'Game of Thrones' Fans React After George R.R. Martin's 'Winds of Winter' Update
Publishing Changes
My suspicion for a while now has been that he's been writing material for both TWoW and ADoS, with the cutoff point to be decided later. Not all of ADoS, obviously. But the penultimate volume is where he has to be totally sure that he's got all his ducks in a row for the windup.
— Firannion (@Firannion) July 9, 2022
Some fans have long suspected that Martin will not stick to the plan for seven books in total. They now believe that The Winds of Winter has become too big to be contained by a single volume, and will be split into two. Many also now believe that Martin is working on the final book, A Dream of Spring at the same time in order to manage his "gardening" habits.
prevnextMaking Peace
I'm happy GRRM is making nice with his faithful readers again. Maybe he was just in a bad mood when he wrote the "I feel sorry for you" post or maybe he's worried we'll boycott HoTD out of spite. Either way, it's encouraging to get updates on TWOW.
— Maria Lynd (@pprestonsturges) July 9, 2022
Some fans thought that this post represented Martin trying to make peace with his more critical fans and the ones who have become angry about the long wait for Winds of Winter. Many in that camp have been angry about Martin's recent blog posts where he admitted to working on other projects, and they saw this post as an olive branch to them.
prevnextAnalogy
An important part of gardening is not just sprouting seeds, but actively managing your plants. For tomatoes, you have to prune them and remove suckers (little clone plants they grow), fertilize, plan their location, water regularly, etc.
— Joe Magician 🧙♂️ HBO Legit Source (@TheJoeMagician) July 8, 2022
Some fans have grown tired of Martin's "gardener" explanation for this delay – or, at least, they no longer think it's a viable explanation.
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I don't mind the events of the last season. But it was poorly set-up . GRRM can take time to properly set-up these events and make them work.
— boutch67 (@boutch67) July 9, 2022
3/
— In Deep Geek (@InDeepGeek) July 9, 2022
Back before S8 GRRM talked about the show and books being different, but "the big beats" of the endings would be the same, Now he is saying "Some things will be the same. A lot will not." This is not just semantics. Only *some of the ending will be the same. Cont ...
Fans who absolutely hated the ending of Game of Thrones had mixed feelings on the idea that the books will be "similar" in any way. However, most agreed that Martin has the skill to write those same events in a more satisfying way than the TV show writers did.
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probably the first time I've seen him say "mostly different" rather than "somewhat different"
— Red Jon Rivers (@Knight_2359) July 8, 2022
6/ As an aside, this means that the showrunners made S5-8 on the basis of an ending that GRRM told them about, but has now at least partly changed his mind on.
— In Deep Geek (@InDeepGeek) July 9, 2022
Long-time readers of Martin's blog pointed out that he has made many of these points before. The biggest point of interest in this post, most thought, was Martin's emphasis on the degree to which the book ending might be different from the show ending. After this post, some felt like the books could end more differently from the show than they had previously believed possible. Some dared to hope that a favorite character of theirs might survive for the first time in years, or dared to hope that a reviled plot point would go differently in the books.
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https://t.co/naSABdOMqN pic.twitter.com/ngUQPP4Y0P
— PoorQuentyn (@PoorQuentyn) July 8, 2022
The only thing I saw pic.twitter.com/OnxccVPHHa
— Margo | “So does Rickon Stark” (@MargoshatheKing) July 8, 2022
Many fans also focused in on mentions of their personal favorite character in this blog post. Many also shared memes and jokes about the general fervor of the fandom following this post.
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Oh, now I'm sad 🙁 pic.twitter.com/BIj9phqhpG
— My name is Abs. You have to know your name. (@QueenSansasFury) July 8, 2022
As the years pass and the wait grows longer my passion for the series becomes dormant but every time he updates like this on his blog really gets me excited again.
— DusK_EtheR (@DuskEther) July 9, 2022
Can't wait to see the story unfold!
Finally, many fans shared their personal feelings towards Martin right now, hoping that he was doing well in spite of the often angry responses he gets from some fans. No matter how long it takes for this book to be released, some fans will never be angry or hateful towards the author who created a story they love so much.
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