Winds of Winter Might Never Be Released

So we've had another round of George R.R. Martin bashing ripple throughout social media. Ironically, this time it seems to have its epicenter in a post by Martin himself on his blog where he had a little rant about how he expects people will react to another announcement by him that is not related to A Song of Ice and Fire. It's a pretty tame rant, all things considered and probably reflective of the anxieties that Martin has whenever he needs to make an announcement about another project he's a part of.

Everyone has a theory about why Martin is unable to finish Winds of Winter. Martin has written himself into a corner, he's too lazy to finish, he saw how people reacted to the TV show ending and is scrambling to change it, or, and this is the most unhinged of the lot, Martin likes money too much (what?). Martin’s rant has also drawn ire from those who expect him to deliver them Winds on a silver platter. How dare he predict exactly what they were going to do? How dare he be frustrated that the only thing people want to talk about across his whole body of work is ASOIAF. It's indicative of the real problem that Martin has. He's under an immense amount of pressure to deliver the final two books of ASOIAF, and I think he fears, deep down, that even if he delivers the best book he's ever written, the naysayers are still going to bitch about it.

It's not that I don't understand. I credit ASOIAF with getting me back into reading after the habit fell off in my high school years. I would be disappointed if the series remains unfinished. But that's just it. I would be disappointed, not mad. It would be a sad thing if the series is never finished, but it's not that big of a deal.

The honest truth of it is that it just doesn't matter. It really doesn't. It doesn't matter whether Martin has written himself into a corner and can't figure out how to finish. It doesn't matter whether he is scrambling to change the ending due to backlash from the show. It doesn't matter if he's too lazy, or having too much fun doing other things to finish it.

It's not as though Martin is working on the cure for cancer, or pioneering a new form of energy that will revolutionize the human race. He's writing a book. A fantasy book with dragons and ice spiders and undead. The stakes are low. If he doesn't finish then that's that. The world won't end. Society won't devolve into chaos and anarchy just because we never find out whether Bran really does end up on the Iron Throne. Its time for people to get some perspective. Read another series. Watch a different show. You're not owed an explanation, or an ending. You're not owed certainty. You're owed nothing, and you're just gonna have to get over it.

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