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‘I’ve been struggling with it’: George RR Martin on The Winds of Winter

Some highlights:

“I’ve been struggling with it for a few years,” he told the Guardian. “The Winds of Winter is not so much a novel as a dozen novels, each with a different protagonist, each having a different cast of supporting players, antagonists, allies and lovers around them, and all of these weaving together against the march of time in an extremely complex fashion. So it’s very, very challenging. Fire and Blood by contrast was very simple. Not that it’s easy – it still took me years to put together – but it is easier.”

He confirmed that the sixth instalment was his next priority: “The Winds of Winter is next, then I’ll decide what comes after that – whether it’s to go on to A Dream of Spring, the last one, or whether I switch back into Fire and Blood II, do another Dunk and Egg story or two. But I’ll worry about that one thing at a time – that’s too far ahead.”

In the last year, five potential Game of Thrones spin-off shows with HBO have been announced, with only one having been greenlit so far: The Long Night, which will be set 5,000 years before Game of Thrones and written by Jane Goldman. Martin confirmed they were all prequels, but said he did not expect all of them would be made and that he was not writing any of them. “None of them are traditional spin-offs,” he said. “You won’t be seeing the further adventures of Arya, Sansa or Jon Snow, you’ll be going back in time. The other four are all over the map and at least two of them are solidly based on material in Fire and Blood. Those haven’t been greenlit yet.”

‘I’ve been struggling with it’: George RR Martin on The Winds of Winter

I’m caught up with the Monstress graphic novel and now I’m realizing that a new volume is released every YEAR?! I mean I understand bc wow the art is so detailed and incredible but omg I dont want to wait another year

invalidation of the bullying sansa subjected arya to “because they’re sisters! it happens!” displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what a ~friendly sibling rivalry~ looks like. the emotions you feel as a child when a sibling bullies you are very real and very hurtful. making fun of their appearance and making them feel like they don’t belong are things that bullies do. as children we may not be compassionate enough or thoughtful enough to dial back insults, but we do know the difference between a friendly interaction and one that’s meant to hurt someone. the bully knows it, and so does the bullied. this is how relationships between siblings are damaged early on, and while they are not impossible to repair later in life, the emotional damage that results from it is real and should not be dismissed.

if you’re curious as to what an actual friendly sibling rivalry looks like, look to jon and robb. jon describes robb as “his rival and best friend and constant companion”; he implies that they were competitive when it came to practicing swordplay, and that they each challenged each other. but this doesn’t sour their relationship because they are good to each other, they love each other, and they have no desire to make the other person feel bad about themselves. 

while there is certainly something to be said re: why GRRM chose only the sisters to have a bad relationship, this doesn’t excuse sansa’s behavior towards arya, which was nothing short of unkind.