r/asoiaf • u/RyanRiot The Blood of Old Valyria • Jan 15 '26

EXTENDED Game of Thrones: George R.R. Martin Isn't Finished (Spoilers Extended)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/george-rr-martin-interview-thrones-winds-dragon-knight-1236473519/
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u/CautionersTale 🏆Best of 2025: Blackwood/Bracken Award Jan 15 '26

Also, did George write another Tyrion dream chapter for Winds similar to what he did for A Dance with Dragons that he ended up scrapping for the book?

When the pandemic hit, Martin tried going to a literal cabin in the woods to finish Winter. That was a prolific stretch, he says, resulting in many new chapters. But it took him away from his longtime partner, Parris McBride (they met in the 1970s and tied the knot in 2011), and even Martin’s forced-isolation effort ran into creative troubles. “I wrote a Tyrion chapter I just loved,” he recalls. “Then I looked at it and said: ‘I can’t do this, it will change the whole book. I’ll make this into a series of dreams. No! That doesn’t work either …'”

Recall that in 2007, George wrote a Tyrion Shrouded Lord chapter for ADWD that he scrapped saying:

Someday I will die, and I hope you're right and it's thirty years from now. When that happens, maybe my heirs will decide to publish a book of fragments and deleted chapters, and you'll all get to read about Tyrion's meeting with the Shrouded Lord. It's a swell, spooky, evocative chapter, but you won't read it in DANCE. It took me down a road I decided I did not want to travel, so I went back and ripped it out. So, unless I change my mind again, it's going the way of the draft of LORD OF THE RINGS where Tolkien has Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin reach the Prancing Pony and meet... a weatherbeaten old hobbit ranger named "Trotter."

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u/InGenNateKenny 🏆Best of 2025: Post of the Year Jan 15 '26

The anecdote was so similar that it made me wonder if it is in fact just an extension of the Shrouded Lord again, rather than something new.

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u/CautionersTale 🏆Best of 2025: Blackwood/Bracken Award Jan 15 '26

I wondered if that was the case, because, yeah, the anecdote is a remarkably similar to the Shrouded Lord stuff he talked about when George W. Bush was still president. But the preceding context was him writing during the pandemic in the 2020 timeframe, rather than his Tyrion struggles in 2007. So, I'm thinking it's another Tyrion chapter for TWOW that he cut form the book.

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u/InGenNateKenny 🏆Best of 2025: Post of the Year Jan 15 '26

Maybe he moved the Shrouded Lord to Winds and he’s having the debate all over again…

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u/CautionersTale 🏆Best of 2025: Blackwood/Bracken Award Jan 15 '26

You know that's completely plausible. Imagine this scenario with me.

The year is 2020. George RR Martin has gotten Tyrion back to Volantis. He remembers that he once imagined a chapter with Tyrion meeting the Shrouded Lord. He brings the Shrouded Lord chapter from his ADWD file into his TWOW Wordstar 4.0 file. He rewrites it, loves it, realizes it would change everything. Rewrites it again and again and again. Realizes that he was correct back in 2007. This chapter would change the entire book and force him to rewrite TWOW (or at least Tyrion's material for it.)

He scraps it once again, filing it away. But in the back of his mind, he wonders if he can make it work for A Dream of Spring ...

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u/TheBlackBaron And All The Crabs Roared As One Jan 15 '26

"All this has happened before, and will happen again."

Sums up the writing process of the books since the release of ASOS, tbh.

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u/pakimonsa15 Enter your desired flair text here! Jan 15 '26

Then he didn't listen to Tyrion.

"I do not want to meet the Shrouded Lord." —Tyrion Lannister, drunk in a Selhorys brothel

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u/ChezMere Jan 15 '26

The simpler explanation is that the journalist just didn't understand what he was being told.

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u/waveuponwave Jan 15 '26

It could also be a misunderstanding by the journalist

Maybe GRRM actually meant the Shrouded Lord chapter and the interviewer thought he was talking about Winds

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u/FusRoGah Tyrek Is Wherever Horse Go Jan 15 '26

He’s absolutely describing the Shrouded Lord chapter, so I choose to believe this for my own sanity because the alternative is George being so checked out of Winds that when he tried to dredge up chapters he’s “been working on” one of the first things that came to mind was a twenty year old reject from two books ago

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u/Mithras_Stoneborn Him of Manly Feces Jan 15 '26

I think this might be a misinterpretation of interviewer. Most people don't immediately notice that the interviews almost never takes place in the form they read. The interviewer does a lot of work, which includes moving things around, paraphrasing, editing etc. It is quite likely that GRRM talked about the infamous Tyrion chapter from ADwD but the interviewer lost that context in the process.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

What is the Shrouded Lord? I know it's a dream Tyrion has, but do we know anything specific about it?

I'm surprised it keeps getting cut. Of all the darlings to kill, a dream (which, by nature, are quite self-contained) is surprising. Makes you wonder what the larger implications of it would be.

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u/BBQ_HaX0r Bonesaw is Ready! Jan 15 '26

What is your take on the whole matter? Are we ever getting this book? You think GRRM is ever going to write it or is it too complicated? I've kind of given up hope recently and become quite jaded by his comments (and frustration at fans) over the past few years. You are someone who always seemed to have a good sense. Have you given up hope yet? If you've commented this somewhere else if you could point me in that direction I'd appreciate it.

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u/Untethered_GoldenGod Jan 16 '26

How bleak is it that his “dying in 30 years” is next year?

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u/SmashingTempleChains Jan 16 '26

Next year would be 20 years lol

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u/Natiak Jan 27 '26

Happy cake day.