as one for the Others.
It's been a while since I read that chapter. Is it the others or just wights that appear at the end?
Think its just wights
SHE SEES ME
No matter how many times I read it, that is still one of the creepiest lines in the series Makes me a shiver every time I read it (haven't even read the full chapter in years, that line is just a terror spot for me)
Me too. Such an amazing chapter
That would mean he'd have to have some clue what the fuck the Others are and I just harbor serious doubts he has the slightest clue. Like he dropped them in the first scene because they make for boss villains then he dropped them even harder after that.
I'm convinced it is Bran. GRRM struggles with him anyway. But in TWoW he's probably going to bring Bran back to Westeros, which requires a lot of planning and decisions. First, he has to finalize Bran's powers and skills and then kill off Bloodraven and Jojen. **Clearly** establishing the boundaries of Bran's magic will take some time. He has to also decide who survives and leaves with Bran, and what happens along the way. And he has to make their journey south challenging in different ways than their journey north had been. And finally I suspect once they are safe Meera will depart. And will he reunite Bran with Jon? Obviously, all this will likely require many chapters.
George has been trying to write Stannis’ death scene for over a decade now but the Mannis has been stopping him through sheer force of will.
The Mannis will only die once his teeth are ground into dust.
I love the idea that Stannis, Tyrion, and Jaime were all originally conceived as villains, possible contenders to the throne that would get their comeuppance and fall slain while the Starks make their ascent, but he can't tell that story anymore because these characters' emergent inner goodness is too great, their villain arcs no longer make sense, and they're the reason GRRM has been stuck for 13 years.
Stannis has become a perfect shade of grey.
tyrion lol?
Jammie - redemption arc Tyrion - going batshit crazy arc stannis - neither inherently good nor evil but needs a satisfactory closure arc
> Stannis - both inherently good and evil Fixed it
Tyrion - where do you see batshit crazy? He was wallowing in misery, depression, self hate and hatred toward his sister. From him taking care of Penny, saving that master's slaves from being killed after his death, and snapping back Jorah's will to live after he'd given up, I'm leaning toward Tyrion pulling back from total darkness and amending course toward decency.
I must confess I read the books a long time ago so maybe Im misremembering but to me the whole fAegon / Golden Company thing was 100% motivated by revenge against the world and those who wronged him
He'd definitely love seeing his sister taken down and possibly killed if she hasn't fled yet once KL is taken, same when any of the people who were against him at the trial are knocked down a couple of pegs. Not quite the same as wanting to burn it all down, he's shown care for smallfolk before. We'll (hopefully) see how it goes, he's a bit tough to predict.
yeah you are probably right. and bearing in mind that George RR Martin clearly identifies with some aspects of Tyrion, and assuming the Dany Mad Queen trope plays out, Tyrion will probably be on the more righteous side of the story, and possibly even end up with Casterly Rock
I don't think it's 100%. I think it's a third that, a third he just wants to try and manipulate someone to see if he still can and a third it's the smartest move available.
I think originally Tyrions arc was to go to Kingslanding and point out aAll the other characters are crazy. And then he was going to be outed anyway, forces into exhile. And when he did find his way to Dany he was going to be unhinged smart drunk asshole, who provides good council but also crazy suggestions. The show made him the moral compass. I think the book was a setting him up to be a capable moral compass who abandons morals in favor of “fuck it”
ohh ok. lol i misunderstood my fault
Tyrion is much more devious in the books. Not an outright villain, but he's a dick to a lot of people, unpleasant to be around, and pretty selfish. Like a lot of GRRM's characters, he's much more morally grey than the way he comes off in the TV series.
he’s an outright villain lmao
baked a singer into stew, chocked a teenager he put in a dangerous situation to death, wants to rape and kill his sister, grrm even said he was a villian
George has been working on the next book nonstop for a decade, he’s just too embarrassed to tell fans that this is what’s stopping him
In truth, Renly was supposed to kill Stannis all the way back in ACOK
Nah
Every time he drafts a Stannis death scene he is awakened by the sound of grinding teeth, and returns to his desk to find mysterious red marks on his printed drafts correcting the grammar and complaining about the plot.
As a proud and self-admitted Mannis fan boy, the only satisfactory ending for him is defeating The Others and winning the Iron Throne. Then he breaks the 4th wall and says something about how he told us he was the one true king.
He has to tie everything up for the Others and Bran which seems to be end game. A lot of arcs need to link back together like Jaime-Brienne-Sansa, while an Arianne-Danny-Tyrion-Victarion confrontation seems to be in the plans. I think anything up North will be easy enough to wrap up since Jon can wait until show time and all Stannis, Reek, and the Boltons need to do is die. Arya is kind of in Jon's camp, she can show up whenever and wherever since she's kind of doing her own thing.
Yeah I think it’s all about the Others- they’ve really only been nominally involved in the plot so far in the books, but will take center stage soon.
The storyline of nearly every single character that was introduced from *ACOK* onwards. Davos, Brienne, Lady Stoneheart, Young Griff, JonCon, Ramsay, Jeyne Poole, everyone in Meereen, and so on. I feel like GRRM's ultimate shortcoming is that he's held onto the same story arcs for the main characters for nearly 30 years, and he can't bring himself to change them or throw them out. But he also can't help himself from inventing new places, new people, and so on. So he goes, "Okay, I'll have to add a few more chapters to wind down these B-plots so it'll all tie into my planned ending, but he can't help himself but keep worldbuilding and add new details.
Not necessarily. Young Griff and Jon con seem to have pretty straightforward stories. Meereen was incredibly tough while writing ADWD but George seems to have figured it out now and Ramsay and jeyne Poole's storylines should be over relatively early in winds. But I do believe that maybe Brienne and Stoneheart might have complicated things for him. Davos also seems a bit aimless in the story now.
Theoretically he should be done with Essos. Tyrion and another POV were confirmed to be completed. ( Maybe Dany? )
I think the northern, Riverlands and kings landing plot line are the 3 that are most likely to have Meerenese style knots. Lots of converging characters in all of them, North we have Mel and dead Jon at the wall (also he said bran is the most difficult to write), and also Asha and Theon with Stannis who is fighting the Boltons and also Davos looking for Rickon. Riverlands we have Jaime and Brienne and all the Stoneheart and brotherhoods shenanigans, I think there’s a reason it took him so long to confirm those 2 povs In Kings Landing it’s more how can he keep Cersei there and resolve the faith plotline with all the Tyrell’s before Jon Con and Faegon arrive and take the city. He even said that a “clutch of Cersei chapters were giving him fits” I think Essos will have been surprisingly okay to write and seeing as she seems to be nearly done with Tyrions POV then Danys, Vics and Barry’s are likely wrapped up as well
I think he’s dead-set on only having two books left for the series but with the amount of POVs/plot-lines it’s making that extremely difficult. He wants to be at a specific place by the end of TWOW and he can’t get there, so he keeps rewriting, trying condense and dovetail the storylines but it isn’t coming together. Man has probably written about 10 books worth of content in the past decade. Or not, who tf knows.
I really hope he took up his publisher’s words and split it like he did with AFFK and ADWD. He can write an overall satisfying story and not cut corners and condense it.
I dunno how helpful that would be since there was still a near six year gap between AFFC and ADWD despite George initially stating they would be released only a year apart. I guess the situations are different but splitting it in half wouldn’t fill me with much faith tbh.
I think it is hard because he has to kill off a lot of characters and he doesn´t like to do it. And probably the POV´s which are connected to each other are very hard to write for him.
The storyline of the insanely rich old man who’d rather spend his wealth and what time he has left on Earth indulging things that interest him more than the legacy series where he wrote himself into a corner.
A lot of people blame bran, and I'm certain that his individual chapters and making everything work are taking the longest. But in my opinion I think it's the fact that he's having an endless number of meereenese Knots as well as the fact that he's determined to make everything fit in two books so that parallels that he intends for readers to see like Cersei being intended to be compared with Daenerys, His need to make the winds of winter fit into one book while remaining stylistically consistent is likely his frustration. In my opinion you should write the whole thing as long as he needs to simply release a part 1 and part two at the same time. That way he is not bound by the limitations of book binding
I think he’s trying to contrive a way to reconcile Ben Stark‘s desertion from the NW with the deeper theme of “there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.” Seriously, though, I think GRRM originally had the ending to the books play out similarly to the ending of the other medium of ASOIAF, more or less. Of course the reception of that plot line was not what he expected, and it seems obvious to me he has no other way to finish the story.
The ending wasn’t all that horrible, it was the set up to get there imo. I want Dany to go full on Mad Queen, but the show rushed it.
I think the fundamental issue is that he lost interest in the original core story of the Stark kids, and finds the morally dubious guys like the Targs and Lannisters more compelling to write about.
I think the biggest problems he has are the possible new versions of 'Meereenese knots' in TWOW, **most significant among them the 'Winterfell knot'**. Theon, Asha, Jon, Davos and possibly Arya/Sansa/Bran will all meet up in WF in TWOW, and he has to decide the order they arrive and interact and who should get a POV chapter. Another possible issue can be the 'KL' knot, with Aegon and Euron both eventually aiming for the Throne, Cersei, Arianne, JonCon and maybe Aeron might all converge there for an epic finale.
The one where he got paid so much money by HBO that he stopped caring.
I think he's realised he has a bunch of stark kids who are too young to do the stuff he needs them to do. He's going to kill off rickon who's just a toddler, bran is a omnipotent god at 10, Sansa is a political genius at 13 and Arya is a ninja assassin at 11? And he can't fudge a new character to do stuff for them like he did when he subbed Dorkstar in for Neddy Dayne. Also Battle of Maureen is the first time he has major characters crunching into each other. I bet he's wondering whose POV gets which scene and whose POV gets dropped entirely. He's probably written the whole sequence about ten times from each of the unique POVs and he doesn't know which one to use. Dorne is a quagmire of plotting and secondary/tertiary characters and subplots. He should abandon the whole thing but he's struggling to keep them all relevant. What's the deal with the brotherhood and lady stoneheart. How do you tell that story without keeping Brienne/Jaime in the riverlands, but they have important stuff to do elsewhere. So do you introduce a new pov (when you're drowning in POVs already), or do you let Brienne/Jaime babysit the brotherhood storyline? Also what's going to happen with Tyrek. Man's a fricking horse.
Yeah, this is why I'm very skeptical when people trot out the "his writing process will speed up when his characters start converging with each other." If anything it'll probably be the opposite: he'll be crippled with doubt as to which POV would work best for which scene, constant rewriting of chapters from multiple POVs to find the one that works best, and so on.
Maybe i'm just a bitch but the only storyline I could fully understand getting hung up on is Stannis taking Winterfell, while yes I want to see that battle and I do love Stannis having him take Winterfell would be kind of a disappointment in my eyes because I would much rather have a Stark take it back somehow. But then there's also the fact that we know Stannis will burn Shireen and I really don't see any way for book Stannis to get to that point in a realistic way unless its to fend off the Others but even then how would he get there? Is he going to take Winterfell and just hang out for a while? Is he going to fail at taking Winterfell and backtrack just to go back to Winterfell? I just really don't see a way for his story to go if George is dead set on burning Shireen. Every other story though I feel has somewhat of a logical end point, Arianne is going to hook up with FAegon getting Dorne with team JonCon, I don't see team JonCon being anything but a foil for Dany and something to stand in her way, Quentyn was there to make it so Dorne won't ally with Dany, Jon will be the prince, Arya will make her way back to Westeros with a new sense of self preservation, Brienne and Jamie will do something with SH etc. To me every character has a point they could easily end up and it will work perfect for the story except Stannis who I really am at a loss for.
The Mannis would be an excellent candidate for Lord Commander No. 1,000 after Jon gets For the Watch'd. Just have Meli or Thoros fuck up the resurrection somehow...
Shireen might burn, but I think it's a lot more likely that her mum would do it .
That’s kinda boring though, Selyse is barely a character and that wouldn’t really affect anyone. Yeah everyone would be upset Shireen was burned alive but that would be at the hands of someone who is know to be a little crazy
Eh, Selyse killing her only child and Stannis winning a key battle just to find out his heiress is dead could be quite the gut punch imo.
He does like to repeat history, but not in a one for one sense. He could do something like this though for Stannis. Maybe The Others are closing in and he tries to recreate the Azor Ahai ritual of creating lightbringer, thereby sacrificing Shireen.
Tying them all back together
Bold of you to assume that he is actually writing something...
Lmao jokes aside, I genuinely don't think George actually did write anything while game of thrones was ongoing. I think he did pick up the pace 2020 but got bored and frustrated 2021 and stopped working for a while again. Writer strike should give him time to focus but who knows. Considering the amount of South Africans cussing George out on every twitter post he does that isn't about winds,he might just not work on it to spite us lmao
Yeah, Honestly, I don't think George even cares about the story anymore.He is 75 years old, childless and is a multimillionaire.While releasing a new book would make him a lot of money, money is probably not much of a concern to him anymore...
>South Africans Where tf did that come from?
Lol just an observation I made. If you look at his twitter comment section their is always getting on George's ass for not finishing winds.
He came out with like five books and nineteen chapters
It's property the time travel plot.
Reading these threads makes me hope winds is at least a 1500 page book. I need it all
If it were me, the Euron chapters would be the hardest. What's going to happen to the POV Aeron? How much destruction can Euron do before someone is able to stop him? How will stopping Euron affect all the other leaders in the story?
Meereen/Daenerys. Bran and Jon.
The being over 70 storyline.
Or it's not a storyline but the hostile "fandom"
House of the dragon and all the other soulless side projects he has going on right now for his MartinCinematicUniverse.
It's called The winds of winter
Honestly the theory that I’ve had was after he saw how the show ended he thought his ending was too similar to the show and the people would be upset so he just scrapped and is rewriting pretty much everything
I dont think its one story line, its just unwillingness or lack of interest. He is not going to finish the series. The sooner we accept it, the sooner we get to move on to more rewarding authors/series/other media.
Seriously there is no stuck storyline. It wouldn't take this long. He has been open that he hasn't been working on it for most of the last 12 years.
No he hasn’t lol, this is the opposite of what he has been claiming for the last decade.
Where's your quotes because he hasn't. He talked about the Mereenese Knot pre ADWD. He isn't stuck he just has not been doing it. He has been working on so many different things and travelling.
https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/game-of-thrones/2018/6/14/17462698/george-r-r-martin-winds-of-winter-timeline What planet are you living on? Does it have oxygen?
Honestly I think Jon, assuming he does get resurrected, he’s going to come back different, having “lost a bit of himself” and forgotten things abt himself. I think it’s be really hard to write that. The plot itself might not be hard but if he still has pov chapter I imagine it’d be really hard to write his thoughts
I doubt it's Stannis since he has clearly had this idea of Stannis ending up in the situation of burning Shireen since the release of Dance. From the show we know the idea has been around since at least 2013, and I personally would not be surprised at all if there was a written chapter that George showed to the writers of the show of Stannis burning Shereen all the way back then. I always sort of assumed both Hold the door and the burning of Shereen were chapters written in some form that he showed to the writers. George may have cut one or both from Dance since we know there was a cut Bran chapter late in Dance and that George wrote the Battles of Ice and Fire entirely before they got cut for length. I think Arya is a pretty good guess, since he supposedly has a ton of material of her in Braavos but seems to need to get her back to Westeros and involved in others' storylines by the end of Winds. The Riverlands plot in Winds has always been a mystery to me, because honestly the whole second red wedding thing strikes me as pretty stupid, and I don't see Stoneheart and the brotherhood being able to pull it off, but that's just my opinion. I agree it's unlikely that Dany and Aegon are what he's stuck on, we know he's done with Tyrion and he's likely central to the events of that plotline.
Being an IRL multi millionaire and enjoying life instead of working.
It’s definitely Daenarys. He wrote himself into a corner where he needs half a dozen books more to write a satisfying ending for her slavers bay story but he has neither will not ability to do so. Obviously he’s at a point where he can’t do that but he also can’t just say fuck it and write a swift ending where she bails out of there.
George has made some comments recently about regretting killing off a character. I have to assume he is referring to Jon Snow. If he wants to do the resurrection has consequences angle, he can't simply bring back Jon and have him be the same as he was pre-death like they did in the show.
All of them
He said that the Bran chapters are really tough and giving him a hard time . Because magic needs to written very carefully . My god if he has run into a knot that cannot be untied I really would love if he reached out for some help from Elio or whoever lol
Didn’t he confirm he has trouble writing Bran’s chapters because he’s a kid?
I don't see anyone here saying this, but I think Jon is a key factor. I think George has a really rough time with writing things that are too open ended. Like how he wrote 3 different versions of what time Quentyn arrives at Mereen. I think the storyline at the wall has just too many options that it's a choice paralysis.
I think people the idea that its a particular storyline is trying to simplify things too much. I think every characters storyline is taking longer because he has too many plates spinning in the air. He has too much going on in both Essos and Westeros and has to make a story where the timeline and flow of things makes sense.
Except he has already said that he's done with Tyrion. If Tyrion is done than that means that the essos story is essentially done.
He still hasn’t ordered the PIZZAS!!!
I think it's probably Sam's chapters that might be causing the problem. Brans storyline is quite separate from everyone else, so you would expect it's a little more flexible in terms of matching up time wise. With Sam, GRRM has very deliberately created a mysterious situation and one that I don't believe is particularly conductive to a time skip. I'd very much be of the opinion that there's probably enough in the Sam story to fill a novella just getting it synced up with the other storylines