Game of Thrones

[Steph]

If Martin thinks Stoneheart is important enough to keep, he'll tell them (assuming he catches wind that they're cutting her). He's done that in the past, told them to keep something that they thought was unimportant. I believe Stoneheart has a bigger role yet to play, and Martin's just taking his time building up to it. I mean, why even bother with the Brotherhood and Ser Whatshisname's immortality? All of that was leading up to Stoneheart, they might as well have cut it all out.

Spoiler

I think it's leading up to both Stoneheart, and LC (not-so-LC anymore) Snow. Sorry, had to.

 

[ghostryder]

Game Of Thrones In San Diego

http://www.deadline.com/2014/07/comic-con-craig-ferguson-game-of-thrones-true-blood-banshee/

 

[JoeG]

I like Craig Ferguson, but he's never even watched the show. Why would they get him to moderate? I'm sure he'll be entertaining though.

Also very excited about this rumor

http://winteriscoming.net/2014/07/12/keisha-castle-hughes-rumored-joining-game-thrones/

 

[Monkey67]

Martin has said The show will be passing the books written so far. He doesn't give 2 f's if people got a problem with it. The show will continue on to their final season while the books will be done when ever or never. Depends how his health goes I would say. Maybe he'll make the book have a different ending or be like those old pick your adventure style kind.

 

[SmilingOtter]

Being worried that GRRM won't live long enough to finish 7 or 8 book series, I'm happy that there will be a way to tell the story. The show is a great insurance policy...

 

[CutThumb]

Although I would be hugely saddened if GRRM doesn't complete the books he has left to do , given how closely he works with TV series I believe they would be very able to complete it without him. Having read the entire series so far I have to say that the way the TV seasons have kept the stories main events and character timelines together has made it much simpler to follow. And nearly all the changes they have made and the way they have expanded certain roles have noticably enhanced it (apart from one very well off the mark incident). The TV series also manages to pace itself tremendously well and achieves a dramatic balance the books just don't have in the later chapters. Just too many characters have come and gone and been replaced to keep track of easily ,volume after volume.
So if reading them is an effort I can entirely understand why George ISN'T completing them as quickly as we'd like. At his age the temptation to get so involved in the TV production must be hugely more appealing than the solitary drugery of writing it. Lets face it he's had years of slaving away as an author and he deserves to enjoy all the interest and adulation his creation brings to his life out there in the real world. I hope he enjoys the continued good health needed to complete it all, but I'd bet the show writers know exactly where its all going to end up, and arguably they can do just as good ,if not better, a job of it as George does with his writing. I actually prefer the show to the novels and thats an extremely rare thing for me to say. But ,as mentioned before ,the quality of the writing, acting, design and effects work just makes it unmissable.

 

[Riceball]

Although I would be hugely saddened if GRRM doesn't complete the books he has left to do , given how closely he works with TV series I believe they would be very able to complete it without him. Having read the entire series so far I have to say that the way the TV seasons have kept the stories main events and character timelines together has made it much simpler to follow. And nearly all the changes they have made and the way they have expanded certain roles have noticably enhanced it (apart from one very well off the mark incident). The TV series also manages to pace itself tremendously well and achieves a dramatic balance the books just don't have in the later chapters. Just too many characters have come and gone and been replaced to keep track of easily ,volume after volume.
So if reading them is an effort I can entirely understand why George ISN'T completing them as quickly as we'd like. At his age the temptation to get so involved in the TV production must be hugely more appealing than the solitary drugery of writing it. Lets face it he's had years of slaving away as an author and he deserves to enjoy all the interest and adulation his creation brings to his life out there in the real world. I hope he enjoys the continued good health needed to complete it all, but I'd bet the show writers know exactly where its all going to end up, and arguably they can do just as good ,if not better, a job of it as George does with his writing. I actually prefer the show to the novels and thats an extremely rare thing for me to say. But ,as mentioned before ,the quality of the writing, acting, design and effects work just makes it unmissable.

The thing is writing for the show isn't the only distraction that GRRM has, if that was all I'd probably be willing to cut him some slack but he's juggling so many other projects he'd put a circus juggler to shame. In addition to writing A Song of Fire and Ice, he writes episodes for A Game of Thrones, short stories set in the ASFI/GoT universe, a coffee table book on Westeros/the world of GoT, he edits an anthology series called Wild Cards, and when he's not doing that he's blogging about his favorites sports team(s). The man is worse than JJ Abrams in terms of creative ADD and being able to focus on a single project for any length of time.

 

[blakeh1]

Yeah, it drove lot's of people nuts when he announced he was writing a coffee table book on the history of Westeros rather than finishing the next book

 

[firesprite]

Ok, so... as one of the authors on the board, I'm afraid I feel compelled to jump in to George's defense at this point. First of all, writing is not as much "solitary drugery" as you might think. That's a common fallacy perpetuated by images of sallow-faced sickly writers who were probably suffering from deep depression and other issues aside from being writers (Poe, Wilde, etc). Most writers these days actually ENJOY writing and don't consider it torture to do so.

Secondly, GoT is not GRRM's first foray into writing for television for vastly popular shows. He has episodes of the Twilight Zone and Beauty & the Beast to his credit as early as 1986. The man has been seriously prolific, not only producing those episodes and the ones he's written for Game of Thrones, but also putting out the massive tomes of the Song of Ice and Fire series, and his wild cards books and likely other projects as well.

Thirdly... well, I'll just let this post on the matter from Neil Gaiman do the heavy lifting here:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html


Look. I understand the concerns of readers. I love the books too, and I definitely want to see them finished, but how would you feel if you had random people coming up to you in your day to day life and looking you in the face and saying "you'd better not die because I want that report you're supposed to write!" "What are you doing out having fun when you're supposed to be working?!"

It would certainly not make you feel very good, now would it? Is it possible George might die without finishing the books? Sure. It's also likely that he could live another 20 years and put out another five or six books.

Lastly... I apologize if anyone is offended by this post, but I've watched my husband push himself and stress himself out relentlessly before he would finally admit that he needed more time to make it the best book it could be so I have some personal experience here. Authors will write at the pace they need to write. Would you rather have a crap book fast, or have them take longer and make it a great read?

 

[Riceball]

I'd just like GRRM to sit down and fully commit himself to finishing ASIF instead of dickering around with a million and one side projects. His pace on writing these books has been glacial and that's being generous, I think I've seen glaciers move faster than GRRM's written ASIF books.

 

[ghostryder]

Jon Snow lineage spoiler theory:

http://io9.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-game-of-thrones-bigge-1606153192

 

[red4]

I'd just like GRRM to sit down and fully commit himself to finishing ASIF instead of dickering around with a million and one side projects. His pace on writing these books has been glacial and that's being generous, I think I've seen glaciers move faster than GRRM's written ASIF books.

Did you read what Neil Gaiman said about that?

 

[Solo4114]

Yeah. And on the one hand, I agree. But on the other...I dunno.

See, I think that storytellers...they make a kind of contract with their audience. "Come on a journey with me, and I will entertain you. Give me your attention, your focus, and your money, and I will tell you a wonderful story." And as audience members, we say "Ok, cool! Let's do this!"

So, it bugs me when the story is either not moving or is not entertaining, or ends poorly, and the storyteller in question basically turns around and says "Screw you. I don't owe you anything."

I'm not saying that Martin has done this, mind you. And I can understand that many storytellers -- as artists -- just figure they tried their best and used their best judgment. And in a sense, I don't think we're necessarily owed, as audience members, exactly what we want, at least in specific terms. I do, however, think that we're owed certain things in general terms. Like, we're owed a story that ends in a way that is largely satisfactory, and isn't some hackneyed ploy or half-assed explanation because the storyteller got bored. We're owed a complete tale, too.

It's that last one that I think bothers Martin's fans. Now, aside from people saying "But what if he dies before he finishes the story?" I don't know anything specific that'd make people think he's LIKELY to die before finishing. And so far, nobody's saying "But what if the ending....sucks?" Although, to be honest, certain story choices that Martin has made have not been of the highest quality (from what I can tell -- maybe he'll make them relevant later). But I think it's reasonable for fans to want him to finish the tale rather than say "Nah. I got bored. Figured I'd take up fly fishing instead. And hey, I don't owe you ****, fanboy." Although he hasn't said that, either.

I just don't fully buy into the artist-as-sacrosanct attitude that a lot of people have, where it's wrong for fans to criticize an artist's work or act as if you haven't given them your time, money, and attention, or -- having done so -- that you have no right to want quality product from them.

 

[Riceball]

It's that last one that I think bothers Martin's fans. Now, aside from people saying "But what if he dies before he finishes the story?" I don't know anything specific that'd make people think he's LIKELY to die before finishing.

Well, first off he's no spring chicken and not getting any younger. Secondly, have you seen pictures of him, he doesn't exactly look like he's the fittest of people and combined with his age and slow as molasses on cold winter's day writing speed (at least where ASIF is concerned) don't you think it's natural for some fans to be concerned? After all, Robert Jordan, a relatively youngish author, had been diagnosed with a terminal illness before he was able to finish his Wheels of Time series. Now granted, it wasn't something that hit all of a sudden and he was dead the next day, he was able to write extensive notes for the last volume of the series before his death, I would say that it was rather unexpected seeing how he was only a youngish 59 when he died.

On the subject of Robert Jordan and GRR Martin's glacial writing pace, Robert Jordan started writing his Wheel of Time series back in '84 and by the time he died in 2007 he had written 11 volumes of the series and had extensive notes for the 12th and final volume so that a ghost/guest author could finish it. Compare that to GRR Martin who started A Song of Ice and Fire in '91 and to date has only written 5 volumes out of an expected 7 volumes with the possibility of it expanding to at least an 8th volume and you wonder why people are concerned about his finishing the series before he dies.

 

[Solo4114]

Well, first off he's no spring chicken and not getting any younger. Secondly, have you seen pictures of him, he doesn't exactly look like he's the fittest of people and combined with his age and slow as molasses on cold winter's day writing speed (at least where ASIF is concerned) don't you think it's natural for some fans to be concerned? After all, Robert Jordan, a relatively youngish author, had been diagnosed with a terminal illness before he was able to finish his Wheels of Time series. Now granted, it wasn't something that hit all of a sudden and he was dead the next day, he was able to write extensive notes for the last volume of the series before his death, I would say that it was rather unexpected seeing how he was only a youngish 59 when he died.

On the subject of Robert Jordan and GRR Martin's glacial writing pace, Robert Jordan started writing his Wheel of Time series back in '84 and by the time he died in 2007 he had written 11 volumes of the series and had extensive notes for the 12th and final volume so that a ghost/guest author could finish it. Compare that to GRR Martin who started A Song of Ice and Fire in '91 and to date has only written 5 volumes out of an expected 7 volumes with the possibility of it expanding to at least an 8th volume and you wonder why people are concerned about his finishing the series before he dies.

Right, I mean, I get all that. But, like, we don't know how Martin's cholesterol is, we don't know what his blood pressure is like, as far as I know, he's not a diabetic, etc., etc. All we have is visual information of his physical condition...and past evidence that he writes like molasses in winter. My point is that, of the various worries out there, "He might die" is far less of a concern -- for me, at least -- than "The end might suck."

Towards that end, I think the structural stuff he did with Books 4 and 5 leave us some concern. This next bit is heavily spoilery, so I'm wrapping tags around it. But, for those who don't want spoiler or haven't read the books, suffice to say that Martin basically took a LONG time telling...stuff that really didn't end up seeming important in both Books 4 and 5, and kept having a ton of "near misses" and prolonging of drama than actual payoffs.

Spoiler

Examples:

- Dany's sojourn in Iraq. Er...Mereen. That entire storyline was BORING AS ****. The only thing it did for me was make me think "*****, this girl is NOT fit to rule right now." Not because she couldn't control the Merenese, but because she couldn't figure out that she should get the **** out of there and go back to Westeros. Mostly, I think, because she lacked confidence in herself.

- The introduction of Aegon as another contender for the throne. This seems like it could end up being significant, but it could just as easily end up being filler.

- All the "Tyrion passed out as a bad thing happened to him.......And then he woke up" chapters. Which, actually, was something that happened with a bunch of other characters, too. Very annoying stuff.

- Pretty much about 40-50% of Book 4 was just...pointless. I honestly do not get the whole Brienne storyline or where that's going or why it was relevant to go to ****ing Crabclaw Point or whathaveyou. There was a LOT of what, I think, was filler in Book 4, and the only purpose for it that I can see is to showcase the effect of the war on the smallfolk of the land. Except that it really could've been condensed a LOT more.

Stuff like all that is what makes me worry less about Martin croaking and more about Martin disappointing.

 

[blakeh1]

IIRC Martin originally intended to have something like a five year gap between Storm of Swords and the next book so that younger characters and the dragons could grow enough to become a real threat. He figured key points could be gotten through flashbacks etc..

But he started to realize that some of the characters could not just sit around for five years doing nothing as well as the need to have certain characters meet up and be in certain places.

Feast of Crows started to get out of control length wise, so he split things up into two books. This probably led to a lot of the padding of certain story lines as a result. So basically it felt like we got a lot of filler.

I think the HBO show is in a great position to remedy that can get rid of all that filler and cut to the meat and bones of the story. I'm looking forward to how it turns out next season or so

 

[ghostryder]

http://gawker.com/george-r-r-martin-is-really-getting-into-the-character-1610785617

 

[ghostryder]

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/07/25/game-of-thrones-blooper/

 

[SmilingOtter]

 

[red4]

It is disproportionately sexy when Emilia Clarke goes all chavy.