"A Song of Ice and Fire"-Is There an Ending in Sight?

With nearly a ten year gap between installments in the book series, and a tv show finale that ranges from a disappointment to an unmitigated disaster (depending on who you ask) it's safe to say that A Song of Ice and Fire has seen better days.

And with George RR Martin giving mixed signals to his fans on Twitter and on his blog, it's hard to tell where the future of this series rests. Although he stated in a recent tweet that he has made "steady progress" on the Winds of Winter, the next to last installment in the franchise, it's difficult to gauge how much progress has actually been made. Especially when Martin has made discouraging comments that he doesn't mind if the book series "remains unfinished". This is all the more frustrating when you take in the fact that in 2013 he disclosed in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that he doesn't want anyone continuing the books if he should pass before he finishes.

Being a fan of this series since I started reading the books and watching the show around 2013, I've always found Martin's attitude toward finishing the books and towards his fandom to be bizarre. Every year while the show ran, his aggression toward his fans seemed to grow with each question of when the next book would come out. The fans have a right to be annoyed as well, this series has been in publication since the 90s, with each book following the last in a reasonable amount of time. That is until 2011, when the last book, A Dance With Dragons came out. But since the release of the show, also in 2011, it was obvious that Martin was enjoying his success that was well deserved at the time. He'd spent a long time on his series and it was finally paying off. But at a certain point, it's time to wrap this thing up and stop getting angry when everyone from the guy reading the book, to an executive at HBO puts pressure on you to finish.

On one hand, I understand that the pressure had to have been enormous and I can't imagine what that does to you creatively, but on the other hand, as the years dragged on and the writers of the show were running out of material, you'd think he would have come up with something by then. But no, the show not only caught up to the books, but unfortunately blew past them into new territory without a guide. Game of Thrones immediately went down hill from there, and yet again, the spotlight fell on Martin. But still no new book was published.

And here we are, a year out from the finale, with some still stunned at how it ended. The writers of the show made some bad decisions, but like I've written before, they're not totally to blame. They signed up to adapt a show, not write one from scratch. Unfortunately, this in itself might prove what Martin fears the most about someone continuing the series if he passes away. The story proved to have too many plot threads to carry out in a way that could satisfy fans or even make much sense, so they ended up stumbling to the finish line with a mess on their hands.

The bad news is, this series will most likely not receive the ending that it or its fans deserve. George RR Martin is now in his 70s, and with The Winds of Winter only being half way finished (even that skepticism is generous) who knows how long A Dream of Spring would take to finish. It's crazy that a series with this much potential has creators that seem to have all but lost interest in it over the years, first with its author and then with its show runners.

 I've been wrong before, though. Maybe George RR Martin can pull it off now that the show is over and he can finally focus on his writing. Maybe he can pull off a much more satisfying ending than the show runners could, giving the characters that we've grown to love over the years the ending they deserve. Maybe winter really is coming, maybe it'll bring these books with it.

Sources: TOR. COM
               The Sydney Morning Herald
               The Express Tribune
               Game of Thrones Wiki-Fandom
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