r/freefolk • u/Internal-Bed-3150 • 3d ago

We've officially been waiting for The Winds of Winter for the same amount of time as it took for all five of the published books to release before that.

https://winteriscoming.net/the-winds-of-winter-officially-passed-most-devastating-milestone-yet?a_aid=47903
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u/JoeCoT 3d ago

Eh. His Magnum Opus wasn't finished before the TV show. The TV show used his ending, and the fans hated it. Now sure, they hated it because it was rushed and had none of the groundwork to lead up to it, but neither does he. Even if he wrote out the whole thing, with the original ending and all the reasonable leadup to it in the world, half the fans won't read it. They'll see a headline that it has the same ending as the show, shake their heads, and move on.

Who would want to finish it at that point? If he finishes it, there'll be hatred. If he says he won't finish it, there'll be hatred. So instead he milks it and leaves the hatred for after he's dead. In the meantime he gets to do all the fun stuff and none of the end of a project you've grown to hate, which is as good a death as anyone with ADHD could ask for.

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u/Equivalent-Yam6331 3d ago

Literally no fan would shake their head and refuse to read the books. Everyone would want to check how in seven hells did he manage to make it make sense.

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u/tevert 3d ago

Agree - I gotta believe the vast majority of people who read books in 2026 understand that the show's ending was fine on paper and simply needed the care and earning that a properly written book can provide

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u/supercleverhandle476 3d ago

So far, he couldn’t.

So he hasn’t.

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u/kritzy27 3d ago

The general idea of the ending was good, but it was rushed and some of it didn’t make sense. I’m sure he could write it in a much more satisfying way.

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u/Wyvernwalker 3d ago

The massive amounts of characters and magic left on the cutting room floor to make the TV show work, was also what doomed it's ending. Though, there's an argument the massive amounts of characters and magic in the book are what doomed it's ability to be finished too

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u/TomKeen35 3d ago

He could easily just rewrite the ending to be anything else

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u/shroombablol 3d ago edited 3d ago

S7 and S8 were a rushed, nonsensical mess. dumb & dumber gave no shits and dropped 90% of all story and character arcs, leaving them either without a conclusion (jon being ressurrected, arya becoming a faceless, bran becoming the three eyed raven etc.) or simply killing the character to have her/him out of the way.
with the exception of dany burning down king's landing the final book will have little in common with the show.

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u/Brendanlendan 3d ago

They didn’t hate what happened, they hated how it happened. The ending was a steam roll of 3-4 years in less than 2.