It's alright. Pretty standard character description of Jaime and basic ideas of what will happen to him. Nothing very earth shattering.

HBO spoilering?

That ad is either a huge spoiler or very misleading.

They're locking themselves into an air date 14 months away? Seriously?

damn those spoilers!! i thought for sure the zombie army was gonna stay north of the wall! damn it!

Massive spoiler about the final episodes leaked below.... don't click if you don't want to know

Duh they were south of the wall last time we saw them.

GRRM has now said that volume one of his fictional history of the Targaryens, Fire and Blood, will be out before TWOW. He's previously forecasted a late 2018 release for that, so that probably rules out TWOW this year. Super disrespectful to write more garbage in the ASOIAF universe before finishing the main story imo. I have no idea what kind of lunatic would want to buy and read that, but I assume there are plenty of them out there. I hope it tanks like no book has ever tanked before.

If it were a Dunk and Egg story I might be more forgiving. Definitely not buying that other crap.

Guess we have to accept that he has little interest in finishing the series.

I wonder if a money man was behind that. Targaryens are the most popular among women as far as I can tell and they are the demo that shells out money for merch so it makes sense to push out a book on that subject along with whatever merch they can tack onto it. Women are the only ones I know buying GOT gear and the only reason why I have any merch from it whatsoever. They like spending that money. Makes perfect sense from a business perspective.

I thought most women loved Jon Snow?

I doubt money men have any sway over GRRM at this point, he does what he wants. The fact is that what he enjoys is world-building and creation of detail. The main series has now reached a point where he needs to stop doing that and start wrapping things up and he either can't be bothered or isn't capable of it. So he's writing more world-building.

Dear god you're right. We really aren't ever getting the end to the books are we?

Don't think so, nope. We'll get TWOW eventually, but the chance of getting ADOS have to be less than 50% and I don't think it's (even close to) possible to wrap the series up in one more book. The sample chapters of TWOW show no urgency whatsoever in moving towards a conclusion. I mean Dany's Adventures in Essos has been 6 books now (counting TWOW), if you really think Dany's Adventures in Westeros is getting done in one book, along with everything else that needs to happen, idk what to tell you.

Since we're never getting the books, moar theorycrafting!

Good, brand new (as far as we can tell) theory posted on r/ASOIAF yesterday. The theory is that Brienne will kill Lady Stoneheart. Brienne's arc has been to start off as an absolutist on stuff like oaths and honor, then she has gradually been learning from Jaime that things are more complicated than that, just as Jaime has been learning from her to be a more honorable man. Brienne got a taste of what it was like to be viewed as an oathbreaker and kingslayer when she was accused of Renly's murder, so the theory is that the next step would be for her to actually do it, and kill the woman she swore to protect. Catelyn swore her an oath never to ask anything of Brienne which would bring her shame or dishonor, and "Catelyn" breaking this oath is likely what will convince Brienne to break hers. And not only must she break her oath, but she will need to kill Stoneheart with a blade named "Oathkeeper". It's all very shades-of-grayish and resonant and satisfying in a way that fits GRRM's style, imo.

Agree strongly with this post. Sad but true.

Idk about that.
Do books even drive merchandise sales?
I just figured it was only the show.

It can certainly be wrapped up in two more books. Two more ADWD length books is like twice the length of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Stuff just has to happen, which, yeah I'm not really optimistic tbh.

I won’t be able to help myself and will buy and read everything he writes

I've always thought this as well, but Preston kinda refuted this notion in one of his vids, saying that GRRM has wrapped some of his other stuff really nicely. I haven't personally read anything else by GRRM but Preston seems like the biggest super nerd possible so I tend to believe him.

If he has given the showrunners the ending then at least he has that to aim towards. It's not a Lost situation. It's just getting to that endgame.

Preston is a freak and a very weird dude, who frequently has problems seeing the forest for the trees.

He's known major character endings since forever. The problem is getting there and making it all fit together.

Definitely agree. But his overall GRRM knowledge seems to be overwhelming, so hopefully he's right about GRRM having a good history of wrapping things up.

I lean more towards him just having really high standards for his work, that coupled with his slow ass writing habits is spelling disaster currently. Also is it confirmed he didn't have lots of help with these history books? I'd wager against him actually grinding out the writing for much of them.

My personal guess with very little to back up except lots of assumptions I make about grrm: he writes a lot but doesn't like constraints. He probably sits down everyday and tries to write for asoiaf but isn't exactly sure how everything will fit together so he starts writing another story with little or no constraints and says "wow this is fun, I'll get back to asoiaf tomorrow." The next day he does the same thing.

My personal guess with nothing to back it up is that in the past two weeks, you people in this thread have probably written more about his new book than he has on his manuscript.