- Sep 5, 2020
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I don't think the ending as it appears in the HBO series was all that bad, plot-point wise. It was that the entire last season felt like 5 seasons run through Spark-Notes style, so there was no connective tissue justifying plot or character progression from one point to another. All if it, there was a completely understandable and workable way to get from there to here, they just didn't bothering SHOWING any of it. Presumably, in the last two novels we'd actually get that progression so it'd be more palatable.Well, I think also that GRRM is really good at creating characters you care about and conflict -- and plot twists that bring the two together -- but he just KEPT DOING IT. Making a world that was bigger and bigger and more and more complex and... now he has to tie up the threads. And, as nearly as I can tell, he can't figure out how to do it. His where-I'm-heading in his mind was probably something like the end of the HBO series, but unfortunately that fell flat (kinda had to).
I think it's more likely that he painted himself into a corner, and doesn't like any of the ways out of it.
That, and he's a man driven by spite, so every time someone demands Winds of Winter comes out, he adds a year to the release date.