this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
64 points (94.4% liked)
Television
1068 readers
470 users here now
Welcome to Television
This community is for discussion of anything related to television or streaming.
Other Communities
Other Television Communities
A community for discussion of anything related to Television via broadcast or streaming.
Rules:
-
Be respectful and courteous to all members.
-
Avoid offensive or discriminatory remarks.
-
Avoid spamming or promoting unrelated products/services.
-
Avoid personal attacks or engaging in heated arguments.
-
Do not engage in any form of illegal activity or promote illegal content.
-
Please mask any and all spoilers with spoiler tags. ****
founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
My theory is that the show ending was the way he was going to end the books, but doesn't know what to do now that everyone hated the ending
The thing is, he has no reason to end the series. People either love it or hate it, chances that people will be disappointed is so much higher than people genuinely like it. He probably never really had a plan at all, and seeing how people reacted to game of thrones made him realise that the best game plan is to not finish it, so people can just fantasise on how good the ending would've been
The problem wasn't the ending itself, it is just how abruptly it happened. It would be the equivalent of Frodo simply riding the eagle from shire to mount doom. Same ending, but a much shittier story.
The problem is that GRRM has written himself into a corner, and simply needs to bite the bullet and retcon/rewrite previously published books to make it work.
I think that’s true that the show ended the way he was supposed to do it. But my theory is that he told the showrunners what the ending should be, but didn’t elaborate how the story should get there (because he hadn’t written it yet), so the show did it themselves and executed it terribly.
IMO there’s nothing bad about how everything and everyone ends up in the show. It’s how they got there and how it hastily done that made it bad. If his fear is that people will hate the book because it has the same ending, I think it would still work if the events leading up to it are written better.
Exactly. Imagine if season two started with Stannis's shadow murdering Renly. Then next episode Stannis attacks Kings Landing and Rob marries Talisa. Third episode is the Red Wedding. Fourth episode is the Purple Wedding. Fifth episode is Tyrion's trial and Oberyn's fight. Then we end with season short with the battle at the wall and Jon dies.
That would be an action packed but ultimately terribly confusing and paced season. All those events, when spread out over several episodes and seasons are excellent and exciting moments.
The first three books (roughly first four seasons) are the end of the first act of the story. The next two books are just the start of the second act of the story. The world grew. The world expanded. A time jump was added and then removed, and that's where the problems started. The show needed to start working towards an ending, but the story wasn't going that way.
I think in a world where the television series was never made, George would have likely finished the series by now. It's difficult to sit in your house and type out a story while everyone is outside your house having fun and yelling at you to come outside.
This isn't to absolve George. He's a professional, he should have finished, but I get it.
I had just happened to watch a video the other day about all the hanging plot threads from the show ending, and I think that's what bothers me. With any epic story, odds are that normally no ending could ever live up to what our hopes are, especially at an individual level, but there are now so many questions we'll never get answers to and characters some of us invested many years of our lives thinking about just got done so dirty. Brienne, Jaime, The Hound, Varys, Littlefinger, the Children of the Forest, anyone from Dorne or the Iron Islands, the Facless Men. Everything just got such a weak wrap up. For so many people and events that got a huge emotional buildup, nothing seemed to matter for any character in the end. It feels like the showrunners lost interest as much as GRRM did and called it a day.
Thing is, this book isn't even going to have the ending yet, and at this point he doesn't exactly have a high bar to clear to make improvements on how GoT approached the ending. There's also nothing wrong with outright making changes to the ending if he wants.
He's clearly been in his own head about the series ever since after the fourth book. He still likes writing about the world, so my best guess is whatever progress he makes on Winds is occasional efforts to try to shed that emotional weight and free up some headspace for the side stories he likes more.
I think that's part of it... plus he's been fucking stuck for years
That may be true. The way I see it, he's got nothing to gain and everything to lose if he finishes it. Since GOT, he's now in great demand as a fantasy writer in the movie/video realm. Hollywood is showering him with lucrative deals. So, if he finishes WOW and it flops, after having worked on it for 13 years, it will call into question his status as the "go-to" fantasy guy. No one likes a loser, especially Hollywood, because investing millions into productions that flop hurts the bottom line. Conversely, if he finishes it and it's a great success, it doesn't really do much for him. He's already in great demand, and it's not like he'll suddenly have more opportunities open to him as a result of the success of WOW. So finishing WOW is now a situation where it can only hurt him and not help him.
That's how the writers got the job. Correctly predicting the ending.