He doesn't have a mental block, he's producing other stuff because he doesn't know how to finish ASOIAF.
He's constantly talked on his blog about how he has had to rewrite huge chunks of his manuscript to accomodate minor changes in events.
GRRM "Begged" HBO To Make 10 Seasons Of GoT, Lost Confidence In D&D After Season 5
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He doesn't have a mental block, he's producing other stuff because he doesn't know how to finish ASOIAF.
He's constantly talked on his blog about how he has had to rewrite huge chunks of his manuscript to accomodate minor changes in events.
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Ultimately though I don't think GRRM's issues (procrastination, perfectionism, not being able to stick certain things, fear of success, whatever) bails out D&D. You can't rush a story like GoT/ASoIaF not when there's already a pre-established pacing for the story for 6 seasons.
Like even if you're making the LOTR trilogy and you have the three full books to go off of, that is not going to save you if you make Fellowship and Two Towers into 3 hour films and then decide on the third movie you're tired of LOTR but refuse to give the movie to someone else and "compromise" by making the concluding movie 30 minutes.
All the notes from Tolkien are not going to save you if that's your attitude towards finishing the story. You cannot rush a good story.
This is not true. And showing a bunch of videos of massive groups that are hyped up by the event of it all doesnt indicate how people overall reacted to this episode. People hated on this episode immediately after it aired, especially the Arya killing Night King thing. It immediately got discussed to death how awful that plot "twist" was.
The overall consensus was: "The episode was good/great, but Arya killing the Night King was a terrible plot development." It left people, for the first time, incredibly worried about how this show will conclude. It was this specific point where people slowly started to realize that the Game of Thrones ending might spectacularly fail.
Early in the show I imagined the The Long Night being depicted across an entire season of television at least, with Westeros completed shrouded in darkness. We're talking about this Armageddon-tier, supernatural geological event/military invasion that was so fucked up, tales still persist from the last one eight thousand years ago. How do things play out across the Seven Kingdoms politically when something like this happens? How would you actually approach hordes of undead ice warriors tactically? How do folk survive in these harsh conditions in a country already ravaged by years of war, especially those not from of the North? When and how will the Son of Fire emerge amid all of this?
Once they started shortening seasons, rushing to payoffs, and foreshadowed the" Great Value LOTR" ending for The Night King and his army, I figured most of it would be glossed over, but to wrap everything up in a single episode battle without actually touching The Long Night or Lord of Light prophecy fell well short of my already minimal & cynical expectations.
Didn't even get my fucking Ice Spiders
Once they started shortening seasons, rushing to payoffs, and foreshadowed the" Great Value LOTR" ending for The Night King and his army, I figured most of it would be glossed over, but to wrap everything up in a single episode battle without actually touching The Long Night or Lord of Light prophecy fell well short of my already minimal & cynical expectations.
Didn't even get my fucking Ice Spiders
big as hounds
Okay, it's been 10 years since the show started. Imagine they used all that shit. What then? Still no new books. Today. No books. And we know D&D don't have the talent to write new stuff for themselves. It's gonna be a shitshow without source material regardless.
In a twisted way they did everyone a service instead of prolonging the suffering.
Again it's not this universally hated episode. Did you poll the entire fanbase? It was a good episode and wasn't the reason people started to dislike season 8. I get some people were disappointed in it but again it wasn't a universally hated episode.\
Yall gotta stop projecting all of your disgust on the fandom at large. Most people are fine with the episode.
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The problem really isn't with Game of Thrones/ASoIAF period really. You don't need a final book when you have what sounds like fairly detailed end games for all the main characters in your show.
The problem was ego and wanting to bail out to do Star Wars. There's no fixing either of those things.
George is right, the story he has constructed would require 10 seasons minimum, there's no way to do it in 74 episodes or whatever it was, not with the pace season 1-6 moved at.
Imagine having to recast Cersei or Dany cause they're not interested in more seasons, lol.
They should have made two regular-length seasons.
But I repeat; I am sure the books aren't ending where the show did, the story continues after, but D&D chose to end it there. There is probably a minimum of three more books to write.
They should have made two regular-length seasons.
But I repeat; I am sure the books aren't ending where the show did, the story continues after, but D&D chose to end it there. There is probably a minimum of three more books to write.
I think the thing people are saying is Martin hasn't even done what he's supposed to do.
Here's what I think. Martin either doesn't know what to do or he's scared/apprehensive.
"They ran out of material!"
"They actually had the majority of the last two books that they barely touched for like 3 seasons."
"But I didn't like that material so it doesn't count!"
If they actually did ran out of material for adapting the books properly it would make for significantly better series that would have a much better set-up for whatever bullshit they had to invent for the next seasons. Except D&D's problem was never lack of material, it was because even before season 8 came around they already didn't care anymore and were just into "cut as much plot away as we can" mode so they could get rid of it. The expansive world and cast of characters is a huge part of the essential appeal of Song of Ice and Fire, and yet at some point Game of Thrones started to feel like Westeros was the size of an egg and characters were nothing but pieces to move from one set-piece to the next.
This isn't GRRM's fault, and even if he never finishes his books they'll still be more worth coming back to than the TV Series ever was.
"They actually had the majority of the last two books that they barely touched for like 3 seasons."
"But I didn't like that material so it doesn't count!"
If they actually did ran out of material for adapting the books properly it would make for significantly better series that would have a much better set-up for whatever bullshit they had to invent for the next seasons. Except D&D's problem was never lack of material, it was because even before season 8 came around they already didn't care anymore and were just into "cut as much plot away as we can" mode so they could get rid of it. The expansive world and cast of characters is a huge part of the essential appeal of Song of Ice and Fire, and yet at some point Game of Thrones started to feel like Westeros was the size of an egg and characters were nothing but pieces to move from one set-piece to the next.
This isn't GRRM's fault, and even if he never finishes his books they'll still be more worth coming back to than the TV Series ever was.
He doesn't have a detailed ending. This is something we tell ourselves as ASOIAF fans as cope.
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Well he does know because he gave D&D the ending already, it's not a question of D&D having to figure that part out.
They lied to themselves by thinking they could cover that much story in 14 episodes. It's impossible even if George had finished the books, it can't be done based on the way season 1-6 are paced. You need 100 episodes minimum, on that I agree with GRRM.
Either that or they have to go back in time and dramatically alter the pacing of seasons 1-6. They needed a reality check for someone to say "look this can't be done", but they were high on their success and figured they could do whatever and people would eat it up because everything else they did to that point was gobbled up to great success.
While I agree with your last point then that means Martin doesn't know how to get to his own ending. Like people have said it's been 10 years since the last book and nothing. Meanwhile he's taking on and doing other projects.
He may not even really want to finish his own story at this point.
Yeah, GRRM made them write a sequence with Jon and Co. surrounded by zombies past the wall, made Gendry run to the Wall to send a raven, had that raven fly to where Dany was days away, have Dany receive the letter and then fly back to the Wall, all while everybody there should have long since either been killed or died of hypothermia.
I swear some of y'all forget how bad this show got. You don't need GRRM's books to make shit that made sense within the narrative.
But maybe some people unironically loved what D&D did to Dorne and loved the "bad pussy" quote.
Should I post videos of people cheering for Transformers movies and then talk about how that's proof that they have good writing and scripts and plotlines? After all, people fucking love Transformers movies.
Hey, i like the episode. It's by far the only part in the last two seasons the production values and directing was good enough to distract from the shit everything else. Still doesn't change the fact that the reaction to any part of season 8 by the vast majority of the fanbase was much less positive than any of the previous seasons. Like man all of my friends basically immediately turned on the episode and they really aren't the most critical consumers out there.
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There's nothing that complicated about getting to the ending. It is more or less set up. GRRM having some George Constanza type fear of success crisis I don't know about but looking at the meat of the ending there's nothing really there which is that shocking.
The most delicate part is Dany's turn but this is not like some impossible fantasy trope that's never been done before. You can pull that off with patience.
The problem with the show was not getting to the ending it's trying to speed run the ending. The ending itself is fine, it's even by GoT standards all said a fairly "happy" ending. The "good guys" (the Starks) hit the jack pot big time and pretty much all the Starks left that the audience cares about get all the things they want, even Jon, lol. He was happiest beyond the wall, him being exiled there is like Wily Wonka being exiled to a chocolate factory.
The audience should by and large like this ending.
Well thats because the Transformers movies are far better than the later seasons of GOT.
GRRM wanted them to actually adapt Feast and Dance to stretch things out for several more seasons, the problem is that those books don't lend themselves to a very good adaptation, not that the seasons were good either and they cut shit they should've been kept but the books are are kind of a mess too because of George writing himself into the corner and padding them out with meandering travelogue.
It did remind that it's now been ten years since the last book came out so even if they did stretch it out George still wouldn't have gotten Winds out.
It did remind that it's now been ten years since the last book came out so even if they did stretch it out George still wouldn't have gotten Winds out.
That's not the argument though. People loved this episode while many here seem to claim it was universally hated.
I don't think anyone here is arguing against any of that or that D&D don't have their own issues.
Martin could at leas you know finish his own story. Sadly that won't happen.
And I know plenty that love the episode. Again It's not universally hated. That's the argument.
This largely confirms a long held suspicion I had that the real reason GRRM stopped affiliating with the show had to do with how poorly D&D began handling things.
I mean the show had gotten bad basically after they left the books, it just took the general public u til the final season to finally flip on it
I mean the show had gotten bad basically after they left the books, it just took the general public u til the final season to finally flip on it
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You do know who Stoneheart was, right? Catylin Stark was a main view point character for three books. Removing may not have affect her story much (yes, we don't know what George was going to do with her), but it removes reunion of Jaime and Brianne after they have grown as character more. That is what people are upset about- the remove of one character that would give more insight to who Rh'lor bringing people back from the dead, and character assassination of J&B.
Competent writers who are adapting a series could have dropped Stoneheart and still done J&B justice. D&D turned out to not be competent.
I know it's slightly OT, but I just looked up this book on Amazon and it's over 1000 pages and has a 43 hour+ audiobook. That's hefty.
Meh. 10 seasons of a television show is overkill. Always. And most of that probably would've introduced GRRM's food fetish.
Could've used tighter plotting to achieve the same thing in the seasons we got. There was no reason to cut 3 episodes from S7 and 4 from S8 either.
As disappointing as GOT's resolution was, it's still infinitely better than the internet nerd rage that transpired afterwards and still persists.
Could've used tighter plotting to achieve the same thing in the seasons we got. There was no reason to cut 3 episodes from S7 and 4 from S8 either.
As disappointing as GOT's resolution was, it's still infinitely better than the internet nerd rage that transpired afterwards and still persists.
GRRM undeniably has random minor character #50 in Hodor figured out the whole way from inception to his exact ending, and he's just a component made up to serve Bran's arc. And you think when it comes to major characters like Bran himself he's just winging it?
What exactly in the story to date has come out of nowhere to give an actual reason for why anyone would think this?
Do you have some sort of statistical trove of audience data you are pulling from on this? Because reading this last page and you are aggressively defending this line of argument like you do.
At best everyone in my life and what I read of just general public feedback were mixed on the final episodes, and as time has gone on none of the people I knew reflect fondly on the ending. At best there are a couple that just think it was "fine" but not what they were hoping for.
Should have just hired new showrunners that would have been willing to finish the show properly. Let D&D move to producer positions or something. The show desperately needed another season worth of content (at least) to get the characters where they were going in a more believable way. I honestly didn't mind where most of the characters ended up and a lot of the big moments in the last few seasons were spectacular. They just needed all of the stuff in between those moments to feel as fleshed out as they were in the early seasons.
Still blows my mind that HBO wasn't willing to say, "well... bye", to D&D with that much money on the line. Their contracts must have been airtight. And unfortunately for the show, their narcissism must have been incurable.
Still blows my mind that HBO wasn't willing to say, "well... bye", to D&D with that much money on the line. Their contracts must have been airtight. And unfortunately for the show, their narcissism must have been incurable.
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I could easily ask you the same thing. I in no way am defending the final season and have constantly said it was rushed.
What I am saying is certain things aren't universally hated like some in here claim they are. That's it. Disagreeing isn't a defense.
I'm specifically talking about The Long Night here.
Most of the fanbase lost faith in the show in Episode 4 when Dany "forgot" about Euron's army.
Didnt D&D basically say they were just hoping for enough seasons to do the Red Wedding and that's it? Apparently, Martin should have asked them what their plans were for a few seasons after that.
100% fell apart after Season 4 though. I've gotten my fiancé to watch the first 4, then told her to start reading the books after that since the show and everything about it went to complete shit. Arya? Shit. Tyrion? Shit. Jamie? Shit.
100% fell apart after Season 4 though. I've gotten my fiancé to watch the first 4, then told her to start reading the books after that since the show and everything about it went to complete shit. Arya? Shit. Tyrion? Shit. Jamie? Shit.
As a Frasier fan, I wholeheartedly disagree with you. I'm glad they made 11 seasons.
I also think it really speaks poorly of them as people generally.
I mean I remember the early interviews where basically they went to George and laid it on THICK to get the rights for the novels and pitch it to HBO.
like how this was a lifetime dream project and they were the ones to do right by his work, that to that point he hadn't felt comfortable with anyone doing.
To then just rush through it like they did to move past it as quickly as possible is just so fucked up and disrespectful I'm struggling to even find words for it.
I really do hope their careers never recover because they do not deserve any more success when there are likely so many better people that could write as good or better that are likely struggling to find work in that town
It really wasn't, for whatever popular opinion is worth. Widespread opinion of the series only changed after Jaime went back to Cersei(edit: And when the second dragon died, I forgot that was the same episode) and Daenerys burned King's Landing and the part of the ending they hated was that Jon killed Daenerys instead of them living happily ever after. The general audience was more than content with the braindead but pretty spectacle they were given.
The last season of this show was so bad that it retroactively made people hate a most phenomenal show.
That's a staggering accomplishment.
That's a staggering accomplishment.
It is simply impossible for the show to extend a few more seasons. Not just D&D, the actors were not interested (sure a few minor ones were) and they had run into the limits of making such a huge show. People talk about expanding the seasons but they were already doing about as much as they could physically do in 12 months, even with huge second and third crews going.
The principle actors were not going to sign on to another few years of GoT for 11 months at a time, but I'm sure GRRM knows that. His whole interview is shockingly self serving and hypocritical, but clearly he feels frustrated about many aspects of the show. It's mostly his inability to make any progress on the books (he will never ever ever ever ever finish the series) so he can imagine a perfect ending in his mind that will never have to exist.
The principle actors were not going to sign on to another few years of GoT for 11 months at a time, but I'm sure GRRM knows that. His whole interview is shockingly self serving and hypocritical, but clearly he feels frustrated about many aspects of the show. It's mostly his inability to make any progress on the books (he will never ever ever ever ever finish the series) so he can imagine a perfect ending in his mind that will never have to exist.
Have to somewhat disagree here.
As it currently stands there was so much rich storytelling that was glossed over, or ignored entirely, even in seasons 2-4 where they slowed things down a bit and let the story breathe more, that it could have easily run 10 seasons and maybe even added episodes.
To me part of the problem was always it felt like most episodes were just quick cuts to all the competing storylines and you never got to just stick with a couple and go deep on the characters and story that episode, most seasons were this zoomed out birds eye telling of the story. And the few times they did allow for breathing room were typically the best episodes(and often the ones written by GRRM).
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People are confusing people liking certain elements of The Long Night episode (which was genuinely exciting at times) with being OK with the overall product.
What "The Long Night" was is what people wanted a *full* season of. Battling the army of the undead and TNK. We were promised a giant war, a hurricane, instead we got the beginning of a thunderstorm (exciting) which fizzled into some sun showers and petered out.
The Night King had become a huge pop culture phenom in and of himself and they did him dirty by getting rid of him in one episodes.
What "The Long Night" was is what people wanted a *full* season of. Battling the army of the undead and TNK. We were promised a giant war, a hurricane, instead we got the beginning of a thunderstorm (exciting) which fizzled into some sun showers and petered out.
The Night King had become a huge pop culture phenom in and of himself and they did him dirty by getting rid of him in one episodes.
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Where did any of the lead actors say they wouldn't do another few seasons?
For $1 million an episode I'm sure Harrington and Clarke would've stayed on. The only big thing Emilia Clarke had done outside of GoT was the Terminator movie which was a flop so I can't really see her having a high degree of confidence as a film star.
Kit Harrington has said he had massive anxiety about the show ending so I don't think he would have been the hold up.
If anything the cast was owed a season 9 and 10 to be able to make the real money they should have been making for many years. The cast was massively underpaid until season 6.
I love reaction videos for that episode.
The audience can forgive a lot of things if you give them moments like this. I mean, what was Jon doing? Shouting at the dragon?
But that Arya moment is just spectacular... tense... and then joy as you see Arya jumping... then immediate silence as you wonder if she's gonna die... then jubilation when she stabs the King.
The season is pretty much down hill after that episode.
