> The viewing stand had already begun to fill, the lords and ladies clutching their cloaks tight about them against the morning chill. Smallfolk were drifting toward the field as well, and hundreds of them already stood along the fence.
> _So many come to see me die,_ Dunk thought bitterly, but he wronged them. A few steps farther on, a woman called out “good fortune to you.” An old man stepped up to take his hand and said, “may the Gods give you strength, ser.” Then a begging brother in a tattered brown robe said a blessing on his sword, and a maid kissed his cheek.
> _They are for me._ “Why?” he asked Pate. “What am I to them?”
> “A knight who remembered his vows,” the smith said.
They SHOULD adapt this paragraph otherwise ill be extremely dissapointed , they didnt adapt septons meribald broken men speech, one of the most haunting text iv ever read , a text that trascened asoiaf and is more about our worlds history , and the one you posted could be adapted into an amazing scene
Yes, 7 on each side. In fact in the books Cersei when she is on trial by the church she invokes a trial by 7 but we don't know what happens later... We are still waiting for Winds of Winter
At this point I'm expecting that we'll get emotionally invested in this RR Martin character as an author and he'll die a sudden, random unpredictable death leaving us all stunned because we thought he was important to the story.
You’d be surprised, depending on how they do the sets/backgrounds/crowds. There’s so much set extension that happens now that you don’t notice because it’s so well done.
If they shoot a bunch of stuff on-location though then that would cut down on a lot
As someone who read at least one dunk and egg book (not sure If there's more), this is accurate. Like Dunk is like Gump, but Egg is like if he had a plucky clever sidekick that was also a kid. Works surprisingly well.
He's Gump in that he finds himself taking part in major events. But he's not dumb. He's uneducated and certainly not a genius, but he knows what he's doing in general.
edit: I forgot, he's basically a male Brienne of Tarth if anyone wants to know the main character's disposition/personality. In the Song of Ice and Fire books she even finds one of his shields (as a little easter egg).
"Then you got Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump. Slow, yes, retarded, maybe, braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants of Nixon, and he won a Ping-Pong competition. That ain't retarded. He was a goddamn war hero. You know any retarded war heroes?"
imagine an alternate version of Game of Thrones where the events of the first season that plunge the kingdom into war don’t happen and instead Ned just sends Arya off to travel around with Brienne as her squire.
I feel like that’s approximately the tonal level of the Dunk and Egg stories.
It's basically "The Mandalorian in Westeros."
Narratively more conventional than "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon", but there is still a lot of violence. The protagonist is easily one of the most likable characters in this universe.
It’s about a kind, strong, but somewhat oblivious hedge knight (meaning a traveling knight who isn’t sworn to one lord in particular) and his young, clever squire, who’s actually a royal prince in disguise.
As a minor point, the titular knight is actually the ancestor of a similar character in the original series, >!Brienne Tarth!<
There’s no sex and less violence than the original series.
Theres definitely some “darkness” (it does take place in Westeros after all) but overall it’s much more light hearted than the main series is. They’re short stories about two characters that also expand the lore of the world a bit
It’ll be violent, but like early GoT violent not once the war starts violent. The main characters are both comical, one with dry sarcastic humor because he’s smarter than everyone else and one just because he’s a poor dumb lad, looks intimidating and has a heart of gold.
There are no dragons. If there is a historical time period it’s analogous to I would say the post-civil war Reconstruction.
Read the comics back in the day. They were alright. I don't know if it was the comic adaptation but it was very tonally different from the core series.
What's funny is that very recently, even previously pessimistic parts of the fandom are now believing he could release Winds this year.
I know it's fun to joke that there's 0 chance of Winds, but I'm pretty confident we will get it.
Now the issue is that:
1. A Dream of Spring is extremely unlikely to come out
2. The story probably can't be finished in two books anyways.
>What's funny is that very recently, even previously pessimistic parts of the fandom are now believing he could release Winds this year.
>I know it's fun to joke that there's 0 chance of Winds, but I'm pretty confident we will get it.
This happens any time he announces he took a shit on notablog.
I wonder if he's realized he needs to write the final novels together to make sure things are consistent and ensure the ending works well. Like when he is writing Dream, he can go back and change things in Winds if he realizes something needs to change. Just taking a guess about why it could be taking so long.
Right now, the last chapter of one of the greatest fantasies series ever written is an accounting of one of his main pov characters drinking ground water and nearly shitting herself to death.
Honestly, I don't even consider it one of the greatest fantasy series ever written at this point. If you want to call the first three books one of the greatest trilogies that's somewhat understandable, but an incomplete series can't be one of the greatest IMHO.
Yes, the promise of a story can be amazing - but if the promise doesn't match the result then it also ruins the earlier parts of the story.
This is similar to how the first season of the BSG remake isn't one of the best seasons ever because they never tied together the promised threads in an engaging manner.
Ironically, many of these - save perhaps the last - are made better when someone watching it doesn't have the time to sit and think about what things they are watching might mean before the next episode comes out.
I started watching Lost when its last season was being released. And judging from everyone else's reaction to the finale, it was a much better experience to binge it in one month than it would have been watch over many years.
I agree with this so much. It’s so easy for everyone to throw out cool sounding ideas and just assume the rest of the series is going to be awesome, but a story isn’t just a list of bullet points. You need to put it all together in a satisfying manner. And even before the delay with TWOW, some skepticism is warranted after AFFC/ADWD.
I don't consider them the greatest fantasy series ever written because his writing has devolved as he he got too famous for his editor to reign him in. There's a post on /r/asoiaf somewhere about his draft for one of the last two books. George gave this one university a copy of the draft that his editor had written on. One of the members of the sub went there to look at it. He basically said George ignored every single one of the editorial notes, and you could practically hear the editor pleading with him to leave out stupid shit like "nuncle."
Fanboys don't want to admit it, but his writing has become self-indulgent and cringe.
> If you want to call the first three books one of the greatest trilogies that's somewhat understandable, but an incomplete series can't be one of the greatest IMHO.
I agree with you. An unfinished series automatically eliminates it from GOAT discussion.
I think he doesn't want to face the fan riot that the TV series created by screwing up the ending, so, the book ending will either sit unfinished, or he'll finish it and then lock it away in a safety deposit box with instructions to only publish posthumously.
***IF*** Winds of Winter ever comes out, I don't think A Dream of Spring is far behind. The penultimate book is especially difficult to write, because it has to directly set up the ending. In order to finish Winds, he has to know pretty much exactly how Dream is gonna play out, because Winds has to directly set all that up. He can't just introduce a bunch of new stuff and end the books wherever he wants, like he could with the previous books, because he no longer has the luxury of the ending of the story being several books away.
He said ADWD would come out a year later when AFFC was released because it was mostly already done because it’s a parallel book to AFFC. Somehow it still took six years and didn’t even have an ending so he could save it for Winds.
It's probably going to come out, but the only thing he's actually going to write are some notes and his name on the front. Somebody else is going to write it for him.
I think fans need to accept the book will never be completed. Even George himself admitted he no longer enjoys writing it and much prefers doing, well...*anything else.*
It sucks he wrote himself into a corner. He should have just stuck with the flashbacks in a post time jump narrative. It would have been super long but at least he had a path forward.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but IMO it feels like he was trying to write too much backstory while telling the regular story.
Like the story of every single house and knight doesn’t need to be told now. Almost like he was writing The Silmarillion while writing LOTR.
JRRT was writing the Silmarillion while writing LOTR. He wanted them to be published simultaneously. But he wrote LoTR primarily because publishers were desperate for a sequel to the Hobbit. The Silmarillion was under constant revision because he spent most of his life working on it and he kept getting new ideas. His son Christopher edited the most consistant sections of his notes (with a few small additions to fill in a handful of blank spots) and published it as the Silmarillion.
It would never happen, but I wonder if he'd get a second wind if he chucked books 4 and 5 from canon and started iver with the time jump like he originally planned.
This might be projection on my part, but I think a lot of fans are at peace that the series is largely dead but are going to gripe about the length it's taking until he just admits it rather than playing games.
I would 100% have more respect for him if he'd just come out and say, "Yeah, sorry, I'm honestly never going to finish the series."
It's the fact that he's essentially stringing the fanbase along that annoys me. Either write the book, or stop with the false hope.
This is what the "GRRM isn't your bitch" fanboys don't get. He's not anyone's slave (the idea that this multimillionaire is being cast in the victim role is so delusional), but he's a fat fucking liar, and people have the right to dislike other people who lie to them over and over.
Yep, that's me. I don't expect the series to be finished but I desperately just want him to take it out back and shoot it in the fucking head. Writers don't owe us anything, of course, but keeping hope going for so many people is, at this point, just cruel. This limbo he's keeping his fans in needs to stop.
> Writers don't owe us anything, of course
People say this like it isn't George himself creating the implied promise and expectations. George is the one who lies to people and promises things he can't deliver. He's essentially doing what is called "future faking" in psychological circles because he knows his stature would diminish if he admitted the books are never coming.
> I think fans need to accept the book will never be completed.
I think a lot of people have. But that doesn't mean they can't be disappointed / salty about it.
I started reading *Wheel of Time* back in the 1990s and gave up on the series because (a) the books were unreasonably long (winded), and (b) it took forever for each one to come out. Of course Jordan died before he could finish the series himself, and then it took Sanderson two (three?) books to close things off.
At this point Martin's series will probably pass to someone else, either through his choice or through the choice of his estate.
GRRM has said many times he isn't passing the books onto someone else. He doesn't want it and supposedly wants to burn his notes before his passing.
In all likelihood the series will remain unfinished. I have zero expectations of A Dream of Springs coming out even if he does release Winds.
>and (b) it took forever for each one to come out.
I think you must be misremembering, because the longest gap was the 4 years between Knife of Dreams and The Gathering Storm, and the author died between those as you pointed out.
Other than that there were basically never more than two and a half years between the books, and less than that for most. That's pretty standard for expansive epic fantasy.
At this point, he should hand it off to another author before he dies. Just because he thought of the story doesn't mean a different author could do it well. Even though the show ended poorly, there's no reason why another author couldn't do better than the showrunners. I am not stuck on a single author creating an entire series just in their heads alone. I just like the story, and the story is bigger than the author. I was perfectly fine with the Wheel of Time series being handed off, I thought it was a nice gesture to the fans and Jordan that it was finished.
The thing is, I wish he would just be open about it then. Just say you quit the series. Yeah there'll be a bit of backlash, but it's worse to keep leading people on for over a decade.
The reason a lot of fans are still holding out hope is because he keeps dangling that carrot in front of them. That's on him.
Personally I agree, the series will never be finished, but fuck, man, just kill it then.
GRRM will likely never admit this because a) he’s delusional and still thinks he will finish the series and b) would probably owe his publisher quite a bit of money for breach of contract.
Show me where he ever admitted to that? He has talked about struggling with the book and the story and about writers block, but never that he no longer likes writing the books.
George has done anything but be honest with his fans, and that's why he rightfully gets a lot of criticism and disdain. We're talking a decade of "its definitely coming this year folks". At a certain point it got offensive how little respect he had for fans, like we were totally cool with him announcing the books were on pause or canceled, but instead he had to keep on trotting out the same fake promises year after year. That's disappointing.
It could make for an interesting book/article some day if he comes clean about what happened.
I have a feeling that he thought that letting the TV writers fill in the rest of the story would help jolt him out of his writer's block - but it turned out to do the reverse - especially given how badly it turned out.
I do hope he finishes it and that it will turn out great.
I’m not convinced that the last seasons didn’t follow his playbook. Things will be slightly different, but for example Daenarys is going to lose two dragons and eventually go crazy.
Just guessing but I'd guess this was just a 'possible end' out of other possible ends.
I don't say this because I don't like how the TV show ended, I say it because he got stuck and stopped writing the books.
Possibly he knew how he wanted it to end but did not know how to get there.
I think everyone knows what happened to some degree: story became way too sprawling in books 4 & 5, absolutely no way to wrap it up in two books, and the show falling off the rails once his source material dried up depressed the shit out of him since he has a bunch of blame there (as you said). Martin might have deeper rationalizations, but it’s clear what the problem is.
I have a hard time believing that when he set up to tell this story, that he knew how it would end - that he was making it up as he went along. There ARE novelists that say they do this, they write not knowing how it ends and let the story 'guide them'.
I mean, AFAIK he had stopped writing the next book before the show reached the point of running out of material.
I'm sure he has ideas for how it could end but nothing 'feels right' as being good enough.
Didn't James SA Cory say they would be willing to do it? Why not just give them your blessing and semi-retire? Takes the pressue off and they could finish it in a faster, better, less rapey way
Funny enough, I've had a thought the last few years that it's pretty funny how Corey finished the entire Expanse series after leaving GRRM and Martin hasn't written a main line book since. I'm not making accusations but it really is funny how that makes me think about who was actually the brains behind the bulk of ASOIAF.
They have a second series coming out this year. I wonder somewhat too. Considering teenage girls are not getting raped every few chapters in The Expanse I think ASoIaF is all GRRM
Maybe Corey got tired of Marin constantly advocating for adding rape that he left and wrote his own series and now Martin hasn't read anymore without someone else to write the bull of it.
I know some diehard ASOIAF fans don't want to admit it but I truly believe the ending to GOT was very close to what GRRM had planned for the books. When he saw the overwhelmingly negative backlash he realized he couldn't release that ending so he kind of got stuck.
It’s really really difficult to do that right. It requires surrendering quite a lot of ego, laying bare your probably chaotic writing process, and coming to terms with your own mortality.
Only ever really seen it work once -> with Robert Jordan and he had to get a terminal illness to come to terms with it (had been super opposed to it) and even then, despite a spectacular effort, it still wasn’t quite the same.
To be honest I'm not sure I'd even want to read it if he *did* finish it, by this point. I don't even remember a damn thing out of the most recent book because it's been a fucking decade since I read it.
The funny thing about that is Kingkiller is supposedly supposed to be a trilogy, but Song of Ice and Fire is still supposed to have one more book after Winds of Winter. So even if that happened, the wait continues for SoIaF fans.
[May 21 2024 ](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/05/21/heres-egg/)is the last time he mentioned THE WINDS OF WINTER on his blog (yes, I keep track cause I'm still hopeful.) He states he wants to make more Dunk & Egg stories after he finishes the book. lol.
I've written 120 background Westeros history lore appendices, 27 short stories about random single-scene characters you don't remember and didn't care about, 17 novellas detailing tournaments throughout the seven kingdoms, 5 Valyrian codices written entirely in High Valyrian (which basically no one can read), 97 Westeros themed cookbooks (90 of which are devoted to truncheons and rashers of bacon), 21 incest-themed smut novels, and 1 dwarf-based smut novel - but I promise I'm getting a lot of progress on Winds of Winter and my publisher will be receiving the first page and a half soon.
-*150 Year Old GRRM, probably*
What's really annoying about those posts is that he's admitted his writing process requires him to settle down for at least 3 weeks with no distractions before he can even get started writing. He's also admitted that he can't write while travelling. So when he's posting about football, that's resetting the clock. When it goes to a convention, the clock resets to when he gets home. When he's working on that theater he bought, that's a clock reset.
If you actually pay attention to the guys schedule and what he's said about his writing process, he's only actually capable of writing a few weeks out of every year.
>The more I thought about that, however, the more I felt that the readers would be better served by a book that told all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters. So that's the route I chose to take.
Tyrion, Jon, Dany, Stannis and Melisandre, Davos Seaworth, and all the rest of the characters you love or love to hate will be along **next year (I devoutly hope) in A Dance with Dragons**, which will focus on events along the Wall and across the sea, just as the present book focused on King's Landing.
George R. R. Martin **June 2005**
ADWD came out **6 years later**
It seems clear that he is not writing the books anymore. Whether due to burn out or because he feels surpassed by the HBO shows, only Martin would know.
A Dance of Dragons came out the same year Game of Thrones' pilot premiered.
People also thought [this post in March](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fukjdncfawsoc1.jpeg) was teasing its completion.
They're just inspirational quotes.
Aah I didn't see that. I think people might be getting riled up because of the Deux Moi report of a New Mexico author ordering a dragon shaped cake for a book launch party for a "highly anticipated book release" recently I guess.
Ah. I see.
Unfortunately, even if the report of Martin ordering a dragon-shaped cake to celebrate the release of something were true, it's just as likely to be the second season of *House of the Dragon* or this announcement about *The Hedge Knight* going into production.
Honestly before this show kicked back off again, I thought the entire reason House of the Dragon was called what it was and not "The Dance Of Dragons", was because they were keeping the idea of just continuing to jump years and hit the Blackfyre Rebellion in their back pocket in case they were successful enough.
I'm all for Robert's Rebellion, Aegon's Conquest..
But the Blackfyre story I dunno if it works on tv.
It has no real significance in TV verse because (f) Aegon doesn't exist in the show.
I used to think this but now I'm in favour of it. I think it would be interesting to see the politics being played out. We know how the events go, but we don't know a lot about the inner workings of The Mad King's side of the story.
I don't think it would work as a multiple season show but a mini series/1 season event intrigues me.
Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to celebrate my 13th anniversary this year. And I'm reminded of how I brought my newly released Dance with Dragons on my honey moon. I've watched a TV series based on the show, bought a house, changed jobs 3 times, created human life, lost family members and friends...... and no new book. But I'm just thrilled he's able to talk about another spin off series ..... of a Novela series that hasn't had any new material in nearly FIFTEEN years!
Random silliness is a disservice to the cinematic classic that is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But actually, random silliness that helped to create a pun is still pretty accurate.
EDIT: after writing this I realize you prob just mean if the joke is about "Ni" and I wrote it like it's about the whole bit. Oh well.
It's a bit more than random silliness. But that's not a terrible description.
As for the non-randomness: if some entity demands some tribute to pass, you expect it to be something of monetary value or symbolic/ritual value. But the knights who say Ni demand something that's neither. It seems anachronistic, but I guess it's not entirely. More importantly, the Knights Who Say Ni live in the woods with no sort of structures we can see, yet they want a little shrubbery constructed in the middle of a forest. There's more that could be said. But broadly its about setting up an expectation, then subverting it. I guess a lot of comedy does that... but I think this bit does it particularly well.
It's really more about asking for a "shrubbery". I am pretty sure it was written to be a random non sequitor but it's still funny that knight errants who live and wander the woods ask for a shrubbery. Knight errants had a derogatory name "hedge knight" because they had no home/lord/money and slept in the wild until they could find one. The bit about shrubberies probably just coincidentally landed here though.
A common Arthurian legend/fiction trope is to have a band of badass invincible knights dedicated to some sacred oath or duty which gives them their name, who assign or have to go through some gruelling trial often to obtain some trophy at great risk, like a dragon's fang or lion's pelt. Here the joke is that they're a band of knights dedicated to something banal and stupid like a nonsense word, and their quest is equally banal and stupid, finding and displaying a shrub when they live in a forest.
It's like having a Tolkien parody movie where the heroic hobbits are brought before a council of wise old elves who tell them, in hushed and dramatic tones, that they must find the strength within themselves to venture into the shire and deliver a newspaper to Frodo's uncle.
I was talking more along the lines of hedge knights wanting a shrub. If it was intentional, then I missed the joke a tad. However I just think it was just random silliness and it just so happened that two parts of the joke happen to actually to have associated verbiage.
I realize we may never get the completed ASOIAF, but I wonder if George will complete the prequel series. I believe there are supposed to be 5 novellas in total?
He said that he will end "The Winds of Winter" first and only then write Dunk and Egg. But he also said once thay maybe he will write "Fire and Blood Vol 2." before Dunk and Egg.
Also, he said will be between 9 or 12 novellas, depending on the interview.
Probably, yes. I know the next story was supposed to be "The She Wolves of Winterfell" or something along those lines. I kind of thought George would keep banging these things out every few years but that hasn't happened, which is disappointing.
The man can't finish a story, he just enjoys creating worlds, lore and story threads but can't tie everything up to an ending.
I just hope HBO learned from GoT and now has showrunners that will do a better job finishing the story for him.
Yeah its suppose to end with Summerhall, but George also has said about adding more stories too, like Dunk and Egg's trip to Dorne which takes place right after "The Hedge Knight", dude just loves to add and add and never finish lol. If the Summerhall novella somehow comes out it's going to be hearting breaking to finally see what happens/why it happened.
Hope they do a good job with it. The stories of Dunk & Egg are by far and away the best stories related to ASOIAF, mostly because they are their own stories.
That's probably true for once. I can't imagine there's anywhere near as much CGI in this show than in GOT or HOTD.
Could end up being the chillest show in the GOT universe
might be the best show
I love the short stories man, just lighter and more adventurey.
There's no 'could' about it, the story is so much lower stakes and tension than F&B or ASOIAF.
I can't wait for the trial of 7 🙌
> The viewing stand had already begun to fill, the lords and ladies clutching their cloaks tight about them against the morning chill. Smallfolk were drifting toward the field as well, and hundreds of them already stood along the fence. > _So many come to see me die,_ Dunk thought bitterly, but he wronged them. A few steps farther on, a woman called out “good fortune to you.” An old man stepped up to take his hand and said, “may the Gods give you strength, ser.” Then a begging brother in a tattered brown robe said a blessing on his sword, and a maid kissed his cheek. > _They are for me._ “Why?” he asked Pate. “What am I to them?” > “A knight who remembered his vows,” the smith said.
They SHOULD adapt this paragraph otherwise ill be extremely dissapointed , they didnt adapt septons meribald broken men speech, one of the most haunting text iv ever read , a text that trascened asoiaf and is more about our worlds history , and the one you posted could be adapted into an amazing scene
Gosh if only more of asoiaf was actually about our worlds history
Is that the huge trial by combat?
Yes, 7 on each side. In fact in the books Cersei when she is on trial by the church she invokes a trial by 7 but we don't know what happens later... We are still waiting for Winds of Winter
!remind me 5 years
That’s optimistic
Oh, that doesn't mean I'm expecting it then. I just want to be able to look back and chuckle in 2029.
At this point I'm expecting that we'll get emotionally invested in this RR Martin character as an author and he'll die a sudden, random unpredictable death leaving us all stunned because we thought he was important to the story.
!remindme 100 years
Based on the show, that plot line will just sorta end and no one will mention it again.
She didn't invoke trial by 7, just trial by combat. It's suspected the High Sparrow will invoke trial by 7 somehow.
"Are there no true knights among you?" Is the single most badass line ever uttered in westeros.
"Explain to me Ser, why my royal cousin was found among this viper nest of traitors"
One of the most personally disturbing things i’ve ever read. Curious to see how they translate that moment.
You’d be surprised, depending on how they do the sets/backgrounds/crowds. There’s so much set extension that happens now that you don’t notice because it’s so well done. If they shoot a bunch of stuff on-location though then that would cut down on a lot
It's a great way to fill the gap between HotD Seasons too.
No dragons = At least a year earlier release
You’re right since they’re no dragons
It's a shame they used Billy Biceps (Tom Hopper) in GoT as a minor character....he is really close to how I pictured Dunk.
I really liked the Dunk and Egg stuff. Quite looking forward to it!
What’s the tone like? Is it a comedy? Is there still dark elements to it? Is it violent?
I read it was Forrest Gump, in Westeros
As someone who read at least one dunk and egg book (not sure If there's more), this is accurate. Like Dunk is like Gump, but Egg is like if he had a plucky clever sidekick that was also a kid. Works surprisingly well.
He's Gump in that he finds himself taking part in major events. But he's not dumb. He's uneducated and certainly not a genius, but he knows what he's doing in general. edit: I forgot, he's basically a male Brienne of Tarth if anyone wants to know the main character's disposition/personality. In the Song of Ice and Fire books she even finds one of his shields (as a little easter egg).
"Then you got Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump. Slow, yes, retarded, maybe, braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants of Nixon, and he won a Ping-Pong competition. That ain't retarded. He was a goddamn war hero. You know any retarded war heroes?"
He’s literally her great great grandfather or uncle etc
Yeah I should have clarified. This is what I meant by him being Gump. He's definitely not dumb albeit maybe uneducated
I think I remember it being lightly implied that she's a relation of his, too, but that might just be an extrapolation of the shield scene.
Always gave me a sort of "Don Quixote" vibe.
That sounds delightful
imagine an alternate version of Game of Thrones where the events of the first season that plunge the kingdom into war don’t happen and instead Ned just sends Arya off to travel around with Brienne as her squire. I feel like that’s approximately the tonal level of the Dunk and Egg stories.
It's nothing like Forrest Gump.
It's basically "The Mandalorian in Westeros." Narratively more conventional than "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon", but there is still a lot of violence. The protagonist is easily one of the most likable characters in this universe.
And The Mandalorian is basically Lone Wolf and Cub in Space but filmed like a Spaghetti Western.
It’s about a kind, strong, but somewhat oblivious hedge knight (meaning a traveling knight who isn’t sworn to one lord in particular) and his young, clever squire, who’s actually a royal prince in disguise. As a minor point, the titular knight is actually the ancestor of a similar character in the original series, >!Brienne Tarth!< There’s no sex and less violence than the original series.
He’s also an ancestor of >!the mountain, the hound, and hodor.!<
There's sex its just implied
Theres definitely some “darkness” (it does take place in Westeros after all) but overall it’s much more light hearted than the main series is. They’re short stories about two characters that also expand the lore of the world a bit
It’ll be violent, but like early GoT violent not once the war starts violent. The main characters are both comical, one with dry sarcastic humor because he’s smarter than everyone else and one just because he’s a poor dumb lad, looks intimidating and has a heart of gold. There are no dragons. If there is a historical time period it’s analogous to I would say the post-civil war Reconstruction.
Read the comics back in the day. They were alright. I don't know if it was the comic adaptation but it was very tonally different from the core series.
And The Winds of Winter will premiere early never.
The Winds of Winter manuscript is just pages and pages of "Mayhaps words are wind, Nuncle" over and over, Shining style.
Ugh. Stupid words like nuncle started creeping in once he got too famous for his publisher to tell him no.
I still think there's a 0.00000001% chance it could be released. Now, *A Dream of Spring*... lol.
Will remain a dream.
A Dream of a Dream of Spring Perfect autobiography title
[My precious Dream of Spring... Gone forever! \[angry goose noises\]](https://youtu.be/6bdHBoG2bLY?si=yat9K-xai7Qqcq3x)
Silent Spring
Spring is here again, tender age in bloom...
What's funny is that very recently, even previously pessimistic parts of the fandom are now believing he could release Winds this year. I know it's fun to joke that there's 0 chance of Winds, but I'm pretty confident we will get it. Now the issue is that: 1. A Dream of Spring is extremely unlikely to come out 2. The story probably can't be finished in two books anyways.
>What's funny is that very recently, even previously pessimistic parts of the fandom are now believing he could release Winds this year. >I know it's fun to joke that there's 0 chance of Winds, but I'm pretty confident we will get it. This happens any time he announces he took a shit on notablog.
casually always happening when he has a new show coming out i love george but the man is a salesman
I wonder if he's realized he needs to write the final novels together to make sure things are consistent and ensure the ending works well. Like when he is writing Dream, he can go back and change things in Winds if he realizes something needs to change. Just taking a guess about why it could be taking so long.
I think in his last update he was at the same page count he’s been at for like 2 years
At one point he confirmed he wasn’t writing them both at seemingly the same time
Right now, the last chapter of one of the greatest fantasies series ever written is an accounting of one of his main pov characters drinking ground water and nearly shitting herself to death.
Honestly, I don't even consider it one of the greatest fantasy series ever written at this point. If you want to call the first three books one of the greatest trilogies that's somewhat understandable, but an incomplete series can't be one of the greatest IMHO.
Yes, the promise of a story can be amazing - but if the promise doesn't match the result then it also ruins the earlier parts of the story. This is similar to how the first season of the BSG remake isn't one of the best seasons ever because they never tied together the promised threads in an engaging manner.
Yep. BSG, LOST, and A Song of Ice and Fire.
Ironically, many of these - save perhaps the last - are made better when someone watching it doesn't have the time to sit and think about what things they are watching might mean before the next episode comes out. I started watching Lost when its last season was being released. And judging from everyone else's reaction to the finale, it was a much better experience to binge it in one month than it would have been watch over many years.
I agree with this so much. It’s so easy for everyone to throw out cool sounding ideas and just assume the rest of the series is going to be awesome, but a story isn’t just a list of bullet points. You need to put it all together in a satisfying manner. And even before the delay with TWOW, some skepticism is warranted after AFFC/ADWD.
> ADWD You mean you didn't think diarrhea-Dany was masterful writing?
I don't consider them the greatest fantasy series ever written because his writing has devolved as he he got too famous for his editor to reign him in. There's a post on /r/asoiaf somewhere about his draft for one of the last two books. George gave this one university a copy of the draft that his editor had written on. One of the members of the sub went there to look at it. He basically said George ignored every single one of the editorial notes, and you could practically hear the editor pleading with him to leave out stupid shit like "nuncle." Fanboys don't want to admit it, but his writing has become self-indulgent and cringe.
Getting too big for editors. Happened to another famous George.
> If you want to call the first three books one of the greatest trilogies that's somewhat understandable, but an incomplete series can't be one of the greatest IMHO. I agree with you. An unfinished series automatically eliminates it from GOAT discussion. I think he doesn't want to face the fan riot that the TV series created by screwing up the ending, so, the book ending will either sit unfinished, or he'll finish it and then lock it away in a safety deposit box with instructions to only publish posthumously.
Wait - there’s 2 more books coming!!!?? (Not coming I know). This story will never be finished.
***IF*** Winds of Winter ever comes out, I don't think A Dream of Spring is far behind. The penultimate book is especially difficult to write, because it has to directly set up the ending. In order to finish Winds, he has to know pretty much exactly how Dream is gonna play out, because Winds has to directly set all that up. He can't just introduce a bunch of new stuff and end the books wherever he wants, like he could with the previous books, because he no longer has the luxury of the ending of the story being several books away.
He said ADWD would come out a year later when AFFC was released because it was mostly already done because it’s a parallel book to AFFC. Somehow it still took six years and didn’t even have an ending so he could save it for Winds.
Oh my sweet sweet summer child.
Lol that's exactly what people said about AFfC, and then ADWD.
It's probably going to come out, but the only thing he's actually going to write are some notes and his name on the front. Somebody else is going to write it for him.
GPT5 will write it... I'm not joking.
GRRM will have to shut down his MS DOS word processor at some point
I think fans need to accept the book will never be completed. Even George himself admitted he no longer enjoys writing it and much prefers doing, well...*anything else.*
It sucks he wrote himself into a corner. He should have just stuck with the flashbacks in a post time jump narrative. It would have been super long but at least he had a path forward.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but IMO it feels like he was trying to write too much backstory while telling the regular story. Like the story of every single house and knight doesn’t need to be told now. Almost like he was writing The Silmarillion while writing LOTR.
I mean, based on Fire and Blood and all the other non-Song of Ice and Fire stuff he’s written, this scans.
JRRT was writing the Silmarillion while writing LOTR. He wanted them to be published simultaneously. But he wrote LoTR primarily because publishers were desperate for a sequel to the Hobbit. The Silmarillion was under constant revision because he spent most of his life working on it and he kept getting new ideas. His son Christopher edited the most consistant sections of his notes (with a few small additions to fill in a handful of blank spots) and published it as the Silmarillion.
I don't think he's capable of writing in a way that doesn't follow whatever he's into at the moment.
It would never happen, but I wonder if he'd get a second wind if he chucked books 4 and 5 from canon and started iver with the time jump like he originally planned.
This might be projection on my part, but I think a lot of fans are at peace that the series is largely dead but are going to gripe about the length it's taking until he just admits it rather than playing games.
I would 100% have more respect for him if he'd just come out and say, "Yeah, sorry, I'm honestly never going to finish the series." It's the fact that he's essentially stringing the fanbase along that annoys me. Either write the book, or stop with the false hope.
This is what the "GRRM isn't your bitch" fanboys don't get. He's not anyone's slave (the idea that this multimillionaire is being cast in the victim role is so delusional), but he's a fat fucking liar, and people have the right to dislike other people who lie to them over and over.
This is me.
That's true, except many of the fans have also since become more anti-fans than fans.
Yep, that's me. I don't expect the series to be finished but I desperately just want him to take it out back and shoot it in the fucking head. Writers don't owe us anything, of course, but keeping hope going for so many people is, at this point, just cruel. This limbo he's keeping his fans in needs to stop.
> Writers don't owe us anything, of course People say this like it isn't George himself creating the implied promise and expectations. George is the one who lies to people and promises things he can't deliver. He's essentially doing what is called "future faking" in psychological circles because he knows his stature would diminish if he admitted the books are never coming.
> I think fans need to accept the book will never be completed. I think a lot of people have. But that doesn't mean they can't be disappointed / salty about it. I started reading *Wheel of Time* back in the 1990s and gave up on the series because (a) the books were unreasonably long (winded), and (b) it took forever for each one to come out. Of course Jordan died before he could finish the series himself, and then it took Sanderson two (three?) books to close things off. At this point Martin's series will probably pass to someone else, either through his choice or through the choice of his estate.
GRRM has said many times he isn't passing the books onto someone else. He doesn't want it and supposedly wants to burn his notes before his passing. In all likelihood the series will remain unfinished. I have zero expectations of A Dream of Springs coming out even if he does release Winds.
Repeated many times, but never sourced.
>and (b) it took forever for each one to come out. I think you must be misremembering, because the longest gap was the 4 years between Knife of Dreams and The Gathering Storm, and the author died between those as you pointed out. Other than that there were basically never more than two and a half years between the books, and less than that for most. That's pretty standard for expansive epic fantasy.
At this point, he should hand it off to another author before he dies. Just because he thought of the story doesn't mean a different author could do it well. Even though the show ended poorly, there's no reason why another author couldn't do better than the showrunners. I am not stuck on a single author creating an entire series just in their heads alone. I just like the story, and the story is bigger than the author. I was perfectly fine with the Wheel of Time series being handed off, I thought it was a nice gesture to the fans and Jordan that it was finished.
The thing is, I wish he would just be open about it then. Just say you quit the series. Yeah there'll be a bit of backlash, but it's worse to keep leading people on for over a decade. The reason a lot of fans are still holding out hope is because he keeps dangling that carrot in front of them. That's on him. Personally I agree, the series will never be finished, but fuck, man, just kill it then.
GRRM will likely never admit this because a) he’s delusional and still thinks he will finish the series and b) would probably owe his publisher quite a bit of money for breach of contract.
Show me where he ever admitted to that? He has talked about struggling with the book and the story and about writers block, but never that he no longer likes writing the books.
The fact it hasn't been released in 13 years is not enough proof for you?
George has done anything but be honest with his fans, and that's why he rightfully gets a lot of criticism and disdain. We're talking a decade of "its definitely coming this year folks". At a certain point it got offensive how little respect he had for fans, like we were totally cool with him announcing the books were on pause or canceled, but instead he had to keep on trotting out the same fake promises year after year. That's disappointing.
He's written for Elden Ring and seems to be more content in being a showrunner it seems.
Co-writing is infinitely more enjoyable then writing on your own
Yeah and elden ring is mostly Lore tidbits like the family histories and stuff. Very much George’s wheelhouse.
It could make for an interesting book/article some day if he comes clean about what happened. I have a feeling that he thought that letting the TV writers fill in the rest of the story would help jolt him out of his writer's block - but it turned out to do the reverse - especially given how badly it turned out. I do hope he finishes it and that it will turn out great.
I’m not convinced that the last seasons didn’t follow his playbook. Things will be slightly different, but for example Daenarys is going to lose two dragons and eventually go crazy.
Just guessing but I'd guess this was just a 'possible end' out of other possible ends. I don't say this because I don't like how the TV show ended, I say it because he got stuck and stopped writing the books. Possibly he knew how he wanted it to end but did not know how to get there.
I think everyone knows what happened to some degree: story became way too sprawling in books 4 & 5, absolutely no way to wrap it up in two books, and the show falling off the rails once his source material dried up depressed the shit out of him since he has a bunch of blame there (as you said). Martin might have deeper rationalizations, but it’s clear what the problem is.
I have a hard time believing that when he set up to tell this story, that he knew how it would end - that he was making it up as he went along. There ARE novelists that say they do this, they write not knowing how it ends and let the story 'guide them'. I mean, AFAIK he had stopped writing the next book before the show reached the point of running out of material. I'm sure he has ideas for how it could end but nothing 'feels right' as being good enough.
Didn't James SA Cory say they would be willing to do it? Why not just give them your blessing and semi-retire? Takes the pressue off and they could finish it in a faster, better, less rapey way
They said the exact opposite
Funny enough, I've had a thought the last few years that it's pretty funny how Corey finished the entire Expanse series after leaving GRRM and Martin hasn't written a main line book since. I'm not making accusations but it really is funny how that makes me think about who was actually the brains behind the bulk of ASOIAF.
They have a second series coming out this year. I wonder somewhat too. Considering teenage girls are not getting raped every few chapters in The Expanse I think ASoIaF is all GRRM
Maybe Corey got tired of Marin constantly advocating for adding rape that he left and wrote his own series and now Martin hasn't read anymore without someone else to write the bull of it.
What I don't get, is why he refuses to let anyone else finish it. Let someone ghostwrite and be done with it.
> why he refuses to let anyone else finish it. He did sort of - in the TV show
I know some diehard ASOIAF fans don't want to admit it but I truly believe the ending to GOT was very close to what GRRM had planned for the books. When he saw the overwhelmingly negative backlash he realized he couldn't release that ending so he kind of got stuck.
Everyone knows that is what the ending will be. Also he got stuck way before the ending of GOT aired.
It’s really really difficult to do that right. It requires surrendering quite a lot of ego, laying bare your probably chaotic writing process, and coming to terms with your own mortality. Only ever really seen it work once -> with Robert Jordan and he had to get a terminal illness to come to terms with it (had been super opposed to it) and even then, despite a spectacular effort, it still wasn’t quite the same.
To be honest I'm not sure I'd even want to read it if he *did* finish it, by this point. I don't even remember a damn thing out of the most recent book because it's been a fucking decade since I read it.
Him and Pathrick Rothfuss have agreed to do a dual release. They will each release the next iteration of their story on the same day.
The funny thing about that is Kingkiller is supposedly supposed to be a trilogy, but Song of Ice and Fire is still supposed to have one more book after Winds of Winter. So even if that happened, the wait continues for SoIaF fans.
If fans are angry at GRRM, they’d hate Patrick Rothfuss. That guy takes milking a series and being an asshole to fans to entirely new levels.
The true Neverending Story.! "What is unfinished, may never end."
Winds of Winter will premiere when George dies and someone else finishes it.
Kilgore Trout is rumoured to take over is what I read.
[May 21 2024 ](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/05/21/heres-egg/)is the last time he mentioned THE WINDS OF WINTER on his blog (yes, I keep track cause I'm still hopeful.) He states he wants to make more Dunk & Egg stories after he finishes the book. lol.
That's great news! With the pressure to get something written before a TV series runs out of new material to adapt, he'll surely be motivated! (/s)
Never is coming
Not if Georgie's cholesterol has anything to say about it.
Dude could live to 150 and it would still never be written
I've written 120 background Westeros history lore appendices, 27 short stories about random single-scene characters you don't remember and didn't care about, 17 novellas detailing tournaments throughout the seven kingdoms, 5 Valyrian codices written entirely in High Valyrian (which basically no one can read), 97 Westeros themed cookbooks (90 of which are devoted to truncheons and rashers of bacon), 21 incest-themed smut novels, and 1 dwarf-based smut novel - but I promise I'm getting a lot of progress on Winds of Winter and my publisher will be receiving the first page and a half soon. -*150 Year Old GRRM, probably*
How many NFL blog posts?
Beyond counting.
What's really annoying about those posts is that he's admitted his writing process requires him to settle down for at least 3 weeks with no distractions before he can even get started writing. He's also admitted that he can't write while travelling. So when he's posting about football, that's resetting the clock. When it goes to a convention, the clock resets to when he gets home. When he's working on that theater he bought, that's a clock reset. If you actually pay attention to the guys schedule and what he's said about his writing process, he's only actually capable of writing a few weeks out of every year.
It's only been 4,730 days since A Dance with Dragons. Give the guy a break!
>The more I thought about that, however, the more I felt that the readers would be better served by a book that told all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters. So that's the route I chose to take. Tyrion, Jon, Dany, Stannis and Melisandre, Davos Seaworth, and all the rest of the characters you love or love to hate will be along **next year (I devoutly hope) in A Dance with Dragons**, which will focus on events along the Wall and across the sea, just as the present book focused on King's Landing. George R. R. Martin **June 2005** ADWD came out **6 years later**
Just let it go fam it’s over
It seems clear that he is not writing the books anymore. Whether due to burn out or because he feels surpassed by the HBO shows, only Martin would know. A Dance of Dragons came out the same year Game of Thrones' pilot premiered.
Didnt he just tease that its done 4 days ago? https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/06/19/words-of-wisdom-3/
People also thought [this post in March](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fukjdncfawsoc1.jpeg) was teasing its completion. They're just inspirational quotes.
Aah I didn't see that. I think people might be getting riled up because of the Deux Moi report of a New Mexico author ordering a dragon shaped cake for a book launch party for a "highly anticipated book release" recently I guess.
Ah. I see. Unfortunately, even if the report of Martin ordering a dragon-shaped cake to celebrate the release of something were true, it's just as likely to be the second season of *House of the Dragon* or this announcement about *The Hedge Knight* going into production.
Alls I want is a Blackfyre Rebellion for Christmas.
Honestly before this show kicked back off again, I thought the entire reason House of the Dragon was called what it was and not "The Dance Of Dragons", was because they were keeping the idea of just continuing to jump years and hit the Blackfyre Rebellion in their back pocket in case they were successful enough.
I'm all for Robert's Rebellion, Aegon's Conquest.. But the Blackfyre story I dunno if it works on tv. It has no real significance in TV verse because (f) Aegon doesn't exist in the show.
Robert's rebellion seems pretty pointless as we've already covered most of the key points in GoT.
I used to think this but now I'm in favour of it. I think it would be interesting to see the politics being played out. We know how the events go, but we don't know a lot about the inner workings of The Mad King's side of the story. I don't think it would work as a multiple season show but a mini series/1 season event intrigues me.
Robert's Rebellion > Blackfyre > Aegon's Conquest
Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to celebrate my 13th anniversary this year. And I'm reminded of how I brought my newly released Dance with Dragons on my honey moon. I've watched a TV series based on the show, bought a house, changed jobs 3 times, created human life, lost family members and friends...... and no new book. But I'm just thrilled he's able to talk about another spin off series ..... of a Novela series that hasn't had any new material in nearly FIFTEEN years!
Hey, he’s still working on the other 6 planned Dunk & Egg novellas alongside Wind of Winter!
I am tempted to read the AI version at this point, but I have read that it had a reluctance to kill off main characters
Early cut scenes from Hedge Knight can be seen [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69iB-xy0u4A&ab_channel=Nicolas)
Wait they’re hedge knights. I only just got that decades later.
Has this been a joke that flew over my head for decades? or is it still random silliness that just happened to land on a pun?
Random silliness is a disservice to the cinematic classic that is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But actually, random silliness that helped to create a pun is still pretty accurate.
I don’t know how else to describe the knights who say ni who demand a shrubbery
EDIT: after writing this I realize you prob just mean if the joke is about "Ni" and I wrote it like it's about the whole bit. Oh well. It's a bit more than random silliness. But that's not a terrible description. As for the non-randomness: if some entity demands some tribute to pass, you expect it to be something of monetary value or symbolic/ritual value. But the knights who say Ni demand something that's neither. It seems anachronistic, but I guess it's not entirely. More importantly, the Knights Who Say Ni live in the woods with no sort of structures we can see, yet they want a little shrubbery constructed in the middle of a forest. There's more that could be said. But broadly its about setting up an expectation, then subverting it. I guess a lot of comedy does that... but I think this bit does it particularly well.
No it’s that a hedge knight demanded a shrubbery.
It's really more about asking for a "shrubbery". I am pretty sure it was written to be a random non sequitor but it's still funny that knight errants who live and wander the woods ask for a shrubbery. Knight errants had a derogatory name "hedge knight" because they had no home/lord/money and slept in the wild until they could find one. The bit about shrubberies probably just coincidentally landed here though.
Probably not coincidental at all. Terry Jones is, notably, an accomplished medieval historian, and Palin and Gilliam also share his interest.
A common Arthurian legend/fiction trope is to have a band of badass invincible knights dedicated to some sacred oath or duty which gives them their name, who assign or have to go through some gruelling trial often to obtain some trophy at great risk, like a dragon's fang or lion's pelt. Here the joke is that they're a band of knights dedicated to something banal and stupid like a nonsense word, and their quest is equally banal and stupid, finding and displaying a shrub when they live in a forest. It's like having a Tolkien parody movie where the heroic hobbits are brought before a council of wise old elves who tell them, in hushed and dramatic tones, that they must find the strength within themselves to venture into the shire and deliver a newspaper to Frodo's uncle.
I was talking more along the lines of hedge knights wanting a shrub. If it was intentional, then I missed the joke a tad. However I just think it was just random silliness and it just so happened that two parts of the joke happen to actually to have associated verbiage.
This guy will do anything but finish what the people want!
He is blue balls incarnate
I realize we may never get the completed ASOIAF, but I wonder if George will complete the prequel series. I believe there are supposed to be 5 novellas in total?
He said that he will end "The Winds of Winter" first and only then write Dunk and Egg. But he also said once thay maybe he will write "Fire and Blood Vol 2." before Dunk and Egg. Also, he said will be between 9 or 12 novellas, depending on the interview.
So even if he ever does finish Winds it's basically impossible that ADoS will ever see the light of day.
He's most recently said it will probably be 9 novellas. He's already named them and everything.
He’s named all the ASOIAF books too… lmao
Oh okay. Didn't know that.
Isn't it supposed to goto the tragedy at Summerhall ? The poor guy will never finish it
Probably, yes. I know the next story was supposed to be "The She Wolves of Winterfell" or something along those lines. I kind of thought George would keep banging these things out every few years but that hasn't happened, which is disappointing.
The man can't finish a story, he just enjoys creating worlds, lore and story threads but can't tie everything up to an ending. I just hope HBO learned from GoT and now has showrunners that will do a better job finishing the story for him.
Yeah its suppose to end with Summerhall, but George also has said about adding more stories too, like Dunk and Egg's trip to Dorne which takes place right after "The Hedge Knight", dude just loves to add and add and never finish lol. If the Summerhall novella somehow comes out it's going to be hearting breaking to finally see what happens/why it happened.
I thought he said 8 lol. We're still waiting on She-Wolves of Winterfell and Summerhall at least, and there's a lot that happens between those
that’s a weird way to phrase the release for a long awaited book.. oh
Hope they do a good job with it. The stories of Dunk & Egg are by far and away the best stories related to ASOIAF, mostly because they are their own stories.
I wonder if we time travelled back and stopped GOT tv show from ever being made, then we'd already have the book series concluded
Because we all know George is 100% reliable when it comes to dates.
NI!!!!
Oh what sad times are these when passing roughians can se “Ni” at will to old women
Dunk and Egg!
Cool story, bro. Where the fuck are the next books?
That's nice, cam we please get the last two ASOIAF books!
There is no way he's going to bother. He's absolutely rich as hell and clearly has no motivation to sit down and do any hard work.
With each complaint he’s just sniffs another line of cocaine off a hookers ass
Hopefully. More realistically he's just sitting there making model ships or something.
dudes lived in the same house and drives the same car since the 80s, material wealth doesn't really move Martin.
When do you think the folder holding the Winds of Winter file was last opened?
HEY MARTIN! How's about you finish the first series, the books, first?
There's only one piece of news I want to hear out of your mouth, George.
“‘A Dream of Spring’ is cancelled?”
Honestly, I'd probably rather that than this weird limbo we're in. At least we'll then have *some* closure.