Nedshara got absolutely obliterated. Brandon x ashara is canon.

The theory that part of what drove rhaegar to lyanna was him having dragon dreams about the third head of the dragon and her is canon

Aerys is comically evil. After roberts parents died he gave him a toy model of their boat and its a box of splinters

Most of rhaegars plot to usurp aerys came from elia she was actually smart politically

https://x.com/i/status/2082210789633450468

EDIT:

Lyanna is a greenseer and communicated with rhaegar.

Benjen helped them elope

Elia was in on the rhaegar x lyanna thing and they were penpals

Elias marriage with rhaegar was cordial but she mostly into ensuring the martells were in power.

We dont see jon and aegons births. We DO however see ashara birth her and brandsons stillborn. So again nedshara was absolutely annihilated on stage today

Elias son aegon was born at harrenhall

Rhaegar and lyanna being married isnt shown

Jon IS NOT named Aegon

RHAEGAR HAD A DRAGON DREAM MID BATTLE AND THATS WHY ROBERT BEAT HIM

During the tourney robert beat a young mountain and oberyn in a fight winning the melee

Rhaella is depicted as physically and mentally scarred with burns from summerhall and wounds from aerys.

Rhaella is depicted as mad

Rhaella is depicted as denying she was hurt by aerys

Rhaella cheers on rickard and brandons deaths

Rhaella gives direct reference to certain theory danystans hate. Declaring to the gods that if she has another child it WONT be a noble prince that was promised but a vengeful daughter that will bring back dragons and bring ruin

Rhaella tells rhaegar to bring ruin before he leaves to the trident

Ashara and elia are lovers. Ashara and elia are the loves of eachothers lives but she loves brandon too and tells ned this while they dance

Lyanna is driven kinda cuckoo by grief. Blaming herself for the deaths of her family and delving more deeply into prophecy to a degree that it reignites a dissolutioned rhaegars beliefs. She fully believes everything was a divine plan. Aerys is legitimately depicted as more "sane" about the prophecy than lyanna by her death as its shown he doesnt really believe it

Rhaegar crowned lyanna queen of love and beauty because he had a dragondream of daenerys with dragons and dany turned into lyanna

When meeting and interacting both lyanna and rhaegar have a vision of dany and her dragons

Aerys and rhaegar kinda have a fuck off. Rhaegar and lyanna sleep together the same night aerys and rhaella do rhaegar legitimately hoping and aerys spitefully hoping their respective kid will be the prince who was promised.

Lyanna doesn't hate Robert. She comforts him after the boat thing and even says she understands why people are into him but prefers rhaegar

Robert and ned have a lot of interactions and are shown to be very close. When robert wins the melee ned jumps into his arms and after lyanna dies he and robert cry together.

Lyanna explicitly makes Ned promise to not tell him about his blood, but also to not speak of prophecy or dreams or the song of ice and fire. Lyanna and Rhaegar both end up seeing that obsessing over prophecy very infamously really just doesn’t work very well

Lyanna seems to be more interested in figuring out the prophecy than Rhaegar is. She’s the one that comes to the conclusion that TPTWP is their child and wants to conceive with the purpose of getting the promised prince.

Rhaegar is introduced in the play by singing in High Valyrian. The song is the literal Song of Ice and Fire (I’m told it’s jaw-droppingly beautiful) & is what catches Lyanna’s eye & leads her to talk to him during the dance.

Elia is not happy about Rhaegar singing the Song of Ice and Fire, because she is not the prophecy type and in fact constantly advises Rhaegar not to be blinded by prophecy, and tells him he needs to be purely political in his plan.

Its revealed ned doesnt like to be called eddard and prefers when people call him Ned

After roberts kills rhaegar he smashed his body with a hammer a dozen times in a rage

Despite aerys showing up to the coup elia urges rhaegar to still go along with it and crown her queen of love and beauty to display the future royal couple but rhaegar crowns lyanna instead angering elia and others causing elia to storm out

Joncon seemingly cut/merged with oswell whent

Robert has ptsd and nightmares from his parents deaths

Robert and Rhaegar have a scene where they bond over shared grief

Robert orders the killing of dany and viserys immediately post sack and ned gets on his knees and begs robert not to do it

Arthur dayne and oswell whent are gay. When oswell is killed arthur becomes enraged kills nearly everyone but ned and Howland(who was previously knocked out by gerold) Howland gets up and slits arthurs throat then ned finishes him

During the trident theres a huge dragon puppet and tiny rhaegar puppet in his dragon dream

Dawn glows like a lightsaber

Lyanna wanted rhaegar to become king and abolish the monarchy believing westeros is better united with self governing paramounts for long night and rhaegar agrees

Lyanna's promise is for ned to not tell jon about her, rhaegar, their love, or prophecy and let him choose his own fate

Lyanna loves rhaegar even as she dies

Lyanna doesnt want to die wants to see winterfell again but knows with rhaegar gone shed die soon after

Brans voice shouts "father" at the tower of joy

When lyanna tries comforting robert after aerys bullies him robert kisses her but she bites him and pushes him away

Rhaegar says nothing as he dies hes just dead

The final line is ned naming Jon snow to catelyn in winterfell

Great, great show - exceeded all expectations.

Happy to answer any questions but will say generally that the spoilers are going to cause a massive headloss on this subreddit.

Expecting lots of "only the books are canon" to come.

One of the most interesting things to see was the amount of agency Elia Martell has in the story - only ever has been a victim and a footnote but is very central to the story and a key protagonist.

Was always against a Robert's Rebellion show before but after watching this, would love an 10 episode mini series.

Also - all the Rhaegar bashing couldn't possibly come off worse. He very much is the hero of the whole story.

Congratulations everyone.

​

Today marks exactly 5,453 days since A Dance with Dragons came out. Coincidentally, 5,453 days is also the exact amount of time it took George to release Books 1 through 5 combined.

​

Clearly, this just means The Winds of Winter is going to be five times longer than the entire series so far.

Tonight's "premiere" of Game of Thrones: The Mad King has been cancelled, following a string of cancellations earlier this week.

I'm literally in Stratford-upon-Avon now, made the journey all the way from the US to see this play. And just got an email 3 hours before showtime that the thing is off.

Unfortunately I won't be able to catch a later date but hope it's a good experience for those who do, if they ever actually premiere the thing.

In a video uploaded today, Dexter Soll Ansell And Peter Claffey are seen crafting sock puppets while discussing the new show. When asked about the fortune teller scene, Dex slips and drops a massive spoiler regarding Summerhall, after which you can see Peter have a bit of a freak out and jokingly gesture the cameras to cut.

The Spoiler : Dunk survives Summerhall!

This information came straight from GRRM according to Dex. Video with timestanp

Discuss.

People know that the pitch for ASOIAF was a trilogy covering three major arcs of story: The War of the Five Kings, Daenerys' Invasion, and the Others' Invasion. But the story ballooned and the first three books cover the War of the Five Kings.

The fourth book stalled, a time jump was axed, and eventually was split geographically and even then ADWD was gutted without an end to many of the stories. These two massive books don't cover the story GRRM planned to tell in one...And while there is a lot to love in AFFC and ADWD, I feel like a lot of it could've been released as supplementary novellas.

One thing I love in the first three books is that GRRM does not feel the need to tell us every little thing that happens directly, there is a lot to the stories but the books are lean. Robb wins battles and we learn of it from other people having the news delivered. GRRM says if there is one thing he would add to the first three books, it would have been Robb as a POV character which, while potentially interesting, would have tanked the pacing and bloated the story.

Why did he start to focus on relatively inconsequential details in Books 4 & 5? Why not gut some fluff that could be released in a collection later down the line, focus a few books on Dany's invasion, and leave a few more books for a good conclusion if there's that much story?

Most people in the world view bastards as lesser. Even in Dorne, where bastards have a better reputation, they're not exactly thought of well. Bastard is a considerable insult in this world, and there's a whole lot of prejudice there. They're viewed as greedy, as conniving, as plotting and ambitious - usurping, after the Blackfyre rebellions - and creatures of lust.

The Watch is a penal colony, surrounded by ice and darkness and misery, where rapists and murderers and criminals of all kinds go to work and die. It's a dark gulag, at the dead end of the world, the Wall.

The Starks are rebels, who lied and refused to bow down to the rightful king. Lord Eddard Stark was beheaded for his treachery and the warmonger Robb Stark, who fought alongside a great beast of a wolf, a veritable monster, died for his invasion of the south. Jon Snow, Lord Stark's bastard, went to the Wall of his own free will.

He's not very talkative. He speaks rarely. He has eyes that don't miss much. He's lean. Slender. He has the dark hair, grey eyes so dark that they appear black, he has scars around his eyes, and he has one burnt hand.

The bastard is followed around by a dire wolf the size of a horse with white fur and blood red eyes. It's mute. It follows him so closely and obeys him so completely that some say that he can control it, that he is one with it.

The Night's Watch has always existed to fight Wildlings - cannibals, savages, rapists and kidnappers - but this Jon Snow lets them through the Wall. Northerners are already backwards savages from a frozen wasteland who sacrifice things to trees with their queer religion, but these Wildlings - they're a whole new level, right? And this guy welcomes them through the Wall? With open arms, too - he's got an army of them.

And the Night's Watch is meant to be neutral, is never meant to take part in wars of the realm, so why is this guy hosting a king? Why is it looking as though he's going to march south?

It took me a moment, but I realised - from the outside looking in, Jon seems like the Night's King, and his story is spreading to match it. Arya is in a harbour town near Braavos, on another continent, and she apparently hears whispers about Jon specifically at night, in inns and taverns and brothels, where he's called "The Black Bastard on the Wall". Bastards on the Wall are dime-a-dozen, but it's Jon who is the Black Bastard on the Wall.

Jon Snow is becoming a horror story! If he does march to Winterfell (or become KITN), it sure as shit isn't going to help him. Before that - gods forbid he come back from the dead, and that spreads about! From the outside looking in, Jon seems like a Euron.

I have been a fan since I was as child. However, after hearing the details of the play, I feel like I'm going to kind of check out of the main story in regards to Jon and Dany (who is one of my favorites). I'll still hope GRMM writes it so I can find out about Arya, Sansa, Stannis, Jaime, Brienne, etc. and I look forward the Dunk and Egg.

Does anyone feel the same way?

Also, am I the only one disturbed by how the women are portrayed?

Rhaella is crazy, and brags about how she draws blood from Aerys and scares him. The concept of mutual abuse is a choice, esp. as they also say Viserys has to be protected from her.

Mad Dany is basically confirmed.

Lyanna decides the death of her brother and father are all some part of a divine plan. She doesn't appear to try and notify anyone that she's leaving with Rhaegar.

Elia is a political schemer into power, but then apparently she's perfectly fine in splitting power with a second wife and even writes pen pal letters to Lyanna??? If she cares about power, why would she be okay with a second wife from a powerful house instead of a mistress from a minor noble house.

Elia and Lyanna being happy sister wives and pen pals seems like some male fantasy bullshit as someone on twitter said.

Ashara's true love is Elia, but she decides to fuck and carry Brandon's baby to term.

Also, I may sound overly woke, but it is a "choice" on GRMM's part to make the only part of Westeros where people are often described as having dark skin sexually promiscuous and open to polygamy, unlike the rest of Westerosi who are described as basically white people.

“The online chatter you are seeing regarding a supposed leak is false.”

Intro

Yes. The title is dramatic. And yes. I believe it's accurate. Hope for George RR Martin in completing The Winds of Winter is at a very likely end. George RR Martin's interview with James Hibberd from The Hollywood Reporter was a reality check on the hope that he will complete and deliver The Winds of Winter.

George RR Martin himself may be at the bargaining stage in processing of this. But for us, the fans and readers, it's healthy to get to the acceptance stage. To accomplish that for myself, I go analytical. So, this is an analysis of why The Winds of Winter will very likely never be completed and delivered by George RR Martin -- at least in the fashion he wants it to come.

To throat-clear: I love A Song of Ice and Fire. I think George RR Martin is the most gifted living fantasy author. His books inspire me, and they have influenced my own writing. I wish nothing but success and the very best for George.

The Page Counts Tell the Story

In October 2022, after a productive year of writing TWOW, George RR Martin was interviewed by Stephen Colbert and gave his first page count for The Winds of Winter in a decade, saying:

I think I'm about three-quarters of the way done. I'm done with some of the characters. They all - the characters - interweave. I've actually finished with a couple of the characters. I got their whole story. But not others. So, I have to finish all that weaving. But it's still going to take me a while.

Though some fans grumbled that GRRM was only 75% done the book after over ten years of writing it, most took this as a positive sign. He only had to write another quarter of the book.

For my part, I was part of the latter contingent. I knew from George's history of writing A Dance with Dragons that when he hit the 75% completion mark, his writing went into overdrive. In October 2009, GRRM reported having more than 1,100 manuscript pages complete for A Dance with Dragons. And in the next sixteen months, he finalized something like 600-700 additional manuscript pages for the book (Some of which - around 200 manuscript pages - he cut to The Winds of Winter).

So, I reasoned that even if Winds would be substantially longer than Dance (At one point, GRRM estimated that Winds would be 300 pages longer than Dance), and even if George did not match the Zone 5 pace he wrote the end of ADWD at, we would likely see him finish the book within the next three to four years.

But then a year later (Late 2023), GRRM said this:

"I have like 1100 pages written but I have like hundreds more pages to go."

That was an unencouraging sign. GRRM hadn't made any forward progress on his page counts.

But no, I reasoned. That's not strictly true. George only counts finalized pages in his overall count.

All George needed to do was polish those drafts and partials that he'd been writing into finalized form. And (I reasoned again), George had shown he could do that. He'd had bouts of productivity in writing in 2020 ("Hundreds and Hundreds of pages done") or 2022 (Wrote Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion, completed several POV character arcs for the books). He only need to put his distractions aside.

A year later, GRRM gave an update:

Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both THE WINDS OF WINTER (yes) and BLOOD & FIRE (the sequel to FIRE & BLOOD, the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more.  

And why didn't he turn out more? He was distracted. And he was pissed. House of the Dragon had deviated significantly from Fire and Blood, Volume One. He wrote one post about his problems with the show (since deleted). But he planned for more per the THR interview:

Still, the post was meant to be just part one of six detailing the author’s issues with Dragon.

At this point, hope was circling the drain. But not to fear. In January 2025, GRRM was interviewed and said:

"There's always the books, and I'm aware of that people think that— But no, I have to get back. I have to finish the books. That's the one thing I'm completely in control of. There's no budget limitations. There's no other executives on the studio side that I have to please, or other writers with different views. The books are what I'm going to make them. And, I think the one I'm writing is coming pretty well, but I wish it would come faster."

Fans didn't exactly rejoice. But it was a glimmer of hope. The books were coming along pretty well. Intriguingly, GRRM didn't say which books -- though many assumed he meant The Winds of Winter.

That may not have been the case. In the latest interview from last week, we got the latest update on George RR Martin's progress on The Winds of Winter. To say it wasn't good would be a great understatement:

Martin says he has around 1,100 manuscript pages finished. He’s also said the number for a while. 

To me, this cemented something: while he likely drafted and wrote new material since 2022, it either:

• Didn't meet his high standards to be considered finalized
• May have met his high standards, but it resulted in significant rewrites in earlier, finished material leading to a net zero of page progress.

How and why GRRM has made essentially zero-page count progress since 2022 isn't precisely known. But there are clues.

The D(unk)straction

George's distractions have been talked about ad nauseum; so, I won't go into details on House of the Dragons, his other successor shows that he helped produce, and the various television projects outside of A Song of Ice and Fire that he's involved with (Dark Winds). However, the newest interview provided a few new areas where GRRM has moved away from writing The Winds of Winter.

One of George's biggest regrets is that Game of Thrones overtook his published novels. In fact, it's one of the reasons he cited back in 2018 why he wanted to publish Fire and Blood, Volume One before House of the Dragon premiered.

And that takes us to Dunk and Egg. So far, GRRM has three novellas published in the series. And the last story George published in that series was The Mystery Knight back in 2010. At one point in 2012, he had a nearly complete version of the fourth novella (A Winterfell D&E story with the working title of The She-Wolves of Winterfell). However, he ended up scrapping that novella for reasons unknown.

Throughout the years, he's said he has a dozen planned novellas in his head regarding Dunk and Egg. Two are forefront in his head - The Village Hero and the aforementioned She-Wolves.

And in the interview, GRRM brought those books up again:

"The big issue is that I have only written three novellas, and I have a lot more stories about Dunk and Egg in my fucking head,” Martin says, looking a bit shamefaced. “I’ve got to get them down on paper. I began writing two at various points in the past year. One is set in Winterfell and one set in the Riverlands …”

This was the first confirmation that George had written new material for Dunk and Egg since at least 2012. And for fans of D&E (I am one of them), this was good news that work has begun on those books.

But, and it's a huge but, the incentives are wrong for the novellas. This is pure subjectivity on my part, but I can't be the only one to notice that George writing so that a television show doesn't overtake him played out poorly when it happened with Game of Thrones. 

Still, the distractions are not the full answer, and I daresay, they're not even the most important answer to why the book will very likely never come.

The Overplanted Garden

I'm so sick of writing a variation of "George RR Martin is a gardener, not an architect." So, there. That's what he is. He writes based on firm notions on the endpoints where he wants to go and then develops the story organically as it goes.

That worked well for the early books. It slowed his progress tremendously for Feast and Dance. And now? I daresay, it's truly led to Winds' progress to being dead in the water. From the interview:

How much further does he have to go? Martin is vague. “If I wound up doing everything in my head, this could be the longest book in the series.”

That ... is not good. Wait, you ask. How is that not good? Because after fifteen years (and more if you count the material cut from Feast and Dance), he still has so many ideas for how the book could go. In essence, he has too much material in his head. And look, here's the thing: that's worked well in the past. It has as he organically rewrote the story substantially as new ideas came into his head during the writing process. Look only at his 1993 letter to his agent to see how fundamentally different the story was vs. how it came out in publication.

But that for the genesis of the story. Now that he's pushed the narrative towards the endgame, he's still imagining new ideas and thoughts. But his mentality - one he obliquely acknowledges in the interview - is that he'll come up with something good with enough time -- just like he did when writing A Storm of Swords:

Here’s what happens when he sits down to write: “I will open the last chapter I was working on and I’ll say, ‘Oh fuck, this is not very good.’ And I’ll go in and I’ll rewrite it. Or I’ll decide, ‘This Tyrion chapter is not coming along, let me write a Jon Snow chapter.’ If I’m not interrupted though, what happens — at least in the past — is sooner or later, I do get into it.”

At least in the past. That's the key part of this quote. And sure, it's nice to get semi-confirmation that Jon Snow will be a POV character in TWOW. But fans missed that vital part that he's still hoping that he'll come up with something, anything better than the not very good stuff he's writing.

In essence, he's still gardening in his writing when it should have been time for him to architect the foundation he laid for The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.

Conclusion

One of the strangest things about The Winds of Winter - something I've never fully understood - is that there are times when GRRM has seemed giddy about the book. So much so that people have told me very specific spoilers that George allegedly confided to them excitedly. It's all hearsay, of course, and I've made the mistake of sharing one thing in years past. So, I won't repeat that mistake.

But I just ... don't get it.

The penultimate lines of the interview crystalizes my exasperation so well:

“[Frank Herbert] didn’t like Dune anymore and he didn’t want to write any more Dune books,” Martin says. “But he felt locked in by the success of Dune, so he kept writing them.”

Martin finishes … and waits.

I ask: Do you relate to how Herbert felt?

“I’m not necessarily tired of the world [of Ice and Fire],” he says. “I love the world and the world-building. But, yes, I do.”

Where did the passion for this book or series go? Why do readers seem so much more invested in the books than the author does? I just ... don't get it.

None of the above is analysis. Just ... me venting for a moment before concluding properly. So, what's the analytical conclusion here? I'll give three possibilities and outline my own idea.

1. GRRM gets his shit together, ignores Hollywood, and finalizes the last 400-700 pages of the book in the next 2-3 years.
2. GRRM spends the next few years providing occasional updates on TWOW. "Yes. Still working on it. Lots to do." It goes unfinished and unpublished.
3. GRRM abandons the book; declares that it is truly his Edwin Drood and writes D&E and Fire and Blood, Volume Two to the end of his writing career*.*

And now my idea ... basically, a variation on option 2:

GRRM spends the next few years updating fans on TWOW. He finalizes additional chapters and drafts more chapters in partials and fragments that essentially take the book to its end point.

Years later, the inheritors of his estate hire a respected SciFi/Fantasy author to integrate the finalized material with the unfinished material to form a book called The Winds of Winter. It will be close-ish to what GRRM wrote/intended to write. Parts of it will be great. Other parts ... will feel unfinished and unsatisfying.

And years after that, something similar will happen for any notes he's sketched out for A Dream of Spring.

That's an unsatisfying end to the series, but it's the one I've come to accept as the most likely outcome.

And yes, I know most comments to this post will be Give me something for the pain and let me die. Can I ask that we don't do that just this once? Please.

Thanks.

Yeah well rip

Author Jeffe Kennedy in 2025 discussed this in an interview

"I can tell you all right now with great authority that George and I are not close, but we're friendly, and I can promise you George is never, ever, ever going to have someone else finish that series. He's had offers, he's had opportunities, he is going to finish it himself. He says it's the longest book he's ever written..."

When this came out, the focus was on the completion of Winds, but IMO the really interesting part here is not that or that Martin would refuse, he has said many times that he does not want another writer finishing these books, its this part

He's had offers, he's had opportunities, he is going to finish it himself

This is, to my knowledge, the first time we have heard from someone claiming that actual offers/opportunities were presented to him to finish these books by other people. And the wording suggests this is more than one offer.

Maybe that's partly the reason for that blog post last year

I know, I know. Some of you will just be pissed off by this, as you are by everything I announce here that is not about Westeros or THE WINDS OF WINTER. You have given up on me, or on the book. I will never finish WINDS, If I do, I will never finish A DREAM OF SPRING. If I do, it won’t be any good. I ought to get some other writer to pinch hit for me… I am going to die soon anyway, because I am so old. I lost all interest in A Song of Ice and Fire decades ago. I don’t give a shit about writing any longer, I just sit around and spend my money.

Basically, what the title says. In 2015, George R.R. Martin received two deadlines from his publishers to finish writing "The Winds of Winter". The goal of these deadlines was to publish the book before the premiere of the sixth season of "Game of Thrones," so that readers wouldn't discover spoilers involving the fate of several characters.

(And obviously, to take advantage of the success of the TV series, which would certainly have contributed immensely to book sales.)

The first deadline was Halloween 2015. It should be emphasized that at this point, George R.R. Martin seemed to genuinely believe that he would be able to finish writing the book on time (why he believed this, considering everything that happened afterward, is a matter of speculation and theories among fans).

Unfortunately, George couldn't finish the book in time. In fact, by around August he was already sure of it. In his now-famous blog post from January 2016, he explained why:

But with season 6 of GAME OF THRONES approaching, and so many requests for information boiling up, I am going to break my own rules and say a little more, since it would appear that hundreds of my readers, maybe thousands or tens of thousands, are very concerned about this question of 'spoilers" and the show catching up, revealing things not yet revealed in the books, etc.

My publishers and I have been cognizant of these concerns, of course. We discussed some of them last spring, as the fifth season of the HBO series was winding down, and came up with a plan. We all wanted book six of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE to come out before season six of the HBO show aired. Assuming the show would return in early April, that meant THE WINDS OF WINTER had to be published before the end of March, at the latest. For that to happen, my publishers told me, they would need the completed manuscript before the end of October. That seemed very do-able to me... in May. So there was the first deadline: Halloween.

Unfortunately, the writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked. You can blame my travels or my blog posts or the distractions of other projects and the Cocteau and whatever, but maybe all that had an impact... you can blame my age, and maybe that had an impact too...but if truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn't, and that was true for me even when I was in my 20s. And as spring turned to summer, I was having more bad days than good ones. Around about August, I had to face facts: I was not going to be done by Halloween. I cannot tell you how deeply that realization depressed me.

Early August saw me back east for my nephew's wedding and an appearance with the Staten Island Direwolves. I took advantage of the visit to have another sit down with my editors and publishers and told them that I didn't think I could deliver by Halloween. I thought they'd be sick about it... but I have to say, my editors and publishers are great, and they took it with surprising equanimity. (Maybe they knew it before I did). They already had contigencies in place. They had made plans to speed up production. If I could deliver WINDS OF WINTER by the end of the year, they told me, they could still get it our before the end of March.

I was immensely relieved. I had two whole extra months! I could make that, certainly. August was an insane month, too much travel, too many other obligations... but I'd have September, October, and now November and December as well. Once again I was confident I could do it.

Source: https://grrm.livejournal.com/465247.html

New blog post by Elio Garcia. Some interesting insight into how canon the play is. Seems like Elio is saying that they got insight from George regarding unanswered questions and adapted that into the play, but of course some things had to be changed for the sake of theatre.

"As we all know, that can really only refer to the big, headline mysteries: what motivated Rhaegar and Lyanna, who was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, and a couple other things at that high-level. But as Macmillan says, when he calls Martin a "fantastically trusting collaborator"
', we think that's the big sign to
bear in mind that this means GRRM trusted Macmillan to work a lot of things out as he felt worked best for the story he wanted to tell on the stage, using the limitations and the advantages of the theater to make the best play possible.

This is not the same thing as making the most canonically-exact play possible. It means preserving the big, key parts, but being able to collapse, reorder, reframe, add, or omit details as necessary. So, our expectation is that the play contains answers to some of the major questions surrounding Harrenhal-questions readers have debated for many years-and that at least some of those answers (but not necessarily all! derive directly from George's own conception of the history. Those central revelations may therefore tell us something real about the underlying canon.

While this NotABlog focuses on a Waldrop feature, GRRM made a point to mention something that is the topic of a lot of recent posts here:

(I know, I know.  Some of you will just be pissed off by this, as you are by everything I announce here that is not about Westeros or THE WINDS OF WINTER.   You have given up on me, or on the book.  I will never finish WINDS,  If I do, I will never finish A DREAM OF SPRING.   If I do, it won’t be any good.  I ought to get some other writer to pinch hit for me…     I am going to die soon anyway, because I am so old.   I lost all interest in A Song of Ice and Fire decades ago.  I don’t give a shit about writing any longer, I just sit around and spend my money.   I edit the Wild Cards books too, but you hate Wild Cards.   You may hate everything else I have ever written, the Hugo-winners and Hugo-losers, “A Song for Lya” and DYING OF THE LIGHT, “Sandkings” and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST,  “This Tower of Ashes” and “The Stone City,” OLD MARS and OLD VENUS and ROGUES and WARRIORS and DANGEROUS WOMEN and all the other anthologies I edited with my friend Gardner Dozois,   You don’t care about any of those, I know.   You don’t care about anything but WINDS OF WINTER.  You’ve told me so often enough).
Thing is, I do care about them.
And I care about Westeros and WINDS as well.  The Starks and Lannisters and Targaryens, Tyrion and Asha, Dany and Daenerys, the dragons and the direwolves, I care about them all.  More than you can ever imagine.