It’s no secret to George R. R. Martin’s fans that the author is fond of dramatic, tense plots that put his characters in all sorts of danger and really push the limits of drama in certain ways. And surely nobody familiar with his work would expect to get a happy ending out of his book series “A Song of Ice and Fire” – but just in case there were any doubts, the author has decided to come forward and confirm that the overall storyline will have some sad moments to its conclusion.
At the same time, we still don’t know when that conclusion is going to be exactly – there have been rumors about the future release schedule of the books, but knowing how Martin doesn’t like to dedicate to any deadlines, we don’t expect any of those rumors to be close to the truth.
After all, even “Winds of Winter” – the long-awaited next installment in the series – is under a major question mark with regards to its release date, and while some fans were hopeful that they would get the book this year, the chances of that are getting slimmer and slimmer.
However, the ending won’t be that bad, according to Martin – he actually described it as “bittersweet”, so we will likely still get some consolation for all the negativity that will pile up for those last moments. He went on to compare his plans for the ending of his book series to the famous “Lord of the Rings” by Tolkien, and admitted that Tolkien has actually been a major influence on his own work. He also drew a comparison to Frodo, one of the main characters from “Lord of the Rings”, who ended up suffering a lot despite coming out victorious in the end.
On the other hand, George R. R. Martin also stated that he hasn’t actually written the ending yet, and there is likely a lot of time to go until he gets there. At the moment, he’s hard at work on “Winds of Winter”, and he’s trying to get the book finished as soon as possible after prolonging its release schedule a few times.
Last but not least, Martin said that fans should brace themselves for at least one more death of a major character, specifying that it was a female character but he didn’t reveal anything else. He did admit that her death had been planned ever since she was added to the story in the first place (which, from what we understood, is going to happen in the new book too), although the author wasn’t quite sure how he was going to go about it back then. After taking a trip to Germany, he was apparently “inspired” by something he saw there and got an idea for how he could kill off the character.
In addition, Martin expressed some frustration over being approached by some of his fans with regards to how HBO have been changing the plot of “Game of Thrones” from his own version. According to him, this has been an annoyance to deal with, as he has no control over what kinds of changes the network introduce to the show, and even though he’s been consulted by them a few times, in the end they have their own creative vision. He also posted a special message to his fans, describing the situation from his perspective and asking them to put an end to the drama.