Amph A Song of Ice and Fire Discussion Thread

I would be extremely delighted if that happened. I think it's the last book we'll get from him... but maybe if he writes enough of an outline for A Dream of Spring, they'll get someone else to finish it at some point. In like ten years.

 

Foresight is 2020.

@solojones ten years may be a charitable estimate.

 

Speaking of random people's encounters with GRRM, I almost literally ran into him one time. My writers' room was temporarily at SoHo House LA (a really fancy members only place). GRRM was in the room next door to us doing an interview, and I passed him in the hallway but didn't say anything because I didn't want to bother him.

When we all got into the writers' room, all the other writers were like, "OMG it's GRRM I want to say hi but I don't want to bother him here". It was funny, a bunch of professional creative writers all fanboying out.

 

@Ghost he says that fairly clearly in his post replying the the New Zealand offer.

Also, the couple behind Westeros.org gave an interview recently that is fairly optimistic that TWOW will be out soon.
https://news.miami.edu/stories/2019/05/the-historian-of-westeros.html?utm_source=univmiamisocial

 

If he gets TWOW out by the end of this year/early next year, I think he could finish with ADOS by 2024. He’s talked about how difficult TWOW has been for him to write, likening it to 12 separate novels that all have to end up in the same place, and he’s picking up on threads from both AFFC and ADWD. I think once he starts shrinking the story and tying disparate threads together, the writing might get easier for him. I think. I hope.

 

Regarding the main checkmarks the show got, I think we can list off

Dany being slain by Jon
Jon being condemned into exile
Bran being King
Tyrion(and by extension House Lannister) surviving and having a role in the new political order
Arya departing one day
Sansa being ruler(if not necessarily Queen in da norf)

Regarding Bran, I am absolutely convinced he will be king or otherwise ruler in the books. The title Bran the Broken is from the books, among other evidence such as D&D's utter hostility to the magical aspects of the show, and the fact they may have wanted to kill him off. If it had been their choice, it would have been anyone but Bran ruling. It was clearly something they had to do as it came from Martin. The show did an awful job of building up to his, but Bran could see the future, he saw Drogon over KL, and he asked that infamous rhetorical question "why do you think I came all this way?", this tells me Bran will become very much a Bloodraven magical schemer(coincidentally his mentor is Brynden Rivers).

Jon was never going to be the Aragorn figure, Jon I think is more the Frodo figure. And Dany was always doomed to become the last villain as it were.

 

Have we really started falling into this delusion again? Guys, come on. Please don't do this to yourselves. Didn't the finale of that television show crush enough dreams for you?

This series is already finished. Dance of Dragons is the last book.

 

So...I was just thinking

The Lannister’s are the villains of the series more sympathetic portrayals of AFFC aside, and that makes me wonder how they will be portrayed in Winds.

We have never seen the westerlands in the narrative, we have heard things about it, but have never seen Casterly rock or the the west via the character’s eyes and not flashbacks or third hand sort of information.

As an admitted Lannister fan, the westerlands have always held my interest, and thus I have been disappointed with how little we know about them.

My concern, is that thematically for the Lannister’s to remain villains in the eyes of the readers, we will never get a good look at the people, politics and places of the west.

The north, Riverlands and vale all have good reasons to hate the Lannister’s, the targaryens do as well.

But if we ask Joe peasant on Lord Crakehall’s lands, or a merchant of Lannisport-what they think of House Lannister, they’d probably tell you they are good overlords. And while the lords and people of the west did not love Tywin-they respected him.

This ties into the north remembers plot and the BWB-the Starks are good so people remember them fondly, the Lannister’s are bad, so everyone has the knives out for them...outside the westerlands that is.

My concern is that Martin will both for the structure of the narrative and for thematic reasons avoid delving too much into the west-because the Lannister’s have to be villains thematically for the readers, but IU they are only villains for those outside the west.

To show what lady brax or Jane peasant at Silverhill thinks would undermine the implicit message that we are supposed to root(as readers) for the Lannister’s downfall.

TLDR: I’m afraid Martin won’t explore the west because that would undermine the portrayal of the Lannister’s as villains.

Just a quick reflection.

 

So any thoughts on this?

 

It's not clear if wildfire is "magic" AFAIK. GRRM based it on Greek fire, which was a real thing and its manufacture was proprietary knowledge similar to how only the pyromancers seem to know how to make wildfire. It's like napalm and not explosive in the books.

 

I would actually not be terribly surprised if Martin didn’t lay out any hard rules on magic given that he’s heavily influenced by Tolkien (who also didn’t really systematize in that way, to my knowledge) and started the series in an era where the then-current big fantasy blockbuster, Wheel of Time, was really specific on the rules, and he was definitely up enough on the current state of the genre to want to differentiate himself.

 

He's described magic as just another force of nature people in his medieval setting fail to grasp just as they don't know much about gravity or their own biology. Since he always writes from an in-universe POV he doesn't have to come up with a fixed set of rules. The lazy bastard!

 

I think it is overwhelmingly clear to everyone by this point that GRRM isn't actually intent on writing anything to further progress this universe so I would heavily doubt he elaborates any more rules or examples of magic.

 

People really still think he might finish the series? As someone who started it like 15+ years ago I'll believe it when I see it

 

I think I need anger management — Martin tweeted thus morning that Fire&Blood is coming out in paperback and all I wanted to reply is „**** you, where the **** is Winds.“

I have issues. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who started the books back in the 90s.

 

I dunno about full-on anger management or anything, but I would say if you're gearing up to angrily message someone's Twitter PR person over a book it's maybe time to log off for a bit.

 

Magic in ASOIAF as I understand it is basically a "pay for use" system.

To get something, you must give something.

Or as Mirri Maz Duur so eloquently put it, "only death can pay for life".

In essence, something must be sacrificed.

In general, I have always seen magic in ASOIAF as a "para" natural force of sorts, operating within the world, but also somehow beyond or "outside" it.

 

https://news.avclub.com/its-july-29-2020-the-day-george-r-r-martin-said-we-c-1844543284



As a reminder: He has no pages. This book is never coming out.

 

It's so unlike Fandom to have a clickbait headline.

 

Pfft, it was heavily foreshadowed by him setting a hard deadline.

 

I’m legitimately surprised that no conspiracy theory has picked up this thread and run with it.

 

I’m happy to report that I had almost forgotten about the whole mess until I saw the article about the New Zealand deadline.

We got the ending with the show. It was a huge letdown. I‘m no longer sure Martin could have made it that much better. It is what it is. Take care Westeros, it was fun for a while, now the whole thing has become pathetic.

 

Well, at least this year Martin has COVID as an excuse

 

Martin has reported that he's hunkered down in a remote cabin and is spending his days devoted to just writing, for what that's worth.